Ch. 173 The First Invitation

Chapter 173: The First Invitation

The letter from Willow Court arrived four days later.

Mara had dismissed her brother from the room.

Then sent Anwen after him because he had taken her shawl by mistake.

Ilyen read that part aloud over breakfast.

Evelyn smiled into her cup.

“She’s speaking to him, then.”

“Intermittently.”

“And her back?”

“Still painful. She sat beside the window yesterday.”

Aurelia held out her hand for the letter.

There was a message at the bottom, written in an uneven hand.

Thank you for opening the curtains.

She read it quietly.

Then folded the page along its existing creases.

Ilyen’s arrangements for the other sleeping houses were already under way.

Experienced healers would visit before anyone changed a working.

Thesra would provide the instructions.

The people in the beds would be spoken to whenever they could answer.

Aurelia had offered to help examine the magic.

She had not offered to attend every bedside.

I was glad of that.

When Mary asked which mornings she wished to keep free, our teacher considered the question seriously.

Then named three.

One for the school.

One for herself.

“And the third?” Mary asked.

“I haven’t decided.”

Mary wrote it down without asking again.

That afternoon, Helena informed us that we were late.

I looked toward the clock.

“For what?”

“Deciding what to do.”

Evelyn put down her pen.

“Mother.”

“Their birthday is approaching.”

For a moment, I simply stared at her.

Then I looked at my wife.

She wore the same expression.

Helena’s face softened.

“Yes,” she said. “It has been nearly a year.”

I remembered the room.

The waiting.

Evelyn’s hand around mine.

The first small cry, followed by another.

I had spent the months since learning how much could be contained in two people who could not put on their own socks.

Now Garrick could cross a small space on his feet.

Carol could cross a much larger one while I was distracted.

A year seemed impossible.

Then I thought about how tired I had been during parts of it.

A year seemed rather short.

“We should have the family,” Evelyn said.

“Certainly.”

“And Ilyen.”

Helena nodded.

“Nessa, if she can come. Mary. Melody. Eliza.”

I began counting chairs in my head.

“Abigail will want to see them,” my wife continued. “And Eleanor.”

“My father,” I added.

Evelyn looked at me.

“I had assumed he was included in the family.”

“I mean he’ll need a place where Garrick can reach him.”

“That can be arranged.”

Helena had already opened her book.

I began to understand that we were joining a conversation which had started without us.

We found Aurelia in the lower garden.

The snow had drawn back from the sunny wall, leaving dark, wet earth beneath it.

She stood with the gardener beside the little row of pots holding Aveth’s cuttings.

There was nothing new to see.

They appeared content to look anyway.

Evelyn waited until the gardener returned to his work.

“We’re arranging the children’s birthday.”

Aurelia turned.

Her smile came at once.

“Already?”

“That seems to be everyone’s opinion,” I said.

“We thought an afternoon meal,” Evelyn continued. “In the hall, with room for them to crawl about.”

Aurelia nodded.

“I should like to help.”

“What would you like to do?”

She opened her mouth.

Then paused.

“I don’t know.”

We walked back together.

At the steps, Aurelia stopped.

“Must it be useful?”

I looked at her.

“What?”

“The gift.”

Evelyn’s expression softened.

“No.”

“They have everything they need.”

“They have a wooden spoon each,” I said. “They behave as though we have deprived them whenever anyone else uses one.”

Aurelia laughed.

But she still looked thoughtful as we went inside.

My gift began badly.

Garrick Valewood watched me hold the small piece of wood against his bench.

“What are you making?”

“A boat.”

He looked at it.

Then at the drawing beside my elbow.

“Is that the top?”

“It was intended to be.”

He took the drawing and turned it around.

“That may help.”

I studied it.

“Yes.”

He returned to the little horse he was carving.

For several minutes, the workshop was quiet.

Then he said, “You could make the bottom flat.”

“Would it float?”

“More reliably than that.”

I flattened the bottom.

By the end of the afternoon, I possessed something which could reasonably be described as a boat.

Garrick ran his thumb around its edges.

Then handed me a finer piece of abrasive cloth.

“Again.”

“I’ve already—”

He lifted an eyebrow.

I smoothed it again.

It was peaceful work once I stopped trying to finish.

The shaving curls gathered beside my hand.

Light shifted across the bench.

My father-in-law worked without hurrying.

“Does it feel strange?” I asked.

“What does?”

“The birthday.”

He set down his knife.

“For you, or for me?”

“Either.”

He smiled.

“Yes.”

He told me about Evelyn’s first winter.

She had refused a particular blanket.

Nothing had been wrong with it.

Helena had washed it.

Warmed it.

Tried placing it beneath another.

Their daughter had discovered the deception every time.

“What happened to it?”

“I used it around a basket of tools.”

“That seems severe.”

“She approved of the arrangement.”

I laughed.

Then looked down at the boat.

“Did you feel as though you might forget things?”

“I did forget things.”

He said it gently.

“Then Helena would remember. Or Evelyn would ask a question, and something would come back.”

I thought of the book upstairs.

“I’ve started writing some down.”

“Good.”

He picked up his knife again.

“Leave room for her to disagree with you.”

Aurelia’s difficulty took her to the sewing room.

I found her there the following morning with a small heap of cloth in front of her.

Two women were helping.

One had drawn a pattern.

The other was explaining why a narrow piece would tear if Carol pulled hard enough.

Aurelia listened with the concentration she usually gave unfamiliar magic.

“What are we making?” I asked.

“A book.”

I looked at the cloth.

That had not been my first guess.

She laid two pieces beside one another.

One blue.

One green.

“Something they can hold themselves.”

“And taste,” said the woman beside her.

Aurelia glanced at her.

“They will,” the woman said.

“I see.”

She removed a decorative cord from the pattern.

The book would have a bird.

A fish.

A tree.

A little house with an opening flap for the door.

Nothing loose enough to pull free.

No bright button eyes.

When Aurelia explained this at supper, Melody looked almost disappointed.

“I liked the buttons.”

“So would Carol,” Evelyn said.

“That is apparently the difficulty,” Aurelia added.

Garrick dropped his cup.

I caught it before it reached the floor.

Our son leaned sideways to inspect the place where it ought to have landed.

Then he looked at me.

His expression suggested that I had interrupted important work.

The invitations became a practical problem.

Ilyen could come after the midday rounds.

Nessa needed to leave before evening.

Eliza wanted the guard changes settled first.

Eleanor asked whether work clothes would be acceptable.

Beatrice asked how many people we intended to feed.

Mary said that depended on whether “only a few” continued to include everyone we had spoken to since breakfast.

Evelyn took the list from her.

Then crossed out the phrase at the top.

“There.”

Mary read it.

“An afternoon meal.”

“Much more accurate.”

We kept the rest.

Aurelia came to our room that night carrying a folded scrap of paper.

“May I ask something?”

Evelyn moved the sewing basket off the chair.

“Of course.”

Aurelia sat.

The paper remained between her fingers.

“Do you mean for me to be in the family portrait?”

I looked at my wife.

She had been planning a new drawing.

The twins at a year.

Their grandparents behind them.

Us somewhere close enough to keep them from leaving.

“Yes,” Evelyn said.

“I thought perhaps you meant—”

“I meant you.”

Aurelia looked down.

For a little while, she did not unfold the paper.

“It has been a long time,” she said.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

“Since a birthday?”

“Since I had to think about where I belonged at one.”

Evelyn leaned forward.

“We can put your chair wherever you like.”

That drew a small laugh.

Then Aurelia wiped beneath one eye with her finger.

“I keep finding things I thought I had stopped wanting.”

Nobody hurried her.

From the nursery came a brief, indignant sound.

We all turned.

Silence followed.

Then the nurse’s quiet voice.

Aurelia looked toward the connecting door.

“I should like to sit near them.”

“You will,” Evelyn said.

The paper held words for the cloth book.

Short ones.

A bird in the morning.

A fish beneath the water.

A tree that sheltered a small house.

Evelyn read them.

Then looked up.

“Did you write this?”

“I used to tell part of it to my son.”

“Would you like to keep it for him?”

Aurelia considered that.

Then shook her head.

“I would like to tell it again.”

My wife passed the paper back.

“Then we’ll leave room for the words.”

The boat’s first voyage took place in a basin.

It floated.

I considered summoning witnesses.

Then it tipped onto its side.

Garrick Valewood watched it settle against the rim.

“Too much above.”

“I can remove some.”

“You can.”

I took it back to the bench.

By the third attempt, it remained upright even when I disturbed the water.

My father-in-law nodded.

I had received less satisfying praise for considerably greater feats of magic.

I carried the boat upstairs wrapped in cloth.

Carol saw the bundle from Helena’s lap and reached for it.

“Not yet.”

She reached farther.

I understood why people hid gifts in locked cupboards.

A few days before the birthday, a letter arrived from the northern villages.

The salt had been shared out.

The saw blade fitted.

The mill boy wanted to know whether Aurelia had kept his picture.

At the bottom, Hanne had asked after the children.

Aurelia wrote the reply herself.

She told the boy where the drawing stood.

She told Hanne about the birthday.

Then she asked Beatrice whether a cake could survive the journey to Northwatch.

“A small one,” Beatrice said. “Wrapped properly.”

Aurelia added another line.

I did not ask what it said.

I could see her smiling.

That evening, we tried the cloth book before its final stitching.

The sewing-room women insisted.

Evelyn held Carol.

I held Garrick.

Aurelia opened the first page.

Our daughter immediately caught the green edge.

Our son put his hand over the bird.

The tree received little attention.

Then Aurelia lifted the little cloth door.

Both children leaned forward.

“There,” she said softly. “Who is coming home?”

Carol pushed her fingers beneath the flap.

Garrick laughed.

Aurelia looked up at us.

She had not finished the book.

The birthday was still several days away.

But for a moment, none of us wanted anything more than to sit there while she opened the little door again.