051. Yesterday
The rain thrummed on the cottage roof and trickled down the window, making tiny clear trails on the glass. I lay curled up in bed, feeling the lovely warmth of my blankets glow in my toes and wrap around my body. Next to me, Hamlet stirred slightly. For a moment I thought he would wake up, but he simply tucked his nose tighter under his paw and settled down again. I stretched out a finger and stroked his back, soft ginger fur tickling my skin.
On the other side of the room, Druth lay in his bed. Even though he didn’t look it, I knew that he was awake. I debated whether or not to break the silence. Druth was difficult to read sometimes. One night he had simply not gone to bed and had not insisted that I do so either. We had stayed up till dawn, he telling me about birds and what to do with a lamb when its mother rejected it, and I telling him about the differences between white blood cells and red blood cells. The next night I had expected to do the same thing again, but Druth gave me a gimlet stare, said, ‘Bed time, young lady,’ and packed me off to bed while it was still light.
How can someone be that changeable? I thought. It’s mad. I looked over at Druth again, a little resentfully. He was still on his side, the pale curve of his neck merging with the white of his pillow. It was too dark to see his features, but there was something about the slope of his strong shoulders under the blanket, the way he was hunched over, looking at his hands that changed my resentment to surprise. Druth was sad.
Very, very gently, I Sensed his mind. He was more than sad. He had a song running through his head, and even though I didn’t know the tune, I could pick up a few words here and there. Dachaidh, home. Ddó, yesterday, or long ago.
Druth sighed, a whisper of breath in the quiet room, and an entire sentence flooded into my mind: Lemmýn hy ýs arasgül aghy fadanagh cladg, ha hy cáf gasa’dref aghy broder hy.
The tune wandered around the words, playing in and out of the syllables like mist around standing stones. I felt a little guilty at eavesdropping like this, and withdrew inside my own head, where I tried to translate the words. Druth had only been teaching me Elvish for a few months, and there were lots of words in there that I didn’t know. ‘Broder’ meant ‘brother’ and I was pretty sure ‘gasa’dref’ meant ‘left behind’.
Druth had always come and sat beside me when I had lain awake at night, crying because whenever I thought of Da and my brother and sister, it had made such an awful twisting pain in my inside that wouldn’t go away. He would wait until I had cried the worst of it out, then just hug me, pushing back my sweaty hair back from my face and murmuring, ‘I know, I know,’ until the ache in my throat had lessened.
But I couldn’t do that for Druth. He grieved inside himself, and I knew that if I saw him giving into his sadness, he’d see it as loosing face. He’d get cross and would probably get out of bed and go stand outside the cottage in the rain, simply because that was a way of regaining control. I think the rain reminded him of home, as well.
I was still debating what to do when Ceòban uncurled herself from the corner near the fireplace and padded across the floor on velvet paws. She leaped up onto Druth’s bed and pushed her face against his. Even above the rain, I could hear her purring.
For a moment Druth lay still, then he shifted and I thought he was going to push her away. Instead he put his hand on her back and stroked her fur. She nudged against his hand, and then settled down against him.
Druth sighed again. I could feel him relaxing, some tightly wound spring of emotion uncoiling inside his mind. He stroked Ceòban with the tips of his fingers, and the bed creaked as he moved. The song in his head abruptly died, and the thoughts I now felt were ones taken up with the warmth of the blanket, the softness of the cat pressing against him and the sag of the bed ropes. Memories of a long-ago yesterday were forgotten, drowned in the rain-soaked night outside.
047. School
‘School?’ I folded my arms. ‘You’re joking of course.’
‘I happen to be quite serious,’ Druth retorted. ‘You can go to the school in the next town. It’ll teach you embroidery, cooking --’
‘Embroidery? Like, sewing?’
‘Like sewing, yes.’ He waved a hand. ‘Making tablecloths look pretty, stuff like that.’
‘I have not the slightest desire to make tablecloths look pretty. I’ve never been to school, won’t go to school, and never will go to school.’
‘Oh, indeed?’ Druth raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes.’ I sniffed. ‘I’ve probably got a better education than anyone around here, anyway. Da taught me to read and write, I know my times tables, all about the Zulu War, and I know what can cause a pulmonary embolism.’
‘Do you know how to make a sampler? Bake bread? Clean a house?’
‘I can quote entire scenes from House and ER,’ I offered.
Druth ran a hand through his dark hair. ‘You’re not making this very easy.’
‘Good.’ I sighed. ‘Honestly, Druth, I don’t need to go to school. You only need to learn how to sew and bake and clean and all if you’re going to get married. And who’d marry a hybrid? Only another hybrid, and it wouldn’t be marrying then, it’d be seen as mating.’
‘All right,’ Druth muttered. ‘All right.’
I waited for a moment, then prodded, ‘So, I don’t need to go?’
‘I didn’t say that!’
‘You thought it, though.’
‘We’ll see.’
019. Sword
Druth brought the sword out its sheath in one flashing wave of movement. I goggled. ‘Ooh, it’s so big!’
‘It’s not really. Kioni swords are much longer than Elven ones. We tend to use explosives more, though.’
‘’Cos of the Sky Hunters?’
‘Ebren-Chadyorä,’ he corrected.
‘Same thing.’
‘Cafos y cha dyscy-fos ty ealla?’ he demanded.
I took a few moments to work this out, frowned and asked, ‘Where does tea come into it? I get about the birds, but --’
‘Tea? Oh you aswon, “cha” is “not” -- “che” is “tea”. And “éan” is “bird” and “ealla” is “nothing”!’
‘Oh-h.’ I blinked. ‘I thought you said, “Have I tea taught you birds?”’
Druth let the tip of the sword sag down to scrape on the floor. ‘Hai Mai,’ he groaned.
‘It’s not that bad,’ I comforted. ‘I’ll get it eventually.’
He passed a hand over his brow like Macbeth must have done after killing Banquo. ‘Why did I ever agree to teach you Elvish?’
‘If I remember right, it was you who insisted that I learn.’ I held out my hand. ‘Can I hold the sword?’
‘No.’ Druth hurriedly sheathed it. ‘I’m not going to let you loose with this.’
I stuck my tongue out at him. ‘Party-pooper.’
039. Too Little
I bounced up and down on my toes, made a grab and missed. Hamlet looked down at me through lazy yellow-green eyes. You can jump like a frog all you want. I’m not coming down.
You need to! Druth asked me to clean the mantelpiece!
How can you clean it if you can’t even reach up and get me down?
I’ll stand on a chair. Come on, Hamlet!
I don’t want to. It’s nice and warm up here. I can see everything. I can see out of the window.
Go and sit on the windowsill, then.
He gave me a condescending look and nestled down onto his paws more firmly. Don’t be silly. The windowsill’s too small for me to sit on.
Or you’re too fat.
Hamlet didn’t understand why that should be a bad thing, so he turned his head away and closed his eyes.
I hissed in annoyance. Hamlet!
He ignored me.
I made another leap and pinched the end of his tail between my fingers. He growled and curled his tail around his nose. Silly person.
I dragged the high, thin-legged stool over and stood on it, wobbling precariously. Hamlet opened his eyes, got up and stretched, arching his back up and down like an accordion.
Are you coming now? I demanded.
No. He slipped between my hands and slinked to the other end of the mantelpiece. He lay down again, winked insolently and yawned.
I glared at him, then climbed down from the stool and went to find Druth. He was in the hen run, cleaning out the hen house.
‘Dru-uth…’
‘Sa?’
‘Hamlet’s on the mantelpiece and won’t move.’
Druth scraped at a smear of dried guano with the spade. ‘He’s your Sense-familiar.’
‘That doesn’t mean he does everything I want him to!’
‘True.’ He half-smiled. ‘Na, it doesn’t mean that at all. Well, drag him down.’
‘I’ve tried. I’m not tall enough, and if I stand on the stool and try, he just runs away.’
‘Oh, all right then.’ Druth laid down the spade, wiped his hands on his trousers and followed me back into the cottage.
Hamlet was curled up just as I had left him. He didn’t even open an eye when Druth lifted him down and put him on the hearthrug.
‘Why is Ceòban never this difficult?’ I poked Hamlet in the side. He merely sighed and curled up tighter.
‘Sons don’t always take after their mothers,’ Druth said, with an air of great wisdom.
‘No duh,’ I said, rolling my eyes.
027. Purple
The skirt was very soft, the folds of material caressing my legs like warm hands. I pirouetted, and it flared out around me in wide billows of purple wool.
Druth shook his head. ‘Na. Wrong colour.’
‘Uh?’ I came to a halt. ‘I like it.’
‘Not in purple. Have you got any other colours?’ Druth asked the pedlar.
The pedlar turned over his pile of clothes that he had spread out on the cottage floor. ‘Many colours, sir, of course. I have the same skirt in blue and red and yellow.’ He held up three other skirts.
‘Let’s try the red,’ Druth suggested.
The pedlar handed it to me, and I slipped off the purple skirt and put on the red one over my petticoat. It was just as warm and light as the purple one, but… I held the edges out and looked down at myself.
‘I like that one,’ Druth said. ‘It goes with your hair.’
‘I’ve got black hair,’ I pointed out.
‘That’s what I mean. It’s a nice contrast.’
‘Purple would be a contrast, too,’ I said wistfully.
‘The purple makes your eyes look orange.’
‘No it doesn’t.’
‘How do you know?’ Druth raised an eyebrow. He had a point. We didn’t have a mirror.
‘The red is of a very fine weave,’ the pedlar said, adding his two cents worth.
Oh, be quiet, I thought. ‘But I like the purple.’
‘You like looking like a violet blot on the landscape?’
I glared at Druth, then grinned. I gave a twirl, and the skirt spread out even further than the purple one had. It was a very bright red. Like poppy petals, or the heart of a glowing coal. Ladybird-red. Burning like a sunset.
‘Well, you'll have to dress for the ambiguity,’ Druth said dreamily.
‘You what?’ I stopped twirling long enough to blink at him.
‘Ambiguity. It's when something—’
‘I do know what ambiguity means.’
‘Sa, sa, sa.’
There was a pause.
‘Oh, okay,’ I said, beginning my gyrations again. Druth and the pedlar blurred into a dizzy streak of colour. ‘I’d like the red one.’
P.S. A really fun little scene. Though I like the School one best so far.
