Patricia Wrede - Thirteenth Child

“No—they’re deeper and more purposeful than that. Uncle Lewis studied the reports on the western wildlife, then decided we should store most of our critical goods underground. The burrowing beasts are fewer and easier to keep out, for the most part.”

“Rather like the storm cellars they build down in the Middle Plains Territories,” Professor Jeffries said.

“Like them, but larger,” Brant said, nodding. “Every home and store has at least one full room underneath it; most have more.” He grinned. “Digging them out was no picnic, let me tell you!”

“They’re well worth it,” Mr. Lewis added. “We’ve been glad of them a time or two already. And if we had a major disaster—if a woolly rhinoceros came through the palisade or a tornado smashed the part of the settlement that’s above ground—we’d have a lean year or two, but we wouldn’t lose all our tools and supplies, and we’d have safe places to live while we rebuilt.”

It kept on like that the whole time they were showing us around, with Brant answering most of the questions and his uncle chiming in every now and then. Everyone except me and Wash and Mr. Harrison asked lots of questions, and Brant seemed to get more and more cheerful the more of them he answered. You could see that he was proud enough of the settlement to bust his buttons off, and didn’t get near as much chance to brag on it as he’d have liked.

I thought it was all very interesting, but I didn’t need to ask questions because Papa and Professor Jeffries and the boys were asking plenty enough without me. Wash didn’t say much, but he was studying everything in a way that made me wonder if he was looking at things. It bothered me at first, that he’d use Aphrikan magic, even just world-sensing, when the Rationalists made such a point of no one doing any magic on their allotment. Then I remembered the little nod he and Mr. Lewis had given each other, and I wondered if maybe Wash didn’t have some arrangement of his own. After all, he’d been here before.

Just about the time I thought that, a woman in a plain stuff dress and deep bonnet came out of one of the buildings and stopped short, staring at us. First she looked surprised. Then her eye lit on Wash and her expression turned dark. She gave him a good glare, then glared at everyone else for good measure, ending with Mr. Lewis. “So you did it after all,” she said to him. “For shame!”

“Morning, Mrs. Stewart,” Mr. Lewis said, though I noticed he didn’t wish her a good morning.

Mrs. Stewart ignored the greeting. “Magicians!” She said it the way some of Mama’s church lady friends said “saloons” or “actors,” like she was cross that the word even existed for her to have to say. “Magicians, in Oak River! It’s a scandal, that’s what it is, and it’s all your fault. I told you how it would be when you first gave in to that nephew of yours.” She looked at Brant and sniffed.

Brant’s lips tightened. Mr. Lewis gave him a sharp look, then turned his attention back to the woman. “The settlement council agreed to this visit, Mrs. Stewart,” he said.

“You’ve always been lax, Toller, and I make no bones about saying so,” the woman went on. “I’ve half a mind to report you to the national headquarters. We’ll see what they have to say about all this.”

“I’m sure they’d be pleased to tell you, Mrs. Stewart,” Mr. Lewis said. His tone was mild enough, but Mrs. Stewart flinched like he’d slapped her.

“Magicians,” she said again, scowling at us all. “I never thought I’d see the day.” She sniffed once more before she finally brushed past us, holding her skirts aside so they wouldn’t come near touching anyone.

“What was that about?” Lan asked after a minute, looking at Mr. Lewis.

“I thought it was fairly obvious,” William muttered, but he spoke softly enough that only Wash and I, who were standing right next to him, heard.

“Some of our people don’t approve of having magicians here for any reason,” Mr. Lewis said with a sigh. “And they’ll hold to that no matter what the settlement council has agreed on.”

“There are always people in any group who will go along with authority only so long as authority agrees with their opinions,” Papa said.

“And sometimes that’s not such a bad thing,” Wash commented. Mr. Lewis and Papa both gave him startled looks, but he just smiled. “It all depends on the authority and the opinions, doesn’t it?”

That put paid to the discussion, and nearly to the tour of the settlement. Mr. Lewis showed us a few more things, but you could see his heart wasn’t in it any longer. We saw a few more folks out of doors, and now that I was paying attention, I could see that at least half of them were giving us dark looks of one shade or another. The rest mostly had on polite faces, though one or two of the younger ones looked curious.

Mr. Lewis pointed out one of the little dug-in houses that was maybe a tad bigger than the others, and said that was his, and he’d be pleased if Papa and Professor Jeffries could join him for dinner. And Mr. Harrison, too, he added, just late enough that it was obvious he’d all but forgotten about him. Professor Jeffries accepted right off, but Papa said he’d see once he’d talked to his daughter, which reminded everyone why we were supposed to have come. Mr. Lewis nodded and handed us all over to Brant and wished us a fine visit. Then Brant took us down the street to a tiny house that looked just like all the others. He pushed the door open without knocking and called, “Rennie? We’re here!”

RENNIE CAME TO MEET US WHEN SHE HEARD BRANT. MY STOMACH turned over when she stepped out into the sunlight. I’d thought some about meeting her again, but actually seeing her was better and worse than I’d expected. Rennie had always been my bossy older sister. I hadn’t always liked her, but I’d always figured she meant well, right up until she ran off with Brant. Then I didn’t know what to think. Part of me wanted to hug her, and part of me wanted to yell at her, but I wasn’t thirteen anymore, and I couldn’t do either one, especially not in front of Wash and Professor Jeffries and Mr. Harrison.

Luckily, I didn’t have to do much except stand there and nod. Rennie started babbling nervously the minute she saw us, and the next few minutes were mostly exclamations over how tall Lan had gotten, how grown up I looked, how good it was to see everybody, and what a shame it was that Mama and Nan and Allie couldn’t have come, too. Then Papa introduced Professor Jeffries and Wash and Mr. Harrison, and Rennie brought her children out to meet us.

Albert Daniel Wilson was a midsize four-and-a-half-year-old; Seren Louise was a tiny two-year-old. Both of them kept trying to hide behind Rennie’s skirts. I couldn’t quite tell whether they were just shy or really afraid. The baby was two months old, and looked to be ready for a nap and cranky about not getting it. Rennie had all of them dressed up in their Sunday best, and when she wasn’t shoving them forward to say hello, she was nagging at the older ones to keep their clothes nice, which didn’t make any of them any happier. It seemed a lot of fuss to make over meeting only one grandfather and two out of fourteen-plus aunts and uncles, but that was Rennie for you.

After the first flurry, I stepped back and let Lan and Papa and William do most of the talking while I looked around. The house was tiny, just two rooms, and neither one as big as our second-best parlor in Mill City. The outside walls were peeled logs, but the wall between the two rooms was made of planks.

The dirt piled around the outside walls shaded the windows and made the glass dusty, so looking out was like peering through a tunnel. It also kept the inside of the house cool and damp, which was pleasant enough for a hot day in mid-July, but I wondered how it would feel on a cold, rainy April or September day.