Off-Grid
The Rose Cottage
“Tekelia!” Vaiza shouted gleefully, leaping to his feet and rushing down the path. His gladness was as sincere as it was startling. Tekelia paused on the path to allow the child to continue at his own pace, alert for a misstep. When the twins had first met the Haosa, Vaiza had tried to hug Tekelia—a disaster smoothly averted by Geritsi.
They had not erred since. Still, a child might forget—most especially a lonely child in strange circumstances, his mother dead, might forget—and Tekelia held ready.
But Vaiza did not fly into an embrace. Rather, he stopped eight of his short paces back, and threw his arms wide.
“Tekelia!” he cried. “I hug you!”
There came a moment of crystal calmness, as sometimes occurred in the flow of the ambient. In that moment, Tekelia distinctly felt arms laid about their neck, the pressure of cheek against cheek, holding—and withdrawn.
Tekelia took a careful breath, allowing pleasure and pride to be seen.
“Now that was a welcome, indeed! Who taught you?”
“I taught myself,” the boy asserted, glancing over his shoulder to where Geritsi and his sister were still at work among the plants. “Geritsi let me practice on her.” He turned back.
“It wasn’t too tight?” he asked, lowering his voice. “My first was too tight.”
“It was well modulated and well placed. May I hug you in return?”
The eager eyes told the story, but Tekelia waited until the boy said, “Yes, please,” before whispering to the ambient.
Vaiza closed his eyes, his arms lifting—and then falling. Carefully, Tekelia ended the embrace, and waited with some concern.
Vaiza opened his eyes—bright with unshed tears—and smiled.
“Thank you. It’s good to hug a friend.”
“So it is,” Tekelia said, thinking of Padi. “I am pleased that you’re my friend.”
Another smile, this without a hint of tears, before Vaiza bit his lip, apparently recalled to duty.
“Are you here to see Geritsi?”
“In fact, I am here to see you and Torin. I have some questions that I hope you will be able to help me answer. Are you at liberty?”
Vaiza glanced over his shoulder. “We’re helping Geritsi with the garden.”
“Then let us find if she can spare you,” Tekelia said, moving slowly down the path. Vaiza stepped aside to allow clear passage, then walked along behind.
* * *
Geritsi showed them to her bookroom, and left them alone, Dosent padding silently at her heels.
The twins sat together in the wide upholstered chair near the hearth. Tekelia spun the chair out from beneath the desk and sat facing them.
Torin was solemn, her usual expression; and Vaiza half-smiling, which was his. He reached out and took his sister’s hand, where it rested on her knee, and looked at Tekelia.
“What questions can we help answer?”
“The first, and most important, is—How are you faring under our care?” Tekelia said. “Do you want for anything that we can provide to you?”
Torin’s mouth tightened, and she took a breath.
“Geritsi and Dosent have been everything that is kind,” she said, with a steadfast formality that made her seem Vaiza’s elder by years, rather than minutes.
“It would be good to go to school,” Vaiza added, looking wistful. His sister bent a look of surprise on him.
“You never used to like school,” she said.
“I didn’t used to like the lessons, or the tests,” Vaiza corrected. “But I did like the teachers and our schoolmates.” He paused, nose wrinkled, and amended, “Some of our schoolmates.”
He looked to Tekelia.
“Do the Haosa have a school?”
That . . . was something of a problem, Tekelia thought. The four children Ribbon Dance had under their care were now at The Vinery, learning what that Haosa settlement could teach them. In the usual way of things, The Vinery’s children would have at the same time come to Ribbon Dance Village, only—currently The Vinery had no one to send.
Which meant that Torin and Vaiza were the only children in their keeping. The village could teach them, well enough, but the camaraderie of their agemates—that they could not provide.
There was a school in Pacazahno, the village hard by Peck’s Market, and a number of children, too. The residents of Pacazahno were largely Deaf, leavened with a few Haosa. If the kezlBlythe were not in the equation, the twins might be sent to school there—similar arrangements had been made in the past.
The kezlBlythe, however, spoiled that easy solution.
Truly, Tekelia thought angrily, it would seem that the kezlBlythe’s sole function was to spoil and lay waste.
“As you have seen, we are a very small village,” Tekelia said to the twins. “In the past, when we have had only one or two students, they were tutored by the village in whole. This means that students learned skills from each household in turn.”
Vaiza’s face fell. Torin maintained her mask of solemn politeness.
Tekelia sighed.
“Is there any other comfort that you lack?”
“Truly, we are well cared for,” Torin said, as one might have known she would.
Vaiza sighed.
“We’re getting along well,” he said. “And it will be fun, I think, to go among everyone in the village, and meet them, and learn from them.”
It was a brave face, Tekelia thought, and smiled for the pair of them.
“I found it so, when I first came. Also, the village will be meeting this evening. Be sure that I will bring up the subject of school. Many heads together may solve what mine alone cannot.”
Vaiza grinned. Torin looked polite.
Tekelia leaned slightly forward.
“We come now to my necessity. I wish to examine your patterns, your strengths and your weaknesses. Perhaps you’ve had others perform such examinations previously.”
Torin said seriously that they had been examined, many times, at school.
“We need to be very quiet and just breathe,” Vaiza amplified. “No making up stories in our heads, or thinking about the next class, or what’s for tea.”
“Exactly the thing,” Tekelia said. “You might feel a little tickle, but nothing more, and perhaps not that. If you feel pain, or you want me to stop for any reason, say, ‘Tekelia, stop,’ and I will, at once.”
Tekelia looked from one face to the other, evaluating serious eyes and patterns. The ambient glittered with their desire to do well.
“Any questions?” Tekelia asked.
There were none.
“Very well. Close your eyes. Let go of your thoughts, and listen to your breath, just that.”
“I see colors,” Vaiza said, sounding startled, “behind my eyes.”
Of course he did.
“That’s the ambient,” Tekelia said. “Wait a moment and I’ll ask it to make a quiet space for us.”
* * *
The room was quiet, and the twins, too, seeming half-asleep to Tekelia’s senses, their patterns laid open and vulnerable.
Tekelia spun a connection between them, and Looked.
The first thing that came clear was that Torin was, indeed, Civilized, and to a very fine degree. Small wonder that she was unhappy with her current situation, and all gods be praised that she was nothing more. Had Vaiza not been shielding her—
Looking more deeply, Tekelia found Vaiza’s pattern—Haosa, indeed, and as strong as his sister—then cast about for the shield.
But, there was no shield.
No, there was something far else. A—tying together of the patterns, very subtly done—here, a thread from one tied to a corresponding thread in the other; there, a deft weaving together of Intent and Talent; there, a few gossamer threads twisted together to form one.
Tekelia’s mouth dried.
Fine work—very fine work it was.
And very wrong.
Patterns were not meant to be combined in such a way. Even in the case of lifemates, the patterns together produced new threads, and new weavings, which reinforced both partners.
This had been done with great deliberation, greater skill, and an understanding of patterning that surpassed Tekelia’s own.
And if it wasn’t undone, the twins would eventually die of it.
* * *
Tekelia withdrew very gently, careful not to disturb a single strand of that beautiful, doomed weaving. One had gone deeper than one had intended, tracing the intricacies, assessing the strengths, searching for a single loose thread, for any sense of a release, or a key to unravel what had been done.
The ambient had shielded them so that there were no distractions for the examiner, as much as the examined, who were now asleep in fact, Vaiza’s head on Torin’s shoulder, and their fingers woven together.
Wholly withdrawn, Tekelia thanked the ambient, and dismissed the quiet bubble, at the same time partaking, just a little, of Chaos as it flowed back into the room.
“You did well, both!” Tekelia said brightly. “You may now ignore your breath, and make up all the stories you care to, inside of your head.”
Vaiza laughed, opened his eyes and stretched. Torin did not laugh, but she did incline her head.
“Thank you,” she said, “you are deft.”
High praise, Tekelia thought, and meant sincerely.
“I had willing helpers.”
“Do you want to hug Tekelia?” Vaiza asked his sister. She turned serious blue eyes on him.
“People who touch Tekelia get unraveled into the ambient,” she said, which was precisely what she had been told.
“But I showed you how to make the air hug,” Vaiza persisted.
His sister looked to Tekelia.
“I would like to hug you,” she said softly, and more, so Tekelia thought, to keep the peace with her brother than from any desire of her own.
Still, good manners ought to be rewarded. Tekelia smiled. “And I would like to hug you, if you’ll permit.”
“Yes, please,” she said, still dutiful, and Vaiza ordered, “Torin first.”
It came, the feeling of arms about the neck, the faint pressure of a cheek. It was nothing so bold as her brother’s salute, and Tekelia Watched Torin through the ether, trying to learn if she was only shy or—
The embrace was withdrawn.
“Now Tekelia,” Vaiza commanded.
Tekelia engaged with the ambient, and hugged Torin very gently, whispering for her alone, “You’re safe with us, child.”
She gasped, and Tekelia felt her anger strike the ambient.
So much anger.
“Pel said that,” Torin said, starkly—“that we were safe, and then Pel died, and Mother, too! Cousin Jorey killed them.”
There was no mistaking the absolute certainty of that accusation.
Tekelia touched Geritsi with a thought, before asking the terrible question.
“Did you see this thing happen?”
Torin closed her eyes.
“Eet . . . ”
Vaiza moved, wrapping his arms around his sister.
“Eet made us stay in our room,” he said, looking over Torin’s head to Tekelia. “He—he growled at Cousin Avryal when she tried to come in to us.”
“After,” Torin said, her face pushed against Vaiza’s shoulder, “there was a—a person. To test us. And then Cousin Avryal said we were abominations and had to go away from Civilization and never come back.”
“Eet was pleased with that,” Vaiza added. “I think he was right. Cousin Avryal will never come near us here.”
“Only it’s so strange,” Torin whispered. “I—Vaiza, remember how I used to help you with your lessons?”
“Yes. Now it’s my turn to help you with yours,” Vaiza said sturdily. “We’ll take care of each other, like Mother said.”
Geritsi arrived just then, Dosent at her side, and paused, head tilted.
Apologies, Tekelia sent her. I asked the wrong question.
Too easy to do, Geritsi answered.
Aloud, she said brightly, “I’m going to have some tea and cookies. Who wants to join me?”
Vaiza’s response was boisterous, Torin’s less so, but still eager.
“Tekelia?”
“Sadly, I’m wanted at Maradel’s.”
“Another time, then,” said Geritsi, “when you can stay longer.”
“Come back soon,” said Vaiza.
“Yes,” Torin echoed, moving out of her brother’s embrace. “Come back soon, Tekelia.”
* * *
Maradel, the village medic and Healer, opened the door, blinked, and stepped back, to allow Tekelia to enter her kitchen.
“You’ve Seen it, then?”
Tekelia paused, head tipped.
“Have you?”
“I have,” Maradel said, moving to the counter and putting her hand against the teapot. “And I’ve researched it. I was going to talk to you this evening, after the meeting. Sit, Cousin, and have some tea.”
Tekelia sat. Maradel brought the pot and cups to the table. Tekelia poured for them both while she went back to the cupboard.
Returning, she put a tin of jelly squares on the table between them.
She sat down, pushing the tin toward Tekelia.
“You eat, I’ll talk, then we’ll do roundabout.”
Tekelia chose a jelly square and bit into it.
Satisfied, Maradel leaned back in her chair and picked up her cup.
“Those children have been deliberately tied together with a sure and knowing hand,” she said. “I’m not telling you anything you haven’t Seen for yourself. I’ve never Seen anything like it—not as an artifact, you understand me?”
She paused.
“I understand you, Cousin,” Tekelia assured her, having dispatched the sweet and swallowed some tea.
“It’s served them well so far, in terms of both being able to tolerate what one might not, but so far as I can see it, they’re at the tipping point. Careful as those ties are, they’re still ties, and they’re starting to stretch both patterns.”
She gulped tea.
“It’s my professional opinion that the children need to be untied, sooner rather than later. And I’ll tell you right now, Cousin, I’m not the one to do it.”
Tekelia paused in the act of choosing another cookie, and shot Maradel a quick glance.
“No?”
“No,” she said firmly, pointing a jelly square at Tekelia’s nose. “And I’ll tell you why that is. We, Cousin, are blunt instruments. Heavy lifting and gross manipulation are our strengths. Fine work and precision are what the Civilized train for.” She took a bite out of her sweet, shaking her head as she chewed.
“I could no more have crafted that binding than I can undo it. In plain truth, the thought of touching it terrifies me.” She sipped tea. “My best advice would be that we have the one who did the work undo it.” She sighed. “But I suppose that’s not possible.”
“My guess is that the binding is their mother’s work. There’s an intensity—”
“Yes,” Maradel said. “I felt it, too.”
Tekelia drank tea.
“We are fortunate that the Warden takes an interest in these children. He will be able to find a Civilized Healer of sufficient skill to do the needful.”
“Well.” Maradel sat back, her relief a cool wash in the ambient. “They’re in good hands, then. The Warden’s a clever one, Civilized though he is.”
“Yes,” Tekelia said, pushing the chair back, and rising.
“Thank you, Cousin, for the gift of your expertise and advice. There is someone else I must speak to before I make that report to the Warden, and I don’t want to be late for tonight’s meeting.”
“I understand,” Maradel said, rising to open the door.
“Until soon, Cousin,” she said.
“Until soon.”
* * *
It had been difficult to find the last person Tekelia wished to interview—so difficult, in fact, one might have concluded that the prospective interviewee was . . . hiding.
Perseverance won out, however, and the culprit run to ground—or rather, to tree—in the orchard, where a wide branch offered a pleasant location to lie on the back and sun the belly, after it had been filled with fruit.
“Young Eet,” Tekelia said, leaning a shoulder against the tree and smiling down into a startled furry face. “Let us dream together.”