EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (47 page)

‘Thank you,’ I said.

Varago patted my head, and I tried not to flinch.

‘You’re a good girl. Now off to the lands of fairies and wizards,’ he said in a dramatic voice and went to my doorway. ‘Butter! Come on, Butter. Come up here.’

He clapped his hands, and then little footsteps pattered along the floor. There was a scratching at the bed, and I leaned over and helped Butter climb up. He licked my hand and then settled down alongside of me. I could feel his body heat through the blanket.

‘Jemely will take you to school tomorrow. I will pick you up afterwards. She asked me to tell you that tomorrow you and she are going to see the woman who trains animals.’

‘Sure,’ I said, too distracted with thoughts of school to be excited by the idea of meeting an animal trainer.

‘Pleasant dreams, Adenine.’ And he closed the door.

I lay awake thinking for some time about school and the shop. Maybe Mother would be more proud of me if I could tell her interesting things I’d learned at school. While I was still angry Mother had told Varago about my uncle attacking me, I did believe that she was trying to protect me, and maybe by going to school and being smarter, I could make her love me more than ever.

Chapter XV

T
HE
FOLLOWING
DAY
, I
WENT
downstairs to find Mother and Jemely in the kitchen.

‘Fair morning to you, my tattered flower,’ Mother said in an amused tone when I had reached the kitchen.

Jemely laughed. ‘Did a bird nest in your hair overnight?’

I reached up and felt that my hair was like a messy ball of yarn.

‘Jemely is walking you to the east side of town,’ Mother said. ‘It’s not far from here, and next time you should be able to make the trip by yourself. I hear both Varago and Jemely are picking you up from school today. We’re lucky to have such friends.’

‘Varago said I could take Butter with me.’

‘Did he?’ Mother asked. ‘Well, just for today, I think Butter should stay here. When he’s a bit more trained, you can take him.’

‘But what will he do? He’ll get bored, and what if he runs off? It’s not like you can catch him in that chair.’ I slumped down at the table.

‘I’ll look after him today,’ Jemely offered.

‘Thank you, Jemely,’ Mother said.

But it wasn’t all right. I didn’t trust Jemely with Butter. I didn’t trust anyone with him. I knew he’d worry about me, and I didn’t want him to run away and search for me. He’d get lost in the woods as I’d done.

Jemely’s mood had changed upon discovering the dirty dishes from the night before. ‘I’ve become your servant, haven’t I? Didn’t want to become a maid, I didn’t, and now Varago can get along just fine on his own, he says.’

‘You’re being paid, Jemely,’ Mother said coolly.

But Jemely wasn’t consoled, and she let everyone know by banging and thumping in Mother’s room. When she returned, she thrust pieces of clothing into my lap. ‘Here, put these on, and your boots. Time to go.’

I changed in Mother’s bedroom and made sure my blindfold was firmly secured before leaving.

I could hear Butter yelping and crying as we left the house. The sound made me sad, but the emotion paled next to the gut-wrenching fear of the coming day.

Outside, the town bustled with life. Horses neighed, men shouted, women laughed, children screamed, and chickens clucked. I didn’t catch any whispers as Jemely and I moved through the gatherings.

I counted my steps from home to school and made note of the turns. We left the market square to walk down a quiet alley. Jemely described all the noises, sights, and smells to me. She even described each building and made jokes about people’s appearances. It was a short walk to the school buildings that sat on the eastern outskirts of town. Beyond the school were the woodlands that led to the snow-covered mountains that I ached to see but never would.

The school consisted of two buildings. Jemely explained that in one building, they taught about the Senya province, my province, and the provinces outside of it, including Ruxdor and Bivinia. The lessons also included my country’s fauna and flora and history. In the other building, they taught language and mathematics.

Outside, I could hear children playing and screaming. Jemely told me that the ages of children were from five to sixteen. After that, most children left school to pursue family businesses and trades or to travel to the main city of Juxon to find apprenticeships. A few went on to become scholars or to work in universities and libraries.

Someone approached. ‘I’m Headmaster Donlage,’ a man said. ‘Nice to meet you, Adenine. And good to see you again, Jemely.’

‘Well met,’ I said timidly.

‘When someone says “Nice to meet you,” Adenine, you say “Nice to meet you, too,”’ the headmaster instructed.

My stomach filled with butterflies. ‘Nice to meet you, too.’

‘Good. Let me look at you. Hmm… you are much older than the other children who start here. Still, you will have to take your classes with the younger students. If you find the work too easy, we’ll move you up with the older children. Mr. Sagglewood teaches ages ten to sixteen, and there are forty students all up.’

‘The school ain’t half bad, Adenine. I went here ages ago,’ Jemely said.

‘Well, then, let’s get you settled. Do you have a walking stick?’ Headmaster Donlage asked.

‘What?’ I asked.

Headmaster Donlage sighed. ‘Use your manners, Adenine. Like this. “Pardon me, sir. But I don’t understand.”’ He turned to Jemely. ‘I don’t believe it. Her manners are terrible. And how long has this poor girl been blind?’

‘Since she was ten, maybe,’ Jemely said.

‘Tsk, well she’s blind, so she needs a walking stick, or she’ll be hopeless, won’t she?’

‘Hadn’t really thought about it, sir,’ Jemely said curtly. ‘She’s been getting by pretty well ‘til now. She’s a smart little thing.’

I swelled with pride. Did she really think I was smart?

‘I guess we’ll see, won’t we?’

As Jemely left, I almost clung to her side and begged her not to leave me. Headmaster Donlage placed a hand on my shoulder and guided me inside the building. The sounds of scraping chairs, laughter, and childish conversation was overwhelming.

‘Hey, look! It’s Adenine, the forest witch,’ a boy said.

The room filled with laughter, and the headmaster quickly guided me to the front of the room and stood me beside him.

‘Quieten down. It’s wrong to laugh at a person’s misfortune, Jark. You had better hope nothing bad ever happens to you!’ Headmaster Donlage snapped.

The room went quiet.

‘Jark, come here,’ Headmaster Donlage said.

A chair scraped. Jark moved towards me, and all I could do was stand there stupidly.

‘Hold out your hand,’ the headmaster ordered.

Crack.
My bones almost jumped from my skin. It sounded like a horseman breaking in a colt. After five whips, every one of them making me flinch, Jark whimpered, yet the thrashing continued.

Six,
Seven, Eight, Nine, Crack,
the last one sounded, and then there was silence except for the boy’s sobs.

‘Now take your seat,’ the headmaster said. ‘Class, this is Adenine. She’s thirteen. Say hello, Adenine.’

I worried about Jark’s injuries. He’d gotten in trouble because of me. I felt bad.

‘Adenine?’ The headmaster asked again.

I wanted to speak, but the whispers from the children distracted me.

‘…blind and weird, I heard.’

‘… father murdered…’

‘… disease.’

I tried to shut them out. They were horrible. I knew the headmaster couldn’t hear them or he’d have yelled. And even though he’d punished one boy for being rude, could he punish them all? I wished I was deaf. Deaf and dumb. The perfect solution to my life. What they said made me think bad things, made me want to hurt them and teach them a lesson.

‘H-Hello,’ I squeaked, and everyone laughed. Humiliation burned in my cheeks, and I wanted to run away and cry.

‘Yes, well, it’s normal to be shy,’ Headmaster Donlage said, taking me by the arm and leading me to a chair. ‘Here.’

I felt for the horizontal plate of the wooden chair and sat. I hunched over and folded my arms, trying to take up as little space as possible. The many judging eyes burned the back of my head. I wanted to disappear.

‘I heard her uncle, Ardonian, cut her eyes out just after he murdered her father,’ someone whispered.

Little did they know that Ardonian, the murderer, was my real father. For the first time, I felt relief that people thought Uncle Garrad was my father. He was considered innocent while Father was despised. But they had it all wrong anyway.
I
was the curse.
I
was responsible.

‘Now, we were talking about the animals of the Borrelia Mountains. But I think we’ll move onto the civil war of Senya between the Meligna Queens of the North and King Erageo of Juxon City, the South.’

I loved animals and wanted to know everything about them. But in a small way, the war interested me also, especially since I had met a healer.

‘So, who can tell me the name of the king that ruled when the Death Plague began? Yes, Harsy.’

‘King Cevznik, sir.’ The boy’s voice was high and screechy. He followed up his answer with a snotty sniff that bubbled deep in his nose.

‘Precisely,’ the headmaster replied. ‘There was another name for that king? Yes, Lillza.’

‘The Wicked King, sir.’

‘Well done, and why was he wicked?’

‘Sir,’ a boy piped up, ‘he was wicked because he changed the laws. He made Healers a property of the royal crown and decreed that healer women were the property of men.’

‘And why is that wrong?’

‘Because no person should belong to another person,’ the class chimed in together.

Mother had told me that the Death Plague was a curse on the Wicked King by the healers.

She also said that the Queens that invaded Meligna were evil witches who had convinced some rogue Ruxdor warriors to help them attack the city. Soon after the capture of Meligna, King Cevznik died of the plague, and his son, only seventeen at the time, became the current ruler of southern Senya.

‘How many people died in the war between North and South?’ the headmaster asked.

‘None,’ the class said.

‘Why not?’

‘Sir,’ a girl replied, ‘The war was called off when King Erageo gave the evil Queens the city Meligna and the surrounding land in exchange for peace. He had to, sir. The Death Plague killed most of his soldiers, and so he had no way to fight the war.’

‘Good. And what type of witch belongs in the Meligna city?’ Headmaster Donlage asked, an unnerving bitterness in his tone.

‘A healer witch,’ the class chimed.

‘And where do all healer witches belong?’

‘Meligna,’ they chanted.

‘If a healer is born to a South Senyan, what happens?’

‘They go to Juxon City and are kept in solitude until they are fourteen. Then they go to Meligna to live,’ a young girl answered.

The headmaster moved on to talking about the various towns of South Senya, what the towns produced, who the mayors were, and how many citizens each one had. We also discussed how the Ruxdor people were allied with North Senya, but South Senya was not. The Ruxdor people were known to be brutes, cruel and criminal, which was why no one was to venture north of Meligna.

Mother and I had talked about trade routes. I knew the southern roads led to Juxon City and beyond to the water lands of Bivinia. There were two ways to get from north to south. The road that divided the middle mountains ran next to Borrelia and passed through valleys, but because of the tension that still occurred between North and South Senya, the area was heavily patrolled by royal soldiers.

‘Hey!’ I recognized the voice of Jark. ‘You got poo on your face.’

Everyone who heard him giggled. I wiped at my face with my sleeve, horrified at how I could have missed that in my morning face washing. Why hadn’t Jemely told me about it?

‘It’s still there,’ he said, and I wiped again.

Someone else said, ‘Fell for it twice.’

More jeers rose around me.

‘Can’t believe she thought she had poo on her face.’

‘… shit face.’

‘… pooh on her sleeve.’

‘Jark, be quiet!’ the headmaster shouted. The headmaster’s footsteps came close. ‘No morning break for you. You can stay here and help me clean the hornbooks. Oh, and you’ll be given a further twenty whips with the cane on the backs of your knees.’

When the headmaster resumed his place at the front of the classroom, Jark muttered, ‘Thanks a lot, blind girl.’

At the end of the lesson, I had learned that there was another path between Juxon city and North Senya. The road went through a dangerous mountain pass to the east, but few travelled that way. I learned that King Erageo was still trying to establish better relations between the Queens and South Senya so that people could travel safely to the city of Meligna. But the headmaster’s hatred of the Queens was clear, and he was provoking the class children to hate the Queens also. If King Erageo wanted peace, shouldn’t the headmaster’s teachings support that?

A cowbell donged, and there was banging, stomping, and laughing as the room emptied of bodies. The headmaster encouraged me to go outside and play, but before doing so, he gave me a long smooth stick and told me to use it to feel my way around. It was strange relying on the cane at first. I would hit it against something, then reach out to feel what was at the end of it. Out in the courtyard, I used the stick to measure distance between me and objects as well as measuring depth and making sure I didn’t bump into other children.