Chapter 4: No Reason

It wasn't the headache which woke Leanne up the next morning, but it pounded behind her eyes as she rubbed sleep from them and hauled herself out of bed. The doorbell sounded a second time, and from the sound of raised voices in the kitchen she could tell that Katy and Daniel were too busy arguing again to hear it. Groaning, she trotted down the stairs and wrenched the door open.

"What is…" she began, and then her mouth opened in a wide gape. "Deanna?"

"Hullo, Leanne." The woman's voice was as softly amused as always, but she ran her hand through her own hair a little nervously.

Leanne's mind was hurled into a whirl that made coherent thought spin impossibly from her grasp. Had she been seen? Did they know that last night, a little girl had spied on them? Deanna's normal self-assurance was such a vital part of her mask that any crack, any weakness in the façade, made less sense to Leanne than the simple thought that perhaps the woman was tired. She bit her lip and knew her eyes were too wide, too horrified to do anything but betray the truth.

Deanna didn't notice, and that was horrifying, too.

The woman's nervous fingers tangled in the white streak which ran down from her left temple, twisting fitfully into the tangle of dark brown curls. She winced and brushed it back behind her ear before she carried on.

"I'm sorry for calling so early. We don't have a phone, you see, and…" she realised she was rambling and pulled a face. Even though she couldn't push back her bitter thoughts from the night before, Leanne found herself laughing in relief at the familiar expression.

Perhaps I'm wrong… she thought. Perhaps she's not just pretending to be nice. The little girl smiled more easily then, and Deanna smiled back.

"Well, because it's the Beltane holiday Aaron doesn't have to go to work, so we're going out into the countryside today. Like a… a picnic." The woman said the last word a little clumsily, as if she hardly knew what it meant. "We wondered if you'd like to come with us."

"A picnic? Me?" Leanne's mouth hung open for a second time. Picnics were something people had done in the old days, before the immortals had descended! She was sure Deanna could defend herself, and she didn't really care about Aaron, but why would they take a chid? Deanna shook her head impatiently and gestured towards the sounds of shouting voices.

"Uhm, not just you. All of you. I… no, Aaron… no, we… we thought it was about time we met your family."

"Oh." The little girl bit her lip and glanced back towards the kitchen. "They're at a meeting today, though. They always argue like this before their stupid meetings."

"When they've finished, then?" Deanna's smile looked a little strained. "We can tell them where we're going and they can meet us there this afternoon."

"Do you want to ask them?" Leanne didn't know if she wanted to go, but it would look strange if she suddenly started refusing to spend time with the woman she'd been clinging to for so many months. She turned to run and fetch Daniel, and stopped short when Deanna caught her arm.

"N…no. Not… you can ask them, Leanne. Tell them we're going to the tower near the Royal Lake. And when you're dressed you can meet us at our house and tell me if they're coming. Okay?" She winked. "You'll have enough time to convince them. I still have to make the picnic, you see."

"Okay…" Leanne said dubiously, and shut the door behind the woman as she left. Chewing nervously on her knuckle, she wandered into the kitchen and sat at the counter. She had poured herself a bowl of cereal before either of the grown-ups realised she was there.

"Who was at the door, Lee?" Daniel asked, interrupting Katy mid-tirade. The woman glared at him and turned towards the kettle.

"It was Deanna." The girl said around a large mouthful of chocolate hoops. "She wants to know if you wanna meet them. At a picnic, she said, after you finish your meeting. They're going to the tower near the… erm… the King's Lake?"

"Royal Lake." Katy corrected her tersely. Leanne rolled her eyes and scooped up another spoonful of milk. Daniel looked intrigued.

"I'd like to meet them," he said slowly, and ruffled his son's hair. "They've been so good to you two monkeys these past few months."

"Which they wouldn't have to do if certain people spent more time with their family…" Katy started their argument again, and then bit off her words and sighed. "I guess I'd like to meet them, too."

"Good, then we'll go." Daniel tweaked his sister's nose and pushed a cup of frothy milk closer to Tallis.

By the time they were dressed another hour had passed. Katy's oddly sporadic maternal instinct had gone into overdrive at exactly the wrong moment, and both the children were slathered in enough sunblock to make their skin quite the wrong shade. Daniel hadn't commented on the pointed way Katy had mothered his sister, although before he left he disappeared into the garage and came out with something heavy.

"Here," he said, and held it out to his sister. "I think you're old enough to have this. I know you said Deanna carries a bow with her everywhere, but… but just in case."

Leanne bit her lip and took it. She found she was holding a small pellet gun, loaded with tiny metal slugs and cold in her palm. It wouldn't kill anything, she knew, but it would be painful and make a loud enough noise to scare some of the more nervous creatures. She looked up for her brother, not quite knowing what to say, and found that as soon as he'd given her the weapon he had disappeared again.

She hefted the gun one last time and then tucked it into her belt. Before she left she tugged the end of her shirt over it. Something told her that Katy would disapprove of her having a weapon.

Deanna and Aaron had loaded up the car by the time they arrived. Leanne told them that the others had agreed to meet them later. They climbed into the car and set off, rolling down the windows to let the balmy summer air blast in.

"Are you sure about this?" Deanna asked Aaron in Curun, her voice low under the roar of the wind. Aaron flicked the indicator switch off and then rapidly caught his wife's hand. Leanne didn't think he replied, but when the man returned his hands to the steering wheel a moment later she noticed that Deanna looked thoughtful. The woman rested her elbow on the door and gazed out of the open window, her curls blowing wildly around her face as the miles slipped by.

They drove for nearly an hour and then pulled up in a scrubby field that looked exactly the same to Leanne as every other patch of abandoned farmland they'd driven through. The adults seemed to recognise the place, though, and unloaded the car. Deanna slung her longbow and a quiver over her shoulder and Aaron took the rucksack full of food. Recognising the rustle of crisp packets in the bag, Tallis squeaked excitedly and ran to walk with the man. Leanne frowned and hung back to walk with Deanna. She'd have to teach her brother that sometimes being safe was better than being fed.

"He'll be fine," Deanne said, seeing the girl's troubled expression. "Aaron's a mage. He may not look it but he's far more deadly than my bow when he wants to be."

Leanne watched as the tall man noticed the tiny child skipping along next to him. Without missing a step, Aaron reached down and hoisted Tallis up over his shoulders. The child laughed in delight and started playing with the man's tied up hair.

"I thought Aaron didn't like us!" Leanne blurted out, and then blushed. "He never talks to us."

"Human beings are strange creatures sometimes." Deanna's voice was full of laughter, although her eyes were a little sad as she looked at the tableaux her husband made carrying the child. "Aaron doesn't like speaking Common, I guess."

"But he doesn't speak to me in Curun either." The girl persisted. Deanna opened her mouth to say something, and then shrugged and started walking.

They continued along a dusty trail for a while, and then they rounded a small crest and the tower appeared. Beside a shining golden lake there was a large copse of trees whose leaves were almost translucent green in the bright sunlight. The tower rose from the centre of the trees like it had grown there along with them. Its stone walls were smothered in ivy and moss and the blue sky glowed through the empty windows, making it seem to merge into the sky. Deanna stopped short at the curve in the trail and caught her breath, her grey eyes fixed on the landscape.

"It's very beautiful," Leanne said uncertainly, wondering why the woman was so stunned by the sight. Deanna let her breath out in a rush and tore her eyes away.

"Yes," she whispered, almost to herself. "Yes, it always was. I'd forgotten."

They did not go to the building straight away, but found a stretch of soft sand that jutted into the lake nearby and set out their picnic in a neat circle. At first Leanne hung back and talked to Deanna. She was shy of being around the woman's husband. This relaxed version of him seemed different again from the one she had spied on the night before. He seemed to be caught up playing with Tallis. Eventually the toddler grew bored and ran to the lake edge to look for tadpoles. Aaron pulled a dog eared book out of his pocket and lay down in the sand to read it.

"You're being very friendly, dearest." His wife teased him drily, sharing out triangles of sandwiches onto paper plates. Aaron didn't look up from the pages but his voice was fascinated.

"It's this thing called a murder mystery." He explained, turning another page with rapt eagerness. "I haven't read one before but there are so many details! George would love this. And if you, magelet, make me lose my place before I finish this chapter I will turn you into a tree."

"I can't get used to stories being written down in books," Deanna dismissed the threat with a slight smirk and handed a plate to Leanne. Noticing the girl's baffled expression, the woman explained, "Where we come from people tell stories to each other out loud. There were…are… even people who would go from one place to another just to take stories to different people."

"A bard couldn't remember all these details." Aaron chipped in, having reached the end of his chapter. He put the book back in his pocket with a last wistful look at its closed cover, and tucked his hands behind his head.

A dark shape screeched overhead.

The thud of its great leathery wings tearing through the air stopped their conversation in its tracks. Leanne shrieked and covered her ears, and then remembered the gun she'd been given. She scrabbled for it desperately and then found that a hand had stopped her and was gently prising her fingers away from the barrel.

"Don't do that," Aaron's voice wasn't at all frightened. Leanne looked up with eyes that shone with tears to see that the man looked as calm and relaxed as he had when he was reading. She shook her head and tried to pull her hand away, terrified of the immortal that still circled overhead. Aaron kept speaking in a calm tone. "Don't draw a weapon. It's not interested in us right now – it's had a good look, that's all. It knows that we're not food and we're not an enemy. If it sees a weapon it'll think we're a threat and then it will attack us."

"But… it's… it's so loud!" Leanne whimpered, and glared up at the creature. Silver claws glinted in the sun, but she thought she could see the outline of a horse through the glare. Deanna's smaller hand touched her shoulder.

"She's just telling us we're in her territory. That's all."

"They must be nesting near here." Aaron looked around, and there was some surprise in his voice. "Where do you think they…?"

"The tower?" Leanne suggested in a small voice. Both adults glanced at each other and then shook their heads. For the first time since she'd seen them the night before, Leanne felt the sudden sick feeling in her stomach that told her that they were hiding something.

"I think it's deeper in the forest." Deanna said smoothly, and took her hand away from the girl's shoulder to point down the hill. Rich, dark leaves shone richly in the sunlight. "There, see? The branches are broken where they fly in and out."

Leanne obediently looked, but she couldn't see a single thing. She scowled and reached for a sandwich, glad that the creature had flown away but angry that she'd been so afraid. It was humiliating. Tallis hadn't made a sound – he was still happily playing by the brook. When she peered more closely, frowning at his happy obliviousness, her eyes caught an odd shimmer in the air. She recognised it from a half-remembered magic lesson: that was what a warding spell looked like. Hadn't Deanna said that Aaron was a mage? She hadn't even seen him casting a spell on her brother, but the child played happily under the shell of protection and silence which followed him about.

Leanne frowned and looked at the man, who was contently pulling the crusts off a cheese sandwich and throwing them towards a couple of wild ducks. Had he known the immortal would attack them? Or had he just wanted to keep her brother safe? Either answer made her feel cold. She hadn't seen him cast the spell.

"When you were growing up," she asked hesitantly, "Was magic still bad?"

Aaron looked up at her and his brow furrowed a little. "I'm sorry?" He asked in an oddly polite way. Leanne closed her mouth quickly and then tried again.

"I meant you… did you learn how to do magic stuff secretly? So people couldn't see you?"

He didn't answer for a moment, and then he tore another piece of crust from his sandwich. "You're learning magic at school, aren't you?"

She nodded.

"Well, then you must know that you don't really need the… the rituals and waving hands and all the special words. Most of that's just nonsense the Sorrocks made up to vilify the Gifted."

"Vilify?" The girl asked. Aaron waved a hand dismissively.

"I meant, they wanted to make them look bad. They wanted to control the Gifted and make the Ungifted afraid of them. So they pretended they were babbling shamans, making magic wands out of children's bones and shrieking words that were so evil they would make your ears bleed. Now you and I know that's not the least bit true. But a lot of people used to believe it.

"So what did the Gifted do? They looked at their spells and stripped away all the nonsense until all that was left was the important things. The stuff that makes the magic work. So, to answer your question – no, I didn't learn how to 'do magic stuff secretly'. I unlearned. I made myself get rid of all the showy stuff."

"That was a really long answer." Leanne remarked, sounding a little dazed. "Like a history lesson."

Deanna smothered a laugh behind her hand and stood up, heading down the hill towards Tallis to carry him a cup of squash. Aaron's eyes never left Leanne's.

"Now, tell me: why did you ask?"

The girl reddened and looked away. "No reason." She picked a daisy and rubbed the petals between her fingers, wincing at the feeling of the cloying pollen and waxy pulp working its way into her fingernails. She didn't look up and her own question was just as pointed: "Why did you ask us to have a picnic with you?"

He laughed and stood up, brushing dry grass from his knees.

"No reason." He echoed it mockingly, and then strode away.

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