Ninka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 20 of 29

Ninka finished the broth and set the bowl on the hearthstone. Her thread of gift still held. Her father was still walking. But there was a closer problem she could not solve by projecting. She could hear it through the school wall. Eleven children in the common room, and none of them sitting near each other. She went in. Kaia sat under a window with her sketchbook shut. A boy by the door held his hands behind his back so no one would see them spark. A small girl had pulled her chair three feet from the group. When another child laughed too loud, two of them flinched at the same time. They trusted Ezra now. They did not trust each other. Ninka understood it. Every one of them had been hurt by someone with a gift, or hurt someone with their own. Sitting close felt like standing near a hot stove. If they stayed like this, the commune would break apart before winter. She had built cabins and a garden and a school, and none of it would hold eleven strangers together. Garrick came in behind her carrying the iron pot. He set it on the rack over the flame. The crystals in the stone caught the fire and threw pale color on the walls. "Come eat," he said. No one moved. He did not ask again. He sat on the low bench by the hearth and took a piece of pine from his apron pocket. He began to whittle. Curls of wood fell between his boots. The children watched because there was nothing else to watch. After a while he spoke without looking up. "My brother had a gift too. Made birds out of nothing. He was six. I was eight. One of the birds bit our mother and she slapped him so hard he never made another." He turned the wood in his hand. "I hunted alone forty years because I thought gifts were for hiding." He held up the carving. A small rabbit, ears back. He set it on the floor between his boots. The rabbit stood up. It hopped once, twice, and stopped in front of the small girl who had pulled her chair away. It sat on its haunches and waited. She put her finger on its head. It did not flinch. She looked at Garrick. "How." "Don't know," he said. "Happens sometimes. Around people I like." The boy by the door brought his hands out. A blue spark jumped from his palm to the rabbit's ear. The rabbit twitched and kept sitting. The boy laughed, surprised. Two other children laughed with him. Kaia opened her sketchbook. She drew a slow line. Nothing came off the page, her power still spent, but she drew anyway, and the girl beside her leaned in to look. Garrick ladled stew. This time they lined up. Ninka watched them eat shoulder to shoulder. Then she felt her father's thread move closer, and she went to find her mother.