The Dubious Hills (21 page)

“
Is that where you’re
going?”

“
I’d like to,” said Derry, “but
Vand needs help with the bees.”

“
I could go look for you,” said
Arry. “At least, I could tell you if there are tracks like these.
How many wolves have been by?”

“
Just two,” said Derry, “the
smaller two. Don’t go toiling up there in the heat just for me,
Arry.”

“
I want to gather plants anyway,”
said Arry, more or less at random. Luckily Derry was not the one to
question her about which plants, or whether any of them would be
growing yet, or be gatherable at this time, in the high
meadow.

“
Do just keep an eye out for the
tracks, then,” said Derry, “and if they don’t go where you’re
going, just remember where they branch off.”

Arry said she would do so, and Derry turned and went
off to her own house. Arry went on as fast as she could without
running, which might attract attention and would leave her unable
to speak when she got where she was going.

The high meadow was full of daisies and sunlight and
the shadows of birds. Derry might have been able to find the wolf
tracks amid the grass and rock and flowers, but Arry was
bewildered. She made for the shepherd’s hut instead. It was cool
and dim and empty. Arry scuffed her foot over the straw and dust on
the floor, and the bright green letters glowed at her like strange
lamplight seen through a dirty window. She cleared the floor, and
read, “Neither yield to the song of the siren nor the voice of the
hyena, the tears of the crocodile nor the howling of the wolf.”

“
I won’t if you’ll let me
see
you!” cried Arry. Nobody answered her. She went back
outside and sat down on a rock. It was warm from the sun, almost
hot. A white butterfly dipped over the daisies and soared away out
of sight. The birds sang fiercely. In the shadow of the rock scilla
bloomed as blue as the empty sky. Arry tried to empty her mind, to
catch whatever other knowledge might be waiting to move into it.
Nothing came.

When she thought it must be time to go relieve Sune
of Con, she got down off the rock and walked over to Derry’s house.
Derry had finished helping Vand with the bees and was churning the
first milk from their cow. Arry asked her what the siren, the
hyena, and the crocodile were.

Derry frowned, her strong brown arms moving up and
down. “The crocodile is in my province: it is a river- going
reptile of the remote south.”

“
Does it cry?”

“
No,” said Derry.

Arry thought she would ask Sune about crocodile
tears. She looked expectantly at Derry, who said, “The hyena is on
the margin of my province; it is a companion of predators, feeding
on carrion. It is related to the wolf and the fox, but rarely
kills.”

“
What’s its voice
like?”

“
Raucous,” said Derry.

“
And what’s a siren?”

“
The siren is an arcane and
intelligent creature, according to Sune; it’s outside my
province.”

“
What does Sune say it’s
like?”

“
A woman with the tail of a fish,
and a beautiful voice; they sit on rocks and sing sailors to their
deaths.”

“
Ah,” said Arry.

She went along to Sune, who told her that crocodiles
affected to cry and then snatched up and ate the sympathetic
bystander who got too close. Arry put this away to think about
later, and took Con home. They spent the afternoon peacefully
making a present for Tiln. It was hard to think of something
suitable, given what his knowledge was. It was Beldi who hit on the
idea of giving Tiln the means to make beauty. He suggested making
paint, as their mother had used to do for them. “Tiln says he never
has enough,” he said. They also found a collection of their
mother’s brushes, and cleaned and repaired them. It gave Arry a
pang to let them go, but none of the three of them painted now, and
it seemed that Frances did not want to come home.

They ate a very sparse supper, since they were going
to a party, and at sunset shut the cats inside and went off to
Tiln’s house.

Oonan joined them on the way, and Derry and Vand and
Niss and Jony and Elec. As they climbed the hill to Tiln’s house
they were hailed by Grel and Rine, whom nobody had seen since the
solstice. Everybody else seemed to be already inside. Tiln was
greeting people at the door, gravely. The whole house was full of
people and food and music. Arry went about smiling and nodding and
collecting a plate of food, but what she really wanted was to find
Halver. He would have to leave before the moon rose, and she
intended to follow him when he did.

She finally found him sitting in a corner with Sune,
glaring at Oonan over Sune’s head. Sune looked extremely tired,
and felt it, but the walk didn’t seem to have done her any harm.
Arry felt disinclined to watch Oonan and Halver argue any more, so
she went to find Niss. This was not easy either: Niss was about
Beldi’s size, and though she had red hair, which ought to make her
more visible, she usually covered it with a black scarf.

Arry edged out into the kitchen, and found Mally
making nutcakes. “Did you talk to Niss yet?” demanded Arry.

Mally stopped smiling. “No, I did not,” she
said.

“
Can I do it?”

Mally scooped the nutcakes off the griddle onto a
board, and slapped the next batch onto the griddle. “If you’ll put
it to her as a hypothetical,” she said. “I take your word
seriously, even if you don’t.”

“
I broke it already,” said Arry
impatiently.

“
And the sky didn’t fall?” said
Mally. “If you promise not to throw rocks, is throwing one as bad
as throwing a hundred?”

“
As well be hung for a sheep,”
began Arry.

“
That’s about law,” said Mally.
“This is about you.”

“
If I put it to her as a
hypothetical, will she be able to answer properly?”

“
Better,” said Mally.
“Responsibility makes her nervous.”

“
How hypothetical must I
be?”

“
Don’t mention Halver’s name,”
said Mally, “and don’t tell her what the spell is.”

The party overflowed into the kitchen at this point,
as the musicians came into the only open and half-quiet space left
to try to tune their instruments and agree on the first three
dances. Arry nodded at Mally and squeezed by Wim and Jony and Grel
and Tany and her own brother, who was clutching a drum and looking
pleased. She grinned at him.

Niss was not in the main room; she was not in any of
the bedrooms. Arry went back outside. Jonat and Zia and Con were
building a bonfire. She walked around the house, finding nobody but
the dogs; and when she came back to the door, Oonan stepped swiftly
out of it and made her jump.

“
Did you find her?” he
said.

“
No,” said Arry.

“
I don’t believe she’s here at
all.”

“
Did you ask Jonat?”

“
Where is he?”

“
Right there, making the
fire.”

Oonan walked over to the pile of wood and said,
without preliminaries, “Jonat, is Niss here?”

“
She had something to see to,”
said Jonat, without glancing up. “Con, I’ll need the moss now.
Thank you. But she said she’d be here for the dancing.”

“
Thank you,” said
Oonan.

They walked down the path a little way.

“
Let’s go to her house, then,”
said Arry. “I want to know what to do before the moon
rises.”

“
Is there some hurry?” said
Oonan.

Arry did not want to discuss her parents with him.
She said, “Once the moon changes, nothing can happen for another
month; we can’t find anything out, can we?”

“
Why not?” said Oonan.

“
You feel the same way,” said
Arry.

“
I do,” said Oonan. “But I
mistrust the feeling.”

“
What can it hurt to
go?”

“
That’s your province, I suppose,”
said Oonan.

“
Come on, then,” said
Arry.

They went up and down, through the Little Marsh and
up again, across a long narrow meadow full of rocks, and down and
up one last time. Niss and Jonat and the children who lived with
them had a small stone house with the only thatched roof left in
these parts.

There was a light in it, not the yellow of
lamplight, but a vivid, beautiful, and unnatural green.

“
Oh,” said Oonan, stopping and
staring up at the house. The green light fell on his sweaty face
and the bright untidy spikes of his hair. He looked
bemused.

“
They’re in there,” said Arry, and
made for the door.

She was pulled up short with a jerk that felt just
like the wolf-spell hitting and bouncing away again, but it was
just Oonan grabbing the tail of her jacket.

“
Wait just a moment,” he said.
“You wouldn’t like it if she interrupted you in your work, would
you?”

“
I think my parents are in there
and I want to go in there
now,”
said Arry, prying at his
fingers.

Oonan let go of her, but he said, “There’s only one
door to that house.”

“
There are windows,” said Arry,
and ran across the rocky yard and into the house.

It was very green inside, which somehow made it hard
to see. Arry stopped short. A cat yowled somewhere. Something
clattered.

“
Stand still and be silent,” said
Niss’s light voice, very sharply.

Arry stood still, biting her lip. She saw the
hearth, on which burned the green fire; she saw two cushioned
chairs, three hard chairs, a table, pots and pans hanging on the
walls, a striped rug, the black-and-white cat, a stack of firewood,
herbs hanging from the rafters, a broom, a wooden puzzle shaped
like a sheep. No wolves. She could not see Niss, and then, as she
thought the name, she saw the little human figure standing to one
side of the fire with a bunch of flowers in her hands.

She was looking at Arry, and when Arry had stood
still and silent for what seemed like a very long time, she went
back to breaking off flowers and tossing them into the fire. It
died down to yellow each time and then blossomed back to
green.

“
From the hag and hungry goblin,”
said Niss, tossing flowers, “that into rags would rend ye, and the
spirit that stands by the naked man in the book of moons defend
ye.”

Oh, no, thought Arry.

“
From noise of scare-fires rest ye
free,” said Niss, “from murders benedicite. From all mischances
that may fright your pleasing slumbers in the night, mercy secure
you all, and keep the goblin from you while you sleep.”

What’s a goblin, thought Arry, she keeps going on
about them.

Niss tossed the last blossom onto the fire, which
turned slowly red and gold again, like any wood fire on a cool
spring evening. “Come in,” she said.

Arry walked over the threshold, with Oonan behind
her. “Did you see the wolves?” said Arry.

“
Wolves?” said Niss, startled.
“No; not a one.”

“
Why were you doing that spell,
then?”

“
Something’s amiss,” said Niss,
“and I was setting it straight, that’s all.”

“
What was it?” said
Oonan.

“
Things that should be firm were
shifting,” said Niss.

Arry wondered if this meant Halver would not turn
into a wolf tonight after all. She meant to be there to see, in
either case. “What things?” she said.

“
The ones you’ve come to ask me
about, I expect,” said Niss coolly. “Would you like some tea? The
peppermint’s come up on the south side of the house, so you won’t
have to settle for old chamomile.”

“
Weren’t you coming to Tiln’s
party?” said Oonan.

“
There’s time for tea and then for
that,” said Niss. She made a small pile of pinecones at the front
of the fireplace, lit it from the larger fire, and put a kettle on
it. Then she looked at them. It was difficult to make out her
expression.

“
Mally said I had to put this to
you as a hypothetical,” said Arry, baldly; she could not think
well enough to be clever or cunning or even, she feared, properly
courteous. “What we need to know, Oonan and Mally and I, is whether
a particular matter is your province. But I think you’ve shown
already that it is.”

“
I cannot tell you all I would,”
said Niss, slowly.

Arry looked at Oonan, where he still stood in the
doorway; the firelight glinted in his eyes as he stared back at her
and nodded his head. “Nor can we tell you all we would,” he
said.

“
But is it your province?” said
Arry. “Are you dealing with it?”

“
I’m doing what I may,” said Niss,
“but it seems larger than provinces. Spells are my province. You
named Mally; surely it is to do with her also, the character of
those enspelled? And if you and Oonan are worried, then there must
be danger, whether of hurt or of damage.”

The kettle boiled, and Niss padded her hands with a
towel and lifted it off the fire and poured the water into a
shallow bowl. The smell of peppermint filled Arry’s head.

Arry said, “But if it’s all caused by a spell, can’t
you just counter it?”

Niss laughed, heartily, and handed her a smaller
shallow bowl of tea. “If it’s all caused by pain,” she said, “can’t
you just counter it?” She gave Oonan his bowl. “If you perceive
it’s broken, cannot you fix it?”