The Falcon in the Barn (Book 4 Forest at the Edge series) (75 page)

Mahrree smiled, confused. “Busy? How?”

“
Kitten busy. Six of
them.”

“
Really? Oh, we have to go
after dinner to see them.”

“
But not with Peto. I know
him; he’d bring them all home.”

Mahrree laughed. “I was just thinking the
other morning how quiet and peaceful this past Weeding Season was.
Finally a normal year again! No terrible news, no disturbances,
nothing to worry us. So naturally, I started to worry. When Harvest
began, I started to get nervous, wondering what was coming. Surely
our restful season couldn’t continue. Well if the
big event
in our life is just kittens, that’s wonderful! Nothing
more
than that, that’s just fine. The only one who has been ‘busy’
plotting, or anticipating, or up to something, I suppose, has been
The Cat.”

For the past minute she studied her husband’s
face. Until he started trying to teach her Shem and his hobby, she
didn’t watch his every facial twitch too closely. But now the tiny
muscles around his mouth were quivering like mad, holding back
something he suspected.

She had never realized before how easy it
could be to torment him. He was nearly bursting with something that
he really couldn’t share.

She smiled sweetly at him. “Isn’t monotony
blissful?” she said. “I predict a
full year
with
nothing
exciting happening. I know—one year from now, the
48
^th
Day of Harvest, 338, let’s review and see if my
prediction was correct.”

Pain.

That’s what it was.

Absolute pain in trying to reveal nothing
with his face. It was delicious.

But Mahrree wasn’t nearly as good at this as
he was. She snorted.

He pointed at her, his eyes flashing. “What
do you know?!”

“
Nothing!” she snorted
again. “I know nothing at all!” She started to laugh.

“
And I know nothing
either!” he declared and caught her in a big hug. “Neither does
Deck suspect anything. The poor girl. I think she may be the only
one who really ‘knows’ nothing at all!”

---

Peto heard his parents laughing as he came up
to the back door. When he walked into the kitchen they were hugging
and wiping away tears as they tried to catch their breath.

He sighed. “What now?”

“
Kittens!” they both told
him, and started laughing again.

In a small way Peto did want to know why his
parents were laughing and crying about
kittens
. But instead
he shook his head and stomped past them to his room. Sometimes they
were so . . .

Well, take right now. Sometimes getting a
straight answer out of them aggravatingly impossible. And getting
them to understand anything was just a fruitless.

But tomorrow might change all of that.
Passing the Final Test was the first step. And since he couldn’t
enroll in any university until he was seventeen, he had all year to
ready himself. In the meantime, his parents had been giving him
ideas about his future.

“
With such a high Final
Test score,” Mahrree said proudly the other night at dinner, “he
could become a doctor, or a fort surgeon.”

“
He’d have to go to Idumea
to finish that training,” Perrin had said, clearly not pleased with
the option. “He could start studying at Mountseen and maybe finish
elsewhere, like at Waves or Midplain, and become a
scientist.”

“
True,” Mahrree said. “Or
even a historian, or a university professor.”

“
Or maybe,” Peto had
interrupted them, “you could ask ME what I want to do.”

They had both turned to him in surprise. “But
we’re just letting you know what your options are, son. We’re not
making any decisions. You could do anything in the world. You’re
one of the few who still gets to decide his own future,” Mahrree
reminded him.

“
That’s right, and there’s
only one thing I want to become right now, and you both know it,”
he declared.

“
Not as a profession, son,”
Perrin had scowled. “You could do that for fun on the side, and
still go to the university.”

“
I’ll go in a few years—I
promise. Just let me do what I want to do now.”

They had shaken their heads at him in
disappointment.

He had left the table in frustration.

But tomorrow the main scout for the Idumean
United team would be coming all the way to Edge. And he wanted to
meet Peto Shin. Tomorrow he might finally have his future
decided.

And his father’s.

Peto changed into his work clothes but paused
when something in his wardrobe caught his eye. He stared at the
corner of the parchment envelope. Taking it would make things a lot
easier, but his grandfather had been adamant: share it with no one
else.

Eventually he shut the doors and headed for
the table where his parents were sitting down to dinner.

“
Rector Yung wanted my help
to pick the last peaches,” Peto said as picked up a slab of bread
and piled on it mashed potatoes, a hunk of beef, then poured gravy
carefully over the top of it, licking the spills off his
fingers.

Mahrree grimaced. “At least use a plate! Just
sit down with us for five minutes, and—”

“
I’ll be back later to
finish off what you two don’t eat. The sun’s going down soon, and
Yung was pretty insistent.”

“
No, he’s not,” Mahrree
said, “but I am!”

Perrin patted her shoulder. “It’s better this
way. We can go to Deck and Jaytsy’s
by ourselves
.”

Peto didn’t know why that sounded as if he
was speaking in code, nor did he care as he took a large bite of
his dinner. “Can’t pick peaches in the dark. See you later,” and he
was out the door.

---

Halfway to Rector Yung’s he finished his
dinner on the go, and soon was licking his fingers to knock on the
door.

“
Peto! To what do I owe the
honor of your visit?” Yung smiled.

Peto walked into the sparse sitting room, a
tad guiltily. “I, uh, told my parents that you needed help picking
peaches, so . . .”

Yung was a quick one. Already he was taking
up a cracked bowl from his tiny table, filled with peaches. “Peto,
pick one
.”

“
Why, thank you, Rector,”
Peto grinned in feigned sincerity, taking a peach from the bowl he
helped fill a few weeks ago. Now that he was an honest man again,
he could explain why he was there.

“
You see—” he garbled as he
took a big bite, peach juice dribbling down his chin.

Yung handed him a napkin as Peto sat down in
the ancient stuffed chair that creaked faintly.

“—
tomorrow’s a pretty big
day for me, Rector.”

“
Is it, now?”

“
There’s a kickball
recruiter coming from Idumea to evaluate some of us. I’ve got an
appointment tomorrow with my future!”

Yung squatted in front of Peto, watching
nothing, but intently. “These teams—they play in Idumea?”

“
Primarily, yes,” Peto took
another bite. “They travel around, too, but all are based in Idumea
and Pools.”

“
I see . . . I see,” Yung
said, lost in thought. “And why have you come to me?”

“
Well, I’m going to need
your help with a couple of things.”

“
And what are those
things?”

“
One’s called Perrin,” Peto
said, slurping up the juice, “and the other’s called
Mahrree.”

“
Hmm,” Yung said, his voice
strangely far away.

“
You see, if I get
selected—and I’m sure I will,” he added modestly, “I get to start
next Planting Season. But my parents won’t want me to go alone, nor
will they want to go
with
me, so . . .”

Yung looked up at his eager face.

“
I need you to help me
convince them this is a good idea.”

Yung sighed. “But I don’t think it is,
Peto.”

Peto’s shoulders dropped. “Why not? Rector,
it’s crucial that—” He realized there was no way he could explain
to Rector Yung that his grandfather had a recurring dream about his
son becoming the greatest general in the world. Grandfather had
been specific about that, to not share that dream with anyone
except his wife.

His very distant, very far,
far
away
into the future wife.

But he could say a little bit, right? “My
grandfather really wanted my father to become a general, Rector—”
which was true and everyone knew that, “—and I’m trying to help my
father realize that . . . destiny.”

Yung tilted his head. “Destiny?”

Peto exhaled. “You know what I mean.”

“
Destiny,” Yung whispered,
lost in contemplation. Lifting his head again, he said, “What do
you know of your father’s destiny?”

Peto squirmed. “Rector, that’s kind of
personal, don’t you think?”

“
Oh, indeed I do. But you
want my very personal help, so I must ask very personal
questions.”

Peto could sense he was falling into a trap,
but he wasn’t sure in which direction he should go to avoid it.

“
Please, Rector. I’m not
asking this for myself. I know it seems selfish to want to play for
the professional teams, but it’s really to help my father, and to
fulfill what my grandfather asked me to do.”

Yung nodded. “I have no doubt, my dear Peto,
that you are sincere and honest in all that you intend. You are an
exceptional young man—”

“
But?” Peto said, feeling
antsy.

Yung cocked his head. “
But
I don’t
believe you understand
quite
everything your grandfather may
have intended.”

Peto groaned. “No, no, no, it’s you who don’t
understand, but I need you to trust me—”

When Yung interrupted him, it was with a
still, calm voice that somehow cut Peto through his core. “No, my
dear boy—it is you who do not understand the destiny of Perrin
Shin. You must not go to Idumea. In fact, I will do all that I can
to stand in your way.”

Peto was at first taken aback, then furious.
“What? Stand in my way? What . . . what . . .” He gestured wildly
to the ceiling. “I’ve helped you with that orchard and we’ve talked
and I thought you were my friend and willing to help me and—”

“
Oh, but I am your friend,
and I’m helping you in ways you cannot understand yet—”

“
Augh!” Peto exclaimed,
leaping to his feet. “It’s not that simple, Yung!”

“
I agree,” he said kindly.
“It’s not. Not in the least bit, no, not simple
whatsoever—”

Peto wasn’t listening but storming around the
small sitting area that used to belong to his great, great Uncle
Hogal and Aunt Tabbit.
They
would have understood, he was
sure. Yung just didn’t want to lose his free laborer. Who else
would chop his wood and tend to his peach trees if Peto went to
Idumea?

“
Look,” Peto tried again,
“he’s going to become a general—”

The expectant expression on Yung’s face
seemed almost to agree with Peto.

“—
and there’s no other way
but if he goes to Idumea. He’ll go for his son, I know it! Oh, I
wish I could explain it all to you.” Peto gripped his head and
continued to pace around the small man.

Yung watched him attentively, craning his
neck to keep his eyes on the frustrated teenager. “And how I wish I
could explain it to you, too, my boy.”

Peto stopped and dropped his hands to his
side. “Please, Rector Yung. My father can handle going back down
there. He’s strong and ready, and I made promises.”

Yung stood up and smiled. “Look how much
you’ve grown this last year,” he said, reaching up to pat his
shoulder. “More than a full head taller than me now. We used to be
the same height. My, have you grown—”

“
Is there a point to this,
Rector?” Peto was out of patience.

“
And so much like your
father, too,” Yung said. “So determined, and a bit on the impatient
side. My point is, you still have some growing to do, Peto. In your
heart and in your mind.”

Peto rolled his eyes as dramatically as he
knew how. “So you’re not going to help me get my parents to
Idumea?”

Yung’s wrinkled face broke into a pleasant
smile that reduced his already narrow eyes into mere slits. “Not
one bit, my dear friend. I’ll fight you every step of the way if I
must.”

Peto stormed out of the house, not bothering
to say goodbye.

He missed hearing Rector Yung say, “Because
it’s not simple at all, my dear boy. Oh, not simple in any sort of
way . . .”

---

Peto stood in the changing room of the arena
in Edge wearing only his thin undershirt and shorts, because he was
the only one asked to stay longer. The other young men had already
been dismissed. That had to be a good sign, he decided, although he
was being treated like a horse at an auction.

The scout inspected him up and down. He
squeezed Peto’s calf muscle and nodded in approval, then poked his
thigh which was as hard as a rock. Satisfied, he thumped Peto’s
tight belly.

“
I have to admit,” he said
as he walked around Peto who stood at attention, “when I learned
who your father was, I thought there was no way you could be a good
player if you were anything as large as him. But you’re not. You’re
the perfect shape for a ball player—lean, tight, not too broad. And
on the field no one today had better ball handling skills or was
faster on his feet. If you were as bulky as your father you’d be
useless except as a goal tender. But that’s not what you want to
be, is it?”