Gathering Blue - Lois Lowry [41]
"No, Matt," she said when the tyke began to follow her.
His face fell. He had sensed an adventure. "Go wake Thomas," Kira told him. "Tell him what happened. Tell him that Annabella has died, and that I have gone to find Jamison."
"Jamison? Who's he?"
Kira was startled at Matt's ignorance. Jamison had become so much a part of her life that she had forgotten the tyke wouldn't know his name. "He's the guardian who first took me to my room," she explained. "Remember? A very tall man with dark hair? You were with us that day.
"He always wears one of Thomas's carvings," she added. "Quite a nice one, with an outline of a tree."
Matt nodded at that. "I seen him!" he said eagerly.
"Where?" Kira looked around. If Jamison was nearby, if she could find him at one of the workplaces, she wouldn't have to search the Council Edifice.
"He be there, watching, walking beside, when the draggers tooken the old dyer to the Field," Matt said.
So Jamison already knew.
The corridors were, as always, quiet and dim. At first Kira felt secretive and stealthy, as if she should make her footsteps as silent as possible, difficult with her stick and her dragging leg. Then she reminded herself that she was not hiding, not in danger. She was simply looking for the man who had been her mentor since her mother's death. She could even, if she chose, call his name loudly in hopes that he would hear and respond. But calling out seemed inappropriate and so she simply continued down the hall in silence.
As she had expected, the great hall was empty. She knew that it was used only for special occasions: the annual Gathering; trials, such as her own; and other ceremonies that she had never seen. She pulled the huge door open a crack, peeked in, and turned away to look elsewhere in the building.
She knocked timidly on several doors. Finally at one a voice answered with a gruff "Yes?" and she pushed the door open to see one of the tenders, a man she didn't recognize, busy at a desk.
"I'm looking for Jamison," Kira explained.
The tender shrugged. "He's not here."
She could see that. "Do you know where he might be?" she asked politely.
"In the wing, probably." The tender looked down again at his work. He seemed to be sorting papers.
Kira knew that "the wing" was where her own quarters were. That made sense. Probably Jamison was looking for her even now, to tell her of the old woman's death. She had started out much earlier than usual this morning, thinking to make up for the day wasted yesterday by rain. If she had waited, Jamison could have found her, told her of the death, explained, and she would not feel so shocked and solitary.
"Excuse me, but can I get to the wing from here without going back outside?"
Impatiently the tender gestured to his left. "Door at the end," he said.
Kira thanked him, closed his office door behind her, and went to the end of the long hall. The door there was not locked, and when she opened it she saw a familiar stairway. She had tiptoed down it with Thomas and Matt just yesterday during the storm. She knew the stairs would return her to the corridor above, where she would find her room and Thomas's.
She stood motionless and listened. The tender had said that Jamison was probably somewhere in the wing, but she heard no sound.
On a whim, instead of taking the stairs to her room, Kira remained on the first floor. She went to the corner where she and Thomas had hidden the day before, the same corner they had peered around to see where the crying was coming from. In the silence and emptiness, she rounded the corner and approached the door that had been open the afternoon before.
She leaned next to it, her ear against the wood, and listened.