I finished weeding methodically, keeping so focused on it that eventually my hands stopped trembling. It let me think, and by the time I went to the outdoor pump to wash up, I'd realized I'd better just leave her alone – if I followed her she'd just get angrier. She probably really did want to be alone. And there was no changing anything. Nothing I could do.
I went into the kitchen, started opening up windows to get a breeze, spent some time just staring out one window blankly, and finally settled down at the table with the diary and my notes. The Queen had been talking about trade negotiations – not in any detail, just that they were preoccupying "my lord housbond." After a few more short entries about trying to marshall the household for the king's return from the negotiations and the welcoming feast, she noted that the negotiations had not gone well, that there would be a war.
And she mentioned Odin. He'd assured her that he and his men – did that mean Esper troops, or did he command humans? – would acquit themselves with honor, which seemed to please her. Then in her next entry, which was just a few days later, he was escorting her to "Carterhaugh," for her own safety. I wondered if that was the castle we'd seen, or another. This time she spoke of him as "a worthy knyght," before going on to fret over the staff here. She didn't seem terribly worried about her husband, though, so either she thought he was invincible or she didn't really love him. She also never called him by name.
The serial mentions of Odin got me thinking, though, and I went back to my transcriptions to see if he'd come up before. He had – twice in lists of knights who'd been present at a ceremony or feast, and once in a short listing of the Espers who were residing in the castle. She liked making lists. I guess he commanded humans, then, because she hadn't named off many Espers.
I realized, with a start, that the sun was hitting my eyes because it was coming in through the west window, so I hauled the diary over to the kitchen counter, and read it as I peeled vegetables. Kat brought in a chicken, already plucked and cleaned, and asked, "Pot pie?" I nodded, and after that we both worked in silence. The queen seemed, so far, not to think of Odin as more than a friend, and her "worthy protector." That seemed to be his assigned role, and I wondered what had become of the enslaved Phoenix. "Give it about half an hour," Kat said, and I nodded again.
The queen was not at all satisfied with the way Carterhaugh had been cared for in her absence. A week's worth of entries concerned getting the castle into shape. I'd read it when I transcribed it; for now I skimmed. I flipped a page over with the handle of a wooden spoon, and heard a "hey!" from the doorway. Locke strode purposefully for my side, trailed by Cassie – the others must have split already – and he scooped up the diary and cradled it protectively.
"Don't lose my place," I said.
"Don't get food on it!" he retorted.
"It's fine," I insisted, but I didn't argue while he took it over to the table. As soon as he sat down, Cassie came over and clambered up onto the bench next to him.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing at the volume.
"It's a very, very old book. Very fragile. Don't touch." At that she withdrew her hands, clasping them in her lap. "Your mama was being very bad, keeping it over by the food," he said. She shot me a look of accusation and doubt. I glared at him, and mouthed "You're undermining my authority."
"But she's a grownup, so I guess it's okay," he added. I turned back to the chicken.
"So you can touch it, Uncle Locke?" she asked. He mouthed "Uncle?" at me over her head, and I shrugged. I hadn't come up with it.
"Yeah, I can," he said, and then I guess he noticed my notes stuck in the front cover, because he flipped back to them.
"Don't lose my place!" I repeated.
"How old is it?" she asked.
"Ancient," he said absently, scanning the pages. "A thousand years." He laid the pages back on the table. "You know, it really shouldn't be in such good condition."
"I think there was a preservation spell on the palace," I said. "You must have noticed, none of the furniture was falling apart either."
"I thought I remembered that, but then when we went back in, it was," he said. "Not as badly as you'd think..."
"Well, once the magic went away, the spell wore off, and things started aging," I said, as if I knew for sure. "But they aren't really making up for lost time too badly. We have books that can't be more than twenty years old that are in no better shape than the diary."
"You aren't supposed to read people's diaries," Cassie informed us. Isabella and the boys had waged a pitched battle over hers last winter, and I suppose it made an impression on the younger kids.
"Yes, but this lady's been dead a long time," Locke said. Cassie's eyes widened. I remembered Bella yelling something about 'over her dead body,' and hastened to explain, "She died of old age." Which wasn't, strictly speaking, true, but it was a bit too late for these kids to be too sheltered – I figured sheltering them from now on couldn't hurt and might help.
"Okay," she agreed peaceably, and climbed back down off the bench.
"Where you going, sweetie?" I asked, and she giggled and ran out of the room. "Okay, so it's a secret," I answered myself, and looked over my shoulder. Locke was paging through the diary. At least he did have a bookmark in there. I started on the dough for crust.
"Looks like you've been keeping pretty good notes," he said. "Going to do an index?"
"What? Why?"
"Well, you'll publish this, right?"
"I hadn't really thought about it..."
"You should," he said. "I'm not really aiming for a university position myself, not like Hamley or Gibson. Already got Edgar as a backer, what's the point, right? So I don't publish things or present them quite as frantically as they do. But what's the point of discovering something if you don't share it? This is a really important find you've got here."
"What about the rest of the books from the queen's room?" I asked.
"Those all went to the Figaro royal library. Edgar's got scholars working on them. I honestly thought one or two of them were going to die of ecstasy when we brought them up – almost all the writing from that time is lost."
"Maybe they should have the diary, too."
He didn't reply for a moment, and I turned to look at him. He studied my face, must have seen that I meant it. "Why'd you want to throw away all that work?" he asked.
"I just don't have the time to... to see it through publication, to do those presentations you're always talking about. I guess I'll have time to finish the diary, but no time soon, and... There's just so much to do here." I slid the carrots and onions into the sauce, wiped my hands on my apron.
He sighed. "Terra, there's no deadline on this diary thing, you know? And it looks to me like Mobliz is doing just fine as it is. You have plenty of time to do this."
"Yes, but we need to improve the land records, and see about drafting a formal constitution, because Edgar wanted that ratified months ago, and we need to look at chartering some of these other towns and getting birds out to them for the post—"
"All at once?" he said. "Jidoor wasn't built in a day, Terra. You've got time." I shrugged, and he sighed again. "Whatever you want," he said, sounding a bit weary. I carried the stack of plates over to the table, and he stood up, took them from me. I went back to the stove. "Isn't Celes coming?" he asked.
"She said she had a lot of packing to do," I said, bending down to tap the bread crust.
"Has she been buying souvenirs? She always used to travel light," he said. I could hear the scrape of plates as he set them down.
"I guess she's changed," I said, knowing full well that wasn't it. "She's probably wanting to get back as soon as possible."
"Elections are coming up," he agreed. "Terra, I'm sorry if I upset you talking about publishing this. It just seems like a good idea, but hell, why should you trust my version of a good idea?"
"It's just... I have so much to handle right now," I said.
He looked like something had just hit him. "You're right. I'm sorry."
"I didn't mean the memories... I mean, I did, but not—" I broke off, shook my head and started over. On some level it was the memories keeping me overwhelmed and unwilling to deal with things, but I hadn't been thinking about them right then, and hadn't meant to remind him. I kept my gaze fixed on the edge of the table. "As much as I hate it, it's... it's good to have some memories of my own, not just my father's. Making new ones is fine, but... I feel like I'm getting something back to make up for what I've lost. Even if what I'm getting back is—"
"A handful of shit," he interrupted, angrily. "I swear you'd be better off not knowing."
"That wasn't the only thing that happened to me, Locke! I remember... I remember going to the ballet when I was ten years old, I remember I used to take lessons. I sort of remember books I've read, and the other day Kat was playing something on the phonograph and I realized I'd heard it before. I remember a whole life. Just because bad things happened in it..." When I looked up at him, he was looking down at his hands. "I'm trying to get past it," I said. "If I couldn't remember, I couldn't do that."
He nodded, hesitated before he spoke. "I just hate that it happened to you," he said.
I didn't know what to say to that. "I'll be okay eventually," I began, and then Henry poked his head through the door to ask if dinner was ready. Which, of course, it wasn't yet, so I sent him off to find the others while it baked. That didn't take long. They were already with him, so they just came in to join us. I fell silent amid all the other chatter, busied myself over serving dinner and stayed quiet through the meal.
After dinner, as we were clearing the dishes, I asked, "Why did it matter to you whether or not I published the diary?"
He looked a little embarrassed. "It's kind of stupid... I was hoping you'd get involved in this with me. Maybe... I mean, I know you can't just drop everything and do field work, but that was kind of what I had in mind. You used to be one hell of a treasure hunter."
"What, because I could see shiny things in the dirt?" I joked. It had actually been a sense for items with a whiff of magic on them. I wouldn't have that anymore, and it wouldn't have been terribly valuable in this kind of archeology anyway.
"Hey, don't knock it," he said. "I just figured, y'know, we were a good team. Like I said, kind of stupid." I laughed a little, awkwardly, and shook my head. "I'm sorry, Terra," he said, quietly. "I didn't mean to push you."
"Oh, Locke, it's not— I'm not upset or anything. I probably will try to publish it eventually, but I'm not even done with it yet."
"You seem upset. You were awfully quiet during dinner."
"I'm just tired," I said, my blanket excuse for anything, and started the water running in the sink. He caught my wet wrist as I reached for a cloth, and I jerked away automatically, spun to face him. We stood staring at each other for a moment.
"I'm sorry," he said again, beating me to the words by a fraction of a second.
"I, um..."
"I'll finish up here," he said, and I hesitated, nodded, wiped my hands on my apron and went shakily upstairs. In my room I just stared out the window for a long time. I hadn't even taken off the apron.
Over the next few days, I threw myself into chores once more – I hadn't ever really stopped doing that, actually. It was even easier since both Locke and Celes were giving me plenty of space, which meant I had even more time for weeding, and more guilt to work off. Not spending time with Locke should have made me feel less guilty, since I'd concluded, not fully consciously, that the only way to atone towards Celes was to stay away from him, but it didn't seem to work that way.
I did still see him occasionally. He'd come over to see the kids or talk to everyone, but we weren't alone together much. He might have meant it as a kindness. He might have decided I was just too strange to deal with right now. Whatever else he'd intended, he was keeping the kids out of trouble, and that was a blessing.
Celes's motives for avoiding me were much easier to figure out, and she was avoiding me completely. She didn't come over for dinner even when I sent the kids over with an invitation. If she'd had any weakness for kids this might have seemed manipulative, but she didn't; I was pretty sure she'd see it as me being cowardly, though. I didn't especially care. It was true, after all.
I didn't know what to say to her, and wouldn't have known how to explain to Locke if he'd asked. He didn't ask. He just gave me nearly a week of relative peace, and by the end of it I was cautiously circling the idea of going to speak to Celes. I still wasn't sure what good it would do, or what I could possibly say, but I had to do something. I felt horrible, and I missed her.
Around the fourth or fifth day after I'd fought with her, he stuck around after dinner, helped me with the dishes – the same pattern we'd established when things were going well. I felt peaceful, comfortable, like things being normal on the surface could somehow cause normality to seep through and fix the rest of my life.
"Hope you don't mind me taking the kids out," he said. That day they'd gone "treasure hunting," and had unearthed some things they thought were ancient stone arrowheads but were probably really just natural chips of shale or whatever type of rock they were.
"Not at all," I said. "They love it, and I know they're safe with you. No getting eaten by monsters or nearly drowning."
"You really worry about that drowning thing, don't you?" he said. "Any reason?"
"None that I know of," I said. "There's a lot of water around here? They're likelier to drown than fall off a cliff."
"True," he agreed absently. He pulled two mugs out of the cabinet; I was filling the kettle for tea. "I'm just trying to keep them out of your hair, really. And keep me out of your hair, too. You have enough to deal with."
"I'm just a wimp, that's all," I said.
"I talked to Celes," he said.
I stopped dead at her name. "Oh," I managed, after a moment. "What did she say?"
"Not much. She admitted you two had a fight." I nodded, wordlessly. I was lucky; after a moment, he continued. "Basically told me to back off. She also said she'd talk to you. Might've just been trying to make me leave, though."
"What did I ever do to you to make you hate me?" I asked mournfully. "You should have just left it alone. She's going to think I put you up to it."
"You spend too much time with your kids, Terra. Whatever happened to just walking up to somebody and having a conversation? She just thinks I'm a born snoop, not a double agent."
At least I was right. The next day, she walked in the store, gave the bell over the door a look that could easily have tarnished the brass, and then asked "Did you send him?"
"No!"
"Good," she said, and without any visible change in her I could tell she'd calmed down a notch.
"Did you think I would?"
"It seemed like you. You wouldn't want to risk dealing with me in case I was still angry." I must have looked about to protest, because she added, "You sent the children, for heaven's sake."
"I just wanted you to know you were welcome to... I mean, I have some sense. I know you're mad at me and I knew that wouldn't... do any good. I just wanted you to know..." I felt all the words I'd prepared wilting away, and I nervously smoothed a piece of ledger paper into a sharper crease. "It's... I don't blame you. For being mad."
She stationed herself at the window, hands clasped behind her back, feet shoulder-width apart. At ease, I thought. "It's ridiculous," she said. "I don't especially care. I don't want to be angry. I'm not really angry with you. I'm just... angry."
It took me a moment, but I finally managed, "I'm sorry." The words came out sounding choked.
"For what?" she asked, neutrally.
"Everything?" I said, and I saw her shake her head.
"Did you know how I felt about him?" she asked.
I couldn't answer for a second, just stare at the beam of sunlight coming through the window. She turned around to watch me search the dust motes for words. "I sort of knew," I said finally. "I guessed. I wasn't sure." It was why I'd never told him how I felt.
"Did he ever know?" she asked, quietly.
I shook my head. "I don't think so," I added.
"Good," she said, almost a sigh. I ran my finger along the folded edge of the paper – it had ended up folded in quarters somehow, worried around the edges – and wished I could sink through the floor, resurface somewhere else where I didn't have to face the rest of this conversation. "Terra, I'll... I'll write to you, I suppose. I do need to return to Narshe; I wasn't just fleeing your presence."
"I... well... good," I said, floundering. Then I found my breath to repeat, "Celes, I'm so sorry."
"Just leave it, Terra," she said, quietly. "I'll see you again before I leave. Setzer should be here tomorrow or the next day." I nodded wordlessly, and she walked out, closed the door so gently it barely jingled.