Thirteenth Child

CHAPTER 7

THAT SPRING LEADING UP TO MY TENTH BIRTHDAY, WE HAD MORE rain than a mammoth has hair. It rained in slow, steady, daylong streams and in sudden rushes like someone dumping a bucket out. The streets that weren’t paved went ankle-deep in mud or worse, so that taking out a carriage or wagon became something that took care and planning. The few days of sun we had were nothing like enough to dry things out.

Then, just as school was letting out at last, it dried up and got hot. The churned-up mud took a week to bake nearly as hard as bricks, full of deep cracks that were wide enough to stick your whole finger in. The leaves on the trees curled up, and the grass dried out hard and sharp as pins. Over it all hung the sun and the dust. Not a breath of air stirred.

Naturally, the boys spent all their time down at the creek. Lan went with them whenever he could get away from his extra magic lessons. Everyone else stayed on the porch, because even Papa’s best spells couldn’t cool the house off enough for comfort in the daytime. Everyone except me, that is.

I spent my time on the roof, in the hiding place I’d found the summer before. If I didn’t move much, it wasn’t any hotter there than on the porch, and no one could interrupt me to do chores or errands.

The day Professor Graham came by, I was on the roof and Mama and Papa were on the porch, having the same conversation they’d had nearly every day since the hot spell started. Mama complained about the heat and the dust and the extra work it made, and Papa said she should think of the settlers, trying to farm when first they couldn’t plant for the rain, and now anything they had gotten in was drying up and blowing away. Mama said if she felt for anyone, it was the settlers’ wives, who had even more dust to deal with than there was in the city. They could go on like that for hours, play-arguing. They’d already been at it long enough to chase Rennie and Nan and Allie off to find someone to visit.

I wasn’t really listening, just enough so I’d notice if either of them said anything about me. I recognized Professor Graham’s voice when he turned up, and something in it when he and Papa exchanged greetings made me close up my book and pay close attention.

Papa must have heard it, too, because he didn’t waste much time on socializing. “What brings you over, Professor?” he asked as soon as everyone had finished with their hellos.

“There’s been another incursion,” Professor Graham said, sounding grim. “Near Braxton, this time. Ten families, wiped out.”

“Braxton!” Mama gasped. “So close!”

“It’s a good fifty miles west of the river, Sara,” Papa said mildly.

“Yes, and there’s no reason to think the Great Barrier is weakening,” Professor Graham put in hastily. “But the lesser spells the settlements have been using just aren’t up to the job of holding back the wildlife.”

“Not in a year like this one, anyway,” Papa said. “Any word on what it was?”

“An assorted mob,” Professor Graham said. “A herd of mammoths overran the magician’s barrier and trampled the fences. They’d been stampeded by a mixed pack of Columbian sphinxes and saber cats, and there were scavengers following after—jackals and terror birds, from the sound of it. There were only four survivors.”

“Oh, Daniel,” Mama said.

There was a short silence. I thought about what Professor Graham had said. We’d studied the animals of the North Plains Territory in natural history in school. They were divided into two sorts, the ordinary and the magical. The ordinary ones were things like mammoths and dire wolves and saber cats and terror birds, and the magical ones were steam dragons and Columbian sphinxes and spectral bears and swarming weasels, and all of them were deadly dangerous, magical or not. And those were just the plains animals; there were other things just as bad in the northern forests, and no Great Barrier magic to keep them off, either. It was suicide to go west of the Mammoth River, or north of its headwaters, without a magician to keep you safe; everybody knew that. But it hadn’t occurred to me until right then that you could have a magician and still not be safe.

“Thank you for telling us,” Papa said.

“Don’t thank me until you’ve heard it all,” the professor warned. “The new head of the Settlement Office is disturbed by all these recent incidents. They’ve requested that the college send you, me, and Jeffries out to study the settlements, with a view to improving their magical protections.”

“And?” Papa said.

“And that damn fool thinks we should bring along the seventh son of a seventh son,” Professor Graham said.

“What?” Papa sounded outraged.

“No.” Mama’s voice was quiet and very firm. When she spoke like that, you knew that there was no point in arguing.

“Sara, we may not have a choice,” Papa said reluctantly. “This is a land-grant college. The Homestead and Settlement Office has the right to request our assistance; that was part of the agreement.”

“No,” Mama repeated. “Lan is not an employee of this college, nor of the Settlement Office, nor of anyone else in Mill City. He’s a ten-year-old boy.” There was a rustling sound, and then footsteps against the porch floorboards. “I’d appreciate it if you’d take me into town right now, Daniel. I will not have my son pushed into matters far beyond his age and understanding, and I intend to make that very clear to the officials of the North Plains Territory Homestead Claim and Settlement Office.”

“I told them that,” Professor Graham said. “They won’t listen.”

“They will listen to me,” Mama said. She sounded perfectly composed and angry as anything, both at the same time. “Because if they do not, Lan and I will be on the next train east. Living here has been very good for him. I’m not having all the good undone because the settlement board is panicking.”

“You can’t do that!” Professor Graham said, startled.

“I most certainly can,” Mama said. “I’m his mother, and I’m not an employee of this college, nor of the Settlement Office, either.”

“Rothmer—”

“I’ll reserve the train tickets while she’s at the Settlement Office,” Papa said. “Do you want to take anyone else, Sara? It might save some face at the Settlement Office if we make the trip look like a family visit.”

“At the moment, I really don’t care how foolish the Settlement Office looks,” Mama said. “But we can discuss it on the ride into town, if you think there’s need.”

And that was that. Just as soon as they could get the buggy hitched up, Papa and Mama and Professor Graham were off to town. They stayed away the whole rest of the day, and I would have given my best Sunday dress and a year’s growth to have been able to see what happened when Mama arrived at the Settlement Office. I almost went and asked Rennie if she’d do a scrying spell to see, but I’d have had to tell her why, and Rennie couldn’t keep a secret to save her life. Besides, I wasn’t entirely sure she could work a scry spell. She never paid much attention to her magic lessons, that I ever saw, and even if she’d learned scrying, there was a good chance she’d forgotten how since she graduated from the upper school.

Mama and Papa were home in time for dinner, and they didn’t say one thing about the Settlement Office or Lan. I thought about telling Lan, at least, what I’d heard, but in the end I didn’t. It was plain that Mama and Papa didn’t want him knowing, nor me, either. I couldn’t unhear what I’d heard, but I could pretend I hadn’t heard it.

Three days later, Papa and Professor Graham and Professor Jeffries left to study the settlements.

They were gone most of the summer. We got letters every week, regular as dawn and dusk, and Mama read them out to us after dinner. Sometimes people from the college stopped by to ask how we were and how Papa was getting on—students and professors, mostly, though Dean Farley visited twice. Nobody ever came from the Homestead and Settlement Office.

Meantime, Mill City filled up with people. Some were from the settlements, farm families who’d decided to come in where it was certain-sure to be safe and where they could earn some money, since their crops for the year were gone. Some were from the East, new folks looking to get land from the Settlement Office. But there wasn’t much land left on the east side of the Mammoth River, and the Settlement Office was having enough trouble taking care of the hamlets and tinytowns they already had on the west side of the river. They weren’t starting up any new ones right then. So the Easterners mostly ended up angry and frustrated.

Papa came home in mid-August. He and Professor Jeffries just rode up one day all unexpected, and found Mama having tea with some students on the front porch. Papa and Professor Jeffries were dusty and sunburned, but Mama hugged both of them anyway, and so did the rest of us. Then Mama made them sit right down and have tea, too, though they were covered with dirt and she’d never in a million years have let any of the boys do such a thing.

The next day, Papa went down to the North Plains Territory Homestead Claim and Settlement Office. He came home cross as two sticks and locked himself in his study. Three days later, he sent out copies of his report on the settlements—not just to the Settlement Office, but to Uncle Martin in New Amsterdam, Mr. Loring in Washington (who was head of the Frontier Management Department that was in charge of all the country’s Homestead and Settlement offices), three or four senators and a dozen assemblymen who represented border states all along the Mammoth River, and the heads of the two biggest settler groups, even though one of them was halfway down the Mammoth River in the Middle Plains and had nothing to do with us.

From then until school started, our house was busy as a train stop, with people coming and going and talking seriously with Papa about his report. Dean Farley came three times, and once the school’s president, Mr. Grey, came with Professor Graham. The professor shook his head and told Papa he was a brave man, but Mr. Grey said that Papa had only done what any man of conscience ought, and that the Settlement Office must realize at last that the college was not going to be manipulated or coerced. Later on, I asked Hugh what Mr. Grey meant, and he said that Mr. Grey was glad of the chance to show the Settlement Office that they couldn’t boss the college around, but because he was president of the college, he couldn’t say so in plain words without maybe offending them.

The day before school started, I was out back with Rennie, weeding the kitchen garden, when two peculiar-looking men came up. They wore simple homespun coats over bright shirts, and squared-off hats with feathers stuck in the hatband. The older one was tall and skinny and dark-haired, with a square-trimmed beard and three hawk feathers in his hatband. The younger one was medium-tall, blond and broad-shouldered and not much older than my brother Charlie. He only had one feather in his hat, a long, shiny black one from a crow’s wing. As soon as she laid eyes on him, Rennie straightened up and patted at her hair.

“Pardon me, ladies,” the older man said, and Rennie straightened up further yet and almost smirked. “Could you tell me where I would find Professor Rothmer?”

“Papa’s in his study,” I said.

Rennie frowned at me, then smiled her best smile at the two men. “My father is inside. If you’d like to come around front to the porch, Eff can run and tell him you’re here.”

“That will be most satisfactory,” the older man said.

Rennie made a shooing motion at me behind her back. I made a face at her, being careful that the visitors couldn’t see me. I knew well enough what was proper without her bossing me just to show off in front of company. But the very minute I was out of sight I ran as fast as I could to Papa’s study to tell him we had more visitors.

I was quick enough that Papa and the two men arrived at the front of the house almost at the same time. Papa checked, just for an instant, and when he got a good look at the two of them, his face got the little smile on it that meant something interesting was about to happen. Rennie didn’t notice; she was too busy making a face back at me as she went past me into the house.

“Professor Rothmer?” the older man said.

Papa nodded. “That I am, sir.”

“Toller Lewis,” the man said, extending his hand. “President of the Long Lake City branch of the Society of Progressive Rationalists. And this is my nephew, Brant Wilson. We’ve come to see you on a matter of business, so to speak.”

The corners of Papa’s mouth got deeper, as if his smile was getting stronger without getting any wider. He took Mr. Lewis’s hand and shook it. “What business would the Society of Progressive Rationalists have with a practicing magician and a professor of magic?”

Mr. Lewis shifted his feet and opened his mouth, but then he closed it again without saying anything. Brant looked over at him and then turned to Papa and answered, “I’d like to attend your class on Theory and Application of the Great Barrier Spell this fall, with your permission.”

Papa looked startled. The Society of Progressive Rationalists didn’t hold with magic and magicians. I’d seen one of their pamphlets once—it had said that magic was a snare and a crutch, and men would only realize their full potential if they stopped using it and depended on their brains and strong arms instead. That made no sense to me; after all, magic takes plenty of brains. And why would anybody want to work three times harder than they needed, just to say they hadn’t used magic to build a house or make a coat or dig a well? The Rationalists didn’t hold with religion, either, so they weren’t real popular in most places.

“Are you quite sure you haven’t confused me with Professor Swanson? Engineering seems more in your line,” Papa said.

“No, sir,” Brant said firmly. “I want to take your class on the Great Barrier Spell. Also Professor Jeffries’s class on the wildlife beyond the Mammoth River. You see, we’re hoping to be allowed a settlement next year.”

“If you’re hoping to learn enough magic to protect your people from the wildlife in one or two classes, I’m afraid—”

“Certainly not!” Mr. Lewis burst out.

Brant made a little settling-down motion with his hand, and his uncle pressed his lips together. “I don’t want to learn how to do magic, sir; I want to learn what you are doing with it, in as much detail as possible, so we can find our own ways of protecting a settlement.” He gave his uncle a sidelong glance and added, “It’s only the use of magic that’s forbidden, after all, not the study of it.”

“If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t allow it,” Mr. Lewis grumbled. “But you’re stubborn enough to run off and try it without permission, so I expect you’ll be stubborn enough to resist the temptation to use what you learn.”

The corners of Papa’s mouth had just about disappeared back into his face, but he didn’t laugh at either of them. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about in that regard,” he said to the older man. “Your nephew hasn’t had the training to cast the sort of advanced spells we’ll be working on, even if he wanted to. I’m more concerned with this settlement scheme of yours. Founding unprotected settlements has been tried before, you know. And they’ve failed every time.”

“We are well aware of the risks,” Mr. Lewis said.

“Nevertheless, I doubt the Settlement Office will approve your proposal.”

“But just think, sir, what a tremendous step it will be, if we can show that it’s possible to set up and maintain an outpost without magic!” Brant said, leaning forward. “It would open the whole vast plain west of the Mammoth to settlement.”

“Very true,” Papa said, “if you could be sure of doing it. But the Settlement Office may take more convincing than you think. They’re very sensitive on the subject of settlement protection at the moment.”

“Thanks to you, sir,” Mr. Lewis said approvingly. “Yes, I’ve seen that report you wrote, and we hope to make use of some of the nonmagical suggestions. Your design for a central compound, for instance—”

He broke off as the door swung open again and Rennie came through, carrying a tray with four glasses, a pitcher of water, and a plate of the biscuits Mrs. Callahan had made for supper. “I thought maybe you’d like some refreshment while you talk,” she said brightly.

Papa nodded approval. He motioned to Mr. Lewis and Brant to sit down. Rennie set the tray on the little twig table, then took a chair and started pouring water and handing it around. I backed quietly into the house and left. I could see she’d forgotten to bring any napkins or biscuit plates, and I knew as soon as she realized, she’d look for me to get them if I was still there.

So I never did hear the rest of the conversation, and Rennie was cross with me all evening. But when the college classes started three weeks later, Brant Wilson was one of my father’s students, squared-off hat and crow’s feather and all.