Patricia Wrede: Thirteenth Child

Between the new settlement spells and the trap that Wash and the professor worked out, a lot of the settlements got their fields free of beetles by summer’s end. That meant no grubs the next spring, so things could get back to normal for the settlers. Better than normal, some ways; the grubs and beetles had cleared a lot of land that would have taken the settlers years to do on their own, and they’d gotten rid of a lot of weeds, too, so crops that year were extra good. But that was later, too.

What with one thing and another, we stayed at the settlement for nearly a week after Mr. Harrison left. By the time we started back to Mill City, I was glad to get away. Lan was still grumpy, and I’d about had my fill of strangers coming up to me on the street to gush about how I’d saved them all. A simple “thank you” would have been plenty.

Leaving didn’t help as much as I’d thought. The settlement had sent messengers to all the nearby settlements as soon as they could, to spread the word about the beetles and the mirror bugs soaking up magic. Of course, they’d told the whole story, including the part about me being a heroine. And those settlements sent the word on to others. So all the way home, every settlement we passed wanted Papa to stop and teach the new spells to their settlement magicians, and while Papa was teaching, all the settlers fussed over me.

William thought it was funny.

“It’s about time you got some attention,” he told me. “And you deserve it.”

“You and Lan deserve just as much,” I said. “And I’d rather you had it than me. I don’t like it.”

“It’s good for you,” he said heartlessly. Then he grinned. “And it’s good for Lan, too.”

I sniffed. “Why does everything that’s good for you have to be unpleasant?”

William just laughed.

“At least it’s almost over,” I said as all of us rode through West Landing toward the ferry at last. “Everything will get back to normal when we get home.”

“You think so?” William said. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and gave me a sidelong look, the one that meant he was so sure you were wrong that he could just wait and let you find out for yourself the hard way.

I looked at him for a minute and then grinned. I had the feeling that “normal” had changed some after all that had happened in the past month, but I wasn’t going to let on even that much. It would just make him smug.

“I’m sure of it,” I said firmly.