“No I won’t.” I snapped, holding on tightly to the tree branch we were perched on. “I’ve got nothing to put in her food. Do you think I carry laxatives around with me? And they’ll all wonder where I’ve came from, and Toy’s suspicious enough already, and —”
“We have to do something,” she cried. Her voice broke on the last word and she started to sob silently.
My heart went all soft. Fear was replaced by tenderness. I put my arms around her and rubbed her back and called her a poor old thing while she wept uncontrollably on my shoulder.
“What on earth is in that letter?” I asked her, as the first weeping fit passed.
“I have been a terrible, terrible fool. I lost my nerve and I ruined everything. Everything.” And she started to weep again.
“Oh, Klea,” I said, sensing exhaustion in her weeping. “When did you last eat? Or rest? You can’t go on like this. I know it seems bad, but we can still recover. There’s another day of chances. I know where there might be some food. Let’s get out of here.”
She didn’t say anything, but she took some deep breaths, dried her eyes, picked me up and followed my directions.
A mile or so away there was another shrine to the Mooncat near a small lake. As I had hoped, someone had made a recent offering: an entire cheese, still safely sealed in its wax coating. The forest animals had nibbled at the fruit left on the altar, but there were some apples still untouched. A little washing in the lake and they were fine to eat. Now Klea had wept, she seemed tired; but she had also relaxed at little. I could still sense underlying tension but she wasn’t panicking anymore.
It was midday and the pale spring sun had some warmth in it at last. We stretched out on the grass near the lake.
“I guess you’re right. There is still tonight. Till then I should try and rest. Thanks for calming me down. I wish I had you living with me in Crystalline.” She bit appreciatively into an apple. “Want to come and manage my affairs? The pay’s lousy, but you’d get to spend time in my delightful company.”
“I think that would be far too great an honour for humble little me,” I quipped.
“True,” she quipped back. “The great and the good are lining up do my accounts.”
“What’s in that letter?” I asked, thinking she might be softened now.
“Full of questions, aren’t you? You’d hate me if you knew, so it’s better that you don’t.”
“Have you harmed someone one?” I asked, too afraid to say killed.
“No, nothing like that. I promise,” said Klea.
I felt my shoulders relax, as relief rushed into me.
“The only person I’ve harmed is myself. Almost,” she continued.
“I can’t imagine you would have done anything really bad,” I said.
“You are a sweetie,” she said. She sighed. “It’s so much harder than I thought it would be.”
“What?” I said.
“Nothing. Thanks, Shine. You’ve been great. Sorry about the hysterics.”
It was odd to be the strong one here. Mages have the power, not mundanes. Odd to be the one giving help instead of receiving it.
“It was nothing. I understand, even if you won’t tell me what it’s about.”
That was a supportive lie. I was dying to know what was in the letter. If I got it, I wouldn’t be able to resist reading it. If only she would stop being so secretive, maybe I could suggest something to help. A new perspective, something she wouldn’t have thought of.
“Thanks,” she said.
I was starting to feel embarrassed.
“Anyway,” I said, to lighten the mood. “I’ve always been grateful to you for letting me out of that cupboard.”
“The cupboard? Oh, back at the house in Elayison! Bless, weren’t Blazeann and Lumi pigs? All those names they called you. Why did they pick on us, anyway? They were already mages by then. Should have just ignored us. Lumi always was a mean rat, though. Hey, did we do anything to get them back? Was that when I put a frog in their beds?”
“No, we stole every left shoe from Lumina’s wardrobe and every right one from Blazeann’s. Do you remember?”
“And locked them in the cupboard they left you in! That was a brainy idea. That was yours, wasn’t it?”
“I thought it was yours.”
“Clearly we’re both geniuses.”
I laughed. We were silent then—a comfortable silence. I thought if I stayed quiet, Klea would fall asleep. She needed the rest.
Something splashed in the lake. I sat up in fright but it was only a duck landing on the water.
“Don’t worry,” said Klea. Her eyes were closed. “They’re nowhere near. I’d bet on it.”
“No, it’s not that.”
“What, then?”
“You’ll laugh at me.”
“I promise I won’t “
“I’m a bit scared of this lake. Once... Well, Bright and I used to come here a lot. It’s so pretty. One day we stole some Holy Wine from the priest, you know the stuff that they make out of puffballs, and brought it out here to drink. It was for a dare.”
She laughed “So what does this stuff do?”
“It’s fascinating. Everything seems to glow, then it turns different colours. Anyway we were lying here soaking up the sunshine, enjoying seeing the purple clouds in the orange sky. Then a woman came out of the water.”
“What?”
“There was a kind of shushing, rustling noise and I looked up and there she was, a woman-shaped column of water rising out of the lake.” I traced a rough shape with my hands. “As if a wave had reared up out of the pool. She came up taller than a human and you could see through her and she swirled around with a sound like a stream and she looked at us.”
“Ladybless!” breathed Klea.
“She started to slide towards us,” I said, enjoying her reaction. “She seemed... sort of curious. Her head was turned slightly on one side. And we stared at her, we were too surprised to do anything else. Anyway, I think she must have got between us and the sun. I felt so cold all of a sudden. And I got scared—or Bright did—anyway, we yelled and she just collapsed. Slid back into the water.”
“Lady,” breathed Klea again. “What do you think...? Was it really...?”
“Hilly said it was real. The Spirit of the Lake. Of course, the peasants believe these things. They take the Holy Wine as part of a religious ritual. They say it helps you see spirits.”
“But you both saw it.”
“Yes. We never came here again. But I figure that I’m safe enough with you.”
“I wonder if I’d be any use against a spirit.”
“At least we could run away quickly.”
Klea gave a little humph. “That’s all I seem to do these days.”
“I don’t blame you for wanting to be free of the family.”
“Why don’t you...?”
“I can’t leave Eff.”
“She’s a grown up,” said Klea. “She’d manage.”
“Not after what happened to Bright.” I told Klea about Eff’s broken nerves and she made suitably sympathetic noises. “If things had gone as normal and Bright was still in Elayison, he’d be able to come down for visits. And there was some hope that he’d be able to sponsor her back out of exile. Now she has no hope, and Bright’s in the army and a long way away. And it’s very lonely for her out here. She’s clever, interested in ideas. At least I can give her some of that.”