Messenger - Lois Lowry [27]
"Yes. He says you have a special gift. His daughter does, too."
"His daughter. That would be the girl called Kira, the one who helped you leave your old place. He never talks about her."
"It makes him too sad. But he thinks about her all the time."
"And you say she has a gift, too?"
"Yes. But hers is different. Each gift is different, Seer said."
Do you know about mine? Matty thought. But he did not need to ask.
As if he had read Matty's mind, Leader told him, "I know of yours."
Matty shuddered. The gift still frightened him so. "I kept it secret," he said apologetically. "I haven't even told Seer. I didn't want to be secretive. But I'm still trying to understand it. I try to put it out of my mind. I try to forget that it's there inside me. But then it just appears. I can feel it coming. I don't know how to stop it."
"Don't try. If it comes without your summoning it, it is because of need. Because someone needs your gift."
"A frog? It was a frog first!"
"It was to show you. It always starts with a small thing. For me? The very first time I saw beyond? It was an apple."
Despite the solemnity of the conversation, Matty chuckled. A frog and an apple. And a puppy, he realized.
"Wait for the true need, Matty. Don't spend the gift."
"But how will I know?"
Leader smiled. He rubbed Matty's shoulder affectionately. "You'll know," he said.
Matty looked around for Frolic and saw that he was curled in the corner, asleep. "I should go. I haven't packed my things yet. And I want to stop by and tell Jean I'm going, so she won't wonder where I am.
Leader kept him there within the comfortable curve of his arm. "Matty, wait," he said. "I want to..." Then he gazed through the window again. Matty stood there, wondering what he was to wait for. Then he felt something. The weight of the young man's arm took on a quality of something beyond human flesh. It came alive with power. Matty felt it from the arm, but he knew, as well, that it was pervading all of Leader's being. He understood that it was Leader's gift at work.
Finally, after what seemed an unendurable few moments, Leader lifted his arm away from Matty. He exhaled. His body sagged slightly. Matty helped him to a chair and he sat there, exhausted, breathing hard.
"Forest is thickening," Leader said when he could speak.
Matty didn't know what he meant. It sounded ominous. But when he looked through the window, to the row of underbrush and pines that was the border of Forest, it looked no different to him.
"I don't understand it exactly," Leader said. "But I can see a thickening to Forest, like a..." He hesitated.
"I was going to say like a clotting of blood. Things turning sluggish and sick."
Matty looked through the window again. "The trees are just the same, Leader. There's a storm coming, though. You can hear the wind. And look. The sky is turning dark. Maybe that's what you saw."
Leader shook his head skeptically. "No. It was Forest I saw. I'm sure. It's hard to describe, Matty, but I was trying to look through Forest in order to get a feeling for Seer's daughter. And it was very, very hard to push through. It was—well, thick.
"I think you had better not go, Matty. I'm sorry. I know you love making your journeys, and that you take pride in being the only one who can. But I think there may be danger in Forest this time."
Matty's heart sank. He had hoped to be given his true name, Messenger, because of this trip. At the same time, something told him that Leader might be right.
Then he remembered. "Leader, I have to!"
"No. We can post the messages at the entrance to Village. It will mean new ones will have to turn back after terribly long journeys, and that's tragic. But—"
"No, it's not the messages! It's Seer's daughter! I promised him I would go and bring Kira home. It will be her last chance to come. His last chance to be with her."
"And she will want to come?"
"I'm sure she will. She always intended to someday. And she has no family there. She's old enough to marry, but no one would want her. Her