Mearsies Heili Bounces Back (38 page)

I prowled around the forest, which was still dripping after
the long rainstorm, and then I left my bad mood (or tried to) and zapped up to
the highest tower. There, I mentally poked at my talk with Clair, wondering why
it made me so mad. I finally figured that it was that business about Raneseh
and Pralineh and Rel all thinking I was a lying brat. And then I remembered my
promise to Pralineh: to come back when it was all over.

This was the second thing.

I knew I had to go back.

Well, maybe it was time to try the long distance transfer
spell on my own.

But ... I remembered the way I’d left, and the turmoil
started all over again. Suddenly I wondered if Rel went around saying
As
bratty as that terrible snot we had here who pretended she was a princess
the way I said crummy things about him.

So I thought, well, why not go back in disguise?

Relieved by this chicken-out idea, I went down and told
Clair. She agreed that I ought to go. Together we figured out what time it might
be in Tser Mearsies (and I thought once again, we need to get big maps). I
borrowed one of Irene’s stage outfits—a wig with short curly hair, and a plain,
sturdy outfit that would not gain notice in Tser Mearsies.

Early the next morning I got ready. I envisioned that stone
wall where I jumped over into the road when I first escaped. I could so clearly
see that stone, it was better than any Destination tile pattern. Then I
gathered my strength, carefully did the spell ... and it worked!

When the dizziness faded, I found myself crouched right
where I’d been when I left that day. It was evening, cold and windy. It felt so
weird to be there again—unreal.

A promise is a promise, I thought, and walked around to open
the little gate. The trees looked the same in the moonlight, and as I passed
places I remembered, it was good to think that Clair was at home and everything
was all right, because an echo of all my worries scrambled back to smack me in
the spirit like a six week old fish.

So this is another type of adventure, I told myself as I
walked up to the servants’ part of the house. My mind almost believed it, but
my heart clattered at top speed.

I rapped on the door, and a servant I recognized peered out.
She looked surprised, but only to see someone there—she didn’t recognize me as
I said, “I’m traveling. May I have lodging for the night?” I pointed toward the
north. “Rain is coming.”

“Come into the kitchen, where it is warm, while I ask the
Holder.”

She led me past all the laundry and storage rooms toward the
kitchen. I smelled the remains of their dinner, and my stomach woke up. At home
it was early morning still, and I’d been too weirded out by this mess to eat.

Inside the kitchen, I had a second to see that everything
was the same, and to feel the warmth from the oven, and then I saw Rel.

He was sitting at the big preparation table, where the servants
ate after the family had been served. Rel looked up at us, then back at his
dinner. He looked bigger, somehow, than I’d remembered. Like he was looming at
me.

I got mad all over again.

Maraneh, the servant, appeared. “Sit down, child, and I’ll
dish you something up. The Holder says you are welcome.”

“Thank you.” I made my voice low. It sounded fake—and the
wig made my scalp itch. I thought disguises were supposed to be fun!

Not when a baggie is
looming
at you, I thought,
turning my back on Rel.

Maraneh brought me some savory-smelling pepper soup and a chunk
of bread, then nodded at the butter dish. “Sit at the table,” she said, when I
looked around the kitchen for somewhere besides that table.

Sooooo I sat down, lowered my head, and dug in. The food was
good, and it gave me something to do so I wouldn’t look at Mount Loom over
there.

I felt eyes crawling all over me—ominous as a vulture on a
branch, as an avalanche about to fall. I finally snuck a peek ... to discover
he was just getting up.

He left, without a word or even a sign that another person
was in the room.
And that’s reason #57 why I hate you
, I thought, and
imagined how much expression old stone-face would show if I whistled up my Shoe
and gave him a good launch.

Maraneh came in when I was done. “The Holder will interview
you now.”

“Thanks for the dinner,” I said, biting back an
okay.
People
here didn’t say ‘okay.’

Now it got really weird, that walk along the glass walls
with the painted motifs under the ceiling, all the way to the Raneseh’s lair.

Raneseh was there, and everything was the same, right down
to the tiny chip on the very end of his desk that I hadn’t remembered until I
saw it again. He was obviously in the middle of writing letters, but looked up
patiently, and, well, there we all were.

I say ‘we’ because Lord Talks-a-Lot was right there in his
old place behind Raneseh’s chair. Looming.

Raneseh greeted me politely, said that they didn’t often
have visitors, and where was I from?

“Long way away.” I waved a hand. “I’m kind of on a tour.”

“Stay as long as you like.”

I thanked him and skedaddled.

When I got to the hallway on my way back to the kitchen, I
spotted Pralineh, who’d come out of her parlor to see what was going on. When
she saw someone her own age, her face brightened. “Would you like to join me?”
she asked.

My instinct was to hide, but I was supposed to be here to
keep my promise. So I agreed, and followed her into the sitting room,
remembering too clearly that the last time I was here I was faking away at
being a friend while figuring out how to steal stuff from her.

“Where are you from? Where-to do you go?” She picked up her
embroidery with a sigh. “We have so few visitors.”

“Really? This is a very fine house.”

“It is comfortable, but we are not active in society as some
families. Most of my father’s visitors are grown men, and dull. My visitors are
always my neighbors.”

“Most of?”

“Yes. Once ...” She looked aside. “My father had a, a guest.
Your age. Here for a time.”

“Oh,” I said, and now I really felt uncomfortable. The wig itched,
my innards roiled around so I wished I hadn’t taken aboard that
dinner-for-breakfast, and I cursed myself for being a bathead and a clotpole.
And even so, I still wanted her to talk about me.

But Pralineh just tipped her head, her brow puckered, and
she obviously decided against whatever it was she was thinking. “You must see
many people from different places on your travels.”

“Oh, that I do,” I said.

She smiled. “What can you tell me?”

I told her about what had happened to me after I left
here—only backward, as if the earliest things had just happened, right down to
the rope walk. She looked vaguely surprised at that, and I wondered if they
hadn’t had a rope walk lately, but she didn’t say anything.

I left out names—no Puddlenose, Captain Heraford, and no
Chwahir. After that, we talked a little about her sewing, and then it was time
for bed.

I ducked past her maid and bucketed back to the kitchen,
where I assured Maraneh (who came looking for me) that I’d be perfectly happy
with a blanket in front of the oven, I didn’t care how early they got up to put
the bread in.

I couldn’t sleep, of course.

So I let myself out, and ghost footed to the garden, making
sure I was not in view of any of the windows. Though I did peek, and everyone
had pulled their drapes.

So I climbed up the highest tree and sat there as clouds
slowly piled up, blotting out the stars, and just thought. A little of my old
feelings stirred up inside, bringing images of home, of Arthla, of the harbor
from the high point. I wasn’t homesick, of course, so there was none of that
sharp, hurtful worry about Clair and the girls that had goaded me so horribly
before.

I felt restless, and I knew it had to do with this dumb
disguise, and with the fact that I was here, but I not only hadn’t heard anything
about myself, I’d lied to these people more than I had before. I had no excuse.
Clair was not in danger, and Kwenz had been defeated. I’d taken a bunch of
steps backward, somehow.

Pralineh had obviously thought something about me. She’d
been glad to have a visitor—any visitor. Maybe she didn’t care if
I
ever
came back.

Well, I had kept my promise, sort of, in a kind of cowardly
way. But it wasn’t enough. So that meant I’d stay the night, and not slink
away.

o0o

I woke up wrapped in my blanket cocoon as rain tapped at the
windows.

“Hey, you.”

I woke to a familiar voice. Rel!

I’d forgotten that he got up with the servants.

I uncovered an eye, to find him upside down, looming right
over
me. Air reached my face—and my scalp.

The wig had come off in the night.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I wasn’t sure that was
you until you came back to the study.”

I scrambled out of the blanket, shoved the wig into my
pocket, and glowered at him.

“This way,” he said abruptly. “The kitchen staff needs the
room.”

I was poised to run, then remembered I had my magic—and this
was what I had come for. So I stiffened my spine and stalked after him, only my
bare feet made no noise on the stone floor.

We went to the storage room where they kept the rag bin. “What
are you doing here?” he asked again. His tone wasn’t threatening, but it wasn’t
friendly, either. It was just ... Rel.

“Sleeping.” It was weak for a crack, but I’d just woken.

He made what would almost be a semblance of a possibility of
what could by a stretch of imagination be called the beginnings of a smile. “You
know what gave you away?”

“When I saw your ugly mug I was so ready to barf you
remembered me,” I said sweetly. I was waking up fast—nothing like a good, brisk
hate to get the brains boiling.

He looked faintly disgusted, and my face heated up—I was
being a brat and a clod, I knew it.

“Those blue eyes,” he said. “You’re still angry at me. You
don’t understand why we didn’t trust you.”

“It’s you,” I fumed. “
Looming
at a person, just like
a baggie.”

He snorted. “Just because I had to waste my time trying to
keep you put for what we thought was your own safety—”

“And you just love doing Raneseh’s dirty work,” I said
snidely.

“Dirty work,” he repeated, and for a
second
I thought
he was going to laugh. But nope, he just stood there and
Relled
at me. “I
assure you, we meant the best before we found out.”

“Found out?” I repeated. “Found out what?”

“That the discrepancies between what you told us and the
Guardian’s words weighed in your favor. But it took time to discover. You’d
left by the time Raneseh’s message could reach his contact, and be answered.”

“You mean, you didn’t write to Kwenz?”

“What would be the point? It was against him that you
leveled your accusation. We wanted to set up a meeting, with Raneseh’s contact
to mediate.”

I sighed with relief. “And so now you want to know why I’m
back.”

“I figured it wouldn’t be to visit. I knew it when you wore
that odd disguise, yet when you turned my way, there was that familiar glare.”

I laughed. Kinda painfully.

“So you still hold my actions against me.”

He didn’t look mad, just ... Rel.

“Gnarg,” I cracked. “Who wouldn’t, after taking a look at
your
glowering glare?”

“My glare?” He looked surprised.

“All the time,” I said, and then, I made a huge effort and
swallowed down my nasties, and said, “Well, it looks like a glare. You look
like you’re going to take a bite out of somebody. Can’t you smile like a normal
person? Afraid it will crack?”

He made a sudden, fake smile with about a million teeth.

“Eugh, that’s disgusting,” I grinched, knowing now that he
was
laughing, he just didn’t make any noise.

“I was born the way I am,” he said, going back to normal.

I stared at him. Not at the Rel expression, but I squinted,
trying to see the person. “You were born with those features,” I said. “But I
think it took a billion years of practice to get that look—”

It was then that a whole lot of stuff tentacled into place.
If tentacles can actually do that. I was looking at his dark eyes, and I
realized the difference between the way they looked at me—at people—and the way
he’d looked when up at the wilderness. That lift of the face, the gaze that
Puddlenose turned on windows the day before he’d take off.

“You’re no happier than I was here,” I said, almost falling
over, the discovery made me so dizzy. “You shoulda left
centuries
ago.”

“I’m not that old,” he said, but it was automatic. What his
tone said was, Whaaaa?

“The Wander. What we in MH call Andrea’s Call. Why you dress
like that, when you could be like all the ladies and gentlemen. Why you like
the wilderness. We had someone in Mearsies Heili named Andrea, she wouldn’t do
what her family wanted for the good of their fortune, and they killed her for
it. It’s said her spirit roams the forestland. But Raneseh wouldn’t bump you
off, he’s too nice. You stay because of, of, of
duty
. Don’t you?”

He looked away, and toward the window, and those purple
mountains to the north. He didn’t grin, but his face relaxed. Just a little.

“I’ll bet my Boot you’ve wanted to go wandering.”

“Yes,” he said finally. “But there is no purpose in it. I’ve
purpose here, as aide to Raneseh.”

“Have you told him?” I asked, my toes curling on the stone
floor. It seemed impossible to be having this talk—but here we were.

“Part of doing one’s duty is not to oblige others,” he
began.

“But if you’ve got the Call ... like Puddlenose. And Autumn,
of Bermund. And that man in the song you like. I bet Raneseh would understand.”