“My ceremony was three years before yours.”
“Your ceremony?”
“The Ceremony of Twelve.”
“But—”
She held up her hand. “Shhh. Just listen.”
Jonas, looking confused, fell silent.
“I received my Assignment when I turned twelve. I was assigned Birthmother.” She paused. “That was a disappointment, of course. But I had not been a good student.”
She could see that he was still puzzling over her words. There was nothing to do but go on. “After a while, when I was deemed ready, I moved into the birthing unit.”
Around them, the pace of the village continued. Some women were gossiping as they weeded in the community garden. Nearby, small children played with some puppies. From Boys’ Lodge, the usual group emerged and ran down the path, calling laughing insults to one another. Gabe was not among them. He had gone to his place by the river much earlier and was alone there, fitting the last parts of his odd little boat into place.
All of this fell away from their awareness as Jonas and Claire sat together. She talked. He listened attentively. Now and then he interrupted her softly to ask a question. The pills. When did she stop taking the pills?
“I did too. I just threw them away,” he told her. “Did you feel the change?”
“I felt different from the others. But I was already different in so many ways.”
He nodded. She could tell that he was slowly accepting the story she was telling him. But she saw him look carefully at her, at her thin gray hair, her stooped shoulders and gnarled hands, and knew that he could not comprehend yet how she had become what she now was.
She told him of her work at the fish hatchery, after her discharge from the Birthing Center. Of her search for Gabe, and her visits to him.
She described how the infant had begun to say her name. How he laughed at the funny face she made, and tried to imitate it. Claire thrust her tongue into her cheek and made the face for Jonas.
He looked startled. “I remember it!” he told her. “When he and I were together—you know he stayed in my dwelling at night?”
“I know.”
“Sometimes he made that funny face for me. But of course I didn’t know—” He paused, still trying to comprehend.
She continued her story.
The midday bell rang. Villagers began to gather for lunch. Jonas and Claire ignored it.
“Will Kira be wondering where you are?”
He shook his head. “No. She was taking the children on a picnic with some friends. Please—go on. Unless you’re hungry. Would you like to stop for lunch?”
Claire said no. “I don’t have much of an appetite anymore.”
“You’re too thin.”
“I eat very little. Herbalist says it’s not unusual for someone my age. It’s part of the natural process.”
“Your age?” Jonas asked. “But you were three years older than I was! What happened?”
“We’ll get to that. Then you’ll understand.”
She went on with the telling. It would take a long time. She felt that in order to understand, he must know every detail.
The day cleared and a pale sun dried the moisture. By late afternoon, the shadows had lengthened and they were sitting in deep shade. The air had turned cool. Jonas had placed his jacket across Claire’s shoulders. She was very tired by now, but felt oddly invigorated by relating the story to someone at last. It had been her secret, her private burden, for years. She told it slowly, and he didn’t hurry her. Now and then she had paused to rest. He had brought her water, and a biscuit. The entire day had belonged to them and to her story.
She described the torturous climb up the cliff at length, feeling the need to relive it inch by inch as Einar had told her he had, remembering each handhold, each precipice and narrow ledge. Talking slowly, she felt the muscles in her arms and legs respond to the memory. Jonas noticed it, how she shifted her body as in her mind she made the climb again. He winced when she told of the attack by the bird. She showed him the scar on her neck.
Finally, as exhausted almost by the telling as she had been when she reached the top of the cliff that long-ago dawn, she described the terrible trade she had made.
Jonas leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and put his face into his hands. “Trademaster,” he said. “I thought he was gone. We banished him from the village a long time ago. I was Leader then.”
“Who is he?” Claire asked.
He didn’t respond. He stayed silent, looking now into a distant place, a place that Claire couldn’t see.
“I should have known,” he said, after a moment. “I felt something out there, something related to Gabe, but I didn’t realize what it was. I think I was feeling your presence,” he mused, “and that was puzzling, but benign. But there is something else. Something malignant. It must be him.”
“Who is he?” Claire asked again.
“He is Evil. I don’t know how else to describe it. He is Evil, and like all evil, he has enormous power. He tempts. He taunts. And he takes.
“Gabe has your same eyes,” Claire said suddenly. “You and Gabe have the same pale eyes.”
“My eyes?” he said, answering her. “They see beyond the places most people can see. I’m told it’s my gift, that there are others with different gifts. And yes, Gabe has the same eyes. Sometimes I wonder—”
From the top of a pine tree near the river, a large bird suddenly lifted itself and swooped past them in the late golden light.
“Were you scared of birds at first?” Claire asked him suddenly.
“What?”
“When you ran away from the community. When you first saw birds. Were you scared?”
Jonas nodded. “Just at first. And other things too. I remember the first time I saw a fox. Gabe was so little; he wasn’t afraid of anything. It was all new and exciting to him.”
Claire realized suddenly that he was talking to her in a different way. He had known her since she had arrived in the community and he had always spoken to her in a kindly fashion. He had been helpful and patient: a young man to an old woman. But they had never been more than acquaintances. Now they were reminiscing together as old friends who had just reunited.
“I thought of taking him,” she confessed. “But I didn’t know how to hide him, or where I could go. And then your father showed me that he wore a special bracelet on his ankle, so I realized that I’d be caught if I tried to take him.”