The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [33]
“I’m sorry,” Matthew said. He looked at me. “Ye have to be careful about what ye feel. Sometimes things hurt him.”
“Burns,” mumbled Dameon. “Hate always burns.”
I thought that was true enough.
“Ariel is a Misfit, but he has great authority here,” Dameon explained. “He is Madam Vega’s personal assistant. I have heard that he started off as an informer and proved especially good at it.”
“Do you … I mean, what do you feel when you’re near him?” I asked.
“Lots of things, and none of them good. The ugliness is deep down in him. It’s like being near something that smells sweet, and then you realize it’s that sweet smell that rotten things sometimes get,” he said, then he sighed as if annoyed by his vague explanation. But I found it a curiously apt description.
“And you say Larkin has been here for a long time?” I said, changing the subject because Dameon was looking pale. His powers seemed to demand more of him than mine did of me.
“Since this place was built,” Matthew said extravagantly. “An’ if ye want to know about people …”
I shook my head hastily. “Oh, it wasn’t so much people as Obernewtyn itself I was thinking about. It seems such an odd place. Why would anyone build here in the first place? And when did it become a home for Misfits, and why? There is some kind of secret here, I sense it. I don’t know why I should care. The world is full of secrets, but this nags at me.”
“I feel that, too,” Matthew said eagerly. “As if something is going on underneath all these everyday things.”
“It makes me cold to listen to you two,” Dameon said suddenly. “I don’t deny that I have felt something, too. Not the way you two do, and not by using any power. But a blind person develops an instinct for such things, and mine tells me there is some mystery here. Something big. But some things are better left unknown.” His words were grim, and I found myself looking round nervously.
Dameon went on. “Sometimes I am afraid for people like you who have to know things. And there’s no point in my even warning you that finding out can sometimes be a dangerous thing. Your kind will dig and hunt and worry at it until one day you will find what is hidden, waiting for you.”
I shivered violently.
“Curiosity killed th’ cat,” Matthew said. I looked up, startled, thinking of Maruman. “That’s what Larkin told me once. He said it was an Oldtime saying.”
“And how would he know Oldtime sayings?” I asked, throwing off the chill cast over me by Dameon’s words.
“From books,” Matthew said calmly. “He keeps them hidden, but I’ve seen them.”
“It seems like a silly sort of saying to me,” I said, though I was fascinated at the thought of hidden books.
“Well, sayin’ it cleared the ice out of me blood.” Matthew looked at Dameon, who seemed preoccupied with his own thoughts since he had uttered his chilling little speech. “Ye fair give me th’ creeps talkin’ that way,” he added.
“Do you know, I was just thinking,” Dameon said. Matthew gave me a “not again” look. “I once thought it was the end of the world to be sent here, the end of everything. But here I sit, content, and with two friends, and I wonder.”
“I know what ye mean,” Matthew agreed. “I near died of fright when Madam Vega picked me to come here. But now I sometimes get th’ funny feeling that this, all along, was where I was meant to come.”
I said nothing but thought of Maruman saying that my destiny waited for me in the mountains.
“Yet, it is not freedom,” Dameon added softly, and we both looked at him. The bell to end midmeal rang, seeming to underline his words.
“Ah well. Back to work,” Matthew said glumly, and pulled Dameon to his feet. With a wave, they went back across the fields.
Rushton came to stand beside me as I watched them go. “I see you accomplish many things quickly,” he sneered. “I should have thought the orphan life would have taught you caution in choosing companions.”
I said nothing.
“Well, this afternoon, you can show your talents at milking. I don’t suppose your father had cows as well as horses?” he added.