Tempered (A Daughters of the People Novel) (Daughters of the People Series) (7 page)

Late October

Hawthorne
observed Lali’s gentle stretches as they readied for their morning on the mats.
The young girl balanced carefully on one foot, mimicking Hawthorne’s tree pose.
She teetered and fell, giggling on the way down.

A child’s
laughter was a treasure Hawthorne never tired of hearing.

“When are we
gonna go to the park, Nana?”

“After you
practice somersaulting.” Hawthorne shifted smoothly, reversing her pose to
balance on the other leg. “This we do each day. Why do you continue to ask?”

“Because.” Lali
dragged the last syllable out into two distinct sounds as she flopped over onto
her back. “I wanna go now.”

“Somersaults
first.”

Lali hefted a
sigh, her chest rising and falling sharply with her breath. “You’re a hard
woman, Nana.”

“I am, indeed.”
Hawthorne dropped to the floor beside her granddaughter and smoothed the wispy
blonde hair from her forehead. “Who told you that?”

“Levi,” Lali
said cheerfully. She pointed her toes at the ceiling, staring at them with one
eye open and one squeezed tightly shut. “I asked him to marry me.”

“And did he say
yes?”

“No.” Lali
dropped her legs onto the mat with a thud. “He said I was too young and we was
cushions and it was wrong and how one day my prince would come along and then
I’d be sorry I’d married him.”

Hawthorne bit
back amusement at the child’s sing-songy recital. “Did he, now. I suppose he
was right.”

“But I’m a
Daughter. I’m s’posed to take what I want, not wait for it.” Lali flopped onto
her belly with another heavy sigh. “This growin’ up business is hard on a body,
Nana.”

“It is indeed.”
Hawthorne patted Lali’s back and shook her gently, eliciting another giggle.
“Come now. Time for somersaults.”

They worked on
the mat for half an hour, the most Lali’s young mind would tolerate before
giving in to restlessness. Hawthorne allowed her own mind to wander as she
adjusted Lali’s form, correcting her gently, helping her learn how to roll into
a somersault from a handstand.

The illustrator
her editor had chosen would arrive that week. Hawthorne had not inquired as to
the identity. As long as it was not Aaron Kesselman, and there was no chance of
that, she did not care whom she worked with. Her heart was no longer quite as
sore from Aaron’s words at DragonCon, but she had no wish to see him again. One
encounter had been enough.

She closed her
mind off to his memory, still vividly fixed into her mind, focusing instead on
Lali’s chatter and the many items that needed her attention that week. Maria
had taken the week off for a well-deserved vacation, leaving the house
sparkling and the kitchen well-stocked. A shipment of Hawthorne’s latest novels
should arrive on any day. Lali would need to be reminded of the rules for
opening the door, though there was little fear of her letting in a stranger.
Still, good habits were easier to build than bad ones were to break.

After completing
their exercise, they retired to the kitchen for a mid-morning snack of fruit
and cheese. Lali climbed onto the chair Hawthorne brought to the sink and
carefully washed grapes. Hawthorne stood beside her, preparing kiwi while Lali
chatted happily. The doorbell rang as they were sitting down to their snack.

Lali slid off
her chair. “I gots it.”

“Think before
you act,” Hawthorne reminded her.

Lali nodded
solemnly. “Yes, Nana.”

“What are the
rules for opening the door?”

“Always peek through
the hole first to see who it is,” Lali recited dutifully. “Never open the door
to a stranger. Come get you instead.”

“And when you
are past the age of decision?”

“Never open the
door to a stranger without a weapon in my hand.” Lali shifted excitedly from
one foot to the other. “Can I open it now, Nana?”

“You may.”

Lali skidded
off, her bare feet pattering rapidly along the wood floor as she scampered
through the house. Hawthorne listened carefully, heard the pause between
footsteps and the squeak of the door, and was satisfied that Lali had obeyed
her instructions. A moment later, booted feet thudded into the hallway
accompanied by the bright voice of her granddaughter.

Hawthorne
sighed. That was not the UPS man.

She rose and
made her way to the front door. Bobby Upton stood just inside it, holding an enraptured
Lali in the crook of his arm. He was a handsome man in his own way, with his
father’s dark hair, and hazel eyes lit by his mother’s ruthless determination.
He was also a warrior, a worthy Son of the People with a successful business he
and two of his friends had built from the ground up. Hawthorne had quietly made
inquiries into his availability as a mate on behalf of her unmarried progeny,
and had been just as quietly turned away. Young Bobby had given his heart away
long ago.

In this,
Hawthorne envied him.

“Lali, darling,
when a stranger appears at the door, you must fetch me.”

“Strangers are
ugly and mean.” Lali leaned her head against Bobby’s chest and blinked up at
him with wide, gray eyes. “He’s very pretty, like a puppy. Can I keep him?”

Only in the mind
of a four-year-old could such logic be reasonable, Hawthorne thought.

“This one’s
asked me to marry her.” Bobby goosed Lali’s ribs, earning a giggle. “I suppose
we’ll have to arrange a contract now.”

“I shall not
hold you to her word. She has proposed to a string of young men,” Hawthorne
said drily.

“That’s a
Daughter for you.” Bobby set Lali on the floor and ruffled her hair with one
calloused hand. “You have a minute?” he asked Hawthorne.

“For the son of
the Blade, always.” Hawthorne turned a stern look on Lali. “You will eat your
snack and consider the dangers of opening the door to the wrong person.”

Lali wilted and
heaved a heartfelt sigh. “Yes, ma’am.” She trudged through the doorway, her steps
dragging as if she were preparing to face a firing squad.

Hawthorne
stopped Bobby from following after her, amused by his concerned expression.
Such tender sentiment from a man who had spent a good portion of his life eradicating
the enemies of his country. “It is an act,” Hawthorne said softly. “She
attempts to stir your sympathy.”

Bobby grinned
ruefully and shook his head. “She had me there, too.”

“You are too
soft,” Hawthorne chided. “Someday, you will have children and will learn the
value of a firm hand.”

A shadow crossed
his face and the grin dropped away. “Let’s hope. Is there someplace we can
talk?”

Hawthorne led
him to her office, a large room situated in the left wing of house. It doubled
as space for her personal library, the part of it others were allowed to see.
She had always been proud of this room, with its sturdy décor and cozy
atmosphere. When Lali had come to live with her, Hawthorne had installed a wood
heater in the fireplace and made room for a collection of children’s books. Occasionally,
she replaced the furniture. More frequently, she added books to the shelves,
moved others to her vault, and culled still others as donations to the local
library. For the past two decades, this space had been her sanctuary, a refuge
from the world where she could create her beloved stories in peace.

She took a seat
behind her desk, pleased when Bobby waited for her to sit, then took his own.
Such lovely manners. Another treasure to be cultivated. “You have business to
discuss.”

“Mom’s asked me to
track down a group of Daughters who are believed to have betrayed the People,
possibly by working with the Shadow Enemy.”

Hawthorne
inclined her head once. “There are always those who stray from the fold.”

“In this case,
the straying hits pretty close to home. A few months ago, Mom came across a
list of names.” Bobby leaned forward, his gaze steady on hers. “Isolde was on
that list.”

“The daughter of
my sister,” Hawthorne murmured. “Have you proof of her betrayal?”

“Only
suspicion.” His shrugged, his muscled shoulders stretching the knit fabric of
his black shirt. “Since she’s a member of the Council of Seven, I figured the
situation called for a bit of tact.”

“You came to me
for tact?”

Bobby grinned,
an irreverent gleam in his eyes. “You’re her elder.”

“And the
rightful heir to her seat on the Council.” Hawthorne considered him carefully.
“With her gone, I would have to claim it, thus realigning the political
leanings of the Council. Is this your mother’s purpose?”

“Far as I know,
her only purpose is to uncover those who might be undermining our common
goals,” Bobby said in a hard voice. “Eliminating the threat posed by the Shadow
Enemy, ensuring the fulfillment of the Prophecy of Light. Who sits on the
Council doesn’t enter into it.”

“The arrangement
of the Council should always be well considered, young Upton.”

“Not this time,”
he insisted.

“At all times.”
Hawthorne inhaled a slow breath, exhaling it on a regretful sigh. “I cannot assist
your efforts, though I shall not hinder your progress.”

The doorbell
rang, chiming through the hallway outside Hawthorne’s office. Bobby stood and
bowed. “Fair enough. Thank you for your time, Maetyrm.”

“It is always a
pleasure to have such company.” The bell rang again. A chair skidded in the
kitchen a moment before Lali’s feet beat a rapid tattoo on the floor. “I shall
see you to the door, else Lali is likely to allow the world to enter.”

“Only if it has
a handsome face.”

The low murmur
of a familiar male voice drifted through the hallway. Hawthorne’s heart tripped
in her chest and her breath hitched.
It could not be
.

Bobby’s hand
came to her elbow, steadying her. “You ok? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Not a ghost, merely
the ghost of a memory.”

“You, too, huh.”
Bobby snorted. “Love’s a bitch, ain’t it.”

“Just so,”
Hawthorne agreed. She led her guest to the door, half hoping she had heard
wrong, half afraid she had not.

* * *

It was a long
drive from Hartsfield International, south of Atlanta, to the snug community of
Tellowee in northeast Georgia. Aaron sat in the back of a hired car, pencil
moving swiftly over paper as he sketched, and chatted with Hank, the
sixty-something cabbie with a lean, wrinkled face and the shambling, cocksure
walk of a man half his age. He was only too happy to give the low down on the best
restaurants, where to get tickets at a good price, and a hundred other things
only a local would know. Aaron figured Hank’s well of knowledge would come in
handy if Hawthorne didn’t behead him on arrival.

Nearly two hours
after leaving the airport, Hank turned off the interstate and followed a series
of roads through ever more sparsely populated areas. The land narrowed as they
drove, from the wide, rolling cityscape of Atlanta’s suburbs into rift valleys
where houses clung to the sides of mountains and cattle grazed on thin strips
of land along the roadside, bracketed between the elevated roadway and swiftly
flowing creeks. Lush, verdant forests dressed in autumn’s colors covered the
mountaintops and hawks soared overhead. Aaron pressed his face against the
window, watching one circling lazily overhead and another sitting placidly on a
nearby utility line, its head cocked at the car speeding by.

 Half an hour
outside of the small town of Clayton, they drove past two small green signs,
one posted above the other, that read
Tellowee
,
Unincorporated
. The
cab topped a hill and the land widened out again. Houses reappeared, stationed
at irregular intervals along the side of the road while side streets of varying
sizes shot randomly at odd angles off of the main road. A few minutes later, they
entered downtown Tellowee, a thriving, well-maintained area exactly two blocks
long and one block deep on each side of Main Street. Jagged rows of stores
lined the streets, their windows displaying witches and ghosts and goblins.

Men and women,
more of the latter than the former, jogged up and down the sidewalks, pushed
baby carriages into and out of stores, or gossiped in the tiny cafés and
doorways. Several women marked the cab’s progress as it passed by. Aaron glanced
back. All of them had pulled out phones and were texting or calling someone.

He turned around
to enjoy the view. They passed a huge gated complex on their left, circled by a
high, solid fence and honest-to-God guard towers. Aaron tried to read the small
sign imbedded in the wall next to a guardhouse, and lost his view when a guard
stepped in front of it, phone to ear as her eyes followed the cab’s progress.

Strange. Either
everyone in Tellowee was paranoid or the residents really liked talking on
their phones.

Not long after,
Hank executed a gentle stop on the side of the street behind a late ‘80s model
Chevy pickup. “Here we is,” he said cheerfully. “Safe and sound, or my name
ain’t Hank Wilder.”