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Listen, my father had written. Listen to hear if they are telling the truth or only part of the truth, for that is the lesson of history: that the victors tell the tale of their triumph in a manner to grant accolades to themselves and heap blame upon their rivals. Ask yourself if part of the story is being withheld by design or ignorance.
Only he was not my father. It was all a lie.
Tears wove runnels down my cheeks as one matron’s voice above all the others droned on.
“We in the Houses are a tree grown from two roots. We are twin, one born in the north and one born in the south. Our ancestors in the south fled the salt plague and at the end of their journey met our ancestors in the north. We are Celt and Mande, rich in spirit. Those among us who can handle the nyama of the spirit world joined together to form the Houses. Thus, we are grown into what we have now become, we who can grip the handle of power. This all of you know, for it is the story of your ancestors. But there are other peoples in the world who are known to us, each with their own qualities and strengths….”
I cautiously stuck out my head and peered down the corridor to my left. The outline of a door was discernible, a gateway leading out.
A schoolroom door snicked quietly open, bringing with it a swell of matronly voice listing the various well-known peoples of the world and their well-known characteristics: The noble Kushites are gifted rulers, wise and tolerant; the Greeks are philosophers and lovers of art; the Romans are masters of war and engineering; the cunning Phoenicians have plied the seas of commerce for untold generations. The door shut, but the recital went on in muted tones as two girls padded down the corridor and halted in front of me. One had long hair braided tightly and an intelligent gaze in a face whose lineaments and complexion resembled those of the younger boy I’d spoken to earlier, while the other had a white face and blond hair. Nevertheless, there was something similar about their eyes.
They considered me and then looked at each other, their gazes speaking without words. They were young, perhaps twelve winters, fresh faced and healthy and blooming. Then the little beasts each stuck out a hand, palm up, asking for payment.
“You must be what they’re looking for,” said the dark one, with the innocent smile of a child who understands the blackmailer’s art.
“Pay us,” said the fair one, “and we’ll pretend we never saw you.”
“Where does that door lead?” I murmured.
“Are you bargaining with us?” asked the dark one, her eyes wide in surprise.
“Knowing how loud we can scream?” added the fair one reasonably.
I knew how to handle girls like this. Never let them think they held the whip of life and breath over you, or you’d be cursed.
“Of course I’m bargaining,” I retorted in a low but suitably intense voice. “I’m Phoenician. We have to bargain. It’s in our blood.”
They grinned, as bright as a burst of lantern light on a murky night. I braced myself, expecting them to giggle, but they had exceptional self-control. Clearly, they were used to sneaking around where they weren’t supposed to be.
“I know how to unlock the door,” said the dark one.
“You can get outside and go through the park,” added the fair one. “But once you’re outside, we can’t help you.”
“Why are you willing to help at all?”
The fair one sighed and rolled her eyes with the dramatic glamor that wears itself like a burden. “I’m a diviner,” she said with the weariness of one who has already had to explain this too many times. “Or I will be, when I grow up. Of course I know these things.”
“We discussed what we should do,” added the dark one. “You’re no danger to us, so we’re willing to let you go. But we need something in exchange.”
I could not give them the bracelet Bee had given me. Beyond the clothes I was wearing, I possessed only one other object: the locket in whose heart nestled a tiny portrait of my father. But Daniel Hassi Barahal was not my father. So what would I be giving up by giving it to her? Only my hopes and dreams.
I slipped the chain over my head and handed the silver locket to the fair one. She popped the clasp and squinted at the portrait in the dim light, her fingers tracing the fine silverwork and the chased filigree that decorated the back.
Her frown was soft in the shadows, and for an instant she looked far older than her tender years. “Not what I expected.”
Her words made me shiver, like a memory of the eru’s greeting, but instead of explaining herself, she handed the locket to the dark one, who examined it with a jeweler’s precise measure.
“Done,” she said with a nod. She dropped the chain over her neck and pressed the locket down beneath the loose wool jacket that was buttoned up to her neck.
With no further speech, they skated along the polished wood floor in their soft indoor slippers. I took in a breath for courage and hurried after them. The dark girl with her long legs outpaced her fair cousin and slid to a halt before the heavy door. She bent down by the elaborate lock with a smile that reminded me of Bee’s most mischievous expression. She seemed to be whispering to the bat’s head that adorned the upper part of the lock. The fair one stationed herself at the wall to keep watch.
Was that a glamor shivering in the air, briefly seen as a net of shadow and light? Then it was gone. She slid the crossbar free and tugged open the door, and I slipped outside onto a vestibule and thence out through another door—this one unlatched—into a cold so sere that my lips went numb. I peered cautiously over a stately manicured wood composed of pine and spruce shouldering skyward beneath gray clouds. Bundled in quilted coats ornamented with brightly colored belts, soldiers ran through the trees; their heads were wrapped in cloth against the cold, only their eyes visible beneath red-brimmed hats like so many red-capped finches.
The woods were closed to me. I could not go back into the house. I hugged the wall, became the wall in its dressed smoothness, and ran in the other direction. I had to do what they would not expect me to do: I raced for the grand escalade. If I were bold, I might conceal myself by walking out on the same carriage road I had come in. I could become the pale graveled stone that paved the road. Either no one would see me, or the mansa and his djeli would see right through my pathetic veil and then I would be dead.
At the corner where the wing met the facade, my feet crunched in a spray of gravel. I halted to steady my breath and dig deep for the glamor. All now depended on my ability to veil myself with a glamor.
A flare of complicated emotion burned through me. Who was I, if not the eldest daughter of the Adurnam Hassi Barahal house? Why could I hide myself, listen, and see down chains of magic? Why had my mother told me to keep it a secret? Why had an eru called me “cousin”? Had Aunt and Uncle devised the scheme to sacrifice me in place of Bee? Had Daniel Hassi Barahal and Tara Bell been in on the cheat all along? Was the story that they were my loving mother and father an invented fiction that I had swallowed whole? Was I really an unwanted, useless, and expendable orphan plucked from the streets?
