Ninka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 9 of 29

The children ate. The cabin filled with the sounds of chewing and small sighs. Then the sounds stopped, and the room stayed too full. Eleven bodies, plus Ninka and Luna. Two benches. One narrow bed in the back. A boy in a green coat elbowed the girl next to him and she elbowed back. A younger child began to cry without noise. Ninka counted heads and counted breaths and understood: another hour like this and someone would swing, someone would run, and the group would break before her father arrived. Luna caught her eye across the room. "We can't sleep them like this." "I know." The girl with the shaved head sat by the window with a sketchbook open on her knees. She had not eaten much. She had watched. Ninka crossed to her and crouched. "You're Kaia." "Yes." "You draw things and they come." "Yes." "Can you draw a house?" Kaia looked at her pen, then at the door. "I can draw anything. I can't take it back." "I'm not asking you to take it back. I'm asking you to make room." Kaia studied her a long moment. "Say what you want. Exactly." Ninka thought of her mother's hands sketching on the kitchen table years ago, pastel cabins in a ring. "Cabins. Enough for all of us. Warm. Doors that lock from the inside. Windows. Around this one, so we stay close." "How many." "Four. No. Five." Kaia uncapped the pen. The pen was slender and silver, marked with symbols that seemed to shift when Ninka looked at them straight. Kaia set the nib to the page. Her hand moved fast and sure. Peaked roofs. Small porches. Round windows. She drew pale crystals along the trim, pinks and greens and blues, because she wanted to, Ninka guessed, and because a girl who had walked two days to a stranger's meadow was allowed to want beauty. She drew five cabins in a loose circle. She closed the book. "Outside," Kaia said. The children followed them into the dusk. Ninka held the door. Luna went last, counting. The meadow shifted. Grass bent. The ground pushed up in five places at once, quiet as breath. Walls rose. Roofs settled. Crystals caught the last light and threw it back in soft colors across the children's faces. Doors stood open on hinges that had never been hung. A boy laughed. Two girls ran forward and stopped, waiting for permission. Ninka nodded. They ran again. She divided them by twos and threes. She gave Kaia her own cabin because Kaia had asked for nothing. She kept the smallest ones near her door. Luna stood beside her as the last child went inside. "He'll see these from the ridge." "I know." Five cabins glowed in the dark meadow like lanterns set out for a guest. Ninka had bought them one safe night. She had also told her father exactly where to come.