Flight of the Wounded Falcon, Page 3

Mahrree put the last of the dishes in the cabinet and glanced out the dark window to the barn. Everything was quiet now that Young Pere was going to be fine.

  Again.

  Mahrree had sent fifteen-year-old Kanthi off to bed, assuring her she didn’t mind doing her chore that night. Mahrree wanted time to think, and somehow washing the dishes always helped. She was wiping off the work table when she heard quiet shuffling coming from the west wing of the house into the kitchen.

  “Muggah? I didn’t think anyone was still up.”

  Mahrree smiled. “Hungry still, Young Pere?”

  He bobbed his head guiltily.

  Mahrree pulled out a chair and pointed to it.

  Young Pere walked uneasily to the table and sat down.

  “Sore?” Mahrree asked. “Where?”

  “You name it,” Young Pere groaned. “I think, however, there’s a little spot under my left ribs that feels remarkably well. I try to focus on that point.”

  Mahrree chuckled, pulled out a piece of peach pie from the cabinet, and placed it in front of her grandson.

  “Last piece of pie? Is this Puggah’s?” Young Pere asked before stabbing the fork into it.

  “He doesn’t need to grow anymore,” Mahrree said, sitting down across from him.

  “Remember, if he gets mad, this is your fault, right?”

  “Always is.”

  She watched him take a few bites, his body moving awkwardly as he tried to force his tender muscles to cooperate.

  “So how did it feel?” she eventually asked.

  “Which part?” He took another bite.

  “The flying part.”

  Young Pere swallowed. “Amazing, Muggah! I was . . . weightless. Can you imagine? I was part of the air—part of the world that wasn’t the world. I can’t explain it. I know what went wrong, though. I need bigger wings to hold out the blankets. And I think blankets are wrong as well. What I really need is—”

  “You want to do this again?” Mahrree interrupted him. She was careful to keep her voice calm and unemotional. As long as she sounded like she was trying to help him, he told her all his plans.

  No one knew just how many ideas his grandmother had talked him out of. Young Pere most likely would have died years ago, especially when he was twelve and had the idea of turning a small wagon into a device that rolled down the hills with only Nature’s Laws propelling it, and Young Pere’s unreasonable idea of a fifth wheel in his hands controlling the direction. He got as far as putting wagon wheels he modified onto a large crate before Mahrree found him in the barn and reminded him he would have no way of stopping. When he came to her later that afternoon with a plan for stopping his wagon, she told him he might as well call it a break, because that was what all his bones would do when he abruptly ended his forward motion.

  While Perrin insisted that many of Young Pere’s ideas came from her telling him to “push the limits of what was known,” even Perrin didn’t know how often Mahrree stopped him from literally pushing himself past the limits.

  Except for yesterday.

  That Young Pere didn’t tell her any of his plans about trying to fly worried Mahrree immensely. He was now acting without her consultation.

  Young Pere looked up from his pie. “You don’t think I should try again?”

  “No . . .” Mahrree said slowly, impressed with her ability to not show her shock at his lack of reason. She wondered how many times someone could be hit on the head until it started to affect their ability to think clearly. Perrin had been ‘planked’ at least half a dozen times that Mahrree knew about in order to render him unconscious to receive stitches, and his reasoning skills were still intact.

  Young Pere had been carried home unconscious about as many times, but soon some kind of damage would surely manifest itself. Maybe it already was.

  “No,” Mahrree said again, noticing the disappointment on her grandson’s face. “Not until at least after the marking trip. Give yourself time to mend and . . . to consider different possibilities to your wing configuration.”

  Young Pere nodded slowly, the way he usually did when he agreed with what Mahrree suggested.

  It was times like this that Mahrree reflected on the conversation she had with Joriana years ago, days before she married Perrin. Mother Shin explained to Mahrree how Perrin had received all of his scars. Mahrree had taken notes that day but left them in Edge when they left the world. She remembered only a few of the stories now.

  As she looked into her grandson’s dark eyes she wondered just how much he resembled his grandfather at that age. They might have been identical. Except that Young Pere had two scars on his forehead, instead of the one Older Pere had. And Young Pere had never been hit with a stick by a girl who wasn’t his sister or cousin.

  “All right, Muggah. I’ll not consider another attempt until after we come back.” Something in the tone of his voice suggested his mind was already racing ahead to the day of their return.

  Mahrree knew she had to be satisfied with that. “How did the rest of it feel?”

  Young Pere narrowed his eyes. “You mean, the falling part?”

  Mahrree smiled.

  “Actually, quite interesting. I kind of wished it lasted longer.”

  “What?”

  He took another bite. “Just to feel it a little longer. The sense of weightlessness. Maybe if I wore some kind of padding next time, and jump from a greater height . . .”

  Mahrree closed her eyes. The boy would never live to see eighteen.

  She felt a light kick under the table and opened her eyes to find Young Pere grinning at her.

  “Gotcha, Muggah!”

  Mahrree exhaled. “Oh, you! You’re as bad as your father and grandfather.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, finishing off his pie. “I won’t do anything until we get back. I’m not sure I could climb for a few days anyway.”

  Mahrree stood, took his empty plate, and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “Go rest, Young Pere. And think of boring, dull things. Maybe your sisters can teach you to do something safe, like sewing—

  oh, never mind. That involves sharp needles.”

  Young Pere chuckled as he stood up. His chuckle changed into a groan of pain.

  “Need help getting back to your room?” she asked.

  “No, that’s all right, Muggah. I think I’m a little past being tucked into bed, even though Mama already did that tonight. I’ll make it.”

  She caught his arm. “Promise me? Promise me you’ll always make it?”

  He gave her half a smile, understanding her real question. “Of course. You can’t get rid of me too easily, Muggah. I bounce too well.”

  “You do bounce, I must admit.” She squeezed his arm and he winced. “Oh, I’m sorry. Go to bed, now.”

  Young Pere gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and shuffled down to his room.

  Mahrree sighed and went back to wiping the table and noticed how wrinkled her hands looked. It was because of the dishwater, she told herself. It was only rarely that she was vain enough to fret about how she was aging. Perrin still looked at her the same way, just as she still felt her heart skip a beat whenever she saw him.

  But then again, nearly every woman in Salem felt the same way about him. She still couldn’t understand how it was that as Perrin grew older, the deep wrinkles around his dark eyes and the whiteness of his hair only made him more imposing and remarkable. No matter the size of the room, every person glanced his way when he entered the door. Then he’d smile and half the women of Salem would try not to swoon.

  Well, maybe that was an exaggeration, Mahrree chuckled to herself. But not by much. He received the most stares from refugees coming from the world. Those who still remembered him would do a double-take when they realized the old colonel stood tall and impressive in front of them, more striking than High General Relf Shin ever was. The women would stare at him just a little bit longer, Mahrree noticed, but Perrin never did.

  But whenever Mahr
ree entered a room, she was just another little old grandmother, which was fine by her. There had been incidents in the past when those coming from the world remembered what supposedly drove Colonel Shin to the forests. Seeing that his wife was still alive surprised them.

  But Mahrree received their hardened stares only until Shem Zenos arrived, and the anger was shifted to the poor, innocent man’s direction. Those stares would turn into outright shock when they then realized what Salem proclaimed the former sergeant major now to be. For some, it was almost too much.

  Then Salem would win them over. Usually.

  She wiped clean Young Pere’s dish and put it in the cupboard. He was only half joking about wanting to fall further; she could see it in his eyes. She often wondered what was going on in his head, and how he had become the most daring, fearless, and thick-headed young man she’d ever met.

  She sometimes wondered if it was one of those ‘middle child’ cases. They never had this problem in Edge; there were no middle children. Of course, in Salem ‘middle children’ constituted the majority of people, but there was the understanding that some in the very middle, like Young Pere, felt a need to distinguish themselves from their siblings.

  Mahrree and Perrin didn’t understand that. They had frequently marveled at the diversity of their posterity. It never ceased to surprise them that each of their twenty-five grandchildren, and now almost twelve great-grandchildren, was completely different from each other. These children shared the same grandparents, lived in the same area—because the houses were so close together the cousins grew up more like siblings—and were exposed to the same upbringing, education, and beliefs, yet still resulted in so many different personalities.

  For some reason, Perrin and she had thought that after the first few grandchildren, the subsequent offspring would be variations on the Briter or Shin themes. But each child was so unique. Some were as tall and broad as their Puggah, others were as slight and petite as their Muggah, and the rest fell somewhere in between.

  There were grandchildren with every color of hair, from the straight blond hair of twenty-one-year-old Relf Shin, whose little boy Grunick also seemed destined to be fair-haired, to the black wavy hair of twenty-five-year-old Salema Briter Zenos, whose two little boys Briter and Fennic were remarkable blends of Grandpa Shem and Great-Grandpa Perrin. Every shade of eye color was also displayed in the family roll call, from light gray to nearly black.

  But the differences between Young Pere and Cephas surprised Mahrree the most.

  Their mothers were expecting with them at the same time, so there was a merry war between the two families as to which baby would be delivered first. While there was no official competition in Salem, the rivalry between Jaytsy and Peto was never fully quelled. In fact, it seemed to escalate in a good-natured way after Peto and Lilla married near the end of 339.

  Mahrree knew there was going to be continued trouble—albeit friendly—between her children. When Mahrree went to retrieve Deck, Jaytsy, Salema, and little Cambozola—who they mercifully called Cambo—early in the morning of the 89th Day of Harvest, 340, she was there to announce the unexpectedly early arrival of Peto and Lilla’s firstborn during the night. When the Briter family eagerly arrived at Peto and Lilla’s bedroom, Jaytsy stopped and stared.

  Peto lay in the bed next to his half-asleep wife wearing a smug smile. In his right arm was nestled one tiny little girl, and in his left arm was the second tiny girl. Lorixania and Joriana Shin.

  “Lilla!” Deck exclaimed in an awe-filled whisper. “I’m thoroughly impressed. In less than one year of marriage and in one expecting, you caught up to us!”

  Lilla managed a proud but weary smile before drifting off to sleep. It was the quietest Mahrree and Perrin had ever seen their daughter-in-law. Of course, she had been quite vocal for the several hours proceeding. She missed seeing Jaytsy glaring at her brother.

  “How did you do that?” Jaytsy demanded.

  Peto grinned. “Not going to tell you, now, am I?” He sniffed the heads of his babies. “I married a very practical woman, that’s all. Why have one at a time when you can have two? At this rate, we’ll have six children before you have four.”

  Jaytsy would have put both hands on her hips, but one of them was holding her six-moons-old son. Her narrowed eyes were challenging enough.

  Perrin and Mahrree, standing together by Lilla’s bed, stifled snorts of laughter as Jaytsy gave Deck a very deliberate look.

  His eyes grew large.

  Eleven moons later, Pere Briter was born. He was called Pere only a handful of times, because Cambo gave him a new name. Since he couldn’t yet say ‘Pere’ or ‘baby’ or ‘brother’ properly, Pere became Bubba. Everyone agreed that Bubba Briter had a certain rhythm that couldn’t be improved upon. And it was rather fortunate that the Bubba name stuck, because shortly after Young Perrin was born, Lilla called him Young Pere, to go along with Papa Pere, her nickname for her father-in-law. In fact, most everyone had forgotten that Bubba’s given name was Pere, and his bride Alixan didn’t know he had a different name until the day before their wedding.

  Not to be outdone, soon after Pere-Bubba arrived Uncle Peto announced at a family dinner that Lilla was expecting again, and in 342 Relf Shin came to Salem.

  So, naturally, in the next year Holling Briter arrived, followed by Barnos Shin a year after that.

  Then Viddrow Briter came, and Hycymum Shin arrived two seasons later.

  It was only a matter of time until both Jaytsy and Lilla would be expecting at the same time. That’s what happened in 346, and it was a race—unofficially, of course—to see who would deliver their sixth baby first.

  Each morning their fathers would speak to the bellies to urge them that they needed to emerge before their cousin. Every day the siblings would pat their mothers and tell the new baby to come out and play before the cousin could. In the end, Cephas Briter was born first that Harvest Season, followed by Perrin Shin the Younger only three days later.

  Mahrree and Perrin had thought that when their brood of one dozen grandchildren had arrived, that was the end of babies. But Jaytsy said they still hadn’t brought Deck’s mother’s name, Sewzi, to Salem, and eight-year-old Salema, now with five younger brothers, begged her mother daily for a baby sister.

  That’s when Peto pulled out the family lines and noticed that while Viddrow, the great-great-great-grandfather who had the dream about recording the family lines before the first King Querul could destroy them, made it to Salem, his wife Kanthi hadn’t yet. So shortly after Sewzi Briter was born, Kanthi Shin, as well as her twin brother Nool Shin, made their appearances.

  Jaytsy couldn’t abide the fact that Lilla and Peto had outdone her by having twins again, so in the next year Tabbit Briter came to Salem, but was soon followed by Kew Shin.

  Peto also realized that while Tabbit was there, so needed to be Hogal, so in 351 Hogal Shin arrived, followed only two moons later by Banu Briter.

  Then Sakal Shin came to Salem, followed by Atlee Briter. Then Centia Shin, and Yenali Briter in 355.

  That year Mahrree made family line charts for her, Perrin, and Deck of the ancestors they knew. That way, her grandchildren could see the names they represented, and be the means of bringing some of their ancestors to Salem, at least in name1.

  In 356 the baby race finally ended. Perrin called it a tie. Although Peto and Lilla had thirteen children, it was through only eleven expectings. Jaytsy and Deck, on the other hand, had endured twelve expectings for twelve children.

  Perrin said the Briters’ last boy, Young Shem, named in honor of the man who got the Shins and Briters to Salem, should have counted as two babies since when he finally arrived he was so large Perrin declared he could have walked out himself had he been in the right position. The difficulty of that birth brought an end to Jaytsy’s child-bearing, even though she was only thirty-six, and Lilla, at thirty-five, convinced Peto they really had won the baby race with their thirteenth child Morah, named f
or Mahrree’s grandmother and born several weeks earlier, and they could stop now, too.

  Mahrree was quite relieved. She had worried at times that her children were taking her dreams of being surrounded by children too much to heart.

  It wasn’t until a few days after Cephas and Young Pere were born that she finally revealed to them the dreams she had experienced since the night she and Perrin were first engaged. She told them about the large house with weathered gray wood—and by 346, when the boys had arrived, the wood on the house had turned gray, and the house had grown even larger than Mahrree had remembered in her dreams—the window boxes, the gardens, the mountains encircling them, and the children running through it all. With the birth of Young Perrin Shin, she and Perrin now had the twelve grandchildren she had envisioned, and even more. There were actually two large gray houses, a garden and an orchard, and she told her family that not only had her dreams been fulfilled, they had in many ways been doubled.

  Deck had grinned at that. “Well, maybe we should double the number of children you saw, too.”

  Peto rubbed his hands together and gave Deck a challenging look.

  But Jaytsy and Lilla, both resting on the sofas in the Shins’ gathering room and cradling their newborn sons, regarded each other wearily.

  “Remember, boys,” Perrin said sternly, “there’s no competition in Salem. You need to let your wives recuperate and let them decide if they can handle more. They each now have six little ones. You need to think about your wives!”

  Lilla had laid her head back on the sofa and sighed as she patted her third tiny son. “Ah, Papa Pere, they do. That’s how we end up this way.”

  Shem and Calla weren’t left out of the baby race, although the competition wasn’t nearly as fierce in the Zenos-Shin-Briter battle. In the rare years there were no Shin or Briter babies, there were Zenos babies. In 341 they had their second son Boskos, and two years later came their third son Zaddick.

  But in 345, when Viddrow and Hycymum came, so did the Zenos’s first daughter Meiki. With no Shins or Briters born in 347, Shem and Calla got a little more attention when their second daughter Ester was born, and their last daughter Huldah came just a few weeks before Tabbit Briter.

  The three families went without new babies for only two years, because shortly after Young Shem and Morah arrived, bashful and quiet Lek Zenos, and bossy and loud Salema Briter surprised almost everyone with the decision to unite the Zenos and Briter families officially.

  Since the time they were fifteen and fourteen, Salema’s and Lek’s mothers had suspected something might be going on between them. And while Shem and Deck brushed away the suggestion of a potential romance between their oldest children, Calla and Jaytsy watched them closely, looking for signs.

  When Lek, at age seventeen, came to Deck asking if he could work the cattle with him, Jaytsy had a feeling it was to be that much closer to the Briter household. Deck said it was because Lek’s grandfather Boskos Zenos was a rancher, too, and on that land.

  A year later at a family party, eighteen-year-old Lek shyly announced that he had found a bride, and nineteen-year-old Salema shouted, “It’s ME!” Most of the family was sufficiently stunned that they had managed to keep their courtship a secret, but Calla and Jaytsy had beamed smugly at each other.

  A year after their marriage, they made Perrin and Mahrree great-grandparents, and Shem and Calla, and Jaytsy and Deck first-time grandparents to Briter Zenos, with more to follow.

  Perrin’s dream to become a builder was also fulfilled during those years. He had just finished the addition to their house for Mahrree and him, shortly after Peto and Lilla’s wedding, when the Briter house needed another bedroom added. Although many men in the community came to help, Perrin enjoyed doing as much of the work as he could on his own. He made sure new rooms could be easily added on to each house, and even helped Shem with a few additions and renovations to his house.

  By the time the house building was ended, both homes had additions with bedroom after bedroom added next to each other, sharing fireplaces.

  Then it was time to start building Lek and Salema a house along the lane between the Zenos and Briter houses, so the home building continued. Lori and Jori married brothers who wanted to live near their parents on the eastern side of Salem, but soon enough Cambo announced his engagement, and the housing boom continued.

  One afternoon not long ago, Mahrree looked at the houses and smiled to think that if they had been pushed together they would have been the size of the mansion in Idumea, with more ‘guest houses’ than Joriana could have built. The weathered gray wood looked far warmer than the perfectly set stones of the mansion. And they had more extensive grounds here than the mansion had, with more useful plantings than ornamental flowers and budding trees which produced no fruit.

  She had once considered leaving Idumea a sacrifice, but she could never have imagined what greater blessings the Creator had in store for her.

  Mahrree looked around the darkening and now spotless kitchen, searching for something else to wipe. To her surprise, the door to the garden opened, and her oldest granddaughter peeked in.

  “Muggah! I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

  “Well, I live here, Salema,” Mahrree said and nodded at Salema’s enlarged belly. “Everything all right?”

  Salema patted her future third child. “Everything’s fine. Papa Shem had noticed a light on here when he came back just now, and he wondered if everything was still all right with Young Pere . . .”

  The hesitant quality in her voice told Mahrree that wasn’t the entire reason. Salemites were terrible liars.

  “Young Pere’s gone to bed for the night, so no—he doesn’t need any of your lectures.”

  Salema chuckled and took a rag from the wash basin. “Oh, but I have some good ones, too, Muggah.” She began to wipe the sparkling cabinets, and Mahrree smiled. The need-to-clean-when-worried trait had passed down to her granddaughters as well. And Salema had been delivering lectures to the younger children since she was four.

  “I’ve got the ‘Do you realize what this does to your family?’ lecture—”

  “He heard it,” Mahrree assured her. “From Peto.”

  “Ah, well there’s my ‘Do you realize you have siblings, cousins, and nephews watching your behavior?’”

  “Hmm,” Mahrree pondered as she wiped nothing off the counters with Salema. “Your Puggah may have given him that one after I left.”

  Salema nodded thoughtfully, a lock of her black wavy hair falling into her face from her loose bun. She brushed it back with the impatience of a general.

  Mahrree frequently wondered what Salema could’ve become in the world if she were male. Most likely another Shin officer. But she had to be content with issuing orders to her family.

  Interestingly, the only person she deferred to, besides her grandfather, was her quiet and gentle husband. Lek Zenos had an unusual calming effect on her which Deck wished he could’ve learned when his oldest daughter became an overly forthright teenager.

  “Well, I’ve got a few others—”

  “—that you probably should keep to yourself,” Mahrree recommended. “Or write them down, put them in a box, and read them to Briter or Fennic when they act up.”

  Salema scoffed. “My boys will never need those lectures,” she declared, only partly in jest. “Instead, I’ll pull them out for Lori or Jori’s boys. Those two are far more troublesome than mine.”

  Mahrree laughed and patted Salema’s belly. “What about this one? It might be a very difficult boy.”

  “Oh, the Creator and I have been discussing this one,” Salema said with mock piety. “I’ve told him that it’s time I get a sweet, calm little girl—”

  “So someone who takes after her father?” Mahrree teased.

  “Yes!” Salema agreed. “The Creator knows how I suffered with five younger brothers before I got a sister, so He best not let something like that happen again.” She nodded up to the ce
iling, as if giving a notice to the Creator.

  Mahrree rolled her eyes. “Just for that, He’s going to send you a boy. You realize that, right?”

  Salema winced. “Please don’t say that, Muggah. Mama Calla already told me that! And,” she looked around guiltily, “she’s actually the reason why I’m here. She was wondering about Lilla. How’s she doing?”

  “Upstairs and probably asleep already,” Mahrree said. “She didn’t sleep at all last night, so after she tucked in Young Pere—”

  “—which I’m sure he was thrilled about,” Salema chuckled.

  “Oh, yes,” Mahrree sighed, “he protested enough. After that, I sent her to bed. She looked absolutely exhausted.”

  “Well, good—that she’s resting, I mean,” Salema clarified. “Calla was so worried, but didn’t want to look like she was checking up on her baby sister.”

  “You can go back and tell her that everyone’s well, and that Young Pere will even be able to hold your belly for you when it’s time to convince number three in there that it’s time to come out.” Mahrree snorted at what she knew would come next.

  Salema threw down her rag in aggravation. “Look, Young Pere doesn’t have any ‘gift of nature’ like Mama Calla! Just because he holds his sisters’ bellies, and they went into labor the next day to have their boys doesn’t mean he has Calla’s so-called power to encourage birthing!”

  “It worked with Relf’s wife, too.” Mahrree egged on her granddaughter. “Mattilin gave birth to Grunick the next day—”

  “We’ve studied this in my midwifery classes,” Salema glared, looking a great deal like Perrin. “It’s just a coincidence! But if it isn’t, it’s because my cousin brings with him so much aggravation that when he touches women’s bellies, they feel great worry that something awful will happen, which then triggers their deliveries. Extreme stress can do that, you know. And I’m not having another boy, anyway, so I don’t need him anywhere near me!”

  Mahrree laughed at Salema’s agitation. “You still have what, twelve weeks left? You’ll be spewing fire by then!”

  Salema tried to hide her smile but it leaked out anyway. “Oh, Muggah. I’m sorry, but you know what I mean. Besides, I plan to have this baby by the book. No Young Pere or any other odd family customs.”

  “By the book?” Mahrree said dubiously. “There’s no such thing.”

  “Oh, there is,” Salema assured her. “I helped deliver a baby just this morning that was very predictable. And my last two were also quite routine, so I should be able to handle this one all by myself—”

  Mahrree’s eyes grew big.

  “—with a little help,” her granddaughter added.

  Mahrree sighed in relief. “Such as your mother, mother-in-law, husband, midwife—”

  Salema’s face didn’t move.

  “Oh, no, Salema—”

  “Muggah, all I need is Lek. We can do this alone. I really do know what to do.”

  “It’s different from the other end, Salema!”

  “I don’t like bothering Mama and Calla—”

  “They want to be bothered by this—”

  “My husband is quite capable—”

  “Salema, Lek passes out when they ‘steer’ the bulls.”

  Salema held up an authoritative finger. “But he’s excellent at calving. Papa even says so, and that’s high praise.”

  “And what does Lek think of your plan?” Mahrree pressed.

  Salema pursed her lips. “He doesn’t exactly know it yet, Muggah. And I trust you’ll keep this between the two of us?” She arched her one eyebrow as if there was simply no other alternative.

  But Mahrree had dealt with stubborn officers. “Salema—”

  “Muggah?”

  Mahrree’s lips twisted. Salem was a city of honesty, and she knew how to circumvent that when the need arose. “You can trust me, Salema.”

  Trust her to confide in her mother Jaytsy, her mother-in-law Calla, and most especially her husband when the time was right.

  But because Salema had been raised in Salem, she didn’t understand how someone could sound like they were telling the truth when they were actually lying. She smiled at her grandmother, satisfied that she had won that battle. “Thank you,” she said with a nod. “You’ll be impressed.”

  Mahrree put an arm around her granddaughter who stood a head taller than her. “Is that what this is all about? Salema, I’m thoroughly impressed by you every day. You have nothing to prove. Just be safe, and make sure this new one is safe, too.” She patted Salema’s bulge with her free hand. “Please?”

  Salema put an arm around her grandmother. “We’ll be safe, don’t worry. I’m not the one who’s causing problems, you know,” she added in a whisper.

  But Mahrree scoffed internally. Each of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren gave her plenty to worry about, in different ways.

  “Go back to Shem and Calla’s,” Mahrree told her, “assure your mother-in-law that her sister is just fine, then you get home and let Lek in on your brilliant little idea there. Let him decide if he can handle you all by himself.”

  Salema chuckled and squeezed Mahrree. “He handles me just fine.”

  “And none of us knows how he does it.”

  Salema laughed, kissed her grandmother’s cheek, and let herself out the door.

  Mahrree sighed and put the cleaning rags away, knowing it was time to try to go to bed. It was nights like this that she found it hard to sleep. As concerned as she was about Salema’s overconfidence—and she was sure Lek would balk at her idea—her thoughts traveled back to Young Pere, another overly confident grandchild. Maybe that was a Shin family trait, she considered with a touch of despair.

  As Mahrree approached the door that led to their wing of the house—a small gathering room, private washroom, large bedroom, and Perrin’s office—she saw light coming through the bottom of the door. Perrin was still up.

  Silently she opened the door to see him sitting in his big chair in their gathering room, reading. The candlelight reflected off his white hair and cast soft shadows on his features. Mahrree stood in the doorway watching him, and sighed in pleasure.

  “Why are you awake?” she eventually asked.

  He looked up from his reading, his dark eyes brightening when he saw her. “Waiting for you. Talk to him?”

  Mahrree came into the room. “Yes. You were right—he came out again for a late snack.”

  “Gave him my pie, didn’t you.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Shin men respond well to evening pie. What did he say?”

  “That he wouldn’t try anything before the marking party, but I think he’s still planning something. He’s not telling me as much anymore. I’m not sure why.”

  “Maybe he thinks he’s outgrowing you.”

  “Thanks, Perrin. Just what I needed to hear,” she sighed sadly.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes, I do. He thinks he doesn’t need his Muggah anymore.”

  “But he does,” Perrin assured her.

  “But what he needs and what he thinks he needs are two different things.” She sat down on the big chair opposite of him and put her feet up on his lap. Automatically he started rubbing her ankles. “What did you men talk about when we were in the gathering room?”

  Perrin shrugged. “Nothing new. Peto’s discouraged again. He still thinks he’s responsible for Young Pere’s actions.”

  “That’s not what he said to the Tans when they talked to him about their son leaving for a dissenter colony. Mrs. Tan told me Peto gave them great comfort, reminding them that their son’s actions are his own, and that no matter where he went or what he did, the Creator was watching him. Why can’t Peto believe his own words?”

  “I’m not sure,” Perrin said. “Perhaps he thinks he’s being held to a different standard. But he’s going out with Shem tomorrow morning to the entrance. I was planning to tell the guide what’s bothering his rector. Maybe
Shem can give him some perspective.”

  “He usually can,” Mahrree nodded. “And I’d almost forgotten about tomorrow, with all the excitement of the past two days. I’m glad you reminded me. Now I have something else to worry about.” She exhaled with dread.

  Perrin chuckled as he massaged. “It’ll go fine, as usual. I’m actually looking forward to this one. Should be an interesting reunion.”

  Mahrree rolled her eyes. “For you they always are! For me there are still days and weeks of analytical glares and careful watching to see if I’m really what everyone says I am. I’m a great-grandmother, for crying out loud! I don’t run around with soldiers!”

  He stopped rubbing, his eyes developing a familiar glint. “You run around with me.”

  Mahrree shrugged.

  Perrin sighed. “I am sorry about that. After all these years—”

  “It’s all right,” she assured him. “It really is. I’m not bothered anymore in here,” she pointed to her heart. “Just a little bugged in here,” she pointed to her head.

  “But in time, they all remember you as you really were.”

  Mahrree smiled, but she wasn’t so sure. This was going to be more personal than any of the others.

  To comfort herself, she gazed again at the large painting that nearly covered the wall in their little gathering room. For their anniversary a few weeks ago, Perrin had asked a landscape artist to create for them a painting of the ancient temple ruin where they had trekked so often.

  The Shins had expected a small picture, but the artist, knowing how much they loved the site, created an immense painting of breathtaking realism of the entire area, with details and colors that left both Perrin and Mahrree speechless.

  But the best part was that she had included both of them in the painting, smiling and leaning on either side of a pillar at the top of the stairs of the crumbling temple. They were only a few inches high, but even then the detail was astonishing.

  They discovered later that the artist had been surreptitiously following them. Their grandchildren, in on the surprise, had found occasion to ask them to lean against things so that the artist could quickly sketch them at the correct heights. Mahrree and Perrin had thought something sneaky was going on—their grandchildren giggled too much, and Salemites didn’t do sneak too well—but still they were surprised by the final product.

  On nights like this, Mahrree stared at the painting and wished she and Perrin were at the ancient site again, as they had been dozens of times, all alone.

  Twenty-four years ago for their anniversary, they’d been all alone in Terryp’s vast land, and they enjoyed it so much they went back three more times. But the distance to the massive step pyramid temples was far, the travel long and often arduous.

  However, Mahrree and Perrin discovered they could be up at the nearby ancient temple site in just a few hours, wandering the massive table land and speculating about the carvings on the ruins. The ancient temple ruin, where Gleace saw in vision would be the site of their Last Day, became their new favorite place.

  Years ago, Mahrree was Perrin and Peto’s “test mule,” as they called her: she tested every route they found to the ancient site, riding on a rickety old mule. If she could make it, then so could just about everyone else.

  But then there were the days when Perrin would whisper into her ear, “Feel like running away and taking Clark for a ride?” and she knew to slip off to the kitchen to pack some food while he grabbed some bedrolls and, like the teenagers in the world who’d skip out of her classes, they’d run away to the ancient temple site, often overnight.

  Of course, that was only when Mahrree wasn’t needed to teach her courses at the university, and Perrin’s duties were completed for the day, and they winked at Peto or Lilla so they’d know that Puggah and Muggah were taking off again.

  The last time they did it was just a few weeks ago, for their 44th anniversary, just before they’d been presented with the glorious painting. Since Clark was far too old now for such excursions, they’d taken GrayClark 411—the latest Clark descendant chosen from the horse breeders for their barn. But while Perrin said that animal was sturdy enough, he just wasn’t black enough, so he’d swapped it for a new Clark—Mahrree thought its number was 314—to test for a few weeks.

  She wasn’t entirely sure how the horse breeders came up with their numbering system of Clark descendants, but suspected the first digit had to do with generations away from the original Clark. Salemites loved to keep track of family lines, even animal lines, and Clark’s family was several hundred, if not thousands, strong. There were the regular black Clarks, the GrayClarks, and the mare Clarkesses, all of which were usually renamed to something more unique by the new owners. However, nearly every Clark that came to their barn kept the number, usually dropping the first digit.

  Mahrree sighed longingly as she gazed at the painting. New Clark 314 needed testing, didn’t he? Couldn’t they just run away tomorrow again and escape the world?

  But she knew to not even bring it up, because tomorrow the world was coming by again for a visit, and it was expected for midday meal.

  ---

  Peto stepped into his bedroom and stopped at the door to watch his wife.

  She was sitting on the edge of their bed, brushing out her long light brown hair which she usually kept up in a loose bun. She was still just as sturdy as when Peto fell in love with her when they were eighteen, but she had softened over the years, mainly because each baby she bore left behind a layer of softness. While Jaytsy was still just as lean and slender despite her twelve expectings, Peto thought women should be curvier. He loved Lilla’s shape, but learned years ago not to compliment her “squishiness.”

  What she added in weight—and how could she not, being the best cook Peto had known next to his grandmother Hycymum—she had lost in vibrancy, primarily because of a certain child who kept her wringing her hands for so many nights.

  Then again, Peto frequently reminded himself, he was also far more sober than when he was a teenager. Fatherhood, and being the rector of their large congregation, had the tendency to force a man to look at life through more serious eyes.

  “Nool get back all right?” Lilla asked absently.

  Peto shut the door behind him. “He just finished putting Clark 314 away. Both Lori and Jori were very relieved to hear about Young Pere.”

  Lilla went back to brushing, a little more vigorously. “And what’s Nool’s evaluation of the latest Clark?”

  “Well, not that a fifteen-year-old is any authority on horses, but he agrees with Deck and me that this is the best Clark descendant we’ve had. They got to the two Cadby homes in record time, and when I saw him in the barn just now, 14 looked as if he could easily handle another run to the eastern side of Salem and back.”

  “Good, good,” Lilla said distractedly. “He’s nice, big and black enough . . . 14 is what we’re calling him?”

  Peto smiled sadly. She didn’t care one bit about horses, and didn’t even realize they had a new Clark until he’d been in the barn for several weeks. GrayClark 411, while a beautiful and impressive animal, just didn’t have much horse sense, Perrin decided, and Clark, a very sensible and slightly ornery thirty-year-old, regularly snubbed him.

  While the Zenoses had two excellent mares—Clarkess 328 and a GrayClarkess named Silver—and Barnos regularly used another descendant, GrayClark 210, Perrin was highly selective of who replaced the first Clark, who had finally been put to pasture ten years ago. Clark’s approval was also needed as to who he’d share his pasture—and his master—with. Clark 14, a five-year-old great-grandson of Clark, seemed to have been accepted by the herd.

  Peto had watched, amused, as Perrin and Clark seemed to evaluate the young stallion a few weeks ago as he trotted around the field. Perrin frequently pointed something to Clark and talked to him as if he expected an answer. Clark nodded and neighed, and seemed to call out to the newcomer. Eventually Clark walked over to Clark 14, nuzzled him in g
reeting, and Perrin declared they’d found their new horse.

  Lilla had thought GrayClark 411 had just gotten sooty.

  Peto walked over to her, gently took the brush out of her hand, and gathered her hair in his hands in one large ponytail. Lilla closed her eyes and leaned against her husband with a heavy sigh.

  “You all right?” he whispered to her.

  She nodded her head, then shook it.

  Peto hugged her head into his chest. “Tell me.”

  “Oh, Peto! I’ve been all over the place today—weeping for fear, weeping for joy, fearful he wouldn’t come back, almost afraid he would, so frustrated, so angry, so happy, so . . . How can he keep going like this? We can’t! I can’t keep up with him . . . a whole night and day he was out? He’s never been unconscious that long before. And then he gets up and eats and joins family prayer and sneaks pie with Mahrree as if he’s only had a late nap?”

  Peto didn’t interrupt her, something else he had learned over the years. There were times she’d lapse into incoherency as she let loose and babbled, but Peto could always figure out the string of her thoughts by the end. When she’d stop to breathe again, he’d be right on track with her.

  “Then he just easily apologizes, and Perrin had to help carry him home, and the children were all watching them—why didn’t any of them stop him? Is he now their greatest entertainment? And he didn’t think any of this through, he just went running off . . . What kind of a test is that?! Throw a rock off the roof first, with the blankets, and see how fast it hits the ground! But no, let’s do something stupid to make everyone worry that this time he’s not coming back . . .”

  Peto stroked her head as she wept into his shirt. That was why he hadn’t taken it off yet for bed; it would be her handkerchief, again.

  “I know,” he soothed, “I know. I’ve felt the same things.”

  “Oh, Peto . . . I just dread that, that—”

  “That what?” He kissed the top of her head.

  “That this will all end horribly for him,” she whispered.

  Peto sighed. “Again, I’ve felt the same thing. Said so to Deck and my father.”

  She sniffed. “And what did they say?”

  “That we can’t think that way, that we can’t think Young Pere will come to some terrible end.”

  Lilla sat up and wiped her nose.

  “And my father thinks he would have made a great army officer.”

  Lilla scoffed a laugh and wiped her eyes. “Papa Pere has some of the strangest ideas sometimes.”

  “Deck and I both thought so as well.” He stroked her cheek. “We can’t control Young Pere, Lilla. That’s not our calling. Our duty is to teach him, love him, raise him the best we can, then let him be free to make his own decisions. The Refuser tries to control us, but the Creator never will. We have to be like the Creator. This life is Young Pere’s test, too.”

  “Thank you, Rector Shin,” Lilla said formally. “Been practicing that long?”

  “The past half hour,” Peto confessed. “I almost believe it myself.” He sat down on the bed next to her and she put her arms around him, kissed his cheek, and leaned against his shoulder. “That’s the problem, Peto: this life is his test as well. A test I fear he may fail.”

  “Shh, don’t talk like that,” Peto told her.

  “You’re thinking the same thing, Peto. I know you are. We have to brace ourselves for the worst, I suppose.”

  Peto rocked her as new tears fell from her eyes.

  Chapter 3--“But even then, the world still saw you as a hero.”