The Veil Weavers

1. Title Page
   
2. Book & Copyright Information
   
3. Dedication
   
4. Chapter One – Trick or Treat
   
5. Chapter Two – The Rockies at Dawn
   
6. Chapter Three – The Gathering
   
7. Chapter Four – The Ancient Ones
   
8. Chapter Five – Brox and Vivienne
   
9. Chapter Six – Buffalo Travel
   
10. Chapter Seven – To the Rockwall
    
11. Chapter Eight – The Weavers
    
12. Chapter Nine – Crow by Crow
    
13. Chapter Ten – In the Veil
    
14. Chapter Eleven – Dreaming
    
15. Chapter Twelve – The Ancient Boy
    
16. Author's Note
    
17. Acknowledgements
    
18. About the Author
    

© Maureen Bush, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll-free to 1-800-893-5777.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Edited by Barbara Sapergia

Cover designed by Tania Wolk

Printed and bound in Canada

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Bush, Maureen, 1960-

The veil weavers / Maureen Bush.

(Veil of magic ; bk. 3)

ISBN 978-1-55050-482-8

I. Title. II. Series: Bush, Maureen, 1960- . Veil of

magic ; bk. 3

PS8603.U825V43 2012 jC813'.6 C2011-908524-0

Library of Congress Control Number 2012932998

Available in Canada from:
Coteau Books,
2517 Victoria
Avenue, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
S4P 0T2

www.coteaubooks.com

Coteau Books gratefully acknowledges the financial support of its publishing program by: the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

For Mark, Adriene and Lia,
who actually enjoy the idiosyncrasies
of living with a writer.

Chapter One

Trick or Treat

J
osh,” Mom
”
called from the kitchen,
“could you
and Maddy get the pumpkin ready?”

“Sure,” I yelled. The biggest, ugliest pumpkin we’d ever carved was waiting in the hall. I carried it out to the front steps while Maddy bossed me about where to put it.

We’d carved it to look like Gronvald the troll, the scariest thing we could think of for Halloween. Small eyes and wide slanting eyebrows framed the stem of the pumpkin, turning it into a fat, crooked nose. His mouth opened in a bellow, wide on one side but twisted tight and low on the other.

Once Maddy and I agreed on the perfect spot to set the pumpkin to scare everyone coming up the walk, I lit a candle and placed it inside. It looked just like Gronvald.

A crow glided into the garden and landed on the sidewalk, black against the fresh snow. There were always crows watching me, now. He inspected the pumpkin and then hopped away with a sharp caw. He must have recognized Gronvald.

Last summer, after Maddy found a green stone ring, we’d discovered a magic world separated from the human world by a veil of magic. The ring, the nexus ring, made it easier for magic folk to travel between the worlds. But each time it crossed the veil it left a hole, a tear in the veil, and magic was leaking out.

Gronvald had used the ring to steal gold in the human world; gold was all he cared about. Aleena, a water spirit, loved the ring too. It made it easier for her to visit back and forth between worlds, and she liked to torment Gronvald by keeping it from him. They both desperately wanted the ring back, but we fought to get it to Keeper, the giant at Castle Mountain, who smashed it so it couldn’t damage the veil again.

While we were in the other world I’d absorbed a lot of magic. Maddy doesn’t have any but Keeper says she doesn’t need it – she just fits in naturally. I’m the odd one, except it feels perfectly normal to me.

We left the crow on guard duty and headed to the upstairs bathroom to get Maddy into her costume. She pulled her long blonde hair into a ponytail while I got out the face paint. As soon as I started I could feel magic, only a flicker, but at least it was still there. I drew a hairline in a vee down her forehead, and made it look like fur by drawing thin lines in shades of brown. Then I drew a dark triangle on her nose, and lined her eyes with black to make them look round and dark. When I was done, I handed her the fur hat and fake-fur cape she and Mom had found at a thrift store.

Maddy was dressing as an otter-person, but no one else knows about them so we told people she was an otter. Because she’s only eight, Dad was taking her halloweening. I was meeting friends from my grade seven class, if I could transform myself into a crow. At least I was thin and not too tall, and I had shiny black hair. The mask I’d made would cover my freckles and pale skin.

Once Maddy was ready, she ran downstairs to help Mom with the Halloween treats, and I went to my room and started a drawing. As I worked, magic flowed through me. This was the only time I could feel magic in the human world, when I was making art. I loved it – it made my work so much better, and it helped me feel connected to the magic world, a reminder we hadn’t imagined it. Soon Gronvald glared back at me, nasty and snarling.

The doorbell rang. “The first one!” Maddy called out. “I bet it’ll be a really cute little kid.” I could hear her follow Mom to the front door and plunk down a bowl of candy. Then Maddy yelled, “Josh, you have to see this.”

I ignored her and kept drawing.

“Josh! You really need to come!”

I sighed. “Just a sec.” I put down my pencil, and walked down the stairs.

Maddy stood near the front door, staring past Mom. I stopped beside her; my mouth slowly opened. Two otter-people stood on our doorstep. Not kids dressed as otter-people, although that would be strange enough. Real otter-people. Greyfur and Eneirda had come to call.

Mom reached into the bowl of Halloween
candies, grabbed two handfuls and held them out to the otter-people. “Where are your bags? Do your parents have them?”

The otter-people stared at her with round, dark eyes. Behind Mom, Maddy shook her head and held a finger to her lips.

I stood there, stunned. What were they doing here? What if Mom realized they weren’t kids?

When they didn’t answer, Mom said, “Well, hold out your hands.”

Maddy held out her own hands, palms up and touching to form a bowl. They copied her, and Mom filled each pair of cupped hands with little chocolate bars and boxes of raisins.

“We want to talk to them, Mom,” said Maddy, pushing past her.

“Great costumes,” Mom said as she headed back to the kitchen.

I squeezed past Maddy and moved them to the far end of the porch, away from the house light. I couldn’t believe Mom thought they were kids – no one could make costumes that good.

They were exactly what Maddy was trying to be, part human, part otter. Their fur reached down their foreheads towards their dark pointy noses, and gleamed in the light in a way that Maddy’s face paint never could. Their eyes were round and almost black in the shadows. Their mouths and ears were small, their feet flat and wide at the toes.

Greyfur was a little taller than me, with deep brown fur shading to grey on his head and across his shoulders, and amber skin on his face and hands. Eneirda was smaller, about Maddy’s height, with auburn fur and soft tan skin.

Maddy and Eneirda greeted each other, Maddy’s small hand reaching out to touch Eneirda’s four fingers. Eneirda smiled as she studied Maddy’s costume.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered.

“You must come with us,
tss
,” said Greyfur, his voice deep and firm.

“Shhhh!” I said, too loudly. I lowered my voice. “If anyone looks closely, they’ll see you can’t possibly be kids. So speak quietly. Please!”

Greyfur nodded and continued in a softer voice. “Giant at Castle Mountain sent us. You must come to Gathering. Tears in veil are not healing.
Sssst!
You must help.”

“Keeper said they’d heal,” I said, shocked.