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Story: The BoneKeeper’s Daughter (The Blade and Bone Trilogy #1)
THE HUNTERS RETURN
WREN
“ B ut what about the bones?” A little voice calls out, the question breaking unexpectedly into the tomb of my thoughts, and it’s my only excuse for what I do next.
“What about them?” I can’t help myself, and round the corner of the schoolhouse, stepping into the room. The children react as though the Ender itself has burst from the pits of Everfire to tear them limb from limb, and the teacher looks faint, blood draining from her face.
“BoneKeeper!” The word is meant to be a greeting but is more of a warning, and more than one child flinches as I float past them quietly to stand by the now significantly less bubbly young woman at the front of the class.
It does not help that my bone clothing clicks loudly in the suddenly silent room, making me sound like walking death. “I hope you don’t mind, ah….I’m sorry. I can’t remember your name.”
“Hollis.” She looks sick to her stomach, and I play with my braids nervously, trying to think of what to do.
I don’t often just… talk …to people; at some point years ago the Council made vague insinuations that casual interactions would distract me from my duties.
It was suggested that I speak only for the bones, never for another purpose, so as not to fill me with thoughts which left no room for others.
At the time I was angry and felt like an outcast already, so the silence seemed to be a blessing.
I wonder now if I made a mistake. Maybe, if I had just tried to reach out, tried to be part of the village, their opinions would have changed; maybe they would have seen that I was a scared child, not a living ghost. Instead I stepped further into the veiled world, and further from the breathing one.
Somehow the suggestion grew into tradition, and tradition into an unspoken law.
And now I live only with the bones, and rarely use my voice except to speak from the dark side of the veil.
A cold shiver runs down my back as It occurs to me that I don’t really know how to return, and my bones vibrate with me.
Her eyes lock on the tiny sesamoids hanging from my ears, and I drop my hands immediately.
“Ms. Hollis. I’m sorry to interrupt your lessons.
” Pressing my hands together I bow before her, not deeply, but enough to convey apology.
If anything, it makes her more anxious, not less so, and I sigh.
“It was perhaps unkind of me to not announce my presence. But as I never attended the school here, I find it fascinating to hear our history as taught to the children. It is…different…in many ways than the version I was given.”
Ms. Hollis coughs, clearing her throat uncomfortably.
“It is the Council approved version,” she offers tentatively.
“I also learned a more comple–” but she stutters to a halt, pressing her fingertips against her lips, eyes wide in alarm.
“I didn’t mean to speak against the newer… ah…I mean… clearer teachings.”
“I didn’t think you were, Ms. Hollis,” I reply quietly.
But the approved version that she had told her students was studiously lacking much of the nuance that colors our people’s lives.
There was no real mentions of the TriGoddess, no true discussion of how the Council came to power after the Sword was killed…
narrowing my eyes, I tilt my head thoughtfully.
All in all, the version presented was — lacking.
Turning, I look past them, focusing on the wall just beyond their scared faces. I know my white gaze makes them uncomfortable, so I try to seem as unoffensive as possible. “You are lucky, students. Ms. Hollis has a storyteller’s tongue.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you heard her lecture about pearl millet,” one of the children mutters, then frantically claps her hand over her mouth.
I can’t help but smile at the comment though, the amusement surprising me.
It is rusty, a dull blade on a whetstone, and is oddly painful, as though it is being torn from a locked room deep inside me.
“Ah yes, the inestimable pearl millet. I once had a pearl millet cake as a child. It tasted like grass and old shoes.” I shudder in exaggerated horror.
“I would not recommend it.” And though Hollis looks stunned, the children giggle, faces crinkling into round-cheeked smiles.
It’s more relief than mirth, perhaps; I don’t think any of them expected the ghostly BoneKeeper to tease them.
Even Lorcan is taken aback, the feeling of his shock like a line of fire running from my neck to the curve of my back.
What? I question him. I smile sometimes… I am defensive, and his response is the sense of him holding up his hands and locking his lips closed.
Little Keeper, I say nothing. I was simply surprised. It is…nice…to feel you happy.
Oh. I don’t know how else to respond. My heart clenches in a strange sort of skipping movement that I don’t understand; Lorcan does not usually say such things. The room has gone quiet again while the children and their teacher watch me, and I shrug helplessly, shaking my head in amusement.
“They are giving me a hard time,” I say dryly, gently touching the bracers that run up my arms in explanation. The children exchange long glances, before one tiny boy — the smallest in the room by far — raises a quivering hand.
“H-h-how?” He forces his question out, barely breathing, and his eyes go wild when I walk to his desk, then sink to my heels in front of him. Reaching around my neck, I pull Lorcan’s bones forward, laying them on the smooth wood before me.
“Well. This one is making fun of me right now.” Lorcan huffs in denial, but the Hunter and the baker in my hair grin.
“And now the ones in my hair are joining in. Which is unfair. They are ganging up on me.” Concentrating just on the little boy in front of me, I murmur conspiratorially, “Do you think that’s just of them? ”
Reaching out as though he was about to pet a pit viper, the little boy gently pokes one of Lorcan’s teeth, then jerks his hand back, looking simultaneously proud of himself and sick to his stomach at his bravery.
A low murmur of appreciation for his courage runs through the room like fire, and I have to force myself not to smile.
He’ll live off this moment for weeks, I imagine.
“No,” he whispers, a sound that is almost no sound at all.
Keeper! Lorcan is indignant, which somehow makes me grin again.
This time it is less hesitant, and doesn’t feel like it is ripping away pieces of my soul.
The boy’s cheeks bunch into curves when he smiles back at me, and pokes Lorcan again, made bold by my reaction.
BoneKeeper! I am a Protector, not a…a cat to be petted.
Are you afraid you will purr, my Protector? There is no response, and I feel a strange pit in my stomach at having misstepped somehow, though I have no idea where. Lorcan? I’m…I…
The boy distracts me by saying very, very quietly, but firmly, directly to my bone necklace, “It’s…it’s not fair. You shouldn’t gang up on her.” Looking up, he meets my white eyes unflinchingly. “I’ll be on your team, BoneKeeper. I’m Marrin.”
“Thank you, Marrin.” I almost choke on the words, my throat suddenly feeling desperately tight.
He holds out a violently trembling hand, breathing shallowly, and I press my own against it, palm to palm in the sign of a pact accepted.
Marrin stays stockstill, but looks as though he is about to be sent to the Reaping, and I smile softly at him.
“I appreciate your courage, and am proud to have such a brave soul on my side.”
The youngster straightens, chest puffing out, shoulders rolled back, and nods seriously, shooting dark looks around the room at the other children, as though daring them to say a thing.
The ferocity in his little body makes my eyes well up unexpectedly, a single tear falling down my cheek, and the entire class inhales in complete shock.
Even Marrin stops breathing for a long, long moment, before I brush the water from my face, leaving it glistening on my fingertip.
“A gift for you. From my heart in gratitude. My blessings on you, my kind Protector. Of dreams, and pure water, and sweet memories.” And I reach out a hand to lay on his forehead.
“You shouldn’t waste the water on someone like me, BoneKeeper,” he replies, almost fearfully, and I frown.
Standing abruptly, I walk back to the front of the room.
Hollis is almost as white as my eyes, swaying in place at her desk, looking caught in a nightmare.
Turning to face the class, I straighten, donning the persona of the BoneKeeper as one would a masque or cloak.
“Waste? Waste? I would like to make something very clear to you all.” Letting the chill of bone into my words, I can hear the hollow ringing of them in the stone classroom.
But they must hear it from the Keeper’s voice, not mine, or they will not believe me.
“Are you listening?” They nod in unison, fear heavy on sweet, soft faces still rounded with childhood even in these hungry times, eyes glistening, fighting back tears that they know not to shed.
“You are worth every drop of pure water in this world.” It is clearly not what they expected to hear, and the biting fervor in my voice is a marrow vow.
“I would wring every ounce of water from my own skin to keep you from going thirsty. Do you understand me? You, each of you , is worth a well, and more. If I cry for you, it is deserved, and I will gift you each tear gladly.”
I want to say more, need to say more, but the bone walls call out to me from the open door, and I tilt my head to listen.
“Ms. Hollis. Children. I apologize. I am needed elsewhere. The Hunters have returned.”
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