Windblowne

“We’ve never met. I’m your grandnephew, Oliver!”

“So you are,” replied Great-uncle Gilbert. “You can’t fool me! Our visits are over. I trusted you with my secrets, and you betrayed me. Sorry you lost your kite charm—buy another!” They were halfway across the yard now. Chickens were scattering in all directions. Great-uncle Gilbert dropped the clock and took several sniffs, then turned in circles, cocking his head. “There’s that smell again.”

Oliver opened his mouth, intending to continue his argument. He had never been here before! And how did his great-uncle know about his kite charm? But then he smelled it, too. It was faint, at the very edge of his senses. Something that smelled wrong, or felt wrong, or both. Something full of decay.

The smell drew him toward an oak standing around one corner of the treehouse. Oliver had never seen this tree before, and into his map it went. The scent grew stronger. Behind him he could hear Great-uncle Gilbert sniffing and muttering.

“It’s this oak,” said Oliver.

He placed his hands on the trunk. The bark had an oddly soft feeling, as though the oak were somehow unhealthy. In the collective memory of Windblowne, the giant oaks were eternal. They were by far the largest, strongest trees anywhere in the world. None of them had ever shown the slightest sign of illness. Legend held that the oaks had been here, and would be here, as long as the mountain stood and the winds blew. So to look up the trunk of this oak and see its branches drooping, and its leaves showing a sick brown, left Oliver feeling a little sick as well. This oak must be the source of the dead leaves.

He heard crunching as Great-uncle Gilbert came up behind him. Oliver turned to meet the man’s narrowed eyes.

“You are not who I thought you were, are you?” whispered Great-uncle Gilbert.

“What?” said Oliver. “I—”

“You’re you, not him!” said Great-uncle Gilbert, louder. “You look just alike! But of course, you would, wouldn’t you?” He suddenly dropped his walking stick and shot forward, seizing Oliver’s hands in his own. Oliver struggled to escape, but for such a plump old man, his great-uncle was shockingly strong.

Oliver’s great-uncle’s hands were not only strong, they were tremendously gnarled and callused, with scars from hundreds of tiny cuts. They were the hands of a master kitesmith after a lifetime of practicing his art.

Great-uncle Gilbert gripped Oliver’s hands tightly, squeezing his knuckles, rubbing his fingers, examining his hands in every last detail.

At last his great-uncle released Oliver. He bent and picked up his walking stick. “So you’re Oliver, from this mountain? I mean this one.” He thumped the ground with the stick, his gaze focused on the far distance.

“Yes, that’s right, Great-uncle Gilbert,” said Oliver, adopting the reassuring tones of a nurse. “I’m Oliver, your grandnephew, from Windblowne.” The man is mad through and through, he thought.

“Well,” said his great-uncle. “That is very interesting.” He began to walk back to his treehouse, with Oliver following.

“I thought you needed to feed the chickens,” said Oliver, looking at the abandoned clock.

“No, the chickens fend for themselves,” Great-uncle Gilbert said grandly. “A clock is not a bucket of feed, my boy. I just wanted to get rid of you.”

Great-uncle Gilbert mounted the stairs and proceeded through his front door. Oliver looked back at the sick oak worriedly. That would have to be another mystery to investigate, after the Festival. Oliver entered the treehouse, filled with determination.

“Great-uncle Gilbert,” he began dramatically, “I have come to ask for your—”

The word help never escaped his lips as he stared stupidly at his great-uncle’s living room.

The kite workshop, astonishing as it was, had nothing on this. His great-uncle appeared to be preparing for some sort of siege, or battle, or both. The right wall was bristling with fighting kites of all sizes, slick and fast and covered with razor hooks and edges. The back wall was stacked with water barrels and bundles of food. The left wall was covered with vast stretches of paper sketched all over with drawings of the treehouse and a lot of symbols and arrows that seemed to indicate elaborate plans for defense and counterattack against an aerial assault. And the room was rather dark, because the windows on the front wall were completely nailed over with heavy boards. Fortunately, a couple of oil lamps were burning. Oliver spotted barrels of surplus oil stacked in an open closet.

Great-uncle Gilbert was moving between windows, pounding in some more nails. “Ask for my what, my boy? Speak quickly, lad! I’m a touch busy at the moment.” He gave one of the panels a resounding thump with his fist.

“Er …,” said Oliver feebly, trying to recover his impressive argument. “The Festival, and, uh … my kite …”

“Kites, is it?” said Great-uncle Gilbert thoughtfully. “Afraid I can’t help you there. You must leave at once. It’s far too dangerous for you here right now. Come back in, oh, a year or two. Or three. Yes, three would do nicely. Matters ought to be cleared up by then.”

The blockade seemed complete. Great-uncle Gilbert nodded with satisfaction, then swept into the kitchen. Oliver followed.

They proceeded into the workshop, and Oliver’s puzzlement increased. He could see that there was something completely out of place among the marvelous kites, something completely unexpected, not to mention completely boring. There was an entire shelf filled with his father’s books.

Oliver could not have been more shocked if his great-uncle had suddenly sprouted wings and flown away. An entire shelf of those books! Just looking at it made Oliver feel tired. “Why do you have all of those?” Oliver asked suspiciously, pointing.

“Eh?” said Great-uncle Gilbert, sitting at a workbench. “Why wouldn’t I? Fascinating stuff, those histories! Studying those old legends helped get me into this mess.” He seemed rather gleeful about it.

Oliver shook his head. If he needed more evidence of his great-uncle’s madness, here it was. “Those books are the most boring things in Windblowne,” he explained.

“Yes, boring, so true,” his great-uncle said. “In fact, they are so boring that you should rush off before it gets any more boring around here. Run home and hide under the bed is my advice, until everything blows over.”

“Until what blows over?” demanded Oliver.

“I could tell you, my boy,” replied Great-uncle Gilbert, “but you’d never believe me. None of ’em would! This town is full of people with limited imaginations.”

Oliver shrugged. If Great-uncle Gilbert wanted to punish himself with tedious reading material, then Oliver couldn’t stop him. He gazed around the workshop. Losing his own kiting gear last night had seemed like a setback, but Oliver could see that his great-uncle had the finest collection of kitesmithing supplies in Windblowne. There were barrels full of bamboo stalks cut to various sizes. Bolts of tightly woven silk were rolled up along the benches. And the spectacular kites that hung from the high ceiling would supply models of perfection that Oliver could follow as he built his new kite right here. Oliver was becoming positively giddy. Certainly Great-uncle Gilbert would come around once he understood how important Oliver’s problems were.

“Great-uncle Gilbert,” he said again, “I need a kite.”

“No doubt!” Great-uncle Gilbert exclaimed. “You want to fly one of my kites in that farce of a Festival, don’t you?” He shook his fist in the general direction of the crest. “Well, I know the rules! Most of them were written just to thwart me!”

“And the rules say you have to make your own kite,” Oliver broke in. “I know.”

Great-uncle Gilbert’s snort expressed his contempt for anyone who would stoop to such a thing. “Well, the judges would know that any kites as amazing as mine could never have been made by you.”

Whether this was true or not—and Oliver had to admit that it was—he was still more than a little hurt. “No,” Oliver said desperately, his voice tight, “I have no intention of cheating. I only wanted you to teach me enough for me to make my own kite.”

Great-uncle Gilbert seemed taken by surprise. “Er, sorry there, my boy,” he said in gentle tones. “I didn’t mean you’d cheat. It’s just that I can tell a kitesmith. It’s all in the hands. I’ve examined yours, and you don’t have it in you.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Your talents,” he said finally, “lie elsewhere.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Oliver. “You can’t say that just from feeling someone’s hands!” He felt tears coming and shook them away angrily.