The Gypsy Morph

FIFTEEN

THE SUN WAS BARELY UP, and the Ghosts had already been on the road for an hour, inching their way down the two–lane highway. The choice of pace wasn’t theirs to make; Mother Nature had made it for them. Weather, war, and neglect had combined to both erode and bury the concrete surface in more places than not. The damage had been minimal at first–barely noticeable the previous day, when they had set out. But today, on reaching the foothills below the Cascades and the first of the passes edging along the banks of the Columbia River, conditions had changed dramatically. Slides blocked whole sections of the road, potholes and fissures left huge gaps, and limbs and debris littered what remained. None of it would have deterred the Lightning, but the hay wagon was another matter. Unsteady and difficult to maneuver under the best of circumstances, it was virtually unmanageable now.

“This is like riding the rooftops in Pioneer Square during one of the quakes!” Chalk declared, giving Fixit a worried look as the wagon swayed and bounced beneath them, a platform threatening to overturn with every new obstacle encountered.

Fixit didn’t like the way the wagon rode, either, but he was more confident than his friend that they were safe enough if they avoided dropping a wheel into one of the holes in the road surface. Still, he hung on to the bedding stakes just as tightly as the other boy, gritting his teeth against the rough ride.

By midday, the road had worsened sufficiently that they were forced to stop and clear the way repeatedly in order to get through. Hawk walked point with Panther, the two of them choosing the path of least resistance when conditions demanded it, which was increasingly more often. The others still rode, save Catalya, who seemed uncomfortable with anything that didn’t involve walking. With Rabbit hopping along next to her, she strayed from one side to the other, studying the countryside, looking this way and that as if searching for something hidden in the landscape that only she would be able to see. Which was probably a good way of putting it, Fixit thought more than once, watching her from atop the wagon. She seemed more attuned to the larger world, to all that was out there, much of it concealed, much of it dangerous. She was always on guard, always keeping watch, never taking anything at face value.

He liked it that she was that way. You could never keep watch too carefully, take your safety for granted. You could never afford to relax.

He was thinking about that when they stopped for the night, close within the shadow of the mountains but still miles away from the larger peaks and the destination that Hawk had told them lay beyond.

“I’m glad we’ve got Cat with us,” he declared, sitting next to Chalk as they ate their dinner. “I think she’s

pretty good at seeing the things we need to avoid. She’s got good eyes, good instincts.” He paused. “I like her a lot better now than I did at first.”

Chalk glanced up at him. “She’s a Freak.”

“Well, she’s our Freak. Anyway, I don’t care what she is. You notice Panther doesn’t seem to care anymore, either, for all his big talk. He’s with her all the time now. Like she’s his girlfriend or something.”

Chalk grimaced. “Not while I’m eating, please.”

They were sitting apart from the others, something they often did. They were comfortable by themselves, sharing conversations that belonged just to them. No one bothered them when they separated themselves like this, either because they all knew that was the way the two liked it or because they didn’t care anyway or some of both.

Chalk finished his meal and hunched down, pulling his knees up against his chest and hugging them. His pale skin looked even paler, reflecting starlight against the night’s deep blackness. “I wish we were back in the city. Back in our home. I don’t like it out here.”

“You’d like it less back in Seattle just about now,” Fixit declared drily.

“Sure, I know that. But I felt better in the city, in the home we built for ourselves. I felt safer.”

Fixit nodded. He didn’t feel particularly safe out here, either. He didn’t like change. He liked things to stay the way they were, and now nothing was the same.

“At least Hawk’s back with us,” he said.

“Hawk’s not Hawk anymore.”

Fixit stared at him. “Sure he is. What are you talking about?”

“Haven’t you been paying attention? Hawk’s changed. He’s not like us anymore. He’s some sort of fairy creature or something now. He’s the savior of mankind. He fell off a wall and nothing happened to him. He was taken to some gardens in a ball of light and brought back again. He touches dying people and animals and makes them well again. How’s that like the Hawk we knew?”

Fixit scowled. “Sometimes you sound like your brain isn’t working.”

Chalk shrugged. “Look in a mirror if you want to see what’s not working.”

Fixit ignored him. “You’re twisting things around. Hawk is the boy and we are his children; that’s the way it’s always been. So what does it matter if now we know he’s something more than what we thought. Is that so bad? Does it seem bad to you? He’s leading us to a safe place, something we always knew would happen. How many times has Owl told us the story? Now we’re going, along with some other kids and some adults and maybe some Freaks, too. So what? Just so we get there in one piece!”

Chalk threw up his hands. “Jeez, Fix! You should listen to yourself! You sound like someone who thinks that if he wishes hard enough for something, it will happen. Hawk’s going to save us. Hawk’s the boy who will lead his children. It’s just a story, dummo. Even I know that much. A good story, and we want it to happen, but think about it! Logan Tom says it’s all over, the world’s coming to an end, and you think a boy who’s not really a boy, but a fairy creature, is gonna save us? How’s he gonna do that? He couldn’t even save himself when he was thrown off the compound wall. He had to be saved by someone else!”

“That doesn’t change anything,” Fixit insisted stubbornly. “He’s still Hawk, and he’s still leading us.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. He’s leading and we’re following. So what are we arguing about?” Chalk seemed unwilling to pursue the matter further. He brushed at his shaggy white–blond hair with one hand. “I just wish we were back in the city. I just wish none of this was happening.”

Fixit studied him a moment, then nodded. “Me, too.”

“Yeah? Really?”

“Sure. You think I like being out here any better than you do? I miss my equipment, all the good stuff I built to protect us and help keep us alive. I miss my manuals. I couldn’t bring most of them with me. Too much weight and stuff. I had to pick a few and leave the rest.” He paused. “I haven’t even looked at them since we left. Too much happening.”

They were silent then, keeping their thoughts private as they stared off into the dark. Off to one side, Panther was arguing with Bear and Cat. His voice was strident. Fixit watched them for a moment, and then glanced over at Candle, who was sitting next to Cheney. The big dog was asleep, but she was petting his head gently, looking down at him. Then she looked up suddenly and caught Fixit staring at her. The boy blushed for no reason and waved awkwardly. She waved back, but she didn’t look happy.

“What’s happened to Candle, do you think?” he asked Chalk.

“Something’s happened?”

“Well, she doesn’t seem to get those, you know, ‘premonitions’ anymore. Since we left the city, she hasn’t warned us once about being in danger, not even when we really were.” He paused, thinking. “Not since that kid with the burned face took her away.”

Chalk thought about it. “Guess that’s right. What do you think happened to her?”

“I don’t know. I’m just saying.”

“Maybe he did something to her.”

“No, Owl would know. Candle would tell her. I think it’s something else, but I don’t know what. I know I don’t like it. We could always count on Candle to keep us safe. Now we can’t. I don’t think we can, anyway. I don’t think she’s getting those warnings anymore.” He pursed his lips. “That’s another reason I think it’s a good thing we have Cat with us. She’s almost as good at sensing danger as Candle.”

Chalk sniffed. “Yeah, she was great back there when Krilka Koos and his militia found us and took Logan Tom away. She sensed that one right away.”

Fixit did a slow burn but managed to keep himself from taking the bait. “I’m just saying,” he repeated, and went silent again.

SPARROW HAD BEEN WATCHING CANDLE, too, and was harboring many of the same thoughts as Fixit. She was sitting with Owl and River, but they were busy talking about what to do to replenish their diminishing supplies and paying no attention to her. So she got up and walked over to where Candle was petting Cheney and sat down beside her. She didn’t say anything right away, just reached over and joined the little girl in stroking the wolf dog’s shaggy head. Cheney, who looked asleep but wasn’t—same as always–was ignoring both of them. But with Cheney, you couldn’t always tell. He might actually be enjoying the attention.

It was Candle who spoke first. “I’m glad Cheney’s back,” she said quietly. “Aren’t you?”

“I’m glad all three of them are back,” Sparrow answered. “It didn’t feel right when they were gone.” Candle nodded. “Do you think Cheney missed us?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I think he did. I think he knows we’re his family, and when he isn’t with us, he misses us.”

She spoke in short, breathy bursts, as if struggling to get it all out. She didn’t sound at all like the Candle that Sparrow knew. “I think you’re probably right, peanut,” she said.

Candle didn’t look happy with this. “I just wish he’d do something to let me know for sure.”

Sparrow ran her fingers through her spiky blond hair. She had cut it short a day earlier, tired of dealing with longer hair. But it needed a wash. She needed a wash. For that to happen, of course, she needed water, and there wasn’t any for baths. There was barely enough for drinking.

“Why don’t you try to go to sleep now?” she suggested.

Candle looked at her, her gaze intense. “Sparrow, do you think the other kids still like me?”

Sparrow stared at her in shock. “Of course they like you.”

“Don’t say it just because you think I want to hear it. Tell me the truth. Do they?”

“Candle, why wouldn’t they like you?”

The little girl didn’t say. She just ducked her head, looked at her feet, at Cheney, and then off into the darkness as if the answer was out there somewhere. “Just because.”

“Has someone said something?”

Candle shook her head.

“Done something?”

Another shake of the moppet head.

“Then I don’t understand. Why would you think that, all of a sudden, for no reason, they don’t like you?” “What if there was a reason?”

Sparrow thought she knew what was coming, but she didn’t want to be the one to say it. Candle needed to do that. Speaking the words was the first step toward coming to terms with what they meant.

“What sort of reason?” she asked.

Candle shrugged. “No one needs me anymore.” She was still looking at her feet as she paused, not finished, but not ready to continue, either. “You know.”

Sparrow reached over and put a hand on her chin and lifted her face so that they were looking right at each other. “No, I don’t know. You have to tell me.”

Another long pause. Then, “I can’t sense when we’re in danger anymore.”

There it was. Out in the open. Sparrow breathed a sigh of relief. Now maybe she could do something about it. She reached out for Candle and hugged her close. “Oh, Candle,” she whispered.

Then she backed away so that they were looking at each other again. “My mother told me something once. I was just about your age. I thought my mother was the most wonderful person in the world. I loved her, but I admired her even more than I loved her. I wanted to be her.”

She smiled. “You know this. I’ve told you before. Anyway, I was worried that it wasn’t going to happen, that it didn’t matter what I wanted. I was small and not very good at anything. I told her this. I said I didn’t think I would ever be like her, not even a little bit. This is what she told me. She told me that we don’t know who we’re going to be or what we’re going to do when we’re still children. She told me we don’t find that out until after we’ve grown up. So you can’t ever know what’s supposed to happen until you get there.”

She squeezed Candle’s thin shoulders. “My mother was right. I had to be a lot older before I found out that maybe I would be like her.”

“You are like her,” Candle said quietly. “You are brave and strong. You killed that centipede.”

“That’s right. But I couldn’t have done that even a year ago. I couldn’t have fought like that, like my mother. But look at you, Candle. You already know you have a special gift. And even if it isn’t working right now, that doesn’t mean it won’t work sometime later. Maybe it’s resting. Maybe you are trying too hard. But even if it never comes back, even if it’s gone forever, your family will still love you. The Ghosts will always love you and want you to be with them.”

“Are you sure?” The little girl looked doubtful.

“They don’t love you and want you in the family because of your gift, Candle. They love you for who you are inside.”

She leaned over and kissed Candle’s forehead and cheek, smoothed the thick red hair. She could barely keep the tears from her eyes. “We would never not want you in the family,” she whispered.

“Okay,” the little girl replied, her voice so small it was barely audible.

“Your family needs you, Candle. We always will.”

She gave Candle a reassuring smile, but the little girl didn’t smile back.

SOME distance away from THE others, concealed by the night’s darkness, Hawk was talking quietly with Tessa. They were crouched within the shadow of a grove of withered ash, their heads bent close so that they could see each other’s faces clearly in the starlight, their hands clasped together. It was their time alone, something they knew would be a rarity in the days ahead.

“It’s nice when it’s like this,” he told her, giving her hands a squeeze. “Just you and me. Just the dark and the silence.”

He could hear the others talking, their words soft and indistinct, but it was almost like silence. He was tired and more than a little worried, not only about their present situation, out here on the road, slowed to a crawl, but also about their future. He hadn’t said anything, but he was already wondering how much more he could do to fulfill the charge he had been given by the King of the Silver River. His doubts and fears mounted every time he thought about how poorly prepared and ill equipped he was to help anyone.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she told him.

“Just thinking.”

She bent forward and kissed him. Her face glowed in the starlight, and her eyes were so bright and clear and revealing that he could read the love mirrored there. It was welcome reassurance that at least one person believed in him.

“You can do this, Hawk,” she told him. “I know you’re worried. I know you think you have been given too much. But I know how you are. You’re different from other people. Not just because you have Faerie blood or magic you can use. But because you have an inner strength that makes it possible for you to do things other people couldn’t even begin to think of doing.”

He smiled despite himself. “That sounds pretty good.”

“Don’t laugh at me,” she said at once, her expression changing from soft to hard. “I’m not telling you this just to make you feel better about yourself. I’m telling you this because it’s true and you need to remember it.”

The smile faded. “Okay, I didn’t mean to make fun. I know how you feel about me. It’s the same way I feel about you. I know how you are, too. I saw how strong you were in the compound at our trial. Even when the judges didn’t want you to speak up for me. Even when your mother wouldn’t stand up for you. Even after they said they would throw us from the walls.”

He paused. “Even when they did.”

She kissed him again, harder this time, her seal of confidence. “Then you should believe me when I tell you that you can do the things you’ve been asked to do. It doesn’t matter how impossible they sound. You can do them. You can find a way.”

She leaned back from him. “There’s something else I need to say, and I need you to listen carefully and not interrupt. And not judge me.”

He gave her a look. “I don’t have the right to judge you.”

“You haven’t heard what I have to say yet.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he insisted. “You can say anything.”

“All right.” She gripped his hands again, held them tight. “When we stood before the judges at our trial in the compound and it seemed that everything was against us and we had no hope, I told the judges that I was bonded to you and carrying your child. I did so to save us, to persuade the judges not to have us thrown from the walls. But the judges didn’t care. They wouldn’t recognize the marriage or the child. They made that clear.”

Hawk started to speak, but she quickly put her finger to his lips to silence him. “You promised not to interrupt,” she reminded him. She took her finger away. “When we were on the walls afterward, you asked me if I had told the truth, if there was a child. I said that there wasn’t, that I had told the judges this just to try to save us.”

She paused. “I lied to you. There is a child. Our child. But I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t watch you die knowing that we had a child and that our child was dying with us. So I lied.”

She gave him a small smile. “That was why I couldn’t jump when you asked me to do so. I couldn’t make myself kill our child even if there seemed to be no hope left. I couldn’t do that.”

She looked at him, studied his face carefully. “Okay, it’s your turn. Now you can say anything.”

He shook his head in wonder. “Can I say how happy I am?”

She nodded, tears in her eyes. “That would be nice.”

“Can I tell you that I don’t care about anything–anything! — as much as I care about this? When you told those judges we would have a baby, when I heard you say that, I couldn’t believe it. But later, back in my cell, I thought about it. I thought it was sad and terrible and wonderful, and I wanted it so badly I could hardly stand to think about it because I didn’t believe it could happen. We were sentenced to die. We would never have a child. So I asked you on the wall, and I was relieved when you said there was no child.”

He exhaled sharply. “But now. Now, Tessa, I am so happy. I don’t care that you lied. I know you did it forme. I know that. But I want this child. No matter what else happens, I want it. The newest member of our family. Of the Ghosts. But not another Ghost that will haunt the ruins that our parents destroyed. Not that. This will be a child who will help rebuild the world. This child will be the beginning of something wonderful.”

“I’m glad you’re not mad at me,” she said.

“Mad at you? I could never be mad at you. I understand why you lied. I would have done the same. That’s in the past. We can forget all that. We have a new beginning.” He shook his head, still smiling. “I can’t believe it. A child. Our child.”

She leaned close. “A special child,” she whispered. “Born of you and me, of our two worlds, of our two bloods. A child who’ll be a leader, like you. I know it. I can feel it.”

He drew her against him and hugged her fiercely. He had never loved her so much as he did in that moment. He thought maybe he would never love her so much again.

A child.

SPARROW stood IN THE SHADOWS, her heart racing. She had heard everything. She had heard it all. There was to be a child. Hawk and Tessa were going to have a baby, and it would be the first of a new generation of children.

She had come looking for Hawk to ask him to speak with Candle, to reassure the little girl about her place in the family, knowing that it would mean more coming from him than from her. She had not meant to overhear but she had not been able to help herself. She had found them just as Tessa was telling him about the baby, and she could not help listening to everything.

She stood rooted in place, undecided about what to do next. Should she reveal herself to them? She felt like a spy, hiding in the shadows, hearing secrets not meant for her ears. How would they feel if she stepped out now and let them know?

Perhaps it was better to wait. If she said nothing, she could wait until they told the others, and then she could pretend she was hearing it for the first time. That might be better. More comfortable for everyone.

She backed away noiselessly, leaving Hawk and Tessa alone, wrapped in their joy and their love. She would like to have that someday, she thought. She would like to have someone to share her life.

The secret of the baby was hers to keep, but halfway back to rejoin the others she had already decided she was going to tell Owl.