Watersmeet (21 page)

“I’m sure he and Alden stayed up past dawn, so Haret could meet all of his cousins,” Rueshlan said.

“Ah, he’s where he wants to be, then. As he told me countless times, he’s had more than enough of humans on our journey.”

But something bothered her as they left Alden’s ward. Haret had not been himself last night—drumming fingers, agitated surveying of the room. “Will we see him tonight?” she asked, her worry showing in her voice.

“All of Alden’s family have been invited to my ward. They’ll bring him with them,” Rueshlan assured her.

Abisina could hardly take in all the sights, or make sense of her feelings, in the next few hours. Wandering on root trails among the Sylvyads, she stared at the shifting sea of green as distant as the sky, turning in tides of wind she couldn’t feel from the sheltered ground. And standing next to a trunk was like standing next to a wall, the trunk’s curve almost indiscernible in the tree’s massive girth. Their steps were cushioned by fallen needles three times longer than the pine needles in Vranille’s woods. Like fir needles, these were flat, but as wide as her little finger. She could almost call them leaves, but they had the waxiness of evergreens.

She was in for another surprise when she laid her hand on one of the trunks. The reddish bark was rough with coarse hairs, and through the wood came a sensation Abisina could only describe as
aliveness
. She looked up at Rueshlan. “They’re—breathing!”

“You feel it?” He sounded pleased. “Not everyone can. They’re most alive for the fauns, but some others, too, sense them as you do.”

“Can you?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “There’s nothing like them.”

As they strolled on, they crossed countless root bridges that spanned the churning water of the rivers, sometimes at dizzying heights. She loved the song of the water that followed them wherever they went. She felt in her veins the current of the rivers mingling under Watersmeet.

With particular pride, Rueshlan showed Abisina the three wards that comprised Watersmeet’s library—neat rows of white doors marked with black letters. “The letters indicate which texts are in the ward,” Rueshlan pointed out. “From the beginning, Vigar trained scribes to collect the stories, songs, and legends that the folk brought with them: the fauns’ classification of trees, the dwarves’ odes to the Earth, the centaurs’ hero legends. We even have some of the stories the fairies collected from birds. No song is too trivial, no legend too obscure.”

“You mean you have stories here, written down? The folk of Watersmeet can read, too?”

“Of course, Abisina!” Rueshlan laughed, but then his eyes clouded. “The Vranians. I’m sorry, Abisina. I’d forgotten about their rules. . . .”

“I can read,” Abisina said. Then, softly: “My mother taught me.” Abisina knew her father wanted her to continue, to tell him what happened, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak.

The silence was broken when a woman laden with large tomes emerged from one of the white doors. “Rueshlan!” she said in surprise.

With a last look at Abisina, Rueshlan greeted the woman. “Hail the Midsummer, Agna. I want you to meet my daughter, Abisina. Abisina, Agna cares for the library—but today she should be celebrating. It’s Midsummer!”

“The bards are checking one of the odes they will recite tomorrow,” Agna replied. “I won’t be long!” She opened a door, and Abisina heard a deep bass voice ringing out until the door closed behind the woman and her books.

“Can you show me more?” Abisina asked her father. There would be time later to talk about Sina.

Throughout Watersmeet, folk were bustling from ward to ward. Rueshlan explained to Abisina that the first day of Midsummer was Visiting Day; all the inhabitants brought food, flowers, and small gifts to friends and family. And they all knew who Abisina was: word of her arrival had been carried throughout the community. Fauns with chains of vines in their hair cried, “Hail, Rueshlan, on your return! And happy news of your daughter!” Dwarves of all ages—from toddling children following their mothers to ancient grandmothers like Hoysta, stumping along with canes—stopped to wave or smile or wring her hand. Abisina saw only two centaurs the whole morning and they hastened away at her approach—as if they’d received a message as well.

Most fascinating to her were the humans: every man, woman, and child was a new mix of hair, skin, and eye color. Of the hundreds of humans who greeted her and Rueshlan, only one—a girl four or five winters younger than Abisina—would have been accepted in Vranille. This girl and her older brother stopped to talk to Rueshlan, and Abisina fought the instinct to retreat behind her hair.

“Findlay! Meelah! I’ve got someone I want you to meet!” Rueshlan put his hand on her tense shoulder. “This is my daughter, Abisina, just arrived from beyond the mountains.”

Meelah grabbed Abisina’s hand in both of hers and squeezed. “Welcome to Watersmeet! It’s so wonderful that you’ve come!”

Though she had begun to get used to folks taking her hand or even hugging her, Abisina blanched at the girl’s touch—she looked so Vranian! So like her tormentor Lilas!

Seeing Abisina’s discomfort, the boy reproached his sister: “Meelah! Give her some time to get used to us.” He offered Abisina an apologetic smile. “My sister can be very bold.” Findlay shared his sister’s fair skin and blond hair, but his eyes were a comforting brown. Holding out his hand to Abisina, Findlay had the self-assurance of a boy on the brink of manhood, as well as some of the awkwardness.

Abisina shook Findlay’s hand, and his touch stayed with her even after they let go.

“I’m sorry for being
bold
,” Meelah added, dimples showing. “But it
is
wonderful that you’re here.”

“You must come to our ward tonight,” Rueshlan urged them. “Abisina’s arrival will make our celebration even greater!”

“Thank you, Rueshlan. It would be an honor to join you,” Findlay said, the respect in his voice reminding Abisina that her father had an important position here.

As they moved off down the trail, Meelah called, “Good-bye, Abisina!” and Abisina lifted a tentative hand in response.

They continued to stroll through Watersmeet, and Abisina told Rueshlan a little about her journey there. Rueshlan never pushed her to talk, and she said nothing of her life in Vranille. Abisina spoke freely about Hoysta and Haret, but when she got to the escape from Icksyon, she gave no details and Rueshlan didn’t ask. It felt better to tell him about the necklace leading them up the cliff, emphasizing perhaps more than necessary her bravery and Haret’s fear.

“That necklace will always lead you here,” Rueshlan said. “Your mother was wise to give it to you.” She did not correct his error. Instead, she asked a question that had been on her mind since meeting Meelah and Findlay. “You’re called the Keeper of Watersmeet—what does that mean?”

Without answering, Rueshlan pointed to a loop of root in the trail that jutted out over a small tributary of one of the rivers, creating a natural lookout. “Hungry?” he asked. “We can sit here.” So she sat in a crook of roots, while he sat on the ground—and still towered over her. He brought out cheese, nuts, and apples from the leather bag across his shoulder.

They had started eating, the gurgle of the river in the background, when Rueshlan answered Abisina’s question: “As Keeper of Watersmeet, I am charged with preserving Vigar’s vision for this community. Vigar wanted us to remember that all are welcome here, that we are stronger together than divided. She gave me the necklace to symbolize that.”

“
She
gave you the necklace? But you said she lived generations ago.”

Rueshlan was watching her closely. “Yes, Abisina. I am very old.”

“But—” She stopped, not sure what to say next. She didn’t want to press him when there were so many things
she
didn’t want to talk about. Her father looked younger than Sina with his dark hair and firm cheeks. Only his eyes, now that she looked carefully, showed any sign of age. And it wasn’t laugh lines or wrinkles—it was the depth of wisdom.

“I—I’m not sure I understand,” she said.

“There is going to be a lot to get used to here, Abisina,” Rueshlan responded gently.

“This necklace!” she said, shifting their focus. “If this necklace belongs to the Keeper of Watersmeet, you should have it back.” She lifted it off, trying to appear happy to return it.

“No, no, Abisina! I don’t need it anymore. I want you to keep it.”

Abisina gratefully put the chain back around her neck.

To her relief, Rueshlan turned the conversation to the folk they’d met, the feasting and dancing they would enjoy that night, and the Gathering for stories, poems, ballads, and songs the following day. “I don’t think you celebrate Midsummer in Vranille,” he said. “We owe everything to our Sylvyads, so we celebrate the height of the growing time with abandon. On the final evening, the fauns will dance through each ward with torches to bring the light—now that is something to see! And this year the fairies will be here, too. It’s as if they knew you were coming and wanted to help us celebrate!”

Abisina finished her apple and looked out over the water. “I can’t believe I’m here, that I can call this home.”

“Speaking of home—” Rueshlan stood up. “It’s high time you saw yours.” He held a hand out to Abisina. “Come on, Rueshlan’s daughter, let’s go home!”

Rueshlan and Abisina arrived at his ward in the coolness of late afternoon. Rueshlan’s house was on the east side, where the wide and slow-moving River Fennish ran below the island of Sylvyad roots. There were several other doorways on the ward, much wider and taller than those in Alden’s, and as they stood there, one of them opened. A huge, roan centaur stepped out and stopped when he caught sight of them.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Abisina,” Rueshlan said, as she stepped behind him, her face pale.

But Abisina cried, “Please tell him to leave!”

“It’s all right,” Rueshlan soothed. He faced the centaur and said in an apologetic tone, “Kyron, could you—leave us?”

“You’re not helping her, Rueshlan,” the roan rumbled. Though he was as big as the centaurs of Giant’s Cairn, the roan had to look up to meet Rueshlan’s eyes.

“Please understand,” Rueshlan said. “She needs more time.”

From behind her father, Abisina watched the door close on the retreating centaur, the click of hooves fading away.

Rueshlan knelt next to her. “Please believe me, Abisina. He would never hurt you. None of them would!”

She stared at the closed door. “
He
lives there?”

“Yes. That is
Kyron
. I told you about him. He’s the leader of the centaurs here.” She knew he meant to be comforting, but all she could think of was Icksyon. She felt a twinge where her little toe should have been.

Abisina looked from doorway to doorway around the ward—all were large. “Do centaurs live in more of these houses, then?”

“Yes, there are more. I’ve asked them to stay away for now. I know they make you uncomfortable.”

“Why do you live with them?” she asked.

He looked sad, even pained. “I know it’s hard for you to believe, but most centaurs are nothing like those you met in the south, nothing like Icksyon. But like any race, there are some who destroy the good in themselves.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I—I just don’t believe that.”

“Abisina, promise me this: keep your heart open to them. Please.”

Reluctantly, she nodded, though she couldn’t imagine doing what he asked.

They entered Rueshlan’s house, and Abisina tried to ignore the clues that centaurs visited him here. Like Alden’s house, Rueshlan’s opened onto a large room with a fireplace built into the curving outside wall, but the scale here was much greater: higher ceilings, larger doorways.
He’s Keeper
, she tried to reassure herself.
He needs to welcome everyone.

“Our houses are quite different from what you’re used to. We live in the outer layers of the Sylvyads, one room leading to the next like links in a chain. If you need to rest, your room is four down in that direction.” He pointed to the left. “You should have everything you need.”

Abisina wanted to slip away to her room, to be alone with her thoughts, but the pain in her father’s face persisted. “I think I’ll stay here with you for a while,” she said.

His jaw relaxed. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

As twilight began to fall on Watersmeet, a host of visitors with enough food to feed twice as many arrived in Rueshlan’s ward. Some faces were familiar: Alden and Glynholly, Meelah and Findlay, and Frayda, who was asked countless times to tell of first meeting Haret and Abisina. “I knew they were not from Watersmeet—deerskin boots!”

Abisina remembered Haret saying that centaurs could talk to deer, that it was barbaric to slay animals you could communicate with. She also realized that the new clothes she found in her room were made entirely of woven cloth, the boots made of small animal pelts.

“I welcomed them,” Frayda went on, “as anyone would. Of course, I never dreamed who I was talking to!”

The one face missing was Haret’s. Abisina looked for him every time the door opened, until Rueshlan, sensing her growing worry, brought Alden to her.