Craft

by Lynnie Purcell

  “I called you twice,” Neveah said.

  “She fell asleep reading in that shack of hers,” Careen said.

  “Books!” Grandma Bumbalow scoffed. “What good is reading when there’s work to be done?! That fluff is gonna tear up her brain, Neveah.”

  To an outsider, it would have looked as if Grandma Bumbalow was frowning at Ellie’s hobby of reading, but Grandma Bumbalow was always frowning. She was the sort of woman who never took pleasure in anything not thought of by her first. Even then, one was hard-pressed to find her smiling over her ideas. Grandpa Bumbalow was a mirror of his wife, not only in the long, hard years reflected on his face – he was the oldest living Bumbalow in recorded Bumbalow history – but also in his expression. Some said Grandma Bumbalow’s foul temper had worn Grandpa down to where he even looked like her, while others thought the feud had made him bitter and angry. All Ellie knew was that the two of them combined made Neveah look saintly in comparison.

  “Reading’s for the Coopers,” Grandpa Bumbalow added. “People who don’t know good common sense if it’s spitting in their face. You a Cooper, girl?”

  It took all of Ellie’s patience not to speak back to them. Her heart was pounding with her increased emotion. They could have insulted her until time ended and she would have managed to ignore it, but her books were another matter. Her books had taught her more than the grandparents ever had. They were her friends in a sea of people who saw her as nothing more than a girl who cleaned Neveah’s house. She fought the anger with effort. She reminded herself how dangerous it was to lose control. She kept her smile in place.

  “Momma sends the books to her,” Careen answered before Ellie could.

  “Your momma is as foolish as the Coopers,” Grandpa Bumbalow said. “Never trusted that girl with my son. ’Course she’s a Thomas by birth, a local, sure enough, but too far from a Bumbalow, if you ask me.”

  Ellie knew it was the worst insult he could think to make. Calling her momma similar to the Coopers was the same as calling her trash. Ellie’s face grew red from the insult. It was harder to keep her cool at that insult. Though her momma had left her in Neveah’s care, which was bad to anyone with sense, her momma was also the only person in the family who treated Ellie as if Ellie understood anything. Momma was the only one who sent Ellie books. She had shown Ellie a world outside of the house she had always known. The stories gave Ellie hope for the future. There was more to life than cleaning and beatings.

  Sensing trouble she was not in the mood for, Neveah changed the subject. She was focused on the Coopers and the attack on the house. She was eager to understand how the Coopers had managed to attack them, and what the family was going to do about it next. She needed to understand, so that she could properly pay the Coopers back for the attack.

  “How do you think the Coopers got through the boundaries we keep up?” Neveah asked the grandparents. “The boundaries have lasted since your day.”

  “It wasn’t done with their crafting, to be sure,” Grandma Bumbalow said. “They ain’t got enough skill in the lot of them to get through our craft.”

  “True enough,” Neveah said. “But I think we need to increase the wards on our side of the line, to be sure it don’t happen again. Even an old dog learns new tricks eventually. They must have figured out the wards. We gotta assume they got more tricks up their sleeves.”

  Grandpa and Grandma Bumbalow nodded at the same time. They could see Neveah’s point. They had spent a lifetime around the Coopers. They knew that even the Coopers occasionally came up with some surprising craft.

  “Could be,” Grandpa Bumbalow decided. “I’ll get Cousin and his boys to get to work on our end. You and your sister get Eugenia to help on this end. We’ll get this situation resolved before they can come back again.”

  “How’d you know they were coming for you anyhow?” Grandma Bumbalow asked.

  “Saw ’em creeping in the field,” Neveah said, taking credit from Ellie. “One of ’em made a light. They were as obvious as day.”

  Ellie knew better to refute Neveah’s claim. The grandparents would side with Neveah. There would only be pain for trying to take credit from Neveah. Neveah’s statement was the last straw. Ellie could not sit through the conversation any longer. Her body shook with her anger.

  “May I be excused?” Ellie asked.

  “To where?” Grandpa Bumbalow asked. “You ain’t got nothing to do. The way I hear it, you’re a lazy, good-for-nothing girl who takes advantage of her sisters’ crafting, then acts hateful for it when it’s done. If I were in your shoes, I’d be feeling grateful I had sisters so willing to look after me. It’s not like your momma wanted you…”

  “I don-” Ellie started to protest.

  “You can go,” Neveah interrupted.

  Neveah was more worried about the Cooper’s attack than getting Ellie in trouble. The fighting was more entertaining right now. Neveah wanted to make sure the family was safe. Her concerns outweighed her normal desire to punish Ellie any way she could. Punishment would come later.

  “We got some adult talking to do, anyway,” Neveah added.

  Ellie was glad for the excuse to go. For once, she did not have to endure the hour of her grandparents’ stay with smiles and nods of agreement. She hurried out of the living room before the grandparents could add to the insults they had already piled on her.

  Outside again, she paced in front of the kitchen door to get hold of her temper. The day was already hot, though it was not yet mid-morning. The sweat gathered on Ellie’s neck and back. The heat added to the anger funneling through her veins.

  Ellie could not decide what to do. The shack was her normal refuge, but she was slightly scared to go back. The man might have woken up. It was possible he was currently lying in wait to kill her when she returned. Hanging around the house meant dealing with the Neveah and the grandparents. She did not want them to see her ‘doing nothing.’ The second option was definitely the worst of two evils. Ellie decided to take the risk and check on the man. At least he would kill her quickly. She would not have to suffer for very long. Decided, Ellie moved through the tall grass to her shack.

  The man was still out cold. She checked his head and his side to make sure she had crafted the healing properly. As she checked him, she felt strangely afraid. It was not fear for her safety. It was fear for his. She hoped he was unconscious because of exhaustion and not from her craft. She was not confident that she had done everything right.

  Sometimes, her first attempts at new craft had unusual results. Her first attempt at creating a chair had filled her shack with bees. It was a lesson she had never forgotten: to keep her mind focused on what she wanted. Was it possible she had gotten distracted while healing him? Had she done something irreversibly wrong to him? That thought worried her as much as the thought of him waking up to kill her. She did not want to be responsible for hurting him. She was committed to healing him. She would not know the truth until he woke up. There was nothing she could do until then.

  Ellie crafted a chair near the door and picked up her book off the coffee table. Around her reading, she kept a careful eye out for signs he was stirring. She saw more of his face than she did the page. It was not just fear that drew her eyes to his face. The curiosity of him lingered in her mind. She knew she would never have another chance to meet someone so strange. She would never have another chance to be so close to a Cooper without the threat of immediate death.

  Though her eyes remained locked on his face, Ellie did not expect the craft when it came. Ropes appeared out of nowhere and twisted around Ellie’s wrists and ankles. She felt the craft as soon as the man started it, but she was unable to perform her own counter-crafting before the ropes had wrapped around her wrists. The man was too quick, and she was not used to using craft to fight.

  The man jumped off the sofa as the ropes tied themselves in careful knots around her ankles. Ellie felt terror crawl through her chest as he approached her. His eyes were darker than when he had
first looked at her, and his expression was hard. He was not nearly as handsome as when he was sleeping peacefully. To her, the hard expression reflected the face of her killer. He stopped directly in front of her and glared down at her.

  Ellie’s first instinct was to call out for help. She sucked in a deep breath in preparation for the yell, but the man was quicker with his words.

  “If you call out, I’ll kill you,” he said in an unaccented voice.

  As he spoke, Ellie realized he was not so much a man as he was a boy. He could not have been much older than she was, perhaps, sixteen or seventeen at the most. His voice broke a bit over the threat. His voice knew his doubt even if his mind did not. He was not the seasoned killer he was trying to portray himself as being.

  Ellie clamped her lips together and looked up at him. While she sensed he was not certain what he would do, she sensed the capability to do whatever it took to escape. He had a survivor’s instinct. He would find the ability if it came to it. Besides, he was a Cooper, and Coopers were born with the ability to kill; it was in their nature. Certain he had scared Ellie into silence, he started pacing in front of her. His uncertainty for the situation found relief in movement.

  “Why did you bring me to this prison? Torture? Leverage?” he demanded. “My family won’t pay to get me back.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ellie said in a small voice.

  “Oh, right, I forgot,” he said. “Bumbalows don’t understand the big words. You don’t believe in schools or something. You’ve all got the educational level of second graders…”

  Ellie’s fear was replaced by her indignation. He had no right to insult her and her family without knowing her first. She was not going to let someone with no accent and cold eyes tell her she was not as smart as he was. Her anger gave her courage.

  “I know what those words mean!” Ellie said. “I don’t understand why you think this is a prison. I'm not trying to keep you here. Fact, the sooner you leave the better.”

  “You put vines on the outside of the door to keep me here!” he said, his voice rising in anger. “Only the greatest crafters we have can shift such plants. Your family is keeping me here, and I demand to be released!”

  “The vines have always been there, since I was born,” Ellie said. “I didn’t put them there on account of you.”

  He was not buying it. He knew the Bumbalows had captured him. Her words could not change what he knew.

  “My family will come for me!” he said. “If you don’t release me now, they will make you pay for this!”

  Ellie knew he was right. Neveah would have gone after even the most distant relative if the Coopers had kidnapped them. She would not sit back and let the kidnapping stand. There would be blood. Ellie could only see one way out of the situation.

  “Why don’t you go to them, instead?” Ellie asked. “I’ll part the vines for you, if you’ll just go away and not kill me.”

  He thought over her words, which sounded much too reasonable to him. His eyes told her that he doubted her truthfulness. He was convinced she was trying to trick him or lead him into a trap. There was no way a Bumbalow gave up a captive so easily.

  “How do I know you won’t use magic on me if I set you free?” he asked.

  “Because I’m scared of you, and because I want you to leave, so your family won’t come back looking for you and hurt my family,” she admitted.

  Her fear was palpable. It was too honest for him to ignore. He went to the sofa and sat down. He did not seem to know what to do with it. He put his head in his hand, so he could think over her offer without having to look at her frightened eyes. He weighed the options, trying to see the lie he knew she had to be hiding.

  Ellie took his moment of thought to focus on her surroundings. While gesturing was an important part of her craft – her family could not function without it – she had been teaching herself how to do her craft without gestures. It was hard and took a lot of concentration, but she could manage small things; things like lifting something off the ground and making it travel short distances. If she could find something to knock him out with, her problem would be solved. She looked around her room in search of an obliging object.

  Ellie saw plenty of things that could be used as a weapon. There were sharp things and dangerous things, but she was not eager to hurt him seriously after spending so much energy healing him. It was not an option she even liked considering, however briefly. She just wanted to make sure he did not kill her for her trouble.

  She focused her attention on a book stacked behind his head, one that would not have to travel too far to reach its destination. It would not kill him, but it would knock him out. She narrowed her eyes in concentration and felt the craft swirl around her eagerly. The book twitched slightly. It was waiting for a wave of her hand to obey the craft. Ellie focused harder on the book. It was all about what her imagination could do. Her only limitation was there. It took a minute before the book finally started to rise off the stack it was resting on. Inch by inch, it defied gravity.

  The boy remained oblivious to the danger. He was lost in trying to figure a way out of the shack that would not risk his life further. His distraction was his undoing.

  Finally satisfied with the book’s height, Ellie made it fly straight at the back of his head. The edge of the large book slammed against his head with a solid ‘thump!’. The boy’s eyes crossed, and he toppled to his side. The book dropped on top of him. He did not make a sound as the heavy book hit him for a second time.

  Ellie craned her neck, to make sure he was unconscious. He did not move. His body was a stone on her floor. She started working at the ropes surrounding her. Twisting her hands as hard as she could against the tough rope, she focused on moving the rope as she had the book. The rope was harder to manipulate. It took more effort without the gesture. She had to maintain her focus, which was difficult as she kept expecting the boy to jump up and attack her again.

  After ten minutes of worry and struggling with the craft, she was able to stand again. The rope dropped to the ground as she stood. It was her turn to tower over the boy. She did not feel nearly as dangerous as he had.

  “Are you pretending?” she asked.

  He did not respond. She bent down and nudged his face tentatively with her finger. He started drooling onto the floor at the touch. He did not try to grab her or use his craft on her. He was out cold. No one was that good of an actor.

  Satisfied the book had done its job, she used the rope he had crafted to bind him from his shoulders to his feet. Aware that he might know how to craft without gestures as well, she crafted a blindfold and a gag. She finished tying him up and backed away to the farthest corner of her shack, just in case. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She had managed something her family had told her she would never be able to do. She had fought a Cooper and won. She could do the same things the others in her family had been doing for years. She could fight the feud. It occurred to her briefly that a more experienced Cooper might have given her trouble, would have killed her without a second glance, but she did not let that ruin her feelings. She savored the moment.

  Her moment did not last. As she looked at him, she realized she did not have a clue what to do next. His attack on her proved that he did not want to be in her shack, almost as much as she did not want him there. She should have known he would not take kindly to being in Bumbalow territory. She would feel the same way if she had awoke in Cooper territory with no memory of how she had gotten there.

  Another question made her doubt her next move. If she did get him back to his kin, would he come back and try to retaliate for tying him up? How would she get him to his kin without knowing where they were or even what direction town was in? Was it dangerous to let him go and make him find his own way? What was the alternative? The questions and the uncertainty danced around in her mind. She was not sure what to do.

  Before she could decide, Ellie felt strong craft in the air. It was the familiar craft of her family
. Convinced the boy had no way of escaping, and that he was still safely unconscious, she decided to see where the craft was coming from. She had to know if the Coopers had come back for their kin.

  Ellie waved her hand and felt the vines around her shack part. She stepped outside and immediately had an answer to her question. Eugenia was to the left of Ellie’s shack and her eyes were on the woods. Her concentration was intense as she held her hand out in front of her. The craft swirled familiarly around the woman. Eugenia smiled briefly when she saw Ellie, though she did not say anything in greeting.

  “What’s going on?” Ellie asked.

  “I’m crafting some wards around the house,” Eugenia said. “Make sure the Coopers don’t sneak up on us again.”

  “What kind of wards?” Ellie asked.

  “No one but a Bumbalow can get through these. Or those we allow. It boils a person from the inside out. You gotta say, ‘I allow this person,’ and then bend the ward to your crafting. Not that you’ll be needing such a thing,” Eugenia said with a small laugh.

  Ellie blinked in surprise at Eugenia’s laugh. She had just been thinking she was glad for Eugenia’s warning. Without it, she would have never gotten the boy off her property safely. All her hard work in healing him would have ended with him boiling like a lobster.

  “No…” Ellie said. “Not me.”

  “Run along now, girly” Eugenia said. “I gotta get this ward up before we move to your cousins’ houses down the way.”

  Awkward and certain Eugenia would see through her lie, Ellie turned back to the shack. She forced her body through the tiniest of cracks in the door, to keep Eugenia from seeing the boy, and closed the door again. She set her back against the door and felt Eugenia continue her craft further down the property line. Ellie had never known them to go so far as to put such strong craft around all of her kin’s property. Most of her family felt safe in their homes. They trusted their crafting abilities to keep them safe from the Coopers. Wards around all their houses felt like overkill. It was proof the attack had rattled the family more than they were willing to admit to Ellie. Their fear made Ellie more determined to get rid of the boy before his family tried to attack again.