Seeker (7 page)

Morning Star, in her turn, had named all of Amik's five puppies; and now they were all gone to neighboring homes but Lamb, the smallest of them all. Lamb turned out to have a poor sense of direction and was constantly getting himself left behind and lost, and so, in this land of working dogs, he had not been picked. Morning Star loved him all the more for this and worried about what would become of him after she was gone.

Right now, abandoned by Amik, Lamb turned about and trotted back to Morning Star. He scrambled onto her lap and set about licking her ear. She sat still and felt each nuzzle of his soft probing tongue and smelled his warm milky smell and worried about him.

"What will happen to Lamb?" she said aloud.

Her father glanced at her and then looked away.

"He'll be found a home."

"Can't he stay?"

"That one'll never be a sheepdog. Any dog of mine must work for his keep."

"So what's to happen to him?"

"Someone'll take a liking to the pup. You don't get many come out all white like that."

The sun was rising now. They got up and folded the rug and packed their night bag and set off down the steep-sloping pasture towards home. Arkaty whistled to Amik, who fell obediently into place at his heel, and Morning Star carried the puppy in her arms.

As they reached the village track, they met Filka the goatboy, leading his goats out for the day. Filka greeted them, staring at Morning Star with his slow stare, and then came closer to examine the puppy.

"Still got one left, then?" he said.

"Just the one," said Morning Star, cradling the puppy close. She didn't like Filka: he was too long and thin, and he gawped too much, and she didn't like the way he smiled. Once, many years ago, she had come upon him catching earwigs and burning them in a candle flame. She didn't like earwigs, but she hated the look on his silent, staring face as he had watched them burn.

"Dog or bitch?" he said.

"Dog."

"I could use a good dog."

"You can't have him," she said at once, and covered the puppy's head with one hand.

If she'd been thinking, she would have come up with an excuse. She would have said he was no good at herding, that he couldn't even find his own way home. But in her eagerness to make Filka go away, she spoke the simple truth; and Filka didn't like it.

"Why not?" he said. "An't I good enough?"

"We're keeping him."

"No, you're not. You got a dog."

"You can't have him," said Morning Star.

"I've a right," said Filka stubbornly, turning to Arkaty. "An't that so?"

Arkaty caught Morning Star's imploring look.

"My girl's taken a liking to the puppy," he said, speaking gently, hoping to mollify the goatboy.

"And so've I," said Filka. "She don't need a dog. I could use a dog. I can pay."

He reached into his bag and drew out some coins.

"See! What do you say to that?"

He leered triumphantly at Morning Star, as if the coins presented an unanswerable argument.

"We don't want your money," she said.

The leer gave way to a scowl.

"My money not good enough?"

"Come on, Papa." She set off down the track. "We have to be getting home."

"You think I'm not good enough for you!" shouted Filka after her. His face had gone red. "You don't know about me! You just don't know!"

Morning Star went on down the path without looking back. Her father gave the goatboy an awkward nod, designed to be an apology, and followed after her.

"Your mam ran away from you!" shouted Filka. "Your mam never loved you, and she ran away!"

It was the worst thing he could think of to hurl at her departing back. She made no reply. He turned at last and walked on up the hillside after his goats, talking angrily to himself as he went.

But Morning Star had heard him, and sharp tears pricked at her eyes. She shook her head to banish them and then bent down to kiss the puppy's wet nose.

"He'd no call to say that," said her father, now by her side. "And you know it's not true."

"Yes, Papa. I know."

They reached their house, which stood on the edge of the village, with its back to the hill stream. The last embers of yesterday's fire were still glowing in the stove. Arkaty brought in wood from the pile under the back eaves, while Morning Star put the puppy in the basket under the table and set about cooking breakfast. Who would cook the porridge for her father after she was gone? She had been seeing to the household duties since she was five years old.

As the oatmeal bubbled in the pan, her father laid out his writing implements on his work desk. Pens, ink, blotter, quire of paper, all ranged on the left side; and open on a sloping stand before the chair at which he sat, the day's text. Arkaty did two jobs: he was a shepherd and he was a book copier. The money he earned from this second job he put away for her. So all those hours bent over his desk tracing the letters with his neat and careful pen were for her; and she was planning to abandon him.

She told herself she would raise the matter over breakfast. But Amik came into the house, and the puppy tried again to suckle her, and Amik kept shuffling about in the most comical way to make her teats inaccessible to the puppy, so that they started to laugh, and talked about the dogs instead.

"Even so," said her father, "we'll have to find a home for the pup somewhere."

"I know. Just not Filka."

"You know your mama loved you dearly. You've got the letter."

"Yes, Papa. I've got the letter."

Her mother had left them when Morning Star was just three years old, at the height of the summer rains. When she was old enough to understand, her father gave her a letter her mother had written for her, which he had been keeping. The letter said:

My only beloved child. I weep as I write this. In leaving you I am leaving my best self. But I am called to another life, by a voice I must obey. I give you into the hands of the one Loving Mother of us all. May she watch over you and bring you joy. Forgive me if you can. If not, have mercy on me. My heart is breaking. I kiss you as you sleep. Good-bye, heart of my heart. Every day at sunrise I will send you my love, till the day I die. Good-bye, beautiful child of my youth. Until we meet again.

She knew the letter by heart, every word of it. She had only the faintest memory of her mother, but in that memory, her mother was very beautiful, and her nearness flooded the child with sweet protective love. Her mother's name, Mercy, merging with the words in her letter—"Have mercy on me"—had always seemed to her to be beautiful, loving, and fragile.

Of course she had asked her father why her mother had left them. He replied,

"She left to serve the All and Only, who is greater than you or me."

In time Morning Star had come to understand that her mother had joined a community of holy people called the Nomana.

"It's the highest calling of all," said her father. "Many offer themselves, but few are chosen. We should be very proud that your mother is among their number."

Morning Star was more than proud. Secretly she had vowed that as soon as she was old enough, she too would join the Nomana. She had two reasons for believing they would accept her. One was that her mother had been chosen before her. The other was that she could see the colors.

Morning Star had been able to see the colors all her life. When she had been younger, she had tried to tell other people about them, but they never understood. Even her father didn't understand. They thought she was talking about feelings, using the names of colors, in the manner of people who say, "I'm in a black mood." But what she saw was real colors. She didn't see them all the time, and they were mostly very faint, but they were there, just like the red head-scarves of the hill women. The colors came from people, they came out of people, like a soft colored mist that clung round them. Over the years, she had learned the colors had meaning. Angry people were rimmed with red. Sad people, or sick people, gave off a color like straw yellow, or sometimes a dull blue. People who were cheating or telling lies glowed orange.
Kind people had a red color, but a different red from the angry red, a soft, rose red. There were hundreds of colors, all with their shades of feelings, more than she could ever say; but then, there was no need to say. All she had to do was see and feel.

She knew this was a gift, but it was a gift that brought her no advantages. Her friends and neighbors in the remote hillside village where she lived knew nothing about it. This made her feel strange, as if she didn't quite belong.

After breakfast was cleared away and her father was at work on his copying and she still hadn't spoken, she sat on the floor by the stove and played with the puppy. She had a short length of knotted twine, which she pulled along the floor, and the puppy hunted it and pounced on it and shook it by the throat until it was dead. As she played, she let her thoughts run free. What she thought about was the puzzle of the mask.

Morning Star believed she was quite different on the inside from the way she looked on the outside: so much so that it was as if she went about wearing a mask. Her mother had called her beautiful in her letter, and her father often called her beautiful too, but she knew it was not so. She had a pale oval face, with a little nose and a little mouth, and timid pale blue eyes. The masked Morning Star was docile and useful and lived her life without being noticed. But inside, the real Morning Star was quite different: much more knowing and sharp and critical. It wasn't that she was clever, in the sense of being able to talk cleverly. But all she had to do was look at someone and she knew what it was they most wanted or most feared. A lot of what people said was lies, or at best a kind of noise designed to distract. What they actually did depended on what they wanted and what they feared.

Take the goatboy, Filka. When he had asked for the puppy, his colors had gone a browny red, one of the early stages of anger. She had seen the resentment in him, the readiness to take offence, the fear of rejection. It was all in his colors. He didn't want a dog; he wanted to be given the respect that he felt his neighbors denied him.

All this Morning Star understood because she had taught herself to trust the colors and ignore the chatter. But no one apart from her father knew this about her. They thought she was silent because she was shy. They thought she was sweet but dull, like a bun.

"What do they know, little Lamb?" she said to the puppy. The puppy, responding to the affection in her voice, pranced up on his little hind legs and tried to lick her face.

"Maybe you can see the colors," she said to him, bending down. "Maybe all animals can."

Morning Star often wondered whether her mother could see the colors. Her father said no, she had never spoken to him about seeing colors. But he said it in a hesitating way. When she pressed, he told her that there had been times when her mother had been troubled and had spoken of a darkness that came in the day. It was as if for her the shadow of night had fallen over the light of day and she alone were lost in the darkness. Then the shadow would pass, like clouds blown by the wind, and she would smile again.

"When the darkness came over her, there was nothing I could do. I don't believe she even heard me."

"Poor Mama. What was it that made her sad?"

"That I never did know. Perhaps she knew her home here wasn't where she was meant to be."

"So she's happy now."

"Oh, she'll be singing like a bird now. It was all she ever really wanted."

Now it seemed to Morning Star it was all she wanted, too. She had learned all that could be learned, from travellers who passed through the village. She knew that she must make the long journey to the holy island of Anacrea. She knew that she must present herself there on the day of the annual Congregation. She knew that this was in four days' time, therefore she must begin the journey the morning after tomorrow.

Her father would expect her to leave home soon, to take up a job or to marry. Most of the village girls married at sixteen. But even so, she dreaded the moment of telling him, and she kept putting it off all through the day.

Then at last the day was ending, and the sun was dropping in the sky, and her father was preparing to climb back up to the hill pastures to watch over the sheep.

"Maybe I'll come with you again, Papa," she said.

This was not usual, for her to spend two nights running on the hillside. But her father just nodded and said, "As you wish."

She took the puppy with her, as before. And so they set off with rug and bag up the steeply sloping path.

Near the sheep fields, in the fading evening light, they came upon the goatboy again. He was standing by the track, still as a statue, staring into the far distance. He seemed unaware of their approach. Morning Star caught sight of an unfamiliar color round him, a silvery glow that made her shiver. Puzzled, she kept her eyes on him as she went by. She was still watching him when suddenly he twisted his head round towards her and stared directly into her eyes.

"Stop!" he cried. "Stand still, where you are!"

She stopped. His command sounded so urgent, so unlike him. His eyes were fixed on her, but in some strange way she felt he still didn't see her.

"
They
want to see you," he said.

"Who? Who wants to see me?"

"You interest them."

He stared at her, eyes popping, shining with that disturbing silvery glow.

"You're mad," she said.

She felt the puppy wriggle in her arms, and she was about to move on, when the goatboy shuddered all up and down his body and his expression changed. It was as if he were waking from a trance. He saw her bewildered look, and he leered at her.

"See?" he said. "Didn't know about
them,
did you?"

"About who?"

"I got special friends."

The puppy gave a sharp yap. Filka's eyes flicked down. Before she knew what he was doing he had reached out one hand, seized the puppy, and pranced away from her. It was so quick and unexpected that he was right over on the far side of the track before she could react.