“I came to see if you’d hire me,” I said, when Sarah set down her brush and stepped over to greet me. “You know I work hard. You know I can do almost anything.”
“And there’s a lot to do here,” she agreed. “What were you thinking of?”
I shook my head. “I don’t care. I’ll cook in the kitchen. I’ll work in the garden. I’ll even help with the horses if someone shows me how.”
Betsy Parmer looked over at me from across the room. “Would you serve customers?” she asked. “You could cook when it was slow, and then serve when the stage arrived.”
“That would be fun,” I said with a little smile. “Get to meet all sorts of people that way.”
Sarah surveyed me a little doubtfully. “Yes, but—Kellen—if you’re going to be waiting on people…I’d want you to be in clothes that were a little less…ragged. I don’t mean to tell you what to wear, but—”
I looked up at her, trying to keep the desperate hope from my expression. “Would I have to wear a dress?” I asked.
She bit her lip. “Well, I’m not saying that, exactly—”
“Because if I tell my mother I have to wear a dress or I can’t get the job, she’d let me wear the dress.”
Betsy Parmer put her own paintbrush aside and came to stand with us. She laid a hand on my shoulder and gave me the sweetest smile. I knew that I was about to benefit from another one of those rare, magical moments of kindness. “Sarah and I were saying just this morning,” she said quietly, “how we would like to maintain a certain style here in the dining room. We thought maybe red aprons on the girls serving food, and red vests on the young men. This would go well with the curtains, don’t you think? And we’ll have red flowers on each table. If you’re to come work here—and I sincerely hope you do—you’ll have to wear some nice little gown, maybe in gray or black, that looks well when paired with red. Otherwise, I’m afraid we can’t hire you. And we very much want to hire you, Kellen.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. “I’ll tell my mother.”
“How quickly can you start?” Betsy Parmer asked. “The first stage won’t come through till next week, but if you could help out this week, we could put you to work doing all sorts of things.”
“I can start now,” I said.
Betsy nodded. “Then roll up your sleeves.”
At first I thought I had guessed wrong about my mother.
“A dress,” she said, when I told her the requirement for me to work at the new Parmer Arms. “But you can’t wear a dress. That would look silly. That would be indecent. Boys wear trousers.”
I sat up straight enough so that my growing breasts made a definite shape against my tattered white shirt. “Girls wear skirts.”
She looked at me as if she hadn’t noticed my changing figure before, and her eyes slowly filled with tears. “You’re not,” she whispered. “You’re not supposed to be.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be,” I said tiredly. “But this is what I am.”
As it turned out, she neither granted permission for me to take the job nor told me outright that I could not. She merely ignored my request, ignored anything that had to do with my new identity. She did not help me cut and sew the three gowns I made for myself, following an extremely simple pattern. She did not ask about the work or comment on the money that I handed over at the end of every week. She pretended, as she had pretended my entire life, that I was someone else.
But I rather liked the new Kellen, who was, in many subtle ways, different from the old one. This Kellen was not quite so fierce, so independent, so wary. She smiled much more often—though that might have been to hide her shyness. She was not used to being stripped of disguises, unfamiliar with the casual appraisal a man might turn on a woman of any age or degree of attractiveness. She always felt like she was on display, vulnerable, pulled out of hiding, a breath or two away from being starkly naked.
But she rather liked it.
I worked at the Parmer Arms four days a week—three evenings after school and one full day when school was not in session. At first, I walked through town, from my house to Sarah’s, wearing my old boy’s clothes and carrying my dress over my arm; I changed once I arrived. Sarah quickly decided it would make more sense for her to store all of my “restaurant clothes” at the Arms and made herself responsible for keeping them clean and mended. She also added two somewhat fancier garments to my small wardrobe, obviously having a seamstress tailor them after the template of the ones I had made myself. These dresses—one a dark navy and one a charcoal gray—were my favorite two things I owned.
Sarah also spent some time teaching me how to style my hair, though both of us tended to wear braids and buns to keep our hair out of the way while we were working. Still, she showed me how to soften my face with a few loose curls, and she trimmed my long, completely neglected locks so they fell with more grace around my cheeks. At times I didn’t recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. And I was glad to see a stranger peering back at me from the glass that hung over the front desk at the Parmer Arms.
Most of the people who passed through the restaurant did not recognize me, either. True, the majority were strangers merely stopping briefly for food or a change of horses, but the restaurant had become a popular place for townspeople who wanted to treat themselves to a special night out. The first two months I worked there, I waited on at least a dozen people whom I had known all my life, and not one of them knew who I was.
But there was one person who was not fooled by my new looks or my modulated personality, and that was Gryffin. Or perhaps I put that wrong. He did not seem to notice what I was wearing or how I had arranged my hair, if I was dressed like the most disreputable street urchin or a quietly stylish young lady. Whether I saw him at school, whether I dropped by his uncle’s house, or whether I unexpectedly encountered him on the street, he always greeted me with a smile and my name. I did not bewilder or surprise him. He did not think I was trying to be something I was not, as my mother did; he did not think I was trying to break a chrysalis and become something I was meant to be, as Betsy and Sarah surely believed. He just thought I was Kellen.
I found this the most comforting thing that had ever happened to me. At times, when I lay awake at night, confused myself about what role I should take and what direction I should try to follow, all that kept me from slipping into tears was knowing that I was not completely lost if Gryffin knew how to find me.
Chapter Ten
It soon proved that one other person was able to identify me in whatever guise I assumed.
Summer again—the time everything always started. I had been working at the Arms almost every day for the past month, and greatly enjoying myself. I liked seeing all the strangers, trying to guess why they were making a journey and what kinds of people they were behind their frowning faces or harried words. I liked receiving Sarah’s gentle praise and Betsy’s easy affection. I liked being paid a handsome sum, too. I handed over much of my salary to my mother, but the rest I hoarded, determined to spend as little as possible on frivolous things. I couldn’t have said what I was saving for, but I was certain that there would come a time when I would be glad to have a store set by.
On this particular day, I was approaching a table to wait on a dark-haired man and a rather old lady. From across the room, the man seemed to be Betsy’s age, and the woman at least twenty years his senior—his mother, most likely. She had high, patrician cheekbones and silky white hair carefully coiled on top of her head. Her mouth was pursed as she studied her menu, and for a moment I thought she might be cruel, or at least unpleasant. But then she glanced up at me and I read her expression for what it was: pain. I had seen that often enough in Gryffin’s eyes. I instantly felt sorry for her, and I gave her my best smile as I bobbed a curtsy to the two of them.
“Welcome to the Parmer Arms. Can I tell you anything about our menu?”
The woman opened her mouth, but did not get a chance to speak. “Kellen!” her compani
on exclaimed with every indication of delight. “I was hoping we would see you, but I thought we would have to come seek you out!”
It was the Safe-Keeper. I was so happy to see him that I nearly hugged him. “Ayler! I have been wishing you would come back to Thrush Hollow someday.”
He laughed. “Why? Do you finally have a secret to confide?”
“Not at all. It is just that Gryffin and I liked you so much, and we have often wondered how your life was going.”
“Very well,” the Safe-Keeper said. “I am still taking my horse and cart all over the kingdom and learning the most outrageous things. How is Gryffin?”
“Oh, so much better than he was last year! There was a man here in the fall, studying to be a doctor, and he showed Gryffin how to treat his legs. Now he hardly ever has any pain—he still has to use his canes, of course, but he can walk much farther. He thought he might try to go to the Summermoon Fair this year, but I’m not sure—it’s so far, and what if he got tired? But he still talks about it.”
“And your mother? Still renting out rooms?” He gestured around the big open dining room. “I’m hoping this very nice new establishment hasn’t lured all her customers away.”
I grinned. “No, in fact, we have a steady stream of business these days because so many more people are coming through town. I’ve been working here so much that sometimes my mother hires a girl who lives down the street to work at our house. So we’re feeling quite prosperous.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“What brings you back to Thrush Hollow?” I asked.
“You told me to come,” he said, smiling in his absentminded way. “And to bring the Dream-Maker with me when I did.”
I almost fell to the floor in a faint. I was sure my eyes must have grown huge with astonishment, but I could not keep myself from staring at the woman with him. She met my eyes with a little smile in her own, but she didn’t immediately speak. By all reports, Melinda was not a particularly warm woman, not one to take the sick baby in her arms while its mother begged her to heal it, not one to grieve with a young girl whose father lay dying. According to tradition, the Dream-Maker was someone whose own life was full of trouble and woe, who endured bitter sorrow herself—while at the same time, her mere existence enabled other people, strangers, to attain the most precious desires of their hearts. If she passed through a town, it was as if spring followed in her wake: Love bloomed, children thrived, money was miraculously discovered in the garden. But her own life was blighted, filled with ruination and rue.
The story went that Melinda’s life had not been quite so wretched—oh, her early years had been very bad, so people said, but she had not suffered much since taking on the role of Dream-Maker thirty or more years ago. Yet I looked at her now and saw grief in her face and hurt in her heart, and I wondered what loss she had suffered to make her look so sad.
I did not know how to address her; I had no idea what to say. “I am so honored to meet you,” was all I came up with as I dipped into the grandest curtsy I could manage. Which was not so grand, to tell the truth, for I had not had much practice. When I straightened again, Melinda was offering me a somewhat wintry smile.
“Your name is Kellen?” she said. “It is nice to meet you as well.”
I just stared at her and found myself unable to respond. Ayler laughed. “Perhaps now is the time to tell Melinda all your hopes and dreams,” he suggested.
“I can’t think of any at the moment,” I said.
“Anyway, it does no good for you to tell me,” Melinda said with a touch of impatience. “I have no power over which wishes get answered and which do not. The magic chooses whom it will reward.”
“I wish Gryffin could meet you,” I said suddenly. “He has so many more dreams than I do, and they’re so much better than mine.”
Melinda gave me another slight smile. “Every dream has value,” she said. “There is no scale to rate their relative merits.”
“Go find Gryffin and bring him here,” Ayler invited. “We do not plan to leave yet for an hour or two. We are taking our trip in easy stages.”
By the drawn look of pain on Melinda’s face, I assumed the short stages were for her benefit. “Where are you going? Why are you here?” I asked.
Melinda gave a little shrug. Her shoulders looked very thin under the expensive silk of her dress. She had been a lady-in-waiting to the queen before she became Dream-Maker, if I remembered correctly. Or at least a person of some prominence at court, back when the old king was still on the throne. “I thought to travel around the country while I still felt well enough to make the trip,” she said. “Bring as many dreams to life as I could. I have been in Wodenderry too long. I thought it was time the other cities of the kingdom had a chance to fulfill their desires.”
It occurred to me that she might be very sick, perhaps dying. In which case I had to wonder how much power she still had to make a dream come true. In which case, I needed to get Gryffin here as fast as I could. “Let me bring you your dinner,” I said. “And then I’ll go find Gryffin.”
I told Betsy I was leaving, and then I fetched two meals from the kitchen. Once I deposited the plates on the table, Ayler rose and followed me to the door. He smiled to see me take off my red apron and carefully hang it on a hook in the front closet. “You’re looking quite well,” he told me in an approving voice. “The work suits you.”
“Has Melinda fallen ill?” I asked directly. “Is she dying?”
Ayler pursed his lips and assumed a more serious expression than he usually wore. “Sick and sick at heart,” he answered. “She has recently lost some loved ones and she has been feeling the weight of age for a few years now. I think she is tired. I think she no longer wants to be what she has been so long. I think she would like to resign her position and she does not know how.”
“What happens then?” I asked. “Who becomes Dream-Maker?”
Ayler shrugged. “Who knows? The magic makes its own choices.”
I looked at him very hard. “You know, don’t you? You’re just keeping it a secret.”
He laughed. “That would be a very impressive secret, don’t you think? But as it happens, no one has whispered it to me.”
“How long will you stay?” I asked. “I don’t know how quickly Gryffin will be able to walk here. He is much more mobile than he used to be, but—”
“Another hour, perhaps two,” said Ayler. “Once people realize Melinda is here, there will be a crush of visitors through the doors. Everyone wants to touch her hand, or say a few words to her or—or—just be in the same room with her a few moments, loosing their own desires into the air. She will stay as long as she can, but we need to push on. We want to spend the night in Movington.”
“Then I’ll be back with Gryffin as soon as I can.”
I left the Arms at a light run, going first to the schoolhouse where I thought Gryffin had planned to spend the afternoon. But he was not there, and Mr. Shelby said he had not seen him all day.
I had meant to keep this news to myself, since I did not want everyone else sucking up any magic Melinda might have left to offer, but it turned out I was not a Safe-Keeper after all. “Go to the Parmer Arms,” I advised my teacher. “The Dream-Maker is there as she passes through on a journey elsewhere.”
The staid Mr. Shelby slammed shut the book he had been reading. “The Dream-Maker!” he exclaimed, scrambling to his feet and stretching out a thin arm to grab his jacket. “Yes—I’ll be on my way right now!”
Gryffin was not in his second-story room at his uncle’s tavern, though I found the door open once I had dashed up the stairs. He was not in the kitchen helping his aunt with the cooking, and Dora merely shook her head when I asked if she knew where I might find him. He was not in the front room, tapping kegs for his uncle, a task he sometimes performed when the tavern was very busy. He was not out back on the bench, though I checked again in case I had missed him on my way in.
He was not in any of the nearby buildings wh
ere I knew he sometimes took shelter from his uncle’s moods—the bakery, the stables, the home of one of the children he tutored.
He was not, when I made the journey all the way across town just to make sure, at my mother’s house, looking for me. “Why are you here?” my mother asked, startled, when I appeared in the doorway.
“Searching for Gryffin. I can’t find him.” He had only been to my house a few times, since it was a considerable walk from his uncle’s place, but he had been so strong in recent months that he had made the journey more than once. My mother didn’t particularly like him, for she considered him peculiar, but she was always polite to him.
“I’m sure he’ll turn up sometime,” she said without much interest.
“No, I have to find him now, before Melinda leaves.”
Her sharp face sharpened. “Melinda? The Dream-Maker? Is here?”
See, I had gone and told the secret again. “Yes, at the Parmer Arms. With Ayler. But she’ll only stay an hour or so.”
My mother checked the dish she had cooking in the oven. “You stay and watch dinner,” she said. “I’m going to go introduce myself to the Dream-Maker.”
She was never so astonished in her life when I refused. “No. I have to find Gryffin. Just take the pan out and let dinner spoil for once. Go see Melinda, but I’ve got to keep looking.”
And before she could think of how to answer me, I was out the door and running down the street. I was sure she would stand there a moment, wracked by uncertainty—waste all the ingredients of a good meal, or hurry up to the north edge of town to lay her dreams before Melinda?—but I was equally sure she would make the decision to go. I knew what she would be begging for, too.
To see my father again. She mentioned him so rarely that it was possible to believe she had forgotten him, but I knew she hadn’t. Every time a packet arrived from him, she checked it first for a letter, which was never there, and then for the money, which was never much. But she never forgot him. She never stopped hoping.