Thirteenth Child (16 page)

CHAPTER 17

THAT FALL, LAN WENT BACK EAST TO A BOARDING SCHOOL IN
Pennsylvania. I’d known, out on the edge of my mind, that he and Papa had been talking about it all spring while Mama was in her cast, but I’d been too busy to pay it much mind. Papa said that it was time Lan had different magic teachers, who could show him a wider range of techniques.

Lan didn’t seem too pleased with the notion. He said he wanted to stay in Mill City and go to the upper school that Allie and Robbie were in and study magic with Papa and the other college professors, the way he’d been doing. But Papa said the Mill City upper school wouldn’t give him the theoretical grounding he needed, and picking up bits and pieces from the other professors wasn’t anything like the kind of education he’d get from a top-drawer Eastern school.

I heard them arguing about it more than once before Lan agreed to go. After a while, I noticed that Papa never once said straight out that Lan was a double-seventh son, but he talked a lot about how Lan needed to stretch and challenge himself and about reaching his full potential. He’d never talked like that to any of the other boys.

He didn’t fool Lan one bit, either. A week after school let out, Lan came looking for me. I was out behind the house with Allie and Nan, beating the winter’s dirt and dust out of the big parlor rug. It should have been done weeks before with the other carpets, but we’d left it for last because it was so large, and then had gotten busy with other things. Whaling away with the carpet beaters was usually fun, but that day was warm, with no wind to carry the dust off, so it was just hot, sweaty, dirty work. It is truly amazing how much dust and dirt you can pound out of a carpet in the spring, even one that’s been sitting in a room that’s hardly ever used.

We’d almost finished going over the carpet when Lan showed up with two buckets and asked if I could go frogging with him. I wasn’t slow about putting my carpet beater aside, though I wondered what Lan really wanted. He usually went fishing or frogging with one of the boys from down the hill, or by himself, if they couldn’t come.

Lan handed me a bucket, and we started for the creek. As soon as we were well out of earshot, he said abruptly, “You know Papa’s been at me to go to this boarding school out East, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“What do you think of it?”

“What do I think of it?” I stared at him. “That’s for you and Papa to decide, surely.”

“Yes, but you’re my twin,” Lan said impatiently. “And…well, what if you need me again?”

“Need you…Oh, you mean if Tad Holiger starts in on me again?” I considered. “He hasn’t bothered me or William since that time last winter. I don’t think he’ll start up again. And if he does, I’ll just remind him that I’m a double-seven’s twin.”

“That should work.” Lan looked relieved. Then he frowned. “But what if—”

“Lan.” I cut him off before I got to feeling cross with him. It was bad enough that he’d be going, even if we had drawn apart some, but it was worse that he was dragging me into helping him dither over a decision that was none of mine. “You’ll be at the upper school next year, even if you stay in Mill City. And I’m not totally helpless, just because I’m no good with magic.”

Lan snorted. “That’s not the point.” But he didn’t say what the point was. He just stood there, digging the toe of his shoe into the dust and swinging his frogging bucket.

“What do you want to do?” I asked suddenly.

He flushed and looked away and didn’t say anything for a long time. Then finally he said, so soft I almost missed hearing it, “It’s not fair.”

“Fair?” I thought at first that he meant it wasn’t fair that he was made to go off East to school, when he wanted to stay. Then I saw his face clear, and all at once I knew that he wanted to go as badly as he’d ever wanted anything in both our lives. What wasn’t fair was that he got sent East to school, just for being a double-seventh son, when there’d never even been talk of sending anyone else.

If it hadn’t been for Miss Ochiba’s teaching, I don’t think I’d have seen even that much. I know for sure that I wouldn’t have seen, right then, that being a double-seventh son was near as bad for Lan, some ways, as being a thirteenth child was for me. Only nobody’d ever expected me to like being a thirteenth, or to be happy about it.

“No, it’s not fair,” I said, thinking hard. “But it’s not like Robbie or Jack ever wanted to go to school out East.”

Lan had to grin at that. Robbie had discovered girls, and there were lots more girls at the Mill City upper school than there were boys, because some of the settlement families let their girls stay in town for schooling when they went off to their allotments, but they took the boys along to help out. The last month of school, Robbie had walked a different girl home every afternoon, sometimes more than one. As for Jack, he hated school, and was happy to be finished with it for a while. When Papa told him he should start studying to get into a college, the way Hugh and Charlie and the older boys had, Jack said he’d only just gotten out of upper school and he wanted a break.

I took a deep breath. “And it’s not fair that you were born last and a double-seven, and the rest of us are just regular people.” I didn’t have to add that it wasn’t fair that I was thirteenth-born. I knew that right then Lan was as mindful of it as I was. “It’s not fair, but it’s how things are.”

“I can’t change when I was born,” Lan said, and stopped.

“But you could change this?” I said for him. “Don’t be a…a goose! What good would it do any of us for you to give up the chance for the kind of schooling you want? Besides, if you stay, in less than a month you’ll be moping around making everyone else miserable. You know you will! How is that fair?”

Lan had to admit I was right, though he was plainly still troubled. He cheered up when we got to the creek, though most of the frogs seemed to have gone into hiding. We barely got half a bucketful between us. That night he told Papa that he’d try the boarding school. So Papa made the arrangements, and in the fall Lan left on the eastbound train.

I missed him more than I’d ever suspected I would. I’d thought that because we’d been in different grades for so long, and because he was off studying with Papa so much when we weren’t in school, I’d hardly notice he was gone. Instead, I noticed it all the time, even when I was in school or doing chores like the wash, that the boys didn’t ever do. Lan had always been somewhere nearby—nearer than Pennsylvania, anyway—and I’d known it. I felt like I was missing part of myself.

School wasn’t much changed from the year before. I still had difficulty with my spells—the fire-lighting spell went off like a Fourth of July sparkler without actually starting a fire, the spell for lightening loads sort of stuttered, so that the weight went from light to heavy and back, over and over, and the far-seeing spell didn’t work at all. Even William got impatient with me over that sometimes. He was studying hard for the final examination, along with about a third of the eighth-grade class, the ones who meant to go on to the upper school. The rest were looking forward to finishing with school and going off to work or to their families’ settlements.

I felt like I was drifting. I didn’t know whether to go on to upper school or not. If I didn’t, I could stay home and do more of the housework—the parts that didn’t take magic, anyway. Mama was still feeling poorly and not up to heavy cleaning, and with Lan’s school expenses, we’d had to cut back on having Mrs. Callahan in to help. Also, there was a part of me that cringed away from learning any more magic, which I’d have to do if I went on to upper school.

But I knew that Papa and Mama would be upset if I told them I didn’t want any more education. I was pretty sure William would be upset, too, and I knew for a fact that Lan would give me a tongue-lashing the next time I saw him. I didn’t want to face any of them. So I put off making up my mind, and put it off, and put it off.

And then it was March. The weather was cold and we had two blizzards in one week, but in between them the wind was warm and damp, and made everyone restless for the spring that hadn’t come yet. The settlement boys started cutting classes, even though there wasn’t much of anything to do yet outside of school. Every day there’d be two or three empty seats, except in Miss Ochiba’s class. Nobody quite dared to skip out on her.

One morning we came into Miss Ochiba’s classroom to find that she was not alone. A tall, strong-featured man was half leaning, half sitting on her desk, swinging a booted foot. His skin was a rich, dark chocolate color, and his hair was clipped close to his head, shorter than his neat beard and mustache. A broad-brimmed hat dangled from one hand, and his jacket and pants were well-worn brown leather with long fringes dangling from all the seams. He grinned a wide, white grin at our startled faces, and said something to Miss Ochiba that nobody else heard.

Nobody ever dawdled getting ready for Miss Ochiba’s class, but that morning we were even quicker about taking our seats than usual. Miss Ochiba smiled slightly as she rapped for order and wished us good morning. Then she said, “As most of you have probably guessed, today’s class will be somewhat unusual.”

A little stirring rippled through the class; Miss Ochiba frowned slightly and it ceased instantly. Behind her, the black man’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and he pursed his lips like he had to do something with them or he’d burst out laughing.

“Many of you will be going out to the settlements in a few weeks,” Miss Ochiba continued. “You will find that it is one thing to learn in class about wildlife and the spells that hold them back, and quite another to live with their presence day to day. Even for those of you who will remain in Mill City, it will be wise to remember that the Great Barrier Spell runs less than two miles away.

“I have therefore taken this opportunity to have Mr. Washington Morris speak with you today.” Miss Ochiba turned to indicate the man behind her, who gave a short nod in acknowledgment. “Mr. Morris has spent most of the past ten years on the far side of the Great Barrier, as an explorer, guide, and independent circuit-rider among the border settlements. He knows a great deal about the country and the wildlife of the settlement frontier, and I recommend that you give him your full attention.”

Washington Morris straightened up and came forward. “Thank you kindly, Miss Maryann,” he said in a deep, rumbly voice with more than a hint of a Southern drawl. “I think I’d best begin by speaking of what I do, and give you all a chance to collect your thoughts. Once you’ve got your questions ready, I’ll be pleased to answer them.”

We all listened in utter fascination. Mr. Morris was a traveling magician, one of those who went from town to town, bringing news and sometimes supplies, escorting folk who needed to travel, and helping the settlement magicians reinforce or expand their protective spells. Traveling alone on the far side of the Great Barrier was difficult and dangerous. The Settlement Office had a regular schedule of circuit-riders for the larger towns close by the river, but the farther out the settlements went, the fewer magicians were willing to take the risks.

So the Settlement Office decided to hire men who’d gone into the Far West exploring on their own and had lived to tell of it. They found six, and authorized them as independent circuit-riders, with no fixed schedule to keep, just a wide section of territory to keep track of. Mr. Morris had been one of their first recruits, and for the past five years he’d been riding the northernmost section of the territory from the tip of the Red River down to the Long Chain Lakes, stopping back to Mill City every so often to report in.

In that time, he’d been hunted by greatwolves and nearly trampled in a bison stampede. He’d been stung by sunbugs and had once awakened to find rattlesnakes sharing his bedroll. He’d run from wildfires and dodged prides of saber cats and Columbian sphinxes. Once he’d lost all his supplies in a flash flood, and had to hike eighty miles to the nearest settlement. He told us all this in a calm, matter-of-fact way that made his list of adventures seem as commonplace as watching the milk-delivery wagon rattle up the street every morning.

But for all that, it was plain to see that he loved the wide, wild country to the west, and all the people and creatures that lived there. “They were just acting according to their natures,” he said when one of the girls asked why he didn’t shoot the bear cubs who’d gotten into his food cache. Then he grinned his wide grin and added, “Also, I knew the mama bear was around somewhere, and I can’t rightly say I wanted her riled at me. A mama bear who’s protecting her cubs is a fearsome thing.”

He looked around the class and said more seriously, “There’s a thing to remember that’s worth as much as a round half-dozen spells: Steer clear of the young ones, no matter what kind. For certain-sure, their mama is nearby, whether or not you see her, and even a prairie dog will fight for her pups.

“There are two kinds of people who get themselves in true trouble on the far frontier,” he went on. “The ones who are terrified of the wildlife, who cower in the settlements wanting the magicians to keep every last critter as far away as if they still lived east of the barrier, and the ones who aren’t afraid of the critters at all, who act as if they carry a personal barrier spell around with them all the time.”

“Mr. Morris, what do folks do who don’t ever get themselves in trouble?” one of the boys asked. His family was moving to a settlement in a few weeks, so he had a serious interest in the answer.

Mr. Morris studied him for a minute, then gave him a slow smile. “There’s nobody who doesn’t ever get in trouble,” he said. “But the ones who see the least of it start like you, with questioning those who’ve been before them. They take care, but they don’t let fear cripple them. They watch the wildlife, and learn from them.”

“Learn from them, Mr. Morris?” the boy said.

“There’s no creature out there that’s not wary of something. If you watch them close, you can figure out what they do to stay alive, and apply it to your own self.” He paused, then said with another slow grin, “And being as how you’re Miss Maryann’s students, you can call me Wash, all of you. I’m more accustomed to it, you see.”