A Play of Shadow (18 page)

Explaining about the mask took them to a second cup of tea, as Jenn had to talk around mouthfuls of delicious and steamy pudding. Peggs poured for them both, her forehead creased in thought. “I’ve not seen such a light,” she confirmed. “Could you make your own mask, here?”

“I’ve no idea how. They’re magic of some kind.” Jenn wrapped her hands around her cup. “Let’s hope Mistress Sand is able to make me one, or I won’t be visiting anyone else.”

“Unless you stay your woman-self,” Peggs pointed out, ever quick to the point. Then laughed. “Listen to me. Talking about magic and your Verge as if I know.”

“It’s new to me too.” Jenn toyed with her next spoonful.

“Dearest Heart.” Her sister sat again, and reached to touch her hand. “You learned something more troubling than turn-born masks and etiquette. What is it?”

They’d made a promise to one another, not to keep secret what was important, and this was. Jenn put down her spoon and fished the crumpled ball that was her list from her pocket, pressing it flat on the table. She rested her fingers on the paper. Fingers of skin and whatever strangeness lay beneath.

“Mistress Sand said there was no knowing about me, because all other turn-born are terst and—and different.” Jenn’s cheeks warmed. “She told me how it is for them.” The rest stuck in her throat, as if the words couldn’t decide the proper order.

“‘It—?’” Peggs echoed. Enlightenment dawned on her lovely face and she blushed, a little, too. “Well?” She coughed and went on firmly. “How is ‘it?’”

Like eating or breathing or dashing to the privy or anything else of flesh and blood, instead of glass and light.

“A memory, made real.” Jenn turned her hand palm up. Life creased and callused the skin. Faint scars marked her latest misadventures with paring knife and turnip. A woman’s hand, like any other’s in this world, with its own history. What Mistress Sand had told her? Words could be scars, too, and these she doubted would ever fade. “‘Memory, for a turn-born, is its own expectation.’ Magic, Peggs.” Saying it aloud, to her sister, eased something tight inside and she looked up, grateful. “I remember what I was, before. How I felt. What I felt. I expect to feel and do just as before.” She picked up her tea and took a deliberate swallow. “So I still can.”

“‘Still can?’” Peggs went ghastly white. “What do you mean?” She snatched Jenn’s hands, pulled her around so they faced one another, knees almost touching. “That you could—you might forget?”

“Only if I let myself,” Jenn said simply, though it wasn’t simple at all and terrifying to consider.

Mistress Sand had been clear on that point. The turn-born who let themselves forget they were once flesh inside as well as out soon forgot all else. She’d shrugged as if it was of no consequence, and perhaps it wasn’t. Those who forgot made no more expectations. Ultimately, they vanished . . .

. . . as if forgotten themselves.

“I won’t,” she vowed, ever so glad of Peggs’ warm grip, of the concern writ in those expressive eyes and mouth, of being with someone who couldn’t forget to breathe. “This is what I am and intend to stay. Mistress Sand said so long as I think of myself as a woman—” Jenn squeezed her sister’s fingers. “—I’ll be one. Besides,” she managed to lighten her tone, “I’m to be an aunt.”

Peggs had that look, the one where she was thinking things all the way through. Jenn waited.

Finally, her sister let out a long breath. “Ancestors Blessed and Beloved, you’ll be a wonderful aunt.” She added serenely, “But not a mother.”

The first question on her list. Mistress Sand had been startled; Wisp, of course, hadn’t cared.

Hearing the answer—though hadn’t she known as soon as she’d learned she was no longer flesh but its memory?—Jenn had been numb. Numb then. Numb now. She supposed she might be upset eventually, but what hit hardest and first was the reminder of what she was now. If she was honest, she’d had no desire for a baby of her own, being too busy learning to be an adult.

Until denied.

Aunt Sybb had written, in her latest and wonderful letter, that there was no one truly childless, who had family and friends, and no one ever loveless, who loved those around them. While she couldn’t have known—or could she?—Jenn had taken comfort in those words. Because she did love those around her, with all her heart.

Jenn looked at Peggs. “‘But not a mother.’”

“Well enough,” her sister nodded. She let go of Jenn’s hands to give her knees a quick little pat. “Ancestors Witness. I suppose you can’t stop your moon potion, though it’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”

Jenn felt her mouth fall open and closed it, before saying with great care, “Pardon?”

“If you must remember yourself as you are,” her astonishing sister said, quite as if they discussed the cooking of turnips, “it stands to reason you’ll bleed at your moontime if you don’t. Take it, that is. Unless you could forget just that bit?” She sounded hopeful.

Peggs had started her on the potion this past fall, with a more complete explanation of its use than whispers or Hettie—whose dislike of its taste had provided ample demonstration of its effectiveness—had hitherto provided. Taken diligently, moon potion not only prevented unsought births but reduced or even eliminated a woman’s moontimes—a boon particularly in winter, when the cold discouraged bathing.

“I wouldn’t know how,” Jenn responded. Even if she did, convenience hardly seemed worth the risk of forgetting. She grinned. “Besides, you’d be jealous.”

Her sister laughed. “I would indeed.” A keen look. “Feel better?”

“I do,” Jenn said and did, much to her surprise. She picked up her list. “I didn’t get to ask about the other turn-born—what their lives are like in the Verge.”

“Maybe you’ll see for yourself, once you have your mask,” Peggs said, clearly having decided the Verge, despite its strangeness, could be approached as any other well planned social foray. Sure enough, “Did Mistress Sand enjoy the honey?” When Jenn nodded, her sister beamed. “I’ll make you a basket next time. With pie.”

She wasn’t wrong. Peggs’ pie could melt a heart, let alone improve a disposition, and she’d not send one unless confident her dish would return safely.

Magic of its own.

“Pie it is.” Jenn tucked away her list, the better to hug what surely must be the best sister anyone could have.

And to leave the matter of certain other questions, and their answers, for the return of Bannan Larmensu.

After gaining a promise to be informed when her sister again left this world, and another promise to return in timely fashion, Peggs left, satisfied at last. The Emms’ house toad hopped out from beneath the cookstove, warm from Jenn’s supper, and settled on her feet.

“I do want to go back,” she confessed. “I’ll be very careful.”

~And not late again.~

Good advice, from an honorable source. Jenn chuckled. “I agree.” At least until she knew Peggs wouldn’t worry. Or, she thought pragmatically, had the new baby to fuss over instead of her sister. “Being on time, though. It’s not going to be easy.” Sitting in the Emms’ very nice, ordinary kitchen, filled with sights and smells—and chores—she’d known all her life, all Jenn could think of was how wonderful it had been to be somewhere new. Wisp’s blue home, the weeping crystals, and even the narrow rock crevice were the most exciting things she’d seen since, well, since she’d last been in the Verge. “There’s so much there!”

~Did you see any of us, elder sister?~

She bent over to meet its unblinking regard. “No. Should I have?”

The house toad deflated slightly. ~Perhaps not. Turn-born, if you forgive my saying—~ She had to nod before it would continue. ~—are best avoided. But we can tell that you, elder sister, are not the same.~ This last added in haste and with such sincerity Jenn could hardly take offense.

Though she was, now, curious. Curious was better than longing for another world, and ever so much nicer than worry over being more memory than real. Easing her toes from under the toad, she slipped from the chair to sit on the floor in front of him. Or her. With toads, “it” did seem the safer pronoun. “How so?” She’d not thought to ask the toads, who were full of caution and cared most about Marrowdell, any of her questions.

It blinked at this. ~You are different, elder sister.~

Jenn made sure she was comfortable. This could, she suspected, take a while. “Because I’m from Marrowdell or because of what—of what fills me.”

It held up its chin, gaining an authoritative demeanor belied only by the long toe it stuck into its mouth. ~Yes. You are different.~

Never give a toad options. She sighed as quietly as she could. At least “different” seemed a good thing. To a toad. “The next time I cross, would you like me to find other house toads?”

Out popped the toe. The toad puffed into a quivering wart-covered ball, eyes closed and half-buried in flesh. It looked, Jenn decided after a moment, enraptured.

Or seriously ill.

No, this must be joy. How delightful! Now she could travel the Verge on a mission to please someone else, which was both virtuous and kind and felt better for many reasons than being simply curious. “Then I will,” Jenn Nalynn promised with all her great heart.

Forgetting all about magic, just when she shouldn’t.

~Did it go well?~ From a wall.

~Are we safe now?~ From above and below. ~Is she gone?~ Dragons pestered and dragons plagued and Wisp came close to swatting the nearest on his way home again.

A home the girl had improved, however unwittingly. At the thought, he grew unusually magnanimous. ~I was in charge, you fools. Of course all went well.~

The pause that followed was too dubious for his liking.

But it wasn’t a pause. Wings no longer troubled the air. The younglings had scattered.

Heeding that warning, Wisp crouched and sprang.

Only to find himself pinned within claws, well above the rock crevasse and home.

A gaudy emerald face, bearded and fanged, dipped to aim a great eye at him. Shaped like a dragon, his captor, yet not.

Sei.

Wisp didn’t struggle, though his wings were painfully crimped and, yes, his better leg was bent nigh to breaking. It would do no good, other than possibly annoy this most powerful of beings; while the notion had its charm, he’d only just fulfilled his penance from the last time he’d annoyed them.

He satisfied himself with a snarl of protest.

~You cannot stay here.~ A voice to shake bone. ~You must return to her world.~

He’d heard those very words the day Jenn Nalynn had wished him into a man, a transformation the sei had finished before sending him back to live as one. Wisp sincerely hoped the sei wasn’t planning to do that again. Once was enough.

Or was this something else? A danger?

~What’s wrong? Is there a threat?~ Now he did try to free himself, the effort as much use as a nyphrit’s wriggling within a toad’s stomach. ~If you want me to return to protect her—~ the sei would know who he meant, beyond doubt ~—let me go!~

Wings that had beat to hold them in the air stilled, as if the sei could no longer be bothered. Not falling from the sky made Wisp unsettled. Being unsettled made him angrier. ~Let me—!~

~You must return to her world.~ As oblivious to others as ever. Sei were supposed to keep busy contemplating things beyond the ken of dragons, vast and imponderable things of interest to nothing else. All were safer that way.

This one, he greatly feared, had developed a taste for interfering. ~Why?~ he dared demand.

~You cannot stay here. You must return to her world.~ The sei’s head lifted away.

Wisp readied himself to bite whatever sei-flesh he could reach.

Just in time, for a bite might have been unwise, the being spoke again. ~A storm rides the road.~

As the dragon tried in vain to make sense of that, the claws holding him opened and he dropped.

It had happened before, the sei’s lack of care leaving him broken on the rocks.

But he was no longer that Wisp.

With a snap and roar, he opened his abused wings. Their first powerful beat saved him from the rocks. Their second, even stronger, swept him around and away.

The third sent him soaring toward his crossing to Marrowdell.