Gathering Blue - Lois Lowry [62]
"Yes."
"I left my family here. Katrina and the child to come." He smiled. "You."
She knew she must tell him now. "Katrina —" she began.
"I know. Your mother is dead. Matt told me."
Kira nodded, and for the first time in many months she began to cry for her own loss. She had not wept when her mother died. She had willed herself to be strong then, to decide what to do and to do it. Now hot tears stained her face and she covered it with her hands. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed. Her father opened his arms, offering her an embrace, but she turned from him.
"Why didn't you come back?" she asked finally, choking on the words as she tried to stop crying.
Looking out through the shield she had made with her hands over her eyes, she could see that the question pained him.
"For a very long time," he said at last, "I remembered nothing. The blows to my head had been intended to kill me, though they failed. But they took my memory. Who I was, why I was there? My wife? My home? I knew nothing of any of it.
"Then, very slowly, as I healed, it began to come back. I remembered small things of the past. Your mother's voice. A song she sang, 'Night comes, and colors fade away; sky fades, for blue can never stay...'"
Startled by the familiar lullaby, Kira murmured the words with him. "Yes," she whispered. "I remember it too."
"Then very gradually, it all came back to me. But I could not return. I didn't know how to find the way. I was blind and weakened.
"And if I did find a way back, it would be to meet my death. The ones who wanted me dead were still here.
"Finally," he explained, "I simply stayed. I mourned my losses. But I stayed and made a life there, without your mother. Without you.
"And then," he went on, his expression lightening, "after so many years had gone by, the boy appeared. He was exhausted when he arrived, and hungry."
"He's always hungry," Kira said, smiling slightly.
"He said he had come all that way because he had heard that we had blue. He wanted blue for his special friend, who had learned to make all the other colors. When he told me about you, Kira, I knew you must be my daughter. I knew I must let him lead me back."
He stretched slightly, and yawned. "The boy will find me a safe place to sleep when he returns."
Kira took his hand, and held it. There were scars even there, she saw.
"Father," she said, feeling her way uncertainly with the word she had never used before, "they won't hurt you now."
"No, I'll be safely hidden. And after I'm rested, we will slip away, you and I. The boy will help us pack food for the journey. You will be my eyes on the way home. And I will be the strong legs you lean on."
"No, Father!" Kira said, excited now. "Look!" She waved her arm, indicating the comfortable room. Then she paused, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I know you can't really look. But you can feel how comfortable it is. There are other rooms like it along the hall, all of them empty except the ones where Thomas and I live. One can be readied for you."
He was shaking his head. "No," he said.
"You don't understand, Father, because you've not been here, but I have a special role in the village. And because of it, I have a special friend on the Council of Guardians. He saved my life! And he looks after me.
"Oh, it's too much to explain, and I know you're tired. But Father, not very long ago, I was in great danger. Someone named Vandara wanted me to be put to the Field. There was a trial. And —"
"Vandara? I remember her. That's the scarred woman?"
"Yes, that's the one," Kira acknowledged.
"It was a terrible thing, her injury. I remember when it happened. She blamed her child. He slipped on wet rocks and grabbed her skirt, so that she fell and gashed her chin and neck on a sharp rock.
"But I thought —"
"He was only a small tyke, but she blamed him. Later, when he died, from the oleander, there were questions. Some people suspected —" He paused, and sighed. "But there was no proof of her guilt.