The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [115]
“Gilaine, it’s me. I’ve brought a visitor,” Emmon announced. He sniffed and sighed, identifying the smell. “Honeyballs.”
I stared at the girl who had answered the door.
There was no question whose sister she was. But they were as much alike as the sun and the moon. Where Erin’s hair was spun gold and elaborately dressed, Gilaine wore her long, ashen tresses loose about her shoulders. Erin’s eyes were bright blue, but Gilaine’s were as gray as clouds lit from behind by the sun. The greatest difference, though, lay in their expressions. Erin’s face was ever haughty and querulous, but Gilaine’s was gentle, the smile on her mouth echoing in her eyes. I was immediately drawn to her.
“This is Elspeth. She’s one of them gypsy folk,” Emmon said, slipping behind her into the house.
I wondered why she did not speak. As if in answer to my thought, she raised a finger to her lips. At first I thought she was trying to tell me to be quiet. Then I realized she was mute.
“The honeyballs are burnin’!” Emmon wailed.
Gilaine smiled anew, gesturing for me to follow her. The cottage was tiny, consisting of three sections: a closet of a room with a bed in it, a front hall, and a cozy and relatively large kitchen.
The honeyballs turned out to be tiny, crisp sweets. My mouth full, I asked Emmon why I had not seen Gilaine at the nightmeal. He managed to look wrathful over bulging cheeks. “She is nowt asked,” he said.
I could figure out the rest. The old Druid was a perfectionist. His hatred of Misfits extended to anything he considered flawed. And Gilaine was mute. Seeing my look, she smiled sadly and shrugged.
We stayed with Gilaine until it was time to go. I was surprised to hear Emmon confess his deception in retrieving me early, but she only shook her head helplessly and ruffled his hair with an expression of mingled concern and exasperation.
Crossing the green to the meeting house, I spotted Jik playing ball with some children and asked Emmon if I could talk to him.
“Well, yer nowt supposed to, an’ ye know what a stickler I am for rules. But if I was to gan over an’ wash my hands at th’ spring, I’d nowt see what ye were up to. I’m a gullible fellow,” he said with a smirk.
I called Jik away from his game. “Do you know where the others are being kept?” I asked him immediately. There was no time for greetings.
He shook his head. “I think they’re someplace outside the walls.”
“What about the block, can you feel it?”
He nodded, saying he had heard no talk of machines but that the Druid’s acolytes worked in a shed forbidden to all others.
I nodded impatiently, frustrated that Emmon’s tour had included neither this shed nor the compound I’d heard mentioned before. “Keep an ear out but don’t ask any questions that will make anyone wonder about you. Remember, you’re a gypsy. Where’s Darga?”
“He’s disappeared,” Jik said miserably.
“Darga’s a smart dog,” I said. “He’s probably gone to look for the others, or even to find Domick.”
Jik’s face brightened. “Do you think so?”
“Come on, Elspeth,” Emmon called.
I patted Jik on the shoulder and ran to join Emmon.
I was taken in to the Druid by one of the acolytes. Struck again by his building’s similarity to the Councilcourt, I wondered curiously if the Druid was indeed trying to start up his own opposing order. I had the feeling his order would be as bad as the Council’s, whatever Gilbert believed. Entering the Druid’s meeting chamber, I heard a tantalizing snatch of conversation.
A voice said, “If she is telling the truth, I don’t see any need to waste more time on the mountains. I said all along it was your old friends in the Herder Faction that we bumped into.”
“That may be, but it is likely too late to stop the soldierguards from investigating Obernewtyn. And better to have them in the mountains than here.” That was the Druid. I hesitated at the door, hoping to hear more, but the Druid looked up.
“Come in, Elspeth. I want you to tell me again all you saw at Obernewtyn.…”
I was there