 
SEVENTH SON

by A. M. Offenwanger

Copyright 2014 A. M. Offenwanger

Smashwords Edition

Cover by Steven Novak

Editing by Jennifer Ballinger

This is for Steve.

And for Anna, because she started it all, and then suggested I dedicate it to Steve.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

NOTE

EXCERPT FROM CAT AND MOUSE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CHAPTER 1

It was the blue pottery bowl that started it all. Not the blue-and-white Ming one right next to it; not the dull green Chinese pottery frog that sat in the front of the display cabinet, staring at Catriona out of his little brown pottery eyes. No, the blue pottery bowl.

It was a turquoise blue, very much like the eyes of the weird guy that had stared at Cat so disturbingly in the Room of Local Antiquities. It was that stare which had forced her to vacate the room quickly and brought her into the Ceramics Room in front of the case with the blue bowl in it. Cat was almost sure the guy had been following her into Local Antiquities; she had had a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eyes when she was admiring the sculptures in the Marble Room. He might have even been the one standing outside, near the bus loop, when she had got out in front of the museum. He wore an odd khaki vest, with a shirt under it that looked like unbleached cotton or perhaps even linen, and pants that might have been made of well-worn leather. His shoes she hadn't paid attention to. But his eyes, they were such a startling colour: not blue, not green, but it had to be turquoise. Like the semiprecious stone. And that bowl.

Cat had been looking at a hand-woven basket made of two different colours of reed, crafted by one of the local artisans circa 1857 (or so it was presumed, according to the label), when she felt that disconcerting turquoise stare on her. He stood beside a display of some mummified food (to be consumed by the dearly departed in the afterlife), clear across the other side of the room, by the opposite entrance at the rounded archway. Cat felt uneasy. What did he want from her? Was her camisole strap showing? Or did she look weirder than she had assumed, in her multi-coloured, multi-tiered gypsy skirt and her hand-embroidered peasant blouse? She had thought she could get away with it; after all, she was on holiday. She quickly looked back at the woven basket, then nonchalantly moved over to the next display cabinet—another basket, this one from 1863 (how did they know the precise date? Had someone sat beside the weaver with a notebook and taken down the exact star date of the creation?), and sidled through the rounded archway into the next room.

The display case with the blue bowl was a third of the way across the room, around the corner from the doorway. Cat moved across to it to get out of the line of sight of the Local Antiquities room. She glanced out of the corner of her eyes to see if he had followed her—it didn't look like he had yet—and turned around halfway to take a closer look at the display cabinet. It was an unusual case—open-topped, not completely encased in glass like most of the other displays, and lined with a dark brown velvety material. The frog sat at the front, goggling up at Catriona (he was nearly three thousand years old, his label stated); behind him, held upright by the two claws of a wire plate stand, was a flat blue-and-white-glazed bowl with a rounded lip (Chinese, Thirteenth Century AD; From The Collection of Mr and Mrs Arthur Schlipfengrimmler, Generous Patrons of The Sammelhauser Museum). And off to the side, almost as if it didn't belong, the bowl. No label, no special display stand. Just the bowl on the brown velvet surface. It was not very big, no more than eight inches across and about half as high—or was it? The sides curved up steeply, and the lip turned inward, almost as if it were cupping a secret in its depths. Cat leaned over the cabinet. Something in the back of her mind sounded a warning bell. Would the museum's alarm system be set off? She had heard somewhere that a lot of museums now used infrared sensors to protect their collection, so that if you got too close to a piece it would set off wailing sirens and security guards would come bursting through the doors to drag you off to the nearest police precinct to be interviewed for hours on end by an art theft squad. Perhaps the open-topped cabinet was a trap for unsuspecting art thieves?

But the bowl drew her, pulled at her. The glaze was very peculiar. Its turquoise was so deep, it seemed to shimmer with iridescence; deep beneath its surface there was a luminescence that gave the illusion of motion, like the cool blue-green depths of a mountain lake Cat had once seen on a long-ago summer holiday. She leaned closer, her nose mere inches from the top of the bowl; her hair swung forward and brushed its top edge (if the alarm was going to sound, surely it would have done so by now?). The movement at the bottom of the bowl became more pronounced. Tiny, sparkly pinpricks of light flitted through the glaze, shooting across Cat's field of vision. The glaze in the base of the bowl was swirling. (Swirling? How could a glaze swirl? This was a bowl, just a piece of pottery!) The tiny light sparks gathered at the edges of Cat's vision, and became a counterclockwise dance, whirling faster and faster widdershins to the swirling motion at the bottom of the bowl. Cat wanted to pull back, to straighten up, to get her eyes away from the whirling and dancing and swirling and sparkling blue, but her senses were caught. She no longer knew where "back" was; her movement, when she was able to move, plunged her straight forward and then pitched her sideways. She flung out an arm to protect herself from the sharp corner of the cabinet (The three-thousand-year-old frog! Smashing it would mean years of imprisonment, for sure!), but her hand encountered no glass, no edge, no hard surface—she kept falling, and then her fingers sank inches deep into the soft crumbly soil of a forest floor.

The whirling stopped, and slowly Cat's surroundings came back into focus. Utterly disoriented, she stared around her, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Brown columns, illuminated by slanting dappled light, resolved into tree trunks, some gnarly and twisted, some straight and smooth. Evergreens towered over her, interspersed with leafy trees which the back of Cat's mind immediately classified as oaks and something else it did not recognise. In the larger gaps of the trees grew shrubs, some with viciously spiky-looking leaves surrounding small clusters of bright red fruits. Cat became aware of the sound of birdsong, a light chirping coming from the grasses beside the spot she had fallen on, and the spicy scent of a forest floor that had been baking in the sun all afternoon.

A forest? What was she doing in a forest? What just happened there? One minute she was in the Sammelhauser, looking at an odd turquoise bowl in order to avoid an odd turquoise-eyed man, and now she was planted on her rear in a forest, no walls, display cases, or indeed any other sign of civilisation in sight. Cat shook her head, then did it again to dislodge the weird hallucinations she was having. It did not work. The forest stayed firmly in place around her, birds singing, whatever-it-was chirping in the undergrowth, spiky shrubs menacing her with their blood-red berries.

She became aware of the sensation of the fingers of her right hand, which were still firmly pushed into the soil where she had tried to break her fall, and she jerked her hand free. Cool, moist, dark bits of soil (and who knew what else) clung to her fingernails and joints. She gave a little scream, and convulsively shook her hand to dislodge the dirt, but most of it stuck to her fingers. Panicked, she slapped at it with her other hand, then jumped to her feet, beat at her skirt and her blouse, stamping her feet, all the while giving little yelps of distress. "Aaaah—ah ah ah—help, someone help me! Aaah!" But then she noticed that the soil, loose humus that it was, had come off her hand, that nothing was crawling up her skirt, that her stamping feet were on solid ground, and nothing was whirling, moving, and swirling around her any more. She stopped her frantic dance, took a deep breath, then another for good measure, and clasped her trembling hands in front of her mouth.

"Okay, Cat, okay. Okayokayokay. What's going on? Where am I? What _is_ this place?" Was she imagining all this? No, the ground was too solid for that, the spice of the forest scent too real. Had there been some drugs in that display cabinet that she had inhaled by accident; was this a bad trip? Drugs could give you remarkably realistic hallucinations, couldn't they? Or perhaps there was a hidden camera somewhere, and any second someone would pop out to laugh at her. Or—and here a little shiver ran down Cat's spine—the turquoise-eyed man, his piercing stare! Had he somehow hypnotised her, put the evil eye on her? But she didn't believe in hypnotism, much less the evil eye. Or anything supernatural and fantastic of that nature. Did she? Yet here she was, in a magical forest—wait, what made her think it was magical? It could be just an ordinary forest; these were normal-looking trees, with trunks and leaves, harmless shrubs (with vicious spikes, but still, they were not doing anything frightening), and even the birds sounded quite common. But here she was, _in a forest_ , and not in the museum she had so innocently entered not half an hour ago. Whatever this forest was, it was not ordinary, normal, common, or unfantastical. Something very weird had just happened.

"Ah—ah—ah..." She started hyperventilating again, then bit down on the knuckle of her index finger to force herself to calm down once more. She needed to slow down, to think, to take stock of her situation. She chewed her knuckle. That had always been a calming thing for her, ever since she was little and had first run across the storybook of Baba Yaga and her scary house on chicken feet, and it had kept her from hyperventilating even then. It had not made her put down the book until she had finished with the story, but it had kept her calm throughout the frightening tale. Once again, it did nothing to change her situation, but it helped her keep her fright in check.

Okay, think, Cat, think. What could have just happened? What _did_ just happen? She had bent over a cabinet, looked at a bowl, the bowl started swirling, and here she was, in a forest. Was it a forest? Or just the illusion of one? She cautiously turned her head to the left. More trees, more shrubs (purple berries with a blueish bloom on those, the leaves not quite as frighteningly spiky). A look to the right revealed several gnarly trunks, the leaves on the trees a brighter green, the branches interlaced as if they were shaking hands with each other, forming a loose screen. Between them, the trunk of another tree was visible—smoother than the others with their twisted trunks and rough bark, and a curious colour, an almost blue sheen. (Blue? No, it couldn't be. Trees weren't blue! Were they?) Some of its branches hung over the screen formed by the other trees, creating a canopy over Cat's head.

She turned herself fully around. Behind her, the trees were thinning a little and formed a sort of archway that seemed to lead to a path out of the woods. She had to know whether this forest was real, whether she could touch it and feel it. Or would touching the trees set off some other strange reaction, send them crashing down around her, bump her into yet another place, or, perhaps—perhaps send her back to the museum? Cat turned back to the smooth tree and gingerly put out a hand, reaching between the branches of the gnarly trees.

Her fingertips grazed the trunk. A tingle shot up Cat's arm, making her jump back. Were those trees electric? She had to try again. Stretch out hand, carefully, carefully—yet a little further—make contact—and the tree felt just like every other tree she had ever touched in her life. She slowly ran her fingers down the bark, alert, prepared for the shock of another tingle, but none came. The tree felt solid, hard, tree-like—and sticky. Pitch! There was pitch on those trunks, and she had stuck her thumb right into it! Cat made a face. Stuck in a magical forest, with magical pitch stuck to her. Trust her to have this happen to her! She had never asked for something like this! At that moment she dearly wished she had never given up her comfortable position as Associate Librarian of the Greenward Falls Community Library (Programs for Children Every Tuesday and Thursday, No Registration Required; Free Internet Access One Hour Per Day With Library Membership). So she had got bored, felt stifled, wanted adventure—but this was coming it just a bit too strong!

Pitch. How did one get rid of pitch? She narrowly avoided wiping her hand on her skirt; it would have ruined it entirely. And she very much liked that skirt, had bought it especially for this trip, for her rebellious flight to freedom. In the back of her mind she could still hear Ryan's voice, with the sneer he had affected at anything that wasn't the latest fashion, wasn't Armani or Louis Vuitton, and especially was something that Cat thought was attractive: "Hippie junk! God, nobody would wear that!" As soon as Cat had come home on that day, after he had informed her that she wasn't his kind of woman, after he had told her as a parting gift one more time that her way of dressing wasn't very feminine (by which he meant tight tops, plunging necklines, minuscule skirts, and stiletto heels) and that he owed it to himself to be with a woman who looked after herself better and appreciated his masculinity (by which he meant his gym-enhanced chest muscles, his sitting on the couch consuming beers, belching, and throwing around foul language just to sound tough and manly), after he had walked away with a pitying look at her, after she had slammed the door (and opened it again just to slam it again a second time, more energetically) and had finished soaking her pillow with one hearty bout of tears, she had marched back out her door (closing it firmly but quietly this time), got on the next bus, ridden right back to the mall, and bought the skirt without even trying it on. As it happened, it fit perfectly. She loved the way it swirled around her calves, how the blues and greens set off the brilliant strips of red separating each tier which winked up at her every time she looked down.

Thank goodness she hadn't got pitch on the skirt yet. She ran through her mental file of emergency cleaning procedures, momentarily distracted from her overall predicament. Alcohol—alcohol would get pitch off; she remembered reading it in a reference book. Eau de cologne had alcohol in it; there was some in her purse. The purse! Where was her purse? Frantically, Cat looked around, along the forest floor, even into the bushes, for her dark green leather slouch bag. No purse. No bag. No eau de cologne to wipe the pitch off with; no comb, no paper tissues, lemon drops, e-book reader, sketchbook, 2B drawing pencil, tiny Swiss Army knife with nail file and tweezers and scissors; no money and ID and key to her best friend's apartment. Not that she would need the key, unless this forest was directly behind the Tuscany Towers Residential Block where her baggage was temporarily residing in Unit Number 122 (Bauer, Monica, Please Knock for Admission). Which it wasn't, as the only thing that was behind the Tuscany Towers was a parking lot (the cars pulling in and out of it had kept her awake half the night). She must have dropped her bag when that whole swirly-whirly-transport-y thing happened. Bother. Bother, bother, bother.

So she was in a strange forest without her purse, with magical pitch on her hands, and without the faintest idea where she was, how she got there, or how she could get back to where she came from. In comparison, being up a creek without a paddle would have been quite welcome at that moment. Cat plopped herself back down on the forest floor in exasperation, and promptly got some dry leaves stuck to her pitchy thumb. Bother again! There was nothing else to do but either swear or cry, and Cat did not want to cry for fear that if she started, she would be unable to stop. She let off a string of curse words that would have made a sailor blush (but only because he would have been embarrassed at being unable to understand them, as most of them were Cat's own invention—librarians are not supposed to use strong language).

She carefully picked the dry leaves off her thumb again and found that they took some of the pitch with them. Ah, this might work! She stuck her thumb back into the leaves, picked up more dried foliage, and rubbed it off again. After three or four rounds of this, the better part of the pitch had come off and only a sticky smear was left on the side of her thumb, no more than as if she had accidentally run a glue stick over it (which had happened before, more than once, making display posters for the library; it had seemed exciting at the time).

Very well. Cat took two more deep breaths, and took stock. No idea where she was. Still on Earth? Hardly. She had never seen bushes like the spiky red-berried ones anywhere, and that included the pictures in the numerous reference tomes she had perused in the course of her six years at the library. The forest looked vaguely European, with its deciduous trees, the oaks and the not-oaks which she still could not identify. Cat had fond memories of the forests in Europe; she had spent two magical weeks there in her senior year, ten years ago—no, not magical weeks. Beautiful, wonderful, inspiring, never-to-be-forgotten, but not magical. Not like this was magical. Oh dear...

One more time. Get a grip, Cat. She was in a magical, non-earthly, vaguely European forest, with no signs of civilisation anywhere. Even if there was some civilisation, would she be able to get help there? Would the inhabitants be hostile, consider her to be food, use her as a slave? Might they be, perhaps, giant insects—or worse, might this place be governed by regular insects, and she had inadvertently stepped on several of their ruler's aunties and cousins in her frantic dance to get rid of the dirt on her hand? Cat pulled her imagination sternly back to earth. Or the ground, at any rate. No need for crazy flights of fancy, no call to borrow trouble until trouble came to her. At least that's what her grandma had always told her whenever she had let her imagination run riot as a little girl. Cat had learnt to control herself well in that regard, held herself together rigidly. It stood her in good stead now, kept her from losing her head entirely. She could cope with whatever came her way; she would deal with it as it arose.

A branch cracked behind her. Cat shot to her feet and spun around. What—where... Something was coming through the forest! A crackling, a crashing, steps through the woods—she frantically cast about her for a stick, a stone, anything to defend herself with—but before she could reach the large branch that lay not five feet away from her, she saw, wide-eyed, that around the bend of the path a small figure came into view. Obviously alien, it stood no more than three feet high, and its skin, or fur, was a peculiar slippery-looking dark red. It tottered unstably on two leg-like appendages and waved one paw in front of its body. The other seemed to grow out of its facial orifice and lead from there to the side of its trunk. The creature stopped, tilted back its head, and looked at Catriona with two large, turquoise eyes.

CHAPTER 2

Aliens. This place was inhabited by small, red, humanoid aliens. Brilliant. Cat had seen too many sci-fi shows in which the cute, childlike aliens turned out to be viciously sharp-fanged killers to be taken in by this one. Wait—cute, and childlike? Child- _like_? She stared back at the turquoise-eyed creature, and suddenly all the alien features resolved into something entirely familiar and comfortingly non-threatening: a human toddler, covered from head to foot in some sticky, dark-red substance, with the fingers of its left hand firmly planted in its mouth.

The little person solemnly regarded Cat, then pulled the fingers out of its mouth, smacked its lips a few times, and stated: "Bubbafump."

Oh. Human it might be, or at least a semblance of it, but the locals apparently did not speak English, and Cat had no way of understanding what the child was saying. Stuck on an alien planet, and the automatic translator was broken.

Well, at least this was a sign that the insects-as-rulers theory had just been her overactive imagination. She put on her best librarian's story time face, pasted on a smile she did not feel, and brightly asked: "Yes? What did you say?" The child looked at her consideringly, then turned around on its unstable legs, and toddled back in the direction where it had come from.

"Wait!" Catriona called. "Wait for me!"

She brushed at the seat of her skirt, which still had some leaf mould clinging to it, and ran after the baby. It had turned right on what was clearly a path through the woods that had been made by feet walking along the track. The child was toddling along the path, but when it glanced around and saw Cat coming up behind it, it giggled and began to run. Cat sped up her walk to catch up with it, but suddenly they rounded another bend, and she stopped short.

There on the ground, stretched out a full length across the path, was a man. His arms were splayed out at his side, one leg bent at an odd angle. He, too, was covered in the sticky and slippery-looking dark red stuff. Cat gasped. Blood? Was he—dead? Please, no... Cat had never dealt with a dead body before; this situation was bad enough without the horror of a corpse! The child looked at her again out of its solemn turquoise eyes.

"Bubbafump!" it said again, pointing at the man on the ground.

Cat looked. To her immense relief, she saw the man's chest rise and fall in a shallow breath. Then she noticed something she would have seen immediately if she had not been so preoccupied with this body that was so suddenly flung across her path: there was a large puddle, or pit, full of the red stuff, just a few feet to the side of the trail. It was an irregular circle some ten or twelve feet across; the sides sloped down a couple of feet to the surface. Cat sniffed. There was something familiar about the scent in the air, something that reminded her of arts and crafts, of—clay! The red stuff was clay! Only then did she notice the two large tin buckets, one that was partially filled sitting on the edge of the clay pit, the other lying on its side in the path.

The baby had squatted down beside the man on the path and was batting at him with its sticky hands.

"Bubba bubba bubba!" it chanted; _shlup, shlup, shlup_ went its clay-covered hands against the man's clay-covered chest.

"Oh, is bubba your alien word for daddy?" said Cat, still in her mode of artificial brightness (she could keep up that mode for hours on end—she had had to often enough at work). Then she remembered her predicament.

"What are we going to do, munchkin?" she asked the baby, seriously this time. Not that she expected an answer, but it seemed rude not to make conversation with the only other person in the vicinity who was conscious. And it helped her get a slightly better grip on exactly what was going on. Slightly.

Cat dimly remembered the first aid class she had taken back in high school. Something about applying tourniquets, and giving the Kiss of Life. Oh dear, she hoped it wouldn't come to that! Kissing perfect strangers—alien strangers at that—had not been part of the plan for her holiday! Especially not when they were unconscious and covered in mucky clay.

She took a closer look at the passed-out stranger (who kept on breathing—thank goodness for that). Under the clay that was smeared over the better part of his head and body, she could see that he was fully dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and pants, though it was impossible to tell what colour, texture, or even cut the clothes were. They seemed simple and straight and did not look like anything that would be normal men's clothing as far as Cat was concerned—say, a hoodie or jeans. His shirt appeared to be more of a tunic or smock; the pants were straight-legged. On one of his feet he wore something resembling a moccasin or pull-on shoe of some kind with a drawstring; the other foot was bare, the clay-covered toes long and slender. His hands, too, flung out by his side, were slim, with long fingers. Cat's eye travelled to his face: a sharp, slightly hooked nose, high cheekbones. Hard to tell if he wore a beard, as there was so much clay smeared on his face, but of his hair some strands had escaped the clay bath; it was longer than Cat was used to seeing on men (apart from the neo-hippies who had sprung up recently around Greenward Falls, but then they usually favoured dreadlocks for ease of care, or non-care, as it were).

"Very well, munchkin," said Cat, "let's see if daddy has a pulse. That, I think, I can do." She knelt on the path beside the unconscious man, and reached for his wrist. The baby stopped slapping at him and looked at Cat with its big turquoise eyes.

"Gah?" it said.

"Yes, quite," Cat replied, absently, while searching with her fingers for the pulse point. His wrist, slender though it looked for a man, felt solid and strong. She found the pulse, and remembered something about counting the beats per quarter-minute—but a glance at her own wrist where her watch was supposed to be reminded her that she had left the timepiece at Nicky's place that morning, as yet another act of rebellion against schedules and drivenness. So she just randomly counted the pulse beats for a while; they seemed regular and reasonably strong to her. Good. So he was in no imminent danger of dying.

This allowed Cat to get back to thinking about her own situation. So, now she was in a magical forest, with pitch on her thumb, clay on her hands (and—oh no, some had got on her skirt, and her blouse as well. Drat!), no purse, no idea where she was or how to get back to where she had come from, an unconscious clay-covered man at her feet and an incomprehensible clay-covered child staring at her (when it wasn't smacking the clay-covered man).

And then Cat heard a new sound coming from the forest beyond the clay pit. A voice—indubitably a human, female voice.

"Bibby! Bibby!! Bibby, where are you? Babe? Where have you run off to again? Bibby!" The voice came closer, approaching through the trees. A stocky woman came striding into sight, her grey hair pinned in a coronet on the top of her head, her long skirt multi-coloured and multi-tiered.

"Bibby!" she called again.

"Ahn!" said the baby, happily, toddling towards the woman.

"There you are! What are you doing in the Wald? And where is your scatter-headed father again? And—oh, who might you be?" The woman had caught sight of Cat, looking at her with a critical frown on her face for just a second, before her eye fell on the prone figure on the ground. "Now what has he done to himself?" she asked in an exasperated tone.

Cat suddenly noticed that she had understood everything the woman said. Had the automatic translator suddenly started working? Oh, no, she had never had one of those. The aliens must be speaking English, after all, or perhaps being transplanted into their world made her understand their language.

The baby pointed at the man.

"Bubbafump!" it said to the woman.

"Yes, Bibby," said the woman a little impatiently, "I can see that Papa went thump—again. What I want to know is how he did it, and what injury he did to himself this time! You—" she pointedly looked at Cat, "were you there when it happened?"

"No, I'm afraid I wasn't," said Cat. "I'm very sorry, I only just arrived here myself."

"No need to be sorry. What do you mean you only just arrived? Oh, never mind that now; we need to deal with this young fool." She knelt down on the ground beside the man and lightly slapped his cheek. _Shlup, shlup._

"Boy?" She lifted his eyelid briefly, then shook her head and clicked her tongue. "He must have been getting some more clay, wouldn't wait until someone was there to look after Bibby. And of course he took her along; never goes anywhere without that child, young fool." (Ah, so the child was a girl?) "Probably fell in the clay pit, judging by the look of her, and he pulled her out and then slipped when he got out himself. Hm—that leg doesn't look good." She lifted his twisted left leg up and felt along the knee, then placed it back onto the ground.

Her hand came away stained a bright red, which made Cat instantly realise that she had been very silly to mistake the dull red-brown of the clay for blood. She thought she should feel faint—she had always considered herself squeamish about blood, having never been exposed to much of it—but she experienced none of the ringing in the ears, clouding of vision, or sense of vertigo that she had read were the chief symptoms of fainting.

"Very well," said the woman, whom Cat was fast coming to regard as something of a bossy person, "I don't think anything is broken, and he isn't bleeding so badly that we can't take him to his house before patching him up. Do you think you can take his legs, if I get him under the arms?"

She suited action to words; knelt on one knee behind the man's head, slid her stocky arm under his neck, and raised his upper body against her chest. She slipped her hands under his armpits and stood up with a groan. Cat tried to do as she was bid, stepping between his feet, squatting down, and picking up his two legs. (The ground under him was extremely slippery and very muddy. Cat refused to think about what this was doing to her lovely beige leather slip-ons.) She tried to stand up, but quickly realised this method of carrying the man wasn't going to work very well.

"Uh, ma'am," (where had that come from? Cat hadn't called anyone "ma'am" before, ever. But it seemed to fit this woman; somehow Cat felt she needed to be addressed with respect), "perhaps it would be better if I took the head? I believe I am taller than you; I can't see it being good for him to have his head lower than the rest of his body—if—if—if it's agreeable to you?"

The woman looked up at Cat with a quick tilt of her head.

"Very well, you are right. Put down the legs, and we will switch."

Cat gently lowered the legs back to the ground, noting with a slight wince that she had already got her sleeve bloody from the man's injury, and came around to his head. She inserted her arm between the woman's body and that of the man, slid her hands under his armpit, and lifted him over against her body (mentally giving up her blouse and skirt for lost). His muddy head lolled backwards awkwardly, and his arms dangled at his side, the hands drooping in the mud. Not very functional. Cat remembered a picture in a first aid reference guide (Dewey decimal call number 616.025) of a more effective way to carry an unconscious person against oneself, and she decided to try it out. From under his arm, she fished for a grasp on his sleeve. After some difficulty, she managed to grab a hold of the slippery, muddy fabric and pulled his right forearm up across his chest. She grasped his wrist in her left hand, his forearm just below the elbow in her right and, using his arm across his chest like a holding bar, pulled him back firmly against herself, bringing his head to rest against her shoulder. She reached for his other sleeve, pulled this arm, too, across his chest, managed to lay it over the other arm, and had him in a firm hold without either head or arms dangling or dragging on the ground. Carefully, she raised herself to a standing position.

The woman gave her a shrewd look. "Hmph, it'll do," she said, then moved to the legs. She picked up the hem of her skirt, which nearly swept the ground, and bundled it into her waistband, exposing a pair of sturdy calves and feet encased in moccasins similar to the one the man still had on his foot. She turned her back to Cat, then stepped between his legs, squatted down, carefully lifted up the legs around the knees, tucked them under her arms, and rose to her feet again.

"It won't do that wound any good," she said to Cat over her shoulder, "but we need to get him to a place where we can look after him." She stepped sideways, turning them and their burden along the direction of the path. "Come, Bibby!" she called authoritatively. The little girl obeyed instantly (she was obviously used to being told what to do by this woman) and toddled along behind them as they set off along the forest path, carrying the unconscious man legs-first to wherever the woman was leading.
CHAPTER 3

Carefully stepping along the narrow path, they rounded a corner and emerged in a clearing. In front of them was a small house, whitewashed, with wooden shingles on the roof, a slat door in the centre, and two windows on either side of that. Attached to the building on the right was another building, perhaps a small stable or a workshop; on the other side, a slat fence surrounded a tangle of growth that might well have been a kitchen garden. With the little corner of Cat's brain that was not concentrating on where she was putting her feet, she was reminded of an outdoor museum she had seen in Europe which had featured restored medieval cottages.

The determined woman steered them to the wooden door and pushed at it with her foot to see if it would open. It did not.

"Bibby," she called, "come here, child, and see if you can get the door!"

The baby toddled around in front of her and tipped her head to the side.

"Doh?" she asked.

"Yes, dear, the door. Open it."

"Bibby doh," said the mud-covered little girl, then reached up to the latch with both hands and tried to pull it downward. At first it did not budge; then it suddenly popped down, and the door swung inward. Bibby stumbled in and fell on her hands and knees. "Waaah!"

"Oh Bibby! It's all right, come, little one..."

They tried to manoeuvre past the wailing baby, who was scrambling up, her round bottom pointing in the air. The room they had entered seemed to comprise the entire cottage. On the right-hand wall was a large, open fireplace, with some live coals glowing in it; a door next to it led to the annex. Against the back wall stood a wooden table with a chair on one end and a bench on either side, and along the left-hand side of the room, its headboard under the side window, was a wooden platform bed covered in rumpled blankets and a multi-coloured quilt, to which they carried their burden.

"Wait, no," said the woman over the wails of the baby. "We need to clean him up first. Put him on the floor here." She crab-stepped sideways towards the fireplace and lowered the man's legs down beside the green-and-blue-striped woven hearth rug. Cat supposed that after lying on the cold dirt of the forest floor some reasonably clean-looking floorboards were not the worst surface to be put down on, especially for an unconscious person who would not know the difference. She slowly got down on one knee, slid her arms out from under his, caught his head in her hands as she did so, and gently placed it on the cottage floor. Phew. He wasn't exactly a lightweight.

The baby's wails had quieted; Cat looked around to see that the woman had scooped up the little girl in a firm hug, taken a large handkerchief from her pocket, and was wiping off the light-coloured trails that the tears and snot had made on the mud-covered face.

"There, there, little one," she said kindly, going on with the handkerchief to the sticky, muddy little fingers. "No need to carry on so." She put her back on the ground, then briskly looked around. "Now then, you—what is your name, at any rate? Won't do to be calling you 'you' just like that."

Cat felt herself blush, for no particular reason. "I'm Cat—Catriona." Somehow she felt that her full name was more appropriate to this place or this time, whatever or whenever it was.

The woman accepted it readily. "Catriona, then. Mine's Ouska, or you can call me Aunt, like he does." She pointed her chin at the man on the floor. "Now, let's get him cleaned up. Can you see if there's water in the bucket? Should be by the door." She vanished through the door beside the fireplace, only to reappear a minute later with an armful of rags and towels. "They're half of them smeared with clay anyway. Wonder if he ever cleans up that stuff!" she muttered.

Cat had found an enamelled bucket beside the front door (it was a wonder the baby hadn't knocked it over and spilled it when she fell into the house) and carried it over to the man on the floor.

Cleaning him up even partially proved to be a messy and embarrassing undertaking. Cat was glad to see he was wearing some sort of linen or cotton breeches, tied at the waist, under the long pants, which Ouska had unceremoniously ripped along the legs in order to get them off without hurting his leg any further (Cat did not feel equal to dealing with an entirely nude, strange, injured, unconscious man in a magical place or time into which she had been transported without her volition or any warning). Fortunately, his tunic was laced all the way down the front, so they were able to loosen the laces and ease it off his arms without having to destroy it.

His hair was too mud-smeared to clean then; getting the clay out of it would take more than half a bucket of water and a few rags. They would have to wash his head properly, and Cat had no idea how they could accomplish this while he was still unconscious. His chin was covered in stubble, and his chest and arms, while slender, proved to be surprisingly muscular. His hands were long and slim, the fingers square-tipped with the fingernails clipped short. His face seemed tanned, although at that moment it had a rather sickly pallor that Cat supposed was due to his being unconscious.

Little Bibby, meanwhile, had toddled about the room, getting in their way, until Ouska unceremoniously picked her up, deposited her on the chair by the table, and told her in no uncertain terms to sit there and not move.

"Yit?" said the baby.

"Yes, sit. And be good, just for another moment."

"Bibby yit," she said obediently, and proved good to her word, babbling at them cheerfully as they worked to clean up the man on the floor.

There was a gash in the side of his left knee, and now that they had straightened out the leg, it looked like it had only been twisted, not broken. The older woman peered closely at the wound.

"Hmm, there is something stuck in it—a piece of twig, or wood. That's got to come out, or it'll fester." She rose to her feet. "I don't think he's got anything here to pull it out with; I'll have to get it from my house. Meantime, we need to stop him bleeding all over, though." She took the cleanest of the rags, and twisted it snugly around the leg, then pulled the quilt and most of the blankets off the bed. One brown blanket, woven of a coarse, brown material with several holes in it, she spread over the mattress, clicking her tongue as she did so.

"Fit for nothing but the horses, that is!" she muttered. "Well, it won't matter if it's spoiled, that's for certain. Come on, Catriona, let's get him on the bed. He'll be a bit more easy there." Between them, the two women moved the man onto the bed. Throughout any of it, he had shown no signs of recovering consciousness, but his breathing was even and did not seem laboured to Cat's inexperienced eye. She picked up another one of the blankets and laid it lightly over him.

Ouska took down Bibby from the chair and made short shrift of getting her cleaned. She stripped her of her clay-encrusted little knee-length tunic and the sort of drawers she wore under that (not, to Cat's relief, a diaper—that would have taken the level of the messes just one step too far) and simply stood her right into the water bucket, which was just big enough. The baby squealed, but more in surprise and fun than in displeasure. She was rinsed off from head to toe, then lifted out of the bucket, rubbed dry with one of the coarsely-woven cloths, and bundled into a clean set of drawers and tunic which Ouska had pulled from a carved chest beside the bed; all of it was done with such quickness and efficiency that Cat barely had time to follow, let alone help.

"There," said Ouska, using the damp towel to wipe down the chair Bibby had sat on, the floor where the man had lain, and the front of her own blouse and dress, and then bundling the clay-covered rags into the corner by the fireplace.

"Know how to work a pump?" she asked Cat.

"I—I—well, I don't know!" stammered Cat. "I've used some, at camp, but I don't know what kind you have here."

"Oh, never mind," said the older woman kindly but briskly. "You're not from here, I forgot. Yes, I know—we can talk about that later. You're a bright girl, Catriona; you'll see how it works. The pump is outside, on the side of the shop. The handle creaks a lot, but you just need to work it a few times and it'll start. Don't overfill the bucket; we can't have you hurting yourself as well." And with that she handed Cat the bucket with the remaining muddy water and turned her in the direction of the door.

When Cat came back with the cleaned, filled bucket (the pump had indeed been easy to figure out; it was just like the ones they had had at the summer camp Cat had attended when she was twelve), there were some candles lit on the mantelpiece, and Bibby was sitting at the table munching on what looked like a chunk of cheese and a piece of coarse bread (artisan bread, they called it where Cat came from, but somehow she had the feeling that in this place they didn't have bread like that for reasons of trendiness—instead, it was probably all they knew). Ouska was folding some of the blankets into a little pallet in the corner beside the table.

"The little one can sleep on here for tonight," she said. "The chamber pot is in the corner over there; there's a privy out back if you need it or want to empty the pot. There's the cheese and bread, and the water is quite good to drink. I'm going to try to get back as soon as I can, but it might be some time. I will try—"

"Get back?" Cat interrupted, forgetting for the moment her awe of the older woman. "Where are you going?" Anxiety made her throat feel dry at the thought of being left alone with an injured, unconscious man and a tiny child in a situation that still had her utterly bewildered.

"Now, child," said the older woman soothingly, "don't fret yourself. I told you I need to get my tongs to get the stick out of that wound of his; there's nothing here to do a clean job with. Besides, it's getting on to nightfall, and I need to get the chickens in and be sure Uncle is looked after. You'll do fine, girl. As I was saying, I'll hurry back; but even if I'm not here soon, I'm sure you can manage. You've got a good head on your shoulders." She gave Cat a probing look. "No, don't think to yourself that I couldn't know that because I've only just met you." (Was she a mind reader?) "I know things, Catriona, and this is one of them. So don't," she repeated, "fret yourself."

She turned to the door, then seemed to remember something. She swung around, went over to the bed, and lifted the lid on the chest from which she had taken little Bibby's clothes. It seemed to be full of some other cloth items—clothing, for the most part. Ouska dug into the bottom of it and brought out some brown and green pieces.

"Here," she said, holding them out to Cat. "You need to get out of those muddy clothes; these should do you. They were his wife's; you are much of a height and build. And it's not as if she'll be needing them any more." Something in Ouska's voice told Cat that she did not think much of this woman, whoever she was, or had been. Cat took the clothes from the older woman, careful not to smear them with the clay that was covering her own clothes (would she ever be able to get them clean?). Ouska turned to the bed, laid the back of her hand on the man's forehead, and gazed down at him with a peculiar soft look in her eyes. Then she shook herself.

"Hmph," she said, briefly, and turned back to the little girl who was still sitting at the table, happily crumbling bread on the surface. For just a moment, Ouska rested her work-worn hand on Bibby's hair, which was drying into short red-blond curls sticking out like feathers all over her head.

"You'll do fine," she repeated to Cat, then walked out of the cottage into the dusk which was falling outside.
CHAPTER 4

Cat took a deep breath. Okay. She was stuck in a cottage without power or running water, in a magical forest, with a small girl who didn't speak English (much), an unconscious injured man (she realised she didn't even know his name), and no cell phone to call 911. And the one person who seemed to know what was going on had disappeared, possibly never to come back. Panic rose again in Cat's throat. This was crazy! What weird and unexpected thing was going to happen next? Who was to say that if she picked up the brown pottery cup on the table she wouldn't suddenly be whirled off into yet some other dimension? Why did this have to happen, why, why? Perhaps being whirled off to somewhere else wouldn't be such a bad idea; it couldn't be much worse than the fix she was in at that moment, could it? Maybe it would take her back to where she had come from—you never could tell.

Cat dropped the clothes she was holding onto the bench by the table, snatched up the cup, took yet another deep, determined breath, and stared fixedly into the depths of the vessel. There was some dried-on milk at the bottom of it. And nothing whatever happened.

"Gah?" said Bibby.

Cat sighed, and looked up from the cup. It appeared that her attempt to hypnotise the pottery dish into transporting her back to twenty-first century North America was a failure. So she might as well make the best of the situation she was in. She put the pottery cup back on the table, noticing as she did so how well it fit her hand. It was just the right shape and weight to be pleasant to hold, and the lip looked smooth and round. It was a nicely made piece; whoever the artisan was who had made it had a lot of skill. Cat smiled at Bibby, to reassure herself as much as the little girl.

"Well, Little Bibby (is that your actual name? Seems a bit odd to me), it's you and me and your daddy, isn't it. I hope he doesn't wake up, or die, or do anything else that I don't know what to do about."

Bibby climbed off the chair she was on, and toddled over to Cat. "Gah!" she said again, and patted at the clothing that Cat had piled on the bench.

"Oh, quite," said Cat, "I guess I might as well." She picked up the clothing—a skirt, tiered in earth-brown and a dark green, and a tunic blouse in a lighter brown—and turned around in a circle. Where could she change? There wasn't even a cupboard to hide behind. Ah, whatever. It was not like a really small child would care, and the man was unconscious. Just the same, Cat turned her back to the bed, then took off her poor muddy blouse and coloured skirt. The brown tunic slipped on over her head and laced up at the neck; the skirt had a drawstring and came down to her ankles. Both were loose and long enough to fit comfortably, as Ouska had predicted. Cat chuckled at the thought of what Ryan would say if he could see her now. She draped her muddy, damp clothes over the bench to dry off; time enough to deal with them in the morning.

It was getting darker in the cottage as the daylight was fading outside. The candles on the mantelpiece would soon be the only illumination left. Cat was wondering how Ouska had lit them. It would be too much to expect there to be any matches or lighters around, probably—what had she used, a tinderbox? That's what people usually used in places like this, wasn't it? And Cat had no clue how to use one of those. Well, there was some light in the cottage now. She just hoped the candles would last until Ouska got back.

Cat looked around the cottage. She had hardly had any time to take in her surroundings; they had been much too absorbed looking after the man on the bed. Cat gave him a quick glance. He was still lying motionless, apart from his chest gently rising and falling with each breath. Keep breathing, Cat thought, just keep breathing! For the first time, she noticed the furniture in the room. In the corner beside the bed stood what was surely a kind of chair—Ouska had piled the blankets on top of it, obscuring most of it, but Cat could see the outline of a high back, and a part of a carved armrest was showing. Going over to take a closer look, Cat scooped up the pile of blankets, and gasped in surprise.

It was a rocking chair, a fantastically beautiful piece, utterly unlike the plain simplicity of the table, bench and chair on the other side of the room. Fashioned out of a dark, shining wood (black walnut, perhaps—if they had walnuts in this place), the high back was pierced and carved in an intricate pattern. Cat saw roses, lilies, daffodils, and honeysuckle, twining up the sides, curving around the top and winding themselves in a riot of shapes and motions around a medallion in the centre. The small oval held a bird, a tiny songbird (though how Cat knew it was a songbird she could not have told), its bright little eyes and tilt of its head reminding Cat of nothing so much as of Bibby's little face. In fact, the bird _was_ Bibby.

"Dair!" said the little girl, who had toddled over and stood clutching Cat's skirt. Cat hadn't even noticed her from being so absorbed in admiring this marvellous piece of furniture.

"Yes, that's some chair all right!" she replied, looking from the baby to the chair again. The armrests were supported by more pierced carvings of the same flowers, leading down to two smooth rockers resting on the floorboards. Taking the blankets off the chair had set it very gently in motion; it was softly swaying back and forth. Cat was suddenly seized by a desire to sit down on this chair, to rest, to let it soothe her into peace. Bibby let go of Cat's skirt and patted the highly polished, smoothly curving seat.

"Dair. Yit." she commanded.

"Yes, sit!" replied Cat; it was just what she wanted herself. But first she had to find a place for all those blankets. She carried them over to the other side of the bed (the man was still softly breathing), and dumped them on top of the chest against the wall. Being across the room from the chair, its pull seemed to have lessened just slightly. She still wanted to try the chair, but there were a few other things that needed to be looked to first.

"Just wait a few minutes, okay? We'll sit in the chair really soon," she told the little girl. She tore a chunk off the bread and a piece off the cheese that were still on the table, then wrapped the rest in the cloth they were sitting on. (Oil cloth, it was. Cat was proud of herself for recognising it.) She carried them over to the shelves which were mounted under the window on the opposite side of the door from the rocking chair. They held a number of brown glazed pottery dishes—bowls of various sizes, plates, and cups, like the one that had failed to transport Cat back to where she had come from. There was an unglazed earthenware jug with a cloth draped over it, which stood in a dish of water; and an empty spot with some crumbs scattered on it which told Cat that this was where the food belonged.

She quickly ate the bread and cheese she had taken, then went outside to find the privy Ouska had mentioned. There was barely enough light to see by, but she did find it, clear around the back of the house, in the corner where the side building jutted out a bit further into the back garden than the house did. It was just like the outhouse on the campground she'd been to with her friend Monica the previous summer, Cat thought. Well, she had wanted adventure—and she had got it, with a vengeance. A rustic, magical adventure. Where would this all end up?

Cat rinsed off her hands under the pump, shook the last drops of water off her hands and dried the rest on her skirt. When she stepped back into the house, it was almost entirely dark inside; the candles cast soft globes of a yellow glow into the darkness. Bibby had climbed into the rocking chair, and sat quietly with her thumb in her mouth. Her eyelids were drooping over those big turquoise eyes; she raised one little fist and rubbed it at her eye. What a cutie, Cat thought. Better get her to bed.

Oh, but wait—the baby wasn't wearing a diaper, was she? What had that been about a potty? Oh dear. This was all so complicated. Thank goodness she had done some babysitting in her teens, at least she had had a little bit of experience with handling small kids. Sure, that was almost ten years ago, but things did come back to one, didn't they? Or so she had read. Cat picked up little Bibby from the rocking chair, leaving it softly swaying behind her, and stood her on the floor. Yes, she still knew how to pick up a toddler.

Now, this potty—ah yes, there was something in the corner beside the clothing chest, where Ouska had made up Bibby's bed. It looked like a large pot-bellied bowl with a handle, and a pouring spout. A pouring spout? Eew! But, yes, Cat supposed you rather needed that. You had to dump the stuff somehow. And come to think of it, she had seen chamber pots like this, in pictures, and even once, she remembered now, in a museum. Except there it had been white, and enamelled, not just clear-glazed pottery. But this one seemed to have a lid, which was propped against the wall beside it; quite a useful idea, that. It was getting so dark out Cat was not sure she would be able to find her way to the privy again, and who knew what roamed around out there in the dark; she was glad to be able to cover up the, ahem, pot over night.

Very well. "Go potty, Bibby?" she asked in a high-pitched voice. Good grief, why was she talking like that? Silly. "Do you need to go potty, Bibby?" she repeated in a more normal tone. "Bo-be," said the baby sleepily, and tugged at her tunic. Her drawers were a simple drawstring affair, easy enough to slip down (thank goodness). After Bibby was done, Cat just pulled up her drawers again and tied them up; she had yet to figure out what one did for toilet paper in this place. Perhaps she would steal a few of those rags for the privy later on.

The little girl was barely able to keep her eyes open any more; her head was beginning to nod and she was knuckling both her eyes now. "Gah..." she said softly and sleepily. Cat pulled back the blanket on the top of the little pallet, then picked up the baby and gently laid her down on it. She knelt on the floor beside the makeshift bed, tucked the blanket around the little shoulders, and gently stroked the little girl's hair.

"Good night, sweetie," she said. Bibby had her thumb in her mouth, and her long eyelashes were fanned out on her cheeks. Deep breaths showed that she was already most of the way to dreamland. Adorable.

Cat sat back onto her heels. Now what? It was completely dark, except for the little globes of light the candles were casting around them. The rocking chair in the corner was still pulling at her, and at any rate there was nothing else she could do but wait. Cat fished out a blanket from the pile on the chest and wrapped it around herself; it was some kind of wooly material, softer than it had looked. She walked around the quietly breathing man on the bed, and sank back into the rocking chair.

Once again the chair surprised a gasp out of her—in spite of the intricate carving of the back, it was the most comfortable thing she had ever sat on. It cradled her back like a smooth, comforting hug. Its gentle swaying motion was soothing, peaceful.

Cat leaned back her head against the chair, and softly rocked to the rhythm of the breathing of the man and his little girl.
CHAPTER 5

It must have been an hour or two later when Cat was startled awake. The man on the bed was muttering and moving around. Restlessly he tossed his head from side to side, his breathing ragged and uneven. Cat sprang to her feet. What to do? If only she'd gone into nursing, not library work, she wouldn't be so helpless now. Then again, how was she supposed to have known that she would end up in a quasi-medieval strange magical place, left to look after an injured man with not even a first-aid kit to help her out? Come to think of it, twenty-first-century medical training wouldn't have helped much here, either—the lack of a first-aid kit was one of the clues.

She stepped over to the bed and looked down at the restless man. He had tossed half his covers off, his chest was partly exposed, and his feet were tangled in the blanket. It looked quite uncomfortable. Gingerly she reached out a hand (oh, this was embarrassing!) and laid it on his bare shoulder, then quickly snatched it back. He was burning hot! No wonder he was tossing around so. He must have developed a fever from his injury. Where was the bossy woman when you needed her?

Cat desperately tried to look out into the darkness beyond the windows over the bed, willing Ouska to come back. The night was unresponsive; all Cat could see was the reflection of the candles on the mantelpiece, now more than halfway burned down. The man moaned. Nothing else for it; Cat would have to try to do something for him on her own. People used to sponge feverish patients with cool water, didn't they? Cat had read lots of Victorian novels. She was fairly certain that in those, sponging was one of the treatment options for sick people. Along with calf's foot jelly and strengthening broths—not that she had any of those on hand, nor a sponge, for that matter. The best she could do right now would be to untangle his covers and hope it would make him a bit easier.

She gently pulled the blanket free, afraid of accidentally touching the leg on the side where his injury was, and straightened it out over his feet. He was twisting his head from one side to the other, his hands snatching at the blanket, at his arms, at nothing. She reached for the top edge of the blanket to pull it up over his chest, but suddenly found her wrist clamped in an iron grip.

Startled, her eyes flew to his face. His eyes were wide open, staring. Turquoise again, of course—even in the dim candlelight Cat could make that out. He looked at her with a glassy gaze that told Cat he was not really seeing her, but his grasp on her wrist was hard and unyielding.

"It's okay, you're safe," she murmured at him, "don't worry, you'll be fine." The soothing noises came out almost automatically; it was not as if she had any idea if he was, in fact, safe, and would be fine. She tried to pry his fingers off her arm, not breaking the eye contact. After a long minute, his glassy stare wavered. He blinked, and his grip loosened just a little. Cat managed to unclasp the hot fingers from around her wrist, but when she tried to pull free he grasped again, this time catching her hand and holding it tight.

"Karana!" His voice was rough, raspy. "Karana—marry me!"

What?!? Now this was getting ridiculous. No, she was _not_ going to agree to marry a total stranger, in a strange land, who wasn't even conscious of what he was saying—wait, he wasn't conscious of what he was saying. He didn't even know who she was; he thought she was this Karana person, whoever that was. Maybe agreeing with him would calm him enough to settle down again for a little while.

"Karana!" he insisted, rough, pleading. His eyes were deeply worried, the brows contracted with pain and the emotion he was gripped in.

Very well. You had to humour sick people, didn't you?

"Karana..."

"Yes," Cat said, gently laying her free hand over the fingers which held onto her. "Yes, I'll marry you."

He heaved a deep sigh, and the worry seemed to drain from his turquoise eyes. Suddenly there came a soft whimper from the corner of the room. Bibby! The whimper grew louder, and became a full-blown cry.

"I'll get her," said Cat, and this time he let go of her. She laid his hand gently down on the covers, quickly pulled the blanket up over his chest, and stood up to deal with the baby.

Bibby, too, had kicked off most of her blanket, and her little legs were cold to the touch.

"There, there!" Cat said, and scooped the little girl up in her arms (oh, thank goodness, the baby hadn't wet her pants. A soggy bottom would have been more than Cat could have dealt with at that moment). She carried her back to the rocking chair, fished with her foot for the blanket she had dropped on the floor, managed to hook it with her toes, and balance on one foot long enough so she could grab a corner of the blanket. She wrapped it around herself and Bibby to keep out the chill that had settled on the cottage, then sank back into the chair and began rocking again.

A glance at the man on the bed showed that his eyes were closed again, and he was lying still, but his posture was tense, and his forehead still furrowed in pain.

Bibby had stopped crying when Cat picked her up but was still giving short, sobbing breaths and making little whimpery noises. Cat hugged the little body to herself, trying to infuse it with her own warmth. Bibby snuggled close and sniffled.

"Shh, baby, shhh," murmured Cat (sway back, and forth, back, and forth), "shh, baby..."

The man on the bed was stirring again, twisting his head left and right with a jerky motion Cat had not seen before.

"Shh, baby..." Cat hummed (sway back, and forth, back, and forth...). Her hum turned into a melody, slow, gentle, one note up, one note down. "Hmm, huuhh, hmm, huuuh..."

The sick man's hand clutched at his blanket; the baby drew sobbing breaths.

Cat's hum became a lullaby. "Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop, when the wind blows the cradle will rock..." (sway back, and forth, back, and forth...)

The whimpering in Cat's arms grew quieter; the twisting on the bed slowed.

"Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee" (back, and forth, back, and forth)

"All through the night" (back, and forth)

"Guardian angels God will lend thee, all through the night" (back, and forth, back, and forth)

"Soft the drowsy hours are creeping; hill and dale in slumber steeping..."

The baby gave a deep sigh, put her thumb into her mouth, and snuggled her soft little body deeper into Cat's arms. The man's body relaxed, and he drew slow, quiet breaths.

Cat leaned back her head; the rocking chair cradled her and the baby (softly, gently swaying back, and forth). Her song became a hum, then a whisper.

One of the candles on the mantle guttered and went out; the other burned on with a steady yellow glow into the night.

### CHAPTER 6

The door latch rattled, and the wooden door creaked open. Cat slowly opened her eyes; they felt like they had sandpaper stuck to the insides of the lids. Cold dawn light was filtering into the room. Had she been asleep? She must have been—and her arms still were. The baby felt heavy on her lap. Bibby's thumb had slipped out of her mouth, a little bit of drool trickled down her cheek, and she was snoring very softly.

"Here, let me take her," said Ouska quietly, after she had shut the door behind her. She lifted the sleeping little girl out of Cat's arms and carried her back to her pallet on the other side of the room, then laid her down and tucked the blanket in around her.

Cat shivered—the cottage had become cold during the night, and the fire had gone out; the candles were long burnt down. Her neck was stiff and sore, her fingers like lifeless sausages on the ends of her hands, useless for massaging the kinks out of her neck. Then the pins and needles started as the feeling crept back into her arms. She shook her wrists, opening and closing her hands to speed up the process of getting sensation back and shorten the prickling as much as possible. The rocking chair might be the most comfortable piece of furniture she had ever sat in, but it was clearly not designed for spending a whole night in, sleeping. Cat groaned.

So did the man on the bed. With a rush, the midnight events flooded back into Cat's memory.

"What happened between you two?" asked Ouska.

"Noth-nothing!" Cat replied, her voice scratchy and hoarse from sleepiness. Now where had the woman got the idea that something had happened? Nothing had happened, nothing! Only a sick man's delirium, and a confused traveller's attempt to calm him. She blushed. Nothing at all.

"Oh?" said Ouska, sceptically. "Doesn't feel like 'nothing' to me in here." She _was_ a mind reader! "Very well, that's for later. Now if you can move again, we'll get on with this. He looks like he's taken bad."

"Yes," Cat replied. "He woke up, sort of, in the night" (stop blushing!) "but I don't think he was really conscious. And he was really hot, and restless, and..."

"But you got him quiet again?" Ouska gave her a searching look. "And the babe, too. Well done."

Cat felt absurdly proud at this praise from this woman she hardly knew at all.

Ouska laid her palm on the man's forehead, and Cat saw that she, too, nearly snatched her hand back again.

"Yes, he's bad. Let's look to that wound, and we'll go from there."

She pulled the blanket away from the injured leg and unwrapped the cloth from around the knee. The wound looked inflamed, sore.

"Hmm, the light isn't very good yet, but we'll have to make do. The sooner we get this done the better. I don't like the look of him," she said. Out of her satchel she brought a small pair of iron tongs and several clean cloths. "Now, Catriona. I need you ready to hold him if he wakes or moves. Can you do that?"

"I—I think so," said Cat, hesitantly.

"Of course you can. Well, here we go."

At the first touch of the tongs, the man started up with a cry. Cat lunged across his body, trying to hold down his leg, but Ouska already had a firm grasp on his shin with her left hand, while her right wielded the tool. The man's hands were wildly grasping, grabbing. Cat caught his right hand in both of hers, and her touch seemed to give him focus. His eyes opened; he stared at her without seeing. His fingers were wrapped around hers, squeezing convulsively. Cat clenched her teeth, and barely avoided crying out herself at the pain of his grip, when suddenly he screamed, nearly crushed her hand—and then mercifully lost consciousness again.

"Got it," said Ouska in a satisfied tone, holding up her tongs with a vicious-looking, sharp piece of stick gripped in the points. "However he got that in there is more than I can tell." Cat could not see what she was doing next; the pain in her hand had driven tears into her eyes. Suddenly she smelled something familiar, something like—Italian food?

"What are you doing?" she said, wiping her cheeks with her uncrushed hand.

Ouska had apparently used the cloths to clean up the injury, and now she was sprinkling something powdery on the knee. "Oil of garlic," she said briefly, "and basilicum powder."

"Oh..." Garlic and basil, no wonder she smelled pesto. She remembered reading about those. "They're good against infection, aren't they?"

"Right. Although it's already gone a ways. I hope we can keep it from getting worse," the older woman said, wrapping a clean bandage around the wound. "Now that that piece of wood is out, I think we have a chance." She gave Cat a searching glance, pointedly looking at how the young woman was nursing her right hand in her left. "What's he done to you? Got a grip on your hand, did he?"

Cat just nodded, biting her lip to keep the tears from starting again.

"Hmph. Not what you needed. But it helped at that moment, or he would have kept me from doing what I had to. Here, let me see." Cat extended her hand across the bed, laying it in Ouska's brown work-worn one. The older woman gently rubbed her thumb across the bruised joints, then took out another jar.

"Comfrey ointment, should keep it from bruising too much," she explained, as she spread some salve on a cloth and tied it around Cat's hand. "No bones broken; you'll do." She packed up her tools into her satchel again, then briskly stood up.

"Ouska? What... what happens now?"

"Now we wait. The next few hours should tell us where this will go. But I doubt that it will go poorly with him in the end; in spite of all, something seems right about this. It has a lot to do with your being here, I believe."

"Here? Ouska—Ouska, where _are_ we? What is this place? I don't even know what I am doing here, what happened—" Cat swallowed hard to keep down the lump in her throat, to keep the tears from spilling out. The events of the evening and night threatened to overwhelm her.

The older woman gave her a long, kindly look.

"No, I don't suppose you do know, do you? Very well," she said. "I think it's time we had a talk."

### CHAPTER 7

Ouska glanced down at the sleeping baby on the pallet.

"It's a mercy she didn't wake up through all this," she said. "Babes can sleep through anything, sometimes, and then wake up at the slightest thing at others. Make yourself comfortable, if you can stand the rocker again." She brought a stoppered brown pottery flask out of her satchel, then went to the shelf and came back with two of the cups. She poured out a small amount of a dark amber liquid and brought one of the cups over to where Cat was wrapping herself in the woollen blanket.

Cat's feet were freezing from being barefoot on the wooden floor most of the night. She settled herself into the rocking chair, tucked her feet under her, and awkwardly tried to stuff the blanket in around the edges with her left hand. Surprisingly, the rocker felt quite as comfortable on her back as it had the first time she sat down in it; her body seemed to have forgiven it for being stuck in it all night long.

"This'll warm you," said Ouska, putting the cup in Cat's hand. The drink smelled of apples, tart and sweet and very alcoholic.

"What is it?"

"Applejack." The older woman brought over the kitchen chair to the foot of the bed and settled herself with her cup of the drink. "Careful, though, it's strong."

Cat took a cautious sip and nearly choked—she was not used to hard alcohol. The drink burned its way down her throat, but then a lovely warmth spread through her body. The lump in Cat's throat had dissolved, and her toes were no longer icy.

"Hmm, good!" she said, surprised, and ventured another sip.

"Like I said, girl, take it easy. Uncle's applejack has clout, more than most. But then, you're not one to get drunk, are you? And you can use the warmth."

"Okay," said Cat, squaring her shoulders resolutely. She was getting tired of being told by this woman who she was and what she did or did not do or feel. Never mind that Ouska was right on every count. "How do you know all that?"

Ouska lips twitched; Cat guessed, slightly annoyed, that she knew exactly what Cat was thinking. "It's nothing to do with you, particularly; I'm an Unissima. So was that wife of his," she pointed her chin at the man on the bed, "but she misused it, more fool her. I think perhaps you are, too?"

"An Ooni-what?"

"Unissima. Only daughter of an only daughter. We know things. Don't they have that where you come from, in your world?"

"That's another thing—my world. _Am_ I in a different world? What is this place? It's not England in 1066 or something, is it?"

"Is that what your home is called, Ingaland? No, this is Samach. Or more to the point, the Wald of Ruph."

"Samach. That's the country? Or the world? Or the town?"

"We're in the Wald—I guess you might call it the Forest—of Ruph, in the county of Samach. The village is called Ruph as well. We're the most remote county, a bit cut off from the rest of Isachang, but we manage quite well on our own. So, what brought you here? You never planned this, did you?"

"Well, there was this bowl—no, there was this guy—well, it all started because of my boyfriend, really!"

Ouska raised her eyebrows, but she kept quiet, waiting for Cat to continue.

"Ryan and I were going out for, oh, almost half a year, I think. Nicky—Monica, really, she's my best friend—she always said he was a rat. Well, she didn't _say_ so, not at first, but she never liked him, I knew that—you can tell, can't you? But I didn't want to listen to her. I mean, she's had, I don't know, half a dozen boyfriends—she's fun, and pretty, not like me; those guys at her medieval re-enactors' group fall for her in droves—but Ryan was the only man who had been interested in me in years.

"Turns out he only asked me out in the first place because he thought I was something important. We met at a Chamber of Commerce meeting; I was there representing the library in organising the carnival—it's a big deal in Greenward Falls. He'd just moved to town with ambitions to make big money, and he figured it'd give him a better chance for business success to be connected with someone in an 'official capacity.' And once he figured out how unimportant an assistant librarian really is in that town, I suppose he kept me on a string because he figured I'd become head librarian real soon and be influential then. Good grief, as if I'd want to take Joan's job away from her! She won't be retiring for years." Cat had practically forgotten whom she was speaking to; the words spilled out almost involuntarily.

"Anyway, so eventually it dawned on him that I wasn't who he thought I was—no, really, he said so. Verbatim." She lowered her voice to a mock male timbre. "'I thought you were more ambitious and success-minded!' Well, not in the way he thought I was, I'm not. So he dumped me. And I probably shouldn't have taken it so hard, but then again, maybe it was just as well. Really, it was the last straw, on all fronts. I mean, I liked my job well enough, but I've been at it for six years, and I got tired of it, and with this—well, I quit. Handed in my resignation, gave notice on my apartment, got rid of the furniture, packed the rest of my stuff in boxes, and put them in Nicky's spare bedroom. I was going to get a ticket to somewhere new, and different, and exciting—I dunno, San Francisco, New York, Timbuktu—except I didn't really have any one place I wanted to go to in particular, and someplace new, well, it's kind of scary, isn't it? Yeah, I know, the joke's on me.

"So then, today—no, yesterday—I was meant to meet Nicky at the museum downtown, the Sammelhauser. I've lived in Greenward Falls for six and a half years, and I've never actually been inside the place. Nicky is always hassling me about it. We were supposed to check out the exhibits, and have coffee, and then maybe go to some travel agencies and look at brochures and then go home to her place and book my flight to exotic destinations. Except when I got to the museum, there was this bowl, and I looked at it and everything went swirly and weird, and then..."

Ouska, who had listened to Cat's recital without interruption, sat up at this.

"What did it look like, this bowl?"

"Well, it was about so big"—she gestured with her hands—"kind of straight up and then curved in at the top"—she made a cupping motion—"like so. And it was the most amazing colour; I've never seen any other glaze that looked like that. A bit like that Egyptian pottery, or is it Chinese? I think that colour is called celadon, but this was much more vibrant, deeper—like their eyes, Bibby's and—and his." She looked at the man on the bed. "What is his name, anyway?"

"We call him Guy," replied the older woman.

As if he had heard his name, the man stirred and drew a laboured breath. Ouska put down her cup and leaned forward to touch his hand.

"Hmm," she said, "seems a little better. Think you can cope with him and the babe for another hour or so? I'm going to get Uncle; we need a man to help here."

### CHAPTER 8

The door closed behind Ouska, and Cat leaned her head back in the rocking chair. The lovely warmth from the applejack was dissipating slowly from her body, but Ouska had lit a small fire in the fireplace which was gradually taking the chill off the cottage. The sun had come up and was sending a few rays through the trees outside into the room. The man on the bed—Guy?—drew some softly rasping breaths.

Cat let the events of the last eighteen hours drift through her mind. She certainly had not bargained on any of this—had never imagined any of this could happen. Nicky was the one who believed in all sorts of things—fairies, and elves, and reincarnation and auras and magic and crystals and little folk and the power of dreams. Well, to be honest, Cat was not sure if Nicky really believed, but she certainly wanted it to be real. And where it wasn't, she made believe. It was probably one of the things that made her friend so attractive, her childlike enthusiasm—that, and her bushy head of golden hair, the Pocket Venus figure, and the blue eyes that she would open really wide to look straight up at the other person as if they were the most amazing thing she had met in a long while. It seemed to pull people in like iron filings to an electromagnet, especially those of the susceptible male variety. Cat had watched more than one man fall under that spell and then trail her friend for days, until Nicky either made it clear that he needed to pack up and leave, or took pity on him and elevated him to official boyfriend status for a month or two. They never lasted longer than that; in spite of all her romantic entanglements, Nicky had never yet found what she was looking for in a man, no more than Cat had. The only difference was that she had a much wider field to pick from.

Cat sighed. She was so different from her friend. Even outwardly, she was boring—average height, average size, average brown hair, and average brown eyes. Average, boring interests, no special experience, no special degrees. Just an average boring bachelor's in English, with a boring career in librarianship. The only other thing more boring would be a career as Chartered Accountant. Or banking; she supposed being a banker could be quite dull. Or a flag girl on a highway construction site; that had to be the worst job possible, just standing there outside in all kinds of weather with car fumes blowing in your face...

Her mind snapped back to her present situation, and her eyes went to the man on the bed. Something was different! She reached out and felt his forehead. He was much cooler to the touch now, and beads of sweat were beginning to form along his hairline. That was good, wasn't it? It meant the fever had broken, if she remembered correctly (who would have thought that reading nineteenth-century novels would come in so handy some day?). She had no idea if it was normal for a fever to form so quickly and then to break so fast, but perhaps people's health issues were different here than they were at home.

At home—did she _have_ a home? Would she ever go back to where she had come from, go back to Greenward Falls, back on the track she had been on—book that flight to wherever, to search for her adventure... Of course, she could not have foreseen any of this, but now she was in the middle of what was sure to be the biggest adventure of her entire life, and she had no desire to go back. She wanted to go on, to find out where she was and what was going to happen next.

What happened next was that the baby woke up. Bibby sat up on her bed and rubbed her little fists in her eyes. Her feathery red-blond curls stood out all over her little head, making her look like a human dust mop, and her cheeks were flushed from sleep. She blinked her turquoise eyes (what an amazing colour that was!) and looked around until she found Cat on the other side of the room.

"Gah!" she said happily, and then scrambled to her feet.

Cat smiled at her. "Good morning to you, too, little Sleepyhead!" She crossed the room and tried to scoop up Bibby in her arms, but her sore hand stopped her. "Ouch!" Instead, she knelt and gave the little girl a hug.

"And how are you this morning?" she asked her.

"Bubba!" said the baby and toddled over to the bed.

"No, wait, daddy's sleeping!" began Cat, turning around to stop the little girl from interfering, but she suddenly found herself looking straight into the other pair of turquoise eyes.

Guy's brows were slightly drawn together in a puzzled frown as he looked at Cat. His gaze slid away from her, sweeping around the room, then coming to the little girl who was now trying to climb on the bed, and his eyes cleared.

"Bibby, Karana," he said weakly, his voice rough from disuse, and he tried to pull his arm out from under the blanket to reach out to the baby.

Karana? That—wasn't that what he had called Cat in the night? What she had assumed to be a name of another woman? Oh dear.

"Bubba bubba bubba!" sang the girl happily, and patted him on the chest.

"Careful, sweetie, you'll hurt daddy!" said Cat and tried to scoop the baby off the bed again with her left arm. This brought the man's eyes back to her, and the puzzled frown returned.

"Who—who you?" he asked in a slurred voice.

"Gah!" said Bibby, just as Cat was about to tell him. She gave the baby a surprised look. Did the little girl know her name? Nobody had told her, had they? She had assumed it was just random baby talk. Cat filed it away among all the other matters she needed to ask Ouska about.

"Yes, I'm Cat. Catriona, really. I found you in the woods; or rather, _Bibby_ found _me_ , and took me to you, and then Ouska came, and..."

He was looking no less confused.

"Never mind," Cat said quickly. "I'm Cat, that's all."

"Oh," he said, then winced as he tried to move. "Wha—wha happen?"

"I don't know. You were covered in mud—clay—and so was she," tipping her head at Bibby, "and you've hurt your leg. Ouska patched you up some, and she's coming back, with someone called Uncle, I think?" You're babbling, Cat. Now that he was properly awake and conscious, she felt acutely embarrassed at being in a stranger's bedroom, a male stranger at that. His eyes were becoming clearer as he looked around the room and then scanned her face, seemingly trying to understand, to remember.

"I—I cannot..." He tried to clear his throat, and winced again at the motion.

"No, never mind," said Cat again, turning away from his probing gaze. She noticed the cloths that Ouska had left behind on top of the clothes chest and picked one up.

"Here," she said, "let me..." Awkwardly, with her left hand, she dabbed at his forehead, which was glistening with sweat.

"Thank... you," he said quietly.

"Bibby do!" said the little girl, catching up a cloth and trying to pat at his face, too.

"No, no, it's all right!" Cat said with a laugh, trying to ward off the baby with her bandaged right hand.

"What... happened... to your... hand?" Guy asked.

Cat couldn't help it. A slightly hysterical giggle forced its way out past her throat, and once it got through, the dam burst. Cat laughed, and laughed, the pent-up tension, confusion, fear, and panic of the last hours finding their release in this safety valve.

Guy smiled, bewildered; Bibby squealed with glee and slapped the bed with both her little hands.

"I'm sorry," gasped Cat, when she could draw breath. "I'm sorry—it's just that—what happened to my hand? _You_ happened to it!" She laughed again.

"I did that?" He frowned in confusion. "Hold—were you—did I..."

"Yes, never mind. You didn't know what you were doing."

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, obviously deeply chagrined. "May I..." He pulled his left hand with some difficulty from below the cover and stretched it out shakily to Cat. With a curious feeling of reluctance, she laid her bandaged hand on his.

"I'm so sorry," he repeated, and gently placed his right hand on top. His hands were trembling with weakness, but she could feel his warmth through the cloth wrapped around her bruises. Something happened, something she could not explain. It felt as though his touch drew away the pain in her hand, knit together what had been damaged. Startled, she looked into his face, but his eyes had closed, and his forehead was furrowed again.

The door opened.

"Where is that fool of a nephew of mine?" called a hearty male voice.

"Unca!" cried Bibby happily and threw herself at the stocky man who entered the room, Ouska right behind him.

### CHAPTER 9

Cat was following Ouska along the forest path, the older woman carrying the baby. They had left Guy with his uncle, with buckets of water, soap, towels, medicines, bandages, and a pot of soup.

"They'll do," Ouska had said, "and you look like you might want a wash yourself. Come on, there's warm water at my house."

Warm water? That sounded heavenly. Cat hurried after the older woman. The skirt she was wearing was longer than her blue and green hippie skirt; this one almost came down to her ankles. Cat was clutching it in her left hand, trying the raise the hem a bit; she kept feeling like she would trip on it, and she wanted to see where she was putting her feet. She had put on her dirty slip-ons again; Guy might have kept his wife's clothing (for whatever reason), but there weren't any shoes to fit Cat in the cottage. Her ballerina flats were not exactly made for walking on a forest floor; Cat could feel most of the rocks and roots through her soles. That wife of Guy's—she wondered what had happened to her. Ouska certainly seemed to have little respect for the woman's memory, judging by the tone of her voice every time she spoke of her.

The forest path was widening and smoothing out after a few minutes' walking, so the women could walk side by side.

"So, Ouska," said Cat, "you started telling me, but I've already forgotten. The forest is called Roos?"

"Ruph. The Wald of Ruph. So's the village. The county is Samach, our country Isachang." Ouska shifted the toddler to her other hip. "When you came, did you stop right by the clay pit?"

"No, I was around in the corner, in the forest. There was some kind of enclosure, like a cage made of tree branches, but I didn't really look at it. I was too freaked out." It was odd that she could speak with the people in this place the way she would talk at home, back on twenty-first-century Earth. Somehow, with the rustic surroundings and the way they were dressed, you would expect that the people here would be using "thee" and "thou" and "speakest" and "sayeth." But they didn't; they sounded normal. Or perhaps they _were_ using all that fancy language, and she just _heard_ their talk as if it was the same as hers? Maybe the air in this place had built-in translators. Software air.

"Ouska?"

"Yes, child?" Cat was twenty-eight—hardly a child any more. But somehow she did not mind being called that by this woman; it seemed to fit. Besides, it was better than the appellations Ouska bestowed on Guy—Cat would much rather be referred to as "child" than as "young fool."

"Ouska—" (now, how could she put this question?) "Ouska, is this place, this country, this—this world—is it magical?"

The woman gave her a surprised look.

"Magical? I wouldn't say that."

("Ma'cal, ma'cal," Bibby sang, riding along on Ouska's hip.)

"But, you see," Cat tried to explain, "I felt things. I mean, first of all, there is that way I was brought here, in one big swoop. There's nothing I did or could have done about it—one minute I was looking at the bowl, and the next I was in the forest. What's that all about? And then, I touched a tree, and it's like I got an electric shock or something..."

"Ah, is that what it was?" said Ouska, with the air of someone who just had a mystery cleared up.

"What _what_ was?"

"I felt that something happened, it must have been right at that moment. I knew it had to do with Bibby; that's why I came looking for her. An Unissima feels what happens to other females more strongly than to males, else I'd have known it had to do with the boy."

'The boy?' Oh, Cat supposed she meant Guy. She smiled to herself. 'Boy'—he looked to her like he was close to thirty.

"But, don't you see, right there, that Unissima thing. You just know things, feel them in your bones or something? That sounds magical to me."

"Oh, well, that. I suppose you could call it magical, if you will. We have our powers, of course. Don't you have them in your world?"

"Powers? No, I don't think so—unless you mean electricity or whatever."

"I never heard of what that might be. No, I mean personal powers—the ability to make things work. A person's gift that works itself out in what they touch or what they do. For us Unissimae, it's knowing things, generally things about people. I still think you are one of them, too, although perhaps you have not come into your powers yet. Is your mother still living?"

"My mother? What—no, I don't think so. I don't know, to be honest. What's she got to do with it?"

"How old would she be if she was alive?"

"I'm not sure," said Cat, slightly confused. "I think she was quite young when I was born, eighteen or nineteen, so she'd be somewhere in her forties now. She took off when I was two; my grandmother raised me. Why?"

"Your mother left when you were a babe?" Ouska gave her another sidelong, probing glance. "Just like this little one here." She gave Bibby a quick bounce on her hip, which made the little girl giggle. "Well, you see, as I told you, an Unissima is an only daughter of an only daughter. She doesn't come into her powers until it's certain her mother won't have any other children. For me, it was when my mother died; I was twenty-two years old. _Her_ mother" (she tipped her head at Bibby) "was just fourteen when her mother went through the change; she was a late-in-life babe and spoiled rotten for it. She was just the right age to be foolish about the Knowing—too old to have become accustomed to it from the start, as Bibby here will, and too young to have any sense of what a gift like that means."

"So what happened? I thought you said she left—or did she die? 'Cause otherwise how would Bibby have her powers?"

"That I don't know. The woman disappeared one day about a year ago; that's all we heard. The boy won't say what went down, won't speak of her at all. But he was left holding the babe, literally. And a few months later, the little one showed signs of Knowing. And she couldn't, not if her mother was still—but yet, my own Knowing tells me the woman's not dead."

Just then, a tabby cat scooted across the path in front of them.

"Gah!" cried Bibby with a big smile, pointing at the animal.

"There!" said Cat. "I meant to ask you about that. That's what she calls me, Gah, and has done so from almost the first moment she laid eyes on me. Does she know my name?"

"Seems that way, doesn't it? The Knowing doesn't necessarily mean she can say things properly." The women laughed. "If your own mother might still be alive and isn't past the change yet, perhaps that's why you haven't got the Knowing yet. She didn't have any brothers or sisters through her mother, did she, though?"

"No," said Cat thoughtfully, "none that I know of. But—but I don't think in my world, we _have_ Unissimas, or whatever that's called. People are just, you know, people. Some are really good at things, but most are just, well, ordinary. Like me," she added in a quiet voice.

"Hmph." Ouska snorted. "You're no ordinary one, girl, let me tell you. _She_ knows that, don't you, pumpkin." She ruffled Bibby's feathery curls.

Cat looked down, embarrassed. She was not used to having someone read her soul, and even though Ouska was doing it in the kindest possible manner, it was still disconcerting. Her eyes fell on her bandaged hand.

"Ouska?" She turned her head sideways, looking at the older woman's profile as she walked beside her. "You said that you have your powers. Do all of you have them? I mean, does everyone here have some kind of, I don't know, special ability? Like mind reading—well, okay, the Knowing—"

"Hold hard, girl—I can't read minds. And neither can Bibby here, even though she's Unissima Maxima (she's the daughter of an Unissima, which makes her doubly strong in the Knowing). Nobody can. The Knowing—it's just, well, knowing things that others don't. As if someone had told you in your ear. When you touched that tree, it sent a surge along that reached me almost immediately; the Knowing said to me, 'There's something happened in the Wald, and it's to do with the little one.' I've learned to my cost not to ignore that voice, so I set out, and found you, and her, and him—and here we are."

'Here' turned out to be the first few houses of the village. Cat was rather surprised. They looked much more prosperous, and far less rustic, than Guy's cottage in the forest clearing. Half-timbering predominated, filled with whitewashed wattle and daub or perhaps stonework; the roofs were shingled with wood which had weathered to a soft grey colour on most houses. Many of the small-paned windows had exterior sills with pots of blooming flowers or herbs on them, and wooden shutters were ready to be closed against nightfall.

The forest track became a hard-packed dirt road. Ouska turned right at the first house and pushed down the iron door latch on the solid-looking, closely jointed wooden door. They stepped into a kitchen, its floor laid with blue and brown ceramic tiles. A heavy wooden table with benches on either side of it stood in the middle; Welsh dressers occupied the spaces on either side of the window. Against the far wall was a fireplace, but unlike the open hearth in the cottage, this was enclosed with black cast-iron doors, like a wood stove built into the wall. Above the fire was something that looked like a large, enamelled tank; to the left of the fireplace, a sink with a pump attached to it. Indoor running water! Things were looking up.

Ouska put Bibby down on one of the benches, from which the little girl promptly slid down.

"Kiki!" she demanded.

"I don't know where kitty is," said Ouska. "Let's get her a saucer of milk, maybe she'll come." She took a shallow pottery dish from one of the dressers, glazed in the same brown as the dishes in Guy's cottage. Another unglazed jug, sitting in a dish of water and covered with cheesecloth, proved to be a milk pitcher. Ah, thought Cat, the water acts as an evaporation cooler! Smart. Ouska put the dish on the ground, poured a little of the milk into it, and told Bibby to call the kitty.

"Kiki, kiki!"

"No, like this: psspsspsspsspss!" The older woman hissed out a sharp call. Immediately there came a soft thump from the room next to the kitchen, and around the open door a beautiful little calico cat padded into view.

"Mrreow?" she said.

"Kiki!" squealed the baby, and pounced on the cat. The cat easily eluded her, padded over to the saucer, and settled down to lap at her treat, completely ignoring the little girl's happily patting her and pulling her tail.

"Now, Catriona, you'll want a wash," said Ouska, opening a door to the right of the fireplace. Cat followed her through into a small room that backed on to the kitchen. It was a bathroom! A full-fledged, regular bathroom. The fixtures looked different from what Cat was used to, but they were easily recognised as a washbasin and a tub—the latter with a spout coming directly off the big tank that was mounted above the fireplace on the kitchen side. Running hot water! Cat had never expected this. Ouska walked through another door on the other side of the bathroom and came back with a collection of linen.

"Here's a towel." She handed Cat a thick, white woven sheet. "And you'll want to put that blouse and skirt back on after; mine would be too wide and short for you. But you can have some of my underlinen; the drawers have a pull string, and the shift is loose anyway." She put the garments on the edge of the washbasin, then turned the tap on the water pipe to send warm water gushing into the round wooden tub. "When you're finished, just pull out the stopper" (she indicated something like a cork on the inside bottom edge of the tub). "It goes into a barrel out back. We use it to water the garden." Ah, greywater collection—they were certainly environmentally friendly in this place. "Oh, and here's a piece of soap."

Cat climbed into the tub, which was just big enough for her to sit in with her knees drawn up under her chin and have the water come all the way up under her arms. A hot sitz bath. Bliss.

Getting into the water made her suddenly notice that she had forgotten to take the bandage off her hand—in fact, she had forgotten about her hand being sore altogether. She had just used it as if nothing had happened. Puzzled, she unwound the cloth and wiggled her fingers. There was no sign of bruising, no evidence that only a few hours earlier she had wondered if every bone in that hand had been cracked.

She sank down into the warm water and let it soothe the kinks out of her body.

### CHAPTER 10

When Cat came back out of the bathroom half an hour later, trying to untangle her hair with her fingers, the kitchen smelled deliciously of hot soup and something tangy and clean that got up into Cat's nose in a rather pleasant way.

"Would you like a cup of mintbrew?" asked Ouska, gesturing at a round-bellied teapot sitting on the deal table.

"Mintbrew? Like tea, you mean? I'd love some!" Now Cat knew what that lovely sinus-clearing smell was. "You wouldn't have a comb or something, would you? I can't seem to get my hair straight."

"Oh, yes, of course! And you've washed your hair with the soap, haven't you—you'll need a rinse for that, or it'll be like straw." Ouska reached into the bottom of the cupboard and brought out a stoppered bottle. "Here, that'll do, just use a bit of it."

"What is it?"

"Cider vinegar. You need something sour to smooth out your hair again; soap's hard on it. Just take it to the bathroom; I'll get you that comb."

Catriona shrugged. She'd just had a bath in an oversized wooden bucket, in water heated on a wood fire; she was wearing woven linen underwear with drawstrings; she might as well be rinsing her hair with vinegar. When in Rome... except that she wasn't in Rome. She was in Isachang. Or rather, Samach. No, actually, Ruph. She felt quite proud of herself for remembering the names; it had always been one of her strong suits at work to retain little bits of information like that. Especially when it came to people; customers really liked it when you addressed them with their name after they had only been in once or twice. She wasn't so sure how she would do in this place, though, as the names were all so different—it was like learning a new language. A new challenge. Wasn't that what she had wanted when she quit her job? Well, she had it now. Cider vinegar for a hair rinse was only one small part. So, when in Ruph, do as the Ruphians do? Or were they called Ruffians?

Cat chuckled at her own joke as she hung her head over the wash basin in the bathroom, poured a little bit of vinegar into her hands and worked it into her hair. It stung in a small cut she didn't know she had on her left index finger. But when she had towelled off her hair again and used the comb Ouska had given her, she found that the wooden teeth slid smoothly and easily through her hair. She might smell like salad dressing now, but the vinegar seemed to work as well as any conditioner she had ever used!

"So, Catriona," Ouska said as they were sitting at the kitchen table, mugs of fragrant tea cupped in their hands, "you asked me something about the powers, earlier when we were walking."

Cat tried to remember. "Ah, yes. You said everyone had powers, or you all had them, or something. _Do_ you? I mean, does your husband, does—does Guy?"

"Uncle, certainly. He's the best brewman in the county. You had his applejack this morning, didn't you feel it?"

"You mean there was something magical about it? I thought it was just, you know, hard liquor."

"Oh, heavens, nothing magical. He just makes extremely good jack. And beer, and cider, and grape wine when he can get the fruit; really, he can make a drink out of anything he lays hands on. Mind you, I don't mean to say that there isn't something more to his drinks than those of any other brewman, but then he's one of the Septimi. They're all like that. Their oldest brother..."

"Septimi?" Cat had a puzzled frown on her face, trying to follow what Ouska was saying.

"Hmph. I keep forgetting you're from elsewhere. Things must be very different there. Do you have men in that place who, well, lead, who are responsible for making sure things run right with the others?"

"Well, yes, I suppose—we call them presidents, or—"

"And what can they do—what is special about them that makes them be that person?"

Cat laughed.

"I don't know if there's anything special they can do, to be perfectly honest. Maybe convince others to vote for them; that's about it."

"Vote?" Ouska looked puzzled. "So there's no particular gift they have that makes them necessary to the people? Well, it's not like that here. Here, we have the Septimi. They're a family of specially gifted men (their women are gifted, too, but for this task it's usually the men), descendants of a seventh son. They have a particular ability to serve the people; they have powers no one else has. I suppose what they can do is what you would call 'magic.' For most of them, it's just that extra gift within their gift, like Uncle's applejack—they've all got different abilities, there's never two in one generation that can do the same. As I was saying earlier, Uncle's eldest brother, he works with metals, iron for the most part; he built that stove and the water heater. Most ingenious thing I've seen; wouldn't be without it now. The third brother, Eradlor, he made the tub. Wood, metal, stone, music, colours, earth, even food—they all have their affinity, and what they can do with it is wonders.

"Together, they've always kept the traditions and served the people; they take it in turns to be the head man. But then every once in so often, a really special one comes along. It's always the seventh son. There hadn't been one in the family in decades, nigh on a hundred years, and then Salmor was born. He was Uncle's youngest brother."

"So what could he do?" Cat was leaning forward on her elbows, fascinated.

"That's just it: he was the seventh son. The seventh son's power is much greater than those of the others, and different. He can guide men (and children, and often women, too); and he usually has powers in his hands that let him do things that others have to have tools for, if they can do them at all. I heard tell of a seventh son who could make water boil in a cup, just by holding it (and no, he didn't burn his hands every time; like every other gift, he learned to control it). So they say that the seventh should never be a craftsman like his brothers; he cannot use more than one gift. Hmph."

"So, Sal-Salmor? What became of him?"

"Well, he was the Septimus— _the_ Septimus. And he fulfilled his role well. It was he who decided to expand the village, who had the new wells dug, and whose idea it was to bring the water from the wells to all the houses." She pointed at the pump by the sink. "Some of his brothers helped him with the particulars, of course, but it was his hands that put the pieces together, and that's what made them work. He was a good man, was Salmor. It's nearly three years now he's been gone."

"So who takes care of the village now—his brothers again? Or did he have sons himself?" asked Cat.

"Oh, didn't I say?" said Ouska, getting up to put the teapot back on the dresser. "Of course he had sons. He was Guy's father."

### CHAPTER 11

"Guy's father?" Cat should have seen it coming, but there was so much that was new and confusing in this place, she had utterly failed to put two and two together. "So, he's one of the Septimi? Then, that's why—"

Ouska turned her head, rather quickly.

"Why what?"

Cat held out her right hand, without bandage and completely well.

"He touched it, again, just before you came back this morning. I don't know what he did, but look." She flexed her fingers, made a fist, and then flattened out her hand again.

There was a curious gleam in Ouska's eyes, but she shook her head.

"I've never heard of one being able to do that. Guy's a craftsman, he—"

She was interrupted by a knock on the door, which was immediately followed by the appearance of a head around the edge of the door.

"Mother?" A young woman stepped into the room, her red-blonde hair wreathed around her head in the same coronet style Ouska wore. She was carrying Bibby and put her down on the kitchen floor. "Mother, the goat is having troubles with the kids, and I can't handle her on my own. Can you help? I'm sorry, I thought I could keep the little one with me for a while, but the goat's bad..."

She caught sight of Cat, whose chair was partially hidden behind the open door.

"Oh, I didn't see you there!" She smiled at her. "You must be the visitor? I'm Yldra. I'm sorry to be rushing in here like this, but, Mother," she turned back to Ouska, her voice taking on urgency, "I'm really worried about that goat."

The older woman was already opening cupboards and drawers and taking out what seemed to be a collection of supplies, presumably for the midwifery of bothersome goats. She looked at Cat.

"I was going to keep you here for a while, Catriona, you and the babe, but now it looks like I'm needed. In fact, I think we might have need of Uncle as well. Think you can find your way back to the cottage? It would be a tremendous help if you could send him out to us; just tell him his daughter's goat is having trouble with the kidding."

Cat smiled wryly. The people in this place seemed somewhat crisis-prone. She was getting downright used to being thrown from one emergency into another.

"Not a problem! Is there anything we need to lock up here, or turn down, or something?"

"No, none of that. If you can just take the little one with you, we'll all be off," said Ouska. Her matter-of-fact tone told Cat that she was fully confident in Cat's ability to handle whatever was coming her way, which made Cat determine that she would not disappoint her.

"Come on, munchkin!" she said to Bibby, scooped her up, and settled her on her hip like she had seen Ouska do. "Let's go see your papa."

"Yee bubba," agreed the little girl.

Half an hour later, they were back at the cottage and had delivered the message to Uncle, who immediately set out to assist his wife and daughter. Under his breath he muttered about being the village nursemaid, but his tone clearly stated that he really did not mind. In fact, Cat wondered if he wasn't rather proud of nobody being able to do without him.

Guy was propped up in his bed, drinking some soup out of one of his brown pottery bowls, when Cat and Bibby walked into the cottage. He looked a vast deal better than when Cat had seen him last—much cleaner, for one. He was wearing a white linen shirt, laced up at the throat; his bed was now properly made up (Cat looked around for the old blanket Ouska had made such scathing comments about and found it bundled into a corner by the fireplace), and his legs were lightly covered with a sheet and clean blanket. His hair, now that it was not smeared with clay, turned out to be a darker shade of red than that of his cousin Yldra; it was long enough to brush his collar, but the way it sprang back from his forehead and waved around his face clearly indicated from whom his little girl had inherited her feathery curls. His face, though still pale, had lost the horrible grey hue Cat had last seen on it, and his eyes were much clearer now.

Cat made up her mind to stop being embarrassed about being in his cottage with him. After all, if she were a nurse, this would be perfectly normal, wouldn't it? So she would simply consider herself a nurse. Or the babysitter—that was an even more familiar role. Except that when she was babysitting, back in her teen years, she was never stuck in a rustic cottage with the sick father of the baby she was looking after. Oh dear...

She cast a sidelong glance at his face and saw that he was looking at her just as awkwardly as she felt. Their eyes met, and they laughed nervously. Bibby looked from one to the other and gave a high-pitched baby giggle, which set both of the adults really laughing. After that, there was no more room for tension or awkwardness. Cat smiled at him.

"Good soup?" she asked.

He smiled back, an attractive lopsided grin that crinkled up the corner of his eye.

"The best. Aunt made it, so I'm to eat every last drop. There's more in the pot on the table, if you want some—Cat?"

"Gah," confirmed Bibby, then tried out the combination of their names: "Bubbagah. Bubbagah youp."

"Yes, that's right!" said Cat, realising she was beginning to understand almost everything the little girl said. "Papa and Cat are eating soup. And Bibby too." She sat the baby on the bench by the table and brought over two more pottery bowls. Suddenly she felt Guy's eyes on her, watching her handling of the dishes.

"Your hand?" he asked, quietly.

Wordlessly, she held it out to him, turned up her palm, and flexed her fingers. A look of relief crossed his face, followed by something that felt as if shutters were being closed. No, this was not the time to ask him what happened there, Cat realised. She turned back to the soup on the table.

Cat and Bibby had finished their soup, and the little girl was yawning.

"Looks like someone needs a nap!" Cat said.

"Yes, and Bibby's looking sleepy, too," replied Guy from the bed. He surprised a laugh out of Cat, but a look in his face showed that he was looking grey around the edges again, and he was drooping against his pillow.

"Very well," Cat said in her best imitation of Ouska's no-nonsense voice, "a nap it is. But Bibby goes potty first." She took the little girl by the hand, led her out the front door, and turned left around the adjacent building. The water pump was on the corner of the building, but next to it Cat noticed an entrance door into the annex, with a large window beside it. Some twenty yards away from the back corner of the building was a strange beehive-shaped structure, built of piled-up bricks, about four or five feet high and as much across, with a round curved tunnel leading into it from one side. No, not a beehive, thought Cat, an igloo! A tall, straight-sided brick igloo, with a really small entrance. Curious.

They turned the corner again, walked along the back wall of the annex, opened the gate in the garden fence, which was made of woven sticks, and went around the next corner to the privy. It seemed a bit of a long trek around the house to get to the privy when it was stuck right to the back wall of the house, Cat thought; then she noticed a door in the annex wall at a right angle to the privy door. She tried the latch, but it was locked from the inside.

When they returned to the cottage, Guy was looking like he was ready to drop off to sleep.

"You know, you can go through the workshop to get out back," he said, his voice roughening again with the sudden fatigue of illness.

"Oh, I see. No, Bibby, your bed is over here!" Cat said, as the little girl was attempting to climb up on her father's bed. She tried to scoop the baby back off the bed, but Guy weakly shook his head, with a light contraction of his eyebrows.

"She always sleeps with me," he said. With an obvious effort, he reached out his arm and pulled the little girl closer to his side; she snuggled against him and gave a deep satisfied sigh. The man pulled the blanket over both of them and closed his eyes in exhaustion. In just a few minutes, their regular breathing showed that both had fallen asleep.

### CHAPTER 12

Cat was unsure what to do next. She wanted to clean up the dishes, but did not know how to heat the water; besides, the clatter would disturb the sleepers on the bed. Her eye fell on the door beside the fireplace. The workshop! She might as well do some exploring; if nothing else, she could find the shorter route to the privy out back. The door was a plank door and, like the front door of the cottage, opened inwardly. In fact, it looked a lot like it had started life as another exterior door; the annex must have been an addition to the cottage at a later date.

Cat found herself stepping down off a doorstep into a room nearly one and a half times the size of the cottage. It was lit by the window that looked out on the stone beehive-igloo. In the middle of the room stood a solid-looking table, its top covered with tightly stretched canvas stained a reddish brown. Along the wall to Cat's left ran long shelves, filling the whole wall all the way up to the ceiling. All at once, she recognised the objects on the shelves, smelled that arts-and-crafts scent of clay, and the realisation clicked into place: Guy was a potter.

Suddenly things made sense. He had been getting clay for his work from the pit when he injured himself. The brown pottery dishes in his and Ouska's house were his own work. And the beehive thing—the beehive was where he fired the pots! Cat was quite proud of herself for recognising the kiln now. She'd seen pictures in reference books back at the library. Pottery: Dewey decimal call number 738. Cat had to make an effort to come up with the number. Thoughts of the library seemed very remote now. Was it really less than twenty-four hours since she had left Greenward Falls, had been plucked out of her placid ex-librarian's existence and been hurled into this new world—this new, ancient world? This world in which a matter-of-fact woman read Cat's mind, telling her she was a capable person and not ordinary, expecting her as a matter of course to nurse an injured man and take care of a small girl who had the strange gift of Knowing; this world where a man asked her to marry him in the night, then crushed her hand in the morning and cured it again an hour later, where a little girl with feathery red curls knew Cat's name, fell asleep in her arms, and had firmly planted herself in Cat's heart? Just twenty-four hours?!

Cat turned around. To her left stood a tall cupboard, almost like a wardrobe, with its two wooden doors firmly closed. In the corner between that cupboard and the shelves full of unglazed pottery on the other wall was another deal door, with the bolt that latched it shot into place. Cat pulled back the bolt, opened the door, and stuck her head outside. As she had expected, the sight of the privy door met her on the left in the corner formed between the cottage itself and the workshop, which jutted out a bit further into the garden. Part One of Mission, accomplished: she had found the interior way to get to the privy. Beside the outhouse, attached to the back of the cottage, was a low, sloping roof covering a large pile of chopped firewood and a jumble of various equipment. Cat thought she could make out a hoe and a shovel; probably gardening tools.

Latching the back door shut again, she stepped back into the workshop. On the other side of the door into the cottage was a fireplace, the twin of the one in the cottage on the other side of the wall. They must share the chimney, Cat thought. Beyond the fireplace, in the corner of the workshop, was the potter's chief tool: the wheel. It was set into a wooden frame, about three feet high, four feet wide and long. A bench was mounted on one side, and a flat surface on the other side held various containers. A jar had some shaping tools sticking out of it, a bowl contained pieces of sponge and a strip of something that looked like leather, a bucket held muddy water, and another was half full of slurried clay blobs. In the middle was the wheel itself. The top was a metal disk, about a foot across, with small concentric grooves carved into it. It was attached by a straight shaft, two feet high, to another disk at the bottom. Was that called the flywheel? Cat thought she had heard that term mentioned. It looked for all the world like it was made of stone, granite even; nearly two-and-a-half feet across and at least six inches thick, it was probably horrendously heavy. Cat reached out a hand and gave the wheel an experimental push. It barely budged. She grabbed the edge of the top disk with both hands, like a steering wheel, and tried to make it spin—gently at first, then when it wouldn't move, she finally twisted as hard as she could. Lazily the wheel spun into motion, slowly turning around, and around, and around, and around... Cat nearly got dizzy from looking at the smoothly, silently spinning wheel head. I wonder how long it'll keep doing that, she thought.

Turning away from the motion of the wheel, Cat explored the rest of the workshop. On the two walls that formed the outer corner of the building (the water pump was on the outside of one of them, Cat thought), more shelving was mounted, much of it open slat work. It held partially finished pieces; some were cups without handles and lids without knobs which looked like they were drying from the edges in. Cat wondered if they were supposed to do that or if Guy had meant to get back to them as soon as he came back with the clay he had been fetching. There were some nondescript shapes concealed under pieces of oilcloth, probably meant to be protected from the fate of the prematurely drying cups and lids, and then quite a number of finished dishes, drying slowly as the air circulated around them.

The wheel still kept spinning behind Cat, lazily circling around, and around, ever more slowly. One more thing Cat hadn't explored: she wanted to see what was in that cupboard. It was a tall piece of furniture, probably seven feet high, and about five feet wide. The doors had shallow designs carved into them: swooping S-curves, with one door mirroring the image on the other. The knobs were fastened in the middle and carved out of the same light wood as the rest of the cupboard. Red-brown stains on the handles and the doors showed that the cupboard had been opened more than once with clay-smeared hands; the right knob had a clear print of a thumb and three fingers on it.

Cat experimentally pulled on the doorknob. To her surprise, the doors swung open easily, with a soft creak, revealing an inside filled with finished pottery dishes. A great lot of it was glazed in the brown that she had already seen on the pieces in Guy's and Ouska's kitchen, but some were of an interesting, mossy green, and a few even had a bluish sheen. Curious pierced-hole patterns ran through several of the pieces, some in neat, even rows like perforations, others randomly scattered over the surface. Cat thought the pots might have been meant for wind lights, except that at least one of them was obviously a milk jug like the one in the cottage, and another was a tea cup, with the holes right in the bottom. She wondered what the purpose of it was, what Guy had been thinking when he made those pieces. They were beautiful, but the holes seemed quite odd.

Cat squatted down to see the dishes on the lower shelves. A thin layer of dust was covering them, as if they had been put there some time ago and not handled since. The lowest shelf, on the bottom of the cupboard, held some attractive cups in the moss-green glaze, the shapes slightly uneven. Cat took one out and wiped the dust off it; it felt cool and pleasant in her hand. Behind it she spotted a squat shape. She thought it looked like the round-bellied teapot Ouska had in her kitchen, which Cat had liked a lot, so she reached in, found a handle to take hold of, and carefully pulled it out.

Something came with it, making a soft metallic clinking noise against the ceramic of the pot. A short silver chain was caught on a small decorative protrusion on the spout of the teapot. It was tarnished black with age and tangled around itself. Cat put the teapot on the plank floor of the workshop and cautiously tried to detach the chain from its spout. When it came free, Cat saw that it was not only tarnished, but several of the fine links were bent, as if someone had tried to tear or crush the chain. In the middle of the chain, barely attached by a half-open wire ring, hung a broken pendant.

It had been a bird, a delicate small bird in flight. The black tarnish obscured the fine detail of the filigree, but Cat could make out the bird's head, could see how its tiny beak had been open in a cheerful song as it flew. The ring was attached to its back, between the spread wings, but now all that was left was one wing of the bird and its head. Someone had savagely snapped the delicate pendant in half.

### CHAPTER 13

The morning sunlight flooded into Ouska's kitchen, where Cat and Bibby were sitting at the table, eating thick spoonfuls of porridge laced with honey. Fragrant mint tea was steaming in a cup beside Cat's bowl.

"I sure slept well last night," said Cat to Ouska, who was stirring the porridge in the pot, which was sitting on the lip that jutted out over the wood fire. "Your spare bed is a lot more comfortable than Guy's rocking chair, especially when you have to share sleeping quarters with little people." She smiled at the baby.

"Bibby lepp!" pronounced the little girl.

"Yes, you slept too."

"Bibby wake!"

"And then you woke up," agreed Cat.

"Bibby pay now!"

"You want to do what?"

"Pay. Pay kiki."

"Oh, play with the kitty! I don't know where the kitty is; why don't you see if you can find her?"

The little girl slid off the bench and toddled off to find the cat.

"I hope the men did all right in the cottage last night," Cat said to Ouska.

"Oh, yes, I expect so. Provided the boy could sleep over Uncle's snoring." The older woman chuckled. "That man can rattle the windows sometimes. No, they'll have been fine. Was glad to see that wound is getting so much better; won't be long before that young fool will be champing at the bit to get back to working."

Cat smiled.

"He sure makes nice dishes," she said, admiring the mug in her hand. "They feel just right. Those are all his work, aren't they?"

A yowl and a baby's scream were heard from the next room. Cat and Ouska both jumped; Ouska reached the door first. Bibby was crying hard, holding out her pudgy little hand with a thin red scratch line across it.

"Kiki bad! Bibby owie!" she sobbed.

Ouska scooped her up in a comforting hug.

"Tush, tush," she soothed, then looked over her head at Cat. "Well, perhaps that'll teach her to treat the cat with a bit more respect. Had to happen sooner or later," she added prosaically, then bore the baby off to the bathroom to clean the scratch. The small cat nonchalantly padded into the kitchen, sat on the hearth rug, and licked her paw.

A knock sounded on the door. When Cat went to open it, a girl stood outside. She was perhaps fifteen years old, had long, dark hair, and wore a set of clothes not unlike the ones Cat had on herself, except that the girl's were tucked in tightly to show off her figure. On her arm hung a basket, which was covered with a buff-coloured linen cloth.

"Can I help you?"

"Oh, oh, I was looking for the wisewoman! I got eggs for her" (the girl indicated the basket on her arm), "and my mother wants some more of the balm leaves for the brew she makes, and a bit of the salve for the sores."

"Well, why don't you come in then; she should be right out," said Cat, turning back into the kitchen.

The girl stepped over the doorsill and gave Cat a nosey look.

"Your skirt and blouse—they look just like Ashya's!" she said.

Cat found that a rather curious introduction.

"Well, they were loaned to me. Who is Ashya? I'm new in town, I don't know people yet."

"You don't know about Ashya? I thought you were one of _her_ family." She tipped her head in the direction of the back parts of the house, indicating Ouska.

"Well, I met her nephew, and her husband, and—I suppose Bibby is a great-niece," Cat explained.

"Ooh, the little darling!" The girl put on a sugary smile which she must have thought showed her fondness for children, then immediately dropped it again. "But if you know her, you should know who Ashya—who she _was._ " She lowered her voice to a near whisper, then leaned forward conspiratorially. "You know what I think? I think _he_ killed her!"

"Uh, pardon me?"

"You know, _him!_ The potter. _Guy._ " She pronounced the name with a sneer. "He's got a filthy temper; Ashya told me so herself. I'm her cousin, you know." She flounced around and settled herself on the bench by the table. "Ashya, she said he was such an awfully jealous husband, _and_ mean, and wouldn't let her do anything she wanted _or_ get her anything she liked. And then she had the baby" (another flounce), "and he wanted her to just _stay_ there, in that filthy little house out in the woods, and do nothing but look after the baby. And if she tried to just get her own way a _teensy_ little bit, he would fly into a jealous rage. She told me so _herself_. And then," she dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper again, "she _disappeared_!"

"Hmm," Cat nodded her head in her best listening manner, an art she had perfected at the library through countless rants by patrons intent on sharing their latest pet theories.

"Well, it's true! Nobody's seen her since that day last summer—not this past one, the one before—when she came into town, just to do a _little_ shopping, they say, and then _he_ came after her, all smeared with his filthy clay, and dragged her home by the _hair_ , they say. And," she opened her eyes wide in a dramatic gesture, obviously relishing every detail of her tale, "somebody heard _screaming_ from that house, and... _nobody's—seen—her—since._ "

"Really," said Cat, noncommittally.

"Yes! Ooh, and you know, the same thing happened to _him_!"

Now Cat was thoroughly confused.

"Guy disappeared, too?"

"No, no, not him, _his brother!_ You know," she leaned forward again in her conspirator's style, "the _Septimissimus!! Everyone_ knows he's filthy jealous of him, because he was only the sixth, and _Sepp_ , he's seventh, so _he_ had all the _gift—_ and then Sepp, he had a screaming fight with him in the street, they say, and the next day he went to his house, in the woods, and _he_ disappeared, too! I wonder what happened. Sepp's really _cute_. I'm going to marry him, you know." She flipped her dark hair back over her shoulder.

"Well, if Sepp's disappeared, that would be a little difficult, wouldn't it?" This girl was getting on Cat's nerves.

"Kashinka!" Ouska had stepped back into the room. The girl jumped up off the bench, all signs of the conspiracy theorist gone.

"Oh, oh, wisewoman," she stammered, "here's eggs, and mother wants more balmbrew and salve."

"Very well," Ouska said, briefly. She looked out the required supplies and made short shrift of sending the girl on her way.

Cat looked at Ouska in surprise. The older woman was banging the empty porridge bowls from the table into a stack and set them on the dresser with a thump; then with a loud clatter she took the lid off the water kettle and gave the pump handle a few vicious yanks.

"Fool!" she finally said. "Utter fool, that Kashinka! Conceited, empty-headed, silly, self-absorbed _fool_! But they're all like that, the whole family." She slammed the kettle on the top of the fireplace cook surface.

"Is it true she is Guy's wife's cousin?"

"Yes, unfortunately. And that was about the only true thing she told you."

"You heard what she said then?"

"The last bit. The rest I already heard before, often enough. It's nonsense, tomfoolery—most of it, at any rate. Don't believe a word of it!" she said fiercely.

"Most of it? Then some of it is true? What about this Septimississi..." Cat stumbled over the syllables.

"Septimissimus? Yes, that's true enough. Well, that the seventh son of the seventh son of the Septimi—you'll recall what I told you—that he's double strong in the Powers. We call him the Septimissimus. Yes, we have one right now; that only happens once every few hundred years, if that."

"Guy's brother?"

"He's got a brother, yes. Sepp. Young fool," she added, almost automatically and in a fond tone that gave the lie to the insult. "He's not much more than a year younger than the boy, turned twenty-eight Thursday last. That Kashinka's nonsense about them fighting in the street—sometimes I'd like to take a paddle to that girl. Of course the boys fought when they were small; they were brothers, weren't they? They're fond enough of each other now; they've long since outgrown the fisticuffs."

"So where is he now, that Sepp?"

Ouska looked thoughtful.

"That I can't tell you. The worst of that silly girl's lies is that there's half-truths hid in them, like a needle stuck in a piece of cloth that jabs you when you least expect it. Sepp—well, the boy always had a hankering to fly the coop, to see the world. He's not like his brother. Guy belongs here; he is rooted in the earth he works with, but Sepp—no. For the last while, some months now, he has been more and more out of sorts, and a week ago it got rather so even people who didn't know him well noticed. He might have snapped at his brother when they met in the street that day, but by then he was snapping at everyone. And it's true enough that the last time anyone saw him he was headed down the path to the pottery."

"So Guy was the last person to see him? What does he say about it?"

The older woman gave a brief grunt.

"Nothing—what do you expect?"

She leaned over the table to wipe the porridge splatters from Bibby's spot, and a silver pendant on a necklace, slightly darkened with tarnish, swung free from the neckline of her blouse.

"That's a nice necklace," Cat said. "I never noticed it before! Do you always wear it?"

Ouska reached for the necklace, pulled it outwards from her neck, and screwed her eyes downwards to look at the pendant.

"Oh dear, that's black! Needs cleaning." She reached behind her head, unclasped the necklace, and took it off. "Yes, it's my wedding chain. That's not been off my neck for more than a few minutes in the last forty years."

Cat picked up the necklace from the table where Ouska had put it down. The pendant was shaped like a small animal—a circular centre, with five little stubs protruding from it, one of which formed the loop that suspended it from the chain. A turtle, Cat thought, looking like it was hanging on to the chain with its teeth.

"A wedding chain?"

"Yes, it's the sign of the marriage—the contract, if you will. Uncle gave it to me for our wedding." Ouska placed a grey metal dish, like a small pie plate, on the table. "Pass me the salt cellar, will you?" she requested, and when Cat gave her the ceramic pot, held out her other hand for the necklace. Intrigued, Cat watched as the older woman put the necklace in the bottom of the dish and sprinkled a teaspoon of salt over it.

"Is it always an animal on the pendant?" she asked.

"Most often. But sometimes it's a tree, or a flower. Always a living thing, though; it says that as long as the chain is whole, the marriage will live." Ouska fetched the water kettle from the cook top of the wood stove. "That's what I meant when I said it's the contract—you can break the marriage if you wilfully break the necklace."

She poured boiling water from the kettle onto the salt-covered necklace in the dish. A sharp, metallic smell rose with the steam, and when it cleared, Cat saw that the chain and pendant in the water were bright silver again. Low-tech silver immersion polish—how clever!

Ouska fished the necklace out of the water with a wooden fork, rinsed it under the pump, then dried it with a soft cloth and clasped it around her neck again. She tucked the brightly gleaming pendant under her blouse.

"Better check on the babe," she said. "I left her playing with a doll on my bed; it's so quiet she's either gone to sleep or got up to mischief."

### CHAPTER 14

Ouska had been absolutely right about Guy. When Cat returned to the cottage (without Bibby, who was playing with her cousins in the village for a few hours), the potter and his uncle appeared to be finishing an argument about whether it was prudent for Guy to get back to his work already.

"I need to get things done!" he insisted. "As I said, I feel fine; I'm going crazy just sitting here with you." He limped through the door into his workshop.

Uncle shook his head in frustration.

"Champing at the bit, the young fool," he muttered through his thick, greying beard.

Cat chuckled.

"That's just what your wife said he'd be doing," she told the older man, "in exactly those words."

The corner of his mouth twitched up in a lopsided, eye-crinkling grin that was the mirror image of that of his nephew.

"Well, the woman, she knows," he said. "If she thinks that's what would happen, and she hasn't sent any messages that I should keep the boy from his workshop and tied to his bed, then that's good enough for me." He stood up.

"Fact is, I need to get back to my own work; I've got some cider needs racking today. Should have been done yesterday, but, well, needs must." He nodded his head in the direction of the workshop. "One extra day won't have harmed my brew, but I don't want to leave it any longer than absolutely necessary. Think you can manage here with him?"

Cat was feeling shy again.

"I think so..." She felt a blush climbing up her face and was so embarrassed by it she blushed even more.

"You'll do, girl," said Uncle, patting her on the shoulder as he crossed to room to pick up his leather satchel from the floor in the corner. Somehow Cat felt there was a weight to his opinion—that his approval was of more than just her presence in this house to look after his injured nephew for an afternoon. It was as if she had been appraised and passed the test. And curiously, it made her proud.

He slung the satchel over his shoulder so the strap ran across his deep barrel chest.

"There's some of the soup and bread left to eat, and the ointment and more bandages are in the box on the shelf," he said. "I patched him up just a little while ago; the wound is coming along nicely. He'll just have to be careful with it, but that's not something you can force on him. I'll be off now." He gave Cat a nod of his head that was almost a small bow, and with that he walked out the door.

Cat was unsure what to do with herself. She looked around the cottage—all seemed clean and tidy. The dishes had been washed, and the beds had been straightened, both the larger pallet in the corner that Uncle had slept on and Guy's platform bed under the window. The fireplace had a small fire in it that was gently crackling to itself, spreading a pleasant warmth through the room. She wondered if there was a fire in the hearth on the workshop side, too, and decided to investigate.

Guy was in the corner of the room, by the drying shelves, examining the cups and lids Cat had looked at the previous day. He had put on a clay-smeared half-apron that looked as if it might be made of washleather; it was tied around the waist and covered him to the knees. He had his tunic sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and his feet were encased in a pair of clay-spattered half-boots. He looked up as he heard the shop door creak and raised his eyebrows in greeting as he saw Cat.

"These are ruined, I think," he said, gesturing at her with one of the lids without a handle. "Too dry now to put the knob on. Ah well, we start again." He chucked the lid into a bucket which sat on the floor between the wheel and the shelf and was filled with dried-up pottery pieces. It hit the contents with a dull thwack, and broke. Cat gasped—did he so casually discard his work? Guy looked up at the sound and gave her his crooked smile.

"There's plenty more where that came from," he said, sending half a dozen partially dried cups without handles after the lid. "It's not a waste; I'll reuse it. As long as it's not fired, the clay can be re-wet over and over and made into new things."

"Couldn't you salvage these? Seems a shame to throw them out!"

"No, the handles won't stick now; they'd just crack off during drying—or worse, after they're fired, and then it really would be a waste. There's not much use for a fired cracked pot. And, believe me, these aren't a great loss; I can easily make more. Besides, sometimes this"—he narrowed his eyes, and hurled another cup into the bucket with extra violence—"can be quite satisfying." The cup shattered into a dozen pieces.

He limped over a few paces, then awkwardly squatted down on the ground, stretching his injured leg out straight to the side to keep from having to bend it. He stuck his fingers into what Cat had taken for a knot hole in the plank flooring and pulled upwards. A section of the floor came up, showing itself to be a trap door covering a large hollow space beneath. Guy balanced himself on the edge of the opening with one hand, reached into the cavity with the other, and lifted out an oilcloth-wrapped bundle about the size of Cat's head. Cat peered into the hole; it was full of these bundles and smelled strongly of clay. Guy put the lump beside the opening, closed the trap door, and tried to lift the bundle and stand up at the same time, but nearly lost his balance.

"Ouch!" The bundle dropped to the floor again as he caught himself on the edge of the table and pulled to a full standing position.

"Here, I'll get it!" Cat said. She sprang forward to keep him from bending again, grasped the lump in both hands—and her eyes nearly started from their sockets. She could barely lift it! It must have weighed at least twenty, perhaps even thirty pounds. With a grunt Cat heaved the bundle onto the table. "Whoa, that's no small peas!" she said.

Guy chuckled and unwrapped the oilcloth from the bundle, revealing a large lump of dark reddish-brown clay. He looked around, searching for something, then tried to step over to the wheel. He winced as he put weight on his bad leg.

"Could you...?"

"What do you need?"

"The cutting wire. With the other tools." He pointed at the jar on the shelf by the wheel, and Cat saw something wiry hanging between the shaping sticks and looped tools sticking up out of the container. It turned out to be just that, a piece of thin wire, about twenty inches long, the ends tied around short pieces of doweling. She passed it over to him.

"Thanks." Guy balanced himself on his good leg. He grasped the wire by its dowel handles, drew it tight between his hands, and garrotted the lump of clay, slicing it in half. He picked up the upper half, gave it a quarter turn, and smacked it back down on the lower half with a force that Cat could feel clear through the floorboards. He picked up the lump, brought it down on the wire, sliced, turned, hit, over and over.

"What are you doing that for?" Cat asked curiously.

"Gets the air bubbles out," he explained, briefly. He gave the lump a final smack, then began slicing it into smaller pieces. He put three of them to one side, then took the fourth, still a good eight inches in diameter, and began kneading it on the canvas surface of the table. Both hands cupped the clay piece, squeezed inward, rolled thumbs-upward towards his body, released, squeezed again, and rolled. It was a swift motion, almost hypnotic in its steady rhythm. After a few minutes, the piece of clay was curled in a squat cylinder, almost like a ram's head, with a stub nose and two horns spiralling on the sides where he had grasped it and rolled it towards himself. Guy picked it up, slapped one of the ram's horns into his left palm, and smacked it into a rounded mound, continuing to rotate it in his palm in the same direction as the rolled ram's head. He placed it on the side of the table, then picked up the next piece and began to knead it in the same way.

Cat watched, fascinated.

"What does this do?" she asked.

"Makes it ready for throwing," he replied.

"Throwing?" Cat was having visions of pieces of clay being chucked against the wall. She unconsciously mimed the idea, moving her hand just slightly as if she was tossing a beanbag. Guy looked at her and laughed.

"No, turning the clay on the wheel. It's called throwing, wheel-throwing."

"Oh." Cat felt a bit sheepish, but then, how was she supposed to have known that?

"Can I try this kneading thing?"

"Wedging," he corrected. "Sure, go ahead."

She picked up one of the smaller lumps—even that still weighed three or four pounds!—and tried to squeeze her hands around it the way she saw him doing. She barely made a dent in the clay, and the piece refused to be rocked towards her.

"Uh..."

"You've never done this, have you? You'd better start smaller." He wired a small chunk off the lump, perhaps a third of the size of the whole, and held it out to her.

"Put your hands on either side, like so"—he demonstrated with the remaining piece. "Then squeeze, and turn."

"Oh, sort of like the way you'd hold your hand to unscrew a pickle jar lid, except on both sides at once and with the jar lying on its side!" she said, delighted that she understood.

"Eh?" It was his turn to be puzzled.

"Um, never mind. I guess you don't have screw-top jars here," she said.

Her little piece of clay was just about the size that she could cup entirely in her hands, and she was able to squeeze and roll it.

"Look, it's making that ram's face!" she said proudly.

"I've always called it a bull's head," he said, "but, yes, it is."

Cat looked up to see that in the time she had half kneaded—no, wedged—her little piece, he had finished the remaining three.

"Do you want this one too?" she asked, but he shook his head.

"These will do me for now," he said, and scooped up the wedged pieces two to a hand. He limped over to the pottery wheel and deposited the clay on the bench. He frowned into the water bucket.

"Hmm. I suppose that's enough to go on with," he said.

Awkwardly he manoeuvred his injured leg past the shaft of the wheel and sat down on the bench seat of the wheel frame. He rested his left leg, slightly stretched out to favour the wound, on a bar of the frame, and propped his other foot on a corresponding bar on the right, while he fished with his hand in the water bucket. He brought out a small sponge, about the size of his fist, squeezed out most of the water, and wiped down the wheel head.

Cat had stopped wrestling with her clay chunk and turned to watch Guy.

He picked up the first of the rounded clay mounds, briefly held it over the wheel head, then smacked it down hard, dead centre. His right foot came off the bar on the side, and began kicking at the flywheel, hard, rhythmic kicks, faster and faster. The wheel spun into motion, hummed, flew. His hand reached out, he squeezed the sponge into the water bucket, brought it out dripping, and discharged it over the whirling clay mound. Water flew off the wheel, splattering the wall, the side of the fireplace, his apron (Ah, I see, thought Cat, that's what it's for!). Then he braced his elbows against his hips and cupped the clay on the wheel between his hands. He pushed the clay together so it spun perfectly true, exactly centred, then squeezed up. It rose into a dome, a column.

"A hoodoo!" Cat said out loud.

"What?" He looked up at her, his hands playing the spinning clay.

"Oh, it's just that, where I come from, there's these stone or earth columns in some places; they look just like what you're making there. Hoodoos."

"Ah. I think we have some of those too, out on the Plains," he said, turning his attention back to the wheel. The hoodoo under his hands was changing, growing taller and thinner; he tilted the tip over with his thumbs in one direction and another, then he put the heel of his right hand on top and pushed down, and the whole whirling and spinning column collapsed again into a squat, round mound under his long, tapering fingers.

Now his motion changed. He squeezed the sponge into the bucket again, brought another inundation of water onto the round, smooth lump on the wheel, and cupped both his hands around the clay. His thumbs met on top, in the middle of the clay. They pushed down, dug in, pulled outward to hollow (muck was dripping off his apron onto his half-boots, spinning off onto the walls, onto his waist). His foot kicked the wheel again, ten, twelve fast, hard kicks, then went back to brace itself against the support bar. Another squeeze of the sponge. Guy shifted his position, tipped his head so he could look at his piece sideways. His hair fell over his eyes; he shook it back and pushed one wavy red strand out of his face with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of clay unnoticed across his forehead. He gave the wheel another few kicks and put his fingers in place on the inside and outside of the beginning pot.

Gently, smoothly, in front of Cat's astonished eyes, whirling and spinning, a vessel rose under his hands. One upward pull of the knuckles, two, a third one, and a perfect cup was revolving on the wheel.

Guy's motion did not stop. He reached for the sponge again, squeezed it dry, and this time sponged away the soft watery slurry that was coating the vessel and the wheel surface. Inside the cup and out, the sponge marked soft, fine ridges in the clay. He squeezed the slurry into the water bucket, rinsed the sponge, wiped up the slip on the wheel, then exchanged the sponge for a wooden tool, flat and pointed on one end like the tip of a knife. Inserting it into the angle between the cup and the wheel, he scraped away a wedge of clay at the foot of the piece. He dropped the tool back into the jar and reached for the cutting wire. His foot braked the flywheel to a stop; he tightened the wire between his hands and drew it across the wheel head, slicing the cup off the wheel.

Cat broke into spontaneous applause.

Guy looked up and grinned his crooked grin at her.

"It's not that amazing, once you've seen it a few times." He cupped his flat hands around the vessel and very gently lifted it off the wheel to the working surface in front of him.

"Well, it's amazing to me!" she said. "I could watch this forever. It's such a soothing motion—almost organic, as if it was growing. Do you enjoy doing that?"

"Yes, I do," he said, smacking the second piece of clay into the centre of the wheel and kicking the wheel into motion. "I like the way the clay feels under my hand, how it moves and responds to what I do. And unlike some," a quick shadow passed over his face, "I don't mind the muck." He bent over the wheel again and started centring the clay.

Cat smiled.

"No, I wouldn't either. I still walk barefoot in the mud if I have the chance; I like that squishiness between my toes."

He gave her a quick, upward glance, surprised, questioning; then silently he turned his face back to his work.

They spent the next hour in companionable silence. Cat watched Guy as he made a dozen more cups to replace the ones he had discarded. When she got tired of watching, she collected the chair from the cottage and sat at the table, playing with the piece of clay she had tried to wedge. She dug her fingers into it, twisted it, rolled it, poked it, squished it, and suddenly had made a small sculpture, stuck on the end of her raised index finger, without having really intended to do so. It looked like a little head, a gnome, grinning at her mischievously. She grinned back at it, enjoying what she had made.

"Nice," said Guy over her shoulder. She looked up at him standing behind her (I never really noticed how tall he is, she thought). He had finished with the pieces he was working on and got up to clean off the wheel.

"Stick it on the drying shelf," he said. "We can fire it with the other stuff."

"What? Oh, nah. I was just fooling around."

"No, it's a nice little piece. If you really don't want it fired when it's dry, you can reuse it later." He scraped the stuck-on clay off the wheel and ran the sponge around the edge of the wheel head where the wet slurry had accumulated in a thick round of sludge.

"Well, if you think so..."

"I do. I'm just going to go wash these off." He gestured at her with his handful of clay-covered shaping tools, then threw them in his water bucket and limped out the door with it. Cat heard him rattling the pump handle outside.

She looked at the gnome head on her finger.

"Hmph, you're no beauty," she told it. "But if the potter thinks we should keep you, I guess keep you we will." She pried it off her finger, and it came loose with a soft little _schlumpf._ "There, now your ear is squished. Oh well." She took it to the drying shelf and found it a spot at the back where the cups had been. She stepped back to look at it from a different angle and stopped in surprise.

Her foot had suddenly sounded hollow on the floorboards. Oh! She tapped her foot down again, and then again a little bit over. Solid here. Back one step, hollow. Was there another storage space under there? This was easily two yards over from the hole where Guy had brought out the oilcloth-wrapped lump; it couldn't extend that far—could it? Cat squatted and inspected the floorboards. Rapping her knuckles on the wood, she found that the hollow-sounding part here was small, only about one by two feet. She couldn't see a knot hole like the one Guy had used to open the other trap door, but when she ran her fingers along the edge of the boards that were covering the space, she suddenly noticed a little indentation, shallow enough to escape notice if you were not specifically looking for it. She pushed her finger into the notch, and it tipped down, pivoting up another section of the board about a foot away. As suspected, another trap door! Cat was intrigued.

She slipped her fingers under the raised edge of the board and lifted it up.

In the depths of the hole, sparkling up at Cat with an eerie, iridescent shimmer, rested three turquoise bowls.

### CHAPTER 15

Turquoise bowls. Cat started back instinctively, averted her gaze. But out of the corner of her eye she could still see them, shimmering, gleaming. And the workshop was solid—no whirling, swirling, dancing was pulling her into the bowls. She dared a look, sideways at first, then full into the depths of the vessels. Nothing happened. The room remained still. Cat breathed a sigh of relief.

She bent closer, letting the trap door over the hole fall back to stay open on its own. The bowls were beautiful. Two of them were stacked together. They were roughly the same size. The lower one had sides that sloped outward with a gently flared lip; the other was wide and round-bellied, its rim narrowing and then flaring again, the upper edge delicate and thin. And the third—Cat drew a sharp breath. The third was the exact match to the bowl which had pulled her from the museum and whirled her into this country. The twin of that bowl—nesting under the floor of the potter's workshop.

Cat cautiously reached out a hand. Would it be safe to touch? Could she...? She stretched her fingers, reached...

"NO!!!" bellowed a voice behind her.

Cat whirled around.

Guy burst through the door, his face white and contorted, his turquoise eyes blazing with fury.

"Do not DARE touch them!" he screamed, lunging towards her.

Cat threw up her hands in terror and stumbled backwards. _Screaming—Filthy Temper—Killed Her—KILLED HER!_ Hot fear raced over her body, her throat closed up in panic, and tears shot into her eyes. Her back met the wood of the drying shelf, and she flung out a hand to steady herself.

"No, no, don't!" she forced out through a choking voice, her arm ready to ward off the blow she was certain would fall.

But none came.

Cat drew a sobbing breath; her heart was racing so hard that her whole body pulsed with it. She blinked rapidly. The thrumming in her head slowed, and the red haze of fear over her vision gradually receded. She saw that Guy was holding onto the table, had caught himself as his leg gave out, and was gripping the edge so hard his knuckles showed white. His eyes, huge in his deathly pale face, stared at Cat for a few indeterminable seconds. Then his whole body seemed to go limp.

"Please," his voice was a hoarse whisper, " _please_ do not touch them!" He staggered and blindly reached out behind him, searching for support. His hand met the chair, and he dropped down onto it. He threw his hand over his eyes. " _Please_ ," he repeated, brokenly.

Cat was trembling, but her rapid heartbeat gradually slowed, and she was able to blink back her tears. Cautiously, she let go of the support of the shelf and lowered her hands, but kept them spread in front of her to show that she was not trying to touch anything. She stepped sideways, giving the open trap door a wide berth.

"Okay," she said, shakily, "okay." (Smooth, Cat. That's the way to talk to a killer.) "Guy? It's okay. I'm not touching."

He drew a ragged breath, keeping his hand over his face.

"Guy? I didn't know. Okay? I didn't know."

Guy drew his hand down his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. Not meeting her eyes, he said, "No. No, you didn't."

Cat leaned against the table, carefully studying the way her fingertips ran over the weave of the canvas covering.

"Guy— _what_ is it I didn't know?"

He shook his head.

" _They_ didn't know either," he said in a low voice Cat could barely hear, "and it didn't help them." His eyes were bleak, and he would not look at her. He was staring blindly at the floor of the workshop, away from the storage hole which held the turquoise bowls.

Cat took a deep breath and felt the adrenaline slowly settle out in her body. This was no longer a deranged killer; here was a man who was as much in need of her help as when he had lain unconscious in the forest, as much as when the pain he was in made him nearly crush her hand. Besides, he owed her some explanations.

She fished under the work table for a stool which she had seen there earlier and sat herself down across the corner of the table from him.

"All right," she said, her voice gentle, her eyes on his face. "Tell me."

He shook his head again, hopelessly.

"I don't know that I can make you understand," he said. "I don't really understand myself."

"For starters, you can just fill me in," she said. "For example, who are 'they'? You said 'they didn't know, either'—who did you mean?"

He tone was still low, broken.

"My—my wife. And my brother. Sepp. The—the Septimissimus."

Cat nodded.

"I thought as much. I heard—" She stopped, wishing she had kept her mouth shut.

His head came up.

"What did you hear? From whom?"

"Well, there was a girl, in the village," she said reluctantly. "Your wife's cousin?"

He gave a cynical snort.

"Ah, dear Kashinka. I wonder what she had to say about it. She probably thinks I murdered them."

Oh dear. Cat drew patterns on the canvas table top with her fingernail.

"Does she? She does." He laughed, hard, without humour. "I wonder how I'm supposed to have accomplished it? Ah yes, I know. I strangled them." He flexed his long, powerful fingers. "Or perhaps I slit their throats? I'm sure the cutting wire would serve the purpose, it's strong enough." A mad gleam seemed to appear in his eyes; Cat felt a tiny frisson of something—fear?—running down her spine. "Of course," he mused, "I could have drowned them. In the clay pit. Or simply smothered them with a lump of clay; much less messy, that. Ah, no, I know: I poisoned them. With the glazes. They're highly toxic, you know." He leaned conversationally on his elbows, looking at Cat as if he was simply telling her a gossipy news story. "And as for disposing of the bodies, nothing could be simpler: the kiln burns extremely hot; there wouldn't be anything left other than perhaps a little pile of ashes.

"So you see," his lip curled, bitter, cynical, "I could have murdered them, oh so easily."

Oh really. Cat was getting a little fed up with the histrionics; for a fraction of a second, she had even believed he was serious. She looked him straight in the face, her brown eyes holding his turquoise, and issued a challenge.

"And did you?"

"Murder them?" His artificial cockiness drained out of him, leaving behind nothing but the bleak brokenness. "I might as well have."

### CHAPTER 16

"So suppose," Catriona said, "you really start at the beginning. I really don't know a whole lot of what's going on here, you know. There's you, there's your brother, and there's your wife. And Bibby, but we'll leave her out for the moment. Let's start with your wife."

"Ashya." He spoke the name in a flat tone, as if he was trying to ward himself off from something unpleasant, unsavoury.

"Ashya. How long were you married?"

"Two years. It would be three now, except... It would be three. She was very beautiful—well, you've seen her cousin. Excepting Ashya was fair, not dark. And she wanted—she always wanted more. She wanted me, or at least wanted to be married to me, goodness knows why. I think she thought I was something important, something—something I was not. _Am_ not. But she wanted to marry, so we married. She was just eighteen then. She was beautiful," he repeated, as if that explained everything. Cat decided she couldn't stand this woman.

"Ashya hated it here," he continued. (Ah, the muckiness! Cat knew there had been something behind it.) "She wanted to be in town, wanted a larger house, wouldn't understand that I need to be where the clay is, where I can run the kiln. I believe she thought I would be giving up pottery. Why she thought that, I shall never know; I'm a craftsman, a potter; my work is who I am. I don't know what she thought, or why—I never understood her. It was all right at first, I suppose; she still expected something to happen. And then something did happen, but it was not what she wanted."

"Bibby," Cat guessed.

"Yes, Bibby. She was miserable with being pregnant, hated how it changed her body, hated how it tied her down. I thought it'd be all right once the babe was born, that she would like being a mother, having a little one to occupy her, but it just got worse. She didn't like the feeding, didn't like holding the babe, hated the diapers, hated the crying. I tried to do what I could, but I had my work to do. I mean, Bibby—how could she not love her?" His gaze was turned inward, his eyes showing the reflection of his pain. "Then, one day, it came to a head. Bibby, she was small, just six or seven months, maybe eight. I was working, had to get clay, had a set of dishes to finish. I suppose I should have paid closer attention, should have taken some time to give her space, Ashya—but I had a big order to fill, and I was focused on that. She wanted to go to the town, wanted to go shopping—and so she just went."

"What? You mean she just left the baby?"

"Yes. She'd put Bibby down to sleep, and I suppose thought she'd keep sleeping. Or that she could keep herself entertained if she woke up. Or—really, I suppose she didn't think at all. She didn't, not usually. I didn't know she was gone; I was busy here in the workshop. Then I went into the cottage for something and I found the babe alone, crawling around on the floor, about a foot away from the fire. If I had been ten seconds later, she would have been right in it." His voice still held traces of the anger he had felt that day. "I picked up the babe, and I went after her, after Ashya. I found her in the town, in some shop, buying goo-gahs, while her child had near been burned to death! I don't even remember what I said—I do remember shouting at her, I probably should have controlled myself better—but I made her come back home. She wasn't happy.

"That's when she told me she was divorcing me. She—well, she broke the marriage chain, and she said she wanted to leave. I tried to get her to stay, at least for Bibby's sake, but she was adamant. She was going to go away."

Cat had stood up and moved across the room as he spoke. He looked up at her now, as she went to the carved cupboard, squatted down, and reached into the bottom shelf. She came back to the table and presented her open palm to him.

"Was this hers?" she asked.

A look of sadness crossed his face as he looked on the mangled, tarnished silver bird.

"Yes; yes, this was her marriage chain. She tore it off, snapped it, and flung it away; I never knew where it landed. And I didn't have the heart to look for it."

Cat sat back down, leaning her elbows on the table and putting her chin in her hands.

"And then?"

A slight shudder ran over his frame.

"And then she saw the bowls," he said quietly. "Those bowls." He awkwardly got up from his chair and limped over to the open trap door. He frowned down at the turquoise dishes for a second, then tipped the trap door shut with his foot. "They had only come out of the kiln that morning and were sitting on the table, barely cooled off. There were five of them then; one had broken in the kiln, but there were two complete pairs left, and one single one. I've never had a glaze like that, ever; and I still don't rightly know to this day what made it come out like that, or if I can do it again. But I wouldn't want to, either, not after what happened."

Cat's eyes were glued to his face.

"What did happen?"

"Ashya saw the bowls and wanted them. Perhaps she saw something special about them, I don't know—she was an Unissima, you know—"

"Yes, Ouska said."

"She did? She would. She never liked Ashya, you know. Anyway, Ashya, she wanted the bowls, and she reached out and took one, and then she was gone."

"What do you mean, gone? Dead?"

"No, gone. Vanished. Disappeared. And so was the bowl. One second they were here, and then they weren't. And _I don't know where they went._ She is probably dead, for all I know." He fell silent.

"Hmm," Cat said, thinking of her own experience with the bowl. "I doubt it. But, look, that's not the end of the story, is it?"

He looked at her, questioning. She shook her head impatiently.

"Your brother—Sepp? What happened with him?"

"Sepp." Guy gave a brief, affectionate snort. "My _little_ brother." With a grin he held up his hand at the level of his nose to show just how short Sepp was; then he suddenly sobered.

"He's younger than you?" asked Cat, to keep him talking.

"Yes, he and I are the youngest in the family; that's why we were always together. There's five brothers ahead of us, and two sisters—like I said, he's the Septimissimus. Seventh son of the Septimus. Aunt tell you that, too?"

Cat nodded.

"Anyway, we always knew that, of course, about him being Septimissimus. Hadn't made much difference so far. He's usually a silly fellow, likes to joke, good-humoured—I'm the dull one who always wants to think things over, gets all dark and gloomy. But he was coming up on twenty-eight (you know how that works, right?)—"

"How what works?"

"The Septimus, or Septimissimus. When he turns twenty-eight, four sevens—four for the seasons and the times of the day, and seven for the number of the sons—that's when his powers come into full force."

"Oh, that's connected to age? Does it matter if his father is still alive? It's just that with the Unissima—"

"No, it doesn't matter. An Unissima is different; she's a woman, for one."

Cat laughed.

"Yes, I had figured out that much!"

He grinned at her briefly.

"As I was _saying_ ," he repeated with emphasis, "an Unissima is different. Anyway, with the Septimissimus, it's the twenty-eighth birthday that matters. For the full powers, anyway; there's usually something you can see before then—it sort of builds to it. And what was building with Sepp was his temper. He got more and more—well, 'morose', I suppose is the best word. Just in a mood. Angry, snappish. That isn't like him— _wasn't_ like him." He fell silent, sadness descending on his face.

"Go on," prompted Cat gently, as much to pull him back out of his despondence as to find out what happened.

"We were all waiting for something to happen, for his powers to show. The day after his birthday—yes, Friday, I think—he came around here—"

"Wait, so you didn't meet him in the town? Ouska said you did."

"I don't think—oh yes, I did; you're right. I had been in to deliver some finished wares to someone. Saw him on the street, and he didn't even say hello to Bibby. Almost snapped at her, he did, the chuckle-head. So I told him a thing or two about what I thought of that, and went home."

That didn't sound like a screaming match on the streets, Cat thought.

"And then?"

"He came after me, an hour or so later, and apologised. He's really fond of Bibby, and usually spoils her rotten, so he felt bad that he'd almost made her cry. But, see, that was just it—he'd usually never do that to her. It was one of the things that showed he was really not himself."

"So, did you find out what was wrong?"

"Eventually. It took some digging and prodding, and"—his mouth quirked up at one corner—"about two cups of Uncle's applejack. He is— _was_ —worried about his powers. I mean, he's never been particularly confident in himself, but we all knew he was the One, and that the powers would just come when he turned twenty-eight."

"Does that bother you—him being so special, I mean, and you just his brother?"

He looked at her in surprise.

"Why would it? It's not like it's any particular privilege. If anything, it's a responsibility to bear. I sometimes think Sepp would be—would have been—glad to be rid of it, but it's his gift, and so he needs to use it. We all have our gifts; they are there to serve others—at least that's what _most_ of us think." He had that cynical twist to his mouth again; Cat knew he was thinking of his wife.

"So then what happened?"

"Well, he thought he had ruined his powers. Spoiled them. First, with hankering after a life 'out there'—he wanted to know what else there was, wanted to see the world beyond Ruph. We sometimes talked of it, of what lies beyond our village and our valley; but I was content with thinking and talking of it, whereas he wanted to go and see for himself. But we knew he could not, that his place was here. The Septimissimus is needed; he cannot just go wherever he pleases. But that wasn't all. You see—you know that rocking chair, in the cottage?"

"Yes, of course. I did spend a whole night in it once already."

He gave her a quick, sidelong glance, questioning. Oh, Cat thought, I suppose he was unconscious that night; he doesn't remember.

"Anyway, the rocking chair?"

"Well, if you have sat in it, you'll know it's an, uh, unusual piece of furniture. Sepp— _made it_."

Cat had the feeling she was missing something. That last statement had been said in a rather significant tone.

"Uh... yes?"

"He's the Septimissimus! He's not supposed to be a craftsman!"

"Oh! Oh, yes, I remember Ouska saying that! Oh dear. So why did he?"

"It's almost as if he couldn't help himself. He's done it ever since we were little—picked up bits of wood, stuck them together, whittled them into different shapes, that sort of thing. And he got better and better at it. At first I didn't notice—I mean, I was just little myself, and I was busy smooshing around clay and getting myself all mucky with it." He flashed his brief grin again. "Then, when we were maybe five and six, one day I suddenly got to wondering why our father had no trade or craft like his brothers. I went and asked Uncle about it—he and Aunt have always had time for us, almost more so than our own father and mother. With nine children, and the Septimus work, well, I suppose you can't blame our parents," he added matter-of-factly.

"So, Uncle told me. At first, I tried to make Sepp stop. We had a few rows about it—I remember taking away a little toy rocking horse he'd been making, and breaking a tiny little chair once. He got back at me by smashing a pinch pot I'd made and was particularly proud of. I think we both had bloody noses that day." He chuckled at the memory. "So then, rather surprising in a six-year-old, I realised it was pointless to try to stop him. And I didn't know how serious it was; I was only a kid. So after that, I worked on hiding what he was doing. It took me a while to make him understand, but once he did, he only did his woodwork where nobody but me could see him. And I hid his projects, put them where no one could see them. In fact," he added, "once we were older, and I became a potter, I used quite a few of them for firing my kiln."

Cat gasped.

"You _burned_ your brother's work?"

He shrugged. "Well, it was work that shouldn't have existed in the first place. And he agreed for me to do it; we didn't have room to keep it any longer. Besides, I didn't destroy it entirely—well, yes, it burned up, but I used the ashes for my glazes. Or used to, before—" He stopped.

"Before what?"

He took a deep breath. "Before I was married. Once Ashya was in the cottage, we didn't really dare to keep doing this. We didn't want her knowing about it.

"The glazes from his furniture ashes were the best I had, too, apart from—" His gaze slid to the trap door that hid the turquoise bowls. "I haven't had any that good in quite some years, just the brown ones."

"Oh," said Cat, "are those on the pieces in the cupboard? They're kind of a green, or blue, quite different from your other stuff I've seen."

"Yes, they are. That's why they're in there; I didn't really want anyone asking questions. Well, you see, that's the thing—probably because they were Sepp's work, there was something, well, different about them, and so the glazes from _those_ ashes came out really different."

"So when did he stop making furniture?"

"That's just it, he didn't. He started making that rocking chair when Bibby was born, for Ashya to use to rock her to sleep. I don't know if you saw, but it has a bird carved in the back—the bird was supposed to be for my wife, like the bird she had on the wedding chain. But by the time it was finished, the bird was Bibby, anyone could see that. And by then Ashya had gone, the chain was broken. And I suppose I should have put the chair in the fire, but I couldn't bear to. So I kept it—it's not like anyone ever comes here to see it. Usually. As a matter of fact"—he looked up, as if a startling thought had just occurred to him—"if you've sat in it, you're the first one, other than me and Bibby. And Sepp.

"Come to think of it, where _did_ you come from?"

Cat was not ready to tell him her story yet, although she was surprised it had taken him this long to come around to wondering about it.

"What happened with Sepp, and the chair?" she asked.

"Well, you see, Sepp was really worried that his breaking the rules, and doing this craftsman's work, had squandered his powers. As I said, we always knew that he would attain the powers when he was twenty-eight—but he turned twenty-eight last week, and nothing happened. At least he didn't think anything had happened. To be fair, we do not know just _what_ was supposed to happen—if the onset of powers would be gradual or sudden, if he would know, if others would know, or if anyone could see or feel what happened. Our father has been gone more than two years, and there hadn't been a Septimus for decades before then. No, there is no one Sepp could have asked. So he was worried that he ruined the Gift of the Septimissimus, that he spoiled it by using another gift, and perhaps put his powers into that instead of where they belonged.

"I suppose by then the applejack was settling in a little too well. He was starting to talk nonsense, saying he was worthless and without any gift, and that he wouldn't even have the sense to recognise a gift when he saw it, and he might as well leave because he was useless to us, and other balderdash of this sort. So I tried to make a point. He knew what had happened to my wife—or he knew that something happened that had to do with a thing I had done. I thought perhaps seeing what it was would snap him out of his mood, would perhaps turn his attention to _my_ failure and away from what he saw as his own." The bleak look came over Guy's face again, and his voice became bitter. "Fool that I was! Bloody fool!"

Cat frowned.

"What did you do?"

"I took him in here, and I brought out the bowls. Oh, yes, I can touch them. Nothing happens to _me_ when I pick them up; I tried often enough. So I took them out of their hiding place, to show him just what happened to my wife. To show my brother—" his voice dropped, and the self-reproach in it was so strong Cat found it hard to bear. Guy forced himself to continue. "To show my brother what happened, to try to bring him out of himself. I put one on the table and was getting the others. And he picked it up. He picked it up!" His voice broke. "I turned around and just saw him do it. He took it, and he was gone. Just—just like her." He dropped his head in his hands. "It was my doing. Both of them. Mine. My fault..."

Cat was silent.

Then she took a deep breath.

She would have to tell him.

### CHAPTER 17

"Guy?" This would not be easy to explain. "You see, I think I'm from a different world entirely."

Guy raised his head from his hands, grief vying with bewilderment on his face.

"I was just sort of, well, dropped, in the forest—the Wald, I think you call it." Cat said. "One minute I was in my world, and the next I was here. And then Bibby came, except I didn't know it was Bibby then, and we went and found you..." (Okay, Cat, you're babbling again. Get to the point.) She took a deep breath again and brought it out in a rush.

"... and I think it was one of your bowls that did it."

His head snapped around.

"What?"

"I was in—in a museum, it's a place where they show stuff—old dishes and things. And there was a bowl, just like these ones," she pointed at the trap door. "In fact, it was _exactly_ like one of those."

He sprang to his feet, then had to catch himself on the table again for balance. More cautiously, he moved to the trap door, squatted down, and opened it. He reached into the hole, and brought out the pot-bellied bowl in one hand.

"This one?"

"No. No, the other one, the one that was sitting by itself, not stacked with this one."

Guy took both the bowls out and set them on the floor beside the open trap door.

Cat looked at the bowls.

"Yes, the one with the rounded top." She pointed at it.

"Sepp's. That was Sepp's bowl, the one he took." He sounded shocked, bewildered. "So where is it now?"

"I don't know. You see, I didn't even touch it. I just looked at it. And it, I don't know, it pulled me into it, made everything swirl around in circles, and all of a sudden I was here. In the forest."

He had a puzzled frown on his face.

Suddenly they heard sounds from the cottage.

"Hello!" called a woman's voice. "Anybody here?"

Guy clambered to his feet and moved around so his body hid the bowls on the floor.

The door between the cottage and workshop creaked open, and Yldra's head appeared around the door.

"Ah, there you are! I've brought Bibby home. It'll be getting on for dark soon; we thought it might be time to get her to bed. So how's my favourite cousin? I hear you banged your head and poked a hole in your leg and needed Mother, Father, _and_ our new friend here to patch you up." She winked at Cat.

"Hmph," snorted Guy, limping over to the door. "At least they didn't get _your_ help with it, or I'd still be flat on my back in bed."

He sidled past her into the cottage, ducking his head out of the way as she took a playful swipe up at him.

"Boy cousins!" said Yldra to Cat, rolling her eyes. "You got any of those? They can be a right pest!"

"No, unfortunately I don't," replied Cat, following Guy to the cottage. "Or brothers or sisters, for that matter. I'm an only child."

"Are you really?" The young woman gave her a searching look that was strongly reminiscent of her mother's, then went back into her playful tone. "Well, all the better for you; nobody to plague you. Wonder how that will work out for this one." She laid her hand on her stomach with a small, secret smile.

Guy gave her a surprised look.

"Oho, has it come to that?" he said, teasingly. "Young Randor had better look out; if he gets a baby sister anything like his mother, he'll have to fight for his rights, like we did." Cat could tell that he was pleased.

Yldra shook her head at him, indulgently.

"Yes, you had it tough, didn't you? You and Sepp, both. I was so hard on you, being a full four years younger than you. Bullied and bossed you to within an inch of your lives, you poor defenceless males.

"At any rate, I brought you some more bread and cheese from Mother, and Father thought you were probably well enough now to boil up a kettle for some mintbrew. Poor Catriona probably won't want to deal with your primitive cooking facilities here; I know I wouldn't."

She smiled as she said it, taking the sting out of the words, and went over to ruffle Bibby's curls. The little girl was sitting on Guy's good knee on the bench by the table and now pointed at Cat.

"Gah!" she called, happily, and looked back at her father to see if he quite understood how delightful this meeting was.

"Hi sweetie!" said Cat, smiling back.

"Well, I need to get home to my other defenceless males," said Guy's cousin. "I'll leave you to it for now."

"She's really nice," said Cat, as the door closed behind Yldra. "Do you have any other cousins?"

"Oh, yes, about three or four dozen," Guy replied carelessly. "Half the town is related to us. Eew!" He suddenly put Bibby on the floor. "Wet drawers!" He rubbed at a spot on his breeches.

Cat laughed and took the little girl around to the privy to finish her business.

By the time they came back and had clean, dry clothes on the baby again, Guy was stoking the fire and getting the kettle ready for boiling. A black iron bar, shaped like an upside-down L, was swung out from the side of the fireplace. Several heavy hooks were attached to the horizontal arm, and from one of these a heavy black cast-iron kettle was suspended. Cat was surprised she had not noticed the bar before. (I suppose it was swung in and sort of hidden in the fireplace last time I looked at it, she thought. So that's how they do their cooking! I can see why Yldra was talking about primitive facilities; she probably has one of those nice stoves like Ouska does.) Guy took a thick cloth, and with it he lifted the kettle from the hook. He looked inside it.

"Hmm, not enough water," he said, and went out to the pump.

When he came back in, Cat could tell the kettle was heavy—and his limp had become very pronounced.

"I could have done that, you know," she said. "Your leg looks like it hurts."

He waved aside her concern.

"It's all right," he said, "I can handle it." He hung the kettle on its hook and used a long poker to swing the crane back into the fireplace so the kettle hung over the flame.

"Guy," Cat said, a little hesitantly, "your leg, couldn't you, well, cure it?"

He tipped his head to the side with a questioning frown.

She held out her right hand, opening and closing her fist.

"See, yesterday morning, when you squeezed my hand, you pretty much crushed it." She laughed lightly. "I suppose it comes from all that clay squishing you do. I thought every bone in my poor hand was broken."

He winced.

"No, no, that's not what I mean! It's okay! See, you made it all well again afterwards!" She waggled her fingers to show just how well. "When you held it, later—what did you do? I mean, you just cured it, totally healed it. It doesn't hurt at all now; there's no sign anything ever happened to it, let alone as recently as yesterday. Can't you do that with your leg?"

He pulled a rueful grimace.

"No, I cannot. Really, that instant cure, that's only happened twice—your hand was the second time. I've tried, when the babe hurt herself, or even when I've done something to myself—and that happens a lot, believe me."

"Does it?"

"Yes, I'm quite clumsy. At least I have been in the last year or so. I'm always tripping, and cutting myself, and dropping things. I have lots of cuts and bruises to show for it, small ones for the most part. This one," he rubbed his leg just above the injury, "was rather bigger than most. And as with all the others, I'll just have to wait for it to heal."

"So what was different about my hand then?"

"I don't quite know," he said slowly. "I wonder—well, the other time, the first time it happened, it _was_ Bibby. She'd only just learnt to walk, and I was careless. I was unloading the kiln, had my heavy leather protective gloves on, was handling the pots with tongs, even—I'm too impatient to wait until they're properly cooled, I want to see how they come out. The pots were sitting right outside the kiln, some of them were so hot I could barely handle them even with the gloves on. But as I said, I was careless, and I hadn't closed the shop door properly. She came toddling out when I had my back turned and tried to pick up one of the hot pots."

Cat drew in a hissing breath. "Oh no!"

"Oh yes. You should have heard her screaming. Or rather, it's good that you didn't. I felt absolutely sick. And I suppose that's what made the difference—you see, it was my fault that she had gotten hurt, that was the worst part." He shuddered at the memory. "I grabbed her and ran over to the pump for cold water, holding her poor little hands in mine, trying to just somehow make it better—and then she suddenly stopped crying. Just like that. Stopped crying, and smiled at me. I almost dropped her, I was so surprised." He chuckled weakly. "Her hands were perfectly well, not a blister, not even reddened. And she was acting as if nothing had happened."

"Wow." Cat let out her breath, which she hadn't even realised she had been holding. "Wow, that must have been scary!" She scooped Bibby off the bench where she had been sitting, and planted a kiss on her rosy little cheek to relieve her feelings.

"So, that was her hands, too? Does it only work on hands, then?"

"No," he said thoughtfully, "I wondered that too. But another time, when she slammed her finger in the lid of the chest, it didn't work; I had to kiss it better the old-fashioned way." He quirked up the corner of his mouth. "And as for myself, I'm always getting cuts and burns and bruises on my hands, and they usually have to heal on their own (with a little help from Aunt's ointments). No, I think it has something to do with _how_ the hurt happened. See," he locked his turquoise eyes on Cat, "both your hand, and Bibby's, it was my doing. My fault. Perhaps when it is my fault that someone else is hurt, I can take the hurt away again, too."

He dropped his gaze and looked down at his hands, turning them upside down and right side up again.

"Of course, I've never actually tried it out on purpose," he said, with an ironic twist to his mouth.

Cat snorted.

"No, I suppose not. I'm not volunteering to be your guinea pig for it, that's for sure."

"My what kind of pig?"

"Guinea pig? Oh, maybe you don't have those here. They're small, furry animals, kind of like rabbits—do you have those?—without the long ears, and with a shorter head, and a more squat body, and shorter legs, and—"

"—and entirely un-rabbit-like on the whole?" he finished with a lopsided grin.

She nearly swatted at him with her free hand. Good heavens, she was starting to treat him just like Yldra! When she wasn't bossing him like Ouska, that was. There must be something in the air of this place.

"You didn't let me finish! They're small, and furry, and children keep them for pets."

"They sound like hedge pigs, except soft and furry," he said.

"Oh, yes, and in all other ways entirely un-hedge-pig-like!" she scoffed, and made him laugh in turn. "But what are hedge pigs?" she asked, pleased with herself for having got him back.

"They're small, about this big"—he held his hands about six inches apart—"and prickly. And live in hedges. Haven't you ever seen one?"

"Oh, hedgehogs! Well, no, actually, I've only seen pictures."

The kettle in the fire was starting to make hissing and bubbling noises, and steam was rising from its spout. Guy took the poker and swung the fireplace crane outward with the hook on the end of the tool. One of his squat brown teapots was waiting on the hearth. He threw in a handful of dry crumbly green leaves from a round pottery jar and filled it up with boiling water. Sharp, fragrantly minty steam rose into the air. Cat sniffed.

"Hmm, that smells good."

She put Bibby down on the bench and unwrapped the cloth bundle Yldra had left on the table. It contained a beautiful crusty brown loaf and a chunk of solid yellow cheese.

"Have you got a knife?" she asked. "Or do you just break it up with your hands?"

"Oh—knife, over there." He pointed with his chin; both his hands were occupied, with the teapot in one and a bouquet of three mugs held by the handles in the other.

'Over there' turned out to be a sort of small cupboard let into the wall beside the fireplace, which held an assortment of carved wooden spoons and forks and two or three vicious-looking metal knives with bone handles. Guy had to come over and open the cupboard door himself; it blended into the wall so well Cat had not been able to find it. This place was showing itself to be quite full of these secret storage places; it was not nearly as basic and primitive as Cat had thought the first night she was there.

Bibby got a mug of milk from the pitcher on the shelf, and the two adults enjoyed their tea. (Mintbrew, Cat mentally corrected herself. Mintbrew, and hedge pig, and—and marriage chain. And wisewoman. She was beginning to speak the language of this place.)

"So," Guy began, around a mouthful of the chewy bread, "this place you came from, where there's no hedge pigs, but gunny pigs—"

"Guinea pigs."

"Yes, that. You were there, and there was one of the bowls, and you just _looked_ at it, and here you were?"

"Yes, it seems that way."

"Where exactly, here?"

"I told you, in the forest. A ways that-a-way." She waved her crumbly piece of yellow cheese in the general direction of the workshop. "You were passed out on the ground by this hole—" She shuddered. "That was stressful, you know! I thought you were dead. And I don't _do_ dead! Anyway, it was a muck hole—your clay pit, I think Ouska said. How come you and Bibby were all clay-covered, anyway? I didn't even recognise her as human at first; I thought she was some kind of alien. But like I said, I was pretty freaked out right then."

He frowned, trying to remember.

"I think," he said slowly, "I had to have some more clay, was going to start getting it ready to be cleaned up and that. And when we got to the pit, Bibby—I don't quite remember clearly, but I think she fell in while I was filling the bucket. Or did she even jump? I work from the edge, of course, but all of a sudden she was right out in the middle. And landed face down. Like I said, it's easy to drown in, it's so sticky. So I jumped in after her and pulled her out—and then I remember carrying her to the edge and stepping into a sink hole with one foot—and I couldn't catch myself, because she was in my arms, so I went down right on my knees in the clay, and I think something under the surface jabbed me." He rubbed at his leg again. "I must have thrown her clear, towards the edge of the pit, and somehow fought my way out before I blacked out—or was I still _in_ the pit when you found me?"

"No, you were sort of lying across the path. And your leg was twisted, and you were covered in clay from head to toe. Thank goodness Ouska came running. She says she felt something, knew there was something wrong with Bibby—but apparently it also had something to do with me touching a tree when I first arrived. I got sort of an electric shock from it."

He looked at her intently.

"What kind of tree was that? Where exactly? Right by the pit?"

"No, a bit further down the path, around the corner. I don't know what the tree was called. There are oaks around there, those I recognised, and some evergreens. The one I touched, it was kind of smooth, and straight—and sticky; I got pitch on my fingers. And then there were these really gnarly ones, they formed something almost like a hedge, or a screen..."

"The Arbour," he said quietly, looking stricken. "I might have known."

"And what's the Arbour when it's at home?" asked Cat, getting a little tired of all the mysterious references.

He looked at her seriously.

"It's a place we always held special, Sepp and I. I don't know from what time on; we were quite young, I think. Perhaps it was even Father first brought us there; I don't remember.

"The thing is that there is a tree there; it is unusual, different than the others. A different colour, for one. I think it might have been the one you touched, but I can't be sure. You might not have even seen it; that screen you talked of, it goes almost all the way around the tree, shields it from the space around it. Or the space from the tree, I don't know.

"See, when I said I don't know what made the glaze on those bowls turn out the way it did, that wasn't entirely true. I know what's different about it from the other glazes I made, but I don't know why it looks the way it does—or why the bowls... well, do what they do."

"So what is it that's different?"

"It's the ash from a very large branch of that tree that made that glaze. One was torn down, oh, years ago now, in a really heavy storm. I put it aside and then one day burned it down into ash. That's what made that glaze. That, and the clay from one particular part of the clay pit—as a matter of fact, I think it came right from that sink hole that made me fall.

"After—after what happened to Ashya, I did not want to go back to the Arbour ever again. That tree has something to do with what happened, I know it does. And that you—that this is where you first came here, and it was one of those bowls that brought you—well, it's proof, isn't it?"

### CHAPTER 18

Bibby, sitting on the bench on the other side of the table, had finished her milk and bread and now gave a giant yawn, showing her little pearly teeth, and rubbed her eyes.

"Goodness, you look sleepy!" said Cat. "Does she usually go to bed around this time?" she asked Guy. "It's not even dark yet."

"She's been playing with her cousins all day, so she's tired."

"All right, munchkin," said Cat, finding a cloth, dampening it, and wiping the baby's fingers and mouth, "pumpkin time."

Guy stood and started clearing the table, using the damp cloth to wipe it down, and busied himself about the hearth, cleaning dishes and putting them away.

Bibby was put into her night shift; then Cat wrapped her in a blanket and sat in the rocking chair with her. (It was still the most amazingly comfortable piece of furniture. Guy's brother was a gifted carpenter, indeed.) The little girl fussed a bit.

"Oh, shushush," said Cat. "How about this?" and she sang, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star...", twinkling her fingers in front of the baby's face and gently rocking the chair in time with the song.

Guy looked at her, surprised, and she was suddenly embarrassed. Ryan had said she sounded like a crow, and he had thought her library story time songs silly. (Ryan? Why had she ever put up with that self-absorbed idiot?)

"Sorry. I'll stop."

"No, no, don't stop. You have a nice voice. And see, the babe likes it."

Cat looked down to see the little girl sleepily wiggling her fingers, softly singing "Winka, winka..."

Cat smiled. What a darling. How could anyone not love her? She rocked, and sang, and Bibby's little head leaned against her, the eyelids drooping lower and lower. One more song, Cat thought, and she'll be asleep.

She leaned her own head back against the headrest of the chair, closed her eyes, and softly sang:

"Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee, all through the night;

Guardian angels God will lend thee, all through the night;

Soft the drowsy hours are creeping, hill and dale in slumber steeping;

Love alone its watch is keeping, all through the night.

While the moon her watch is keeping, all through the night;

While the weary world is sleeping, all through the night;

O'er thy spirit gently stealing, visions of delight revealing,

breathes a pure and holy feeling all through the night..."

She hummed the last few lines again, letting the final notes drop off into the silence.

The silence. She suddenly became aware of the complete stillness in the room, all sound suspended in tension.

Cat opened her eyes to find Guy staring at her, his face pale, the turquoise eyes wide in shock.

He swallowed convulsively, as if he were trying to find his voice.

"That song!" he said finally, in a hoarse whisper. "You sang it, that night! It was no dream!"

Cat stared back at him, her eyes widening in response as she took in what he said. He had been conscious. Oh my God.

"Did I... You sang—Bibby had woken—"

Cat nodded, almost involuntarily.

"You were sick, delirious!" she said. "You did not know what you were saying!"

"But I did say it. I remember." Guy's voice held an emotion Cat could not define; his eyes stood out hard against the unabated whiteness of his face. "And you—you answered.

"Didn't you?" he suddenly demanded harshly. "I asked you to marry me, and you said yes!"

Cat blushed a fiery red all over her face.

"You did not know what you were saying!" she repeated, almost pleadingly, "I had to humour you!"

He abruptly turned his head away, raising his clenched fist to his pressed-together lips. Suddenly he turned on his heel, snatched a cloak from the hook on the back of the door, wrenched open the door, and limped out with long strides. Cat jumped as the door slammed shut.

"Guy! Wait!"

Bibby stirred in her arms, but she did not wake.

_Now_ what? Histrionics again! Cat levered herself and the baby out of the rocking chair. Where could she put Bibby down? She had to go after Guy! No—she pulled herself back—she could not leave the baby, it was not safe—she remembered all too well Guy's anger, and her shock, at his wife's doing so—she would have to take her. Very well. Cat straightened her shoulders. Needs must, Uncle said. She wrapped the blanket more firmly around the little girl, jiggled her up in her arms to get a better grip, and stepped out into the gathering dusk.

"Guy!" Which way had he gone?

And there it was. An unmistakable, solid, clear direction: he had gone into the Wald. Catriona knew it as surely as if she could see and hear him limping ahead in front of her. He was going to the Arbour—to the special place that belonged to him and his brother, that was connected with the disappearance of his wife, and where Cat herself had arrived in this country.

There was still enough light to see the way, the path which Cat and Ouska had taken when they carried the wounded man to his cottage—was it really only two days ago? Bibby was heavy in Cat's arms, sleeping soundly, as she was carried back to the same place where they had found each other. Cat moved quickly, driven by the inner voice that told her where Guy had gone, told her to hurry. She skirted the clay pit on her left, stepping very carefully; she had conceived a great respect for the big mud hole.

The buckets were still lying in the path. Or rather, one of them did, the other had tipped over and was mostly sunk into the pit by now. We will have to come back and fetch them tomorrow, Cat thought; Guy needs them. Then she caught herself up, startled. She was thinking as if she was a part of this place, as if she was going to be there the following day and the day after, as if—as if this was where she belonged. As if, two days ago, she had not been an ordinary North American, ex-librarian, ex-girlfriend of a stuck-up guy named Ryan, boring, ordinary, intimidated by the thought of booking a plane ticket to a tame city just because she had never been there before.

Hurry! the voice in her head commanded. Cat hurried. The soft leather moccasins on her feet hardly protected her from the roots and rocks on the path, but as if by a miracle, she neither stubbed her toe, trod on a sharp stone, nor got her feet tangled in her long skirt. She rounded the bend in the path beyond the clay pit and broke into something that was a near run, the sleeping baby bouncing up and down in her arms.

"Guy!" she called, "Guy!" Where was the man?

She just heard the noise over the sound of her own steps and hard breathing—a crashing and cracking, a breaking of branches—and then she was upon the archway to the little clearing, the Arbour. She had found Guy.

With a furious energy, he was ripping and tearing at the overhanging branches of the blue tree.

### CHAPTER 19

"Guy! Stop! What are you doing?" With a few steps, Cat was beside him, and reached out a hand to grab his arm.

He whirled around at her touch, his eyes blazing turquoise. But his bad leg could not take the sudden motion; he staggered, swayed, and clutched at his knee, barely catching himself from falling. He stood like this, half-crouched, his head bowed, drawing a deep breath, then another, and another, and finally breathed out a deep sigh. When he looked up, the fury had drained from his eyes. Slowly he straightened, steadying himself on the branches he had been tearing at just a minute ago.

"You came," he said, bewildered. "Why did you come?"

Oh, for heaven's sakes, Cat thought, enough with the dramatics already! Her adrenaline rush was ebbing, leaving her feeling more than a little exasperated.

"Of course I came," she said briskly, looking around for a suitable spot to sit. "You give me dramatic looks, then you storm out of the house, leaving me with the baby. Who, incidentally, is getting really heavy." A few yards over she spotted a large flattish rock, brushed it off with her foot, and sat down on it, settling Bibby in her lap. "What was I meant to do, sit there and wait until you came back? _If_ you came back? I've had about enough. So suppose you tell me what is going on?"

His eyes never wavered from her face as he painfully limped over to where she was and settled on the ground beside her. (So he had hurt his knee again with his careless behaviour. That figures, thought Cat; I'll have to get Ouska to give me more ointment for it. And again she pulled herself up short—there was that assumption again that it would be her task to look after him, that she would be there to do it...)

"Well?" Cat gave him a straight look, the determined one that had been most effective with library patrons who tried to wiggle out of paying their overdue fines.

Guy looked down at his feet and pulled out a small stick from under his right heel. He cleared his throat.

"It's true, isn't it," he stated, breaking inch-long pieces off the stick and dropping them between his feet. "I asked you to marry me, and you said yes." A fourth piece followed the first three.

"Yes," said Cat, and wondered that she wasn't blushing this time. "Yes, it's true, not yes, I'll marry you. Like I said, I'm quite sure you didn't know what you were saying. I certainly didn't think you did; you even called me by some other name, I can't remember what it was now..." (That was a lie, Cat. You know exactly what he called you. And you also know there's something important about that.)

"It doesn't matter," he said dully. "I _was_ conscious, and I remember what I said. How I said it. And what you answered. Don't you see—" (the last piece of stick was snapped in half) "—those were the words of marriage."

"What?!? What on earth do you mean?"

He looked up at her, his brows drawn together in a look of pain.

"It does not mean we _will_ marry, it means we already are."

Okay, Cat, don't hyperventilate.

"It can't! I didn't mean what I said!"

"I know. But that does not matter. You said it, and that makes it true. Damn!" He slammed his fist into the little pile of stick pieces between his feet.

(Not very flattering, Cat thought in a corner of her mind. Is it that upsetting to marry me? But then, men don't want me. Just look at Ryan.)

Aloud she said: "I don't understand. Just because we said those words—that makes us married? What about—what about some kind of ceremony? That chain thing? Can't we just un-say the words?"

"I don't think so." He had found another stick and was mangling it. "The wedding chain, it's the second part of it. The words are the first. But they're just as binding." He fell silent.

Cat stared at the tree trunks across from her, not really seeing them, even though the light was still just bright enough to make out the individual branches. So what did this mean then? Was there a way out? They _were_ in the place where she had first arrived. Maybe that magical tree he had mentioned...

"Guy—what were you doing, ripping at those branches there?"

He looked up at the tree screen.

"I—I hardly know. This is damnable, all of it. I thought, somehow, it's that tree which is at the root of it all—I know the real fault is mine, but I thought—no, I really didn't think. I was just angry. I've trapped you, just like I trapped _her_. It can't happen again, not again—I need to find a way out... and the tree, perhaps..."

Suddenly, the air in front of them began to shimmer. An iridescent glow, sparkling and shining in the dusk, became a whirling vortex, like a miniature localised tornado. The luminescence thinned, then dissolved, revealing at its centre a person with his back to them. He staggered, lost his balance, and fell backwards, landing hard on his rear.

Cat stared. He seemed to be wearing a light-coloured, well-fitting t-shirt and pair of jeans; on his feet were a pair of runners. The back of his head showed black hair, long enough to brush the collar of his shirt. He was clutching something in both his hands, something that looked like a bowl.

He turned his head, taking in the trees surrounding him, then looked clear over his shoulder, and his eyes met Cat's.

They spoke at the same time.

"It's _you_!"

It was the turquoise-eyed man from the Sammelhauser Museum.
CHAPTER 20

Cat heard a strangled noise coming from her right. She turned and saw that Guy had started up. He was staring at the newcomer as if he was seeing a ghost, his own face ghastly white in the gloom of the dusk.

Then several things happened at once. The newcomer, too, had heard Guy's cry and turned towards its source, and his face suddenly broke into an enormous, lopsided grin. He cried Guy's name and sprang forward to embrace him, dropping the bowl in his hand on the soft ground; Guy jumped forward as well, and the two collided, throwing their arms around each other in a tremendous hug. The sudden movement was too much for Guy's leg; he cried out in pain and lost his balance, pulling the other with him, which made him step backwards onto the bowl on the ground, cracking it in two. With all the commotion, Bibby was startled awake and began to cry.

"Shushush!" Cat tried to calm her. The attention of the two men turned to the woman and the baby. The newcomer helped Guy regain his balance, let go of his arm, and took a step closer. He peered at the little girl and broke into his brilliant smile again.

"Bibby, Karana! Hello!" he said to her. (That name again!) She stopped crying almost immediately, and peered back at him. Then she smiled her sweet baby smile.

"Uncayepp!" she said, turning her face up at Cat's to see how she felt about it.

Cat looked from one pair of brilliantly turquoise eyes to the other, then to Guy, who stood clutching his knee, but nonetheless smiling as broadly (and lopsidedly) as the other. The only thing she had left to wonder was why she had not made the connection before. How many pairs of turquoise eyes could there be in the world—even in a foreign, magical one? She felt an answering smile spreading over her face.

"The Septimissimus, I presume?" she said.

The newcomer, whose resemblance to Guy ended with his smile and eye colour, nodded at her. He was easily half a head shorter than his brother, his hair very dark, nearly black, and his build solid rather than slender. Cat thought there was room for excuses here—they hardly looked like brothers at all, definitely not at first glance.

"And you are Cat," he said.

Then Sepp turned to Guy, with a look of urgency on his face.

"Guy! Guy, she's there."

"What?" Guy seemed as confused as Cat felt.

"She's there! The place I just came from, where _she_ came from"—he looked towards Cat, then back at his brother. "Ashya is there. She is not dead, Guy. She lives."

Confusion, hope, and something undefinable chased each other over Guy's face.

"You've seen her?"

"Seen her, spoken with her—and stolen her bowl." Sepp turned around to where the pieces of bowl lay on the ground. It was getting to be hard to see, but they could just make it out. It had cracked in two uneven pieces. He peered at it in the dark.

"Hmm, just like the other one," he said.

"What other one?" Cat stood up from her rock, Bibby still in her arms.

"The one that must have brought you here," he replied. "Here, do you want me to take her?" He reached out his arms for the little girl.

Bibby shook her head and snuggled deeper into Cat's arms, reaching her little arms up around Cat's neck and squeezing tight. Cat tried not to show on her face how smug this made her feel. She wrapped her arms tighter around the warm little body and hugged her close.

"Huh, is that the way it is?" said Sepp, and looked at his brother with one eyebrow quirked up. For the first time he really seemed to notice Guy's awkward stance, and his painful rubbing at his injured leg.

"What have you done to yourself this time?" he asked.

"Slipped in the clay pit," Guy replied briefly. "Let's go home. We can talk about it there."

It was almost entirely dark by the time they were back at the cottage. It had taken them quite a bit longer than before to make their way along the path; Guy's leg was sore enough that he needed to lean on his brother for most of the way and rest once or twice, and Cat was finding Bibby ever heavier to carry the farther they went. The heavy weight of the little girl's head on her shoulder told her she had dropped off to sleep again.

The fire in the cottage was still burning gently, the logs nearly spent. With a relieved groan, Guy sank into the chair by the table and propped his left foot up on the bench.

"Feed the fire, young'un," he commanded, "and light us a light!"

"I hear and obey, oh ancient one!" mocked his brother, the words clearly an old ritual between them. He put the pot shards he had been carrying on the table, then took a log from the stack beside the fireplace and dropped it on top of the embers in the hearth. "Where are the spills?"

"Jar, by the lights," Guy replied, gesturing at a pottery cup on the mantelpiece filled with something that looked like wooden skewers standing on end.

Sepp took one of the skinny sticks, lit its end in the fire, and brought the flame up to the candles above the hearth. He carried one of the candles over to the table and noticed the brown teapot in the centre. He lifted it up and swirled it to test for contents.

"Any mintbrew left?"

"I don't think so," Guy replied. "Make some more?"

"Oh, yes, please," said Cat, who was tucking the sleeping baby into Guy's bed. She rubbed her arms and shivered just a bit. "I could use some hot t—mintbrew."

"Tea, you call it, don't you?" Sepp asked. "Or that's what Nicky says."

Cat's head shot up.

"You've met Nicky?!?"

" _Oh_ yes!" he replied feelingly. "Met her, spent the night at her rooms, got these from her..." He gestured at the clothes he wore. In the light of the candles, Cat saw that what he had on was a white Nike t-shirt, dark, snug-fitting jeans with a button fly, and black-and-white high-top runners with loose laces.

"Oh, I thought I'd seen that outfit before! Didn't that belong to—" She clapped her hand over her mouth. Very tactful, Cat.

"Uh, yes. I understand it belonged to a previous 'boy friend', who left it behind when he moved out?"

Guy's eyebrows were vying for space with his hairline, as he looked from one of them to the other. Sepp grinned at him.

"They have rather different ways of doing things in that place," he said to his brother.

Cat slid onto the back bench between the table and wall, planted her elbows on the bare wood surface, put her chin on her fists, and gave Sepp a stern look.

"So, talk!" she commanded. "And start at the beginning. I'm tired of people throwing random bits of information at me that make no sense."

The brothers exchanged a glance, and Guy's mouth twitched up at the corner the tiniest bit.

"You had better do as she says," he recommended. Sepp finished with the kettle by the fire, and now came over to the table with the filled teapot and some mugs.

"What's the beginning?" he asked, straddling the front bench beside Guy's propped-up foot. "When I met you? When I left here?" He poured the tea into the mugs and pushed one across the table to Cat. It bumped into the pot shards lying between them. In the light of the candle, the glaze showed as a dull rusty brown. Sepp picked up one of the pieces and fingered it thoughtfully.

"I suppose the beginning is those bowls," he said. He looked at Guy. "Have you found out what does it?"

Guy shook his head, his lips pressed together.

"Well, it's a strange thing," Sepp said, "everything goes into a swirl, sort of spinning around you in circles—"

"Yes!" cried Cat, "That's just what happened to me!"

"But you didn't even touch it, did you?" asked Guy.

"Well, now that I think of it, I guess my hair touched it when I bent over to look at it, sort of brushed against it. But you must have had it in your hands, didn't you?" she asked Sepp.

"Yes, and I still did when I, well, landed, so to speak." He turned to Guy again. "Everything sort of whirls around you, and when it settles out and stops spinning, you are someplace else. So far, each time I've landed on my backside. Not very dignified." He laughed and rubbed his tailbone.

Cat chuckled.

"Yes, me too, except I've only done it once, so far. So where did you end up landing?"

"I came out in this little grassy area, beside that large building. The musean, I think?"

"Museum," Cat automatically corrected. "So you've been around the Sammelhauser the whole time?"

"Yes—well, no—yes, until I saw you, and then you disappeared again, and—"

"Stop! One thing at a time. So you landed beside the museum, with the bowl still in your hand. This bowl?" She pointed to the broken shards on the table.

"No. No, the one that you looked at. This one is the one that—oh, all right, all right, one step at a time!" He grinned at Cat's stern look. "But you keep interrupting!"

Chastened, Cat smiled back.

"Okay, I'll shut up. Tell your story. You landed beside the museum..."

"Yes. It's tremendously large, Guy, and built entirely of brick! Uncle Ardross would love to get a look at that! They're going way higher with their buildings there than two floors."

Cat opened her mouth to comment, then shut it again with an audible snap. Sepp looked at her and winked.

"As I was saying," he continued, "this tremendous building was in front of me. But other than that, once my head stopped spinning, I thought I had just landed someplace else in Isachang—in the capitol, perhaps (I've always wanted to see it). You see, just around the corner, there was a market—just like ours, here. Or I thought it was, at first. Most people were dressed normally, like this," he gestured at the clothes Guy and Cat were wearing, "although some were in really bright colours, and odd styles, but I thought that was city fashions. They had a hand-to-hand fighting arena, like the jousts we heard about, Guy, and stalls where they sold things. Some food, and clothes, leather goods—there was even a potter. I wandered around, looking at the stalls. I was trying to determine just where I was, so I struck up conversations with some of the stallholders. They seemed to like my clothes, and several said I was 'really in character', whatever they meant by that..."

Cat had listened to this with a puzzled frown on her face, but now her brows cleared.

"The Renaissance Fair!" she said, striking her forehead with the heel of her hand. "I forgot they had that there last weekend! Is that where you met Nicky?" She turned to Sepp, who frowned at her teasingly. "Oops, sorry! Shutting up again!"

"As you say, the whatever-you-said Fair. Nicky seems quite excited about those. No, that's not where I met her. And yes, before you ask, I still had the bowl. No, not this bowl, the other bowl. And no, it didn't look like this, it looked different. And no—"

Cat punched him lightly on the arm.

"Cut it out!" she told him. (She wondered at herself, how easily she had fallen into treating them as if they were her brothers. She had never had brothers. Brothers? Did Guy feel like a brother? Cat pushed the thought aside. There was a story to hear.)

"Well," he continued, "there isn't that much to tell after that. I met some people, around the jousting arena, who seemed to think I belonged to another part of their group. They shared their food and even let me sleep in their tent. At that point I still thought it was all a great adventure—I was so glad to be away from here, then." He sent a look of silent apology at his brother. "It was a while into the next day before I saw that the place I had landed in was different from here—very different."

"No kidding," Cat said quietly under her breath.

"I was beginning to wonder what had happened, and how I could get back. I tried all sorts of things with that bowl—yes, I was coming to that. I think the silliest was when I tried to wear it as a hat; by that time I was getting desperate. (It wasn't a good fit as a hat; I gave that up fairly quickly.) Around that time they were breaking up the market on Sunday. You see, the bowl—it had not changed at all then, it looked just as it had when I first picked it up, here, with the blue and green glaze. I thought it could just take me back the way we came.

"But it didn't. It did nothing. Some of my companions from the fair let me sleep in their caravan with them that night—their caravans, their carriages, Guy, they're amazing!—and then they left the next day. I had long realised by then that this was not real for them, that the market was just some people playing at something they are not. And I knew that something else had to happen, that there had to be another way home.

"So I was hanging around the musean—museum—searching, trying. I'll spare you the account; the bowl on my head was not the worst.

"But, finally, I saw _you_." He looked at Cat. "You got out of the big carriage (the bus, Nicky called it?), and I knew you would be my way back. Are you an Unissima, by chance?"

Cat was taken aback. That again!

"I don't—people keep saying that—well, maybe." She thought of how she had known where to find Guy in the forest. "What does that have to do with it?"

"If you are, that would explain why I knew it was you. You know how Aunt's Knowing sometimes spills over onto the people she is with?" he asked Guy, who nodded. "It was like that. I just knew."

"Well, you freaked me out pretty good, staring at me like that! I felt like I was being stalked!"

"I'm sorry about that. But I had to. I had to get you to the bowl, make you look at it—well, I thought you would have to touch it, but you didn't after all. I put it in that case, with the ugly frog, and then I—sorry, I stalked you.

"It actually took a little bit for you to notice me—I think there were about two rooms where you just would not look up; you were so fascinated with the things in the cases. But when you did, thank goodness it was close enough to the room with the bowl. I followed you there, but tried to stay back so you would not be frightened enough to run away entirely.

"And I just saw you, bending down to look at the bowl, then closer—and then you were gone. Just like that."

Guy made an inarticulate noise.

Sepp gave him a questioning look, and continued. "I ran over the rest of the way. But there was no sign of you, anywhere. And the bowl—the bowl looked like this." He pointed to the shards on the table. "See how it's gone this rusty brown? The same.

"I kept looking around for you, but the only sign that was left of you was your satchel."

"My purse! You found my purse?"

"Yes, I did. I picked it up, and I kept looking around for you, back through all the rooms, all around. I forgot I was carrying your satchel in my hand, and I was just stepping outside through the big doors, when your bag started singing."

### CHAPTER 21

"Singing?!?" cried Cat and Guy at the same time.

"Yes! It sang! Some very odd song about not worrying and being happy; it even had instruments playing with it."

Cat threw back her head and laughed.

"My cell phone! Oh, too funny! That song is the dial tone; Nicky put it on there for me as a joke. So what did you do?"

"At first I thought you had become very small, and sunk into your satchel, and were singing from inside it. So I tried to open it, to find you, but it was fused shut at the top. Clasped together with very small teeth. And all the time it kept singing at me! And then, all of a sudden, somebody was screeching at me, and hitting me, calling me a thief and a rat and a scumbag and I don't know what else." He gave Cat a reproachful look. "Your friend can be very violent, you know!"

"Nicky? Oh dear! I was supposed to meet her at the museum—I suppose she tried to call me when she got there and I wasn't outside waiting for her. That's why my phone would have been ringing; nobody else ever calls me on that. So then what happened?"

"Well, I dropped your satchel and tried to protect myself from her attack. So she snatched it up, and then all of a sudden she was yelling that she had a mace, and she would use it if I tried anything—but all I could see was a little metal tube she was pointing at me, with her finger right on top—"

Cat clapped her hand over her mouth.

"Oh no! She didn't!"

"Didn't what?"

"Pepper-spray you!"

"Is that what it was? No, no pepper, fortunately. It makes me sneeze. No, I suppose that she decided I was harmless, or at least no ordinary thief, I dropped your satchel so quickly. But she kept yelling, asking me where you were, what I had done with Cat. So I had to tell her."

"And she believed you?"

"Yes! Well, no. Well—eventually. She stopped hitting me, at least, and screeching. And when a large man came out of the musean and offered to help her—I believe he was a guardian of some kind—she sent him away again, saying she could 'handle the situation'. I tried to explain to her what happened—but, well, you know how different it is there from here. I don't know how much of it she believed, or understood.

"Well, yes. The long and the short of it is, we climbed on the large carriage—the bus (which is an experience all to itself, Guy!)—and she took me back to her rooms." He shook his head in wonderment at all he had seen. "We spent—well, we spent the night there, and she gave me these clothes; she said it would make me less noticeable. And the next day, we looked for you. Or rather, she looked, and I came along." (Hmm, thought Cat. She was sure he was leaving out some significant parts of that story.) "And then this morning, she suddenly thought of this friend of yours—this Ryan."

Cat gulped.

"Ryan? Whatever made Nicky think of him?"

"I don't entirely know—but I am glad she did. Because," he turned to Guy, "that's where we met Ashya."

"What?!?" This was getting more and more bizarre.

Sepp was looking at his brother.

"She's changed, Guy. She's not the same woman—but yet, she is. It's almost as if"—he paused for a moment as he was searching for the right words—"as if she was more herself than she ever was here. She seems to _belong_ there. And she looks different. You know her hair, how long it was, always piled so high on her head? Now she wears it down her back, and it's almost as if there was more of it. And it's an odd colour, not quite the way it used to be. Still fair, but somehow, more fair than fair? As if it had been coloured somehow. As for her clothes—oh my." He widened his eyes at his mental image. "Do a lot of women dress that way?" he asked Cat. "Nicky doesn't, or you."

"What way?" she asked, although she was beginning to have a very good idea of where this was heading.

"Women wear breeches there," he explained to Guy, "tight breeches. But, well, Ashya, she had on something that might have been a skirt once, before someone took all the bottom parts of it and only left the top band."

Cat nearly snorted her mint tea out through her nose. That was the best description of a miniskirt she had heard in a while.

"Her shirt, it was quite sparkly—and there wasn't very much of it, either. As for her shoes, they looked like she was walking on little sticks. On end. Under her heels. Tottering. And this man she was with, this Ryan, he didn't seem to think anything of it."

"Ryan." Cat said the name in a carefully casual tone. "Nicky thought he might know where I was?"

"Yes, in spite of my telling her over and over that you had just vanished, trying to explain about the bowls. It's as if she wanted to believe me, but couldn't, not quite. She did not think you were with this man, but she thought we should just make certain of it. I believe—she said he was your boy friend?"

Guy looked at her with an astonished expression on his face. Cat wanted to sink into the floor.

"Yes," she said, doodling on the tabletop with her finger dipped in the water ring which was left where her mug had dribbled a little. "Yes, he _was_ my boyfriend. He dumped me." She looked at Guy, willing him to understand.

"Dumped you?" the potter said, with a frown.

"Broke up with me, didn't want me. Decided he had enough of being with me. It wasn't really me he was interested in in the first place, just my position in the town—I worked at the library. Do you have those here? Places where you keep books for people to read? I haven't even seen any books around anywhere." She looked around the room as if she was hoping one had suddenly materialised on the mantelpiece.

"Oh, certainly, we've got books," said Sepp. "It's just Guy, he doesn't like them much."

Guy scowled at his brother.

"It's not that I don't like them," he explained to Cat, "they're just not much use for me. The letters never stand still long enough for me to read them. As Sepp knows full well."

Sepp winked at him, and turned back to Cat.

"So, you were saying, this Ryan..."

Cat swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat. She had hoped her question about the library had distracted the men from wanting to talk about her sad love life, but Sepp was proving remarkably persistent.

"Well, I was just saying he wasn't interested in me, really, just in my position, in who he thought I was. I suppose if I was a bit brighter I would have realised that."

"Hmm, where have we heard this one before?" wondered Sepp, staring into the air over his head as if the answer to his rhetorical question was written there. "Interested in someone because of their position, or their family—and of course, being good-looking helps, too..."

"Oh, it wasn't that," Cat stated positively. "It was just the job; he thought I was important. He never thought I was good-looking."

Sepp tilted his head, and gave Cat a carefully considering look.

"Hmm, this Ryan fellow, he didn't _look_ blind," he said thoughtfully. "But in that place, it's amazing the things they can do there. Perhaps they can make a stone-blind man look like he was in full possession of his sight? Sure took me in. It's the only explanation, wouldn't you say?" he asked Guy, whose mouth had quirked up at the corner again.

"No," Guy said blandly, "not the only one. Blithering idiocy could be the other."

"Oh, yes, quite!" agreed Sepp eagerly, settling in as if ready to discuss the mental or visual faculties of Ryan the Ex for the rest of the night. "I did see some signs..."

"Oh stop it!" said Cat, her face flaming. "Both of you!"

The men chuckled. A warm feeling spread out in Cat's body, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the lopsided smile with which Guy was regarding her.

"So, this Ashya," she said quickly, to change the subject, "what was she doing at Ryan's house?"

"Apparently," Sepp explained, "she is his new girl friend. Or so he told Nicky, when she asked if you were there or if he had seen you. He had a new girl friend, he said, someone who suited him better, and here she was. And who was there was Ashya. Except he called her Ashley."

Something clicked in Cat's head. Ashley? With long blond hair, tight clothes, stiletto heels? A picture rose to the surface.

"Ashley?" she cried, "Ashley the Model? _That's_ Ashya?"

"You know her?" asked Sepp.

"Well, I know _of_ her. Ashley the Model—oh dear yes, what a perfect match for Ryan. They would suit each other down to the ground. Nicky met her before, didn't she say?"

"There really was no opportunity. She sort of pushed her way through the door into the rooms—the apartment, she called it; I think she had some idea that he was hiding you in there, Cat. The Ryan fellow, he followed her, probably to stop her breaking things. He should have kept an eye on me instead.

"Ashya recognised me, quicker than I her—I did say she's changed. I think she was afraid I had come after her, to get her. So then she started telling me how amazing that place was, and how she was finally properly appreciated, and going on about having 'found her neesh' and 'doing giggs' and 'having an agent'. I thought she could have at least pretended to be interested in, well, if not in you, Guy, at least in Bibby." He looked at the sleeping baby on the bed, resentment at Ashya clouding his features. "I tried to talk to her about you, mentioned Bibby's name, but all she had to say was, Oh, the baby was cute, but she wasn't ever going to have another one, and fortunately they had ways to make sure about that there."

"Oh!" said Cat. The men looked at her. "I think I just understood something!" she said. "But never mind, carry on!"

"Well, all of a sudden, I felt this pull, this irresistible yearning for home, as if something had called to me. And then I saw the bowl. Yes, this bowl." He poked the shards on the table. "But it was still bright, as blue as the others. It was on a table in the first room, just beyond the door. Ashya saw me looking at it, and said that yes, that was what had brought her there, and she didn't know how it had done it, but it wasn't doing it any more. Then she turned and swanned out of the room, and I—well, I couldn't bear to leave one of your bowls with her, Guy. So I picked up the bowl, and the next thing I knew I was on my backside in the Wald, in the Arbour. And I must say, I have never been so glad to see anyone in my life as you that moment, Guy..."

He was speaking to his brother, but he looked at Cat as he said it. She smiled at him. She liked this man very, very much, almost as much as... Stop, Cat. Don't go there.

Suddenly she saw a light passing outside the window, in the darkness of the forest.

"I think someone's coming," she said.

### CHAPTER 22

A short rap sounded on the door, immediately followed by the door being pushed open.

Ouska entered the room carrying a lantern. She cast a brief look at the faces around the table. Her eyes fell on Sepp, and her whole face lit up in a look of pure joy. But all she said, in a curt tone, was, "So you're back, are you?"

"Good evening, Aunt," the young man replied meekly, his eyes dancing in response to her unspoken pleasure at his return. He got to his feet, as did Guy, strugglingly.

"Sit," the older woman told the potter, "I'm just as well off on the bench."

Guy gratefully sank back into the chair, while Sepp moved around to the back of the table.

"Move over a bit, will you," he said to Cat, pushing his way onto the back bench. She obligingly scooted a foot sideways, closer to Guy, who had his foot up on the front bench again. Ouska got a mug from the shelf, then settled herself on the table and poured a cup of mintbrew. She took a slow sip, letting her eyes travel over the three young faces across the table from her.

Cat felt as if she was supposed to do something, pass some test, sit up straighter—as if she was being evaluated. She desperately wanted the wisewoman to approve of her, but she swallowed her self-consciousness and met Ouska's gaze with a steady one of her own. Two pairs of brown eyes locked for a very brief period; then the older woman gave an infinitesimal nod, as if she was pleased with her. Cat released her pent-up breath, as Ouska's gaze moved on to Sepp beside her, then down to the bowl shards on the table.

"So you're back," she repeated. "When? About an hour back, two?"

"Yes," Sepp and Cat replied at the same time, then looked at each other and laughed.

"In the Wald," Cat continued. "The same place where I first landed."

"Yes, I felt it. And just exactly where was that again?" asked the older woman, with an intent look in her eyes.

"There's a little clearing, a space—"

"The Arbour," interrupted Sepp. "They were there, waiting. Come to think of it, I still don't know why."

"Guy went there," Cat said, looking at the potter. "I followed him. It was something to do with a tree?" She waited for him to pick up the thread, but he remained silent, his face shuttered as if he was trying to prevent his thoughts from being seen.

"Oh," said Sepp, "the tall one, with the blue bark? Behind the screen?"

"The Septimus Tree," stated Ouska matter-of-factly as if none of this came as a surprise to her.

"What?" cried both the men together, Guy shaken out of his silence. They looked at their aunt in consternation.

"Did you not know its name? It is your family's tree, planted by your ancestor, the last Septimissimus, nearly seven hundred years ago. It has always had special significance to your family and very special powers for the Septimus, and I have been suspecting that it is concerned in much of this. There was your wound," she laid a gentle hand on Guy's lower leg, resting on the bench beside her. "You were far more ill than you should have been with an injury of this kind and recovered much more quickly than would have been expected after such a grave illness. I believe it was due to this." She reached into a little pocket on the waistband of her skirt and brought out a small bundle wrapped in a handkerchief. She unfolded the cloth and held the contents up to the light.

Cat recoiled. Held up in Ouska's hand, grasped in the handkerchief, was the sharp splinter she had removed from Guy's wound the morning before. But then Cat leaned closer, intrigued. Even in the low yellow light of the candle she could make out something unusual. This was no ordinary wood—it had a distinctly turquoise-blue sheen. She looked from Guy to Ouska and back again.

"That's the stick that was stuck in your leg, Guy," Cat said, slowly, putting the pieces together in her head as she spoke. "It was in the clay pit, in the hole where, you said, you had dug the clay to mix the glaze for the blue bowls. And the stick is blue—it's a piece from that tree, isn't it?" She looked at Ouska for confirmation, who nodded at her to continue. "And it was the ashes from the tree that made the other part of that glaze. The splinter in your leg, it made you so very ill. The glaze on the bowls, made from that wood and the clay it soaked in, it makes people leave, or come back just by that tree. I think it was even your touching the tree, trying to break off some branches, that drew Sepp back home."

She fell silent for a moment, then continued.

"But one thing I do not understand: why is it Guy's pottery, even if it does come from the Septimus tree, which has that special power, when it is Sepp who is the Septimissimus?"

At this, Ouska nodded again, like a teacher pleased with a pupil who had made all the right connections and had arrived at the hub of the matter. Then she drew a deep breath, as if readying herself for a difficult task, and spoke.

"But he is not," she said. "Sepp is not the Septimissimus—Guy is."

### CHAPTER 23

The three young people stared at the older woman, wide-eyed and speechless.

"I suspected it before now," she said, "but now I am certain."

Cat could tell it was not easy for her to continue.

"I had a sister," she began. Cat drew together her eyebrows in a puzzled frown. Ouska saw her unspoken question. "She was my father's daughter, not my mother's. My brother and sister were small when my father married my mother, and she raised them as her own. Nevertheless, I was the only daughter born to her. We lost her when I was twenty-two, and I believe my sister missed her as much as I did. She was just going on twenty-five, but she wanted guidance. You see, she was in love. So was I—Uncle and I, we had just come to an understanding, and I was wrapped up in my own happiness.

"It's the regret of my life that I did not listen to the Knowing that day, when it told me my sister was in trouble and needed my help. I felt it, but I was still so new to the Knowing that I did not heed its urgency. I delayed, shrugged it off. When I finally went to her, it was too late. You see, she was with child—that, too, she had hid from the world, just as they had hid their love for one another, she and Salmor."

The brothers' heads came up at that, slack-jawed with surprise.

"Yes, she bore your father's child. I know that now—but all these years, I was not sure if it really was his. That day, she miscarried. Lost the babe... and then we lost her." Ouska's voice was heavy with remembered sadness. "It is my firm belief your father did not know of it, any of it, to his last day. He was a good man, Salmor; he grieved my sister, but he had not known. He married your mother some time later, and a year afterward they celebrated your brother's birth as that of his first son. But he wasn't. Ardanna's child was. He lived for a few hours, the little mite; he drew his last breath just a few minutes before his mother.

"I was never sure of the Septimi, did not know whether they all had to be sons of one mother for the seventh to be the Septimus, or no. Uncle did not know, either. And neither of us was certain that Ardanna's child really had been Salmor's. If he was, then you, Sepp, are the seventh son of your mother, but the eighth of your father; it's Guy who is the seventh son of the seventh son. But I did not know whether it mattered, and I did not want to speak of it without certainty, did not want to do an injustice to your father or cause unnecessary grief. So I bided my time, waited until you reached your full age. Watched, and waited.

"You came of age last year," she said to Guy, "but I was still unsure. We hardly knew what to expect, any of us. All I saw was that you became—well, more clumsy, more prone to hurting yourself, to breaking things. And is there not also something with your work? Something odd that began to happen right about that time?"

Suddenly the image of the pottery pieces with the peculiar holes flashed through Cat's mind. Guy frowned.

"Yes," he said slowly, "yes, there is. The day of my birthday, I had a kiln full of work which was riddled with holes, like something had bored its way through them in the firing. I don't know why it happens, but ever since, every time I fire there is at least one piece that has these holes through it."

"He's been hiding them in the cupboard in the workshop," said Cat to Ouska.

"Well, I thought there was something else, even though I had not seen it. But I was never sure if any of it was a sign of the power, even an odd one, or if it came from the hurt that wife of yours had given you."

Guy winced at her words.

"Have you never wondered why she left just then?" Ouska continued. "Have you not asked yourself why she threw herself at you the way she did, those years ago? Oh yes, do not shake your head at me. She went after you. I watched it happen, and did not stop it.

"You see, Guy," and she turned her head and looked full at Cat, "I always knew you were to wed an Unissima. And that woman was the only one there was. It galled me to see it—such an empty-headed, vain, nasty... No matter. She _was_ an Unissima, and it's my belief the Knowing told her you were more than a potter in the Wald. She kept her mouth shut about what she felt—she had that much sense, at least, probably did not want you to be snatched up by some other woman. Or perhaps she was never quite sure what it was she was feeling. But she threw herself at you; she made you marry her. I will not say that you were not taken in by her; she was a bewitching strumpet—likely still is, from what my senses tell me."

There was a small light that was beginning to dawn in Guy's eyes, a light of understanding.

"So then last June," Ouska continued, "you turned twenty-eight. She must have looked for some event, expected some great change—and when it didn't come, she threw a tantrum and left. Oh yes, I know that too—you don't think I believed those foolish stories about your temper and her innocence? Don't forget that I've known you since you were swaddled.

"You were left with the babe, and I had nothing to point to that told me whether you were the Septimissimus or not. So I waited yet longer. Until last week, when you, Sepp, reached your birthday—and less than nothing happened. You vanished, as well."

She picked up one of the brown bowl shards from the table.

"It's to do with these, isn't it?" she asked, with her direct glance at Guy and then Sepp.

"Yes," replied Cat for them. "It's what's left of a bowl—Guy made it—"

"Of course," Ouska said. "I recall now—you told me of one that had brought you here, did you not?"

"Yes. And there are more of them in the workshop."

The older woman got up off the bench.

"Show me," she said.

### CHAPTER 24

The bowls were still where they had left them, on the floor of the workshop beside the open trap door, eerily glowing their turquoise blue as Cat shone the light of the lantern on them.

"Hmm," Ouska said, thoughtfully regarding the dishes. She reached out a hand for them.

"NO!" shouted the men. Sepp lashed out to strike her hand away; Guy covered the bowls with his.

"It's all right!" Cat called out instinctively, then found that she had spoken at exactly the same time, and in the same words, as Ouska. The two women's eyes met, and held their gaze for a moment, and again Ouska gave her that small, approving nod.

"Don't fret yourself," said the older woman to her nephews. "The bowls will not harm me." Her brown eyes looked, steadily and firmly, into Guy's turquoise ones, and reluctantly, slowly, he withdrew his hands and pulled back.

Ouska bent down and picked up a bowl. Sepp drew in a sharp breath; it was the twin bowl to the one which had taken him away and had brought Cat to this place.

The wisewoman cupped her hands around the bowl and let her gaze slide into its depths.

Cat could hear Guy's raspy breathing. Glancing at him from the corner of her eyes, she saw that he was trembling, staring at his aunt's hands. She turned her gaze fully on him, willing him to turn his eyes to her. He looked up, and the fear in his eyes hit Cat with an almost physical force. It's all right, she told him silently, it's all right. Don't fret, don't be afraid. It's all right. His gaze held onto hers, taking courage; his breathing grew calmer, his shaking hands steadied. Cat's eyes held his, soothing, calming. At least he's not crushing any bones this time, the little voice in the back of her mind said suddenly, and the corner of her mouth twitched up at the thought.

Ouska drew a deep breath.

"Well," she said, looking up, and placing the bowl back down on the floor beside the other. "I believe I know how it is now."

"Why did you not—" Sepp burst out.

"—get taken away?" Ouska finished. "Because I have no desire to leave."

The men stared, but Cat nodded softly. Yes, that was just how it was.

"There were pairs of them, were there not?" the older woman asked. "Two each that matched?"

"Yes," said Cat. "The matches to these two were taken to my world. And one bowl was broken, right at the beginning; the remaining one of that pair is still in there." She pointed into the storage hole.

Ouska nodded, as if it made perfect sense.

"Then this is how it is: the power (the magic, if you will, Catriona) is indeed in the glaze. There's something, I don't know what, that has combined in it, through the ash of the tree, the clay it soaked in, and the power of the Septimissimus. The bowls give the person who touches them the power to go from the place they are in to another. But only to the person who wants to go, who has a desire, a deep wish, to leave. That is why it did not harm me and never harmed you yourself, Guy. But each bowl can only take a person one way. If you want to travel back, you need another one, by preference its match, but even a different one will do. However, there is a second use in each of the bowls, just not for the same person. So you, Catriona, came here on the bowl that Sepp went away on, did you not?"

"Yes," said Cat, who had been following Ouska's explanation and found it to be perfectly true, "and he came back on Ashley's—Ashya's—bowl."

Ouska gave a curt nod.

"Is that where she is? I thought as much.

"So it seems rather plain. Sepp and the woman went, because they wanted to be gone—isn't that right?" She fixed Sepp with a stern gaze. He hung his head.

"Yes. I knew I had no powers, knew the people could not use me as Septimissimus. I didn't want to face that—face them. I thought it would be better for them if I was gone...

"Well, no, that's not really true." He scuffed the toe of his shoe on the ground; Cat nearly laughed out loud at how much he looked like a schoolboy caught being naughty. Sepp looked up at his aunt and his brother. "The truth is, I just _wanted_ to be gone, wanted to get out there, to be away from here. And then I was. It was really startling. So you are saying that it was my own wish that sent me away?"

Cat saw the look on Ouska's face. She did not know if the men could see it, but it was clear to her that the older woman was pleased with her nephew's insight and honesty. She nodded in response.

"But, wait," said Sepp, "if there is still the second bowl here, could Cat—could she not go back home on it?"

"She could," agreed his aunt. "She could also take the other matching bowl along, which would enable the woman to come back again." Her tone was bland, simply explaining facts, not suggesting a course of action.

Cat shot a look at Guy, who seemed to not have heard the last few sentences. His lips were pressed together hard, his eyes bleak again. He turned away from the bowls on the ground, limped over to the unlit fireplace, and stared blindly into the empty grate.

"So it _was_ my fault then," he ground out through his teeth.

An angry spark came into Ouska's eyes, and Cat knew that it mirrored a look just like it in her own.

"Yes," said the older woman curtly. "Of course it was your fault that a selfish woman did not get her own way and had to take her foolishness to another place—where, I have no doubt, she is well served with it. Of course it was your fault that your brother lost his temper at not having things work out the way he expected and wanted to get away from his home. Of course it was your fault that your powers, which you did not even know you had, had you make something that served other people for just the purpose they wanted." She snorted. "Have you not heard a word of what your brother just said? Your fault indeed! I wish you would stop that foolishness, boy, right this moment."

She marched past him through the workshop door into the cottage.

Cat and Sepp looked at each other.

"She's right, you know," Sepp said slowly, addressing his brother's back. "I did get what I wanted. I wanted to leave, and leave I did. And it's done me good, I think. And the same for Ashya. Of course," he added slyly, "we can always bring her back with that other bowl, if you really want her back so much."

Guy whirled around.

"I don't—"

Sepp grinned. He had got a reaction out of his brother that snapped him out of his melancholy, and he was satisfied.

"Come on," he said, clapping Guy on the shoulder as he walked past him. "I think Aunt is leaving."

Ouska was indeed getting ready to go when the young people came back into the cottage. She picked up her cloak from the rocking chair, over whose arm she had laid the heavy wool piece, and set the rocker gently swinging.

Sepp stared at the chair; then with wide eyes he looked at his brother.

"Guy! If I'm not—not _it_ , I can make furniture! I no longer need to hide it, I can have a workshop, I can make whatever I want..." His voice suddenly trailed off.

"... but Guy cannot." Cat finished. "Ouska—it's not right! Guy does not have to give up his pottery, does he? But the Septimissimus is not meant to be a craftsman..."

"I cannot believe that to be so," said the wisewoman. "I think it's one of those myths that have sprung up around the Septimi, and while most of them are true enough, this one I always found doubtful. Their father, he was happy doing what he did; he had no hankering after a craft. But then he was a Septimus, not a Septimissimus. We do not know if what goes for the one is also true for the other. And Guy is a gifted potter, no doubt about that; it seems wrong for him to lay down his craft. One gift is not paid for with another; that's why we call them gifts, not merchandise." She gave Guy a shrewd look. "And stop thinking anyone was harmed by what you did, boy, by what you made. The only one who was hurt was you, and that's because you take it all harder than you should. It'll take some time for you to get used to it, that's all, and to find where your true gift lies, the one you can serve the people with—aside from the one that keeps us in pots and jars, that is. I am beginning to believe that your strength is in reinforcing, in bolstering what is already there—that's why those bowls only work for those who already want to go, not for those who don't. Your hands give form, they shape what is there—and what's more, where there is damage, at times they can heal. They make whole."

Guy had sat back down in the chair by the table, as if his weight was too much for his legs to bear. He drew his hand down over his face, trying to rub away the strain and fatigue of all he had heard and felt in the last few hours. Cat gazed at him absentmindedly, Ouska's words running through her head. Suddenly she gave a little snort of laughter. The others looked at her in surprise.

"Sorry," she said. "I just had an irreverent thought. You said you're dyslexic, Guy, right?"

"Dys-what?"

"You said you have trouble reading because the letters jump around on the page? We call that 'dyslexic' where I come from. It usually means you have trouble spelling, too." He nodded with a slight frown, trying to follow her train of thought. "Well, it seems your _gift_ is dyslexic, too! You're meant to be a healer, a whole-maker, w-h-o-l-e"—she flexed the fingers of her right hand which he had hurt and healed so recently—"but instead, you've become a hole-maker, h-o-l-e—that's why there have been holes in your pottery ever since you turned twenty-eight!"

Sepp looked from Cat to his brother, his lopsided grin forcing its way out of the corner of his mouth. He tried to suppress a chortle. Guy's expression changed from consternation to surprise to dawning comprehension, until he shook his head and dropped his face into his hands in helpless amusement.

Ouska chuckled as well. She swung her cloak across her shoulders and picked up her lantern. Turning up the flame a little, she shone its light on the little girl on the bed, smiled, then turned to look at her nephews. Sepp laughed up into her face, and she smiled at him in return.

Then she turned to Guy. She laid her hand on his shoulder and looked down into his face, a tender look full of pride and pleasure. Cat was not sure if the wisewoman said the words aloud, but she heard them as clearly as if Ouska had spoken them right beside her ear.

You can heal now, son.

Then she turned to Cat, and brown eyes looked straight into brown. A look passed between them as between equals.

_You will care for them_ , the look said, _I can trust you_.

_You can trust me_ , Cat's eyes answered back. _I will care for them_.

Ouska turned, and lighted her way out of the cottage into the night.

### CHAPTER 25

"Phew!" said Sepp, turning back to the fire and hanging the kettle back on the crane. "More mintbrew needed here. Unless there's any of Uncle's jack?" He shot a hopeful look at his brother.

"Mintbrew!" said Cat firmly. "Regardless of any availability of booze, I need some more tea. And so do you," she said to Guy. "You look all done in." He gave her his crooked smile, and she suddenly realised that the drawn look had gone from his face. His eyes had cleared, and Cat saw in them a peace that showed what a tremendous weight had been lifted from him. She smiled back, filled with a delight that she found hard to explain.

Suddenly she thought of something.

"Won't this make things a bit awkward with your name?" she said to Sepp.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, Sepp—it's short for Septimissimus, isn't it? You can hardly be called that if you're not him, even if it _is_ your name."

"Oh, it's not his name," Guy said from his corner. "We just always called him that. His given name is Risyl."

"Oh!" Cat tried to digest that piece of information. "Is that usual, calling people something completely different from their actual name?"

" _His_ name," Sepp grinned and pointed at Guy, "is Dyniselm."

Cat blinked.

"Oh dear! Well, Aunt is Ouska, I know that. But—Uncle?"

"Sardor!" chorused the brothers together.

"And—" her eye fell on the sleeping baby on the bed, "and Bibby?"

"Ysbina!"

"Oh! Yes, that's a big name for such a little person." She smiled down at the little girl and reached out a hand to gently brush back the red curls, which were plastered to her forehead. The baby was sleeping hard.

"You know," she said, thoughtfully, "if it wasn't for—for Ashley—Ashya—there would _be_ no Bibby."

The men exchanged a glance.

"True," said Guy quietly.

Cat did not want to say what she had to say next.

"Maybe," hesitantly, slowly, "maybe I _should_ go back, and bring her the other bowl? Maybe she needs to come back here and be with her child. Maybe Bibby wants her."

"Pffft!" said Sepp, "Not Ashya. You should have heard her, when—oy, oy, oy, the kettle!"

All their attention turned to the water kettle, which was hissing and spitting boiling water into the fire beneath it, sending up great swaths of steam into the room. Sepp was dancing from foot to foot to avoid the hot splashes, fishing for the fireplace crane with the poker and trying to stay out of its way at the same time.

Cat looked at Guy, and saw his eyes brimful of amusement. Her lips twitched, his responded, and then they both burst out laughing. All the tension of the last few hours, of the last few days and weeks, dissolved into laughter. They laughed, and laughed, until Guy was breathless and the tears ran down Cat's face.

"Fine, make fun of me!" said Sepp in mock indignation, as he refilled the teapot with mintbrew.

"Oh, it's not you!" gasped Cat, trying to catch her breath.

"Oh yes, it is!" cried Guy, and it set both of them off again into another round of mirth.

Sepp shook his head indulgently, and he couldn't help chuckling at them as they clutched their sides and wheezed with hilarity.

"And you haven't even had any applejack yet," he said, putting the teapot on the table. "And speaking of which, dear brother, when you have some breath..."

Guy was still chortling and snorting, but weakly waved a hand in the direction of the front door.

"Storage... hole!" he managed to gasp out, and Sepp obviously understood what he meant. In the far corner of the cottage, beneath the dish shelves, he opened another trap door (I might have known, thought Cat) and triumphantly extracted a good-sized brown pottery jug with a cork stopper.

"There we are," he said, satisfied. He pulled out the stopper and poured a generous splash of the amber liquid into the bottom of each mug. Topping it up with mintbrew, he passed a mug to each of them.

"Here you go," he said, "Uncle Seppy's applemintjackbrew."

Cat wiped her streaming eyes on the sleeve of her blouse and raised her mug.

"To the Sepp, to the Septimissimus, the—oh, I don't know what else." She giggled weakly, then took a sip from the hot brew, letting the fiery liquor burn down her throat.

"To the Sepp!" "To the Septimissimus!" responded the brothers at the same time, raising their cups to each other and taking rather deeper draughts of them than Cat had done.

"You know," she said, consideringly, "you could still go by Sepp. I had a Great-grandfather who was called that; I think with him, it was short for Joseph. Then we wouldn't have to get used to calling you something different."

"Brilliant!" cried Sepp delightedly. "I'll be the Joe-Sepp! To the finder of names and bowls and potters, to the Cat!" He raised his mug for another deep draught.

"Catriona," responded his brother, much more quietly. He raised his cup to Cat and drank, with an intense light in his eyes as he looked at her. She felt a little tingle run down her spine.

Sepp cracked open his mouth in a tremendous yawn.

And suddenly, Cat realised that yet again, she was alone at night with two men in a one-room cottage which sported all of _one_ wooden platform bed. Ouska had left her with them, and Cat knew that she had done it fully intentionally. Probably her idea of humour, she thought. Or maybe she has something else up her sleeve. Well, she could cope. But she was _not_ going to share the bed with either of them. Especially not Sepp, he was already half a sheet to the wind. Was there such a thing? Half a sheet? Three sheets to the wind, she knew that, but what did you say for less? Cat, shut up, she told herself. You're about a quarter sheet in that direction, too, or you wouldn't babble on in your head like this.

"So," she cleared her throat and smiled brightly, "where do I sleep tonight?"

The brothers looked at each other in surprise; obviously the thought of sleeping arrangements had not occurred to them.

"Ohh," cried Sepp, "not a problem! Prod a noblem! You and me, we roll in little blankety heaps up on the floor, we'll be cosy and snugs as rug in bugs..." He trailed off, blinking a little confusedly.

Guy reached out a hand and gently cuffed his brother upside the head.

"Shut up, you're drunk," he said dispassionately, taking the jug of liquor from Sepp's unresisting grasp. "But he's right," he said to Cat, with an apologetic smile, "it's not really a problem. He and I will take the floor, if you don't mind sharing the bed with Bibby. She's used to sleeping there."

With you, thought Cat. Aloud she said, "As long as she won't mind? And—well, can your leg take it? Else I _could_ sleep on the floor, too, you know." At least I think I can, she added silently.

But he had a surprised look on his face again and was rubbing his injured knee.

"It's a lot better now—even better than just an hour ago!" he said. "In fact, it's completely better, I can't feel anything wrong!" He bent his leg back and forth at the knee. "I wonder what happened? You know, I think it was when..."

"... when Ouska left?" finished Cat.

"Yes! But how did you—"

Cat gave a tiny shrug. She couldn't explain what she had heard or not heard—how she had simply _known_.

Guy got easily to his feet, leaned his hand on his knee and rotated it side to side, testing its restored mobility. "Yes, the floor it is," he said, "definitely."

He looked down at his brother who now had his head pillowed on his arms and was snoring softly. "Idiot," he said affectionately, and went to get out some blankets from the chest against the wall.

### CHAPTER 26

Bibby was a warm little bundle in Cat's arms through the night, curled up against her in the bed. So much more comfortable than the chair, even though that was magical—no, it wasn't, after all. Sepp was not the Septimissimus who made magical crafts. He was just very, very good at what he did. Guy, on the other hand—Cat was not going to think about Guy.

Sepp was snoring; probably an effect of the applejack. He certainly didn't seem to have much of a head for alcohol. Cat heard Guy stirring, then a soft thump as he poked at his brother to make him be quiet. Sepp grunted and snuffled; then the sounds told Cat that he had rolled over. The snoring ceased, to be replaced by the deep, even breathing of the two sleepers, their rhythm offset from each other just a bit. Cat smiled into the darkness, hugged the baby closer, and drifted back to sleep.

The sound of crashing crockery startled her upright. Sunlight was streaming into the windows. Cat was staring around her, confused, disoriented; then her eyes fell on the men on the floor, both of whom were struggling to their feet, obviously just as sleep-drunk as Cat herself. Memory came flooding back: the night, the conversation, the revelation of Guy as Septimissimus, of Bibby's mother, the explanation of the working of the bowls.

The bowls! Bibby! Cat swung her feet off the bed, hurriedly tugging the shift she was wearing for a nightshirt down to her knees with one hand and reaching for the blanket with the other. She wrapped it around herself like a shawl and ran after Guy and Sepp into the workshop, where the noise had come from. Cat pushed past the men, who stood stock-still in the doorway, and there was the little girl by the table, standing amidst the shards of Cat's return bowl. The glaze was still glowing a faint turquoise on some of the pieces, but it was rapidly dulling to the rusty brown of the spent bowls.

Cat's eye flew to the turquoise sheen of the second bowl, clasped in Bibby's little hands.

"Bibby, no!" she cried, and reached out her hand for the small girl, but before she could get to her, Bibby had raised the bowl as high above her head as she could stretch, and then hurled it to the floor with all her might. The turquoise dish shattered into a hundred pieces.

"Boom!" said Bibby, thoroughly satisfied.

"Oh Bibby!" wailed Cat, "What have you done?" And then suddenly she knew. She knew exactly what Bibby had done, and she also knew why. A warm feeling spread through her from her head to her toes.

"Well," she said, almost gleefully, "there goes my return ticket." She took that last step towards Bibby and scooped her up into her arms. "You little monkey, you!" She tickled the little girl's belly and made her giggle.

Bibby turned her large turquoise eyes on Cat.

"Bo bo fump!" she said, importantly.

"Yes, the bowls went thump," confirmed Cat. "And someone will have to clean them up." She looked at the smashed pieces on the floor, now all a dull rust colour, and then turned to Guy and Sepp, who were still standing in shock, staring at the shards.

"You can blink now," she said, then stepped in front of Guy and looked him straight in the eyes. "Bibby did that on purpose," she said seriously. "She does not want her mother back; she is happy here with—with you. You see?"

He stared at her for another second, then shook his head and blinked several times, as if to dislodge the image of what he had just seen. He rubbed his hands over his face, drawing them down his cheeks and leaving his fingers pressed against his mouth for just a moment. It was as if with his gesture, he had wiped away the last remaining traces of the darkness and hurt that had been gathered at the back of his eyes for so long, and a light began to shine from his eyes that Cat found almost hard to look at.

"Bibby, Karana!" he said, and stretched out his arms to his little girl. "Bubba!" she called, and launched herself out of Cat's arms at her father as if she had springs under her. He caught her, wrapped his arms tightly around her small body and held her close. Bibby buried her face against his throat, wrapped her little arms around his neck, and squeezed with all her small might. They stood like this for a minute, perhaps two, Guy's head bent over his little daughter, his darker red curls falling over her light feathery ones. Cat suddenly found she had a large lump in her throat.

"So, uh," Sepp said, his voice studiedly casual, "who's doing the clearing up?"

"You are," said Cat, who saw the suspicious sheen of moisture in his eyes, mirroring her own. "I have no idea where a broom might be, if you even have such a thing around here."

Their attention was drawn to Guy, who was making pretended choking noises. He had loosened his grip on the baby, but the baby had no intention of loosening hers—now it had become a game of Squeeze-the-Daddy. She hugged her little arms around her father's neck in as tight a stranglehold as she could manage, giggling. Guy stuck out his tongue, rasping his mock choking breaths, while trying to pull her away from his neck, but she stuck like a limpet. Finally he resorted to a counterattack technique. The long fingers of one hand spanned her small back, his thumb tickling her under one arm, the middle finger under the other, while at the same time he put his lips to her pudgy cheek and blew a loud raspberry. Bibby squealed loudly and let go. Guy swung her out, holding her at arm's length over his head, where she kept squealing and waving her little arms and legs with excitement. When he brought her back down and carefully placed her on her little feet on the floor, both father and daughter wore smiles of pure happiness.

Bibby toddled off to the cottage, and Guy set out to follow her.

"Broom—corner, door," he said over his shoulder to his brother. Sepp found a bristle broom in the corner behind the outside door to the privy and a shovel-like scoop beside it.

"Here, hold that, will you?" he said, handing the scoop to Cat. Oh, a dustpan! Right. Clutching the blanket around her shoulders with one hand, Cat crouched on the floor and held the scoop for Sepp as he swept shards into it.

"Where to?" she asked.

"There's a bin by the kiln, it's got cracked pots in it. Just dump it in there. Or, wait, I'll take it."

"No—no, it's all right. I'll do it."

Cat carefully picked her way in her bare feet over the ground, wet with morning dew. Yes, there it was, a wooden bin filled with broken pieces and warped pots. She looked down at the scoop in her hand, full of rusty brown pottery shards. There, that one came from 'her' bowl, the one that was meant to have taken her back to her own world. It was small, only an inch or two across, but the curve of the top made it clear which one of the two pots it had belonged to. Cat carefully picked it out and wrapped her fingers around it protectively. Just a memento.

But those, those were the shards that belonged to Ashya's bowl. Suddenly Cat pulled back her arm, and with an overarm swing worthy of the best baseball pitcher flung the contents of the scoop into the bin as hard as she could. Not hard enough. She reached into the bin, took the largest piece of pottery she could find, and hurled it onto the shards with all her might. The crash was magnificent.

"So _there_!" Cat said, with a satisfied nod of her head. Then suddenly she became aware of what she was doing. Embarrassed, she looked behind her, but the open doorway into the shop was empty; Sepp must have gone back into the cottage. Phew, that was a relief—although, when Cat thought about it, she realised that she wouldn't mind all that much if he had seen her acting silly. Guy, on the other hand... Don't go there, Cat.

Cat went back into the cottage, collected her skirt, blouse, and comb, and took herself out back to get ready for the day. When she came back into the cottage, breakfast preparations seemed to be underway. Sepp had stoked the fire and was setting a large black iron pot on its three little legs into the embers.

"Oats in the storage hole?" he asked Guy over his shoulder as he opened the trap door in front of the dish shelf. Without waiting for an answer, he extracted a small sack made of tightly woven canvas. "Ah, yes. When's the last time you used this? Probably before I left, wasn't it," he stated positively.

Guy snorted dismissively.

"You're not the only one who can cook, you know. Get off your high horse and get on with the porridge; my offspring is starving."

The starving offspring was showing her acute suffering by dancing around the cottage, whirling in little circles until she got dizzy and plopped onto her plump little rear end.

"Fump!" she stated, then got up to begin again, singing to herself. "Bibbyfump, Bibbyfump, Bibbyfump..."

"She is so adorable!" Cat said, watching her. "And usually really cheerful, isn't she?"

"Yes," Guy said, the tone of fond pride in his voice unmistakable. "It's not much puts her out of humour." He caught the little girl in mid-whirl and bore her off to the corner to change her out of her nightshirt into her daytime tunic. (Cat had a brief vision flitting through her head of Ryan's face, his mouth curled into a sneer, calling the little kids in her library story time sessions 'rug rats.' But it was a very brief flash—she could barely remember his face any more... Goodbye, Ryan. And most excellent riddance to you.)

Last night's mugs and the teapot were still sitting on the table, as Cat went to get out the dishes for breakfast.

"I guess we can re-use the mugs. Are we going to need the—what do you call this, anyway?" She gestured at Guy with the teapot.

"The brewpot? Brewpot, of course. Why, what do you call it?" asked Guy.

"Teapot!" replied Sepp and Cat simultaneously. She looked at him—he seemed to have learned a thing or two in her world. Cat wondered. What exactly had gone on between him and Nicky, in the almost two days they had been together?

"Tea-pah!" repeated Bibby, delighted at this new word to add to her vocabulary. Cat's attention went to the little girl.

"Yes, teapot! Look, we even have a song about it." She stood in front of Bibby, put her right hand on her hip, stuck her left in the air beside her head, and in her best story time manner began: "I'm a little teapot, short and stout..."

By the time the porridge was cooked, Bibby-the-teapot was tipping herself over and pouring herself out with the best of them and had to be forcibly sat on the bench to eat her breakfast, or she would have continued practising her newfound skill for the next hour. For all her psychic powers (no, her Unissima's gift, Cat reminded herself), she was still just a little girl like any other. Cat loved her.

### CHAPTER 27

After breakfast, Sepp took Bibby outside to play; Cat strongly suspected that it was as much to escape his brother's teasing about the burnt-on crust on the bottom of the porridge pot as it was to entertain his niece. He was still wearing his other-world's clothes; the jeans and t-shirt somehow suited him.

She helped Guy with clearing up the dishes and straightening the cottage, but the longer they worked, the more strained the silence between them became.

What now, Cat, what now? Guy was almost fully cured, he no longer needed her help. Sepp was returned, and the mystery of his disappearance cleared up. Cat no longer had a role to play in this world. She was stuck on an alien planet, and the space program had been discontinued. She could not even go home, and carry on where she had left off; the travelling bowls were broken...

Guy cleared his throat.

"Cat—Catriona?"

Cat looked at him. There was a serious, uncertain expression in his eyes; he swallowed convulsively.

"There—there is something I—I want to—just come, please," he finished abruptly, then turned on his heel and strode through the door into the workshop.

Cat was puzzled. What was he up to now? She followed him into the workshop and found him bent over the trap door that had hidden the bowls. Oh! The last remaining bowl! What...?

Guy straightened up, the dish cupped in his strong, slender hands, glowing its eerie turquoise blue. He stepped over to the table and placed it carefully on the canvas surface. His head bent, he stared into the curved bowl for a long moment, then raised his head, and looked straight at Cat.

"This is yours. I will not keep you here, I will not hold you. If you want to leave, this is your path. If you want to go," his voice wavered slightly, "then go." His gaze turned back to the bowl on the table, and he half raised his hand as if he wanted to take it back, retract his offer. But he refrained, held back, and then abruptly straightened.

"Farewell, Catriona," he said, in a barely audible voice, and without looking at her, his back ramrod straight, he walked out of the shop.

Cat blinked. He had given her no time to respond, no time to think. No time to feel, to sense what she needed to do.

Averting her eyes from the bowl on the table, she turned and slowly walked back into the cottage. The rocking chair called to her from the corner. She leaned back into it, and it cradled her back, gently, kindly, as she softly swayed back and forth. Guy, Bibby, Sepp. Ryan, Nicky, Ashya. Ouska, Uncle. Guy, Bibby. Guy.

It was nearly an hour later that Sepp and Bibby came back in the house.

"I think she needs a nap," Sepp declared, "she's getting cranky. Where's Guy?"

"I don't know," said Cat, slowly and softly. "He—walked out."

"Oh!" Sepp gave her a searching look. He picked up the baby, took off her shoes, and put her into the bed, tucking the blankets around her. She fussed halfheartedly but quickly gave in and snuggled into the pillows.

Sepp sat down on the bench, leaning backwards onto the table with his elbows, and directed his turquoise gaze at Cat, giving her a long, straight look. She met his look with one of her own, then drew a deep breath.

There was one more thing she needed to know.

"Sepp? Who, or what, is Karana?"

He looked surprised.

"Karana? How... Oh, I suppose you heard us call the babe that. It's nobody in particular—it's just a pet name we have." He sounded a little embarrassed. "It's a private family name; we don't—don't usually use it in public. If you heard us say that, you are probably the first one outside of our family. Father used it, for Mother; I think he was the one who gave it its meaning."

"So what does it mean?"

Now Sepp looked distinctly sheepish.

"If you must know," he said, avoiding Cat's eyes, "it means 'My Dearest Love and Delight of My Heart'. Sentimental, I know," he said defensively, "but that's Father. That's how he was. Guy is so much like him in that way; everything is drama. And Father is the one who made up the word, so that's what it means."

Cat looked down at her fingers, pleating and unpleating the fabric of her skirt.

"Did—did Guy ever call _her_ that?"

"Who? His wife?" He snorted. "I doubt it. Mind you, I wasn't there when they were private together, of course, but—I just doubt it, that's all."

Cat felt a blush rising in her cheeks, but she had to know.

"Sepp—did he love her?"

The young man's eyes were serious.

"I think he tried," he said quietly. "He tried his hardest. He was flattered, and probably infatuated, for a while—a very short while. After that—you cannot love an empty shell. And that's what she was—still is—a hollow, empty, perfectly formed shell. Oh yes, she's very beautiful—like a statue. Just like a statue. Cold, and hard. She doesn't have half the beauty you have. You're alive, and warm, and... Well, I know he sees it. I've seen the way he looks at you. You're the best thing that's happened to him, ever."

Her head, her face blushing fiercely, came up at that.

"But—he wants me to go!"

Sepp frowned.

"Why do you think that?" he asked.

"Come, look," she said, getting up from the rocker and leading the way into the workshop. "See? He put it out, for me to use." She gestured at the bowl.

Sepp started back at the sight of it, then pulled himself together and stepped closer.

"It still frightens me," he admitted. "But, Cat—what exactly did Guy say?"

"He put it there, and said that it was for me, and if I wanted to leave, I should leave." She suddenly paused. She knew. Why had she not known before? She knew. Her heart filled with a warm, bubbly, light feeling that expanded and spread through her whole body. "Sepp!" she cried, delighted with him, delighted with herself. "Sepp, _it won't work!_ The bowl won't work, because it only works for someone who wants to leave— _and I don't!_ I am staying! I'm not going anywhere, I'm staying here!" She was so happy she could have hugged him. She did not know what she was going to do with herself in this strange world, this world of magic and Septimi and small children who had second sight, but she knew she belonged there. She would stay, she would find a place to live, she would move in with Ouska and learn her craft, she would...

Cat suddenly became aware of an odd look on Sepp's face. An intent look, half puzzled, half determined.

"Cat," he said slowly, as if thinking aloud, "Cat, do you think it might work for me?"

And again, Cat knew.

"It's Nicky, isn't it." It was a statement, not a question. She considered. "I won't ask what happened—you will tell me some other time. Yes," she said, positive now, "the bowl will work. Take it, and when you get there, be careful. But you will know what to do.

"Oh, and one thing—" she had no idea where this sudden thought came from, but she knew it was important to tell him, "Nicky is terrified of mice."

And this time she did hug him, one tight, strong hug, from sister to brother.

Then Cat stepped back, picked up the glowing turquoise bowl from the table, and held it out to Sepp.

"Goodbye, Risyl!"

"Goodbye, Cat." He reached out for the bowl, and as his hands touched it, she just saw his eye close in a wink. And then he was gone.

### CHAPTER 28

Cat drew a deep breath. Now what, Cat? Wait, that's what. Wait, and watch over the sleeping little girl in the next room. Something inside of her was tuned to Bibby, knew that the baby was still sound asleep on the bed.

Cat let her eyes travel around the workshop. The shelves with the fired, unglazed pots. The cupboard that held the beautiful green, blue, and pierced pieces, that had held the mysterious broken necklace. The work table, the drying shelves with the half-finished wares. Her gaze slid to the trap door in the floor, the trap door that had concealed the turquoise bowls. Would there ever be more of them? Maybe not ones exactly like it, but others, with different powers, the voice inside of her said. The wheel. Cat thought of how Guy's strong fingers had shaped the cups, had pulled form from formlessness.

She sat down on the wheel bench, her hands resting on the surface of the wheel head. It turned, very gently. She stretched out a toe and nudged the flywheel just a bit. It idly spun into slow, lazy motion. She let her fingers trail along the edge of the wheel head as it silently turned around, and around...

Steps sounded along the outside of the building. Guy's steps. Cat's heart leapt into her throat. The latch rattled, and the door creaked open.

He stepped into the shop, hope and apprehension mingled on his face. His gaze went straight to the table. The bowl was gone, its place empty. His shoulders slumped, and as he turned to leave the room, Cat read on his face a bereft hurt, a disappointed longing.

Longing for her. Silly man. Why did he not look up?

"Guy," she said softly.

He whirled around, and saw her. His eyes lit up in a blaze of turquoise, incredulous joy suffusing every line of his face. In three steps he crossed the room, stopping himself hard in front of her, where she had slid off the wheel bench.

"Catriona! Cat—you're here..."

"Yes," she said, smiling up at him, "I'm here."

"But—but the bowl..."

"I gave it to Sepp. He needs it; he has unfinished business back in my world. My old world. And don't fret," she added, "he'll come back. I know."

"You know..." he said, softly. "You are—you are Unissima."

"Yes, I am Unissima. I belong here, my place is here. The bowls have no effect on me any longer."

He took a deep breath, then another to steady himself.

"I—I went to the village. I was hoping—wishing—" His voice trailed off, then he began again. "When I saw the bowl was gone, I thought I made a fool of myself... You see, I got—this." He reached into the pocket of his vest and brought out a small pouch, made of soft washleather. He loosened the drawstring and reached into the pouch.

His slender fingers drew out a silver chain. Cat watched, mesmerised, as the bright links slipped out of the bag, one by one, and finally revealed on their end a silver pendant. A small, beautiful, filigreed cat.

Guy's turquoise eyes looked down into Cat's brown ones.

"Catriona, Karana," he said softly, "marry me."

And Cat knew what to answer.

"Yes, Dyniselm Septimissimus, I marry you."

With trembling fingers Guy opened the clasp of the chain, and then held it out to Cat. She gathered her hair and held it up; he clasped the chain around her neck and settled the silver cat against the hollow of her throat. Then in one motion, he pulled her to him and wrapped her in a hug that crushed the breath out of her. Cat didn't mind a bit.

Suddenly a small body hurled itself against them at the level of their knees.

"Bibby up!" demanded a small voice.

Guy laughed. Keeping his left arm firmly wrapped around Cat, he reached down with his right and grasped the little girl under her arm. Cat reached down with her left, and together they pulled the baby up and held her between them.

Bibby beamed at them.

"Bubba," she said, "Gah," patting her father on the cheek with one hand and Cat with the other.

Then she pulled back a little, looked from one of them to the other, and came to a conclusion.

"Bubba Mumma!" she said, and she wrapped her little arms around their necks as far as she could reach.

### NOTE

All the remedies and technologies in this story, apart from the obviously magical ones, work in Cat's old world as well. Potters really did make glazes with a mix of ashes and clay; basil powder and garlic are antiseptic; and cider vinegar makes a good hair rinse if you've washed your hair with soap.

For Ouska's silver polish, use an aluminum dish such as a disposable pie plate or put some aluminum foil in the bottom of another dish, and then simply follow her method. It works.

However, should you ever find a tree with turquoise blue bark, do let me know if there are special properties in the ashes.
Read an excerpt from Book 2 in the Septimus Series, CAT AND MOUSE:

PROLOGUE

"Are you certain of this?" the deep voice demanded harshly. Thick candles guttered in their massive carved holders, outlining the silhouette of a heavyset man facing into the room. A slight figure appeared from the shadows, bowing deeply.

"Yes, my lord." Another bow. "The black traitors have obtained the scroll and cast the portent, and received word of the power of the slave. They seek him. But as yet they know not his name nor dwelling, and..."

A heavy fist struck the table.

"He must be removed!"

"Yes, my lord." The pale face took on a sly look. "Your humble servant has news to this end, good news, my lord, which your humble servant found at great cost to himself."

"Well?" The powerful shoulders shifted under the gold-embroidered cloak.

"A portal has opened, my lord, a gate that was closed for many hundredyears, to a land we could not enter. My lord might send the slave thence, bound thrice. The seer gives assurance that there are stones left in the treasury, the blue stones which might take a man across..."

"Ah! Very well. See that it is done." A coin glittered briefly in the candlelight. "If word of this reaches outside these walls, you will regret it. Go!"

"Yes, my lord!" The slight figure bowed deeply and withdrew into the shadows.

A shimmering vortex of blue light forms in the middle of the moonlit quarry, reflecting turquoise off the steep rock walls, whirling, spinning. Two figures appear, staggering, in its centre. The circling light slows and dissipates as the dark outlines resolve themselves into a man gripping the arm of a young boy. The man steadies himself, pushes the boy away, casts a glance around him, then strides out through the entrance of the quarry onto the plains. Silently, the boy clambers to his feet and stumbles after the man toward the sleeping city's dim lights shining on the horizon.

CHAPTER 1

Enough was enough. Catriona picked up the baby, yanked open the door to her new husband's workshop, marched in, and deposited the little girl at her father's feet. "There, she's all yours!" she said. "I'm going out!" She snatched Guy's cloak from the hook behind the door and stomped out into the little clearing that surrounded the cottage.

One day—they had been married just one day. And known each other for five. Talk about shotgun wedding. And already Cat was so frustrated with the man she could scream. But she didn't want to do that inside for fear of scaring her new little stepdaughter. Little Bibby did not deserve to be caught in yet another marital fracas; she had had enough of that with her birth mother.

Cat turned to her left and marched along the path that led past the clay pit. She just needed to be alone, to let off some steam. By herself, finally! Five days of never having a moment to herself (other than perhaps in the draughty little outhouse at the back of the cottage), five days of being in a totally new world with new rules where everything was different, five days of living about as primitively as on a campground back in America, where Cat came from.

And that had been the beginning of the big argument. Guy's aunt, the formidable and no-nonsense Ouska, had amenities in her house. She had indoor plumbing of sorts (run on a hand-operated pump, but still, it was inside the house), and she had a hot water tank that delivered lovely warm water to the bathroom behind her kitchen—the indoor bathroom, Cat thought resentfully. Whereas Guy's cottage—her own cottage now, Cat reminded herself—had nothing much more than four walls, an open fireplace, and a cold-water pump on the outside of his pottery workshop.

All she had asked was whether they could not have one of those hot water tanks in the cottage, too—that's all she had asked for! And he had got a mulish look on his face and said, in a huff, that these things were costly, and difficult, and the cottage was the way it was and that was that. And then he had stomped off into his workshop to make some more of his infernal pottery, leaving her alone to look after the baby. His baby.

Leaving her alone. Cat sniffed. Just like last night. They had been married, yesterday, by the peculiar little private ceremony of this world—they had spoken the words of marriage to each other, and he had given her the silver necklace that served for a wedding ring in this place. Cat reached up to her neckline and fingered the filigree cat pendant at her throat. It meant they were married, didn't it? Yesterday, they had been so happy... Come nightfall, they had tucked in the baby on her little pallet in the corner of the room. And then Guy—Cat sniffed again—Guy had taken a bed roll and gone to sleep on the floor in his workshop. Was that another peculiar custom of this world? Didn't married people—well, share the bed? She could have sworn he was attracted to her, was interested in her in 'that way'—but why didn't he, then, do something about it? Or was she the only one who had sparks shooting up her arm whenever they accidentally brushed against each other?

She turned off the forest path into the small clearing where she had first arrived in this world. The Arbour, they called it. The blue bark of the Septimus Tree winked at her from between the screening branches on the right. She found a convenient large rock and sank down on it, burying her face in her hands. What had she got herself into? She had been so sure, yesterday, that it was the right thing to do to stay in this world, that it was the right place to be. Well, to be honest, she was still sure of it. She wanted this to work out. But why was Guy so—so—difficult? Perhaps it had been stupid to marry someone on such a short acquaintance. Her first truly impulsive major decision—and she had screwed it up. She knew so little of Guy, so little of his world. And her experience with relationships was, to put it mildly, somewhat limited. For all her twenty-eight years she had had only one or two serious boyfriends, and none of them had lasted long. But she had thought, yesterday, that Guy was different. And this world was different. Cat had the feeling that they didn't start and end relationships as casually as they did in her old world, that marriage vows meant something here. Even if they were exchanged as quickly after meeting as theirs had been. What had she let herself in for?

Cat stared absentmindedly at the strange bushes across the clearing with their spiky leaves and the blood-red berries, which looked vaguely sinister. She had never seen anything like them before, back at home—no, this was her home now. She belonged in Ruph, in spite of it all. She wondered what those bushes were called, and if they had some kind of special properties like the Septimus Tree, which, she had been told, was a one-of-a-kind tree planted by one of Guy's ancestors and was special even for this world. She certainly had experienced its powers herself; it had played an important role in bringing her here. As if she had been meant to come.

A branch cracked not far off. What was that? Steps? Surely it was. Someone was quietly, stealthily moving through the underbrush towards her. She tilted her head to listen.

"Sshshsh! Bubba be shush! Mumma wanna be awone!" came the penetrating stage whisper of a two-year-old.

Oh. Cat rolled her eyes. There were definite drawbacks to having a stepdaughter with unusual mental abilities—with the little girl's psychic powers, hiding from her and her father was proving nearly impossible. Guy's head came into view, cautiously peering around the trees that marked the entrance to the Arbour.

"Shshshsh!" hissed Bibby again, perched on her father's arm, squishing her chubby little forefinger to her lips.

Cat shook her head.

"It's okay," she said resignedly. "You're here, you might as well come the rest of the way."

Guy put the little girl down on the ground.

"Mumma!" she squealed happily, and launched herself at Cat. "Mumma no be awone?"

Cat picked her up and hugged her close. You couldn't be angry with her, she was just so sweet. Bibby's red curls tickled Cat's nose, and she puffed air out of her nostrils. The baby giggled.

"Dat tickoos!" she said.

Cat blew a raspberry on the little girl's round cheek. Anything to avoid looking at Guy. What was he doing here, anyway?

Guy cleared his throat.

"Cat—Catriona?"

Cat looked up at him. His turquoise eyes were on her, uncertain.

"Well?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I was, uh, abrupt. It's just..."

"Bubba sowwy," explained Bibby, patting Cat's cheek with her little hand.

Cat had to laugh.

"Yes, sweetie, he said so. Why don't you go and find some pine cones to play with?" She put the baby down, then looked back up at Guy. "It's just what?"

He heaved a deep sigh.

"It's—well, Ashya. She was always asking for more, always. Whatever I had, whatever I did, it was never enough for what she wanted. And then she left. I was afraid that..."

"That I was leaving, too?" Well, that figured. Cat drew a deep breath. "Look, Guy. Get it through your thick head, once and for all, that I am not like your ex-wife. Okay?" She got up from her rock and stood in front of him, tilting her head back so she could look in his eyes. "If I wanted to leave," she said, "I'd have left yesterday, using the bowl. But I didn't. I gave it to Sepp, remember? I'm staying. Do you get it? I'm staying! But I don't see why I should be uncomfortable here if I don't have to be. I come from a place where we have electricity——that means we can have light, or heat for cooking, by flicking a switch or clicking a button. We have central heating; one touch on a dial, and the furnace starts blowing warm air. We have bathrooms where we just have to turn a tap, and hot water comes gushing out. I don't mind giving that up if I have to——but I do mind if I don't have to. It's because I'm staying I want that water tank. I'm going to be here for good, and I don't want to be miserable with it!"

Guy looked at her with an intense light in his eyes, drawing a deep breath and blowing it back out. He reached out his hand and cradled Cat's cheek. A tingle ran down her back.

"Catriona..."

Steps sounded through the woods.

"Guy? Catriona? Are you there? Bibby?"

Guy quickly pulled back his hand as Cat turned her head.

"Here, Aunt!" he called, his voice just a little shaky.

Ouska strode into view, her stocky figure encased in her usual outfit of long, tiered skirt and loose blouse, her grey-brown hair wound in a coronet of braids around her head.

"Ah, there you are," she said in a satisfied tone. "I thought as much."

Well, yes, she would. She had the same unusual gift as her great-niece, and as Cat was beginning to discover she had herself. Apparently it came from being an only daughter of an only daughter—an Unissima—and it meant she knew things without being told, particularly things about people she was close to. The Knowing, they called it. Cat had never had that ability back in her old world, but there seemed to be something about this place that brought out those latent gifts in people.

"Hello, Aunt." She smiled at the older woman, genuinely glad to see her. Bibby ran over and clutched at Ouska's skirt.

"Wook!" she said, holding up a pine cone.

"Lovely, dear," said Ouska kindly. "Listen," she turned to her nephew, "I think the little one could use a bit of time visiting with her cousins. Yldra's young Randor has been getting into mischief purely from boredom; he needs someone to play with. I'll take her with me now. Do you want to come play with Randor, Bibby, and sleep at Aunt's house tonight?"

"Pay Wandor!" agreed Bibby.

"Oh! Right," said Guy, who was used to his aunt's sudden ways of doing things. "You know where her night shift is, in the chest in the cottage."

"Yes, yes, I'll find it," said Ouska. "Come on, little one, we'll go see Uncle."

A slightly awkward silence fell between Cat and Guy after the sound of Bibby's and Ouska's departing steps had faded away. They were alone for the first time in—since they were married. Cat crouched down on the soft forest floor, which was covered in leaf mould, to pick up the pine cone Bibby had left behind.

"Catriona—" Guy began, his voice a little hoarse. He was looking at the ground in front of him. "Catriona, do you mean it?"

"What? Do I mean what I said about staying? Yes, silly, of course I do. I'm here for good. But..."

"Cat—Cat, you know—you could have anything you want, if I can give it to you, anything to make you comfortable. Really, I..."

"Oh!" said Cat, her eyes sparkling, "now you tell me! So I can have the water heater?"

"Yes," he said quietly.

"Great!" Cat said. "And what about an indoor bathroom?"

"Well, yes, if you want..."

"Oh goody! And how about a bigger cottage? Could we make the house bigger? Lots bigger? You know, build another floor on top, or double the floor space? And have a dining room with a crystal chandelier?"

He looked up with a slight frown drawing down his eyebrows.

"I'm not sure..."

"And, oh," continued Cat, apparently not listening to him, "I always wanted a purple silk dress with a really long train! And jewellery, gold jewellery, with diamonds and rubies and..."

Suddenly Cat found herself flat on her back, her wrists pinned to the forest floor. Guy's turquoise eyes were shooting sparks mere inches above her own.

"You little tease!" he growled. "You need to be taught a lesson!" He kissed her long and hard on the mouth.

"Oh," Cat squeaked, when she could catch her breath, "oh, teacher, sir, I don't think I understood that lesson! Could you please repeat it, sir?"

Sir obliged.

The dreams were vague at first, just sounds—like the old-fashioned radio plays Catriona used to listen to when she was a kid.

"Nicky?"

"Oh, it's you! You got back then, did you?"

"Yes, I did. Can I come in?"

"I don't know. I'm in the middle of something—actually, I'm leaving right now, something's come up. And you just disappeared on me, back there at Ryan's place the other day. What's with that bowl?"

"The bowl? Oh, it's—I'll tell you later. But Nicky, I found Cat! She's back at my home, back in..."

"Oh, whatever. You mean that 'other world' you keep talking about? Sepp, I'm not buying that. My best friend has vanished, and you come along with this rigmarole..."

"Nicky! Nicky, don't cry. Honestly, it's true! I went back to Ruph, and Cat's there, and she's staying—she's with my brother, and..."

"Oh, what, now you're telling me Cat's hooking up with some guy in your mysterious world? Give me a break, Sepp. Cat doesn't do guys, she wouldn't fall for someone just like that. She's got a head on her shoulders. She thinks. She's..."

The sound of a door clicking shut.

Cat's eyes popped open.

She stared into the darkness around her. Sepp and Nicky. So he had got back to America, had he? And Nicky wasn't having any of his sweet-talking—Cat was not surprised. Well, it did sound like she had let him into her apartment. Now whether Nicky would eventually believe him about Cat and Guy and Ruph—that was another matter... Cat wondered when this conversation had taken place. Somehow, she had no doubt that it had been real, that she had heard something that actually happened—but when? Or had it not even happened yet; was it still going to come?

Cat could just make out the faint outline of the window beside the bed—it must have been sometime in the small hours, as dawn had not even begun. Guy gave a deep snore, then woke up just enough to roll over, fling his arm over Cat, and pull her close to him. Cat gave a small, satisfied sigh and snuggled against his warm chest.

It was the next day they first saw the grey mice.

### ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A. M. Offenwanger lives in rural Western Canada with her husband, daughter, three sons, two cats, numerous dust bunnies, and a small stuffed bear named Steve. She likes walking barefoot through the mud because she enjoys the squishy feeling between her toes. On the Internet she can be found on Facebook and Twitter and on her blog at www.amovitam.ca.

### ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

_Seventh Son_ would never have seen the light of day without the help of a number of wonderful people.

First of all my husband Peter and daughter Anna, who read it first, helped me iron out the lumpy bits, never got tired of discussing the characters and plot twists, and through it all have been unfailingly encouraging—

My beta readers and fellow writers Christopher Bunn, Louise Bates, and Desi Valentine; but most especially Lee Strauss, who has been nothing short of midwife to this book—

My editor Jennifer Ballinger and cover artist Steven Novak—

And all my friends who read the story in its first incarnation and were unanimously enthusiastic about it—

THANK YOU.

