“Before this, one time I and you have met. I am Vai’s grandmother.”
I don’t know how many times I blinked, or how wide my mouth gaped. Bee’s tugging on my arm grew quite insistent, until I realized she intended to rip off my arm if I did not do something.
“Are you a spirit sent to confuse and tempt me?” I asked, and added hastily, “No offense intended. It’s just a question.”
The woman held out a necklace. A locket shone as if sunlight burnished it, although the silvery sky revealed no sun.
“That’s my locket! With my father’s portrait.” I pulled my arm out of Bee’s grasp.
“Cat!” Bee lunged, pinning my hand to the ground. “Don’t you dare take it!”
The locket dangled like deadly fruit from the woman’s hand. “To walk with wisdom and caution in the spirit world is wise,” she said. “This amulet Vai tucked in my hand. He gave it to me after he made an offering to the ancestors. He asked me to look for you. He thought this locket might draw me and you together.”
“Who are you?” demanded Bee.
“Do not speak your true name aloud in the bush. The creatures who live here eat names as well as blood. You can call me Fati.”
I twisted out of Bee’s grip, snatched the locket, and opened it. The image of Daniel Hassi Barahal, with his black curls and ironic smile, stared at me. When I touched the locket to my lips, I knew this was my very own locket. I had been forced to trade it to two girls in Four Moons House in exchange for their getting me out through a locked door.
“How did Vai obtain this?” I asked as I slipped it over my head.
“He did not tell me. He asked me to find you and guide you, for I know a little of the bush. Already I find you on open ground where any spirit animal may eat you.” She lifted a scolding finger. “You must stay on the path. Or on warded ground.”
“We were in Adurnam an hour ago,” said Bee. “How can he have been at your village? How could he even know we fell into the well? Cat, you need to give that locket back.”
“He came down the well after us, trying to help us, Bee. I haven’t had time to tell you yet.” I surveyed the woman for signs of razor teeth or hidden tentacles. This was not the frail old grandmother whose bedside I had attended in the village of Haranwy on Hallows’ Night. Here, in the spirit world, she appeared as a younger woman in the prime of life, old enough to be the age of my mother, had my mother lived, but not so old that she had begun to bend beneath the burden of age. Vai had the same beautiful eyes. “He would have come after us into the spirit world, but because it wasn’t one of the cross-quarter days, he couldn’t cross. It’s so obvious!”
“What’s obvious?” demanded Bee.
“He went home to ask the hunters of his village to hunt for me in the spirit world.”
“His actions you understand perfectly,” said his grandmother.
“It’s what I would do, in his place,” I said.
“Very noble of you, I’m sure, Cat,” retorted Bee, “but it must be many days’ ride from Adurnam to his village, so he can’t have gotten there yet.”
“The days pass differently here. An hour here might be a week there. He would have plenty of time to go ask his kinsmen for help. I understand the locket is a talisman. But I don’t understand how you are come here, Grandmother.”
She said nothing. Heat settled over us in a sweltering mantle.
“You must be dead.” My words emerged stiffly.
Bee sat back with an exhalation.
Fati looked at me, still saying nothing.
“He must have found you when you were dying. Because the dead cross over into the spirit world, he asked you to seek me out once you got here. I never thought…” My fingers curled over the locket. “If you’re here, then my parents are here somewhere as well. I could find them.”
“Maestressa, please forgive our bad manners.” Bee shifted forward. “I hope you suffered no pain. I hope we find you at peace. I’m sorry.”
“For what are you sorry?” she said with a gentle smile. “The crossing awaits us all.”
Belatedly I lowered my gaze, as one did with elders. I absolutely believed she was who she claimed to be, although I could not explain why. “My apologies, Grandmother. You and the villagers helped me at great risk to yourselves. When I said I wasn’t sure I could trust you, when I was there in your house, I didn’t mean it to be rude.”
“Mmm. Yes. You were rude. But you were frightened, and you are young. We all make mistakes.”
“You are generous to forgive me.”
“Have I forgiven you? I choose to help Vai because he is a very good boy.”
“He wasn’t that good of a boy,” I muttered. “He was arrogant, contemptuous, and unkind.”
“Then he forgot the manners his mother and I taught him.” She bent a gaze on me that made me duck my head like a scolded child. “Do you appreciate what he has done? To come so far, against the will of the mansa, is no light choice for him.”
“I appreciate his efforts to make sure Four Moons House doesn’t recapture us. But I can’t believe the mansa would do anything to harm such a powerful young cold mage.”
“I do not believe you comprehend what he risks for you. You think you know what it means to be born into clientage, to be bound by law and custom to serve another, but you do not know.”
“We in the Kena’ani are raised to serve our households,” I retorted, not nearly as belligerently as I might have. “As I did, when my aunt and uncle gave me to Four Moons House against my will. They would have given me to whatever cold mage came to collect me. It happened to be him.”
“Do you suppose that was chance? Your destiny was chosen before you were born.”
“I don’t believe that!”
“I don’t either,” said Bee stoutly, and loyally. “Although I do have to wonder why I was cursed with this gift of dreaming.”
“You’re no help,” I muttered with a grimace at Bee.
Fati gave me a look that made me feel small and petty. “He placed three strands of his hair behind the portrait in the locket, to help you find him. A thread ties you together, because of the binding the djeli wove over you, which is a chain that reaches between worlds. Seek him in your heart, and you will know where he is. But if you have no heart to seek him, then he is the one who will search in vain.”
“Cat didn’t ask to be married to him,” said Bee. “I am sure you cherish your grandson. I’m sure he is loyal to his family. But it isn’t fair to scold her as if she had asked for a pretty bauble and then tossed it carelessly away because it didn’t match her gown. She was betrayed by my mother and father, by our entire clan. She shouldn’t be taken to task for something she never asked for.”
“It’s all right, Bee,” I said, for I couldn’t bear to see his grandmother’s expression harden into disapproval. “My apologies for my sharp tongue, Grandmother. I can’t truly understand what it means for your village to have endured clientage for so many generations. We studied law at the academy, but…well…it was words in a book. I admit I feel a more personal concern now.”
“You can be sure,” said Fati, “that Four Moons House has bound you tightly to him. And he belongs to them, just as my village does. When they wish to make use of you, they will do so.”
“Unless I free myself.”
“Do you think it is so easy to free yourself??”
I glanced at Bee, and held my tongue.
Fati raised her eyebrows as if she knew we had secrets we weren’t sharing. “Anyway, girls, enough talking. We must seek a path or a warded place.” She rose, brushed off her skirts, and walked away from the river.
Bee and I exchanged a glance.
“I like her!” whispered Bee.
“The hunters will cross at Imbolc,” Fati called over her shoulder. “My grandson plans to be with them.”
“How romantical!” said Bee as we hurried after her. “I wish some man would rescue me!”
“Isn’t that what Legate Amadou Barry was trying to do? During the riot? Rescue you?”
“He was trying to capture and cage me,” she snapped.
And wasn’t that what Andevai would end up doing, if he brought me back to Four Moons House? Uneasiness
