“I’m sorry, children,” she’d said. “Truly I am. But some are lost, you know. Some don’t know how to accept the gift we have here. Your friend understood what was expected, I thought. Didn’t she? I can’t make sense of it. Why did she go?”
“Our sister,” Kate had whispered.
But the woman didn’t seem to hear. She wasn’t really asking questions, after all. She was only trying to put Nell away, to finish with her. Kate saw it and looked to Susan.
And Susan did demand to know where Nell had been taken. She asked over and over as Kate winced at the uncomfortable feel of the Shepherdess’s sweaty hand pressing hers. Mistress Meva had nothing to offer. Exile was the absolute punishment, she’d said. The end. Terrible. None had ever returned.
By the time the woman had gone, Kate’s heart was smacking the inside of her chest so hard that her dress shivered with the force of it, and Susan, furious, set out to find Max. She told them to stay in the room, but Jean, sensibly, started bawling, and so Susan fumed and took them along, running up the stairs to the boys’ section.
They’d just stepped into the thickly carpeted hall there, where the wall hangings were full of long-faced old men, when a group of young scholars came charging at them. The Master Watcher stormed behind them, his eyes bulging. Kate cringed and yanked Susan back a half step, sure he would raise his hand to strike her. But with a shudder, the man stopped himself and only told them acidly that Nell’s fate was a warning to them — the last.
Jean had burst into fresh tears, and Kate had stood there, thinking that he’d confirmed something for her. People talked more with their faces than they did with their mouths; she’d always known it. Known also that the two said opposite things sometimes and that faces were by far the more reliable.
From the start, she’d worried about the Master Watcher. His smooth face had been a nice shock, and it had almost made her want to trust him, but he wore a tight expression, and his eyes were nervous, suspicious. He watched Max too much, and Susan even more, and he was afraid. All the time, afraid. It had made Kate afraid herself. Even at home, she’d noticed that frightened eyes too often came with angry voices. Adults who were so afraid were dangerous, and to be avoided.
And yet she had seen, too, how Max willingly followed him. It had confused her, worried her, as Max had gone away with the nervous-eyed man and Susan had disappeared into herself. Now she knew that Max had been mistaken. It made her more afraid than ever.
“We want to see our brother,” Susan had said to the man. “You can’t keep him from us.”
But he could.
“Your brother!” He nearly spat the words. “You’ll see him when he’s ready to see you. Now you’ll leave. And don’t try to come back this way. We’ll be watching.”
The boys had pushed them back then, and the man did nothing to stop them. They nearly tripped Susan, and she’d retreated at last, red faced, taking Kate’s hand with such force that Kate nearly yelped.
“What will we do?” she asked Susan when they’d returned to the room. “Nell’s outside alone! Do you think she’s hurt?”
She didn’t want to say the other thing, what Nell had told them about. She pressed her hands together to keep them from shaking and watched her older sister.
Susan slumped on the bed. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what they did to her.” She put her hands to her eyes, then her forehead. “We’re not the same as the people here. We don’t change. And we walked through the mist. Maybe it’s okay. I don’t know.”
I don’t know! Maybe! The words hit Kate like a slap.
“But you hear the mist, don’t you?” Jean asked. “Nell said it’s hurting you!”
Nell had been right. Kate could see it. Kate could see it. . . .
Susan shook her head. “Just let me think. I have to think. If I could only let Max know — he understands how they do things in this place! Maybe I could send him a message, and then we’d go after her. . . .” Her voice trailed off and she began pacing. Kate started to ask another question, but Susan refused to talk further.
“Let me think!” was all she’d say. “I just need a minute to think!”
Kate watched Susan late into the night as she moved from window to door, restless, sleepless. Kate must have fallen asleep watching, because then the dream came. No matter how many times she had them, she could not get used to the nightmares. This one was terrible, and new. In it, Nell sat in a gray fog, calling their names, shivering and rocking as the cloud pressed in around her.
Kate woke with a start.
Susan had fallen asleep fully clothed. She lay on the end of Jean’s bed, head on her hands, curled up like a much littler girl. Kate went and stood beside her, looking into her face. Even in sleep, it was creased with worry; she had the look of someone tired, someone forced to run with no more strength left to do it.
For as long as Kate could remember, Susan had been there, knowing everything, taking care, making it all better.
But now Kate stood in the dark room and saw that her sister didn’t know. And Kate realized then that Susan would wait too long.
She had crept from the room, from the building. Crept through the open gates and out, past the trees and up onto the hill. She didn’t see the mist, but she knew it would be there if she tried to turn back. So she didn’t. She climbed as the slim new moon
