Son

One

The old woman appeared frequently. Suddenly she would be there, standing in the thick pines beside the river, watching him as he worked. Gabe would catch sight of her, would see her dark homespun clothing, her stooped posture, and the fierce, knowing intimacy of her gaze. But then she would withdraw and disappear into the shaded grove of trees. If he turned away and then looked back, there was no longer a sign of her, not even a whispering motion in the needled branches she had moved through. She simply went away. Sometimes he thought of calling after her, asking who she was, why she watched him. But for some reason he felt shy.

He saw her in the village as well, but noticed her less there because he was generally in the company of friends. He and the other boys, the group he lived with, would be wrestling and joking, vying to be cleverest, or strongest, as they made their way together to or from the schoolhouse. Sometimes the people of the village complained about them and their horseplay, said that they were a noisy, inconsiderate group, worse than any bunch of adolescents that had ever lived in Boys’ Lodge. One neighbor had called them “louts” after they wrested plums from the tree beside her cottage, then squashed them in the path.

This particular old woman, though she was often nearby, never glared at the group of boys, as others did, or chided them for their behavior. She simply watched. She had been doing it for a long time. And Gabe thought that she watched him most of all. It puzzled him.

Occasionally he thought about using his power—well, he never knew exactly what to call it, but he thought of it as veering—to try to learn more about who she was, why she watched him. But he never did. His power made him nervous. He found veering tiring, painful, and a little frightening. So though he tested it now and then, seeing if it was still there (and it always was; sometimes he found himself wishing it wouldn’t be), trying to understand it (and he never did, not really), he rarely called it into full use.

Anyway, she was gone. He was annoyed at himself for the time he had wasted, wondering about her, when he had so much to do, still. Sighing, Gabe looked around the clearing on the riverbank, the place he had claimed for his task, the place where he was now spending hours every day. His bare feet were deep in wood shavings. He smiled at himself, realizing there was sawdust on his face, stuck there by his own sweat. He licked his lips and tasted powdered cedar.

The boards that he had crafted so carefully were neatly stacked, but his tools were scattered about, and it looked from the graying clouds as if rain was on the way. He heard a rumble of thunder. Time to get things into the shed. But even as he moved his tools, trudging back and forth to store them in the primitive little structure he had built between two trees, he found himself thinking again of the old woman.

There were so few mysteries in the small village. When new residents arrived, there was always a ceremony of welcome. Their histories were told. He remembered none for her, but he would have been a child then; he had seen the strange woman for years now, had felt her eyes on him since he was a young boy. And he rarely attended the ceremonies. Some of the histories were interesting, Gabe thought, especially if they involved danger and narrow escapes. But people rambled on, and sometimes they wept, which embarrassed him.

I’ll stop being shy, he thought. Next time I notice her staring at me the way she does, I’ll simply introduce myself. Then she’ll have to tell me who she is.

The rain began spattering suddenly. Gabe closed the crooked, hastily made door of the shed he had built from old boards. Briefly he glanced back through the increasing downpour, at the grove of trees where the woman stood from time to time. Then he closed the latch on the door of the shed and ran through the rain toward the village.

“How’s the boat coming?” It was Simon, one of his friends, standing on the porch of Boys’ Lodge as Gabe climbed the steps and shook his head to try to get some of the wetness out of his curly hair.

“All right, I guess. Slow.”

He went inside to change into dry clothes. It would be time for dinner soon, he thought. There were no clocks in the village, but the bell tower rang at intervals, and the midafternoon bell had sounded some time ago. On a shelf in his cubicle Gabe found a clean, folded shirt and put it on. He tossed his wet one into a bin in the hall.

He lived in Boys’ Lodge with twelve other adolescent orphaned boys. Most of his lodge-mates had lost their parents to illness or accident, though one, Tarik, had been abandoned as an infant by an irresponsible couple who had no interest in raising a child. All of the boys had a history to tell. Gabe did too, but he didn’t enjoy the telling; there were too many I-don’t-knows to it.

He had asked Jonas again and again. It was Jonas who had brought him here years before, when Gabe was just an infant. “Why did my parents let you take me?” he had asked.

“You didn’t have parents,” Jonas had explained.

“Everybody has parents!”

“Not in the place where we lived. Things were different there.”

“How about you? Did you have parents?”

“I had people I called Mother and Father. I’d been assigned to them.”

“Well, what about me?”

“You hadn’t been assigned yet. You were a bit of a problem.”

Gabe had grinned at that. He liked the idea of being troublesome. It seemed to give him a certain superiority.

“I had to have parents, though. People don’t just get born from nothing.”

“You know what, Gabe? I was just a boy then. Babies appeared from the infant-care building and were given to parents. I accepted it. I never knew anything else. I never asked where the babies had come from.”

Gabe had hooted with laughter. “Hah! Where do babies come from? Every kid asks that!”

Gabe was laughing, but Jonas had looked serious and concerned. “You’re right,” he said, slowly. “And I do remember that there were young girls chosen each year to be what was called ‘birthmothers.’ They must have been the ones who . . .”

“What happened to the birthmothers? What happened to my birthmother?”

“I don’t know, Gabe.”

“Didn’t she want me?”

Jonas sighed. “I don’t know, Gabe. It was a different system—”

“I’m going to find out.”

“How?”

Gabe was very young then, no more than nine. But he swaggered when he replied. “I’ll go back there. You can’t stop me. I’ll find a way.”

Now that the boys had moved out of the Childhood Place where they had spent their first years, now that they were in Boys’ Lodge, their interests had changed and they rarely talked of their earlier years. It was girls who did that, Gabe thought. At Girls’ Lodge, he heard, the girls talked long into the evening, retelling their own tales to each other. For the boys, though, talk now was of school, or of sports, or of the future, not the past.

Boys’ Lodge was a congenial group. They did their schoolwork together in the evenings, and shared meals, their food prepared by a staff of two workers in the kitchen. There was a lodge director, a kindly man who had a room within the building, and who mediated the infrequent disputes among the boys. One could go to him with problems. But Gabe often wished that he lived in a house with a family, the way his best friend, Nathaniel, did. Nathaniel had parents, and two sisters; their house was noisy with bickering and laughter.

Glancing through the window, through the rain that had now almost stopped, he could see the house where Nathaniel lived, farther along the curved path. Its little garden was thick with summer flowers, and as he watched, a door opened and a gray cat was sent outside, where it assumed a pose, in the way of cats, on the little porch and licked its paws. It was Deirdre’s cat. Gabe tried to remember its name; he could picture Nathaniel’s sister laughing when she had told it to him, but the whimsical name eluded him. Catacomb? Cataclysm? No. But something like those. Deirdre was good with words.

Pretty, too. Gabe flushed briefly, a little embarrassed at his own thoughts. He watched the cat, hoping that Deirdre would appear at the door. Maybe she would sit down and stroke the gray fur. Catapult! That was its name. He pictured her there, stroking Catapult, gazing into the distance, maybe thinking about—him? Maybe? Could that be possible? Of course, he realized suddenly, he could veer, and find out. But maybe he didn’t really want to know? And anyway, there wasn’t time. The dinner bell was about to ring. The other boys, laughing and noisy, would soon be rushing down the hallway.

Also, Gabe reminded himself, shaking off the thoughts about Nathaniel’s pretty, dark-haired sister, it wasn’t fair to her, even if he found that she did care about him. She shouldn’t. Very soon he would finish his boat. And then he would be gone.

Two

You know he’s building a boat.”

Kira nodded. She had just gotten the children to sleep. They were so lively, into everything. Now that Annabelle could walk, she followed her two-year-old brother, Matthew, into all kinds of mischief. Kira was exhausted by evening. She brought her cup of tea, set her walking stick aside, and sat down beside Jonas, who looked troubled.

“I know. I was here when he came for the books, remember?”

Jonas glanced at the walls of the room. Shelves of books extended from the floor to the ceiling. And not just this room, but all the others in the house he shared with his family. It was one of the things they were trying now to teach the children: not to pull and grab at the books. So tempting, for babies: the bright colors. He remembered when the dog, as a puppy, had indulged in the same mischief, and again and again they had found corners of the lower volumes chewed. Now Frolic was middle-aged, overweight, lazy, and no longer needing to chew. He slept, snoring, on his folded blanket most of the day, and it was the toddlers who grabbed and gnawed.

“I always knew this time would come,” Jonas said. “He told me when he was much younger that he would go looking for his past.”

Kira nodded again. “Of course he wonders,” she pointed out. “It will be the next generation, the ones like our children, who were born here, who won’t feel that pull.”

Both of them, like almost everyone in the small village, had come from another place, had fled something, had escaped from hardship of some kind. Jonas stood. He stared through the window out into the night. Kira recognized the look. Her husband had always had that need, to turn his gaze outward, trying to find the answers to things. It was the first thing she had noticed about him: the piercing blue eyes, and the way he had of seeming to see beyond what was obvious. In their earlier days together, when Jonas was Leader, he had called on that vision often for answers to problems. But the problems had fallen away, the village had thrived, and Jonas had relinquished leadership to others so that he could take up an unburdened life with his family.

Now he was the protector of the books and the knowledge. He was the scholar/librarian. It was Jonas to whom Gabriel had come not long ago, looking for books with diagrams and instructions, so that he could learn to build a boat.

He sighed, turning away from the darkness that was enfolding the village. “I worry about him,” he said.

Kira set aside the needlework she had picked up. She went to him, circled her arms around his waist, and looked up into those solemn eyes that were as blue as her own. “Of course you do. You brought him here.” It had been years before that Jonas, hardly more than a boy himself then, had brought Gabriel—a toddler with no past, a child who deserved a future—to this village, which had welcomed them with no questions.

“He was so little. And he had no one.”

“He had you.”

“I was a boy. I couldn’t be a parent to him. I didn’t know what that meant. The people who raised me did their best, but it was just a job to them.” Jonas sighed, recalling the couple he had called Mother and Father. “I remember that once I asked them if they loved me,” he said.

“And?”

He shook his head. “They didn’t know what that meant. They said the word was meaningless.”

“They did their best,” Kira said, after a moment, and he nodded.

“Gabe’s older now than I was when I brought him here,” Jonas mused. “Stronger. Braver.”

“Not as handsome, though.” She reached up, smiling, and smoothed a strand of his hair. Ordinarily he would have grinned back at her. But his face was worried and his thoughts were elsewhere.

“And I’m pretty sure he has a gift of some sort.”

Kira sighed. She knew what that meant. She and Jonas both had a gift. Sometimes it was exhilarating, but it was demanding, too, and burdensome, to know how to use it well, and when.

“I worry about what he’ll find, if he goes searching,” Jonas went on. “He wants a family, and there won’t be one. He was a—” Frowning, he searched for the right description. “He was a manufactured product,” he said at last. “We all were.”

Kira sat silently. It was a chilling description. Finally, thoughtfully, she replied. “All of us came here from difficult places,” she reminded him.

“But you had a mother who loved you.”

“I did. Until she died. Then I was all alone.”

“But you had her, at least, for—how many years?”

“Almost fifteen.”

“That’s close to Gabe’s age now. He feels such a longing for something, and I worry that he’ll never find it. That it never was there. But—” Jonas rose and went to the window. Kira watched him as he stood there, looking out into the darkness. Beyond him, she could see the outline of trees moving slightly in a night breeze against the dark starless sky. “But what?” she asked, when he had stood silently for a long moment.

“I’m not sure. I can feel something out there. Something connected to Gabe.”

“Something dangerous?” she asked in an apprehensive tone. “We must warn him, if there’s something dangerous out there.”

“No.” Jonas shook his head. He was still focusing on something beyond the room. “No. He’s not in danger. At least not now. But there is a presence. It seems benign. I think . . .” He paused. “I think something—someone—is looking for him. Or waiting? Waiting for him? Watching him?”

He didn’t tell Kira what else he felt, because he didn’t comprehend it himself, and because he didn’t want to alarm her. But there was something else out there, something vaguely at the edges of his awareness, something not really connected to Gabe. And the something else was vaguely familiar, and very dangerous.

Three

At first, his friends had helped him. But that time had passed. Now they were off fishing, playing ball, indulging in all the usual summer pastimes during this brief holiday from school. The excitement of Gabe’s project was short-lived, and their interest waned when they realized he was not just hammering together a primitive raft that they could paddle along the riverbank.

Gabe hummed to himself as he measured his boards. He had a vague picture in his mind of the way they should go together. But though the books he had borrowed from Jonas had shown boats of all kinds, from ones with billowy sails to long, narrow vessels with rows of seated men at oars, none had provided instructions for the building. His would be small, he knew. Just big enough for him and his supplies. It would have a paddle; he had already begun carving one, crouched in his little shed during rainy days.

“Any chance you’d like to go fishing?”

Gabe looked up at the sound of the voice. Nathaniel, tall and brown from the sun, was standing on the path, holding his gear. Often they had fished together, usually from a huge rock on the bank farther along. The river was easy to fish, slow moving and somewhat shallow there; the silvery, sinuous trout were eager for the bait, and made good eating later.

It was tempting. But Gabe shook his head. “Can’t. I’m behind. This is slower going than I thought it would be.”

“What’s that?” Nathaniel asked, pointing to the edge of the clearing where a leafy stack of thin poles waited.

Gabe looked over. “Bamboo.”

“You can’t build from that. You need real planks for a boat.”

Gabe laughed. “I know. I’m using cedar. But I need the bamboo for . . . Well, here; I’ll show you.” He wiped his sweaty hands on the hem of his shirt and then went and got the large book from the shed.

“Jonas let you bring it here?” Nathaniel asked in surprise.

Gabe nodded. “I had to promise to keep it clean and dry.” He set the book on a flat rock, squatted there, and turned the pages. “Look,” he said, pointing to a page.

Nathaniel looked at the picture of a large vessel with its many sails unfurled. The rigging was complicated, with countless lines and winches holding the billowing sails in place, and a large crew of men could be seen on deck. “You’re crazy,” Nathaniel said. “You can’t build that.”

Gabe chuckled. “No, no. I just wanted to show you. It’s not for rivers anyway. They sailed them once on oceans. I think we learned about it in history class.”

Nathaniel nodded. “There were pirates,” he recalled. “That’s the part I paid attention to.”

Gabe turned the pages slowly.

He smiled. “Here’s mine,” he said, and he rifled the pages until the book opened to a page near the end, a place that had clearly been opened to frequently. “Don’t laugh.”

But Nathaniel did, when he leaned down to look at the picture. Gabe, watching his face, chuckled as well. The picture was of a tiny boat, with one lone man, huge waves surging around him, shark fins visible in the foam. There was endless sea and sky. The man looked terrified, and doomed.

“So you’re planning your own death? Where is this guy, anyway?”

“Ocean. But that’s far from here. I don’t need to think about ocean, just river. And I’m not going to end up like him. I’m just copying his boat, sort of. Mine’s smaller, and doesn’t have that cabin part. Mine will be little, and sturdy. That’s all I’ll need. It’ll be easy to build.”

Gabe looked around at the piles of boards, the sawdust, the mess on the ground. “Well, I thought it would be easy.”

“How will you steer it?” Nathaniel asked, still peering at the picture of the lone man cowering in the boat as the waves approached.

“Paddle. Anyway, the river will carry it. I won’t need to steer much. Just to go ashore when I want to.”

“So what’s the bamboo for?”

“It’ll hold it together. I invented this system myself. Once I get the cedar all arranged in the right shape, I’ll use the bamboo—first I’ll wet it, so that when it dries, it tightens—it’ll be like rope.”

Nathaniel looked around. The cedar planks were lying haphazardly about, a few of them hammered together. He could see that Gabe had been preparing the bamboo, peeling and slicing it thin. It was a huge task for a boy to do alone.

“Does anybody ever come and help you?”

Gabriel hesitated. “Not really. Some old woman comes and watches me, though.” He gestured toward the grove of pines. “She stands over there.”

“An old woman?”

“Yes. You’ve seen her. She’s all bent over and you can tell she has trouble walking. She sort of follows me. I don’t know why. Someday I’m going to yell at her to stop.”

Nathaniel looked uneasy. He gave a nervous laugh. “You can’t yell at an old woman,” he said.

“I know. I was kidding. Maybe I’ll just growl, and scare her a little.” Gabe made a face and growled loudly, imitating a beast of some kind.

Both boys laughed.

“Sure you don’t want to go fishing?” Nathaniel asked.

Gabe shook his head and picked up the book to return it to the shed. “Can’t.”

His friend gathered his things and turned away. “Deirdre says she misses you,” he remarked with a sly grin. “You’re never around lately.”

Gabe sighed. He looked up the path as if he might see Nathaniel’s pretty sister there. “Will she come to the feast tomorrow night?”

Nathaniel nodded and shouldered his fishing pole. “Everyone will. My mother’s at the gathering place now, helping to get things ready.”

“Tell Deirdre I’ll see her there.” Gabe gave his friend a wave and turned again to his work as the other boy walked away.

Four

Feasts were frequent in the village. Sometimes there was an excuse: Harvest, Midsummer, or a marriage. But often, no reason was necessary. People just wanted a time of merriment, laughter, dressing up, eating—and overeating—and so a feast was planned.

Kira dressed the children in bright-colored embroidered outfits that she had designed and stitched. She was a masterful seamstress. Many people sought her out to create their wedding clothes; and they still talked in the village about the hand-woven cloth adorned with intricately patterned birds of all kinds in which she had wrapped the body of her father before his burial. Kira’s father had been blind, and sound had been his life. He knew—and could imitate—each bird’s call and song; they came from the trees, unafraid, to eat from his outstretched hands. The entire village had gathered to sing a farewell as he was laid to rest, but the only song that day was theirs; the birds had fallen silent, as if they mourned.

Her own garment for the feast was a deep blue dress; she entwined blue ribbons through the straps of her sandals and in her long hair. Jonas smiled at her in admiration and affection, but his own clothing, even on Feast Night, was simple: a homespun shirt over coarse trousers. With a roll of his eyes, he let his wife attach a blue flower from the garden to his collar. Jonas was not fond of decoration. His tastes were plain.

Annabelle and Matthew scampered about the large room, giggling, while Kira wrapped the pie she had baked and placed it in a basket she had adorned with daisies and ferns. Frolic yawned and rose from the blanket where he’d been napping. The dog sensed excitement and wanted to take part. Noticing, Kira laughed, and leaned over to wind a stemmed flower around his neck. “There,” she said. “Now you’re in your party outfit too!” Tail wagging, Frolic followed the family as they set out from their house. Jonas carried the pie basket and Matthew rode atop his father’s shoulders. Annabelle held tightly to her mother’s free hand, the hand that didn’t grasp the carved cane that Kira had always needed for walking. Ahead, beyond the curve of the path, they could already hear music—flutes and fiddles—from the gathering place where celebrations were held.

It was a very small village that had had its beginnings years before in a gathering of outcasts. Fleeing battles or chaos of all kinds, often wounded or driven out by their own clans or villages, each of the original settlers had made his way to this place. They had found strength in one another, had formed a community. They had welcomed others.

From time to time, as the years had passed, people muttered that they shouldn’t let newcomers in; the village was becoming crowded, and it was hard, sometimes, for the newcomers to learn the customs and rules. There were arguments and petitions and debates.

What if my daughter wants to marry one of them?

They talk with a funny accent.

What if there aren’t enough jobs?

Why should we have to support them while they’re learning our ways?

It had been Jonas, during his time as Leader, who had gently but firmly reminded the villagers that they had all been outsiders once. They had all come here for a new life. Eventually they had voted to remain what they had become: a sanctuary, a place of welcome.

As a child, Gabe had yawned and fidgeted when his class was taken, as each school class was, to visit the village museum and learn the history. History was boring, he thought. He was embarrassed when the museum curator, pointing to various artifacts in the “Vehicles of Arrival” exhibit, had gestured to the battered red sled and explained that a brave boy named Jonas had battled a blizzard and fought his way here carrying a dying baby.

“And today we all know that Jonas has become our village Leader, and the baby he rescued and brought here is a healthy boy,” the curator had said dramatically, “named Gabriel.” His classmates grinned at him. They poked each other and giggled. Gabe pretended to be bored. He averted his eyes and leaned down to scratch an imaginary bug bite on his leg.

Most of the earliest settlers, those with their histories recorded in the museum, had grown old and were gone now. Kira’s father, Christopher, was buried in the village cemetery beside the pine grove. Left for dead by his enemies in a distant community, he had stumbled, sightless, to this village and been saved; with his new name of Seer, he had lived a long life here of dignity and wisdom. Kira tended his grave now, taking the babies with her while she weeded and watered the soft blanket of fragrant purple thyme she had planted there.

He was buried beside his adopted son, Matty. The villagers remembered Matty as a fun-loving young man who had been destroyed when he fought the evil, unknowable forces that had menaced the village in those harsher times, seven years earlier.

Thinking of those times as he passed the cemetery on his way to the evening’s festivities, Gabe recalled the day Matty’s body had been found and carried home. Gabe had been young then, only eight, a rambunctious resident of the Children’s House, happiest with solitary adventures and disinterested in schoolwork. But he had always admired Matty, who had tended and helped Seer with such devotion and undertaken village tasks with energy and good humor. It had been Matty who had taught Gabe to bait a hook and cast his line from the fishing rock, Matty who had shown him how to make a kite and catch the wind with it. The day of his death, Gabe had huddled, heartbroken, in the shadow of a thick stand of trees and watched as the villagers lined the path and bowed their heads in respect to watch the litter carrying the ravaged body move slowly through. Frightened by his own feelings, he had listened mutely to the wails of grief that permeated the community.

That day had changed him. It had changed the entire village. Shaken by the death of a boy they had loved, each person had found ways to be more worthy of the sacrifice he had made. They had become kinder, more careful, more attentive to one another. They had worked hard to eradicate customs that had begun to corrupt their society, banning even seemingly benign diversions such as a gaming machine, a simple gambling device that spit out candy to its winners.

For years a mysterious, sinister man known as Trademaster had appeared now and then in the village, bringing tawdry thrills and temptations but leaving chaos and discontentment behind. It had been Jonas, as Leader, who saw through him, who sensed the deep evil in the man and insisted on his banishment.

Freed of the menacing greed and self-indulgence that had almost overwhelmed them during that time, the villagers had learned to celebrate themselves, as they were doing this evening.

Gabe stood still in the path for a moment. He noticed a small bouquet of fresh flowers beside the stone into which Matty’s name had been carved. The village people honored Matty’s memory with such tokens because he had made them into better people. Gabe did so more privately. He did so by reminding himself of a conversation he had once had with the older boy he had so admired.

“You must pay more attention in school, Gabe,” Matty had told him. Gabe had been required to stay late after classes that day, for extra help. Now they were sitting together on the outcropping of rock at the edge of the river.

“I don’t like school,” Gabe had replied, feeling the fishing line between his fingers.

“I didn’t either. And I was willful and full of mischief, same as you. But Seer made me work at it because he cared about me so much.”

Gabe shrugged. “Nobody cares about me.”

“Leader does. I do.”

“I guess,” Gabe acknowledged.

“He’s the one who brought you here. He had a hard time of it too.”

Gabe rolled his eyes. “Did you hear that at the museum as part of the tour? I wish they’d stop telling that stupid story. And give me another worm, would you? Mine wiggled off the hook.”

Patiently Matty had helped him to rebait his hook. “You need knowledge,” he said. “That’s how Jonas got to be Leader, by studying.”

“I don’t want to be Leader.”

“Neither do I. But I want to know stuff. Don’t you?”

Gabe sighed. “Some stuff, maybe. Not math. Not grammar.”

Matty had laughed. Then he had turned serious again for a moment. “And Gabe?”

“What?”

“You’re going to find that you have a gift of some kind. Some of us do, and you’re going to be one. I can tell.”

Gabe busied himself with the worm and the hook. For some reason the conversation had begun to make him self-conscious.

“I know,” Matty said, “it’s hard to talk about it because it’s hard to understand. But it’s another reason why you must study. You must make yourself ready. Someday you’ll be called upon for something special. Maybe something dangerous. So you have to prepare yourself, Gabe. You’ll need knowledge.”

“Look,” Gabe said loudly, changing the subject, and pointed. “There’s a big trout over there where the rock makes a shadow. He’s hiding. But he sees us. Look at his eyes.”

Matty sighed affectionately and turned his attention to the large fish suspended in the dark water by the rock. It withdrew further, as if it felt their sudden interest, and its shiny eyes darted back and forth. Matty watched. “He thinks he can escape us by lurking there in the dark. But not us, Gabe! We’re too clever for him. Let’s do it. Let’s try to get him.”

Thinking of it now, Gabe remembered it all: the laughter, the puzzling conversation, the sunshine that day, the sound of the slow-moving river, and then their stealthy maneuvers as they stalked the huge, silvery fish, finally caught him, and then threw him back. It had all been years ago, and they had never had another chance to talk in that way.

Matty had been correct, though, about needing to learn stuff. Gabe had tried hard to settle into his studies, and it served him well now, the math he had hated, as he measured and fitted together the pieces of his boat.

But he found himself wishing now that he had not felt so awkward, that he had confided in Matty that day. He had just discovered it then, the power that he had, the power to veer, and was still confused by it.

It had been at a feast, one of the usual celebrations. Probably Midsummer, he thought now, remembering it. With the other boys his age, eight and nine, he had joined the crowd watching a contest. Two of the village men were wrestling. Their bodies were smeared with oil so that their hands slid as they tried to grasp at each other. The crowd shouted encouragement and the men repositioned themselves, shifting on their feet, each waiting for the right instant, the right move, to topple the other and emerge as the winner. Gabe, watching intently, found his own bare feet shifting in the dirt; he panted, imitating the wrestlers. He focused on his own favorite, the man called Miller, who was in charge of grain production each fall. Miller was a large man and a likable one who sometimes on slow workdays organized the boys into teams and taught them intricate games on the playing field. Even in the midst of this intense match, Miller was laughing as he caught his opponent in a hold and struggled to down him.

Gabe, moving his own skinny body in imitation of the wrestlers, found himself wondering how it felt to be Miller: to be so strong, so in command of his muscles and limbs. Suddenly an odd silence enveloped him. He stopped hearing the grunts of the wrestlers, the shouts of the crowd, the barking of dogs, the music from the fiddlers preparing nearby. And he felt himself move, in the silence. He veered—though the word had not yet come to him then—and entered Miller. Became Miller. Experienced Miller. Was Miller for that instant. He knew, briefly, how it felt to be strong, to be in command, to be winning, to be loving the battle and the coming win.

Then sound returned. Gabe returned. The crowd roared in approval and Miller stood with his arms raised, victorious, then leaned forward and helped his laughing opponent up. Gabe slid to the ground and huddled there in the cheering crowd, breathing hard, exhausted, confused, and exhilarated.

After that day it had happened again, several times, until he could feel it coming, and then—later—found that he could command and control the veer. Once, he remembered guiltily, he tried to use it to cheat in school. Seated at his desk, floundering over a math test—fractions, which he had not studied the way he should have—he glanced up at Mentor, the schoolmaster. Mentor was standing near the window, looking at the board on which the test questions had been written.

If I could veer into Mentor right now, enter Mentor, Gabe thought, I could grab all of the answers to these test problems. He concentrated. He closed his eyes and thought about Mentor, about his knowledge, about what it would feel like to be Mentor. Sure enough, the silence came. He felt his consciousness shift and move toward the schoolmaster. Within seconds he was there, within the man, experiencing being Mentor.

The veer worked. But not in the way Gabe had planned. He found no math answers there. Instead he had an overwhelming feeling of a kind of passion: for knowledge, for learning of all sorts—and for the children who sat that day at the small desks, as Gabe did. He felt Mentor’s love for his students and his hopes for them and what they would learn from him.

The veer ended suddenly, as it always did, and Gabe put his head into his hands. The sounds of the classroom returned, and the schoolmaster appeared beside him.

“Are you all right, Gabriel?”

Gabe found himself shaking. He had tears in his eyes. “I don’t feel well,” he whispered.

Mentor excused him for the rest of the day and Gabe walked slowly away from the schoolhouse, promising himself that he would study, that he would not disappoint his teacher again as he had so often in the past.

He never told anyone. Veering seemed a private act, something to both savor and sometimes dread alone.

Now, though, he found himself wishing he had confided in Matty when he’d had the opportunity. Not only about the veer. He wished he had told Matty about how desperately he yearned to know about his mother. He couldn’t tell his lodge-mates; they would laugh. But Matty would have understood. And it was lonely, to yearn so, all alone.

He reached down into the path, picked up a small pebble, and tossed it toward Matty’s gravestone. It tapped lightly against the rock and fell to the ground where other pebbles lay near the flowers. He had thrown each of them. “Hi,” Gabe whispered.

Ahead, from the Pavilion where gatherings were held, he heard music and the happy shouts of children. He thought of his friends, of the games they were already playing, and of the contests and dancing later. He thought of pretty Deirdre with the sprinkling of freckles across her nose. He saw smoke and could smell the pigs that had been roasting on a spit most of the day. He knew Kira would have made a pie, and there would be thick cream swirled with honey to mound on top of it. Gabe left the cemetery and his somber thoughts behind him and began to run toward the party.

Five

Her back ached badly. It had ached for a long time now, for several years, but it was getting worse, and Claire had difficulty straightening herself. She walked bent.

She had gone to see Herbalist, the man who dispensed medicines to villagers. But it was clear that his remedies were the same that she had learned in her years with Alys. The drinking of birch and willow tea would ease the pain a bit but could not take it away.

Herbalist had asked her the obvious question: “What is your age?”

“I don’t know,” she replied to him. That was true. She had been a young girl when she was washed from the sea to the place where she had lived for years. She had grown up there and become a young woman. She had left there and become, overnight, old. It was not a question of years.

Herbalist was not surprised by her answer. Many people who had found their way to the village had little memory of their own past. He prescribed the bark infusions for her aches but said to her, “Such pain comes for us all, in great age.”

“I know,” Claire said. She had no wish to explain what had befallen her.

Herbalist lifted her arm gently and felt the thin, sagging skin. Carefully he examined the dark spots on the backs of her hands. “Do you still have teeth?” he asked.

“Some,” she said, and showed him.

“And your eyes? Ears?”

She could still see and hear.

“So,” Herbalist said with a smile, “you can’t dance or chew meat. But if you can hear the birds sing and watch the wind in the leaves, then you still have much pleasure left.

“Your time is limited now, though,” he told her, “so you should enjoy everything you can. That’s what I do. I think I must be as old as you. I have the same aches.” He wrapped the dried barks for her, and she placed them in her carrying basket.

“I’ll see you at the feast,” he said as she turned to go. “We can watch the dancing and remember our young years. There is pleasure in that.”

Claire thanked him, leaned on her cane, and continued down the path to her small cottage. In the distance she could hear some young boys shouting as they played some sort of game with a ball. Perhaps one was Gabe. She rarely found him at games, lately, though; most often he was alone in the clearing near the river, hammering away on the misshapen vessel that he called his boat. Claire often stood hidden in the trees and watched him at work. In a way she admired his dedication to the odd project. But it saddened and puzzled her, his wish to be gone.

When she had entered the village for the first time, like so many others, she had been welcomed, years before. The fragility of old age was new to her then, and it had still startled her when she rose in the morning with her bones aching and stiff. The memory of running, climbing, even dancing, was alive and throbbing within her, but frailty made her hobble and limp.

She had seen her son for the first time, in this place, when he was a child of eight or nine. She remembered that day. He ran along the path near the cottage to which she had been assigned, calling to his friends, laughing, his unkempt hair bright in the sunlight. “Gabe!” she heard a boy call; but she would have known him without hearing it. It was the same smile she remembered, the same silvery laugh.

She had moved forward in that moment, intending to rush to him, to greet and embrace him. Perhaps she would make the silly face, the one with which they had once mimicked each other. But when she started eagerly toward him, she forgot her own weakness; her dragging foot caught on a stone and she stumbled clumsily. Quickly she righted herself, but in that moment she saw him glance toward her, then look away in disinterest. As if looking through his eyes, she perceived her own withered skin, her sparse gray hair, the awkward gait with which she moved. She stayed silent, and turned away, thinking.

Did he need to know, after all? He appeared to be a happy child. If she were to make herself known, to tell her unbelievable story, he would be stunned, uncomprehending. His friends might taunt him. Perhaps he would reject her. Or worse—perhaps he would feel obligated to tend her in her remaining days. His carefree life would be interrupted. She would be a burden, an embarrassment.

In the end she decided that it was enough that she had found him. She would let him be. But she realized then the magnitude of the cruel exchange Trademaster had offered her.

Through the years she had watched Gabe grow from a mischievous boy into this quiet young man who now seemed to have a mission she didn’t understand. Why a boat? The river was a dangerous thing. The village children could swim and play in the one protected section where the water was shallow and slow. But farther out, and farther along, the water rushed furiously over sharp rocks. She had heard that there was a steep waterfall someplace, and fallen trees here and there that could easily smash the thin boards he was so carefully tying together with strips of bamboo.

Claire was very frightened of swift-moving water. She had reason to be. She had once lived beside a river, once beside a sea. Both had brought her heartbreak and loss.

She did not want her son to be lost to water.

The crisp-skinned pork, sliced from the roasted pig on the spit, smelled delicious, but she knew it was not for her, not with her remaining teeth loose and her gums sore. Claire filled her plate from a large bowl of soft beans that had been baking all day in a sauce of tomatoes and herbs, and added a piece of soft bread. She would leave room, though, she thought, for a slice of blackberry pie.

She set her plate on a table and eased herself onto a bench next to several others. A pregnant woman smiled at her and moved slightly, making room; Claire recognized her as Jean, the wife of one of the fiddlers who were tuning their instruments and preparing to play for the dancing. Kira was there too, keeping an eye on her toddlers as they played near the table. From time to time she spooned food into their mouths, as if they were baby birds.

Eating slowly, watching the young women at her table, Claire realized that she might have been one of them. She looked down at her own gnarled hand holding a fork. An old woman’s hand. Herbalist had told her she was nearing her last days, and she sensed that it was true. But inside herself? She was a young woman still. If she had not made the trade that had brought her here (Youth! In her memory Claire could hear still how Trademaster had breathed the word into her ear, had spat against her cheek with it, how she had nodded in assent and whispered to him: Trade) she would perhaps be back with Einar now, helping him tend his lambs, cooking a stew they would share in their hillside hut, talking together by the fire in the evenings.

But she would not have found her son. She would never have seen Gabe again, would not have watched him grow into the lively young man he had become. She knew it was a trade she would make again, given the chance.

She rose to return her emptied plate, to get herself a piece of pie, and looked over to the table where the boisterous young boys were sitting together. He was there. She saw him glance sideways at her as she passed; then his attention returned to his plate, heaped as it was with food, and to a lengthy joke one of his friends was telling. In adolescence Gabe was gangly and tall, and as she watched, his elbow knocked over the mug holding his drink; the other boys chortled as he sheepishly mopped up the mess with his napkin.

His hair was curly, as hers—now a sparse bun at the back of her head—had once been. His blue eyes were surprisingly pale. Jonas had the same eyes. So did his wife, Kira. Claire remembered now that she had noticed the unusual eyes when Gabe was an infant. Those early days had come back to her very slowly, and with pain attached to each memory.

The feel of the mask clamped over her face during his birth. She had shuddered when that memory returned.

How, later, she had held him for the first time, and had noticed the startling pale eyes. When she recalled it, she was suffused with a feeling of loss.

Then she remembered a dream she had had, of a hidden light-eyed baby. How, in the dream, she had kept him concealed in a drawer. Thinking of it after all this time, she almost wept at the sadness of all it implied.

She did weep when the next memory came back: of how he had grinned and wiggled his chubby fingers at her. He had learned by then to say her name. Claire, he had said in his high voice. And: Bye-bye.

She did not regret the trade she had made in order to find him. But she was desperately sad to realize that her time was short now. Instead of the strong and vibrant young woman she should be, the mother Gabe deserved, she was now an ancient hag waiting for death. It was a hideous joke that Trademaster had played on them both seven years before.

The sky darkened as night fell and the music began in earnest. Soon it would be the time for the young people, the time for dancing and flirtation. Claire saw Gabe rise from his seat and make his way over to the pretty freckle-faced girl named Deirdre. He stood self-consciously talking to her as she helped to clean the tables. She could see that Deirdre was self-conscious too, but that she purposely walked in a way that made her striped skirt twirl and flutter.

Women gathered their dishes and babies in order to take them home. Claire watched Kira with the children. Annabelle was half asleep in her arms, but Matthew was dashing about wildly. Finally Jonas scooped him up and laughed as the overtired two-year-old kicked and cried. Together they gathered their things and called good night, then started down the path from the Pavilion toward their home. Jonas had set Matthew on his shoulders and the couple became silhouettes against the sky as the moon rose and Claire watched.

Although Jonas had no awareness of who she had once been, that once she and he had been contemporaries in the same community, Claire remembered Jonas as a boy. He was too young for fatherhood then; nonetheless, it had been he who had saved a baby sentenced to die because the little one was eager, and curious, and lively. Because he didn’t sleep. He was—what was the word?—disruptive. Didn’t fit in. Jonas had risked his own life, sacrificed his future, to bring him here. She wondered if he worried about Gabe now, about the frailty of the little boat he was striving to build and the dangers he would face if somehow he launched it into the river.

When she rose from her seat in order to start down the path to her own cottage, her hip had stiffened and she stood for a moment massaging it with her hand before she was able to walk. Finally she started down the gentle hill, carefully feeling her way in the moonlight. How soon she would be gone, Claire thought, and sighed. How little Gabe would ever know about his own past.

Then she stopped, suddenly, and stood still. Of course, she thought. She knew what she would do.

She decided she would tell her story, her own history that she had kept so secret until now, to Jonas. Someday, after she was gone, if the time was ever right, when the boy was old enough and ready, he could pass it on to her son.

Six

“Trademaster?”

Jonas looked astonished.

He had listened now for a long time. He was sitting with Claire on a bench in a secluded area behind the library. She had thought about how much to tell him, how to tell him, and finally, ten days after the feast, she had approached Jonas and asked if she could talk to him alone. He had brought her here late on a damp morning, carefully wiping the moisture from the bench and helping her to sit comfortably.

She hadn’t known exactly how to begin. Finally she said, “I knew you when you were a boy.”

Jonas smiled. “I didn’t realize you were here then. I thought you came to the village more recently. I would have guessed, oh, five or six years ago. But we lose track of time, don’t we?”

“No,” Claire said. “You’re right. I arrived here close to seven years ago. But I had known you long before then. Back in the community where you had grown up.”

He looked more closely at her. “I’m sorry not to recognize you,” he said. “I was a child there, of course. I left there after I turned twelve. But I did many of my volunteer hours in the House of the Old. Were you there then? I remember a woman named . . . What was it? Larissa? That was it. Did you know her?”

Claire shook her head. “No,” she murmured. This was so hard. How could she describe to him something that would be almost impossible to believe?

She sighed, and kneaded her hands, which ached. It was midmorning. Often her joints ached in the morning. She cleared her throat. Her voice, she knew, was an old person’s voice now, too soft sometimes, too tentative. But she took a deep breath and tried to speak firmly, to make him listen, to make him understand the incomprehensible.

“My ceremony was three years before yours.”

“Your ceremony?”

“The Ceremony of Twelve.”

“But—”

She held up her hand. “Shhh. Just listen.”

Jonas, looking confused, fell silent.

“I received my Assignment when I turned twelve. I was assigned Birthmother.” She paused. “That was a disappointment, of course. But I had not been a good student.”

She could see that he was still puzzling over her words. There was nothing to do but go on. “After a while, when I was deemed ready, I moved into the birthing unit.”

Around them, the pace of the village continued. Some women were gossiping as they weeded in the community garden. Nearby, small children played with some puppies. From Boys’ Lodge, the usual group emerged and ran down the path, calling laughing insults to one another. Gabe was not among them. He had gone to his place by the river much earlier and was alone there, fitting the last parts of his odd little boat into place.

All of this fell away from their awareness as Jonas and Claire sat together. She talked. He listened attentively. Now and then he interrupted her softly to ask a question. The pills. When did she stop taking the pills?

“I did too. I just threw them away,” he told her. “Did you feel the change?”

“I felt different from the others. But I was already different in so many ways.”

He nodded. She could tell that he was slowly accepting the story she was telling him. But she saw him look carefully at her, at her thin gray hair, her stooped shoulders and gnarled hands, and knew that he could not comprehend yet how she had become what she now was.

She told him of her work at the fish hatchery, after her discharge from the Birthing Center. Of her search for Gabe, and her visits to him.

She described how the infant had begun to say her name. How he laughed at the funny face she made, and tried to imitate it. Claire thrust her tongue into her cheek and made the face for Jonas.

He looked startled. “I remember it!” he told her. “When he and I were together—you know he stayed in my dwelling at night?”

“I know.”

“Sometimes he made that funny face for me. But of course I didn’t know—” He paused, still trying to comprehend.

She continued her story.

The midday bell rang. Villagers began to gather for lunch. Jonas and Claire ignored it.

“Will Kira be wondering where you are?”

He shook his head. “No. She was taking the children on a picnic with some friends. Please—go on. Unless you’re hungry. Would you like to stop for lunch?”

Claire said no. “I don’t have much of an appetite anymore.”

“You’re too thin.”

“I eat very little. Herbalist says it’s not unusual for someone my age. It’s part of the natural process.”

“Your age?” Jonas asked. “But you were three years older than I was! What happened?”

“We’ll get to that. Then you’ll understand.”

She went on with the telling. It would take a long time. She felt that in order to understand, he must know every detail.

The day cleared and a pale sun dried the moisture. By late afternoon, the shadows had lengthened and they were sitting in deep shade. The air had turned cool. Jonas had placed his jacket across Claire’s shoulders. She was very tired by now, but felt oddly invigorated by relating the story to someone at last. It had been her secret, her private burden, for years. She told it slowly, and he didn’t hurry her. Now and then she had paused to rest. He had brought her water, and a biscuit. The entire day had belonged to them and to her story.

She described the torturous climb up the cliff at length, feeling the need to relive it inch by inch as Einar had told her he had, remembering each handhold, each precipice and narrow ledge. Talking slowly, she felt the muscles in her arms and legs respond to the memory. Jonas noticed it, how she shifted her body as in her mind she made the climb again. He winced when she told of the attack by the bird. She showed him the scar on her neck.

Finally, as exhausted almost by the telling as she had been when she reached the top of the cliff that long-ago dawn, she described the terrible trade she had made.

Jonas leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and put his face into his hands. “Trademaster,” he said. “I thought he was gone. We banished him from the village a long time ago. I was Leader then.”

“Who is he?” Claire asked.

He didn’t respond. He stayed silent, looking now into a distant place, a place that Claire couldn’t see.

“I should have known,” he said, after a moment. “I felt something out there, something related to Gabe, but I didn’t realize what it was. I think I was feeling your presence,” he mused, “and that was puzzling, but benign. But there is something else. Something malignant. It must be him.”

“Who is he?” Claire asked again.

“He is Evil. I don’t know how else to describe it. He is Evil, and like all evil, he has enormous power. He tempts. He taunts. And he takes.

“Gabe has your same eyes,” Claire said suddenly. “You and Gabe have the same pale eyes.”

“My eyes?” he said, answering her. “They see beyond the places most people can see. I’m told it’s my gift, that there are others with different gifts. And yes, Gabe has the same eyes. Sometimes I wonder—”

From the top of a pine tree near the river, a large bird suddenly lifted itself and swooped past them in the late golden light.

“Were you scared of birds at first?” Claire asked him suddenly.

“What?”

“When you ran away from the community. When you first saw birds. Were you scared?”

Jonas nodded. “Just at first. And other things too. I remember the first time I saw a fox. Gabe was so little; he wasn’t afraid of anything. It was all new and exciting to him.”

Claire realized suddenly that he was talking to her in a different way. He had known her since she had arrived in the community and he had always spoken to her in a kindly fashion. He had been helpful and patient: a young man to an old woman. But they had never been more than acquaintances. Now they were reminiscing together as old friends who had just reunited.

“I thought of taking him,” she confessed. “But I didn’t know how to hide him, or where I could go. And then your father showed me that he wore a special bracelet on his ankle, so I realized that I’d be caught if I tried to take him.”

“Yes. An electronic bracelet.”

Claire frowned. “I don’t remember what that means. What it was.”

“There was so much in the community that isn’t part of our lives anymore. But that’s what our memories consist of: small things,” Jonas said.

“My bicycle. I haven’t seen a bicycle since then. Except the one in the museum. That was—”

“My father’s bike. I stole it. It had a seat for Gabe.”

Claire nodded. “Yes. In my memory I can see him riding in it. He held a toy.”

Jonas laughed. “His hippo.”

“He called it Po, didn’t he? It’s coming back now.”

“Yes. Po.”

Now she could almost hear and see it: the dimpled hands clutching the stuffed toy; the high, happy voice. “Did you take the hippo with you when you escaped?”

Jonas shook his head. “I couldn’t. It all happened so fast. I discovered they were going to release . . . No. Not release. They were going to kill Gabe. I took him and fled. And I had to take food. There was no room for anything else.”

“I would have gone with you, if I’d known. Things would be different now if I had.” She shifted on the bench and rubbed her sore hip. “I wish—” But then she fell silent.

Jonas was quiet. He didn’t reply.

“I was so frightened of birds,” she said suddenly. “Of their feathers and beaks. Then Einar brought me one, in a cage, as a pet. I named it Yellow-wing.”

“Einar? He was the one who—”

“Yes, the one who prepared me for the climb out.” Her eyes went to her feet, thick and bunioned in primitive sandals. She pulled them back beneath the bench to hide them. He knew she was remembering how limber she had been then, how balanced and sure.

“I loved Einar,” she told him.

“Do you wish you had stayed?” Jonas asked her after a moment.

“No,” she said firmly. “But I wish it had not been Evil that brought me here.”

Jonas helped her up from the bench, his hand under her arm. They had been sitting together for a long time, and Claire was stiff. She stretched slowly and took a deep breath.

“Are you all right?” he asked, looking at her with concern.

She nodded. “I’ll be all right in a minute. My heart’s fluttery sometimes. And I’m just a little slow to get moving.”

Jonas continued looking at her. “I remember you,” he said, after a moment.

“We never spoke to each other,” Claire pointed out.

They began to walk slowly. He was seeing her home.

“No. But I saw you. My father mentioned you—the girl who came now and then to the nurturing center, and played with Gabe. He pointed you out to me one time. I think you rode past on your bike, and he said, ‘That’s the one.’”

“It seems so strange, to realize who you are. He pointed you out to me: ‘That’s my son,’ he said. He told me your name. It brings it all back, those days in the community.”

“I don’t think about it anymore. I’ve made a life here, where it’s so different.”

“So has Gabe.”

Jonas nodded. “He doesn’t remember the community.”

“It’s just as well.”

“I’m not certain. It frustrates him, not having a past, or a family.”

“So he’s wondered?”

“More than wondered,” Jonas told her. “He has a passionate need to figure out his past. I try to tell him what he wants to know, but it’s never been enough. That’s why he’s building the boat. I told him we had lived by a river, perhaps this same river. He’s determined to find his way back.”

They both fell silent.

“Then we must—”

“Maybe together we—”

They had both spoken at the same time, and they were both saying the same thing: We must try to tell all of this to Gabe. Together we can help him understand. But there was not time to discuss it. They were interrupted by the shouts of boys, excited, perhaps alarmed. The noise was coming from the riverside, the place where Gabe had been working for weeks on the little boat.

Seven

Gabe hadn’t wanted an audience for the launch. He wasn’t certain the boat was completely ready, and he didn’t want to be humiliated if anything went wrong. His plan was to sneak away alone. Yesterday he had moved the boat closer to the water, shoving it across some underbrush. Now it was lying on a low, muddy section of the bank. The paddle was resting diagonally inside.

The picture in his book, the book he had borrowed from Jonas, showed the lone man in the ocean, lying doomed in his small boat. His arms were taut and muscled, but useless; it was clear that the huge waves were going to be the ruin of him. He had no paddle, Gabe had thought, looking intently at the painting. Maybe he lost it. Or maybe he forgot to bring one? There was no way the man could save himself in that overwhelming sea. He needed a paddle.

For a foolish moment Gabe focused intensely and tried to veer into the picture of the painted man, to know how it felt to be afloat, to be about to die in the sea—and to know it while safe himself, able to end the veer when he chose. Just to feel the fear briefly, and the movement of the churning waves.

But it didn’t work. The man was not real. He was the painter’s idea of a man, simply daubs of paint, nothing more. A painted man who needed a paddle.

Gabe was proud of the paddle he had made. He was proud of the entire boat, but he realized it was a rough, primitive construction. The paddle was different. He had felt very fortunate to have found a slender young cedar that broadened at its base: just the right potential for his plan. Carefully he had cut the tree down and then shaped the paddle from its trunk. It seemed to take forever. But he carried it back and forth to Boys’ Lodge and was able to work on it there in the evenings: carving carefully, smoothing, shaping. His friends, even those who ridiculed his boat, were impressed with the paddle, with its sweet, cedary smell, its graceful curved edges, and the sheen of its wood now that he had rubbed it with oil.

“Can I carve my name on it? Just small, but so you can remember me?” Nathaniel had asked. Gabe had agreed, and watched while his friend carved his name meticulously.

Then Simon asked, and Tarik, and others. Even those boys who had made fun of his project now took pains to add their signature.

Watching them, Gabe found that he could make tiny veers into each of the boys as they bent over the paddle, carving carefully. He could feel their feelings.

I don’t think he’ll make it, he felt Nathaniel worrying. He might die in the river.

I hope he finds his mother, he felt from Tarik. He wants it so badly.

He’s something of a fool. But he’s courageous, I’ll say that for him. I wish I had his courage. Gabe was surprised to feel that from Simon, who had been scornful of the whole project.

At the last, he had shyly asked Jonas to carve his name as well. He felt Jonas’s fear for him, but Jonas gave no sign. His face was calm, and he smiled when he handed the paddle back with his name inscribed.

He had left a rounded knob at one end for a handhold. The other end fanned out into a broad triangle. He had stood on the bank by the water and dipped it in, pulling it through to feel the river’s resistance. It required strength. But Gabe was strong. In recent months he had begun to fill out; his muscles were firm and his energy boundless.

He had been delayed after lunch by some chores he had left undone. Grumpily he folded his laundry, put it away, and straightened his room. Now, heading back to the river, he assessed the weather. The misty morning had cleared and through the clouds a bit of sun made a narrow glint of light. The river would be smooth, Gabe thought. Sometimes after a storm it became turbulent and dangerous. He wasn’t worried. His boat could manage, he was certain. But for this first test, he was glad of the calm weather; he would take it slow. He needed to learn how exactly to wield the paddle, how to steer. He flexed one arm, admired his own bicep, and wondered if Deirdre would ever notice. Then he blushed, embarrassed that he had even thought such a foolish thing.

“Gabe!”

“Hey, Gabe!”

He recognized Tarik’s voice. Then Simon’s, and Nathaniel’s. They had spotted him on the path. Annoyed, Gabe stopped and waited. They had guessed what he was doing. His whole group from Boys’ Lodge caught up with him, just Simon and Tarik at first; then they were joined by the others, who came running. “You going to do it, Gabe? Put it in the water? Can we watch?”

“We’ll be your rescuers!” Tarik suggested.

He had wanted to be alone for this. Too late now. Well, let them watch. When the time came, the real time, the time when he would leave for good—he would do it alone. Maybe at night. He’d leave a note at Boys’ Lodge. A separate note for Jonas, he thought, with a thank-you; Jonas had done his best for Gabe. Deirdre? No, that would be foolish. No note for Deirdre. Let her wonder about him always.

For now, though, no notes. This was just a practice. What was it they called it, in that book about boats? A sea trial. That’s what it would be.

“Hey, Gabe?” Simon saw the coiled rope beside his little shed. Gabe had tied stacks of boards together in order to drag them into place. He planned to return the rope soon.

“What?”

“How about if you tie one end of this rope to the boat, and we’ll hold the other end when you push off? Then if you have any kind of trouble, we can haul you back in!”

Gabe scowled at Simon. “Like a baby with a toy boat in the pond?”

“No, I meant—”

“Forget it, Simon. Leave the rope where it is. I borrowed it from Jonas. He wants it back.

“Anybody who wants to help? Give me a hand pushing it into the water.” Several of the boys came eagerly to the bank where the boat was wedged in the slick mud.

“But listen, Gabe!” Nathaniel sounded worried. “Maybe you should at least take the rope with you in the boat. Because when you want to come ashore, you’ll need to grab something. Maybe you could make a noose in the rope and throw it over a tree stump or a bush.”

“Yeah, he’s right, Gabe!” someone else said.

Gabe stood beside his boat, furious. They were ruining everything, crowding around, criticizing, predicting disaster.

“Look there, where these two boards don’t quite come together,” a boy named Stefan said suddenly. “Won’t water come in through that crack?” He pointed.

Gabe glanced to where Stefan was pointing. He had meant to fill that wide crack with thick mud and let it dry and harden. “When the boards get wet,” he said, “they’ll expand and come together there.”

Stefan looked skeptical. “But what if—”

“Look,” Gabe said impatiently. “If you’re going to be all worried about it, I’ll stuff something in the gap. Hand me that rag.” He gestured toward the piece of cloth he had used to oil the paddle. It was lying near the shed. Stefan tossed it to him, and Gabe ripped it into strips. Then he stuffed one wadded strip of cloth into the space between the boards. “There,” he said. “Happy?”

Stefan glanced nervously at the others standing on the bank. Simon shrugged. Nathaniel looked very worried. Tarik grinned. “Sure,” he said. “Happy.”

“Happy to see you sink,” muttered one boy, and several others laughed.

Gabe ignored them now. He was concentrating on moving the boat into the water from its muddy resting place. His hands were slippery on the rounded wood. He leaned his shoulder against it and pushed. Several of the boys were pushing as well, and with a sudden lurch the bottom of the boat lifted from the mud and moved forward into the water. Gabe leapt in, tumbling onto his backside, and grabbed the paddle.

The river water was very still here at the shallow edge. Gabe raised himself first to his knees; then he stood upright, holding the paddle against the wooden floor of the boat for balance. He hadn’t anticipated that it would rock and tip the way it was, but he spread his bare feet for balance. He was still quite near the shore, and he forgot his anger and impatience in the triumph of the moment when he was finally standing upright without faltering. In a moment he would kneel and begin to steer with the paddle. But for now, it seemed appropriate to stand tall, to raise one hand from the paddle and salute his friends, who were watching apprehensively. They grinned.

Then, to his surprise, the boat began to rotate. Now he was no longer facing the shore and his friends; he was looking out toward the center of the river and across to the trees on the opposite bank.

Well, of course, he thought, realizing that he wasn’t steering it yet. He knelt. Balancing awkwardly, he raised the paddle and dipped it into the water. He had practiced this, pulling the water with the broadened end, and he knew how it felt, so the resistance didn’t surprise him. Leaning forward, he pulled the paddle against the current, and the boat responded slightly, revolving a bit, so that again he saw the boys, but they were farther from him now. The river was drawing him outward, away from the bank.

He had planned this. This was his time to practice controlling the boat, propelling and steering it. With the paddle, he moved it slightly toward the bank he had just left. But the river pulled him farther out again. All right, he thought. I need to steer faster. He took several long pulls with the paddle and brought himself, again, closer to shore, but he was moving with the current down the river, and a group of young alders were hiding the boys from him now.

He realized it would be hard to get back to them. The current was pulling him away from where they stood.

“Are you all right?” He recognized Nathaniel’s voice.

“Yes,” he called back. “I’m just figuring out how the paddle works!”

The boat spun slightly and tilted. It was hard for him to regain his balance. He planted his knees and feet. He realized suddenly that they were wet—not from the damp mud of the riverbank, but from water that was streaming in through cracks between the boards. He tried to aim for shore, pulling through the water with his paddle, but the boat felt heavier now, with water in it.

He could hear the boys’ voices, shouting, getting closer to him. He realized that his friends were running along the riverbank, following him as he moved, the boat twirling clumsily out of control. The water had risen and covered his lower legs. The paddle seemed more and more useless as a steering device. Finally, angrily, he plunged it straight downward through the water and felt it scrape the bottom. It slowed the boat. Through the bushes the boys appeared, calling to him.

“Here!” Tarik shouted. “I brought the rope! If I throw it to you, we can pull you to shore!”

Gabe knew what he wanted to call back. He wanted to call: Don’t bother! I can paddle myself to shore! But it wasn’t true. The paddle was stuck in the muddy bottom of the river and it was, at the moment, precariously holding the boat still. But the swirling water was rising.

“All right, throw it!”

At least he caught the rope on the first throw so he wasn’t additionally humiliated. He wrapped it around his wrist and waited until Tarik had found a firm footing on the riverbank. Two other boys reached for the rope as well, and when Gabe called, “Now!” they pulled as he lifted the paddle that had held him still. The boat swayed and the water sloshed around his lower body. Gradually it moved to shore.

When he looked up as the bottom of the boat scraped against the rocks at the shallow edge, he saw Jonas there as well, looking concerned.

“It needs work,” he muttered as he climbed out. He tied one end of the rope to the boat, threading it through a gap between some boards near the top. He took the other end from Tarik and looked around for a tree trunk to tie it to.

“Boys,” he heard Jonas say, “it’s time to start getting ready for supper. You go on. I’ll stay here with Gabe. Thanks for your help.”

Gabe knotted the rope around the slender trunk of a nearby sapling and glanced back at the small, leaky failure of a boat that he had been so proud of a short time before. It was smeared with mud and the torn rag was dangling from the gap he had stuffed it into.

Jonas was waiting for him, standing silently, his expression sympathetic.

“I don’t know why I’m tying it up. I should just let it float out there and sink.” Gabe’s voice was shaking with tears very near the surface. He wiped his wet, dirt-smeared hands on his dripping shorts and climbed the bank to face the man who was the closest thing he had to a father.

“I’m sorry,” Jonas said.

“It’s not even a real boat. It’s just a bunch of boards tied together. That’s all it is.” He wiped his face with one dirty hand and looked angrily at Jonas, defying him to disagree.

“It floated, though,” he added.

“Yes. It did float.”

“And my paddle really worked well.”

All that work. The weeks and weeks of planning, of building, of hoping. And all he could say now was that the paddle worked well. Gabe felt it all slipping away: his dream of returning, of finding his mother, of becoming part of something he had yearned for all his life. He had envisioned a triumphant return to the place where his life had begun. He had daydreamed about being recognized and greeted: “Look! It’s Gabriel!” In his imagination he had seen his mother running, her arms outstretched to enfold him as he stepped smiling from his sturdy little vessel.

The river still surged past. It moved and churned, foaming and dark, carrying leaves and sand and twigs from one place to the next. What a fool he had been, to think that it could have carried him as well.

Angrily he kicked at the boat, then turned away.

“Come with me, Gabe. You can come back to my house and get cleaned up there. Kira will give us some supper and we can talk. There’s something important I need to tell you.”

Gabe scowled at his ruined boat one more time. Then, grudgingly, he climbed the slippery bank. Carrying his paddle, he followed Jonas to the path that led back to the village.

Eight

Do you remember Trade Mart, Gabe?”

“Yes, sort of. Though they didn’t let children go. You had to be older than twelve.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Jonas said.

Gabe reached toward the plate and took another cookie. Kira was a wonderful cook. The cookies she had served for dessert were crisp and studded with dried fruits and nuts. He hadn’t been counting really, but he thought this was his sixth.

Gabe and Jonas were seated together on the pillow-strewn couch. Gabe had had a bath and Jonas had provided him with clean clothes. He was glad he hadn’t had to go back to Boys’ Lodge after the boat disaster. The other boys would have made jokes about it. They probably would for weeks to come. But at least for now, this first evening, he wouldn’t have to listen and try to smile.

Kira was tucking the children into bed. Gabe had watched her with them earlier, as she fed them their supper and wiped their smeared, sleepy faces, talking softly to them about the nice day they had had, about a picnic, and the flowers they had picked. In a small earthen pot on the table, the bouquet of yellow loosestrife, purple coneflowers, and lacy ferns cast a shadow against the wall in the dimming light.

Gabe had little interest in babies. He would rather talk to Frolic, the old, overweight dog asleep on the floor, than to Matthew and Annabelle, with their grabby hands and screechy giggles. He was relieved when Kira finally took them off to bed. It amused him that Jonas kissed their sweaty little necks and called night-night affectionately as they toddled off with their mother.

But still. Still. He felt an enormous sadness that he didn’t entirely understand, when he watched Kira with her children. He felt a loss, a hole in his own life. Had anyone—all right: any woman—ever murmured to him that way, or brushed crumbs gently from his cheek? Had anyone ever mothered him? Jonas had told him no. “A manufactured product,” Jonas had said, describing his origins sadly.

But he thought he remembered something else. A dim blur, that’s all; but it was there. Someone had held him, had whispered to him. Someone had loved him once. He was sure of it. He was sure he could find it. Could find her. If only the stupid boat . . .

“Try to stay awake, Gabe. I know it’s been a long day. But I want to talk to you.”

He had been drifting off. Gabe shook himself fully awake and took another sip from his cup of tea. “About Trade Mart?” he asked. “I barely remember it. Just listening to people talk about it. It was creepy in some way. But kind of exciting. We always wanted to sneak in, me and the other boys.”

“It had been going on for years,” Jonas described. “I never paid much attention to it until I became Leader. Then I began to see that . . .” He paused when Kira came into the room, carrying a cup of tea. She sat down in a nearby chair.

“I’m telling Gabe about Trade Mart.”

Kira nodded. “I wasn’t here then,” she told Gabe, “but Jonas has described it to me.” She made a face and shivered slightly. “Scary.”

Gabe didn’t say anything. He wondered why they were talking about an event that had ended years before.

“It had always seemed to me like a simple entertainment,” Jonas said. “Everyone got dressed up. There was a lot of merriment to their preparations. But as I got older I began to sense that there was always a nervousness to it, an uneasiness. So when I became Leader I began going, to watch.”

Gabe yawned. “So what happened, exactly?” he asked politely.

“It was a kind of ritualized thing. Every now and then this man appeared in the village—he always wore strange clothes, and talked in an odd, convoluted way. He was called Trademaster. He got up on the stage and called people forward one by one. Then he invited them to make trades.”

“Trades?” Gabe asked. “Meaning what?”

“Well, people would tell him what they most wanted. They’d say it loudly. Everyone could hear. And then they told him what they were willing to trade for it. But they whispered that part.”

Gabe looked puzzled. “Give me an example,” he said.

“Suppose it was your turn. You would go to the stage, and tell Trademaster what you wanted most. What might you ask for?”

Gabe hesitated. He couldn’t put into words, really, the thing he truly wanted. Finally he shrugged. “A good boat, I guess.”

“And then you would whisper to him what you were willing to trade away in order to get it.”

Gabe made a face. “I don’t have anything.”

“Most people think that. And they thought that, then. But they found otherwise. He suggested to them that they trade parts of themselves.”

Gabe sat up straighter, more awake, intrigued now. “Like a finger or something? Or an ear? There’s a woman here in the village who only has one ear. The other got chopped off before she came here. As punishment for something, I think. There are places that do those kinds of horrible punishments.”

“I know. And I know the woman you mean. You’re right. She escaped from a place with a cruel government.

“But Trademaster was asking for something different. You had to trade—let me think how to describe it—part of your basic character.”

“Like what?”

“Well, if you wanted a boat, he’d be able to provide that. But let’s think about your character, Gabe. You’re—what? Energetic, I’d say.”

“And smart. I do pretty well in school.”

“Honest. Likable.”

“Well, I’m honest. That’s true. I’m not always likable. I’m pretty mean to Simon sometimes.”

Jonas chuckled. “Well, you’re energetic. Agreed?”

“Yes. I’m energetic.”

“Let’s use that, just for the example. Suppose Trademaster could give you a really fine boat, Gabe. You’d have to trade for it, though. You’d have to trade your energy. You’d be on the stage. He’d whisper to you what the trade would consist of. No one would be able to hear. Just you. But then he’d say loudly: ‘Trade?’ And you’d have to reply.”

“Easy. A fine boat? I’d say, ‘Trade!’”

“He’d write it down.”

“And I’d get my boat.”

“You would. I never knew of anyone asking for a boat, so I don’t know how it would appear. But he had amazing powers. Probably a fine boat would be waiting for you the next day, at the river.”

“Yes!” Gabe was wide awake now, fascinated by the thought of how easily he might have obtained a boat.

“But don’t forget: you would have made a trade for it. And your energy would have been taken from you. You might wake up the next morning and be unable to get out of bed.”

“So I’d rest for a day till I felt energetic.”

“Gabe, Trademaster has enormous power. He could take your energy permanently.”

“So I’d be in a wheeled chair or something for the rest of my life?”

“Could be.”

“All right, that wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t trade my energy.”

“But what would your other choices be?”

Gabe thought. “Honesty. Smartness. I could maybe trade one of those.”

“Think about it.”

“Well, I could trade my honesty. Then I’d be a dishonest person, but I’d have a really good boat.” He shrugged. “That might work.”

Jonas laughed. “Anyway,” he said, “that’s what Trade Mart was all about. It began to corrupt the people of the village. They traded away the best parts of themselves, the way you would have, in order get the foolish things they thought they wanted, or needed.”

“A boat isn’t foolish,” Gabe argued. He yawned.

Jonas got up and went to where the teakettle was simmering. He made himself another cup of tea. “Kira? Tea?” he asked, but she shook her head.

“Take my word for it, Gabe,” he said when he sat back down. “Trademaster was taking control of this village. And he was pure evil. It became clear when Matty died. That was the end of Trade Mart.”

Gabe saw that Kira had put her hands to her face. She had been very close to Matty.

They all were silent for a moment. Outside, it had begun to rain. They could hear it against the roof. Then Jonas said, “I want to talk to you, Gabe, about powers.”

“Powers?” Gabe suddenly felt uneasy. They were entering a realm that they had approached before.

“Maybe a better word is ‘gifts.’ I have a certain power, or gift. It became apparent when I was young, twelve or so. I was able to focus on something and will myself to see . . .”

He sighed, and looked at Kira. “I don’t know how to describe this to him,” he said.

Kira tried. “Jonas can see beyond, Gabe. He can see to another place. But he has to work very hard at it. It depletes him.”

“And the power is ebbing,” Jonas added. “I can feel that it’s leaving me. Kira is experiencing the same thing.”

“You mean she has a gift too?”

“Mine’s different. Mine has always been through my hands,” Kira explained. “I realized it the way Jonas did, when I was young. My hands began to be able to do things—to make things—that an ordinary pair of hands can’t. But now . . .”

She smiled. “It’s leaving me, as well. And that’s all right. I think Jonas and I don’t need these gifts anymore. We’ve used them to create our life here. We’ve helped others. And our time of such powers is passing now. But we’ve talked about you, Gabe. We feel certain that you have some kind of gift.”

“I felt it when you were very young, Gabe,” Jonas said. “When I took you and escaped the place where we were. I’ve been waiting for it to make itself known to you.” He looked at Gabe as if something might become apparent at that moment. Gabe shifted uncomfortably on the couch.

“Well,” he said finally, “it’s not a gift for boatbuilding, is it?”

Jonas chuckled. “No,” he said. “But you’re very determined. That serves you well. And I think you’re going to need that determination, and your energy—in fact, all your attributes—plus whatever special gift you haven’t discovered yet—”

I have discovered it, Gabe thought. I can veer. But he stayed silent. He simply didn’t feel ready to tell them.

“—because you have a hard job ahead of you,” Jonas continued.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going to use the last of my own power,” Jonas said. “I’m going to see beyond one final time.”

“Why?” asked Kira, startled.

Gabe echoed her. “Why?”

“I have to find out where Trademaster is,” Jonas told them both. “He’s still out there somewhere. He’s quite near. And he’s terribly dangerous.”

The rain had become louder, drenching, and a wind had risen. Tree branches whipped against the side of the house. Kira rose suddenly from her chair and pulled a window closed. Jonas paid no attention. “And Gabe?” he said. “When I find him . . .”

Gabe waited. He was wide awake now.

“It’s going to be up to you, then. You must destroy him.”

“Me? Why me? He’s nothing to do with me!”

Jonas took a deep breath. “It’s everything to do with you, Gabe. But it’s a very long story. I was going to tell it to you tonight, but I can see how tired you are. And it’s late. Let’s get some sleep now. And in the morning I’ll explain it to you.”

Nine

The leaves dripped onto the wet grass, but the rain had stopped and a pale sun had risen. It was late morning now and Gabe was just waking. He had slept fitfully on the couch until finally, nudged awake by the houshold noises, he yawned and opened his eyes. He watched Kira tending the children. In her soft voice she spoke firmly to Matthew, who was trying to grab a toy from his sister. Annabelle held it tightly in her fist and looked defiantly at her brother. “No!” she said.

Kira laughed. When she saw that Gabe was awake, she turned away from the little ones.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. “You slept a long time.”

Gabe nodded. He looked around the room. “I’m all right. I had strange dreams. I’m sorry I slept so late. You should have woken me. Is Jonas here?”

“No. He had to leave.”

“But he promised to explain—”

“I know. And he will. But he got an urgent message early this morning. Someone in the village is quite sick.”

“Why did they call for him? He’s not a healer. They usually call Herbalist.”

Kira shrugged. “I’m not sure. Apparently she asked for him. Are you hungry? The children just had some bread and jam. Would you like some?”

Gabe went to the table. She poured milk into a thick cup for him. He drank some and spread raspberry jam on the crusty, freshly baked bread. He watched when she turned her attention again to the toddlers.

“Do you think they’ll remember this moment when they’re older?” he asked suddenly.

“Fighting over a toy? Eating bread and jam? Probably not. They’re too little for specific memories like that. But I think they’ll remember the general feeling of being taken care of, of being scolded now and then, maybe of being held and hugged.” She poured more milk into his empty cup. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I just wondered.”

“I think I remember being very small and sleeping beside my mother. When I think of it, I feel her warmth. And I think maybe she sang to me. I suppose I was just about the age of Annabelle.” Kira smiled. “I didn’t walk when I was her age. It took me a long time to walk because of my leg.”

One of her legs was twisted. It was why she leaned on a stick when she walked. He glanced at her, at the stick, when she spoke of it. But his mind was not on that.

“I don’t have a single memory like that.”

“What do you remember, Gabe?” Kira asked him.

“I rode in a seat on the back of a bike. You know that bicycle in the museum?”

“Of course.”

“I remember that, a little. But it was Jonas who brought me here on that bike. He wasn’t my parent. I don’t remember a mother, the way you do, the way Annabelle and Matthew will. Except . . .”

He paused.

“Except what?”

Gabe squirmed on his chair. “There was a woman. I know there was. And she loved me.”

Kira smiled. “Of course she did.”

“Kira, I mean I really know. Last night, when you and Jonas were talking about your gifts . . .”

She looked at him. “Yes?”

“I didn’t want to tell you. I don’t know why. Maybe I just needed to test it one more time.”

“Test what?” Kira glanced toward the children, who were now playing quietly. She came to the table and sat down in the chair next to Gabe.

“My gift. I do have one. I call it veering.”

“Go on.”

“At first it just happened. It always surprised me. But then I found I could choose the time. I could direct it. I could cause it to happen. Was it that way for you?”

Kira nodded. “Yes. It was.”

“And this morning, just a few minutes ago, you were over there, with the children—” Gabe nodded toward the corner of the room where the two little ones were industriously piling blocks into towers. “I was lying on the couch, half awake, watching, and I decided to veer into Matthew.”

“Into Matthew?” Kira looked puzzled.

“Yes, because he’s the boy. I suppose it’s not that different with a girl, but I needed to know how it felt to be a small boy looking at his mother.”

They both glanced over at Matthew. His tongue was wedged between his lips and he was frowning with concentration as he balanced a blue wooden triangle on top of a pile of square red blocks.

“So I concentrated really hard. The first thing that happens is a silence. You were talking to the children, showing them how the blocks fit together, and just as you said, ‘See the shapes?’ You were holding up a yellow one, and—”

“Yes. Annabelle took it from me,” Kira said.

“Maybe. I don’t remember that, because the silence happened. I never notice what’s happening when the silence comes. But then I, ah, well, I veered into Matthew. I entered Matthew.”

“You never moved from the couch.”

“No, my body doesn’t move. But my awareness shifts.”

Kira nodded.

“And then,” Gabe went on, “I became part of Matthew’s feelings at that moment. I felt them. I understood them.”

“So your gift is understanding how someone feels?”

“More than understanding it. Feeling it. And this morning, when I did that, I felt my own little self, my baby self, experiencing what Matthew was experiencing at that moment. He was receiving so much love from his mother.”

Kira, beginning to understand, nodded. “For Matthew, that was coming from me. But for you, Gabe, you were remembering . . .”

“Yes. I don’t know her name or where she is now. But I know for certain who she was.”

The two of them sat silently, watching the children play.

Later, after he had helped her clean up the lunch dishes, Kira said, “I’m going to take the children for a walk. Want to come?” She lifted two small jackets from a hook on the wall.

“When’s Jonas coming back?”

“I don’t know. I’m surprised that he’s been gone so long.”

“Is it all right if I wait here for him?”

“Of course. You and he have a lot to talk about.”

Gabe looked through the window, down at the winding paths that crisscrossed the village. People hurried along, busy with midday tasks. Beyond the orchard, he could see the library; it appeared closed. Nearby, in the playing field, children were running around with a ball that they passed back and forth; he could hear their shouts. It was an ordinary day in the quiet, well-ordered place. Yet someplace in the village, someone was very ill, and Jonas was there.

“I think I’ll go look for him,” Gabe said suddenly. “Do you know where he went? Who is it who is so sick?”

Kira reached into a small sleeve and guided Annabelle’s chubby arm through. “Other side now,” she said to the little girl, and held open the other sleeve. “Can you do yours by yourself?” she asked Matthew, whose jacket was on the floor in front of him. He grinned and shook his head no.

“A woman named Claire,” she said to Gabe, in answer to his question. “I’m sure you’ve seen her in the village. She’s very, very old.”

“Oh, her! Yes, I’ve seen her often.”

“Well, I fear you won’t be seeing her much longer. It sounds as if her time is running out.” With both children now buttoned into their jackets, Kira headed to the door with Annabelle in her arms and Matthew by one hand. “Can you open the door for me?”

“Is it all right if I leave my paddle here?” He looked toward the corner where it was propped against the wall. The sunlight made it gleam golden.

“Of course. I won’t let the children play with it.”

Gabe helped her through the door and down the front steps. “Do you know where she lives? Or is she in the infirmary?”

“Jonas went to her house. It’s over there someplace.” Kira indicated, nodding her head, a place beyond the library, beyond the schoolhouse. He could see the small cottages, deep in shade, that dotted the wooded area.

Gabe thanked her quickly for the place to eat and sleep after such a bad day. Then, as Kira headed with the children to the play area nearby, he began to jog toward the place where Claire lived and where Jonas was with her now. He wanted to talk more about what Jonas had proposed last night. It had been on his mind since he had awakened. He was to kill someone named Trademaster? It made no sense. Jonas was a peaceful, compassionate man. All right, maybe this Trademaster guy was bad. Maybe even pure evil! But he wasn’t bothering anyone they knew. They would watch out for him, would fend him off if he showed signs of trying to return to the village and do harm.

Hah, Gabe thought with a wry smile. Maybe they should just put him into my stupid boat and give it a firm shove into the river.

The little cottage was deep in a thicket of trees, but he had no trouble finding the place where Claire lived. Several aged women stood somberly outside, murmuring to one another.

“So sudden,” he overheard one woman say to another. “Came upon her just like that. She was fine last night.”

“Happens that way,” a tall white-haired woman said knowingly, and several others nodded.

Gabe excused himself politely as he passed them. “Is Jonas inside?” he asked. A woman nodded.

“She asked for him, first thing. Strange,” she murmured.

“Is it all right if I go in?” Gabe asked.

No one seemed to be in charge. They all looked at him blankly, and he took it as permission. The door stood partially open, and he entered after a quiet knock on the wood, which drew no reply. The interior was very dim. It was bright outside on this clear day after the night’s rain, but the windows of the cottage were small, and woven curtains were drawn across. He smelled stale food, old age, dried herbs, and dust.

Herbalist, who ordinarily tended the sick, sat quietly in a rocking chair.

Gabe looked around. “Jonas?”

“Over here.” He followed the voice and found Jonas sitting in the shadows beside the bed. Again he wondered: Why? Why had the old woman asked for Jonas?

And how soon could Jonas excuse himself and come away? Gabe needed to talk to him. Their conversation last night had seemed urgent. More than urgent; it had been alarming. Jonas, the most peaceful of souls, seemed to be commanding Gabe to commit a murder. He had not explained, not really. He had said they would discuss it more fully in the morning.

Now morning had passed, and Gabe wanted to know more. The old woman was dying, as old people always do. It was the natural way of things. Her friends were nearby, and Herbalist was sitting in the corner. She didn’t need Jonas. Not as much as Gabe did.

“Can’t you leave?” Gabe whispered, moving closer. “We need to talk. You promised to explain—”

“Shhh.” Jonas held up a hand.

Now, through the dim light, he could see Jonas more clearly, and the woman in the bed as well. Her eyes were open, and it was clear that she had seen Gabe approaching. Her thin fingers moved, plucking at the blanket. Jonas was watching her very closely; now he leaned forward, as if to listen. Her thin, dry lips were moving. Gabe could not hear, at first, what she said. But Jonas did. Jonas was nodding.

Gabe stood there uncertainly. The woman’s mouth began to move again, and he found himself leaning forward to listen. This time, nearer, he could hear her words.

“Tell him,” she was saying to Jonas.

Ten

I’m sorry. I just don’t believe you.”

Gabe’s voice was both skeptical and firm.

Jonas leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. He cupped his own face with his hands. They were sitting together on the bench behind the library, the same bench where he had so recently sat with Claire.

He looked up and sighed. “I felt the same way yesterday when she told it to me. I sat here thinking: This woman is crazy. Is that what you’re thinking now of me, Gabe?”

Gabe shook his head and looked away. He wanted to be someplace else. Off with his lodge-mates. Building another boat. Sinking another boat. He didn’t care. Anywhere but here, listening to this unbelievable story being told to him by a man he loved. And last night this same man had talked of the need to destroy someone. It was scary. It was sad.

He turned to Jonas and tried to speak in a soothing voice. “You know what? You’ve been working awfully hard. Probably reading too much. You should take a long walk along the river. Have a nice relaxing, restful . . .”

“Gabe. Listen to me! We don’t have much time. This is not a wild made-up thing. This is real. She remembers you. She remembers me. She—” Jonas paused and took a deep breath. “I know you were very young when we left the community, so you won’t recall these things. But I do, Gabe. I remember seeing her there. She used to work at the fish hatchery. But in her spare time she came to the nurturing center and helped out. She did that because you were there, Gabe.

“She had given birth to you. It’s the way things were done there. Young girls produced babies—they weren’t called babies; they were called newchildren. The birthmothers turned them out like factory products. Then the babies were moved to the nurturing center, and eventually assigned to couples who applied for children.”

“That’s how your parents got you?” Gabe asked.

Jonas nodded.

“So some girl had given birth to you?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t know who?”

Jonas shook his head.

“And some other girl—or maybe it was the same one?—gave birth to me years later—”

“Claire gave birth to you. You were the only child she ever had.”

“But you’re saying she ended up working in the fish place.”

Jonas nodded. “Yes, they determined that she couldn’t handle any more births. She had difficulty when you were born. So they gave her another job. But she spent all her time watching over you. She loved you, Gabe. But love wasn’t permitted.”

Gabe leaned down, slipped off one of the sandals he was wearing, and dislodged a pebble that had been rubbing against his toe. He watched a bird flutter in a nearby tree, and noticed that it had a twig in its beak. He examined a scratch on his arm. He yawned, and stretched. He unbuttoned and rebuttoned the neck of his shirt. He investigated his fingernails.

Jonas watched him.

“You know what?” Gabe said at last. “I guess I can believe all of that. You’ve told me before about what the community was like. So: there was a girl; she gave birth to me. I believe that. And, Jonas? I know it’s true that she loved me. But—”

Jonas nodded. “I know. It’s the rest of it.”

“Yes, the rest of it is just crazy. That old woman? I’m supposed to believe that some man in strange-looking clothes—”

He noticed that Jonas was no longer looking at him. He was looking across the grassy area, to the path beyond. Gabe followed Jonas’s gaze and saw Mentor, the elderly schoolmaster, walking slowly along the path. Nothing unusual. It was school vacation now. Mentor was a part of the village. One often saw him walking around.

To his surprise, Jonas rose from the bench and called to Mentor. “Come with me, Gabe,” he said.

He followed Jonas’s quick strides toward the path where Mentor had stopped and was waiting. The bearded schoolmaster was stooped, and his face was lined. But his eyes were keen and intelligent. Gabe had always liked Mentor, even when he had not liked school. “Good morning,” he said. “What can I do for you gentlemen this morning?”

“Mentor,” Jonas began, “I’m trying to explain to Gabe here about Trademaster. About his powers.”

Mentor visibly winced. “That’s of the past,” he said abruptly. “It’s forgotten.”

“I’m afraid it isn’t,” Jonas told him. “We have a rather urgent situation. I’ll describe it to you later. But right now I need you to help me convince Gabe that the powers exist. He finds it hard to believe.”

“It is hard to believe,” Mentor agreed, nodding. “In a peaceful village like this, it is hard to conceive of true evil.”

“We don’t have a lot of time, Mentor. Could you describe, to Gabe, the trade you made?”

Mentor sighed. “This is necessary?” he asked Jonas.

“Necessary and very important.”

Mentor nodded. “I see. Very well, then. It was years ago, Gabe. You were a little boy. I remember how mischievous you were in school. Sometimes inattentive.”

“I know,” Gabe acknowledged in embarrassment.

“You were too young to go to Trade Mart. But surely you knew of it?”

Gabe shrugged. “I guess. It seemed kind of mysterious.”

“Some of us adults went every time. There was a kind of entertainment to it, watching other villagers make fools of themselves. But you didn’t usually attend, did you, Jonas?”

Jonas shook his head. “It didn’t ever interest me until it got out of hand, and by then I was Leader and had to take action.”

“Well, I was a fool. Many of us were. I was an old man—widowed, lonely. I lived with my daughter, but I knew she would marry someday and I’d be alone. I felt sorry for myself. I had this birthmark. The schoolchildren used to called me Rosie because of it; remember, Gabe?”

Gabe looked at the deep red stain on Mentor’s cheek. He nodded. “We didn’t mean any harm.”

“Of course you didn’t.” Mentor smiled. “But I was self-pitying and foolish. And there was a woman, a widow, I was attracted to. You understand about that, don’t you? Boys your age would understand.”

Gabe’s instinct was to pretend ignorance. The question embarrassed him. But with both Mentor and Jonas watching him intently, it seemed a time for honesty. “Yes,” he said. “I understand.”

“So,” Mentor said with a deep sigh, “I went to Trade Mart and for the first time, I asked to make a trade.”

“What did you ask for?”

Mentor laughed, but it was a sardonic laugh. “I told Trademaster that I wanted to be younger, and handsome. I wanted Stocktender’s widow to fall in love with me.”

Gabe looked at the ground. He was embarrassed for Mentor, that he must make such a confession of his own idiocy. “He couldn’t do that kind of transformation, could he? You should have asked for, oh, I don’t know, maybe a set of new desks for the schoolhouse!”

“Evil can do anything, Gabe,” Mentor said, “for a price.”

Gabe stared at him. “What was the price?” he asked, after a moment.

“His terms were vague. Vague enough that they sounded unimportant. He’s very clever, Trademaster is. He sets his terms but we don’t really understand them when we agree to the trade. He told me I would have to trade away my honor.”

“So you said no.”

Mentor shook his head. “I grabbed at it. Eagerly. I told you I was a fool.”

“But, Mentor! You are an honorable man! Everyone knows that. And—I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re not young and handsome. So the trade didn’t work! No one has that kind of power, not even someone evil.”

“Oh, it worked. It worked for many of us here in the village. Me—I grew taller, and my bald spot disappeared. Thick hair where once there had been just this shiny dome! Birthmark? Faded, faded, then poof! Gone! You may not have noticed, Gabe; you were a child then, and it was summer so you weren’t in school. But briefly I was a younger, handsome man. I began courting the pretty widow.

“But you know what, Gabe?”

“What?” Gabe was stunned. So Trademaster, whoever he was, did have incredible powers. He could have made a trade with the woman—what was her name, Claire? He tried to pay attention to what Mentor was saying, but his thoughts now were on what this all meant—what it meant to him, Gabe, and to the woman, Claire, who may have made a terrible trade in order to find her . . . her . . .

“I am her son,” he whispered aloud.

Mentor hadn’t heard him. He continued talking. “I had traded away the most important part of myself. I turned selfish. Cruel. The pretty widow didn’t want a man like that! So I had made a meaningless trade, and I had turned into a person I hated—but a handsome one! And young!”

Gabe forced himself to pay attention to the schoolmaster. “What changed you back? You’re a man of honor now, Mentor.”

“Jonas stepped in. Trade Mart had corrupted the whole village. Many people had traded away their best selves. We turned on each other. There was greed, and jealousy, and . . . Well, it had to end. There was a set of horrible events—we lost one of our best young people—”

“Matty?”

“Yes, Matty died, battling the evil. But because of him the rest of us survived and were restored. I got my bald head and my birthmark back!” He laughed. “And I lost my silly romance. Still a bachelor today.”

“And we banished Trademaster,” Jonas reminded them.

“We did. Forever.” Mentor said it with a kind of relief and satisfaction. He turned to leave. Then he said slowly, with a questioning look, “Something’s wrong?”

Jonas nodded. “He’s returned,” he said.

Mentor looked stunned. “So this battle must be waged again?”

Jonas nodded. “This time we must be sure it’s final.”

“Whom do we send this time, to die?” Mentor’s voice was bitter and sad. Like everyone, he had loved Matty.

“I’m going,” Gabe told him.

Mentor was silent. Then, without speaking, he turned away from them.

Gabe and Jonas stood watching the aged schoolmaster walk away. His shoulders were slumped.

“He got himself back,” Gabe said, after a moment.

Jonas nodded. “He did.”

“That means a trade can be reversed,” Gabe said.

Jonas nodded.

“I’m scared.”

“I am too,” Jonas replied. “For you, for all of us.”

She is my mother. She is my mother. Gabe took a deep breath. “How much time do we have?” he asked.

Eleven

They hurried back to the cottage where Claire was dying. The sun was setting now. Someone had lit an oil lamp on the table. This time, in the flickering golden light, Gabe approached the bed without hesitation. He knew, he thought, what he wanted to say: that he’d been waiting all his life for her to find him. That he understood the sacrifice she had made for him. That it didn’t matter that she was old. What mattered was being together.

But when he knelt beside her, he thought he’d come too late. Her eyes were half open and glazed. Her mouth fell slack. Her hand on the coverlet, when he took it in his, was limp and cold.

Crying unashamedly, Gabe turned to Jonas, who stood behind him. “I wanted to tell her I knew! I wanted to tell her I remember her! But I’m too late,” he wept. “She’s gone.”

Jonas gently moved Gabe aside. He leaned down and touched Claire’s thin, veined neck. Then he rested his head against her chest, listening carefully.

“Her heart is beating still,” he told Gabe. “She’s very close to death. But she is still alive. We have very little time, and I have very little left of the gift I once possessed. But I am going to use it. I am going to look beyond and try to see where he is. After that, it will be up to you. Your gift is still young.”

“Do you need to go to some special place?” Gabe asked, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt.

“No. I just need to gather my strength. And I need quiet, for concentration.

“Claire? Can you hear me?” Jonas said toward the old woman. She didn’t respond. She took a slow, deep breath.

“Gabe will sit here beside you. Gabe, hold her hand so that she knows you’re there.”

Gabe took the gnarled hand in his own.

“I’m going to close the door to the cottage so that no one comes in, so that it will be quiet. I’ll be here, by the window.” He was speaking to them both. “I’m told that this is difficult to watch, Gabe. But don’t be afraid. It’s not painful for me, just very draining. It shouldn’t take long.”

Jonas went to the front of the cottage, spoke briefly to the people gathered outside, then closed and latched the door. Gabe, watching him, could see that already he was changing in some way; he was becoming something different from the ordinary and pleasant man he had been. He went to the window and stood looking through it into the night, though his eyes were half closed. He was breathing deeply, in and out, very slowly. Suddenly he gasped, as if he were pierced by pain. He moaned slightly. Gabe found himself squeezing the old woman’s hand. He continued to watch Jonas.

On the bed, Claire breathed occasionally, with a tortured sound.

Jonas began to shimmer. His body vibrated and was suffused with a silvery light.

“He is beyond now,” Gabe said to Claire, hoping that somehow she could hear and know how desperately they were trying to save her.

Jonas gasped loudly again.

“I think he is seeing Trademaster,” Gabe whispered, and felt Claire shudder.

Then he fell silent and waited.

Afterward, Gabe had to help Jonas to the nearby rocking chair. He collapsed into it, panting and trembling. “What did you see?” Gabe asked. “Could you find him?” But Jonas was unable to speak. He closed his eyes and held up one hand, asking Gabe to wait. Finally, after resting for several minutes, Jonas opened his eyes.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to do that again,” he said hoarsely to Gabe. “It was the last time. It has become too hard.”

He turned slightly and looked toward the bed. “How is she?”

Gabe went to Claire and took her hand. There was no answering squeeze from her. Her hand and arm were limp. But he heard a long, slow breath.

“Alive,” Gabe told Jonas, returning to the chair where he was slumped.

“There’s not much time.” Jonas sat up a little straighter, still breathing hard. “But I saw him; he’s close by. It’s up to you now, Gabe. I’ll stay here with her.”

Close by? What did that mean? Gabe found himself looking around the room, and toward the window. Was someone standing out there in the trees? A closet door was open in the corner, the interior dark. Was someone in the closet? A board creaked, and Gabe jumped nervously. But it was just Jonas’s chair, its curved rockers moving against the wooden floor.

He found a pitcher of water and brought Jonas a cup. Jonas drank, and sat up straighter.

“I forgot to tell you something else that she and I both remembered. When you were a baby—a newchild—you had a stuffed toy.” He smiled. “It went everywhere with you. Your hippo.”

A blurred image appeared to Gabe. A soft, comforting object. With ears. He had chewed on the ears.

“Po,” he said.

“A fine water beast,” Jonas said. “You’ve always been attracted to water, Gabe. And now you must become like Po. Trademaster is on the other side of the river.”

It was dark when Gabe stood at the water’s edge, alone. He had begged Jonas to come with him. But Jonas had said no.

“Years ago, Gabe, when I took you and ran away, there was a man I loved and left behind. I wanted him to come with me but he said no.

“He was right to refuse. It was my journey and I had to do it without help. I had to find my own strengths, face my own fears. And now you must.”

Gabe had leaned down and kissed the papery cheek of the silent woman in the bed. There were long pauses between her breaths now, and occasionally a gurgle deep in her throat. Jonas moved his chair so that he could sit close to her. Then he told Gabe where he would find Trademaster—in a grove of birch trees on the far side of the river—and he grasped Gabe’s hand. “Go,” he said. “This is your journey, your battle. Be brave. Find your gift. Use it to save what you love.”

Now, standing barefoot in the pebbly sand, Gabe didn’t feel brave. It was very dark. Clouds covered the moon. There were no sounds but the rushing water, and though the river had always lured him, fascinated him, he had never been here before at night. Suddenly, in the dark, it seemed dangerous and forbidding.

Gabe was a good swimmer. But the place where he and his friends swam was farther down the river, a bend where the water, protected by encircling rocks, was calm, separated from the fast-moving water farther out. It was safer there, less treacherous. But Jonas had told him to cross the river here. The current would move him downriver and he would emerge at the other side very near to the wooded grove where Trademaster, gloating, was waiting for Claire to die.

“Why is he there?” Gabe had asked.

“I think he must feel a certain satisfaction at knowing how things end. He sets them in motion and then watches from a distance. He has probably been aware of Claire for all these years, since she made the trade.”

“Is it just Claire he’s been watching?”

“Oh, no, he must have many, many tragedies to keep track of. I suppose they nourish him in some terrible way.”

Gabe moved forward and felt the pull of the current against his ankles. He knew, from the disaster with his little boat two days before, how strong the swirling motion of the water was. But he was strong too, and he felt certain he could fight his way across the river. He was holding his cedar paddle. The mud-smeared boat, leaky and useless, was still tied to a tree. But he had run back to Jonas’s house and retrieved the paddle for the night swim. He thought he could use it to push himself away from rocks, and perhaps, when he reached the other side, he would need it as a weapon.

He wished he had the power that Jonas had used: the gift of seeing beyond. He would like to know what Trademaster was doing at this moment. Did such a man sleep? Eat?

He had no idea how he was to destroy this evil. Gabe knew—all village children had been taught—which berries, which plants, were lethal. Perhaps he should have crushed some leaves of oleander, or chopped up nightshade root, and somehow found a way to sneak the poison into Trademaster’s food. Of course there had been no time for plans like that.

If he were to find Trademaster asleep, then a heavy rock brought down on his head would do it, Gabe thought. Awake? He could use the paddle as if it were a spear or a bludgeon.

The thought made him feel sick.

He was now in the water to his knees, and he realized that instead of plotting how to do away with the enemy—and sickening himself at the thought of it—he must first concentrate on the dangerous swim he was about to undertake. The current pulled at him, and he waded deeper. Soon his feet would be lifted from the bottom and he would be fighting his way across. He held the buoyant paddle in both hands, crosswise in front of him. His feet lifted and he began to kick and move forward.

The speed with which the current caught him was frightening. He felt himself propelled downriver instead of across. The water rushed over his head and he forced himself up through it to catch his breath. In the darkness he could not see how far out into the river he had been swept, but he could feel the current; he continued kicking his way across it, even as it pushed him sideways against his will. Suddenly his paddle caught against two large rocks and he was held there, able to rest and breathe. The water parted and foamed around him and he waited, gathering his strength. He knew he would have to leave this wedged protection and enter the river’s surge again. But for this moment he rested. Then, as he pondered the mission that lay ahead for him, he realized, suddenly, he could not fulfill it.

I cannot kill someone, he thought.

As he had the realization, a cloud slid beyond the moon and pale light illuminated the river. He could see where he was, nearing the halfway point, and where he must aim for. The water between him and the other side was very turbulent, but in the gleaming moonlight, the grove of birches, his destination, was visible. Trademaster would be lurking there. He must pull the paddle free from the rocks now and force himself into that maelstrom. He would fight his way across, and—

I cannot kill someone. The unbidden thought was so strong the second time that he may have said it aloud, into the night, into the roaring sound of the turbulence.

Oddly, as if affected by his thought, the motion of the river subsided slightly. As he waited there, suspended from his paddle between the rocks, his legs could sense the change in the current. For a moment the water around him was still. The water ahead of him was calm. Then it began to move again, to swirl and suck at him.

What had changed?

Nothing, except that into the night breeze, into the noise of the river, he had whispered a phrase. He began to say the words again.

I cannot kill—

Three words was all it took. The three words that he had spoken soothed the sky, the river, the world.

He repeated them, like a chant. He loosened the paddle from where it was wedged. With his fingers he could feel the carved names in the smooth wet wood: Tarik. Simon. Nathaniel. Stefan. Jonas. Though she had not carved her name, he added Kira in his mind. Then little Matthew, and Annabelle. Finally he said his mother’s name—Claire—aloud, adding it to the list of those who cared about him. He shouted it—“Claire!”—into the night, begging her to live. Holding tightly to the paddle, he began to kick his way easily across the gently flowing water in the moonlight. While he propelled himself, he said the words in rhythm with the movement of his fluttering kick—I cannot kill, I cannot kill—murmuring them until he reached the opposite bank easily and pulled himself, dripping, ashore.

When he fell silent, he heard the river resume its relentless churn and pull. A brisk wind blew. Above him, the moon receded and disappeared again behind clouds. Around him the shadows darkened and enveloped the swaying shrubbery and trees. At the edge of the bushes stood a tall man wrapped in a dark cloak.

Twelve

Gabe shuddered. Suddenly he was very cold. The wind that was rustling the bushes and making the trees sway was also causing his wet garments to feel icy against his skin.

But his shudder was more fear than chill. He could see the man standing in the shadows.

Somehow Gabe had anticipated that he would arrive on the river’s far side, catch his breath, get his bearings—he had never crossed the river before—and then begin to search. He had assumed his enemy would be hiding. He had planned to make his way with stealth to the place where they would encounter each other. He thought he would have time to prepare, though he had not known how.

Instead, the man was not hiding at all. He stood, wrapped in a dark cloak, in full view at the edge of the trees. Even through the darkness, Gabe could see that his eyes glittered. His face was expressionless, but his eyes—they were staring directly at Gabe—were excited. Then he spoke.

“What a pleasure,” the man said with an air of mocking hospitality. “Seldom do people come looking for me.”

Gabe didn’t reply. He didn’t know how to. Nervously, he clutched the slim stalk of the paddle, the only thing in this strange place that felt familiar and comforting. Beneath his thumb he could feel the ridge of the gouged J, the place where Jonas had carved his name.

“Are you not going to introduce yourself?”

Gabe cleared his throat. “My name is Gabriel,” he said.

There was a flurry of cloak and motion. The man, who had been standing some distance away, was suddenly so near that Gabe could smell the stench of him. Odd, as he looked very clean, Gabe thought. His clothes, visible in the parted cloak, were pressed, almost stiff with creases. His face was pale and seemed very white against the darkness. His dark hair was combed and oiled.

And he was too close. When he leaned forward and said harshly, “You fool! Did you think I didn’t know your name?” his rancid breath was hot against Gabe’s face. “And you, of course, know mine.

“Don’t you?” he sneered. “Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Gabe said. “I know your name, Trademaster.” He stepped back, slightly, away from the smell. The foul breath was making him feel nauseated.

“And we both know why we are here.” The voice had become soft, as if the man were confiding a secret.

Gabriel nodded. “Yes,” he whispered back. “I do.”

“You hope to destroy me, and I plan to destroy you.”

In a quick flash of memory, Gabe thought of Mentor, his teacher, standing in front of a class of restless children, teaching them about language. About verbs. Hope. Plan. How different the meanings were. Hope seemed tentative, uncertain—exactly how Gabe was feeling. He took a deep breath and tried to calm his own anxiety.

“What weapons do you have? Can they match mine?” Trademaster’s gloved hand reached inside his thick cloak. Gabe grasped the paddle more tightly, trying to steady himself. His knees felt weak.

“I see you have brought a crude stick. Pathetic. Is that the only weapon you have?” The voice was contemptuous.

“This isn’t a weapon,” Gabe confessed. “I didn’t bring a weapon. I cannot kill—”

He began to repeat the phrase that had mysteriously helped him cross the river. To his surprise, Trademaster winced. The wind stopped, suddenly. The restless movement of the trees ceased. Again the moon slid from the clouds and the night brightened slightly.

Back in the cottage, Jonas had been waiting in the rocking chair beside the bed. Earlier, Kira had brought him supper. Together they had moistened Claire’s dry lips with water and her tongue had moved slightly. But her eyes had remained closed and her breathing was irregular. Sometimes she gasped and her fingers plucked at the blanket. But mostly she was silent and still. He knew she would die during the night, unless—

He tried not to think of the unless. He had seen, when he looked beyond, that Trademaster was out there in the birch grove. He had seen too—but had not told Gabe—that Trademaster was waiting for the boy.

Gabe had always been a determined child. Even as an infant, when Jonas had brought him here after a long and torturous journey, Gabe had held out, had been strong, had stayed alive, when he, Jonas, had almost given up. It had always been clear to Jonas that Gabe had some kind of gift. And it might have been simply this: the tenacity of the boy, the stubbornness. Who else would have worked so hard at an impossible project like the doomed boat?

But now, waiting through the night, thinking of how Gabe had set out on another probably impossible mission, one that might well cost him his life, Jonas found himself hoping desperately that the stubborn energy would be accompanied by a deeper gift of some sort, something that would be able to pierce the very core of the creature he would be facing soon. Jonas shuddered. Trademaster was so inhuman, so dangerous. So evil. And Gabe was so young and vulnerable.

He would be across the river now, Jonas realized, checking the time. He is on the other side by now.

The shift in the atmosphere calmed Gabriel. It had happened the same way in the river: the moon had appeared and the rush of water had subsided; the world had been somehow soothed. Standing now in the moonlight, Gabe stroked the paddle, feeling the carved names, and wondered if perhaps Trademaster had felt the sudden shift.

But instead of calmed, his opponent was angered. The gloved hand emerged from the deep folds of the cloak and in the moonlight Gabe could see that it now held a gleaming knife with a long, very narrow blade and pointed tip. Frightened, he stepped back.

“Stiletto,” Trademaster hissed. “You don’t have one of these tucked away someplace? It would serve you well. Quite sharp. Quite deadly.

“Here!” he said suddenly, and tossed the stiletto to Gabe. “Take mine!”

Gabe dropped the paddle and caught the handle of the weapon awkwardly, relieved that the blade had not sliced through his hand. The knife was surprisingly heavy. He didn’t want it. But he seemed to have no choice. He tightened his grip on the cold steel handle.

“Now you can kill,” Trademaster said with a short, mirthless laugh. He reached again into the folds of his cloak. The sky darkened again and the wind resumed, whipping the tree branches back and forth. Gabe peered through the darkness, trying to see what weapon might appear. Another stiletto? Would the man lunge forward with his own narrow blade? Terrified, Gabe held his knife up, hoping to deflect the attack that was coming.

Then suddenly the stiletto was on the ground and Gabe’s hands were empty and defenseless. Trademaster was inches from him and had struck the knife out of Gabe’s hand with a larger weapon, something with a terrifying curved blade.

“Guan dao,” Trademaster whispered into Gabe’s ear, naming it.

The wind howled. The man held Gabe’s neck with one gloved hand, raised his weapon with the other, and touched the tender skin there with the blade. Gabe held his breath, afraid that the slightest movement would cause it to slice into his skin. He could feel the exquisite sharpness of the steel.

The two of them stood motionless in an embrace that was wrought by hatred. Gabe hoped that his death would be quick. It was the only thing that he could hope for now.

Then, to Gabe’s surprise, still with the knife poised, Trademaster began to talk. Gabe could again smell his foul breath. His voice was low, and he recognized the tone, superior and arrogant, as bragging.

“You’re such a small, unworthy opponent,” Trademaster taunted. “I’ve destroyed people far more important than you.”

Gabe said nothing. He barely breathed. He was motionless, still aware of the blade against his skin.

“Leaders. Whole families.” The voice was excited. “I’ve torn them to pieces. Left them in whimpering shreds!”

Gabe felt a sharp sliver of pain, and something trickled from his neck onto his bare shoulder. Trademaster had allowed the razor-sharp blade to make a shallow cut.

“Wars,” the voice went on. “I’ve caused wars!”

Gabe stood motionless, paralyzed, but sensed that the man wanted a reaction from him. Some kind of admiration, perhaps. He stayed silent.

“I’ve destroyed whole communities,” the man murmured gleefully into Gabe’s ear. “Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” Gabe whispered. And it was true. He did believe that he had such power. This was not a man, Gabe realized. It was a force disguised as a man. It was nothing human. It was simple evil, wearing a cloak. Jonas had told him this but he had not understood, not until now. He tried desperately to remember what advice Jonas had given him. How should he fight this battle? Finally he said the only thing he could think of to say.

“If you have such power,” Gabe whispered, still trying not to move, “why kill someone as unimportant as me?”

To his amazement, Trademaster withdrew. He lifted the blade from Gabe’s skin and tossed it to the ground, where it fell beside the stiletto. Then he smoothed the folds of his cloak. “I have other weapons,” he said. “Cutlass? Pole-ax? Machete? Cleaver? Pick one and we’ll duel.” He licked his lips and gave a harsh laugh.

Gabe could think of nothing to reply. He remained silent.

“No? Dueling doesn’t appeal? Forget the weaponry, then. I’ll make it more fun, the way Trade Mart was,” he announced. “I’m going to offer you a trade.”

Through the window, quite suddenly, the moonless night brightened. A pale golden stream of light appeared across the floor, reaching almost to the bed. At the same time, Claire’s hoarse, uneven breathing changed slightly. She seemed quieter, more comfortable. Jonas reached over and took her hand. He had been holding it, stroking it, off and on throughout the night. The veins had been thick and knotted under the thin, frail skin; the fingers were thickened at the joints.

Now, startlingly, the old woman’s hand felt different. Smoother. More pliant. In the sudden light he leaned down to look. But at that moment the moonlight disappeared; the night was dark again. He thought of going to relight the oil lamp in the corner, to bring it closer to Claire. But why? Let her sleep, he thought. She is at peace. Let her die without knowing the peril her son is in.

Perhaps this is what death does, he thought, still touching her hand. Smooths the skin, eases the painful joints. Yes, he thought. This must be death coming.

Jonas nodded off against his will and dozed fitfully. It had been such a long, exhausting day. He didn’t see the moonlight reappear, then recede, then reappear. Claire’s hand slid away from his. He didn’t see the skin clear, its dark spots fading, or how the thickened, discolored nails became shell-like and translucent.

“A boat.” The offer was abrupt and angry.

“I don’t need a boat.”

Trademaster looked at him slyly. “It’s not a question of need, my stubborn, stupid lad. It all has to do with want. It’s always want.”

Gabe stood there silently. He was cold. He was wet, still, from the river, and now the stiff breeze had resumed. He rubbed his own arms briskly.

“Chilly?” Trademaster said with a sneer, seeing him shiver. “I could loan you my cloak.” He twirled it. “You could come inside. I could envelop you.”

Gabe didn’t reply. The thought of being inside the dark cloak revolted him.

His eyes glittering, Trademaster said, “All right then, stand there and shiver. Let’s revisit the boat idea, shall we? Not need, but want. Do you want a boat? Wait—don’t answer yet. Let’s make it, oh, a fine sailboat. And part of the deal, guaranteed: billowing sails, a sunny day, a smooth lake, and a strong wind.”

He leaned forward and beckoned with a thin, gloved finger. “Want it?”

Not long ago Gabe would have wanted it very much indeed. But things had changed for him. A boat no longer held any appeal. He no longer needed a boat. His quest for belonging, for love, had ended when he had knelt by a bed and held his dying mother’s hand.

He stood silently for a moment, trying to think of how to say no without further enraging Trademaster.

“Wait! I’m going to add something!” The man leaned even closer.

Gabe didn’t reply.

“On the fine teak deck of this superior sailing vessel? Seated there, her hair blowing in the wind, smiling at you, looking at you very affectionately—extremely affectionately—as you sail your craft, maybe leaning forward to offer you something . . . Let me think. An apple—she has just peeled a fine round apple and she will offer you a bite, she being, of course, someone you care about deeply, maybe that freckle-faced girl named . . . Deirdre?

“Want it?” Trademaster put his mouth to Gabe’s ear and breathed the question hoarsely.

“No,” Gabe said. “I don’t.”

Trademaster laughed cruelly. “Of course you don’t,” he rasped. “You’re waiting for something more? Let’s do it, then! Still the boat. You can have the boat and the lake and the sunshine. And she’ll still be there, leaning forward, offering you food and sustenance and affection—but it’s not silly little Deirdre at all. Know who it is?

“Got a guess?” he hissed.

Gabe did. But he refused to say it. He tightened his hands on the smooth wood of the paddle. When he did, he felt the curved indentations, the places carved here and there with names: Tarik. Nathaniel. Simon. Stefan.

“It’s Claire,” Trademaster murmured to him. “Sweet, young Claire with the long, curly hair. She could be there with you. You know who Claire is, don’t you?

“Want it? Want her?”

Gabe felt the place where the name Jonas had been carved. The sweet cedar of the paddle was infused with all of them: the ones who cared about him, the ones who at this moment were sending strength to him. As his hand lingered on the wood, he suddenly felt something unfamiliar beneath his fingers. The paddle had been smooth in this spot. Now, to his surprise, it had been carved. He felt the rounded curve of a C. An L. And then the four letters that followed.

“Don’t you dare to speak my mother’s name,” he said fiercely. “I don’t want your trade.”

Trademaster stared at him with his hostile, gleaming eyes. Gabe remembered what he knew, what Jonas had told him, of Einar, who had refused an offered trade and been mutilated so hideously. He saw that Trademaster was glancing now at the weapons near them on the ground.

Frantically he tried again to remember what Jonas had told him. Use your gift. That was it. Use your gift!

He was very frightened, but looking directly at Trademaster, he concentrated and willed himself to veer.

Thirteen

The silence came, lowering itself on him as if a curtain had been drawn. The rush of water behind him disappeared. The leaves on the surrounding trees still moved in the wind, but without sound. Gabe entered Trademaster. He found himself whirling through eons of time, destroying at random, screaming with rage and pain.

He became Trademaster. He was sick with searing hatred, and in the endless vortex through which he whirled, there was no comfort.

He understood Trademaster, and the deep malevolence that inhabited him. It was true, what he had earlier sensed, that Trademaster was inhuman. He was not a man but simply disguised as one. He was the force of evil, of all evil for all time.

Gabriel floated and spun within the veer, being part of evil, feeling the anguish and loneliness of it, of having been cast out again and again throughout history. Of gathering strength once more. Gaining power. Weaponry. Treachery. Cruelty. The feelings were strong enough to destroy one human boy, but he fought through them, concentrating on the knowledge of himself and his task. There must be something within the gift of the veer that would help him now when he emerged to face Trademaster for the final time.

Jonas was startled out of his fitful doze by a sound.

Claire was sitting up. The room was still quite dark, but he could see that she had pushed her coverlet aside. Her eyes were bright, and her shoulders, once frail and hunched, were now straight and firm.

“I’m hungry,” she said.

Suddenly, within the simmering wrath and agony of the veer, Gabe felt hunger. It startled him. Such a small and unimportant feeling—one he had felt himself often as he headed home to dinner.

But this, he realized, letting himself go deeper, to feel it completely, was not a yearning for a bowl of soup or piece of bread. Trademaster was starving.

Gabe remembered what Jonas had told him about this kind of evil—that it is fed by its victims.

He wants to know how his tragedies play out, Jonas had said. He likes to see how things end. He gloats. It nourishes him.

It came to him quickly and was so simple. Those who aren’t nourished will die. Those who starve will die.

Knowing exactly what he must do, Gabriel shed the veer. Sound returned. Trademaster still stood before him, sneering, in his cloak. Nothing had changed except for Gabe’s understanding.

He stood up straight and said loudly, “Remember Mentor?”

Trademaster curled his lip and laughed. “Blotchy face? Old, saggy skin? That miserable fool. Of course I remember him.”

“He was my teacher.”

“I ruined him.”

“No. You ruined him for a while. But he’s himself again. He has his honor back. He’s happy.”

On hearing Gabe’s words, Trademaster gasped slightly. He clutched his stomach as if a sharp pain had stabbed him. Or perhaps a gnawing ache? Hunger?

“Remember someone named Einar?”

Gabe had recoiled in horror when Jonas had related Einar’s terrible history to him. Now he watched Trademaster’s face. “He’s the one who turned you down, remember? He said no to a trade!”

Trademaster spat on the ground. He laughed in contempt. “I destroyed him.”

“You didn’t, actually,” Gabe told him calmly. “He made a good life for himself.”

“The life of a cripple?” Trademaster taunted, and briefly imitated Einar’s lurching walk.

“No. The life of a good man. He knows each lamb by name. He can make the sounds of every bird.

“And a beautiful girl fell in love with him,” Gabe added.

Trademaster groaned. He sank onto one knee. His cloak flapped around him, too large suddenly, as if the man inside had shrunk.

“You remember her, I know. Her name was Claire,” Gabe said. “She was looking for her little boy. And you know what? She found me, Trademaster.

“She was willing to give you everything she had. And you took it from her. You took her youth, and her beauty, and her energy and her health—”

For a moment, thinking of his mother, Gabe couldn’t continue speaking. He fell silent and choked back tears. Then he took a deep breath and went on, “—and it didn’t matter. We found each other. None of it mattered but that.

“You won’t ever know what that’s like, to love someone. In a way, I pity you. But I hope you starve.”

Gabe found himself looking down on his enemy, who was hunched over on the ground, whimpering.

His voice, which had earlier been low and sinuous, now gave a loud drawn-out howl, as if of grief. His eyes were closed, but he groped in the dark for the weapons that had been discarded on the ground. When he touched them, he howled again. At that moment, the moon once more emerged from dissipating clouds and the wind fell still. In the new light, Gabe could see that the weapons had changed. They were broken toys, bits of rusted tin, as if a careless child had left them out in the rain.

“Your power is gone,” Gabe said.

The only response was a moan. As Gabe watched, Trademaster shrank further. Soon he had become a formless, unidentifiable heap of something that smelled of rot.

Gabe nudged with his toe at what was left. It had never been human—he knew that. Now it fell away when he touched it with his foot, and became nothing. He stared at it for a long time as the night lifted and dawn seeped into the sky. Then he found a sharp rock and dug into the earth until he had made a hole just the right size. He planted his paddle there and banked the damp earth around it so that it stood and marked the place where Evil had been vanquished.

Then he turned and looked at the river and at the pale wisps of smoke coming from chimneys in the village beyond. It was, all of it, familiar and beckoning and safe. He lowered himself into the gently flowing water and swam easily across.

Sunrise woke Jonas. He had fallen asleep in the chair after feeding Claire some of the soup that Kira had brought. She had murmured a thank-you. Then he had tucked the blanket around her and waited there beside the bed while she resumed her sleep. Her breathing was stronger. He realized that tonight would not be the night of her death after all.

Was there a chance that somehow Gabe—? Jonas didn’t allow himself to finish the thought. For a moment he had simply watched Claire sleep, marveling at her resilience. Then he had returned to his chair and his worry about the boy.

Now, waking, he was stiff and disoriented. He yawned, stretched, and looked around, confused, then remembered Claire and rushed to the bed. But it was empty, the covers thrown back.

The door to the cottage was open. She was standing there in her nightdress, breathing deeply of the daybreak air. She was tall and slender, with coppery hair that fell in curls around her shoulders. Hearing him, she turned to Jonas and smiled.

He thought he heard her say, “I see the sun.”

Indeed, the sky was pink with dawn light. Then Jonas looked past Claire and saw Gabe approaching on the path.

THE END