Princess Academy (11 page)

Miri waited for Britta to say something reassuring, but she just nodded.

“Never mind, I’m not really worried about it,” Miri said quickly, trying to affect indifference. “I guess I shouldn’t keep you to myself when you haven’t been home yet.”

“Honestly,” said Britta, “the academy feels more like home to me than my second cousin’s house.”

“Aren’t they kind to you?”

“They’re not unkind,” said Britta. “When I arrived, I brought food and supplies so I wouldn’t be a burden, but I still feel, I don’t know, not unwelcome, just unwanted.”

“Do you miss your real parents?”

“No,” said Britta. “Does that make me a bad person? I miss other people from the lowlands—a woman who used to take care of me, a family that lived nearby. But my father was always gone, and my mother was . . .” She shrugged, unable to finish her sentence. She stared hard at the ground with eyes wide open, as if trying to dry them out.

Miri did not want Britta to cry and so changed the subject. “Would you like to spend this week at our house? You can share my pallet.”

Britta nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Then so would I, Lady Britta.”

They had reached Britta’s house, so Britta stepped in to greet her relatives, and Miri continued on to the quarry.

From the near edge, she could see the green stream come down the high slope, jog around the quarry pit, and then empty below it, now milk white. The air was powdered with fine, white dust. The half-exposed slabs and laboring villagers gave the place energy, a feeling that here was where all the work of the world was done. Here everything was important.

Sometimes just looking at it made Miri’s chest feel hollow.

Her father was loading a block onto a trader wagon. He saw her, brushed his hands clean, and put his arm around her shoulder. Miri thought the gesture meant he was proud of how she had helped with the trading, or she hoped it did.
At least I have that much to offer the village
, she thought. She turned to him and took in the father-smell of his shirt.

Her father’s arm tensed, and she looked to where he was staring.

Two boys were pulling a block up the steep slope of the quarry pit, and Marda was behind them. She acted as a stone braker, inserting two wooden wedges beneath the stone every few paces to prevent it from falling back in case the rope slipped. Miri was small, but stone braking did not take great strength. She had always believed she could be the best stone braker in the quarry, if given the chance.

Pa did not take his eyes off Marda. “I don’t like it,” was all he said. He let his arm drop from Miri’s shoulder and started toward the quarry.

Miri heard the silent boom of a common quarry-speech warning—
Watch out
, said one of the boys pulling the block. The other boy had let the rope rub against the corner of the stone. It was fraying.

“Marda!” Pa was running now. Marda did not turn out of the way. She was still trying to lodge a wedge under the stone. As the boys scrambled for the rope, it snapped, and Marda disappeared from view.

Miri scrambled over the lip and inside the quarry for the first time in her life. Halfway down the slope Marda lay on her side, her face white with pain, strips of cloth ripped off her legging. Pa cradled her head in his lap.

“Marda, are you all right?” Miri knelt beside her in the rock debris, while other workers rushed in. “What can I—”

“Get out,” said her pa. His face was red, and anger filled out his voice and built it loud. She had never heard him speak much above a whisper.

“But I . . . but—”

“Get out!”

Miri found herself stumbling and running backward even before she could swallow her shock, turn, and flee. She left the quarry and did not stop and thought to just keep running until she fell. But someone stopped her. It was Doter, Peder’s ma.

“Let me go,” said Miri, kicking and thrashing. Until she spoke, she had not realized that she was sobbing.

“Come here. Hush now, come on.” Doter held her tighter and tighter until Miri stopped struggling. She laid her head on the big woman’s shoulder and let herself cry.

“There you go,” said Doter, “let it all slide out. Unhappiness can’t stick in a person’s soul when it’s slick with tears.”

“Marda . . . was in an . . . in an accident,” said Miri through the sobs.

“I saw. She’s got a hurt leg, but I think she’ll be all right. Take a moment and make sure you are, little flower.”

“Why does he throw me out all the time?” Miri’s throat was sore from sobbing. She pounded her fist against her knee, angry and embarrassed to be crying in front of someone, hating how it made her feel like a helpless little girl. “Am I so small and stupid and useless?”

“Don’t you know?” Doter sighed, and her chest heaved beneath Miri’s head. “Oh, my Miri flower, why do you think he keeps you out of the quarry?”

“Because he’s ashamed,” said Miri with years of bitterness rushing in her blood. “Because I’m too scrawny to do any good.”

“Laren, you big, dumb, tight-lipped fool,” said Doter to herself. “I should’ve known better, I should’ve known he was too much of a
man
to explain. Everyone in the world knows but the girl, the only one who should. Shame on you, Doter, for not speaking up years ago. . . .”

Miri felt stilled and soothed by Doter’s talk. She wrestled with her sobs until they were subdued to quiet, painful shakes in her chest. It was useless to interrupt when Doter conversed with herself, though Miri was hungry to hear whatever secret was behind it.

At last Doter sighed. “Miri, do you know how your ma died?”

“She was sick after she had me.”

Miri felt Doter nod. “That’s true, but there’s more to tell. It was high summer and traders were coming up any day. There’d been a costly number of accidents that year, and the quarry didn’t have enough cut stone to trade for the next month’s supplies. Your ma, she was a stubborn girl, and though big as a full moon with you in her belly, she insisted on helping out in the quarry. You may be able to guess what happened.”

“She was stone braking,” Miri said softly.

“One of the boys tripped, the stone slipped, and your ma tumbled down the steep side. That night you were born before your time. She hung on for a week, but she’d bled a lot, and there are some things a person can’t survive.”

“For that week, she didn’t let me out of her arms.”

“Of course not, why would she? You were tiny and scrawny and fuzzy, and also the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen, excepting my own.”

Miri started to protest, but she never could argue with Doter. Os often said,
A wise one never doubts the words from Doter’s mouth.

Doter grasped Miri’s shoulders and held her at arm’s length. Miri let her hair fall forward to hide any signs of crying, but Doter had a round, glad face and just looking at her made Miri feel easier.

“No one cares that you don’t work in the quarry,” said Doter. Miri choked on this and struggled to free herself, but Doter pinched her shoulders harder, as if determined to be heard. “I’m telling you now, no one cares. Do you think anyone begrudges my girl Esa her time tending house? When Laren says, Miri won’t work in this quarry, everyone nods and never speaks another word about it. You believe me, don’t you?”

Miri shuddered, a last sob breaking loose.

“Your pa is a house with shutters closed,” said Doter. “There are things going on inside that a person can’t see, but you sense he has a wound that won’t heal.”

Miri nodded.

“Marda takes after your pa, but you, Miri, you are your ma alive again. Look at your blue eyes, your hair like a hawk feather. He can’t help seeing you and thinking of her. It nearly killed Laren to let Marda work in the quarry, but he had no choice with just three of you in the house. How could he bear letting his little girl step foot into the place that took the life of her ma?”

They walked back through the village, and Miri kept her eyes on the ground before her. The whole world had shifted, and she was not sure she could keep her feet.

She was her ma alive again.

When Miri returned, she found Marda moved from the quarry into their house. Frid’s mother had pronounced the injury a painful leg break but nothing serious. While the woman set the broken leg, Miri held Marda’s hand, kissed her cheek, plaited her hair, and loved her as much as she felt, as much as she imagined her mother would. That night, Miri gave Britta her pallet and slept curled up beside her sister to comb her hair or stroke her face when Marda could not sleep for the pain.

Early the next morning, Miri woke to see her pa sitting in a chair, staring at his hands. She rose and padded to him, her bare feet silent. He reached out for her without looking up and pulled her into his chest.

“I’m sorry, my flower.”

He held her tighter, and when his breath shook on a sob, Miri did not need to hear any more words.

He was sorry. She was his flower. They would be all right.

n

Chapter Fifteen

n
Look no farther than your hand

Make a choice and take a stand

n

I
n a mountain summer, the world savored each day. Dawn came early, inviting waking up slowly and stretching and looking forward to everything. Olana noticed the class’s attention straying to the window, so she held more and more class time out of doors. The girls spent weeks learning the dances for the ball, twirling, skipping, and sliding under the sun. The hard blue of the sky appeared to arch above their heads a mere arm’s length away. Sometimes Miri reached and jumped and fancied she nearly brushed its smooth, curved shell.

Miri had never felt like this, light enough to float into the clouds. Even Katar’s jabs and Bena’s and Liana’s turned backs did not hurt so much—Doter’s story draped around her. What she had long believed was not true, and now the world was wide open to discover what was.

One evening after chores, Miri sat with Britta, Esa, and Frid on her pallet in the corner of the bedchamber and confided in them the story of her mother.

“So, did you . . . do you think I’m a burden on the village?” Miri spoke low enough that her voice would not carry. She did not want to give Katar anything else to taunt her about. “That I’m too weak to work in the quarry?”

Frid frowned. “No one on Mount Eskel is too weak to work in the quarry. I heard my ma say once that your pa kept you home for his own reasons. I guess I never thought about it again.”

Miri rubbed her arms and laughed. “It’s wonderful, it’s just so hard to believe. It’s like all my life I thought the sky was green.”

Esa lay on her stomach, one arm propping up her chin. “The way you act, always laughing out loud, saying what you think, I never would’ve guessed you worried what anyone thought.”

Britta had a shrewd smile. “I keep thinking about a tale my nurse used to read to me about a bird whose wings are pinned to the ground. Have you heard it? In the end, when he finally frees himself, he flies so high he becomes a star. My nurse said the story was about how we all have something that keeps us down. So here’s what I’m wondering—if Miri’s wings are free, what will she do now?”

Esa grinned. “Fly away, Miri bird, fly away!”

Miri flapped her arms and cawed.

“What
are
you doing?” said Bena, annoyed.

The girls laughed.

Where should I fly?
Miri asked herself all summer as she traveled between the academy and home.

Olana did not like it, but she lived by the agreement and allowed the girls a week off with each trader visit. Word of a village with gold coins to spend must have reached many ears, and traders new to the mountain arrived with specialty goods like strong-soled shoes, dyed cloth, chairs that rocked, ceramic cups, metal pails, painted ribbons, and steel needles. The village’s food stores built up, so no one had to wait with empty barrels for the next trader visit.

At midsummer, Marda and Pa presented Miri with a new pair of boots for her fifteenth birthday. She marveled how she could not feel the sharper stones through the soles.

Marda was resting while her leg healed, so each day at home, Miri helped her sister to the shade of an evergreen tree beside their house and with a shard of rubble rock scratched letters on the old quarry wall. On later visits she brought a book filched from Olana’s shelf, and the day came when Marda read an entire page on her own. She leaned back her head and sighed.

“What’s the matter?” asked Miri.

“Nothing. It feels good.” She looked to where the sun was grazing the western hills. “You know how the lowlanders have always been with us, how the traders talk and such. I’ve wondered if they were right, if we aren’t as smart, if there’s something wrong with us. With me.”

“Marda! How could you believe them?”

“How could I not? When you first started to teach me, I was terrified. You’ve done so well, and I was sure I’d be too dull to learn. The whole village would be thinking how Miri’s the head of the academy but her sister’s got goat brains.”

“No one could think that, especially not now that you’re the only one outside the academy who can read. Besides, Katar’s first in the class.”

Marda raised her brows. “But if you want to be, I don’t know of anything that could stop you.”

Miri almost told Marda then of feeling like the outcast of the quarry and the mean, tight spot of jealousy she had harbored in her heart for years. But the sensation was loosening, and it did not seem to matter as much anymore.

Before the academy, she had sat on her hill watching goats, and her imagination could dream of nothing grander than working in the quarry. But now she was aware of the kingdom beyond her mountain, hundreds of years of history, and a thousand things she could be.

She would not test her father’s pain and ask to work in the quarry again. She would find her own place. And sitting under a tree with Marda as she read her first page felt like the best place in the entire world. Miri wondered how she could make that good feeling last.