The Safe-Keeper's Secret Read Online Free PDF Page A

the back lawn, his new whistle held to his mouth, producing unheard music for an invisible audience. Elminstra sighed and pushed herself to her feet.
    â€œWell, I’m the last one here. I’d better be getting back,” she said. “Greg! Wake up, child, we have a little walk home.”
    â€œHe can sleep on the floor in the big room,” Damiana offered.
    Elminstra snorted. “You’ve got a houseful already,” she said. “He can wake up long enough to stumble a quarter mile down the road. Greg! Gregory! Open your eyes!”
    But Greg snored on. The women laughed. “I’ll carry him,” Thomas said, and scooped the sleeping boy into his arms. Greg never woke. “I’ll be back in a little bit,” he said to Damiana, and walked off with Elminstra into the soft dark.
    Damiana stood up. “Reed! Fiona! Time for bed!”
    For Fiona, this was the best part of the day. Every day.
    She cleaned herself up at the sink in the kitchen, then hurried up the open stairs to her room. She was dressed in her nightclothes and under a light sheet when her mother came into the room, holding a single candle. Her mother settled on the edge of the bed and patted the covers around Fiona’s shoulders.
    â€œAll tucked in? All comfy?”
    Fiona nodded, tangling her hair on the pillow. Damiana smoothed the loose curls from her forehead, her hand cool as spring rain. “So what made today special?” she asked, as she always asked.
    â€œA lot of things, today,” Fiona said. “All the people. All the food! All the presents. Angeline.”
    â€œTurning one year older,” her mother suggested.
    â€œI don’t
feel
a whole year older,” Fiona said.
    Damiana smiled. “No. You never do, on your birthday. On your birthday you feel exactly the same as you did the day before and the daybefore. Six months from now you’ll feel older. In two years you’ll feel older than you do right now. But it’s slow. It’s an invisible process.”
    â€œLike summer,” Fiona said. “One day it’s just there.”
    Damiana laughed. “Exactly like summer. And then, eventually, like winter. But not for a few months yet.”
    â€œHow long will Angeline stay this time?”
    â€œJust two or three nights, I think.”
    â€œAnd Thomas?”
    â€œMaybe a week. I don’t know.”
    â€œHe made us whistles from kirrenberry branches.”
    â€œAnd have you forgiven him yet?”
    Fiona scowled. “I don’t have to forgive him. I don’t even have to like him.”
    â€œNo, you don’t,” her mother agreed. “Many people don’t like Truth-Tellers. But if you don’t like him, it should be for something he’s done other than tell the truth.”
    â€œHe said I wouldn’t be a Safe-Keeper!” Fiona burst out.
    Damiana leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “Ah, see, he was practicing the wrong skills when he said that,” she murmured. “He was pretending he could forecast what is to come. But his talent is for telling the truth, not telling the future.”
    â€œSo then he doesn’t know? I will be a Safe-Keeper after all?”
    Damiana kissed her on the forehead again. “You will be whatever you want to be,” she said, as she had said that day.
    â€œBut don’t the sons and daughters of Safe-Keepers always become Safe-Keepers? Like you and Angeline did, like your mother did, like
her
mother did—”
    â€œMany times they do. Not always. Think how dull it would be if you knew, from the very day you were born, what you would grow up to be. If everybody knew. You might become, instead, a farmer. Or an ale-maker. Or a farrier. Or a woman who raises rabbits in her hutch out back. You might become a Truth-Teller or—who knows?—the Dream-Maker. You might not want to be a Safe-Keeper after all.”
    Fiona picked at her mother’s sleeve.