Thirteen Orphans (33 page)
There were several interesting developments in the days following Gaheris Morris’s visit.
Brenda talked to her mom just about every day, and managed to confirm her own suspicion that Dad had come to check on Brenda on his own initiative. Nissa was up and mostly recovered in less than a week after the encounter with the Three-Legged Toad. Perhaps mostly importantly, at least for how it changed the dynamic of the household, Foster could talk—or rather, they could understand what he was saying.
The spell Pearl and Des had worked had been pretty complicated, a series of spells rather than a single one. The final spell in the sequence had been the only one Brenda had come close to understanding, and that was because she’d helped work it out, since it was the spell that let the others link with her mind. The formula had involved her element, wind, time of birth, direction, color, and other things, but the end result was worth the effort.
Unlike the Dragon’s Tail or the other spells Brenda had learned so far, the sequence that let them understand Foster was relatively permanent. Until the spell was undone, Brenda’s brain had effectively been reprogrammed to believe that it had always known the peculiar form of Chinese Foster spoke.
Brenda even dreamed in that language now—not always, but enough that she was beginning to stop feeling startled by her new ability.
Foster hadn’t given up his desire to learn English, and he was learning a lot faster now that his teachers could explain complicated parts of grammar. Lani had been included in the spell, but there was no childlike innocence and ease in her acceptance of her new ability. She nearly drove them to distraction asking “why,” and Brenda privately believed that Nissa had gotten out of bed a day or two earlier than she really should have just to escape the little girl’s unceasing questions.
But chatting with Foster proved not to be as easy as merely bridging the language gap. His lack of memory made the kind of shared anecdotes that were the foundation of most friendships impossible. From him there was no “I get you. I remember when I first …” He listened with almost ferocious eagerness to their conversations, but unless they were discussing small household matters or the weather, he had little to contribute.
Now that Foster was off “house arrest,” Riprap decided to teach him basketball. Nissa wasn’t up to all the jumping about, but Brenda and Des took up the invitation to join. Brenda had played a little, both in school and with her brothers—although, honestly, she preferred soccer. As the hoop outside his house testified, Des liked shooting baskets.
There was a nice little park not overly far from Pearl’s house. Especially during the week, the half-sized court was usually empty.
Brenda was much smaller than the three guys, but she was quick and lithe—and tough enough that her episode of ch’i depletion had left her without any scars. She became adept at stealing the ball, although she didn’t make many baskets. Despite this, she enjoyed the games, enjoyed the time away from the excruciating memorization that went into learning how to create spell sequences.
Riprap and Nissa were both more attentive students than Brenda was, and Brenda knew this was because in her heart of hearts she felt like a fake. They were the Rabbit and the Dog. She was not the Rat. Whatever it was that might make her the Rat was gone, stolen away, perhaps forever.
During the basketball games, Brenda could forget this, forget how she didn’t quite fit in. It helped that Foster didn’t fit in even more than she did—or didn’t—or whatever. It helped that Foster seemed to like walking beside her when they went over to the park. It helped how her heart would beat harder when his hand brushed hers—always by accident, ever by accident, although sometimes, lying in bed at night, Brenda would replay the moments in her mind, wondering if there might be just a little bit of “on purpose” involved.
Maybe Foster liked her. That was impossible, of course. He was gorgeous. She was just her. He was someone remarkable, even if he didn’t remember right now who that was. But sometimes, when he smiled at her, or when he paused to let her go through a door in front of him, or when he seemed to wait for her to walk with him when surely one of the guys would be more interesting, then Brenda wondered.
Brenda knew she was behaving like an idiot, letting so much of her thoughts be occupied by something that was certainly all in her imagination—certainly, almost certainly, maybe not?
A bright-feathered, strangely colored bird flew overhead.
Foster, walking beside Brenda as they returned to Pearl’s house after a particularly spirited game, grabbed Brenda’s hand and pointed.
“Look!”
Brenda’s heart beat and her breath caught, so that all words, any words, in any language fled. Her world shrunk to that warm, roughly callused hand that held hers in a warm, living clasp.
Oh, please,
she breathed in silent, inarticulate prayer.
Oh, please. Almost certainly. Please, not maybe, not.
she breathed in silent, inarticulate prayer.
Oh, please. Almost certainly. Please, not maybe, not.
Pearl was amused to see that a new development had evolved from Foster’s increased freedom. Deprived of her playmate, Lani had cast about for others and had discovered Wong, Pearl’s gardener.
In short order, Lani had charmed Wong and been charmed by him in turn, so on the days he was working they became an inseparable duo. That gave Nissa a much-needed opportunity not only to catch up on her studies, but also to be something other than a mother/student.
Everything within and without the little household was quiet and peaceful. Pearl wondered why. She hadn’t expected it to be so. She had rather expected otherwise. She thought she had dangled bait so that surely the settled situation would unsettle. She wondered what she had missed.
She and Des continued to work on possible ways to break the spells that held Foster’s memory in the crystal globe. They were handicapped in that they could not test their theories without risking that they would work—and Pearl was not certain she wanted them to work. Foster as he was now was a tiger declawed. Foster with his memory back might well be a challenge to rival the Three-Legged Toad.
A knock came on the door of her office one afternoon as Pearl was making a phone call, setting up a screen test for Lani, arranging for someone to escort the child so that Nissa’s studies would not be interupted. Bonaventure was curled in her lap, a pot of tea near to hand, and for that moment she felt quietly content in a fashion she had not since Albert had been attacked.
“Come,” she said, expecting Des. Instead, the tall, dark, muscular form of Riprap nearly filled the doorway. “Come in.”
He did, treading lightly on the thick Oriental carpet. Big he was, but there was nothing cumbersome about his movements. Pearl remembered how Riprap had expressed apprehension that he would manifest as one of those little yap dogs that were what most people thought of when they thought of Chinese dogs at all: a Pekingese or a Shih Tzu or a Lhasa Apso. His aunt had manifested as a Lhasa Apso, although Riprap didn’t know that.
Pearl herself thought Riprap would be one of the hunting dogs, guarding dogs—a Chow Chow, maybe, or a Tibetan mastiff. Of the latter it was said that one alone could kill three wolves or two together a tiger.
Looking up and meeting soft dark eyes behind velvet lashes, Pearl felt suddenly glad that there were not two of Riprap, and wondered at her sudden chill of apprehension. To this point, she had found Riprap the easiest to deal with of the three apprentices, but today there was something undefinably different about him.
“Have a seat,” Pearl said. “Would you like tea?”
“I’m fine,” Riprap said, taking the chair she indicated. “I wanted to talk to you about what we’re doing, why we’re not doing more.”
Pearl looked at him, tilted her head to one side, projecting a willingness to listen, wanting him to explain himself. To her surprise, Riprap waited her out, silence matching silence, not in a duel of wills—or at least not overtly so—but of courtesy to courtesy.
Pearl remembered the account Brenda had given of her first meeting with Riprap, of watching the big man working as a bouncer in that noisy Denver club. Brenda had marveled at how Riprap had been able to control drunken tourists and cowboys on holiday without throwing a punch, only by speaking a few words. For the first time, Pearl wondered if she’d misunderstood Riprap, underestimating his complexity because he’d been the only one who seemed to be more on “her side” during the whole tension over Foster. Maybe he hadn’t been on her side, but on his own.
Time she learned what that side was.
“What we’re doing,” Pearl said. “Educating you, Nissa, and Brenda. Trying to find out what we can about the spell Foster would have used on me, but that I turned back on him. What more should we be doing?”
“That’s what I want to ask you,” Riprap said. “I made copies of the Brave Dog stories before I left home. I’ve been reading them when I have time—at night, mostly, before I go to bed. What keeps getting to me is how the emperor is at the heart of these stories. Brave Dog protects him, leads his enemies astray, hunts out those who would harm him. There’s no emperor in our story. Heck, Nissa and I haven’t even met him.”
“That’s because he’s gone,” Pearl said gently. “Whoever is after us already captured Albert Yu. He has no memory of who he was. He’s just a man who sells expensive chocolate.”
“And tea and mints,” Riprap added without a trace of a smile. “I tell you, it doesn’t seem right.”
“What would you suggest?”
“Oh, no, ma’am. I already know you don’t take suggestions very well. I’m just asking some questions.”
Pearl raised her eyebrows and permitted herself a small smile. “That bossy, am I? Very well. Ask away.”
“All right. I’m good at this amulet-making stuff. I know it. Nissa’s good, too. I mean, as far as I can tell, both you and Des have let the Sparrow’s Sanctuary she put up stand unaltered, and you wouldn’t have done that if her spell wasn’t as good as you could do. So why aren’t we doing more?”
Pearl pursed her lips. “Nissa spent four days flat on her back after building that barrier. Do you call that good?”
“Nissa built that barrier after feeding you ch’i for your own spell. Then she got carried away. As I see it, the problem wasn’t that Nissa couldn’t handle the spell, it was that she wasn’t taught enough about the complications that could arise when doing something that complex.”
Pearl sighed and slid a finger under the tea cozy to see if her teapot was still warm. It was, and she poured herself a cup, then raised the pot in invitation to Riprap. He shook his head, and sat watchful, waiting.
“Riprap, you and your ‘classmates,’ for lack of a better term, had to learn to walk before you could run. To be more accurate, you had to learn the alphabet and the sounds the various letters make before you could learn to read. I suppose Des and I could have given you long lectures about potential dangers, but I’m not sure they would have made an impression.”
Riprap allowed her a brief smile. “Yeah. I’ve seen that. We start kids on a sport, and we’re required to tell them why they need protective equipment or helmets or whatever, but there’s nothing like a knee in the wrong place to teach a boy why he needs to wear a cup.”
“Brenda’s summoning of the Three-Legged Toad shows how much worse than a knee in the wrong place,” Pearl said a touch primly, “mistakes in magic can be. I know Des put up wards before permitting you and Brenda to start your first spells. I’m sure he warned you that if something went wrong, the consequences might be far worse than a mere loss of ch’i.”
“He did,” Riprap leaned forward, laced his fingers over one broad kneecap. “Pearl, you said we had to learn the alphabet before we learned to read. That’s what we’re doing now: learning the basic forms and combinations, how they can be shaped and reshaped to summon, to build barriers. I’ve a feeling there’s more to it. That spell you worked so we could talk to Foster, that was no simple ‘sentence.’ What you and Des have been working on, trying to create a spell that would release memories from the dragon crystals, that’s something again. Are we going to learn that, too?”
“In time. To stretch the analogy, what we’ve been teaching you is less to read than to memorize and recite. The memorization and recitation serves two purposes. One, it gives you tools you can use to defend yourselves, or in a limited fashion, to attack. We’re also using those recitations to teach you about the elements that go into spells.”
Riprap nodded. “Right at the start, Des showed us how we could use a basic limit hand and it would work, but he also showed us how if we tailored our choice of tiles to our own directions, winds, whatever, we’d create a stronger spell.”
Pearl smiled approval. “And learning to calculate those elements—suit, direction, wind, dragon, later on variations represented by the flower and season tiles—will give you what you need to work complex spells like the one we used to permit you to talk with Foster. Later still, you may learn what you need to create unique spells, but that is something not everyone learned—even back in the days when the Twelve were not exiles and were the protectors of an emperor. By the way, do you know why we chose to work the spell so that you could talk Foster’s language, rather than having him learn English?”
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