by Sharon Hinck
“Not a game. Leave now.”
All humor bled away as Brantley’s brow pinched. “This can’t be good,” he said darkly.
Even though I longed for shelter and a hot meal, a shiver of foreboding made me tug Brantley’s arm. “Let’s move on. We can find a place to camp farther along the shore.”
The rain plastered his wavy hair against his face, weighing it down so water dripped in his eyes. Those eyes held the same dark clouds as the sky. “I need to know what’s happened. Wait here.”
He reached for the door with an effort at his usual swagger, but his other hand clasped the hilt of the knife in his belt.
Brantley pressed his shoulder against the door and shoved. The small latch splintered and gave way. Even though he’d told me to wait, I couldn’t resist the allure of protection from the relentless rain, so I slipped inside right behind him.
Varney was jabbing bits of kindling into his fire, the damp wood stirring more smoke than warmth. My eyes watered and I blinked.
The old man straightened and attempted an angry glare in Brantley’s direction. “If you broke my lock, you’re fixin’ it.” Then his rabbit gaze darted toward me and away, and he gnawed one of his broken nails.
Brantley made a cautious scan of the tiny hut. A tattered fishing net hung from one wall. On another, pegs held kettles and tools. A splintery table and stool were the only furniture, and the sleeping mat held a rumpled assortment of threadbare blankets that looked like they hadn’t been washed since I’d been born.
Not that I was in a position to judge. We’d had plenty of nights in the open traveling from Middlemost, which made this shelter feel like pure luxury.
“Varney, what’s wrong?” Brantley’s fingers unclenched from his knife hilt, but he kept his hand over it.
“We’re only looking for protection from the rain.” I stepped from behind Brantley and spoke in my most soothing tone. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
My words did anything but soothe.
Varney squeaked, and he waved a stick of firewood, as if brushing away a fly. “No, sorry. Can’t help. Get her out of here.”
Brantley tried a new tack. “Come on, friend, it’s wet as the underside of our island out there.” He chuckled and sank onto the lone stool. “You aren’t going to make us set up camp in your yard, are you?”
Varney blanched. “Yes. No. I mean, you can’t stay out there. You can’t stay here at all. Move on before it’s too late.”
I felt sorry for the nervous man. He’d evidently lived alone too long.
Brantley’s eyes narrowed. “Too late?”
Varney poked his last branch into the weak fire, hand trembling. “Soldiers been lookin’ for dancers.”
I gasped, but Brantley covered it with a bark of laughter. “So what does that have you all wound up about? No one would mistake you for a dancer.”
His efforts to coax a bit of humor from his friend fell short. When Varney turned back to us, his sunken collarbone slumped further in resignation. He shook his head heavily. “You don’t understand.”
Brantley stretched out his legs, leaning back with his elbows on the table behind him. “Explain it to me.”
“I grant you’ve helped me over the years. Supplies and such. Wish I could help. But you have no idea how close danger is. Why don’t you just move along?”
“We’re cold and tired. Besides, I’m worried about you. I don’t know what has you spooked, but maybe you could use a friend.”
Varney sighed and seemed to surrender to the inevitable. “Was about to fix some soup. Dry yourselves off by the fire. Only be a minute.”
He scurried out the door, and I took advantage of his invitation before he could change his mind. After hanging my cloak on a peg, I crouched near the fire. “Your friend is sure jumpy. Is he always like this?”
“He’s never been a very bold sort. But he always had a good heart. He moved away from Windswell years ago. Never told me why. I try to check in on him from time to time.”
“So we’re truly close to Windswell?” Plaintive hope and longing colored my voice.
My companion crouched beside me, warming his hands. “This has been hard on you, hasn’t it?”
The unexpected compassion made my eyes sting. Or it could have been the smoke.
“Yes, we’re close now,” he said. “We should reach it tomorrow. Truly. Unless the soldiers Varney mentioned are nearby.”
“And then you’ll take me to Undertow?”
He frowned, his eyes searching mine. “Still don’t trust me?”
Of course I trusted him. Riding Navar with him, watching his interactions with villagers, and learning about the world I’d never known, I’d discovered I had far more reason to trust him than the Order to which I’d pledged my life. But when we reached his home, why would he bother with helping me any longer? I opened my mouth to ask, but the door swung open and slammed against the wall.
A soggy gust of windblown rain invaded, followed by Varney, his arms full of flat potatoes and green tubers. As we’d moved from the center of the island toward the rim, all the root vegetables grew in flatter shapes, since the layer of soil was so much thinner.
He dumped the potatoes on the table and grabbed a kettle and knife from the wall. Chopping rapidly, he avoided looking at us. I edged beside him and pitched in, tearing herbs into small pieces to add to the pot.
He sniffed but otherwise didn’t acknowledge me. After he set the kettle on the hearth to warm, he examined me with a merciless glower, taking in my mud-stained dancer garb and soft slippers. “Brantley, make your own self useful and fetch firewood,” Varney said.
Brantley rubbed the small divot under his lips and hesitated. “You all right?” he asked me.
“I’m fine.” I waved him off. If this nervous man had information for us, perhaps I could coax him to share in a private conversation.
As soon as Brantley left, Varney tugged at a strand of his greasy, brown-and-gray hair. “What are you doing so far from the Order, dancer?”
My stomach clenched. Weeks had passed since I’d heard that title spoken with so much contempt. Clearly my efforts to pose as a simple traveler weren’t working. He knew what I was—or had been. Did Varney have a way to contact passing soldiers? Had he done so already? The people of the rim weren’t exactly allies with the Order’s soldiers, but a beleaguered soul might benefit from turning in an enemy. On our travels, I’d seen that the loyalty of some villagers could be purchased with a handful of food. We’d used that to our advantage, but so could the Order. I chose to answer his question as simply as possible to avoid giving him any reason to betray us. But I also wanted him to know I considered myself a rimmer.
“I’m seeking.”
His staccato laugh was as nervous as pony hooves on cobblestone. “Seeking what?” He pushed scraps from the table onto a tin plate.
“My past, my home . . . and the Maker’s letter.”
His nervous twitching increased tenfold. He fumbled the plate, and it clattered onto the wood floor, scattering bits of stems and vegetable skins.
I knelt to help him pick up the mess, then rested a hand on his trembling arm. “Have you heard of it?”
Still crouching, he hunched forward. “’Tweren’t my fault.”
This wasn’t the suspicion I’d seen in others when I asked about the letter. This was distress. He knew something.
“Please, tell me.” I gently squeezed his arm, stilling the shaking.
He stopped gathering the fallen scraps and sank to the floor. I sat across from him, watching the play of emotions across his face.
When he finally met my gaze, deep regret pooled in his eyes. “I couldn’t do it, you see. How could I, when the Order grew so awful powerful? So I hid away here.”
My pulse quickened. “Couldn’t do what?” My quest had faced nothing but stone walls since I’d spoken with Dancer Subsun. Varney’s response was so different, I was certain I would finally learn something new.
/> The door blew open, and Brantley stumbled inside, arms loaded with firewood. He kicked the door shut and shot a curious glance at the two of us on the floor.
“Varney was telling me something about the Maker’s letter.”
Brantley rolled his eyes and busied himself stacking logs neatly near the fireplace.
Varney’s spine curled forward. “It was my grandfather, you see. Right before he died.” He bobbed his head toward Brantley, then hunched into his bony shoulders. “Remember him?”
“Sure. Good man. I used to watch him herd when I was a youngling.” Brantley finished his woodpile and settled onto the stool near us. “You left Windswell right after he died.”
Varney nodded, a quiver unsettling his jaw. “When he knew the illness would take him, he called me to his bedside.” A small moan sounded in his chest. “’Twould have gone to my father. Why didn’t my father live? He’d a done the job.”
I shifted. “What job?”
“The letter,” Varney choked out.
My breath quickened to keep up with my racing heart. “You know it?”
“I have it.” He announced the remarkable news with cheeks colored by shame.
Hair lifted on the back of my neck. “Where is it?”
He grabbed my arm with sudden intensity. “Please. Will you take it? Take the calling with it?”
Brantley growled. “What calling?”
Varney impossibly sagged even lower, as if spineless. “Me old grandfather told me ’twould be my job. He woulda passed it to my father, but after me pa was lost at sea, he decided to wait and give the task to me. Visit the villages, he told me, and make everyone remember the stories.”
Brantley brushed wet hair off his face. “I don’t remember hearing tales of a letter growing up.”
“Long before we was born, Grandfather had roamed the rim with the letter. But when he fell ill, there was no one to continue his work. The stories were forgotten.”
A tiny puff of air escaped my throat. “And you were supposed to remind them.”
Varney bounced his gaze between Brantley and me. “You understand, don’t you? I couldn’t. I thought maybe when the Order stopped sending soldiers to the villages . . . but time went by . . .”
Varney’s justifications didn’t interest me. The letter was real! That was all that mattered. Even Brantley looked a bit stunned.
“Where is it?” I asked again.
A shrewd squint squeezed Varney’s eyes. “Oh, no. You can’t just look at it and leave. If you want it so much, then you have to take the callin’ too.”
Brantley rocked forward. “Don’t be ridiculous. If you were too afraid back then, what makes you think the task will be safe for this slip of a girl?”
I rose, body centered strongly over my feet. A wave rolled beneath us and the shack creaked, but I stood firm, now used to the motion. “Show me.”
“You’ll take it? You’ll take it and fulfill the callin’?”
Brantley rubbed his forehead. “I’m telling you, she can’t.”
I rounded on him. “Whatever I do will be no worse than hiding the letter away so no one even believes it exists anymore. What if the pages truly tell about the Maker?”
Varney scrambled to his feet. “Oh, that it does. Powerful words. I stopped reading because . . . well, my failure accused me each time I looked at the words.”
Pity swelled in my chest for the miserable, fear-ridden man. “You kept it safe. That’s something. Maybe it was your destiny to wait until the right time.”
Varney shook his head. “I failed.”
“Where is the letter?” I asked for the third time, hands itching to shake the information out of him if he kept delaying.
“I’ll get it.” He darted out of the cottage like a copper fish.
“Should we follow him?” I asked. “Maybe he’s running away.”
“He seems genuinely eager to be rid of it. He’ll be back.” Brantley shook his head. “Who’d have thought? Varney of all people . . .” His gaze sharpened and turned on me. “And what now? Do you realize how much trouble this will cause? You don’t even know what this calling will entail.”
How could I explain my burning need to Brantley? My life had been built on lies. Perhaps the letter was merely another lie. But what if the pages held answers? Answers to what had gone wrong with the Order, the purpose of dance, the mystery of the Maker that Ginerva insisted was behind the voice I’d heard. “I have to read it. Then we can decide what to do.”
“We?”
The simple question pulled me up short. After all our traveling together, my quest had become ours, at least in my mind. But in one more day we’d reach Windswell, and Brantley’s journey would be complete.
I walked to the fire and stirred the bubbling stew, trying to form an answer.
Brantley pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes as if his head ached. “I don’t like where this is heading.”
Varney blew back in, clutching a leather-wrapped bundle against his chest. He held it out to me.
As I reached for it, he snatched it back. “Wait. You promise. You’ll take this for good? You’ll take on the responsibility?”
“Yes, yes,” I said, over Brantley’s low growl of objection.
Varney set the small bundle reverently on the table, then backed away. “It’s all yours.”
The relief in his voice stirred my apprehension, but I unfolded the leather with eager fingers.
My first glimpse was a disappointment. It looked like a thinner and smaller version of the history book I’d used when teaching in the Order: rough parchments bound together with a dull cover. I’d expected gems and precious metals, ornate art, instead of the simple words, “The Maker’s Letter.”
But I opened it and began to read.
The pale letters of the first page were difficult to make out in the dark cottage, especially with Brantley leaning over me.
“Do you have a torch or some candles?” I asked Varney. I didn’t dare sit near the fireplace with this rare parchment.
Varney scurried to a rough-hewn box in the corner and returned with an uneven stub. After lighting the candle and dripping wax onto the table, he secured it in place and stepped back. “’Tis yours now. All yours. Understand?”
He didn’t wait for a response. Instead, he reached for his tattered net and removed it from the wall.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Brantley asked. “Night’s fallen.”
Varney gathered the tangle of fiber into an awkward bundle. “Gonna do some fishin’.” A new lightness colored his voice.
“Now? It’s dark.”
“Rain’s passed, and I have better luck at night, seein’ as how I work from the shore, unlike some lazy people who let stenella do their work.” His banter was a stark contrast to the weight of anxiety and guilt he’d worn earlier.
He hurried outside and slammed the door behind him. I turned again to the first page, wondering: what heavy burden could these pages impart that their mere transfer to another’s hands could bring such a change? Perhaps I should close the cover now and turn away.
“What’s it say?” Brantley’s muscled arms surrounded me as he leaned in to look more closely. His breath warmed my ear. “I can read some, but that’s hard to make out.”
I wasn’t surprised he struggled with the text. The villages along the rim had little need for reading. The skill was useful for the occasional deed or title, but parchment was precious, so books were rare, and few people wrote letters. The Order required everyone on Meriel to achieve a basic comprehension, in order to read the frequent proclamations sent from Middlemost. However, few advanced to the level of skill we novitiates achieved.
Finally, something I could do better than Brantley.
I pushed aside any hint of smugness and concentrated on the page. The script was ornate, with added curlicues, making it even more challenging to decipher. I had only read a few sentences when I gasped and straightened, my head almost hitting Brantle
y’s chin.
“This was written by a dancer.”
Brantley stepped away and grimaced. “Lies from the Order?”
“No. Not a dancer from the Order. It says, ‘One day as I danced to the music of the waves, the voice of the Maker spoke. He called me to record His words so that future generations would remember His great love.’” I scooted the stool closer and turned the page. “If she danced near waves, she wasn’t in the Order. Besides, no novitiate would be allowed to speak of a Maker.”
Brantley gave a noncommittal grunt, but didn’t come back to the table. He settled on a log near the fireplace, poking at potatoes in the stew. “I’ll let you read in peace. You can tell me about it later.”
I read slowly, soaking in each sentence. One by one, each paragraph tore down everything I’d been taught in the history books of the saltars. For years I’d dutifully recited, “The power of the Order is sufficient to shape the world.” Yet this letter revealed a Maker who had formed our land with His own hands, and fashioned each plant and animal with intent and design.
The Order taught, “Only the worthy may direct our course.” But who determined the worthy? Tiarel? The other saltars? The letter described the Maker as the only worthy One. One who gave each person worth because He cared for us. Warmth stirred in my chest. The saltars’ sparing approval had been a cold pursuit, and never kindled the glow of loving arms wrapped around me as the words of this letter did.
My hand shook as I turned the page, my fingers speeding to trace the next line of revelation. My mind reeled, yet even though the words opposed everything I’d been taught, there was a deep drumbeat of truth to them, and I breathed them in.
If this letter was to be believed, the Maker had designed our world to ride the currents of a mighty ocean. He gifted the people He made with an echo of His creative power.
“Listen to this!” I couldn’t resist sharing with Brantley. “‘I gave some among you the gift of dance—a way to join with me in the caring for creation, and also a means to know me.’ That’s what the Maker told her. Imagine!”