Dawn of Wonder (The Wakening Book 1) (12 page)

When he returned, Nessa asked where he had gone.

“Wasn’t it obvious?” He threw a look of haughty surprise
at her, one of those so-you-don’t-know-everything? looks. “I went to cover the
tracks. I don’t expect they would follow us this far after seeing we were
headed south, but if they do, I don’t want them seeing where we turned off. If
we had taken the DinEilan split through all those webs and leaves and dust, it
would have been clear as writing a note.”

Aedan was surprised. His father really was serious
about pursuit. Clauman drove them through the grass and under some large leafy
boughs until they broke out onto the disused inland track.

They camped in the open for five nights before they reached a
burned-out stone house. From here the track became very wild. It had clearly
remained unused for many years. In sections, Clauman was obliged to take detours
to negotiate obstructions and, more than once, to use his axe on trees fallen
across the way.

As the distance lessened, the mountains lost their
purple veil. They began to reveal green slopes that would turn gold in the
afternoons, and dark rocky faces higher and sterner than Aedan’s imagination
had ever painted them.

For a little over two weeks they travelled in
complete isolation. Aedan’s back and limbs began to heal somewhat. He could now
sit up, but he could not walk; his legs simply refused to bear the weight.

At one of the camps, Clauman cut some branches
from an elderberry tree and began shaping crutches while Nessa boiled the
little dark berries into a jam. Aedan sat and watched, too weak to be of any
help. His attention was drawn by the bright chinking call of a tiny wagtail that
strutted fearlessly through the camp, hunting for disturbed insects. He envied
the little bird’s independence.

When the crutches were shaped and the armpit rests
padded with cloth, Aedan was able to take his full weight on them, swing his
legs forward, and stand with his feet together while planting the crutches ahead
for another stride. It was a painful process – armpits, back, legs, they all
ached. When he fell, which happened often, there was no laughter. He practiced
for a few days, but it was hardly worth the effort. He spent most of his time near
the campfire, miserable, lost within himself.

It was Clauman who spotted the smoke – a thin blue, wispy
trail that pointed down into a birch grove. When they came near, he stopped the
wagon.

“Wait here,” he said, gripping a heavy staff and heading
into the trees. A little while later he returned wearing an amused expression.
“Now this,” he said, “I did not expect.”

They stopped the wagon outside what Aedan first took for an
enormous log-and-panel cottage, only that it appeared to have been built more
like an inn. Just outside the front door stood a middle-aged couple. The man
was tall and broad of shoulder with workmanlike hands, an ox’s head and a
mouse’s expression. It was the woman who dominated the porch. Her short but
solid frame was crowned with a wild eruption of yellow, curling hair pulled
back from eyebrows that looked to have been raised all her life, demanding from
the world just what it thought it was doing. Not even the smile could conceal
that this was a woman who knew how to take charge.

“Welcome, welcome!” she cried, clapping her hands
in front of her. “You are our first guests these past four years. Oh this is so
exciting! I am Harriet and this is Borr. We have so much to ask and so much to
tell. This is going to be wonderful! Oh look at your wagon, packed to bursting.
You must have been on the road a long time. Oh my! What is this? What happened
to you?”

Aedan had managed to slide himself out of the
wagon and was making his way over on his crutches.

“A long story,” Clauman answered for him.

“Well there will be plenty of time for stories
later, but I think now we should get you settled in. Yes?”

Clauman nodded.

After a silent handshake, Borr hefted the two large
sacks that Clauman handed down to him. He led the group through the parlour and
down a passage where he opened a door and led them in.

He frowned.

His wife shrieked.

The guests stared around in astonishment.

Cockroaches rushed from them like a receding tide,
flowing over a few dead rats and frogs. Grey drapes that had once been spiderwebs
were now transformed by dust into useless sagging folds that caught nothing
more than lizard droppings and expired moths. The floorboards were caked in a
fungus so well established that it might have been mistaken for moss were it
not for the overpowering smell of rot – it was as if they had stepped into the
bowels of a giant mushroom.

“Oh dear,” Harriet said, “Oh doubly dear. Oh
mother of a … Sorry, pardon me, it’s just that, oh, oh my …”

It turned out that the rooms had been left in
perfect order three years back and Harriet had expected, somewhat foolishly, to
find them a little dusty perhaps, but no worse than that. A hole in the roof
explained much of the destruction.

After showering her guests with apologies, Harriet
found two rooms that were in a less shocking condition, and she spent the
remainder of the afternoon apologising and scrubbing beside Nessa who would not
be kept from sharing the burden of cleaning. The men unloaded in silence while Aedan
got the kitchen fire going and was given a chicken to pluck. By the time he was
finished, it looked like he had made a fairly complete transfer of feathers
from the chicken to himself. Leaving Harriet to finish the scrubbing, Nessa chopped
carrots, celery and potatoes, and tipped them with a sprinkling of salt and a
sprig of rosemary into the pot to keep the chicken company. The result was a simple
yet toothsome pot-roast. Borr nodded in surprise and appreciation when the meal
was served that evening. Harriet mumbled something about the meat being
underdone.

After the meal that was never without the buzz of
conversation – for the women had become fast friends – Clauman accepted Harriet’s
invitation to remain at least until Aedan’s injuries had healed. He offered to
pay for accommodation, but she reminded him that money had no value this far
from town, so it was agreed that everything would be shared, both labour and
food.

“Is the rooster going to sleep in the house?” Clauman
asked, as everyone retired for the night.

“Oh, don’t you worry about him,” Harriet laughed.
“If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to manage my livestock. He’s no early
riser that one. Laziest chicken in Thirna. We call him Snore.”

Snore angled his head and gave Clauman a
challenging stare, then, clucking confidently, made his way with great dignity
to the parlour window where he hopped up onto the backrest of a deeply scratched
chair and buried himself in his feathers for the evening. Clauman looked
sceptical.

Morning had not even begun to intrude on the
night’s reign when there was a feathery disturbance at the same window. A soft whooshing
of wings and scraping of claws suggested a few stretches. Then the starry
silhouette revealed the shape of a beak and crown as the king of the morning
threw his head back – and roared.

Barely stifled curses poured from under the door
to Clauman and Nessa’s room as the panelled building shook with the thunder of
“Cock-a-doodle-dooo!”

Borr and Harriet, powerful sleepers both, awoke
well after sunrise and were surprised by their guests’ subdued and somewhat
grumpy manner at breakfast. Clauman made his feelings for Snore quite plain. Harriet
insisted that he was exaggerating and that it could not be that bad and that,
if he chose to, he could ignore whatever clucking had woken him.

Clauman dropped his spoon and looked at her without
expression, and then said that either his family or the rooster would be
leaving immediately. Snore was given a hock on the far side of the buildings.

That day the men worked well together setting traps
and making repairs to goat pens, chicken coops, and the long-neglected roof of
the inn. Their language was the silent understanding of getting the job done.
When words were used, they were few and to the point, like “Mallet”, “Next
beam”, or “Let me have a go”. Aedan found this quiet camaraderie both
surprising and amusing.

Borr was an experienced carpenter with an
impressive tool shed, though it was no tidier than the house. He had cut many
of the inn’s logs and panels himself. When Aedan remarked on the enormity of
the task, Borr merely shrugged his heavy shoulders. To follow orders and plod
through chores appeared to be his complete expectation of life.

At dinner, Aedan fully understood why Harriet had called
the previous night’s pot roast underdone. A charred crust lined almost
everything on his plate. Borr’s look of delighted surprise was gone and Harriet
wore one of satisfaction. This, apparently, was how it was done. It made no
difference what herbs were used – all her meals tasted like soot. Nobody dared
comment. Aedan learned to pinch his eyes shut and swallow hard. He’d always thought
that when people said someone could burn water, it was just an expression.
Harriet, however, had apparently mastered that dark art; she could burn
anything from water to wooden spoons and whatever else that came in contact
with her pots.

On the third morning, Harriet bustled out onto the
porch where Aedan was sitting at a small table, writing.

“What are you writing?” she asked, without
preamble. “Here, let me see that.” She pulled the page out from under his hand.

Aedan was surprised at her abrupt approach, but
was not entirely upset. After all, what was a writer without a readership?

“The adventures of the mountain warrior,” she
read. She was silent for a while, letting her eyes rove over the lines. When
she finished, she put the page on the table and sat down. Aedan waited,
breathless.

“Just as I feared,” she said. “All empty boyish
silliness. You have obviously let your imagination go wild with weeds like a
garden full of … weeds. Imagination is not good for you, just like weeds aren’t.
So I am going to help you dig out the weeds and put yourself in order.”

Aedan frowned, not sure that he liked where this
was going.

“You see,” she resumed, “I happen to know that
someone your age has no understanding of such notions.” She pointed at the
page. “Love, tragedy and revenge,” she said, shaking her head. “These are
exactly the kinds of ideas that I will not allow in your sweet little head, my
boy. What could you possibly know of such things?”

Aedan gathered himself to answer, but she was too
quick for him.

“You see – nothing. One thing you’ll soon discover
is that I know how to read people. I’m glad that you are writing – it shows some
refinement, but I cannot allow you to ruin yourself with such empty ideas – and
violent! Really Aedan, this is too horrible for someone so young and delicate.
You see, I can tell by your injuries that you are made soft. It’s time for you
to accept that. I’d like to see you writing valuable thoughts from now on –
recipes, garden arrangements, even plans for my new shed.”

“But I … I don’t want to.”

Harriet wasn’t listening – something she had
apparently developed to a fine art. She was on her feet pacing, her finger
tapping against her pursed lips like someone planning a large-scale renovation
– which was exactly what she was doing. And Aedan was the object of this
renovation.

“We’ll begin by putting you in charge of household
chores. Sewing was the thing that gave the finishing touches to
my
refinement – but needles can be dangerous. Maybe we’ll keep that back until
I’ve taught you responsibility and foresight.”

Aedan looked out onto the empty road and wondered
how those qualities had contributed when Harriet and her husband had built an
inn on a dying route. Back down that road were Aedan’s friends who knew him for
what he was, who wouldn’t try to change him into something else. He reached up
and felt the little leather case that now hung from a cord around his neck.
Though its touch gave him comfort, it had been a mistake to draw attention to
it.

“What’s that?” Harriet said.

Something changed in Aedan’s face. With both hands
he gripped the little case and pressed it to him.

Harriet narrowed her eyes, but stayed where she
was. Her glare dropped to the treasure Aedan held, and he clasped it tighter.

“This is a bad start for you. A very bad start.
And I can see there is a lot we are going to have to mend here. I may not be a
mother, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to make even the worst person
into someone decent. I’ve done so for my husband and I can do so with any boy.”
She threw her head back and glowed with defiant pride.

Aedan recognised the ambition in her eyes. She was
not a mother but she certainly wanted the job. Though he dreaded what was
coming, he did not have the strength to oppose it, and Harriet was strutting
like a boxer.

As soon as he was alone, he hobbled off the porch
down the stairs, dug a few handfuls of soil from beneath them, slipped the
leather case into the hole and covered it again. He had a suspicion that
Harriet just might root through his things when he took a bath. If she found
that case, if she looked inside …

That night he spoke to his father about Harriet’s
threat to reform him, but Clauman merely laughed and did nothing, perhaps
thinking of his dinner and hoping Aedan would be made to cook. Then Aedan spoke
to his mother. She listened attentively, promised to stand up for him … and quailed
under Harriet’s domineering presence.

From then on, Harriet took charge of Aedan as a
personal project, mending him with constant criticism and ensuring that he was
never without some self-improving duty. Until he could walk, he was given drapes
to clean, furniture to polish, vegetables to cut and so on, and as soon as he
was able to move with only one crutch, he was promoted to sweep. He couldn’t
help but notice that the dirt he removed was thick and old.

Harriet was only ever satisfied with Aedan when
she had just corrected him. Anything that came of his own initiative, or for
which he showed any kind of eagerness, was a threat that had to be weeded out.
He was not allowed to be one of the men. He was constantly pulled from their
company and sent elsewhere on some domestic errand.

His opinions on anything were found to be wrong. Harriet
pointed this out and generously supplied her opinions for replacement. It
quickly became evident that she knew all there was to know of anything worth
knowing. Whenever she received new information she would secretly digest it
with a bored expression that said “old news”. On some topics the breadth of her
opinions made up for the scarcity of detail. Sailing, for example, was dealt
with in one grand sweep: “All sailors are fools, because what happens when
their boats sink? If we were meant to breathe in water we would have fins.”
This was followed by a patient smile and a lift of the chin that signified,
“Bet you hadn’t thought of that.”

Laughter would have been dangerous, and Aedan just
didn’t care enough to argue. Yet, silly as the woman could be, it was clear
that she was proving herself a good companion for his timid mother. So he
withdrew into a little shell and let the tide roll him around. But the waters
were only just beginning to stir.

No matter what he was doing, Harriet found the
time to supervise him, to point out the spots he had missed or scoop out
carrots that had been sliced too thickly. She monitored everything he did.
Evaluated him constantly. The worst was her encouragement.