A Captive of Wing and Feather A Retelling of Swan Lake - Melanie Cellier Page 0,104
I said and instantly received Isadora’s full attention.
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t show any inclination to go swimming. Perhaps because he’d found something.” I glanced around but could see no one else in the small two-room house. I lowered my voice anyway. “A piece of parchment. With words. Samuel thinks someone in those carriages from earlier must have dropped it. Joseph had found it and…” I paused. “He was trying to copy some of it. In the dirt.”
I had been sure my revelation would earn another shriek, but Isadora had apparently been shocked into silence instead. She looked round-eyed between me and her young son.
“And…” Her voice wobbled. “Samuel knows of this? He was never one to know when to keep his mouth shut.”
“Don’t worry,” I said quickly. “Joseph is practically a baby still. And we burned it. I’m sure Samuel won’t stir up any trouble, no matter what he says.” I hesitated. “But you need to make sure he understands—” I bit my lip. “He must be very smart. Has he…has he ever tried anything like that before?”
“Of course not!” She looked offended this time. “He’s never even seen words before. Where would he? But he loves to draw. He’s always trying to copy the shapes from the pictures at the market, and from the signs…” Her words trailed off, and she dashed her hand across her eyes. “He’s smart like you say.” She shot me a look. “Like your brother, Jasper.”
I smiled, but it felt false, tension still radiating through me. “That would be fortunate indeed for him. For you all.” I refrained from letting my eyes run over the poorly kept interior of the cottage. “But first he has to live long enough.”
Isadora shuddered. “It’s been burned, you said?”
I nodded.
“Well…” She sighed. “Hopefully that will be the end of it.” But I could see the fear lurking in her eyes as she watched Joseph who had managed to work himself free and had run off to play on the other side of the room.
“Yes.” I inched toward the door. “I’d better be going…”
“Of course, you’ll be wanting to get to your dinner. Thank you, Elena.”
Joseph looked up, as if on cue, and repeated, “Thank you, Elena,” his high voice mangling the words slightly. His mother’s face melted, and even I couldn’t resist a smile.
But it fell away as I jogged back out of town. Isadora should have been more careful. Should have been watching her son more closely. He was old enough now to understand. I shivered. Or perhaps he wasn’t. I could hardly remember Clementine at that age, let alone what it had been like to be that age myself. Still. A whole village had been lost only last year. One big bang and the whole thing had disappeared. No one knew exactly what had happened, of course. Not after the fact when there was nothing left.
Just that the explosion had been untrained, out of control. Deadly. Someone had been writing. A commonborn without the control to shape the power that flowed out of them as soon as they began to form written words. A commonborn like me and every single other person in the kingdom not born to a mage parent.
And that could have been Kingslee. Nearly had been, perhaps. I swallowed and veered off the path to collect my leather satchel which I had abandoned in the bushes when I rushed to defend Joseph. Not that I remembered doing so. Jasper would scold me as he always did if he ever heard of it, telling me I was far too protective.
“And you’re not even the oldest, Elena,” he would say, pulling affectionately on my hair. “Aren’t I supposed to be the protective one?”
I always smiled and played along, but we both knew the truth. Jasper was our shining light. The one who was going to lift us all out of poverty. The genius with perfect recall who could compete even against the mages when it came to academics.
One day he would secure a lucrative position and take us to the capital. Which meant it was left to me to do the protecting, of both him and our younger sister Clementine. Although he was far away at the Royal University, these days. Too far for either teasing or protecting.
It had always been clear that Jasper would not be accepting our family’s conscription responsibility. Any more than there was any question of weak, sickly Clementine being left to go to war.