The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [62]
In the end, I fell asleep, and woke a short time later wishing I had not. I felt heavy-eyed and sluggish, and I had to splash my face with freezing water to rouse my wits. Cameo tried to tell me of a dream she’d had, but I forestalled her, saying she could tell me later.
If I had known what was to come, I would have listened.
21
I ATE ALONE at firstmeal, having missed the first sitting, and was put to work at once by Rushton when I arrived on the farms. But when midmeal came, I hastened to sit with Matthew and Dameon, wanting to tell them what I had discovered. Before I could speak, however, Dameon asked coolly whether I had been out the previous night.
“Yes, but how did you know?” I asked, puzzled.
“You were careless,” he said.
“No!” I said indignantly.
“You promised me that you would take care,” Dameon said. “And now the decision has been made to release Ariel’s wolf-dogs every night.”
“Wait,” I said. “Last night I went to the doctor’s chamber. I heard Alexi and Madam Vega talking, but I’m sure they didn’t see me. They had captured a man Henry Druid had sent here; he’s after the same thing they are. That must be why they decided to put the dogs out.”
“Henry Druid?” Matthew echoed, at the same time as Dameon asked what they were all searching for.
“Beforetime weaponmachines,” I said. “I don’t know why, but right now our biggest problem is that Alexi and Madam Vega are the ones who control the machine that caught hold of my mind that time. Tomorrow night, they are going to use it on Cameo, thinking it will force her to reveal hidden Misfit powers. Somehow, they imagine Cameo can help them find the weaponmachines—or at least Marisa Seraphim’s map that shows where they are.”
“But Cameo knows nowt of any map,” Matthew said. He glanced over to where she sat farther along the bench, plaiting grass in her thin fingers, her eyes on the hazy line of mountains visible beyond the stark branches of the trees in the nearest orchard.
Dameon coughed, and we both looked at him. “I have been thinking about what is being done to Cameo. What if they think they can use Misfit powers to raise the ghost of Marisa Seraphim?”
“But … that is not possible,” I said.
“No, but they do not know that.”
“Wait!” Matthew said, eyes glittering with excitement. “What if it’s nowt the ghost of her that they are seeking, but simply traces of her mind? Dameon, ye told me once that ye can pick up echoes of feelings from objects.”
Dameon nodded, but said that feelings could not give them any useful information.
I nodded slowly, too. “If they are strong, thoughts leave an echo as well.” I wondered if Matthew had hit upon the right answer. Certainly, Marisa’s books and papers would be full of her thoughts and impressions, and I knew that if I desired it, I could probably read those thoughts. But how could Alexi and Madam Vega know so much about Misfit powers? Was it possible that Madam Vega divined it because of her own unacknowledged Misfit ability?
“We mun leave tonight,” Matthew said urgently. “Perhaps if Henry Druid has a secret camp in the mountains, we can join him. Or at least raid his supplies.”
“Perhaps we have no choice,” Dameon said. “I just wish we had managed to get a map.”
Triumphantly, I told them about the map I had found. That decided Dameon, who said the supplies we had collected would have to do. We would bring whatever of our stored supplies we could conceal and carry back through the maze that evening. I would come and unlock their doors that night and do any coercing needed, and we would then make our way to the front of the house and go out the same way we had come in—through the front gate. Despite everything, the audacity of the plan pleased me.
That afternoon, as we gathered to be taken back through the maze to the house, snow began to fall lightly and softly, whitening the world. Uneasily, I looked out to the mountains, my breath making little puffs of mist in the cold air. Their tips were white, too, barely visible against