as well as hearing of your studies at school, I would learn of the things Jorne had taught you in the forest; the names of animals, flowers, trees, plants you could and could not eat. You became as interested in the outside world of flora and fauna as the internal one of letters and numbers. I was sure this thrilled Jorne, though it was difficult to be certain, since his face resembled your slate for most of the time anyway.
His face did not just resemble your slate. It resembled other things as well, some of which I could neither name nor place.
I would watch him with you at the kitchen table, late in autumn when the ground began to harden, the sea flattened, the skies cleared, and candles were lit ever earlier. In the warm glow of our stove you would babble away and he would listen, just as rapt as me, and every so often he would glance up and smile and I would find myself smiling back, lost in it all, this little scene.
One evening went on later than usual, and you were already curled up asleep on your bed by the time Jorne left. It was dark and the ground glittered with frost, like a reflection of the starlit sky made dense by the cold. I stood at the door as he bade me farewell, the warmth of our dwelling swirling out into the cold night, and I found myself gripped by some strange urge to pull, or leap. It was the same one I had had all those years ago upon my balloon, an unbidden voice with thoughts outside of my own. Jump, it said. Do something, now.
I did. I placed a hand upon his arm, and he stopped.
‘What is wrong?’ he said, turning.
I swallowed, retracting my arm.
‘It is cold,’ I said.
‘Yes it is.’
‘And quite far.’
We stood eye to eye and he watched me, not unkindly, though I am sure some part of him took pleasure in my struggle. Finally he smiled, removed a glove and raised his bare hand to my cheek. Then he put his face towards mine. His mouth opened, his eyes closed.
‘Stop.’
I stepped back, leaving him hovering in that same position, like a bear crouched over a weir, waiting for a salmon to jump into its paws.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘Good night.’
I shut the door and turned my back against it, listening to the silence beyond. Finally I heard a long sigh, and the crunch of his boots disappeared into the frost.
My sleep was disturbed that night.
Your sleep, however, grew more sound and regular than it ever had been. Whereas before our days had been vague and meandering, full of half-eaten meals and endless games and walks stopped short by bowel or temper, now they were things of substance and purpose. Your schooling had locked your mind into a blissful and relentless routine of knowledge acquisition, play, and sparkling conversation. And at night it was all processed, as it is with us.
MONTHS WENT BY, and the years followed. Life was good, and every day the lie became easier to forget. Even Benedikt seemed less troublesome. One afternoon at pickup time I even caught him smiling as he watched you at play with his son. The smile vanished when he saw me looking, of course, and he hurried Lukas home, with a serious nod of greeting as he passed me.
The moment took me beyond relief. If you could convince even Benedikt of your virtues, then there was hope indeed.
But hope was not to last.
— THIRTY-FOUR —
YOU WERE ELEVEN years old when it happened.
‘The Council will want to see you.’
The teacher was waiting for me at the gate. She seemed anxious and tight-lipped, in fact the whole atmosphere at the school when I picked you up that Friday was unusual. The parents of the ertlings avoided my eyes as they hurried past, and you hung your head when I greeted you.
‘What has happened?’ I said. The teacher regarded you as if you were something she no longer understood.
‘They will explain.’
Sure enough, as we crossed the circle there was a screech from the forest (a phenomenon I had explained to you as the call of a rarely seen buzzard) requesting my immediate presence in Ertanea.
‘Reed, what have you done?’
But you would not speak.
We rode for Ertanea and I left you on a bench in the gardens—I would not be long. Only three figures were waiting for me in the candlelit Halls—my mother, Caige and a