Black Bead: Book One of the Black Bead Chronicles (14 page)

Cheobawn waited for everyone to leave and then she curled up on the cool earth and fell asleep.

She opened her eyes to something tickling her nose and found Tam squatting beside her, caressing her face with a grass stalk. She stared at him sadly.

“You did not come,” she said accusingly.

“We tried. We went to the infirmary, but Amabel said no and then we went to your apartment but Mora said no and today, before weapons drills, Hayrald said absolutely not, so here we are anyway,” Tam said.

And here they all were, indeed. She looked up and found Megan, Connor and Alain looking at her over Tam’s shoulders, anxious and concerned. She surprised herself by not being annoyed at their attention, as she had been with Mora and the Coven and Da and all the teachers.

Cheobawn sat up, drinking in the sight of them as she brushed the grass clippings from her hair. They all looked thinner. Alain’s knee was in a plasteel brace. Connor’s foot had been shoved into an adult slipper to accommodate the bandages. Megan had deep shadows under her eyes. Worry lines seemed to have permanently etched themselves into Tam’s ten year old face, making him seem less beautiful but more wise.

Cheobawn noticed something else. Megan wore new clothes. Her shorts were muddy brown and the tunic a dusky green, identical to the boys’ clothes. This explained Megan’s

absence on the playground. Megan had officially declared her Pack status. Her time was no longer her own. From now on she would study, train, and work alongside her Packmates. Cheobawn tried hard not to be sad at the change.

“I thought you were mad at me,” she said softly.

“What? Why would we be mad?” Tam laughed.

“You saved us,” Alain reminded her.

“You were amazing,” Megan added.

Cheobawn shook her head.

“I messed up. I nearly got you killed about a million times. I forgot too many things. Important things. I forgot that a Pack works together and takes care of each other. And then at the end, I totally forgot the most important part.”

“What part?” Tam asked, puzzlement warring with amusement on his face.

“I was so busy worrying about the big scary things out in the woods that I totally forgot about the scary things at home. What did you tell Hayrald?”

Alain shook his head, smiling in amazement, he and Connor exchanging knowing looks.

“That was one of the things we came over here to ask you,” Tam said. “You first. What did you tell Hayrald?”

“Nothing,” Cheobawn said. “I was afraid to talk to him, so I didn’t. Or Mora either.”

Connor laughed out loud and slapped Alain on the back.

“Told you,” he crowed. “You owe me.”

Tam looked a little concerned.

“I am afraid to ask. When you say nothing, you mean you did not tell them anything about our foray, right?”

“No,” Cheobawn said, shaking her head, “I pretended I forgot how to talk.”

The older children looked at each other and burst into howls of laughter.

“What is so funny?” asked Cheobawn, frowning.

“You,” Megan said. “You have Mora and Amabel and Hayrald walking around thinking you are as fragile as eggshell.”

“Yeah,” Connor added, “they are all mad at us, like we broke you or something.”

“We should come up with a good lie,” Cheobawn suggested, deeply concerned that they had born the brunt of her bad decisions for three whole days.

“That leads me to the other thing we needed to ask you,” Tam said. “Do you still want to be a part of our Pack?”

Cheobawn felt the hard little ball of sadness inside her chest begin to melt.

“Yes, please,” she said from the bottom of her heart.

“Good, because we have a foray report to write,” Tam said, pulling a form out of his pocket and unfolding it, “and it’s already days overdue. Phillius is going to have my liver for breakfast if I don’t get something down in writing by the end of the day. You are the only one who can help me.”

Cheobawn smiled, happier than she ever remembered being. This was Tam; business first, niceties after. Cheobawn crawled out of her bower to look at the map printed on the report form, hungry to see its curved lines and precise labels. Truth be told, she had locked the memories of the journey away, unwilling to deal with them on her own. They were beginning to blur like a half-remembered dream. She was losing track of what had been real and what she had imagined while deep within the arms of Bear Under the Mountain.

“Why have you waited so long to write your report?” Cheobawn asked, curious.

“Because, Little Mother, after being interrogated almost non-stop for the past three days, singly and as a group, by just about every Elder in the village, we have all come to the same con
clusi
on,” Tam said brightly, “Not one of us has a clue as to what happened out there.”

“You were there,” Cheobawn reminded them all.

“Yeah, well, about that …” drawled Alain.

“See, between being sick and scared and totally lost, none of us has been able to draw a clear picture of where we were and what we did,” Tam explained.

“You changed direction so often, I was pretty sure we were going in circles,” Connor nodded.

“The Elders keep treating us like we are hysterical little kids who saw a crawler under the bed,” snorted Alain in disgust.

“It’s embarrassing,” agreed Connor.

“It would be nice to get points for the kills, too,” Megan added. “Partial points for a fuzzy gang and a stinging spider nest would put us at the top of the first year pack standings.”

“Never mind that, now. That’s another battle. Let’s start from the beginning,” Tam said, patting the map.

The other children squatted around it and leaned in close to get a better view. Their fingers traced the line of the outward journey, along the East Trail, to the turn up the North Fork Trail, to the spot where they left the trail and cut through open country. They all generally agreed with the time and place referents that Tam guessed at. Megan remembered the place where they saw the fernhen. The tubegrass grove lay just uphill from the place on the map where the blue line marked the stream as it flowed down the mountain. This was all they were certain of.

The path of the return journey brought heated debate. They all agreed on the initial direction away from the spring but none of them could remember the time of day. Cheobawn could not help them. Time seemed to play tricks in her head. What had seemed like hours must surely have only been minutes, what seemed like forever had only been hours.

After much discussion, they used Connor’s estimate. He seemed the most certain. Megan unsealed one of the deep pockets in her shorts and pulled out a tablet. A handful of colored styluses emerged from another. She began writing the map coordinates down the page in a column and putting the rough time estimates next to them. Tam made a small mapper’s ruler appear from one of his many pockets, grabbed a stylus from Megan and began tracing the bits they were sure of on the map, placing the numbered boxes in the spots to mark the things they remembered.

Cheobawn sat back and watched them for a moment, a soft smile on her face. There was a new found confidence in their interactions, as if being a declared Pack made everything right in the world. They were like rocks rolling downhill now. The momentum of their trust that the world would give them what they needed crushed all resistance. Their belief was absolute, almost magical.

Magic. Cheobawn understood magic. Magic was merely the unknown, a wild thing undefined by logic or reason. By that thinking, surely she was not Bad Luck, but Good, undefined.

The ball of pain inside her eased a bit more.

Tam looked up and caught her smiling at him. He grinned back and returned to his argument with Connor about the distance of the first leg of their journey. Cheobawn leaned forward to join in.

It took them almost two hours and much disagreement. At last Tam sat back to admire their work. Megan was still writing furiously, content with the tabulation on her paper. Connor ran his finger down the line etched on the map and tisked softly.

“Did you know you were doing this or was this all an accident?” he asked, bemused.

“What do you mean?” Cheobawn asked. Tam looked down, curious as well.

“You crossed the bhotta’s path here and the direction change towards the spiders is here. The whole time we were running we were boxed in between the cliffs and rock slides and the bogs and marshes that make the East Road split off and veer south. The only way out was the way you led us. You were headed towards the South Road, weren’t you?”

“We would have made it, too,” Tam said, “if it weren’t for the fuzzies.”

Cheobawn looked at the map and the vague impressions and blurry images from that day began to make sense. She shrugged.

“I did not have a plan when we left the grove. I never had a plan. It was only towards the end that I realized where we were headed.”

“I don’t care how her Luck works, I’m just glad it does,” Alain said fervently. Tam nodded.

“Wait,” Megan said, “We’re not done. Now that we have figured out the facts, we have to decide what to tell the Elders.”

The Pack grew silent, somber looks on their faces. Cheobawn suddenly felt exhausted. Discovering the truth had taken all her powers of recall. Covering it up again seemed too daunting.

Tam studied their map and then looked up with a mischievous smile on his face.

“You know what I am thinking?” mused Tam, running his fingers over the map. “I’m thinking we tell them the truth.”

“What? You mean turn this in as our foray report?” Megan asked aghast, as she waved her tablet in the air.

“It’s too crazy,” Alain said. “Nobody will believe it.”

“Exactly,” crowed Tam. “Give them a report they don’t expect. It will take them weeks and weeks to decide if it is true or not and then weeks more to decide what to do about it.”

A handful of weeks seemed like forever. Too far away to worry about. They all grinned in delight at Tam’s brilliant plan.

Cheobawn laughed at Tam’s logic but admitted, in the end, that it was faultless.

Chapter Thirteen

Hayrald was waiting for her at the end of the school day. Cheobawn paused on the top step when she saw him, uncertain of his mood and the reasons for him standing there with all the other waiting Elders. He was First Prime. He usually delegated his waiting time to his lieutenants. His presence surely could not have been out of concern. She had not needed an escort home from school since she was a little kid.

“Father,” Cheobawn greeted him solemnly.

“Little Mother,” said Hayrald, matching her formal address. He held out his hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, she took it. They turned and walked down the promenade. She wondered where he might be taking her. It was certain her teachers had carried the tale of her miraculous recovery of language. Perhaps it was her turn to sit in front of the panel of inquisitors and suffer their questions. But no. He turned the corner and led her towards home.

“I understand Tam brought his Pack to see you today.”

Cheobawn listened to the ambient, trying to tell if he
was angry. It was as if Hayrald did not exist there. His control was impeccable. Her mother had chosen him as her Prime for a reason, after all. She would have to hunt out his feelings the hard way.
 

“Do not punish him for disobedience. It was needful,” she said.

“Was it?” he said, his tone betraying nothing.

She considered many responses, struggling against the unfamiliar silence between them. This was Da, the holder of her deepest, darkest secrets. Had one simple foray outside changed all that? She retreated inside herself to think about that for a moment, trying to stay calm. It was in that calm place that she found her answer. There were things so indelibly etched into the ambient that even if all else turned to dust and blew away, these things would remain. The feelings between her and her Da were one such thing.

With a new sense of confidence she dared probe at something that was bothering her.

“Mother’s job is very difficult, isn’t it?” she said.

“Why do you think so?” Hayrald asked, undeterred by the sudden change of subject.

“No one yells at her when she makes a mistake.”

“And you think this is bad?”

“I used to think it was a very good thing.”

“But not anymore?” asked Hayrald.

“No. I think it makes her lonely.”

Hayrald inhaled sharply, just like when he moved too fast and the old injury made his knee freeze up. Cheobawn caressed the back of his hand with her thumb, trying to comfort him.

“She has her Coven and me and the rest of her husbands,” Hayrald said when he found his breath again. It was not a true answer to her question. She left it alone. Grownups could be very cagey when it came to certain subjects.

“Tam turned in our foray report today.” she said, turning the conversation back to its beginning.

“I read it.” Da said.

“Did you?” That was quick, she thought. “What did you think?”

“It was a very, um, interesting read.” Hayrald said diplomatically. “The parts left out were more interesting than the parts left in. When did you learn to channel chi to enhance your strength? It is only taught in Temple. To twelve-year-olds. Have you been spying on the training sessions there as well?”

“What is chi?” Cheobawn asked, surprised that stealing life from Bear Under the Mountain was taught at all. Could other people see Bear? Why had no one ever told her?

“Ah,” Hayrald breathed. “I thought as much. Yes, yes, a very informative read, that report.”

“Do you think so? It seemed a little confusing. I thought we could have done better,” she said, but she did not know if she meant the report or the experience it was based on. Perhaps it was both.

“We all learn from our mistakes. Next time you will remember your mistakes and not repeat them,” her Da said sagely.

Next time. The words seemed like a promise. Da was not going to stop her if she wanted to go outside again.

Cheobawn smiled and pressed the back of his hand to her cheek. Da never made promises he could not keep.