The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [11]
“I’m afraid,” I said in a small voice.
His eyes softened, and to my surprise, he took one of my hands and squeezed it reassuringly. “She can’t possibly know what you are unless she is like you.” I stared because that was the first time in many years he had mentioned my secret without bitterness.
He went on. “Look, why do you think everyone finds out she’s coming before she gets here? They do it deliberately, to scare people. If people are nervous, they’re more likely to give themselves away.”
Wanting badly to please him, I nodded in agreement. He looked surprised and rather pleased; we had done nothing but argue for a long time.
We smiled at each other hesitantly.
The keeper arrived three days later, and by then, the atmosphere in the home was electric. Even the guardians were jumpy, and the Herders’ lectures had grown longer and more dogmatic. A keeper could not have wished for more.
Like me, many of the orphans had never seen an Obernewtyn keeper. I was amazed to see how beautiful she was, and not at all threatening. It was impossible to look at her petite, fashionably attired form and credit the Gothic horror stories that abounded in connection with Obernewtyn.
She was introduced to us at a special assembly as Madam Vega, head keeper of Obernewtyn.
The orphans who met her spoke of her beauty and sweetness and gentle manner. Nothing was as we had imagined, and nothing happened in those few days to cast any suspicion on me. I was even able to convince myself that both Maruman and I must have been mistaken. Even so, I greeted the morning of her departure with a kind of relief.
I was working in the kitchen when one of the guardians instructed me to prepare a tea tray for the Kinraide head and her guest. It was an innocent enough request, but as I wheeled the laden tray to the front interviewing chamber, I felt uneasy. I took a deep breath to calm myself.
The head was standing near the door when I entered and gestured impatiently for me to transfer the tea things from my tray to a low table. I did this rather awkwardly, wondering where Madam Vega was. I reached out with my abilities to locate her, an act that always made me feel oddly exposed because it required me to unshield my mind. Sensing that she was at the other end of the room, I turned to see her standing at the purple-draped window, her back to the room as she looked out over Kinraide’s broad formal gardens.
Then, slowly, she turned around.
When she turned, it seemed she went on turning for an eternity, gradually showing more of herself. Struck with the dreadful curiosity of fear, unable to look away, I became convinced that when her movement was completed eons from now, I would be looking into the face of my most terrible nightmares.
Yet she was smiling at me, and her eyes were blue like the summer sky. She hastened to where I stood.
I swallowed, too scared to move until the Kinraide head gestured for me to pour the tea. My hands shook.
“My dear child,” said Madam Vega, taking the teapot from me with her own lovely white hands, “you’re trembling.” Then she turned to the head with a faint look of reproach.
“She has been ill,” the other woman said with a shrug. I prayed she would dismiss me, but she was sugaring her tea.
The keeper looked at me. “You seem upset. Now, why would that be, I wonder? Are you afraid?”
I shook my head, but of course she did not believe me.
“You need not fear me. I’m aware of all the silly stories. How they began, I really don’t know. I am simply here to take away those children who are afflicted with mental problems. Obernewtyn is a beautiful place—though cold, I admit,” she added confidingly. “But there is nothing there to frighten anyone. And my good master seeks only to find a cure for such afflictions. He thinks it is possible to do this before the mind is full grown.”
“A noble purpose,” murmured the other woman piously.
Madam Vega had been watching me very closely as she spoke. I felt as if I were drowning in the extraordinary blueness of her eyes. There was something almost hypnotic in