Owlsight

unpleasant dream each night, and although the dreamer never woke up and never remembered the dream, she did and it woke her up. The workshop was far enough away from the rest of the houses that nothing ever reached her here, and it would be so good to go to sleep knowing that the only thing disturbing her would be her own nightmares, if any.

It would be so nice to have a good night’s sleep again, the way I did during the rains, she thought fretfully. I wish I could just live here and be done with it.

Then - I wonder why I couldn’t just do that ?

She abruptly sat down in the chair Gil had used. All right, I’ll be methodical. The reasons why it would be difficult are -

Mum would object, firstly.

True enough, but she could point out that now no one else would get roused in the middle of the night just because someone needed her. Besides, it wasn’t as if she were going to be living out at the farm, or somewhere else out of sight and alone. She’d still be near at hand, quite near enough to keep an eye on.

I’d have to start doing my own meals.

Yes, but she did that sometimes anyway. The memory of the Fellowship’s communal meals popped into her head, and she realized that she could easily trade some of the routine health care of their flocks for the right to eat with them. Other than that - she could start taking a little more of her fees in food-barter. It could all be worked out.

I’d be by myself. Mum will say that people might talk.

Now, if it had been Shandi who’d wanted to live in the workshop, that would have caused a scandal. Shandi was pretty and had suitors, and people would certainly start to gossip. For this purpose, Keisha’s prickly personality gave her all the protection she needed, for there wasn’t a young man in the entire village who had ever showed any interest in courting her, and they surely wouldn’t start just because she was living alone.

And what’s more, Rafe can move into the cubby Shandi and I shared, and that will break up the quarreling with Torey. For that reason alone, Papa will back me up on this.

But it was easiest to get something done if you didn’t stop to ask permission first - so before anyone came home from the farm, she decided to get all her things and move them over to the workshop. Move now, and argue about it later.

She went straight home, and working quickly, had everything she could truly call hers piled on both beds. Clothing, of course, that was the largest pile; the carved wooden box Papa had made to hold her jewelry was on top of the pile of underthings. She ran her fingers over the smooth wood of the top, following the familiar course of the curls and whorls he’d incised there.

Beside that were her two dolls; all the rest of her toys had been handed down to her brothers as she outgrew them. One was a faceless, battered, and much beloved rag-doll; worn out with loving and much play, but too much adored to be discarded. Beth had been the subject of many an adventure, many a peril, and so much hugging that the stuffing was permanently squeezed out of her middle. She had been rescued by Heralds and Hawkbrothers from every hazard imaginable, from forest fires to slavers- - then, as Keisha’s interest in Healing strengthened and grew, had not only been rescued, but had been cured of every illness and injury possible, and some that would have been the death of any lesser creature. Her embroidered mouth was stained with all the potions that had been pressed to it; her goat-hair braids a little matted from the compresses tied to her head, and every limb had been stitched and restitched with sutures for imagined wounds. Keisha gave her a self-conscious little kiss, and put her down again.

The other doll, an immaculate and beautiful porcelain-headed lady-doll that she and Shandi used to practice on when they were first learning sewing skills, was in near-new condition, for Anestesi had been a gift to a much older Keisha than Beth. In fact, Shandi and Keisha still used this doll to work out a new cut for a gown or the like.

She picked it up and smoothed down the folds of the last gown they’d sewn for it, a dainty creation for Shandi on the occasion of her being chosen Harvest Queen last fall. Of course, the doll’s gown was a patchwork of scraps with a network of chalk lines and other marks on it, which gave the gown a rather odd look - but Shandi had looked like real royalty. . . .

Yes, both dolls would definitely have to come. They could share the loft with her bed; that way no one would see them and tease her about them, and Beth could reassure hurt little ones.

Next, basketful of toiletries. Scent, lotions, the cosmetics she and Shandi had created that Mum would have had a fit over, had she known about them - no doubt there; these had better come too. At least now she’d have some privacy to experiment with those cosmetics without anybody finding out. And if Mum discovered them, I hate to think what a scene it would cause.

All of the extra sheets and blankets came next, but there was really no need to take them.