But sleep would not take her. Finally she rose and dressed. Evan was in the next room, cooking eggs. “Hungry?” he asked her.
“No,” Maris said dully.
Evan nodded, and cracked two more eggs. Maris sat at the table and, when he set a plate of eggs before her, she picked at them listlessly.
It was a wet, windy day, marked by frequent violent storms. When he had finished his breakfast, Evan went about his business. Near noon he left her, and Maris wandered aimlessly through the empty house. Finally she sat by the window and watched the rain.
Well after dark Evan returned, wet and dispirited. Maris was still sitting by the window, in a cold and darkened house. “You might at least have started a fire,” Evan grumbled. His tone was disgusted.
“Oh,” she said. She looked at him blankly. “I'm sorry. I didn't think.”
Evan built the fire. Maris moved to help him, but he snapped at her and chased her out of the way. They ate in silence, but the food seemed to restore Evan's mood. Afterward he brewed some of his special tea, set a mug down in front of her, and settled into his favorite chair.
Maris tasted the steaming tea, conscious of Evan's eyes on her. Finally she looked up at him.
“How do you feel?” he asked her.
She thought about it. “I feel dead,” she said, finally.
“Talk about it.”
“I can't,” she said. She began to weep. “I can't.”
When the weeping would not stop, Evan fixed her a sleeping draught, and put her to bed.
The next day Maris went out.
She took a road that Evan had shown her, a well-worn path that led not to the cliffs but down to the sea itself, and she spent the day walking alone on a cold pebble beach that seemed endless. When she wearied, she rested at the water's edge and flung pebbles into the waves, taking a small, melancholy pleasure in the way they skipped, then sank.
Even the sea was different here, she thought. It was gray and cold, without highlights. She missed the flashing blues and greens of the waters around Amberly.
Tears ran down her cheeks and she did not bother to wipe them away. At times she became aware that she was sobbing, without remembering just when or why she had started to cry.
The sea was vast and lonely, the empty beach went on forever, and the wild, cloudy sky was all around, but Maris felt hemmed in, suffocated. She thought of all the places in the world that she would never see again, the memory of each one a fresh pain to her. She thought of the impressive ruins of the Old Fortress on Laus. She remembered Woodwings Academy, vast and dark, carved into the rock of Seatooth. The Temple of the Sky God on Deeth. The drafty castles of the flyer-princes of Artellia. The windmills of Stormtown, and the Old Captain's House, ancient beyond telling. The tree-towns of Setheen and Alessy, the boneyards and battlegrounds of Lomarron, the vineyards of the Amberlys, and Riesa's warm, smoky alehouse on Skulny. All lost to her now. And the Eyrie—ships might take her elsewhere, but the Eyrie was a flyer's place, now closed to her forever.
She thought of her friends, scattered over Windhaven like the many islands. Some of them might visit her, but so many others had been snatched out of her world as if they no longer existed. The last time she had seen him, T'mar had been fat and happy in his little stone house on Hethen, teaching his granddaughter to draw the beauty out of a lump of rock. Now he was as dead to her as Halland; a memory, nothing more. She would never see Reid again, nor his beautiful, laughing wife. Never again could she pass the night away drinking Riesa's ale and sharing memories of Garth. She'd buy no more wooden trinkets from S'mael, nor joke with the cook in that little inn on Poweet.
Never again would she watch the flying at the great annual competitions, or sit, gossiping and singing, among flyers at a party.
The memories cut her like a thousand knives, and Maris cried out her pain, sobbing until she could scarcely breathe. She knew how she must look: a ridiculous old woman, weeping and moaning alone on a beach. But she could not stop.
She could hardly bear to think of flying itself, of that great joy and freedom she had lost forever. The memories came of themselves, though: the world spread out beneath her, the joy of being winged, the thrill of running before a storm, the myriad colors of the sky, the magnificent solitude of the heights. All the things she could never see or feel again, except in memory. Once she had found a riser that took her halfway to infinity, up to the realms where the star sailors had moved, where the sea itself vanished below and nothing flew but the strange, ethereal wind wraiths. She would always remember that day, always.
The world grew dark around her, and the stars began to appear. The sound of the sea was everywhere. She was numb, chilled to the bone, emptied of tears, as she faced the emptiness of her life. Finally she began the long walk back to the cabin, turning her back on the sea and the sky.
The house was warm and filled with the rich aroma of stew. The sight of Evan standing by the fire made her heart beat faster. His blue eyes were infinitely tender when he spoke her name. She ran to him and flung her arms around him, holding tight, holding on for dear life. She closed her eyes against the dizziness.
“Maris,” he said again. “Maris.” He sounded pleased and surprised. His arms came up and held her even more closely, protectively. At last he led her to the table and set her dinner before her.
He spoke as they ate, telling her the events of his day. An adventure chasing the goat. Finding a bush of ripe silverberries. A special dessert he'd made for her.
She nodded, scarcely taking in the sense of what he said, but comforted by the sound of his voice, wanting it to continue. His words, his presence, told her the world had not utterly ended.
At last she interrupted him. “Evan, I have to know. This . . . injury I have. Is there any chance that it will ever heal? That I will be able . . . that I will recover?”
He set down his spoon, the animation gone out of his face at once. “Maris, I don't know. I don't think anyone could tell you if your condition is a passing thing, or permanent. I can't be sure.”
“Your guess, then. Your best guess.”
There was pain in his face. “No,” he said quietly. “I don't think you'll recover fully. I don't think you can regain what you have lost.”
She nodded, externally calm. “I understand.” She pushed her food aside. “Thank you. I had to ask. Somewhere, I was still hoping.” She stood up.
“Maris . . .”
She motioned him back. “I'm tired. It's been a hard day for me and I have to think, Evan. There are decisions I must make now, and I need to be alone. I'm sorry.” She forced a smile. “The stew was fine. I'm sorry to miss the dessert you made, but I'm not hungry.”
The room was black and cold when Maris woke. The fire she had started had gone out. She sat up in bed and stared into the darkness. No more tears, she thought. That's over.
When she threw back the covers and stood up, the floor shifted under her feet and she lurched dizzily for an instant. She steadied herself, slipped into a short robe, and then walked to the kitchen where she lit a candle from the embers still smoldering in the hearth. The wooden floor was cold beneath her bare feet as she walked down the hall, past the workroom where Evan prepared his brews and ointments, past the empty bedrooms he kept for those who came to him.
When she opened his door Evan stirred, rolled over, and blinked at her.
“Maris?” he said, his voice thick with sleep. “What's wrong?”
“I don't want to be dead,” she said.
Maris walked across the room and set the candle on the bedside table. Evan sat up and caught her hand. “I've done all I can for you as a healer,” he said. “If you want my love . . . if you want me . . .”
She stopped his words with a kiss. “Yes,” she said.
“My dear,” he said, looking at her in the candlelight. The shadows made his face strange, and for a moment she felt awkward and frightened.
But the moment passed. He threw back his blankets, and she shrugged
off her robe and climbed into bed with him. His arms went around her, and his hands were gentle, loving, and familiar, and his body was warm and full of life.
“Teach me to heal,” Maris said the next morning. “I'd like to work with you.”
Evan smiled. “Thank you very much,” he said. “It's not that easy, you know. Why this sudden interest in the healing arts?”
She frowned. “I must do something, Evan. I have only one skill, flying, and that's lost to me now. I've never done anything else. I could take a ship back to Amberly, and live out the rest of my days in the house I inherited from my stepfather, doing nothing. I'd be provided for—even if I had nothing, the people of Amberly don't let their retired flyers end as paupers.” She moved away from the breakfast table and began to pace.
“Or I could stay here, if there is something for me to do. If I don't find something to fill my days, something useful, my memories will drive me mad, Evan. I'm past my childbearing years—I decided against motherhood years ago. I can't sail a ship or carry a tune or build a house. The gardens I began always died, I'm hopeless at mending, and being cooped up in a shop, selling things all day, would drive me to drink.”
“I see you've considered all the options,” Evan said, the ghost of a smile about his lips.
“Yes, I have,” Maris said seriously. “I don't know that I would have any skills as a healer—there is no reason for me to think so. But I'm willing to work hard, and I've got a flyer's memory. I wouldn't be likely to confuse poisons with healing potions. I can help you gather herbs, mix remedies, hold down your victims while you cut them up, or whatever. I've assisted at two births—I would do whatever you told me, whatever you needed another pair of hands for.”
“I've worked alone for a long time, Maris. I have no patience with clumsiness, or ignorance, or mistakes.”
Maris smiled at him. “Or opinions that contradict your own.”
He laughed. “Yes. I suppose I could teach you, and I could use your help. But I don't know if I believe this ‘I'll do whatever you say' of yours. You're starting a bit late in life to be a humble servant.”
She looked at him, trying not to show the sudden panic she felt. If he refused her, what could she do? She felt like begging him to let her stay.
He must have seen something of this in her face, for he caught hold of her hand and held it tightly. “We'll try it,” he said. “If you are willing to try to learn, I am surely willing to teach. It is time I passed some of my learning on to someone else, so that if I am bitten by a blue tick or seized with liar's fever, everything will not be lost by my death.”
Maris smiled her relief. “How do we start?”
Evan thought a moment. “There are small villages and encampments in the forest that I haven't visited in half a year. We'll travel for a week or two, making the rounds, and you'll gain some idea of what I do, and we'll learn if you have the stomach for it.” He released her hand and stood up, walking toward the storeroom. “Come help me pack.”
Maris learned many things during her travels with Evan through the forest, few of them pleasant.
It was hard work. Evan, so patient a healer, was a demanding teacher. But Maris was glad of it. It was good to be pushed to her limits, to work until she could work no longer. She had no time to think of her own loss, and she slept deeply every night.
But while she was pleased to be of use and gladly performed the tasks Evan set her, other requirements of this new life were harder for Maris to fulfill. It was difficult enough to comfort strangers, more difficult still when there was no comfort to be offered. Maris had nightmares about one woman whose child died. It was Evan who told her, of course; but it was to Maris the woman turned in her sorrow and her rage, refusing to believe, demanding a miracle that no one could give. Maris marveled that Evan could give of himself so steadily, and absorb so much pain, fear, and grief, year after year, without breaking. She tried to copy his calm, and his firm, gentle manner, reminding herself that he had called her strong.
Maris wondered if she would gain more skill and inner certainty with time. Evan at times seemed to know what to do by instinct, Maris thought, just as some Woodwingers took to the air as if born to it, while others struggled hopelessly, lacking that special feel for the air. Evan's very touch could soothe an ailing person, but Maris had no such gift.
As night began to fall on the nineteenth day of their travels, Maris and Evan did not stop to make camp, but only walked more quickly. Even Maris, to whom all trees looked alike, recognized this part of the forest. Soon Evan's house came into sight.
Suddenly Evan caught her wrist, stopping her. He was staring ahead, at the house. There was a light shining in the window, and smoke rising from the chimney.
“A friend?” she hazarded. “Someone who needs your help?”
“Perhaps,” Evan said quietly. “But there are others . . . the homeless, people driven from their villages because of some crime or madness. They attack travelers, or break into houses, and wait. . . .”
They approached the house quietly, Evan in the lead, going for the lighted window rather than the door.
“A man and a child . . . doesn't look bad,” murmured Evan. It was a high window. Standing on the tips of her toes, leaning on Evan for support, Maris could just see in.
She saw a large, ruddy, bearded man sitting on a stool before the fire. At his feet sat a child, looking up into his face.
The man turned his head slightly, and the firelight brought out a glint of red in his dark hair. She saw his face in the light.
“Coll!” she cried, joyful. She tottered and nearly fell, but Evan caught her.
“Your brother?”
“Yes!” She ran around the side of the house, and as she laid her hand on the doorpull, it opened from within, and Coll caught her up in a big bear-hug.
Maris was always surprised by the size of her stepbrother. She saw him usually at intervals of years, and in between thought of him as young Coll, her little brother, thin, awkward and undeveloped, at ease only with a guitar in his hand when he could transcend himself by singing.
But her little brother had filled out, and grown into his height. Years of travel, earning passage to other islands by working as a sailor and laboring at whatever task came to hand when his audience was too poor to pay for his songs, had strengthened him. His hair, once red-gold, had darkened mostly to brown—the red showed only in his beard now, and in fire-lit glints.
“You are Evan, the healer?” Coll asked, turning to Evan. He held Maris in the crook of one arm. At Evan's nod, he went on, “I'm sorry to seem so rude, but we were told in Port Thayos that Maris was living here with you. We've been waiting these past four days for you. I broke a shutter to get in, but I've repaired it—I think you'll find it even better now.” He looked down at Maris and hugged her again. “I was afraid we'd missed you—that you had flown away again!”
Maris stiffened. She saw the quick concern on Evan's face and shook her head at him very slightly.
“We'll talk,” she said. “Let's sit by the fire—my legs are nearly worn off from walking. Evan, will you make your wonderful tea?”
“I've brought kivas,” Coll said quickly. “Three bottles, traded for a song. Shall I heat one?”
“That would be lovely,” Maris said. As she moved toward the cupboard where the heavy pottery mugs were kept, she caught sight of the child again, half-hiding in the shadows, and stopped short.
“Bari?” she asked, wonderingly.
The little girl came forward shyly, head hanging, looking up with a sideways glance.
“Bari,” Maris said again, warmth in her tone. “It is you! I'm your Aunt Maris!” She bent to hug the child, then drew back again to take a better look. “You couldn't remember me, of course. You were no bigger than a burrow bird when I last saw you.”
“My father sings about you,” Bari said. Her voice rang clearly, bell-like.
“And do you sing, too?” Maris asked.
Bari shrugged awkwardly a
nd looked at the floor. “Sometimes,” she muttered.
Bari was a thin, fine-boned child of about eight years. Her light brown hair was cropped short, lying like a sleek cap on her head, framing a freckled, heart-shaped face with wide gray eyes. She was dressed like a smaller version of her father in a belted woolen tunic over leather pants. A piece of hardened resin, a clear, golden color, hung on a thong around her neck.
“Why don't you bring some cushions and blankets near the fire so we can all be comfortable,” Maris suggested. “They're kept in that wooden chest in the far corner.”
She got the mugs and returned to the fireside. Coll caught her hand and pulled her down beside him.
“It's so good to see you walking, healed,” he said in his deep, warm voice. “When I heard of your fall, I was afraid you'd be crippled, like Father. All the long journey here from Poweet I kept hoping for more news, better news, and hearing none. They said that it was a terrible fall, onto rock; that both your legs and arms were broken. But now, better than any report, I see you're whole. How long before you fly back to Amberly?”
Maris looked into the eyes of the man who, although not blood-kin, she had loved as a brother for more than forty years.
“I'll never go back to Amberly, Coll,” she said. Her voice was even. “I'll never fly again. I was hurt more badly than I knew in that fall. My arm and my legs mended, but something else stayed broken. When I hit my head . . . My sense of balance has gone wrong. I can't fly.”
He stared at her, the happiness draining out of his face. He shook his head. “Maris . . . no . . .”
“There's no use saying no anymore,” she said. “I've had to accept it.”
“Isn't there something . . .”
To Maris' relief, Evan interrupted. “There's nothing. We've done all we can, Maris and I. Injuries to the head are mysterious. We don't even know what exactly happened, and there's no healer anywhere on Windhaven, I'd wager, who would know what to do to fix it.”