Chapter Seven

That night when Leia went to bed, she lay awake for a long time, thinking about the datapad. She came up with plan after plan, turning them over in her mind, but they all relied too heavily on luck and sheer coincidence to succeed. After all, it had taken her months to break the security codes on her father's computer. How could she break onto Lady Naraud's datapad in one weekend? It seemed impossible, but Leia refused to give up. She would find a way. She finally drifted off to sleep with visions of theft and espionage in her head.

The girls woke bright and early with the sun the next morning, excited as always to be at Shadowcliff. All Winter could talk about as they washed and dressed was what trails she wanted to hike and what old haunts she wanted to revisit. But Leia remained silent, still pondering the datapad.

Breakfast was a boisterous, noisy affair. Dal, the governor, and Bail talked about mountain wildlife, Teena managed to smear fruit jam all over her face, her blouse, and the table, and Jaffia hogged the sweet rolls while trying not to look like that was what she was going. Lady Naraud, however, disappointed Leia by not bringing her datapad to the table.

After breakfast, everyone went outside to sit on the deck and enjoy the morning sun. Leia wished she would come up with an excuse to stay inside so she could hunt for the datapad, but her imagination failed her. She would have liked to enlist Aris's aid in the mission, but she had a feeling that Aris would only report her plans to her father. So when the Naraud children decided to go down to the stream to play, and Winter announced her intention to join them, Leia had no choice but to abandon her plotting, at least for a while.

The party made their way down to the stream, leaving the grown-ups to sun on the deck. Jaffia sat stiffly on a bench reading a book she'd found in the house. Leia, Winter, and Dal stripped off their shoes and socks to wade in the stream. They shrieked at the cold water and complained so much about the hard rocks hurting their feet, that Teena waded into the river with her shoes on before anyone could stop her. She crouched low in the water, searching among the pebbles for treasures, while Leia and Winter threw rocks into a little pool, competing to see who could make the biggest splash.

Dal climbed onto on a smooth rock in the center of the stream, a long stick in his hand. He stared intently into the swirls of water at his feet. Without warning, he stabbed at the water, then hauled his stick back up again and sighed in disappointment.

"What are you doing?" Winter asked, perplexed.

As he balanced on the rock again, stick poised and ready, Dal said, "I read once about people who fish using spears instead of poles and lines."

Intrigued, Leia waded closer to him. "I don't think that would work here. These fish are really smart. That's why I have to be sure I'm well hidden among the bushes on the bank, or they'll see me."

"Yeah, but if I hold still long enough, they'll just think I'm a tree."

Leia doubted that, but as she'd heard of spearfishing, too, Dal's experiment piqued her interest. "If you want to catch anything," she pointed out, "you might want to carve a point on the end of your spear."

Dal blushed and protested, "I'm just practicing. I don't really expect to catch anything."

"Besides," Jaffia added, her nose buried in her book, "Mother wouldn't let you get near a knife."

Dal frowned and turned away from Jaffia toward Leia. He stuck his nose high in the air and made a snooty face. Leia giggled in spite of herself and covered her mouth with her hand so Jaffia wouldn't hear her. She glanced away and saw Teena squatting in the river nearby. "Teena," she called out, "don't stick pebbles up your nose."

The girl hastily dropped the pebbles she'd been holding and said, "I was not!"

Jaffia lowered her book and beckoned to her sister. "Come and sit next to me, Teena. The water is too cold for you."

"No, it isn't! I don't wanna sit by you."

Jaffia's expression grew stern. "Come out of that water right now!" she ordered.

"I don't have to. You're not my mama!"

"Fine, then. Catch a cold. See if I care." Jaffia picked up her book again, annoyed that her display of authority had proved futile.

"Mama doesn't care if we play in the river," Dal remarked, glancing up toward the house where their parents were visible through the trees.

Teena waded over to Leia and Winter and held out a handful of rocks. "See what I found?"

The girls obligingly fawned over Teena's treasures. "They're very pretty," Leia remarked.

"I wasn't gonna stick them up my nose."

"You'd better not," Leia cautioned, "or else we'll have to take you to the hospital and they'll have to stick a pair of pliers up your nose to get the rocks out."

The child's eyes widened in alarm, and Winter rebuked, "Leia, don't tease her."

"I'm not teasing," Leia said, then turned back to Teena. "It's true. So don't stick things up your nose."

Teena nodded, staring up at Leia as if she were the wisest person in the galaxy. "Is that would your mama told you?"

"I don't have a mama."

"Why not?" Teena asked.

"Everybody has a mama," Dal said, his spear dangling in his hand.

Leia heaved a fist-sized rock into the water, where it made a satisfying *ker-plunk.* "I had one," she said, "but she died when I was little."

The two younger Narauds shuddered in that universal fear of all children. Even Jaffia was listening closely, her eyes staring down at Leia over the edge of her book.

"That's awful," Dal whispered.

Leia only shrugged. "It happened a long time ago."

"Do you miss her?" Teena asked in a trembling voice, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Not really. I don't remember her much. Papa says I was too young to remember, that she died when I was a baby. But I do remember her a little." At least, she thought she did. It was hard to say. She remembered a face, and sad but kind eyes. She remembered being surrounded by a feeling of love and safety, like a soft, warm blanket. It wasn't much to go on, and it might have been someone else, not her mother at all. But she *thought* it was her mother. She felt such love when she remembered that face. But she didn't like to dwell too long on the insubstantial memory. It raised too many questions, questions that she was not at all eager to have answered.

She shrugged again and threw another rock into the river. "It doesn't matter. I have Papa. He's all I need."

"But the Viceroy isn't your real father."

Dal and Teena whipped around to stare up the bank at their sister, who had risen from her bench, her book held loosely in her hand.

Leia glared up at Jaffia, her fists clenched at her sides, as Winter took a protective step closer. "He is too my real father."

"No, he's not," Jaffia calmly replied. "You're adopted."

"So? He's still my father!"

"If you're adopted," Jaffia said smoothly, "then by definition he's not your real father. For that matter, you're not really a real princess."

"I am too!" Leia sloshed angrily across the river toward Jaffia.

"No, you're not. You're an orphan, and your father adopted you. Do you think I don't know these things?" The girl's eyes narrowed, gleaming with a cruel light. "Do you think I can't see him for what he really is?"

"And what is he?" Leia asked, her voice quiet with menace.

Jaffia look down at Leia with an expression of utter contempt. "He's a rebel sympathizer."

Leia trembled with barely contained fury. She wanted to hit Jaffia for speaking that word with such disdain: *rebel.* Her disdain enraged Leia so much she found herself saying, "He is not! You take that back!"

"I bet your parents were rebels, too," Jaffia continued. "That's what the Empire does. They rescue kids from their illegal rebel parents and give them to Imperials to be raised. I bet that's what happened to you. And some day your rebel parents will come back and take you away."

"LIAR!!" Leia screamed in fury. She hurled herself out of the water and ran up the riverbank, fists flailing as she shrieked, "Liar! That's not true! Take it back!" She pummeled Jaffia with her fists and kicked her with her bare feet, while Jaffia screeched and tried to pull Leia's hair, and the other children shouted and circled the fighting pair, not daring to enter the fray.

The grown-ups heard the commotion up on the deck and ran down to the riverbank. When Dal saw the two fathers approaching them, their faces taut with worry, he raised his arm and pointed at Jaffia, "She started it!"

Each man grabbed his daughter, catching the girls' arms and pulling the two of them apart. Jaffia immediately turned and threw herself into her father's embrace, sobbing hysterically, but Bail had a hard time subduing Leia. She turned and twisted in his grasp, fighting to break free so she could attack Jaffia again, all the while screeching, "Liar! Liar!"

"I'm sorry about this," Bail said to the governor as he continued to wrestle with Leia.

The governor patted his still-crying daughter's head. "That's all right. You take care of Leia. Jaffia will be fine."

Without another word, Bail picked Leia up and carried her farther down the riverbank, away from the others. Leia fought at first, but he was too strong for her, and she finally gave in, wrapping herself tightly around her father and sobbing wildly against his broad shoulder.

He carried her far down the riverbank until he came to a large boulder. He sat down, gathering Leia in his lap, and held her as she cried.

When her sobbing had slowed down to uneven wails and hiccups, and his shoulder had become quite damp with tears, he asked, "What happened?"

His question only set Leia to sobbing again. "She said you weren't my real father!"

"Well, that's nonsense, isn't it?" he said, his tone light. "You and I both know perfectly well that isn't true."

Leia's sobs quietly reduced to sniffles. "She said my real parents are rebels, and the Empire took me away from them to be raised by Imperials."

Bail sighed. "They wouldn't have been very smart to give you to me, then, would they? Anyway, I can assure you I did not get you from the Empire."

Leia sniffled, and her fingers curled into her father's hair as she considered this. "Were my parents rebels?" she quietly asked.

Her father hesitated just a moment too long. "No," he said, but his tone indicated that he was holding something back.

Bail had often told her that he would reveal the truth of her origins someday when she was old enough, but in truth Leia didn't really want to know. Her memories of her mother were pleasant but vague, like an almost forgotten dream. It was just enough to give her comfort, to reassure her that she had always been loved. She didn't want to know anything more than that, to know names or occupations or places of birth. She had about as much use for her birth parents as she did for the store from which her toys came. Too much speculation about her parents became menacing, implying that she belonged somewhere else. Each little detail would remove her a small but significant step away from Bail. That could not be borne.

She wrapped her arms tighter around Bail's neck, shivering. "What if my real father comes back?" she whispered. "What if he wants to take me away?"

Again Bail hesitated -- another reason why Leia didn't like to talk about these things. Those hesitations meant something. Bail always gave her benign answers, but first came this sinister silence, hinting at truths she had no desire to know.

"He won't come back," Bail assured her as he always did, and Leia fought to ignore the secrets hidden behind his words. "And I would never let anyone take you away from me."

That was the truth Leia most wanted to hear, the one thing in this mystery that she could trust. "You promise?" She asked not because she needed the assurance, but because she already knew the answer and liked to hear him say it.

"Absolutely I promise," he told her. "You are mine forever and always."

With a deep sigh, Leia relaxed into her father's loving embrace. The pale memory of her mother's love couldn't possibly compare with the flesh and blood of Bail Organa. He was all the family she needed; the only family she could ever want.