Kiela wasn’t certain if he was talking about the stove or the city. “It’ll air out now, if we leave the doors and windows open.”
“Maybe stick to cold food from now on?” he suggested.
“Until I figure out how to harvest, fish, hunt, or any of that, I am going to have to go into the village if I want any kind of food, hot or cold.” A house full of smoke seemed like a hint that she should go now, before she messed anything else up in her attempts to be self-sufficient.
Caz ruffled his leaves. “You’re going to leave me here?”
“Only because I thought you wouldn’t want to come with me. Do you?” Of course she didn’t want to go alone, but was it wise for him to come? She didn’t know what the villagers would be like, in particular how they’d react to a talking spider plant. Caz was . . . highly unusual. He was the result of a reckless librarian experimenting with an incomplete spell that she didn’t have permission to use. The librarian had been caught and punished—harshly, in Kiela’s opinion. Wanting to make an example of her, the emperor had ordered one of his sorcerers to transform her into wood. She’d been displayed amid other statues in the library’s famed North Reading Room. Afterward, alone, Caz had wandered the stacks until he’d found Kiela.
She still didn’t know why he’d chosen her, but he’d announced that he was her new assistant, replacing a boy with continually grubby hands who would not stop snacking on honey treats near the books—and that was that.
“Are there any goats in the village?” Caz asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Rabbits?” He shuddered. “Other herbivores?”
“Possibly?”
“Then I have an idea: How about you leave me here?”
Kiela smiled. “Good idea.” Then her smile faded. “Stay safe, Caz.”
“Come back soon,” he told her.
She fully intended to.
Bringing a sack (slightly worn but with a charming acorn-shaped button) she’d found, Kiela headed down the trail that her new neighbor, Larran, had sliced through the greenery. It was a perfect day: blue sky peeking between the trees, birds warbling to one another, a breeze from the sea that carried the fresh scent of salty air. Within the walls of the library, she’d forgotten the wonder of a summer breeze. She loved the way it caressed her cheeks, and the way the smells of the earth, the trees, and the sea filled her mouth, nose, and throat. By the time she’d walked a quarter of a mile, she’d convinced herself that this was an excellent idea, everything was going to be fine, and she shouldn’t worry.
But then the trail through the woods ended, and her path opened onto a cliff, and every single worry came crashing back into her like the waves on the rocks far below.
Ahead of her was the expanse of ocean, broad and blue and beautiful and intimidating. Below, at the base of the cliffs, was the village. Just as intimidating in its own picturesque way. A waterfall tumbled beside the village, and the mill’s waterwheel turned in the force of its fall. Catching the sunlight, the spray looked like a cascade of diamonds. She flashed back to being six years old, at the top of these cliffs, with her father beside her. He took her hand and helped her down the wind-battered stairs—
Ah yes, there were supposed to be stairs. She remembered now. Searching, she spotted them, behind a row of wild roses, and she also saw what had to be Larran’s house, beyond the base of the stairs on a rocky beach. She wondered if she’d been unfair to him. It wasn’t his fault she liked her privacy. Maybe now that he’d welcomed her, he’d give her some space.
A boat with a white sail floated just off the shore, and she saw the silhouette of a man standing on its bow. Larran? Possibly. Around him, in the water, were merhorses. The horse-fish were pawing at the waves as the man raised his arm in the air—some kind of signal.
In a herd, the merhorses galloped toward deeper water.
Shielding her eyes from the sun, Kiela watched them as they swam farther out, toward the local fisherfolk in their boats. The fisherfolk greeted them with happy shouts and cheers that traveled over the water. Her parents hadn’t wanted this life for themselves or for her, but standing on the rose-framed cliff, looking over the sparkling ocean, she wondered what was so bad about it.
Gathering her courage, she picked her way down the wooden steps. Wind whipped her blue hair into her face and then vertically into the air, but she didn’t dare let go of the railing to push the strands behind her ears or to twist them into a braid like she would have in the library. She just let them blow, wild and free.
Halfway down, the wind pulling at her hair, she felt unglued, like a book whose pages had scattered on the floor. She couldn’t shake the sense that if she released the railing, she’d fly into the air like a bird . . .Which would be ridiculous,she told herself firmly.
The stairs twisted as they clung to the curve of the cliff, but none of the steps broke beneath her feet, and by the time she reached the bottom, her heart wasn’t hammering quite so hard, and she was able to take normal-size breaths. Glancing up, she wondered how she was going to climb up it again without either panicking or having delusions of flight. She reminded herself that she’d climbed bookshelf ladders and the flimsy spiral stairs in the library all the time without blinking an eye.But there wasn’t wind between the shelves,she thought.
Patting her hair, she tried to tame the flyaway strands, but they stayed a wild halo of blue. Inside the library, lit by lamps, her hair usually was a respectably staid shade of night-sky blue, but out here in the sunlight, it was an unruly sapphire.
Giving up on it, Kiela walked toward the village. It was strange overlaying the reality in front of her on top of her memories. In some respects, not much had changed: there was the mill, the school, the colorful houses along the cobblestone streets. But while memory was fuzzy, the details of the reality in front of her were sharp.
The bright-colored paint was peeling off the walls, and the roofs had been patched and repatched. Several of the houses had their windows boarded up, and there was clear evidence of storm damage that hadn’t been fixed: collapsed porches, churned-up cobblestones, broken trees that should have been hauled away. Only the thick storm shutters on doors and windows looked new, and many of them were rough and unpainted. Kiela frowned. She’d always thought of Caltrey as a prosperous, albeit tiny, village. But there were signs everywhere that the village had fallen on hard times. Children, playing in the street, looked thin. Their clothes flapped flag-like as they ran barefoot past her, rolling a hoop over the cobblestones with a stick.
Looking up, Kiela saw the winged cats on the rooftops, sunning themselves, but they too seemed thinner and rougher. One eyed her as it licked its fur. Its green-and-yellow feathers looked battered as if it had flown through a storm. Maybe it had. But why? She remembered those cats as always plump and pampered.
Seated on his front step, an old man watched her as she walked by. She tried to smile at him, but she was feeling such a jumble that she wasn’t sure what her face looked like. She hoped it wasn’t a grimace.
He grunted back at her, neither friendly nor unfriendly.
