Thirteen Orphans

by Jane Lindskold

  “Oh.” Brenda considered, reached into herself and found that the little rat was feeling quite fat and sassy. “I’d still like to try. I promise that if I feel myself losing control, I’ll let the spell drop, just like Des has coached us.”

  “Very well.”

  “I’ll be behind you,” Nissa promised. “I have ch’i. I’m just a little afraid that I’ll lose focus.”

  Brenda squeezed Nissa’s hand. “I completely understand.”

  She started laying out tiles. “Auntie Pearl, this one calls for all three suits, no honors, so I can’t leave out dots. I was thinking about just one pung, and that of nines since they’re small—more like stars than moons.”

  “Good,” Pearl said. “I noticed you have a problem with remembering characters. However, if you use them for the long sequence and the pair, they’ll serve better than either dots or bamboo. Bamboo would be like hiding a forest with trees.”

  “I’ve got you,” Brenda said. “I’m okay with characters when they’re in front of me. I’ll lay them out here.”

  She wondered briefly how Pearl had known about her “handicap,” then realized she must have read it in the Knitting. Clearly, Pearl was so far ahead of Brenda in ability and flexibility that she could do things on reflex for which Brenda would need an entire ritual.

  Brenda laid out the tiles: a pung of nine dots, a pung of five bamboo (chosen because they had mingled red and green canes, so had not been part of the Sparrow’s Sanctuary), a sequence of characters running two through eight, and a final pair of nine characters.

  She recited her selection to Pearl, and the old Tiger seemed to purr—although that could have just been her still raspy voice.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Pearl said. “Nissa? Are you rested enough?”

  Nissa nodded. “There’s something out there, isn’t there? I feel the bamboo bending, just a little.”

  “Something small,” Pearl agreed. “Something we can easily confuse.”

  Brenda wondered if Pearl was only being reassuring. Her sense of the ward was much less acute, but it seemed to her that anything that could bend Nissa’s mighty canes couldn’t be insignificant.

  Brenda nodded to Nissa. “I’ll start now. Knit in when you’re ready.”

  With assumed confidence, Brenda ran her gaze over the neat line of characters. She felt a tingle and a click as the pattern locked into place. Good. Now to make it stronger. She wanted to make her spell a fitting complement for Nissa’s.

  Nissa’s ch’i was channeling in nicely, and Brenda used it to etch a line of fire into the incised patterns of the tiles. She closed her eyes, and set herself to concentrating.

  It should have been easy to keep the shape of the spell steady in her mind; she’d already gone over the sequence several times. Even so, Brenda found her own fears dreadfully distracting. What if she got drawn into the spell as Nissa had done? What if she really didn’t have the skill to pull off something so complex? Pearl was right. Brenda hadn’t trained very long. She wasn’t the real Rat, just an heir apparent, and with her father’s memories stolen was there anything for her to be heir apparent to?

  Concentrate! Brenda ordered herself sternly. Don’t let your insecurities stop you from even trying to get this just right.

  But did she really need to try to make the spell particularly strong? Des should be home soon. True, he and Riprap had sort of indicated that they were going to make a night of it, stop out for something to eat or whatever after the game. But surely if anything got through Brenda’s gates, Nissa’s wards would hold. They were so strong that they’d nearly trapped Nissa inside them.

  Concentrate! Come on. Pung. Pung. Run. Pair. You’ve even got the suits chosen. Characters are tough, but like you told Pearl, you’ve got them set out in front of you. It’s not like you need to do this from memory.

  Brenda realized she’d done something silly when she’d closed her eyes in order to concentrate. She needed to concentrate on those tiles.

  Brenda tried to open her eyes, and with horror realized that she could not. Her hands were pressed to her temples. Her eyes were squeezed shut. Her feet were planted firmly on the floor, but other than those sensations, she could feel nothing. She reached for where Nissa’s Knitting should anchor, and found nothing there. Her ears brought her only the buzz of her own pulse. The inside of her mouth was dry.

  Has something grabbed me? Brenda thought. That big thing I sensed outside the ward. Has it swallowed me?

  The now all too familiar sensation of panic set Brenda’s heart beating wildly. The sound was a wild drumming in her ears that made concentration difficult. She felt herself fraying, being pushed away. Confusion flooded her mind, making thought difficult, but oddly that confusion brought her insight.

  I’ve done just like Nissa, Brenda realized. I’ve wandered into my own spell. Nissa nearly trapped herself. I’ve confused myself, almost to the point of incoherence. Confused Gates. Right. If I can just squeeze back to the other side of the gate …

  Once more, Brenda tried to open her eyes, but they wouldn’t open.

  “Okay, little rat,” she thought, and wasn’t at all sure who she was addressing. “What do you see?”

  An image came into her mind from somewhere around ankle level. Indeed, Brenda saw her ankle in the vision, grotesque and angular, the little scrapes and scratches she had gotten running around Pearl’s house and garden in her bare feet augmented to ripples and ridges the color of dried blood.

  “I’m not interested in my ankle, little rat. Where are we, and more importantly, how do we get back?”

  The image shifted. Brenda saw herself standing on a roughly spherical form shaped from twisted bamboo canes. Leaves poked out here and there, tickling her feet. A thick haze rose from the bamboo, twisting and curling like smoke from the tip of a freshly lit cigarette. It made interesting shapes—medieval castles, sailing ships, craggy mountain peaks, a Swiss chalet, pagodas, a cairn of rocks, something rather like Stonehenge. Any of these were more interesting than the bamboo sphere, and Brenda felt herself drawn to explore.

  She felt something sharp bite the side of her foot. The little rat, her own last shred of common sense, was reminding her that she’d not asked to see the confusion she’d created, but a way to get back into Pearl’s house.

  Rat’s-eye view wasn’t the best for elevated perspective.

  “Climb up my leg,” Brenda suggested. “Onto my shoulder, even. I should be able to see better from there.”

  Tiny claws prickled against Brenda’s bare leg, and she felt weight hanging off the fabric of her shorts, then on her T-shirt. The tactile sensations were fascinating, but Brenda knew they could become their own lead into confusion and forced herself to remember her goal.

  At last the little rat settled on Brenda’s shoulder. She felt its long whiskers brush the side of her neck as it turned its gaze upon the one true gate that would take her home. The true gate was very hard to see, more like a hatch down into the bamboo sphere than what Brenda thought of as a gate. The smoke castles were really much more substantial-looking … .

  A raucous sound drew Brenda’s gaze back to the hatchway. It sounded familiar, bringing with it a memory of the scent of sawdust and feathers. A rooster crowing!

  That was interesting enough to merit another look. On the other side of the hatchway stood a very cocky, very colorful rooster. He was of an exotic type, a breed that Brenda knew was probably Chinese, even as she knew that this rooster had to be Des.

  He crowed again, and Brenda turned her feet toward the hatchway. It was hard navigating through the little rat’s eyes. The perspective was too low and skewed to one side. She instructed the rat to climb onto her head, and it did, hanging down so that its head rested on her forehead. The perspective offered by its eyes was too narrow, but otherwise almost right.

  Brenda moved toward the gate with greater confidence. When she reached it, the rooster unhooked the latch with its beak. Brenda sat and lowered herself over the edge, a
nd with every foot she dropped she began to feel connected to her own body again, until as her head dipped below the level of the bamboo sphere, she could see again with her own vision.

  She reached up, but the little rat was no longer there. Brenda had no idea why, but without warning, she started to sob.

  17

  Pearl had not protested too much when Riprap offered to carry her from the fainting couch into the family room. Des had insisted on making tea, and she hadn’t bothered to argue. She knew he was right. She needed a stimulant of some sort. In any case, her office was not a comfortable place to hold the conference she knew must follow.

  Nissa had gone upstairs to check on Lani. Brenda, still looking a little wild around the eyes, had gone with her.

  Pearl filled Des and Riprap in on the details, her voice now strong enough that she could easily make herself heard in the adjoining kitchen. Des asked a few questions, but Riprap listened in silence, only pausing once as he went about putting away the plastic tiles from the game that had ended in near disaster.

  “Now,” Pearl concluded, “what I want to know is what brought you home so fortuitously. Brenda might well have wandered much further if you hadn’t gotten here to crow her back.”

  “Foster called me,” Des said. “He knew something was wrong.”

  “You taught him how to summon you?” Pearl snapped. She’d been half reclining in her favorite chair, but now she struggled upright. “Of all the injudicious, criminally incautious …”

  “Pearl!” Des’s tone was as sharp as her own. He stalked into the room, looking no less angry or dangerous for the large tray of nacho chips covered in ground meat, cheese, black olives, and jalapeños he carried in one hand. “That is uncalled-for! You’re becoming paranoid about Foster. Moreover, I am not an idiot nor injudicious.”

  “Then how did he reach you?”

  “I gave him my cell phone,” Des said, his tone dropping to conversational ranges, “and preprogrammed it with Riprap’s cell phone number.”

  Pearl flopped back in her chair and covered her face with her hands. Even so, she could feel the blush creeping out around the edges.

  “Oh, dear lord,” she said. “Des, I am sorry. After what we’ve been through tonight, I honestly forgot that there were simple, ordinary ways of doing things. You gave him your cell phone. Of course … .”

  “Of course,” Des said. “At your insistence, Foster is hugely isolated here. He’s scared to talk to you, and he can’t really talk to the others. If he has a simple question like where we keep the spare toilet paper or whatever, he’s not going to ask a girl in any case. He has no memory of his past, but judging from his actions, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find he was raised in some sort of monastery. He likes the girls—but he talks about them like they’re some sort of aliens.”

  “I’m sorry, Des,” Pearl repeated. “I have no excuse. A desire to transfer some of the guilt I’m feeling may explain my reaction, but it doesn’t excuse it. I beg your forgiveness.”

  Des was still glowering, but after a moment he gave a curt nod, then let a smile creep through the curtain of his mustache.

  “All right, but you’re going to owe me. You can start by getting some of this nice greasy cheese into you.”

  Pearl accepted the plate he handed her. Her father had possessed the usual Chinese distaste for cheese, but her mother had no such dislike. Pearl ate cheese with great enthusiasm, and felt that the extra calcium had done its part in saving her from the usual weakening bones of old age.

  As she ate, Pearl heard Nissa and Brenda coming down the stairs. She felt fairly certain that they had heard at least some of her exchange with Des and was not pleased. She preferred that the senior members keep a united front, and Des already had the edge on her in influencing the younger three, since he was their teacher.

  And who do you have to blame for that, Tiger Bright? Pearl asked herself. You could have made yourself teacher, but it was just too much trouble.

  Nissa looked severely shaken, but could at least walk under her own power. Pearl felt a trace of envy, then reminded herself that youth was not the only reason for Nissa’s and Brenda’s resilience. Each of them had done much less than she had that night. They had worked only two spells apiece, and that had nearly broken them.

  “Pearl,” Nissa said, taking a seat on one end of the sofa and accepting the plate of nachos and glass of sweetened iced tea Des handed her, “I’ve got to agree with Des. You’re paranoid about Foster—at least about the Foster we have here and now. I’m not saying you don’t have reason to worry about who he might be when he gets his memories back, but the young man we have with us in this house deserves better than you’ve been giving him.”

  Pearl tried to think of something icy and cutting to say, but Nissa anticipated her and waved her down with a soggy chip.

  “Pearl, do you know what I found when I went up to check on Lani? Foster. He was in there, singing to her, keeping her calm. There were cards all over the floor from where they’d been playing Go Fish.

  “If it wasn’t for Foster, we might have failed tonight, because if my baby had been screaming I couldn’t have done even what I managed to do—and I know I didn’t do my part all that well. Foster didn’t get in the way, didn’t interfere or snoop, but when he had to face punishment for breaking out of that jail you’ve made for him or letting my baby be scared, he took the risk.

  “You should have seen his face when I went in there. His eyes went all wide and he scrabbled back a little from where he’d been sitting on the floor with Lani on his lap. He can’t talk English very well, but he tried, begging me not to tell you he’d not stayed in his room. As far as I am concerned, this has gone far enough. You want my help on this Thirteen Orphans business, well, then, we treat Foster better. Otherwise, Lani and I will go right on home, and if I lose my memory, well then, I lose the memory of being party to abuse of a perfectly nice young man!”

  Pearl had known Nissa all her life, had been entertained by her in the role of an honored family friend. But never before had she heard such a flow of words from her. Brenda was staring at Nissa with shock and admiration, but she managed to pull her gaze away and look over at Pearl.

  “Me, too, Auntie Pearl. I’m sorry.”

  Des looked at her. “You already know my feelings about this matter, Pearl. Riprap?”

  The big black man shrugged. “I can see it both ways. I don’t much like the idea of losing my memory. That probably means I’d lose some of my best memories of my father, and I don’t like that. That said, I’m not really happy about our slowly driving Foster up the wall. I’ve played a bit of catch with him, and deep down where memory doesn’t matter, he’s sharp—fast on his feet, and as calculating as you are. I agree with you that Foster would make a bad enemy, but I do think he’d make a good friend.”

  Pearl nodded. “I see. If this were a democracy, I’d definitely be outvoted, but we can’t take risks on something as untrustworthy as a majority vote. Will it be enough for you all if I promise to give this serious consideration—more serious and more sincere than I can the way I’m feeling now?”

  Nissa, who did not look in the least ashamed of her outburst, nodded. “I don’t feel too well myself, and you have to feel worse. I can wait, but I’m not going to forget, and I’m not going to be put off.”

  “Same here,” Brenda said. “There’s Dad and all that’s happened to him, but I’m not sure treating Foster badly is going to help me help Dad.”

  The two men nodded agreement. Des had brought in a tray of seasoned potato wedges and another of fried cheese sticks.

  “I didn’t know we had this stuff in the house,” Pearl said, looking for the first time at the plate of nachos in her lap as something other than much needed fuel.

  “We didn’t,” Riprap said. “Des and I had just gotten our order when Foster’s call came. Des settled the tab, and I grabbed boxes and stuffed the food in. We were too worried to think about eating while Des ran red ligh
ts to get us back here.”

  Brenda grinned. “I didn’t realize you were into such healthy eating, sports star.”

  “We burned enough jumping up and down during the game,” Riprap said with an answering grin. He scooped up a couple of cheese sticks and dipped them into sauce, then looked over at Pearl. “I want to know why you said to Des that you might have gotten so angry because you’re trying to transfer guilt. What do you have to be guilty about?”

  Pearl frowned. “Not about Foster, if that’s what you’re leading up to. Hand me a couple of those potato wedges.” He did, and she considered, “Because I was not paying attention to what was going on. Because I was focusing so hard on research that I fell asleep at my desk. Because in doing so … Well, I might have created the circumstance that led to Brenda drawing that hand.”

  That last got all eyes turned on her. Pearl ate the potato wedges and daintily wiped her fingers before explaining.

  “The moon is the realm of transformation, so I have been doing a great deal of research into spells related to the moon. I may have unintentionally infected the—call it the ‘ether’—within my wards, making it more likely that spells involving the moon would, well, happen.”

  “And it could just be coincidence,” Brenda said. “I was looking for a cleared hand, and getting bamboo like crazy because both Nissa and Foster wanted other suits. My mom is no sorceress, but she’s a smart lady where it counts and she says that guilt doesn’t do any good. Knowing where you’ve been wrong and trying to fix it, that’s good. Grabbing onto guilt and using it as an excuse for trying to find excuses or justification or just to feel bad, that doesn’t make sense.”

  “I’ve always liked Keely,” Pearl said. “And now I have another reason to do so. I know you and Nissa are feeling pretty guilty yourselves, and I want you to consider this—we had a near disaster tonight, but we pulled though. We learned something vital as well.”

  “Oh?” This came from both young women in chorus. They looked at each other and giggled, the high, slightly shrill giggles of the overtired.