A Turn of Light

by Julie E. Czerneda

  “Last night . . .” Hettie began unwisely.

  “I was there,” he snapped. “And heard. Drunk and maudlin. Little wonder, between weddings, babies, and foreigners. I’m sure Radd and Dusom took matters well in hand and talked sense into him. Tell me where Horst is, please.” This last with such absolute authority Jenn felt her shoulders straighten.

  She looked past her reflection in the trumpet. Despite the stern set to his wrinkled face, Jupp’s eyes were desperate. He knew, Jenn realized, shaken. He knew about Riss and Uncle Horst and feared the worst for her.

  Her courage failed. “If I see him before you do,” she promised, “I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.”

  Hettie, ever kind, nodded. “Meanwhile, Master Jupp,” she said, her eyes suspiciously bright, “would you have time for Palma?” She beckoned to the young woman, standing near the kettles. “Has Riss told you? She’s writing a book about us—about the exiles. I know you were busy this morning—” Unsaid, afternoons he napped. “Here she is.” Before the poor man could do more than open his mouth.

  Palma curtsied, still drying her hands on her apron. “Master Jupp. This is an honor.”

  “I’ve no time,” he said testily. “I’m looking for Horst.”

  The innkeeper read the situation at once. “Then I won’t trouble you, good sir,” she said smoothly. “I’ve borrowed a copy of Lehman’s Avyo As She Was. Master Dusom assures me there’s an entire chapter on—”

  The trumpet shook in Old Jupp’s hand. “Lies, all of it. Poorly written ones. I’ve the documents to prove it. You come with me at once—what’s your name?” She murmured it. “Palma. I insist!”

  Jenn gave her a grateful look as the pair left. “Hettie,” she asked thoughtfully, her hands full of forks, “How was Palma this morning?”

  Hettie’s wide smile was as glad as she’d ever seen it. “Ancestors Blessed, Allin had to wake her for breakfast. I thought Zehr would burst with joy.” Her smile flickered and faded. “The only time he looked happy. Oh, Jenn. We didn’t need his house!” All at once, she looked ready to cry. “I tried to tell him.”

  “We all saw,” Jenn assured her. She put an arm around her friend’s shoulders. “Think how much comfort Uncle Horst will take, knowing you and Tadd and your beautiful baby—” winning a tremulous smile, “—are living happily ever after in his house.”

  Hettie hugged her back. “I will.” She sighed, then her smile firmed. “Thanks to you, Good Heart, we’ll have towels and sheets. Ancestors Witness, my needlework’s fit for curd bags at best. You’re sure you’ve kept enough for yourselves?”

  “She’s sure,” Peggs said as she joined them. She shed her apron and tucked it under the table. “Jenn? Time to go.”

  “Go where?” Hettie raised her eyebrows. “Now? We’re not ready.”

  “We won’t be long.” Her sister slid a determined arm through Jenn’s. “Mistress Sand’s asked us to help bring something from her tent.”

  Such “somethings” often being exotic sweets, Hettie’s face lit with anticipation. “Hurry, then,” she said, shooing them along.

  Jenn let herself be led, arm-in-arm. “Peggs. What are you doing?” she whispered urgently, forcing herself to smile at those they passed.

  “Getting you where you need to be, Dearest Heart,” her sister said calmly. “There’s another two pies in the oven,” she told Gallie, who nodded. “Check the pickles, please?” to Covie.

  Then, low and fierce. “Did you think I’d let you go alone?”

  Jenn squeezed her arm, drawing Peggs close. “I think,” she said unsteadily, “I’ve the best sister in the world.”

  Her sister squeezed back, then freed her arm in order to give Jenn’s braid a tug. “I do,” she countered. “And I won’t let you be without a home.”

  Admittedly a consequence of not marrying Wyll Jenn hadn’t thought through, but it wasn’t, she decided at once, her sister’s problem. “I’ll find—”

  “No need, Dearest Heart. It’s settled,” Peggs said in that she-knew-best voice. “Kydd and I can live with his brother.”

  “It’s not settled,” she protested. “I’ll find somewhere. The Ropps could use my help.” With Hettie gone, she could share a bed with Alyssa. “Or the Treffs.”

  Another step and both said, “Not the Treffs,” at the same time.

  The sisters exchanged shy looks. “I mean it, Peggs,” Jenn insisted. “I’ll find a place. Besides—” she found a smile, “—who’d cook for Poppa?”

  “You could learn,” Peggs rejoined, but they both knew who loved to cook and who didn’t.

  And both knew, but wouldn’t say it, that where Jenn lived in two days’ time wasn’t as important as making sure she did.

  The lane bent past the Treffs, to meet the main road. The sisters left the shade of the apple trees, their feet silent on the packed red earth, and fell silent themselves.

  The tinkers’ tents rose above the hedge surrounding the commons, golden in the late day sun. She didn’t need to see the light; the by-now familiar emptiness within told her. The turn was coming.

  “They’re back!” Peggs said, startling her.

  Davi’s wagon rattled first through the commons gate, muddy drops flying from Battle and Brawl’s feathered feet. More had dried in pink spots along their flanks and clung to the wagon’s wheels and front.

  Wainn stood on the stalk-laden wagon, reins in hand, grinning face well-freckled. He looked to have jumped in the river himself, perhaps to shed the worst of it, but it hadn’t, Jenn thought as she grinned and waved back, done much. Cleanliness would wait till the wagons were unloaded and teams cared for; the waiting meal would doubtless prompt most to the quickest possible wash of face and hands.

  Wainn turned into the Ropps’ lane, their loft next to be filled. The first of the tinkers’ wagons came right behind, its pile of stalks topped with dusty harvesters who jumped down to help or hurry to their respective homes. The grain wagon followed, passing the sisters on its way to the mill.

  “Jenn,” Peggs said carefully. “Could that be Bannan?”

  The final wagon came through the gate. Its driver was the right height, but caked in mud from head to toe. His team was no better. Seeing them, the driver smiled, teeth white against the cracking layer of dark red.

  A smile she’d know anywhere. “It’s Bannan.” Though she felt unexpectedly shy, Jenn waved with her sister. “I wonder what happened.”

  “Maybe they missed the ford,” hazarded Peggs.

  True, the river was deeper, its bottom silt, to either side of the broad, unmissable stone path.

  She’d like to have lingered, to watch Bannan take the wagon to the Ropps’, but there wasn’t time to waste. “Let’s go.”

  Stepping carefully to avoid the mud, the sisters made their way into the commons. There was no sign of Wyll, but Qimirpik and Urcet were doing something with their telescope, the servants hovering nearby with tools. Five luxurious chairs had been arranged under the awning of the caravan’s largest wagon, the dolls reclining in three. Disappointingly, blankets covered the dolls up to their veiled heads, hiding any detail.

  The Ansnans made the turn-born seem normal.

  “Which tent?” Peggs asked quietly as they approached the tinkers’ encampment.

  “I don’t know.” It hadn’t mattered before. During the tinkers’ brief observance, everyone else in Marrowdell would be preoccupied with cleaning up from the day’s work and, of course, getting supper.

  Centermost was the trade tent, where Mistress Sand held court. Nearest was the one in which Clay and Tooth plied their trades; farthest where the tinkers slept. Before the sisters had to guess, the flap of the sleeping tent opened and Riverstone beckoned them inside.

  Kruar as horses? The truthseer’d had no complaint, up to the moment when, on the last trip across the ford, his team had gleefully plunged wide to drench him with muddy water.

  He spat grit. The near kruar turned her long head to regard him, he could swear
, with amusement. Both beasts were coated in mud; knowing Scourge, he imagined they relished it. Having thought of his old friend and the pranks he’d played over the years, Bannan’s sense of humor returned. “My thanks for the shower, ladies,” he said with a bow, and began to strip their harness, wasting no time. The turn was coming and they wouldn’t appreciate a delay on his part.

  Teeth snapped near his ear; a hoof just missed his boot. He grinned as he pulled free the last strap and gave the kruar a hearty slap on the rump. “Be good.”

  She growled and kicked, not too close, then both broke into a trot. The other four joined them, jostling as they went through the commons gate. When a deep roar in the distance brought answering squeals of delight, Bannan laughed and shook his head.

  His smile faded as he gathered up the mud-caked harness. Jenn had seen him in all his filthy splendor and smiled, if too briefly. She’d be with the tinkers by now; he’d no doubt Peggs would stay with her, no matter what the tinkers thought.

  Earlier in the afternoon, from the field, he’d seen Flint and Chalk return. Had they succeeded?

  The village youngsters, energy unquenched by a day spent delivering water, stood nearby with soapy buckets, waiting to clean the leathers. Bannan handed the kruars’ harness to Cheffy, then, with a hasty apology, took one of the buckets. Stripping off shirt and boots, he closed his eyes and dumped hot soapy water over his head and shoulders.

  As he used his palm to clear suds from his eyes, Alyssa, giggling, handed him a rag and a bucket of rinse water. “Ancestors Blessed,” he said fervently. Another moment, then he was, if not clean, at least free of the worst of the river bottom.

  The hopeless boots he left with the harness. The shirt received a quick dunk and rinse. He wrung it out as he walked, then pulled it on wet. His hair, he clawed back from his face and left to drip down his back.

  Riverstone had made it clear he wouldn’t be welcome at the turn.

  They were welcome, Bannan Larmensu thought grimly, to try to keep him out.

  Mistress Sand set four cloth bags on the small chest serving as a table, then spread her fingers over them. “Only you will know. Is it here na?”

  Jenn exchanged a final look with Peggs. There’d been no comment from the assembled turn-born when both sisters entered the tent, other than a chill to the air she’d denied almost without thought.

  Her sister gave her a brave smile and nodded.

  She lifted her eyes to the others. Sand sat on a pillow on the other side of the chest, the rest on stacks of blankets arranged around this central open space. As sleeping arrangements went, the tinkers’ were disappointingly ordinary.

  As spectators, they were anything but. The turn-born revealed themselves, each body filled with its particular substance, each head topped with white hair, every face a mask over light. Peggs, Jenn realized almost at once, couldn’t see the change, not yet. She would at the turn.

  “Sweetling.”

  “Yes.” Jenn’s eyes found Flint and Chalk. “Before I look, I want to thank you.”

  The expressions on the masks couldn’t change, but they inclined their heads.

  Her feelings a tangle of anticipation and dread, Jenn tipped the contents of the first bag onto the chest. As smooth white stones rolled out, she gasped. They’d found her pebble and more! Her mouth watered.

  The stones stopped rolling, to became ordinary rock.

  Jenn swallowed and reached for the next. When she opened the bag, something small and white leapt out, skittering across the chest in a blur of too many legs. Peggs squeaked as it dropped from the chest to run over her skirt. Kaj, curled up and asleep, aroused in an instant to give chase, barking furiously. There was a scramble, a moment of digging, then a decidedly final crunch.

  “Not that,” Jenn said faintly.

  Her sister gave her an appalled look.

  Before matters worsened, she grabbed the third bag and dumped its contents.

  A globe of purest white landed on the chest with a loud “crack.” Before her horrified eyes, fissures grew over its surface, deeper and deeper, then, all at once, giving way.

  An orange jelly slowly, steadily, inexorably oozed forth, followed by a “plop” as a round green yolk joined it.

  Jenn turned her head to glare at Flint and Chalk. “A white pebble,” she said, making the words as clear and distinct as possible.

  “Don’t blame them, Sweetling. What looks one way in the Verge na?” She clicked her tongue. “Might not here. Try again.” Her fingertip poked the fourth and last bag closer.

  Wary of another egg, Jenn opened it with more care. But what came out when she gently tipped it wasn’t an egg or a stone or even something that scampered.

  It was fine black ash.

  Her heart gave a sickening lurch of recognition.

  Ash that sparkled silver-white, looked at a certain way. Glittered emerald green, another.

  “Jenn? Is that—is that what I think it is?”

  Jenn shook her head at Peggs, not because her sister was wrong, but that wasn’t the question to ask. That wasn’t it at all. She looked up at Sand. “Where did they find this?”

  “They searched near the Wound. On the Verge side.”

  Jenn didn’t let her eyes fall, though the brilliance where Sand’s should be burned and left images dancing at the edges of her sight. “And you believe them?” For once, she welcomed the frustrated anger building inside her. The turn-born understood emotion. They’d feel hers, even if they stopped what it could do. “I made this.” Satin and hair, Melusine’s toy block, her map. She rubbed her finger in the ash, touched it to her tongue. It tasted as she’d thought it would.

  Like Wyll.

  “I made this,” Jenn repeated harshly. “I used it at Night’s Edge to wish my friend into a man and it disappeared with him. It wouldn’t be near the Spine or the Wound. It would be wherever Wisp fled.”

  “His hiding place.” Sand slowly rose to her feet. “I was there at the sei’s summons. I watched one complete your wish. For the sei, I sent the dragon back to Marrowdell. Why na?”

  The others, disturbed, stood as well. Riverstone shook his head emphatically. “We don’t question the sei, here or in the Verge. They punish the dragon lord as a lesson to his kind. Don’t give them cause to punish us!”

  “I’m no fool.” Sand turned to stare at Flint and Chalk. “But you na? You were to take the dragon’s advice, not go to his home.”

  “Trust that old fool?” Chalk protested. “Going near the Wound is madness.”

  “We couldn’t take the risk,” agreed Flint.

  “Now you think as one na?” Sand made a disgusted sound. “Tomorrow, I’ll go myself.”

  She couldn’t, Jenn thought, seeing the same fear cross Peggs’ face. Without Sand, the others could agree that she was too much trouble, too dangerous. To be rid of her. For all her brave talk, she had little doubt the turn-born could do what they pleased.

  “Flint and I will do it,” Riverstone announced. “He can be spared.” With a glare of his own at that turn-born.

  Just as Jenn went to thank them, a cramp struck and she doubled over, her arm sweeping the chest clear. Peggs took hold of her. “It’s happening!” she cried.

  “Close. Not yet,” Sand said briskly. “Tooth. Clay. A place for our Sweetling, so the turn passes her quickly.”

  The turn-born gathered blankets and made them into a bed. Jenn sat down, arms pressed to her middle, Peggs at her side. When Sand brought her a tall cup, she asked hopefully, “Beer?”

  “Stronger. Drink it. All of it.”

  Jenn raised the cup, grimacing at the smell. The dark liquid wasn’t anything pleasant. “What is this?” she delayed.

  Peggs put a reassuring hand on her back. “Ancestors Witness, it can’t be worse than one of Covie’s remedies.”

  It could, Jenn suspected, but nodded and took a cautious swallow. Sour as unripe sweetberry, with the consistency of syrup, it tasted purple, which wasn’t a taste yet suddenly was, a
nd burned like a hot coal to her stomach. “Whoa,” she gasped.

  “From home,” Riverstone explained.

  The Verge, unblended with Marrowdell. Remembering the rose petals, Jenn drank as quickly as she could. Her eyes watered from the heat of it and her hands began to shake. At once, Peggs’ fingers covered hers, helping hold the cup.

  “Don’t look,” Jenn urged, meeting her sister’s compassionate gaze. “During the turn. Close your eyes.”

  “You brought her here,” Sand disagreed. “Why else na?”

  Not to have Peggs see her as she became. “I didn’t—she came—”

  “Hush, Dearest Heart.” Peggs lifted her head to regard the turn-born, spots of red on her cheeks. “I came for my sister,” she declared. “And to see the truth. You’ve lied to us from the beginning. When Kydd tried to convince the rest to leave, you lied to him too—or worse—” with a grimness Jenn had never heard in her sister’s voice before. “You lie and you hide. If you’re the friends you claim to be, you’ll show yourselves to everyone!”

  “My. My. My.” Sand chuckled and lifted a hand to the other turn-born, bringing it around in a grand gesture, palm up, at Peggs. “See it na? Melusine’s fire! You want to know why we hide na?” She leaned close; Peggs didn’t move. “Because we’re like Marrowdell itself. Too strange. Too different. Only a few can bear it. Your mother understood, Sweetlings.”

  “Our mother?” Shocked, Jenn hardly felt the next cramp. “What do you mean?”

  “She knew,” Peggs said, almost a whisper. “Our mother knew what they were.”

  “That’s why she hid on your wagon.” Jenn’s eyes widened. “She knew you could take her where Horst couldn’t follow.” Like Wen and Wainn. Like Bannan. Poppa’d as much as told her outright. How could she not have understood? Melusine Nalynn had loved Marrowdell because she’d seen it for what it was.

  “Melly was our friend.” Riverstone stepped up. His crystal mask had the strong features of the face he showed the world, its cleft chin and hooked nose, but none of its warmth. His voice, though, was tender. “We helped her roses. You can’t imagine our grief—”