The Finding (23 page)

And so Gieaun and Scede took their turn at conversing and briefly told Lahnehn about their lives while Lahnehn told about his, how he was from the city of Glordienn to the east and how he’d once been a slave.

“I worked on a farm there with my family, and the man who owned my family had a bad crop and was forced to sell me. I knew as a slave I had no rights, but my master always treated my family well, so I tried not to be angry with him.

“I feared that my new master would be terrible, and when I was taken to the auction in Glordienn, I was bought by a rich stranger I’d never seen before. He wore a hooded cloak, and as soon as he bought me he told me that I was free, all the while not showing his face. He said he was a wealthy merchant who inherited most of his money and spent it freeing what enslaved people of Ethoes he could. He gave me a job on one of his merchant ships and I spent a few years at sea, saving what money I earned to set my family free.

“After those few years, I returned to Oescienne to find safer work here. My benefactor wished me luck and told me there was a city to the west of Glordienn called Kiniahn Kroi where I could find work as a house servant and make a decent wage. So here I am, no longer a slave and eternally grateful to the man who gave me the means to free my family.”

Jahrra felt her spirit suddenly lifted by Lahnehn’s story. She always despised the slave traders and the slave market, but she was glad to hear this story of hope. She also felt strangely disturbed by the story. As soon as Lahnehn had spoken of a hooded figure that had liberated him from slavery, she immediately thought of the stranger that had so often entered her dreams. Could this be the same man? Was she somehow connected to a freedom defender?

The eager questions of her two friends pushed Jahrra’s secret thoughts to the back of her mind.

“Was the man who rescued you another Nesnan, or Resai? Ooooh, maybe he’s a rich elfin king from the east!” Gieaun clapped her hands excitedly, her green eyes bright with delight.

“I don’t know for sure,” Lahnehn answered, mussing his black hair with his free hand. “He never told me his name, and I never saw him without his hood on. Now that you mention it though, he did act as an elf would.”

“How does an elf act exactly?” asked Scede seriously, setting his empty plate down on the windowsill, its dull clink against stone having no effect on the kitchen’s simmering bustle.

“Well,” Lahnehn mused, mimicking Scede’s action with his own dish, “this man stood in a rather dignified manner without coming off as smug. He never spoke unnecessarily and he had an aura of class that can only be natural, not learned.”

Scede nodded his head, apparently accepting this answer as satisfactory.

After some more discussion of whom the mysterious liberator was (“Maybe a Nephaarene!” Gieaun squealed excitedly. “Why else would he hide his head in a foreign land?”), a bell was rung signaling the end of the banquet. Lahnehn and the three children had been so absorbed in conversation that they’d missed the hectic run of dinner to the upper levels and were now invited to take some dessert. Lahnehn rose and picked up one of the small pies and carried it over to the windowsill. He then grabbed four plates and some spare forks and the new friends happily delved into the fruit filled pastry.

As they ate, the cooks and servants began cleaning up the kitchen, recruiting the help of Jahrra, Gieaun, Scede and Lahnehn when the pie was gone. They splashed happily in the hot, soapy water as they were handed plates, bowls and utensils to wash and rinse. The cleaning only took about a half hour and as they were finishing up, the music suddenly grew louder upstairs signaling to the party goers it was time for dancing.

“That’s the signal for our party to begin, too,” said Lahnehn, winking once again as he disappeared through one of the doors beside the sink.

He returned a few minutes later with a banjo. Another male servant left and returned with a fiddle. One of the women pulled a harmonica from her apron and another pulled out a flute. The group of musicians grabbed wooden stools and climbed atop a section of raised stone floor that was situated against the back wall. Everyone gathered together and lifted and carried the large tables to the sides of the room, clapping cheerfully once the instruments began peeling out a festive tune.

Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede climbed up onto one of the tables and began dancing with many of the maids and cooks. Even the reserved-looking butler replaced his serious scowl with a genuine grin as he leapt and jumped to the tune. The dying firelight from the ovens and the low glow of the candle-lined walls gave off just enough brightness to see everyone’s cheery faces. Soon the whole room was dancing and clapping, thoroughly enjoying the rhythm of the banjo, fiddle, flute and harmonica.

Once everybody had worn themselves out from the merriment, the adults took turns telling stories. Gieaun, Scede and Jahrra returned to their windowsill lookout and, quite exhausted, lay down to rest as the tales were shared. Lahnehn put down his fiddle and fetched mugs of cocoa and cream for the children, pulling his stool up against the wall to listen to the folktales with them.

Gradually, the oven fires turned to smoldering coals and the atmosphere became much more inviting for the legends of lore. The maids and servants repeated accounts of faeries and magic from years past, while others told simple tales of good deeds and rewards. Some of the servants spoke of witches and goblins that roamed about during the winter time, often turning children stone cold as they slept in their warm beds.

Jahrra especially liked the tales about the pleasant spirits. These good spirits, or sephyres, showed themselves on Solsticetide Eve only if there was a full moon that night. They slept in the depths of the earth and were awoken when a portal, created by the light of the full moon casting a shadow behind a stone, opened to them. They brought good tidings and luck, and if anyone were fortunate enough to capture one or find one that was unable to make it back to their portal before moonset, they could keep it as a pet until the next full moon on Solstice Eve.

Jahrra listened in wonder as the storyteller described how a lost sephyre would take the guise of a white cat with rusty colored ears, paws and tail, and with eyes the color of deep amethyst. The sephyre would keep its finder free of misfortune for as long as the creature stayed in the mortal world.

Gieaun closed her eyes and donned a mystical smile, giving Jahrra a sudden, sneaking suspicion of what her friend wanted for Solsticetide. Jahrra herself imagined what it would be like to have a sephyre and wondered how it would help her evade Eydeth and Ellysian at school. She smiled once more and yawned, suddenly realizing just how tired she’d become since the festivities began. She grinned ironically as she recalled the unlikely day, the warm, comfortable room forcing her eyelids to droop.

She would’ve done anything to skip this ill-fated party, and up until the point that Lahnehn brought her into the kitchen, dripping and freezing miserably from Eydeth’s attack, she’d held firmly to this opinion. Now she wished the night would never end. She smiled to herself as she finally gave in to the waves of drowsiness, imagining the faeries of the frost and the shadowy forms of sephyres dancing around her head.

It only seemed a second later when Jahrra was suddenly woken by a distantly familiar voice, “Jahrra, Gieaun, Scede, it’s time for you to go now. The party’s over upstairs and your classmates are returning home.”

Jahrra tried to blink the sleep from her eyes as she looked up at Lahnehn. He was smiling but he looked tired from the celebration the night before. Jahrra sat up, feeling stiff and sore and suddenly remembered the ordeal from the day before. A wave of guilty dread flooded over her, but she shook it off as Gieaun and Scede slowly rose from their window perch. The early morning sun streamed through the windows, painting the empty kitchen with golden bars of light. Jahrra peeked out through the warped glass. The day looked very cold and the ground was coated with a layer of fresh, white frost.

“Uhhgh, did we sleep in?” Scede moaned, rubbing the back of his neck and fighting to keep his eyes open.

“Oh no, I made sure that you were up on time,” Lahnehn responded. “We servants must be up early to tend to the masters and their guests.” Lahnehn made a small face that forced Jahrra to stifle a giggle.

Mrs. Addie came bursting in through the door leading from the women’s quarters. Jahrra, Gieaun, Scede and Lahnehn all jumped around, thoroughly surprised by the sudden spout of energy.

“Ohh!” she yelped. “Wha’ are you children still doin’ en here? The carriages are all lined up! Here young’n, quickly, get into your dress things, they’re dry an’ good as new.”

Mrs. Addie quickly led Jahrra through the doors to the women’s quarters and she was back in five minutes time, dressed in her clothes from the night before. They didn’t look as bad as she’d imagined, but it was still obvious she’d been climbing up muddy walls in them. She looked warily to Gieaun and Scede, who’d climbed down from the windowsill in their own wrinkled clothing, but they just shrugged.
Oh great, I can’t wait to get back home. I think I’d rather stay here under the wrath of the twins then have to tell Master Hroombra what happened
, Jahrra thought miserably as Mrs. Addie and Lahnehn hurried them up the stairs.

The two servants led them into the main entrance hall and wove them between couches draped with snoozing patrons from the night before. They managed to get through the front doors without too much trouble, but Jahrra suppressed a shiver of unease once there. The entire class was lined up outside, small groups climbing into each white carriage as they pulled up. No one seemed to notice the three friends and the young man and older woman who accompanied them, that is, everyone except Eydeth and Ellysian.

The twins stood at the top of the arched staircase, right beside the door they had just stepped through. As the three friends approached, the twins turned and looked at Jahrra. No, glared. Eydeth’s stare was almost frightening and Ellysian’s was poisonous.

Jahrra didn’t let it get to her, however, and as she walked past the two children she turned and said, with an amount of bravado that surprised even her, “Thank you so much for a lovely evening. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a great time before.”

She smiled, gave a rough curtsey and even stifled a laugh when she saw the look of shock on both the twins’ faces. She could feel Gieaun and Scede tense up next to her, but when she looked back, Mrs. Addie appeared rather smug and Lahnehn looked as if he’d just heard a particularly intriguing bit of gossip.

Jahrra and her friends were lucky once again to get the last carriage all to themselves. They waved goodbye to Lahnehn and Mrs. Addie, and told them, if by any stroke of luck they were invited back, they would be sure to come. As the caravan passed down the great drive and through the gates of the estate, the sun was just peering past the northern ridge of the canyon.

The morning was freezing, but the three companions were still glowing with the excitement from the night before. It had been wonderful, after all, and it was finally Solsticetide. Later on they would be enjoying the company of their families while exchanging the gifts of the season.

Jahrra used the long ride back to dream about the festivities to come. She’d made a bracelet out of shells for Gieaun and had finished an illustrated book of local birds for Scede, leaving many blank pages for him to add more. She’d crafted a cover out of dried fall leaves for the book and had spent months collecting the shells for Gieaun’s bracelet.

For her friends’ parents, she’d collected winterberries and made them into pies, a difficult thing to do when all she had to cook them in was the great fireplace in the Castle Guard Ruin. For Hroombra, she’d saved up old pieces of cloth all year to fashion a massive cushion for him to rest his forelegs on as he studied his documents and maps at the great desk in his study or by the fireplace. Gieaun and Scede had helped her with this, and it had taken her all year to finish.

Jahrra felt gloomy once again as she thought about Hroombra. She decided it would be better if she didn’t tell him what really happened. She didn’t want him to worry about how bad Eydeth and Ellysian had become; she felt that she could handle it on her own. She sighed and allowed herself to be distracted by the beautiful spectacle of Kiniahn Kroi on Solsticetide.

“I never thought I’d be saying this,” she said aloud after some time, “but I wish we could’ve stayed longer.”

Gieaun and Scede nodded in agreement and soon started talking enthusiastically about all that had happened as the glistening city of Kiniahn Kroi disappeared into the distance.

The rest of the day passed as pleasantly as if the accident in the canyon hadn’t happened at all. Hroombra, Nuhra and Kaihmen all accepted Jahrra’s invented story of a slip into the creek while chasing after a frog. It helped that Gieaun and Scede backed her up.

After getting everyone settled into the Castle Guard Ruin, the girls got to work helping Nuhra prepare honeyed bread, potato cheese soup, herbed pork and winterberry salad.  Scede and Kaihmen, with a little help from Hroombra, got the fire started and dragged blankets, pillows and old chairs into the main room. Later, Kaihmen pulled out his flute and played a few holiday songs.

As the food roasted, baked and simmered, the gifts were passed around. Hroombra loved his patchwork cushion, Gieaun adored her shell bracelet and Scede his book, and Kaihmen and Nuhra insisted on adding their pies to the upcoming feast. Jahrra was thrilled with the bulbs and seeds her friends gave her and cherished the small, brass telescope from Hroombra. After exchanging gifts the feast was ready, and once the children, adults and dragon were fed and lazing on the many layers of thick blankets, Hroombra began his traditional Solstice tale.