Fly Up into the Night Air by John Houser Read Free Book Online Page B

help Peli."
    "Who is Peli?" asked Sister Grace.
    "He's a boy that Raf has been ... mentoring ... down on Dock Street. Peli saw the beating, and Raf says he's been threatened now, as well."
    "You must bring him here, immediately," pronounced Sister Grace, leaning forward to rap her knuckles on the table.
    "This is hardly the sort of place--"
    Harte was pretty certain that Sister Grace actually stamped, but it was hard to tell because the floor was stone. She interrupted him. "This is exactly the sort of place he should be. You will find him and bring him here. We shall protect him." Sister Grace was a bull in a field of heifers.
    Harte said the only thing he could, in the face of her determination. "Yes, Sister Grace."

    Stilian

    "Did you decide to come here when your brothers made you sleep in the barn?" Kit and Stilian were sitting cross-legged by the fire, looking at the books that they had borrowed from Angus's special collection.
    "I didn't know what to do at first. It was harvest, and I had to work like everyone else. But after we finished getting the crops in, we went back to school. Our teacher, Miss Gorse, noticed that I--that I wasn't washing very much, because my brothers wouldn't let me share the bath water. We have a big tub we haul into the kitchen, once a week. We warm water on the stove, and take turns. But after they threw me out, they wouldn't let me into the kitchen while they were bathing."
    "So you stank."
    Stilian closed his eyes. One of his earliest memories was watching his father and neighbors cut the wheat at harvest. He was too little to help, but his mother brought him out to the fields, when she and the other women brought food and water out to the men. The sun was high and hot, and the men's shirts were stained with dust and sweat. They took turns cracking jokes and laughing as they passed around earthenware jugs of water, baskets of biscuits, and apples. Stilian didn't understand their jokes, but he was excited by their good spirits and ran in circles around them and laughed too, until his father swung him up onto his shoulders. His father's shoulders were hard and he smelled of sweat, but Stilian cried when his father set him down and pushed him back to his mother.
    "I guess I kind of got used to it during the harvest. But Miss Gorse asked me why I wasn't washing, and I could tell that she liked me, so I told her that I could sometimes tell what my brothers were feeling, and that they didn't like it, and that I was sleeping in the barn. She got mad when I told her about the barn, but I made her promise that she wouldn't say anything to Father."
    Stilian got up to put a new log on the fire. "Our schoolhouse isn't like the big ones that they have in Bugport. It's one room for classes and another room with a pump and stove for the teacher to stay in during the school year. Anyway, Miss Gorse started letting me use her tub to wash up in, when I needed to, so I wouldn't smell so bad."
    "What did your brothers say about that?"
    "They didn't know. They probably thought I was washing in the horse trough or something. I left for home when everyone else did, and then circled back to the schoolhouse. Anyway, she figured out that I might be canny and told me about the school at Grayholme." Stilian paused. "Before that, I didn't know there was a place for people like me."
    Kit was silent for a moment, then grinned and poked Stilian in the stomach. "Just think, if you'd washed a little more often, we might never have met."
    * * *
    Justin found Judge Hugh at his desk, soon after arriving back at Blue House.
    "How did it go?" asked the judge.
    "Much as you thought it might. He was torn between getting rid of the wretched blasphemer and losing a farm hand. He never asked how the boy was doing. I did as you suggested and quoted him a price for transporting the boy home. That changed his tune soon enough."
    "I'd prefer it if you didn't mention that to the boy."
    * * *
    The matron came and found them in their attic