wanted it to be; and in a single single moment the pattern passed throughout the plow and it was alive.
Alive. Alvin felt it moving within the curve of his body as the plow nestled down into the coals of the fire, cutting into it, plowing it as if it were soil. And because it was a barren soil, one that could bear no life, the plow rose quickly out of it and slipped outward, away from the fire toward the lip of the forge. It moved by deciding to be in a different place, and then being there; when it reached the brink of the forge it toppled, off and tumbled to the smithy floor.
In agony Alvin rolled from the fire and also fell, also lay pressed against the cold dirt of the floor. Now that the fire no longer surrounded him, his body gained against the death of his skin, healing him as he had taught it to do, without him having to tell it what to do, without need of direction at all. Become yourself, that had been Alvin's command, and so the signature within each living bit of him obeyed the pattern it contained, until his body was whole and perfect, the skin new, uncallused, and unburned.
What he couldn't remove was the memory of pain, or the weakness from all the strength his body had given up. But he didn't care. Weak as he was, his heart was jubilant, because the plow that lay beside him on the pound was living gold, not because he made it, but because he taught it how to make itself.
* * *
The Finders found nothing, nowhere in town - yet the black-haired Finder couldn't see anyone running away, neither, not within the farthest distance that any natural man or horse could possibly have gone since the boy got taken back. Somehow the mixup boy was hiding from them, a thing they knew full well was pure impossible - but it must be so.
The place to look was where the boy had lived for all these years. The roadhouse, the springhouse, the smithy - places where folks were up unnatural late at night. They rode to near the roadhouse, then tied up their horses just off the road. They loaded their shotguns and pistols and set off on foot. Passing by the roadhouse they searched again, accounting for every heartfire; none of them was like the cachet.
"That cottage, with that teacher lady," said the white-haired Finder. "That's where the boy was when we found him before."
The black-haired Finder looked over that way. Couldn't see the springhouse through the trees, of course, but what he was looking for he could see, trees or not. "Two people in there," he said.
"Could be the mixup boy, then," said the white-haired Finder.
"Cachet says not." Then the black-haired Finder grinned nastily. "Single teacher lady, living alone, got a visitor this time of night? I know what kind of company she's keeping, and it ain't no mixup boy."
"Let's go see anyhow," said the white-haired Finder. "If'n you're right, she won't be putting out any complaint on how we broke in her door, or we'll just tell what we saw going on inside when we done it."
They had a good little laugh about that, and set off through the moonlight toward Miss Larner's house. They meant to kick in the door, of course, and have a good laugh when the teacher lady got all huffy about it and made her threats.
Funny thing was, when they actually got near the cottage, that plan just clean went out of their heads. They forgot all about it. Just looked again at the heartfires within and compared them to the cachet.
"What the hell are we doing up here?" asked the white-haired Finder. "Boy's bound to be at the roadhouse. We know he ain't here!"
"You know what I'm thinking?" said the black-haired one. "Maybe they killed him."
"That's plain crazy. Why save him, then?"
"How else do you figure they made it so we can't see him, then?"
"He's in the roadhouse. They got some hex that hides him up, I'll bet. Once we open the right door there, we'll see him and that'll be that."
For a fleeting moment the black-haired Finder thought - well, why not look in this teacher lady's cottage, too, if they got a hex like that? Why not open this door?
But he no sooner had that thought than it just slipped away so he couldn't remember it, couldn't