Mark of Four (11 page)

Jayme rubbed his chin as she spoke, nodding thoughtfully. “I think you have a special imagination. I don’t see any of that.”

Alayne playfully smacked the back of his head. “It’s there. You—just need to want to see it.” She eyed the drawing. “So my question is, why does Daymon have a symbol of the Quadriweave on his back?”

“Maybe he
is
one.” Marysa sat up again. “Can you imagine, having a Quadriweave right here at Clayborne?”

Jayme snorted. “Daymon, a Quadriweave? If he passes this year, it’ll be a shock.” His fingers tugged at the curls that twisted on his neck.

“Oh, leave him alone,” Alayne chided as she traced over the Quadriweave symbol. The complete silence of her companions brought her head back up. Her cheeks heated under their shocked expressions. “I mean, no, I don’t like him either, but he—sometimes, I wonder if he’s just—misunderstood.”

Marysa sat up like a shot. “Misunderstood? Did we misunderstand his jerk behavior the entire school year thus far? You told me about what he did to your friend at Basic School. Was that a misunderstanding?”

“No,” Alayne sighed, not fully able to understand herself. But every time her dislike of him threatened to take over, she remembered the market place, his urgent hiss,
Come on! Get out of here!
She didn’t know how to explain herself though, mostly because she didn’t know how to explain Daymon.

That night, when she went to bed, she tucked the book away in a small, wooden chest. She wanted to study it later. A twinge of guilt wormed its way into her conscience as she decided against returning the book to the library. It was no big deal, right? And there was lots of material in this book that she wanted to review in more depth. She slid the chest down to the floor between her bed and the wall, twisting her lips as she wondered if she was turning into a clone of her paranoid mother. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry.

A
layne zipped
up her jacket and pulled her stocking cap over her ears. She shoved her hands in her pockets and waited as Marysa flew around their dorm room, searching for her shoes. She found one underneath her bed, and she dragged it out by a shoelace, but the other was nowhere in sight.

“Alayne, just go without me. I’m going to make us late to meet up with the rest of the First-Years.”

“I’m not going without you.”

“Fine. But we’ll have to walk in late, and I know how you hate—oh!” Marysa pulled aside the curtain and found her other shoe sitting on the window sill.

Alayne rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Marysa, sometimes I wonder about you. Since when did you start keeping your shoes up there?”

Marysa grinned and stuffed her foot into the shoe. They grabbed their bags and ran for the chute. Only upperclassmen filled the common room this morning. The First-Years were having their first field trip.

Alayne gripped the car railing as they free-fell past the gymnasium to the ground floor. “Have you ever been out of Clayborne before?”

“No. This is my first time.” Marysa’s eyes sparkled. “Katrina’s told me some about it. Clayborne’s almost like a city within itself, so there’s hardly ever any need to go out. It’s set smack in the middle of the prairie anyway, so what is there to explore? There’s another field trip just after Christmas that students take every year that goes farther away, but there’s nothing to do. They take you down to Cliffsides, south of here, and walk you around the edges for a few days. Boring as dirt.”

“Is it for First-Years?”

“Katrina says it’s for everyone, but you have to sign up. Not me, no way.”

“Has Katrina been on the arboretum trip we’re taking today?” Alayne asked.

“Yeah, she says that’s the traditional First-Year field trip. But she hasn’t told me about anything else. I got the impression that it was just loads of trees and fields. Clayborne’s kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Of course, you can see at least a couple miles around from the top of the spire on a clear day. The village of Grenton isn’t too far from here, but you can’t see it from the ground. You can from the shuttle landing, though.”

The chute doors slid open, and Alayne followed Marysa out onto a cement circle that surrounded the base of the spire. A paved road led down to the river a hundred yards away. Everywhere else, fields stretched as far as she could see. Trees dotted fence lines here and there, but not another building or spire smudged the horizon.

Alayne shivered and pulled her jacket more tightly across her chest. “Come on, there’s the rest of the class.”

The group of First-Years huddled together near the boat dock. A boat slid slowly downstream toward them. Jayme, standing near the front of the crowd, caught a glimpse of his friends and waved. Marysa waved back. She nudged Alayne. “You and Jayme seem like you’re back to normal.”

“Yeah. I’m not sure what happened. After the break-up with Kyle, he kind of settled back into an easy friendship.”

“Maybe he wants to give you space.”

“Mm, maybe.” Alayne hooked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She had thought she had wanted space, too, but now she wasn’t sure what she wanted.

She spied Kyle standing between two other boys near the back of the crowd. He no longer sat with her at meals or walked with her to class, but she often caught him watching her when they passed between classes or in the common room. Ice-hockey was awkward now. They didn’t speak to each other much, and the rest of the team had noticed.

“Dude,” Alex had complained one day when Kyle had missed an easy shot. “Get your mind off Worth and back on the game, Pence.”

Neither Kyle nor Alayne had looked at each other after that comment, but Alayne had felt the tension in the air.

“Okay, First-Years, listen. Listen, please!” Professor Grace clapped for attention at the front of the crowd. Alayne stood on tiptoe to see the petite woman bundled in a parka and hood. Alayne suddenly wished she had put on her heavy coat. Marysa stood there in shorts and a t-shirt. She’d gotten quite proficient at controlling the temperature immediately around her, and she’d set it today for a balmy seventy-three degrees.

“Settle down, class, please.”

The hubbub gradually died away, and Professor Grace smiled. “Well, class, today you will have your first field trip.” She motioned to the vessel that had docked behind her. “This boat will take you downstream four miles to an arboretum owned by Clayborne Training Facility. With the onset of winter, the plants in the arboretum have withered and are mostly dead. For your grade today, you will work together to rejuvenate these plants. Those who revive the plants that are brightest, freshest, and healthiest will receive the highest grades. Please separate yourselves into groups of four, one student from each element represented in each group. I realize that there are fewer Earth-Movers than Water-Wielders. That’s okay. We’ll shift the Earth-Movers around as needed.”

There was a general melee as students pushed past each other to ask their friends. Jayme’s tall frame turned toward Alayne and Marysa. He raised his eyebrows in question. Marysa nodded, and grabbing Alayne’s hand, she bulldozed her way through the students.

Jayme grinned. “This sounds like fun. But we still need an Earth-Mover.” He looked around.

A petite blonde stood to their right, shyly watching the ground. She glanced up at them when she heard Jayme’s statement. “I’m an Earth-Mover,” she said.

“Well, come on over,” Marysa invited. “What’s your name?”

“Jordyn Cadell.”

The other groups were moving onto the boat, and Alayne’s group followed along. The boat captain closed the door after the last student. He headed back to the prow, and Alayne felt the boat rock gently as they started their slow progress downstream.

Jayme leaned against the side rail and eyed the shoreline with Alayne beside him. Jordyn and Marysa had found seats and were talking. Or rather, Marysa was talking, and Jordyn was listening with a shy smile on her face. Alayne grinned before turning back to the shoreline. The air moved restlessly in the trees along the bank.

“Reminds me of home,” Jayme murmured.

Alayne shot a glance at him. “Where is your home?”

“A long flight west of here. I didn’t live in the City Centre; I had to travel in for school and hockey practices.”

“You said you didn’t have any family to miss.” The silent question hung between them.

Jayme said nothing for a minute. Alayne watched his profile, half-wishing she hadn’t brought up the subject.

“My parents were killed when I was a kid.” He looked down at his hands. “They worked in the Capital, but commuted back and forth to our City-Centre. They—they were Shadow-Casted.” He swallowed. “My dad had access to some secret files at the High Court, and he got to be too prominent. The Shadow-Casters broke into our house one night, Shadow-Casted them, and made them go to the High Court to check out the files. One of the Justices realized what had happened, and he ordered my father arrested. But my Shadow-Casted father tried to break through the line. He and my mother were both shot and killed.” He glanced down at Alayne. “I lived with my uncle for a while after that, but then he died in a boating accident.” He shrugged. “Been on my own since I was twelve.”

Alayne’s eyes flooded with quick, hot tears. “Oh, Jayme, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks, Al. That’s kind of you.” He looked down at the water. “I don’t like talking about it much.”

Alayne’s eyes stung. She looked quickly away. Jayme would think she had gone nuts.

The river broadened, and they passed out of a channel into a huge lake. In the far distance at the other end of the lake, Alayne could hear the roar of a waterfall.

As she shaded her eyes against the late morning sun, Alayne saw another dock on the shoreline. The boat leaned slightly as they headed toward the dock.

The closer they came, the easier Alayne could make out the foliage on shore.

“Wow,” Marysa breathed as she came to stand next to her. “I bet it’s beautiful in the spring.”

Alayne nodded. Topiaries, fountains, and statues decorated much of the arboretum. The topiaries were withered and dead-looking, the fountains dried up; dead brown leaves rustled in the breezes along the arboretum’s pathways. Multiple flower beds lay bare and brown.

Behind them, Professor Grace clapped. “Okay, class, today your goal is to leave this garden looking like late spring. I’ll be walking among your groups to make certain that all of you are participating evenly in your project. Most importantly, remember to have fun!”

The boat docked, and the pilot opened the door so the students could exit.

Alayne shivered as she stuck her hands in her pockets. The group made its way into the garden, kicking aside random piles of dead leaves as they walked the gravel pathways.

“Let’s start over here.” Alayne pointed toward a corner where a tangle of vines almost hid a rust-covered fountain. A statue of a woman carrying a pitcher was the centerpiece, but her face was so wrapped in vines that it was hard to see her.

“Let’s all practice Throw-Casting.” Marysa directed them into positions around the fountain.

Together, they worked, Jordyn clearing away the dead vines and pulling live ones from somewhere in the earth, Alayne moistening the soil around them. Jayme called a strong wind from the east and blew away the mess of dead leaves and detritus. Marysa liberally poured heat into the scene.

Slowly, the area around the statue began to change. Greenery and lush color replaced dead barrenness. Alayne fixed the pitcher the statue held so it trickled a sparkling stream of water into the fountain. It grew warm, and Alayne luxuriated in it, half-wishing she could shed her shoes and take a barefoot walk. The rest of the place still looked frozen and brown, though. Barefoot wouldn’t be fun a couple of feet behind her.

Professor Grace passed and did a double take. “My goodness, what a beautiful job!” She inspected the trickling fountain, the deep green moss beneath the statue, and the bright, tropical plants that blushed in the heat. “I’ll admit, this is one of my favorite parts of each year. Winter sets in, we all grow cold and dull, and then we come here, and students surprise me every time. Full marks. Congratulations. You all have done an excellent job with your space.” She hurried on down the path, a pleased smile on her face.

“Okay, Marysa, turn off the heat,” Jayme complained. “I’m getting roasted over here.”

“But if I stop, the flowers will get cold and die again.”

“
I’m
going to overheat and die if you don’t stop.”

“I think you’re a bit more resilient than that.”

Alayne left the two arguing and meandered down the path, sighing as she entered the cold air again. She watched the other groups make their various patches green. Bit by bit, the arboretum transformed into a wealth of color.

Alayne turned along a pathway near the back of the arboretum. High stone walls lined the length of it. She had lost her sense of direction. She wondered if the lake was on the other side. Craning her neck, she wedged her fingers into the holes between the rocks, fumbling for a foothold. Just three or four feet up, and she could see.

The lake spread far to her right, its waters dancing in the cold breeze. In front of her, the prairie stretched to the horizon, its waving grasses gray and unbroken except for a large black bear and her two cubs who nosed along the back wall about a hundred yards to Alayne’s left.

Alayne frowned. She hadn’t thought bears inhabited this part of the Continent, but she’d been wrong before. Back home, she’d seen many different wild animals, usually on her mountain, occasionally one or two in her back yard, but bears here? She was thankful for the wall.

She shifted her weight, preparing to climb back down, when her hand-hold slipped, and she tumbled backward, the rock wall collapsing in front of her. With a sharp cry, she pushed back across the dirt with her hands, but it was too late. Her left leg was wedged between two boulder-sized rocks, the rest of the debris shifting to either side of them.

The dust slowly settled, and small pebbles trickled down to their final resting spots around Alayne’s legs. Alayne’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment. She looked up and down the pathway, but no one was in sight. She breathed a sigh of relief and tried to pull her leg free.

Nothing stirred.

She tried again, straining to shift the boulders, but the stones were so large and heavy that Alayne couldn’t budge them.

She thought of the bears, not far from the break in the wall and swallowed a panicked gasp. “Help,” she called, tentatively, and then louder: “Help!”

No answer. No one was close enough to hear.

Alayne leaned forward and pushed against the closest rock. It didn’t budge.

Surely someone would come looking for her before long if she couldn’t get her leg free. But what if the bears decided to explore the gap in the wall? What if the boat left before she could free herself? What if nobody noticed her absence until that night, and Alayne froze to death in the meantime? Or served as a bear snack?

Alayne squeezed her eyes shut, yanking her leg as hard as she could, and all at once, without warning, she
felt
the earth. Not the earth beneath her feet, or the rocks against her leg—yes, she could still feel those. But the
earth
, each particle of dirt, the power of the element itself—it slid in and around her fingertips, and she could touch the element as she pleased, poke it, stir it, move it.

Alayne opened her eyes wide, tentatively pushing first one boulder and then the other aside with the ease of flicking a mosquito from her skin. Relief flooding through her, she piled the rocks high in the wall, sealing off the gap.

Once her leg came free, Alayne rubbed the rough feel of rock from her skin before turning with fascination to the earth element, dipping her fingers beneath the hardened, dirt-packed pathway, extending the power deep beneath the soil to pull up long-buried stones. Along the edge, she found tulip bulbs, buried for the winter. She pulled them out, determined to take them to Marysa to plant back at the school.