Orson Card - THE CRYSTAL CITY

When he looked away from where Alvin had faded from view, nobody else even seemed to have noticed.

Except Dead Mary. She was ostensibly talking with her mother and a couple of Frenchmen about something, but her gaze was fixed on the place where Alvin had last been visible.

It's love, thought Arthur Stuart. Girl is crazy with love. Or something.

It took a while for folks to settle down. They hadn't got much sleep, so you'd think they'd all be tired, and the children had fallen asleep about as soon as their stomachs were full. But there was conversation and wonderment and worry, plenty to keep things humming for an hour or so after the meal and the cleanup were over.

Arthur knew he needed sleep as much as anyone, maybe more. But first he checked to make sure the fog was in place. That was his first job, and if he failed at that, what would he be worth? So he walked the perimeter of the camp one last time. A couple of the blacks just released from slavery on the Cottoner plantation saw him and came and gave him thanks, but he refused, and just said he didn't give them anything God didn't give them first, and then excused himself to finish checking on things.

When he got back to the big house, most everyone was asleep. And it occurred to him that he hadn't arranged so much as a blanket for himself.

No matter. The grass was dry and the air was warm and he didn't mind the insects. He found an empty patch of ground not far from the edge of the fog, where nobody else was sleeping, and he sat down and started rubbing the bottoms of his feet with grass, which he found was soothing after a day's walking. His shoes were somewhere near the house, he remembered now. He'd get them in the morning, or do without. Shoes were good to have in winter, but they were a bother to have to carry around all summer, when mostly you wanted to feel the ground under your feet.

"So he's gone," said Dead Mary.

Arthur hadn't even noticed her approach. He cursed himself. Alvin always knew who was nearby. And Arthur Stuart could see the heartfires, the near ones anyway. He just wasn't used to looking. There were hundreds around him now, all sleeping. He hadn't been paying attention.

"And you are the maker now," said Dead Mary.

"Prentice maker," said Arthur Stuart. "If that. My real knack is learning languages."

She said something to him in a language that sounded partly like Spanish and partly like French.

"I got to learn them first," said Arthur. "It's not like I already got all possible languages inside my head."

She laughed lightly. "What is it like, traveling with him all the time?"

"Like being with your brother-in-law who sometimes treats you like a kid and sometimes treats you like a person."

She smiled and shook her head. "It must be wonderful, to see him do these noble things."

"He usually does no more than one noble deed afore dinner, and then he's done for the day."

"You're teasing me," she said.

"You want to know what it's like?" said Arthur Stuart. "Just ask your ma how thrilling it is every time she sees you find out whether somebody's sick, and whether they'll die of it."

"How could you ever get used to something like this?"

"I'm not trying to get used to it," said Arthur. "I'm trying to learn to do it."

"Why? Why do you need to know, when he can do it so much better?"

Didn't she have any idea how hurtful it was to say such a thing? "Well, it's a good thing I did learn something, don't you think?" he said. "Or we'd have to have a bunch of watchmen out tonight, and in this group, how many reliable guards do you think we'd find?"

"So you really made the fog? He didn't do it?"

"He started it, to show me how. I made the rest."

"And you can do it tomorrow?"

"I hope so," said Arthur Stuart, " 'cause we got to leave this fog behind. If we stayed a second night here, this plantation wouldn't have anything left to eat and the Cottoners would starve."

"They won't starve-they don't have all those slaves to feed now, remember?" She lay back on the grass. "If I could travel with him, I would be happy every minute of every day."

"Don't work that way for me," said Arthur Stuart. "About every other day, I stub my toe or eat something that makes me queasy. Otherwise, though, it's pretty much ecstasy."

"Why do you tease me? All I'm doing is telling you what's in my heart."

"He's a married man," said Arthur Stuart. "And his wife is my sister."

"Don't be jealous for your sister," said Dead Mary. "I don't love him that way."

Yes you do, thought Arthur Stuart. "Glad to hear it," he said.

"Can you help me?" she said.

"Help you what?"

"This globe of crystal water he made, that I've been carrying with me-"

"As I recall, you had a couple of boys who were sweet on you pushing that wheelbarrow most of the day."

She waved his tease away. "I look in it and what I see frightens me."

"What do you see?"

"All the deaths in the world," she said. "So many I can't even tell who is doing the dying."

Arthur Stuart shuddered. "I don't know how the thing works. Maybe you only see what you've been trained to see. You already know how to see death, so that's what you see."

She nodded. "That makes sense. I was going to ask you what you see."

"My mother," said Arthur Stuart. "Flying. Carrying me to freedom."

"So you were born in slavery."

"My mother spent all her strength and died of it, getting me away."

"How brave of her. How sad for you."

"I had family. A couple of families. A black one, the Berrys, they pretended they were my real parents for awhile, so folks wouldn't tag me as a runaway. And the Guesters, the white family that actually raised me. Alvin's mother-in-law, Old Peg, she adopted me. She meant it, too. Though I reckon Alvin's been more my father than Peggy's father was. He's an innkeeper, and a good man. Helped a lot of slaves get to freedom. And he always made me feel welcome, but it was Alvin took me everywhere and showed me everything."

"And all before you were twenty."

"I don't reckon we're done yet," said Arthur Stuart.

"So you can tease me, but I can't tease you?"

"I didn't know you were teasing."

"So you don't speak all the languages." She laughed at him.

"If you don't mind, maybe it's time for sleep."

"Don't be mad at me, Prentice Maker. We have a lot of work to do together. We should be friends."

"We are," said Arthur Stuart. "If you want to be."

"I do."

He thought, but did not say: Just so you can use me to stay close to Alvin, I reckon.

"Do you?" she said.

Does it matter what I want? "Of course," he said. "This is all going to work better if we're friends."

"And someday you'll help me understand what I see in Alvin's globe?"

"I don't even understand what I see in my soup," said Arthur Stuart. "But I'll try."

She rolled onto one arm and leaned toward him and kissed his forehead. "I will sleep better knowing you're my friend and I can learn from you."

Then she got up and left.

You might sleep better, thought Arthur Stuart, but I won't.

Mizzippy

Alvin found it hard to hear the greensong in this place. It wasn't just the disharmony of field after field of cotton tended by slaves, which droned a bitter, complaining monotone under the songs of life. It was also his own fears and worries, distracting him so he couldn't listen to the life around him as he needed to.

Leaving Arthur in charge of all the makery that this exodus required was dangerous, not because there was any ill will in the young man, but because there was simply so much he didn't know. Not just about makery, either, but about life, about what the consequences of each action were likely to be. Not that Alvin was any expert himself-nor was Margaret, for even she saw many paths and wasn't sure which ones led to good places in the end. But he knew more than Arthur Stuart did simply by virtue of having lived years longer, with a watchful eye.