Craft (29 page)

“Sixteen,” Ellie said. “Sixteen on the
summer solstice…” Ellie mused. “Momma once said she thought the
solstice was the reason why craft came so easy to me. She thought
it might have been 'cause of the longest day of the year had
blessed me.”

“We always have a party on the
solstice,” Thane said.

“So, you've been celebrating my
birthday this whole time,” Ellie said with a smile.

“I guess so,” Thane
admitted.

“We have a party, too,” Ellie said.
“But not for me. It’s just a normal party for the solstice. No one
ever remembers my birthday. Last time I made mention of my birthday
to Neveah, she told Grandpa Bumbalow that I had told her I wanted
to be a Cooper. He locked me in his cellar for three days. That was
before I knew how to go about crafting water. I about
died.”

Thane was shocked. His expression
reflected his shock. Even his family would never lock him in a
cellar for three days. His problems were small in
comparison.

“And you still love Neveah after she
did something like that?” he demanded.

Ellie shrugged. The light she was
playing with turned a strange red color. “I told you already…it’s
complicated.”

“Sounds like it,” Thane
agreed.

Ellie nodded without looking at him.
Her eyes showed her conflicted emotions. She did not know how to
reconcile the growing feelings in her chest for Thane or the way he
was making her rethink everything she had ever known. Her world was
changing. She was not certain that was a good thing.

“I reckon I’ve had enough talking for
a night,” Ellie said, suddenly wanting to be alone.

“Okay,” Thane agreed, seeing her
thoughts on her face.

“I’ll see you next week,” Ellie
said.

Caw circled her head as she walked
away, not daring to land on her shoulder. Ellie had pulled a
blanket of seclusion around herself against the memories and doubts
dancing in her head. Thane watched her go, staying on the fallen
tree well past her departure. His thoughts were just as conflicted.
He did not know how it felt to be locked away in house, but he did
know how it felt to have a family he was not certain he loved. It
was never easy. He also knew that everyone deserved a
birthday.

Ellie’s week was quiet, though Neveah
seemed determined to pile as many chores as possible on her. Neveah
was still upset that her retribution over the Cooper’s latest
attack had not found an outlet. Her foul moods usually meant more
work for everyone. Ellie accepted the chores without comment. She
did her best to go unnoticed. With the mood Ellie was in that week,
she was not sure how a confrontation between them would
go.

Ellie spent a lot of her downtime
hiding from Neveah, reading and daydreaming about more adventures
with Thane. Her daydreams were haunted by her confliction. She
wanted Thane to stay. If he stayed home for school, they could have
as many adventures as they wanted. Ellie did not like her
selfishness clouding the issue. She knew that if she had a chance
not to be surrounded by the feud all the time, she would take
it.

The night before her birthday, Ellie
went out to meet Thane like usual. She had crafted a new dress to
wear for their meeting. Her excitement for the meeting could not be
stopped by the feeling that it was wrong to wish for him to stay.
Her week had only been manageable through the idea that she would
see him again. It had kept her going as she put up with Neveah’s
bullying.

Thane was waiting for her when she
arrived. Though it was normal for him to get to their clearing
first, everything else was different. Banners were between the
trees. On them were the words, “Happy Birthday!” They marked her
path to Thane and surrounded their clearing. Thane stood in the
middle, a smile on his face. Next to Thane were a table, two
chairs, and a birthday cake. The cake was simple, with a ring of
blue candles around the edge. Ellie looked at the cake then at
Thane, shocked at what she was seeing.

“There’s no need to look so confused,”
Thane said when he saw her.

“What’s all this?” Ellie
asked.

“It’s a birthday party,” Thane
said.

Ellie dared to step a little closer. A
slow smile spread across her face. She looked at her cake and her
candles, not knowing what to say to Thane. She thought the
decorations were the kindest thing anyone had ever done for her. It
was difficult to conceive of someone doing something so nice for no
reason at all.

“It’s not nearly as great as the kind
of magic you can do…” Thane said.

Thane thought she was not moving
because she was not impressed by his craft. He thought her less
than overwhelmed by what she saw. Ellie came out of her daze. Her
smile grew larger as she looked at him.

“This is most beautiful thing I have
ever seen,” she told him.

Ellie moved over to him and gave him a
kiss on the cheek. He blushed at her kiss, but she did not notice.
She was too busy looking at the cake. She moved over to the
lopsided treat and eyed the candles. The light bobbed happily in
time to the feeling of the air.

“Can I blow them out?” Ellie
asked.

“Sure,” Thane agreed. “You gotta make
a wish, though. It’s a birthday rule.”

“Oh…”

Ellie frowned as she thought over her
wish. She finally decided what she wanted most and bent forward to
blow the candles out. The candles all went out at once. Ellie had
unintentionally used her craft as she focused on her wish. Thane
moved around her and sat on his side of the table. Ellie sat as
well, grinning from ear to ear. Caw hopped onto the table and
looked down at the cake with a hungry eye.

“What’d you wish for?” Thane asked as
he crafted a knife to cut the cake with.

It was Ellie’s turn to blush. Thane
noticed and misunderstood.

“You afraid it won’t come true if you
tell me?” he asked.

“No…” Ellie said.

“What then?” he asked.

Ellie blushed harder and started
eating the cake he had offered her. It was chocolate and tasted
much better than it looked. She took a moment to enjoy the cake
then admitted the truth to him. “I wished that the feud would end,
so we could be real friends instead of having to sneak all the
time,” Ellie said.

Thane smiled, though his words were
less than hopeful.

“Well, you’re wishing for pixie dust,
then.”

“Reckon,” Ellie agreed
easily.

“Still, pixie dust is something good
to hope for, sometimes,” Thane said. “It certainly can’t make the
feud worse.”

Ellie shrugged, downplaying her
emotions. “I don’t know if something like that is even possible.
But the wish is done. Can’t undo what is…Let’s talk about something
cheerful.”

“It’s your birthday,” Thane agreed,
though he did not look happy to let the subject drop.

Ellie smiled again, liking the way his
words sounded. Noticing Caw’s hungry stare, she cut a piece of the
cake off and crafted a plate just for Caw. She set the cake on the
plate, so all three of them could enjoy the party. For a minute,
the three of them ate in silence.

“Tell me about the party you have,”
Ellie said around her food. “For the solstice…”

“There’s not much to it,” Thane said.
“Everyone gets to my house around nine. They cook food. My dad
gives a speech about family pride at the start of it. The house is
full of people I don’t know that well, everyone drinks and dances
and has a good time. I usually sit in a corner and wish I had
perfected magic to make me appear in two places at once, so I could
leave without there being a fight.”

“I tried to craft being at two places
at once…to get the other half to do my chores,” Ellie said. “It was
like holding in a belly ache. I couldn’t focus long enough to get
it to stick…”

“You actually tried that?” Thane
asked.

“Sure,” Ellie said. “Why
not?”

“I was just joking,” Thane said. “You
really are talented at magic.”

Ellie blushed at his compliment. “I
just practice is all,” Ellie said. “I reckon you didn’t get much
chance to practice your craft around that non-crafting bunch of
folks. Especially if they make as big a deal as you say about
craft.”

“That could be it,” Thane said. “It’s
not…but it could be.”

Ellie shrugged and looked around her
clearing again, saving the images of the party in her mind for
later. She could not stop smiling. It was irrepressible. She wanted
to keep the moment forever. She wished that her craft extended to
the ability of saving a moment. It was her first birthday since her
momma left that felt like a real celebration.

“Ellie! Where the devil are
you!?”

Ellie heard the voice and jumped up
automatically. It was distorted and ill-formed, but there was no
mistaking who was calling. It was Neveah.

“You have to go?” Thane asked,
disappointed.

“If I don’t, she’ll come looking for
me,” Ellie said.

“I guess we don’t want that,” Thane
said.

“No, we don’t,” Ellie said.

“I’ll wait for you,” he
said.

“You best not,” Ellie said. “At this
hour, she probably wants something real inconvenient and
time-consuming. They do that sometimes when they’ve gotten in the
hooch and are feeling mean.”

Thane nodded once in agreement. He did
not look happy, but he could not argue with Ellie’s understanding
of her sisters. He did not want to get her in trouble.
“Okay.”

“Ellie!” she heard Neveah call
again.

Ellie jumped again and started to
hurry out of the clearing. She knew Neveah would be angry at having
to wait. She waved a quick goodbye to Thane before disappearing
into the woods. Thane watched her go.

Caw was still eating his piece of cake
and all but ignored Thane’s soft whisper.

“Happy Birthday, Ellie.”

Tree branches whipped against Ellie’s
face as she ran, but she ignored the pain. Her heart pounded at the
idea of Neveah’s wrath should she find Ellie in the woods. Ellie
left the woods and rushed toward the house. Even though she was
focused on getting to her sister, her mind lingered on the party
Thane had thrown for her. The warmth of the moment circled her body
as much as the summer night.

Neveah was in the living room. Careen
was next to her, sprawled out on the sofa. Careen was unconscious
and Neveah was far gone with drink. Ellie knew they had spent the
evening at Cousin’s house preparing for the solstice. She also knew
Cousin had some of the strongest hooch for twenty miles. Ellie knew
why Neveah had called her. She had seen it enough times to know.
They needed help getting upstairs. Neveah blinked at Ellie
blearily, her eyes refocusing as Ellie stopped in the space between
the kitchen and living room.

“What took you so long?” Neveah
demanded.

“It’s one thirty in the morning,”
Ellie said. “I was in bed.”

“You always got an excuse, don’t you,
girl?” Neveah said. “Always thinking you’re smarter than us 'cause
you read them nonsensical books.”

“I don’t think that,” Ellie
said.

“You’re a liar,” Neveah spat. “A
filthy liar. You’re just like momma. She’s a liar, too. Promising
things, like a family, like that she’ll be around forever…then she
up an leaves, leaving me with two girls to raise on my own. You
remind me of momma an awful lot.”

Neveah’s face was full of evil spite.
It was the sort of spite that could turn painful quick. Neveah was
close to giving Ellie a beating, just because she could. Her
drunkenness would only make the beating more severe. Neveah’s words
stung. Ellie was not in the mood to let them go.

“I ain’t like momma,” Ellie said.
“Momma’s brave.”

“Momma is a coward!” Neveah said. “She
ran off instead of facing things she should have faced!”

Ellie stared at Neveah. She did not
understand what Momma was supposed to have faced. No one spoke of
Momma’s leaving, beyond criticizing her for abandoning the family
to the feud. The topic was not one Ellie was encouraged to ask
about. Ellie took advantage of the fact that Neveah would not
remember their conversation in the morning.

“What do you mean?” Ellie
asked.

“She got scared of the fighting
without Papa around to lead things. She was scared to face the fact
that he was killed by the Coopers. And when Grandpa Bumbalow told
her she wouldn’t be taken her kids with her when she left, she gave
in without a fight. She left us here without so much as ‘I don’t
think so!’ She’s as chicken as you.”

Ellie’s eyes filled with tears. Had
her momma really given in that easily? She had always thought of
her momma as brave. Momma was brave enough to leave when it was so
easy to stay and continue the fighting. There was bravery in
leaving everything a person had ever known. Was there also
cowardice in running away? Was Ellie wrong to think her momma
different from the others? Was she wrong to look up to her
adventures? She could not stand the idea. It was too
painful.