Seventh Son: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume I Read Online Free PDF Page A

I fell asleep.”
    “And you blame yourself?” asked Oldpappy.
    “I should’ve let Bloody Mary nip me, and then Father wouldn’t’ve been mad, and then I wouldn’t’ve been in the spring house, and then I wouldn’t’ve been asleep, and then I would’ve sent help in time—”
    “We can all make daisy chains of blame like that, Maggie. It don’t mean a thing.”
    But she knew it meant something. You don’t blame blind people cause they don’t warn you you’re about to step on a snake—but you sure blame somebody with eyes who doesn’t say a word about it. She knew her duty ever since she first realized that other folks couldn’t see all that she could see. God gave her special eyes, so she’d better see and give warning, or the devil would take her soul. The devil or the deep black sea.
    “Don’t mean a thing,” Oldpappy murmured. Then, like he just been poked in the behind with a ramrod, he went all straight and said, “Spring house! Spring house, of course.” He pulled her close. “Listen to me, little Peggy. It wasn’t none of your fault, and that’s the truth. The same water that runs in the Hatrack flows in the spring house brook, it’s all the same water, all through the world. The same water that wanted them dead, it knew you could give warning and send help. So it sang to you and sent you off to sleep.”
    It made a kind of sense to her, it sure did. “How can that be, Oldpappy?”
    “Oh, that’s just in the nature of it. The whole universe is made of only four kinds of stuff, little Peggy, and each one wants to have its own way.” Peggy thought of the four colors that she saw when the heartfires glowed, and she knew what all four were even as Oldpappy named them. “Fire makes things hot and bright and uses them up. Air makes things cool and sneaks in everywhere. Earth makes things solid and sturdy, so they’ll last. But water, it tears things down, it falls from the sky and carries off everything it can, carries it off and down to the sea. If the water had its way, the whole world would be smooth, just a big ocean with nothing out of the water’s reach. All dead and smooth. That’s why you slept. The water wants to tear down these strangers, whoever they are, tear them down and kill them. It’s a miracle you woke up at all.”
    “The blacksmith’s hammer woke me,” said little Peggy.
    “That’s it, then, you see? The blacksmith was working with iron, the hardest earth, and with a fierce blast of air from the bellows, and with a fire so hot it burns the grass outside the chimney. The water couldn’t touch him to keep him still.”
    Little Peggy could hardly believe it, but it must be so. The blacksmith had drawn her from a watery sleep. The smith had helped her. Why, it was enough to make you laugh, to know the blacksmith was her friend this time.
    There was shouting on the porch downstairs, and doors opened and closed. “Some folks is here already,” said Oldpappy.
    Little Peggy saw the heartfires downstairs, and found the one with the strongest fear and pain. “It’s their mama,” said little Peggy. “She’s got a baby coming.”
    “Well, if that ain’t the luck of it. Lose one, and here already is a baby to replace death with life.” Oldpappy shambled on out to go downstairs and help.
    Little Peggy, though, she just stood there, looking at what she saw in the distance. That lost heartfire wasn’t lost at all, and that was sure. She could see it burning away far off, despite how the darkness of the river tried to cover it. He wasn’t dead, just carried off, and maybe somebody could help him. She ran out then, passed Oldpappy all in a rush, clattered down the stairs.
    Mama caught her by the arm as she was running into the great room. “There’s a birthing,” Mama said, “and we need you.”
    “But Mama, the one that went downriver, he’s still alive!”
    “Peggy, we got no time for—”
    Two boys with the same face pushed their way into the conversation.