Seaward by Susan Cooper Read Free Book Online Page A

the hearth, she took from the mantel a slab of blue stone the size of her fist; kneeled again and began rubbing it on the sanded surface, slowly, deliberately. She drew lines of crosses, crossed each with another cross, then swept the sand away with a brush so that the pattern stood out clear and blue on the hearth.
    â€œThere,” she said, sitting back on her heels. “Safe for a month, now. No need to keep from walking on it, child—it will stay and stay.”
    â€œSafe?” Cally said.
    â€œProtected,” Ryan said, biting off the word like a piece of thread; her small lined face was suddenly secret, enclosed. She had Cally help her pull back the heavy wooden chairs and table piled against the wall; then she poured two mugs of steaming fragrant tea from a big brown teapot. She gave Cally one, with a plateful of small flat cakes speckled with currants.
    Sitting down, she said abruptly, “Where are you going?”
    Cally said, “I don’t know.” She hesitated. “If I were in my own world, I’d be going to a place by the sea where my parents are. Only—I don’t think they’d be there any more.” She looked down at her cup, unseeing.
    â€œThe sea links all worlds,” Ryan said gently. “But Stonecutter would set you to work?”
    For a moment Cally was silent, lost; then she looked up. “I’m sorry. Yes, that’s what he said.” She sipped her tea. “This smells so good. Like raspberries.”
    â€œRaspberry and camomile,” Ryan said absently. She was looking at Cally, but her creased-about eyes were blank, as if she saw only her own mind. “You must not stay long,” she said, “or he will never let you go. He will keep you for her.”
    The tea and cakes were making Cally feel herself again. She said, puzzled, “Her?”
    â€œShe who brought you here. She whose land this is.” Ryan pointed at Cally’s mug. “Take your cup to the door, child, and do what I shall tell you. I will give you more tea in a moment. Now.”
    There was a sudden urgency in the word. Cally got up, wondering, and crossed to the open door.
    â€œSwirl the cup twice, and throw out the tea onto the ground. Then bring the cup back to me.”
    Dutifully Cally tossed the golden liquid out of the mug;it glittered for a moment in the sunshine as it fell. But in the same moment she paused, arrested, staring out across the clearing to the edge of the straggling trees. There was a patch of bright blue against the green, unmistakable: the blue of the hooded figure she had seen in the wood.
    She blinked—and nothing was there.
    Ryan said, “What’s the matter?”
    â€œNothing.” Cally brought her the mug, patterned inside now with the broad wet leaves left by the tea. Ryan set it on her dark woollen skirt and peered inside, turning it slowly in both hands.
    â€œYes. Two gone, and a travelling. . . . And another traveller, to go by your side. A tower by the lake, a tower full of dreams and danger. And the sea, yes, and—now what is that —?”
    She broke off, and looked up at Cally with a curious new expression on her small seamed face: a mixture of pleasure and surprise and a kind of wariness. She said, “Show me your hands.”
    Cally hesitated, then reluctantly held out her hands, palm upward. “They’re . . . not very pretty,” she said.
    Ryan gazed at the thickened, horny skin on each palm, tracing it gently with a forefinger. “Yes,” she said softly, but it was not an answer. “Well, well . . . yes. . . .” Her bright eyes flickered up to Cally’s. “Did your mother sing?”
    â€œYes,” said Cally in astonishment. “How did you know?She used to sing to me when—” She stopped, suddenly remembering the voice that had been like her mother’s and yet not like.
    And all at once, in the same