Gathering Blue - Lois Lowry [58]
Kira, watching, remained motionless and silent, overwhelmed with her new knowledge and a heavy feeling that combined dread and terrible sorrow.
That fear and sadness stayed with her as she limped laboriously upstairs and Thomas urged her to explain what was wrong. She took a deep breath and prepared herself to tell him what she knew.
But at the top of the staircase, they were interrupted by the sight of Matt in the corridor outside Kira's open door. He was grinning broadly and dancing impatiently from foot to foot.
"It's here!" Matt called. "The big giftie!"
Kira entered the room and stopped just inside the door. She stared curiously at the stranger who sat slumped wearily in her chair. She could tell from his long legs that the man was quite tall. There was gray in his hair, though he was not old; three syllables, she thought, trying to categorize him in some way that would perhaps explain his presence. Yes, three syllables, about the same as Jamison; maybe the age of her mother's brother, she decided.
She nudged Thomas. "Look," she whispered, indicating the color of the man's loose shirt. "Blue."
The intruder stood and turned toward her at the sound of her voice and at the continued bursts of Matt's barely-contained excitement. Kira wondered briefly why he had not risen when she entered. It would have been the expected gesture for even the most inconsiderate or hostile stranger, and this man appeared to be both friendly and courteous. He was smiling slightly. But now she could see, to her distress, that he was blind. Scars crossed and disfigured his face with jagged lines across his forehead and down the length of one cheek, and his eyes were opaque and unseeing. She had never seen anyone with destroyed vision before, though she had heard of such things happening through accident or disease. But damaged people were useless; they were always taken to the Field.
Why was this sightless man alive? Where had Matt found him?
And why was he here?
Matt was still prancing about with anticipation. "I brung him!" he announced gleefully. He touched the man's hand and demanded confirmation. "I brung you, didn't I?"
"You did," the man said, and his voice was affectionate toward the tyke. "You were a wonderful guide. You brought me almost all the way."
"I brung him all the way from yonder!" Matt said, turning to Kira and Thomas. "But then at the end he wanted to feel his way alone. I be telling him he can keep Branchie for a helper, but he want to do it all alone. So he gimme the scrap for the first giftie. See?" Matt pulled at the man's shirt and showed Kira the hem, at the back, from which he had torn the piece of cloth.
"I'm sorry," Kira said politely to the man. She felt awkward and uncertain in his presence. "Your shirt is ruined."
"I have others," the man said with a smile. "He wanted so badly to show you the gift. And I felt a need to find my way by myself. I have been here before, but it was a long time ago."
"And look!" Matt was like a toddler or a puppy, dashing about in excitement. He picked up a bag from the floor beside the chair and pulled its drawstring open. "Now we be needing some water," he said, lifting several wilted plants out gently, "but these be all right. They be perking up when we give them a drinkie.
"But you never be guessing what!" Now he turned to the blind man again and tugged at his sleeve to be certain he was paying attention.
"What?" The man seemed amused.
"She gots water right here! You probably be thinking we gotta take these plants to the river! But right here, iffen I open this door, she gots water that squirts out!"
He pranced to the door and opened it.
"Take the plants, then, Matt," the man suggested, "and give them their drink."
He turned toward Kira and she could tell that he knew how to feel her