Virginia Hamilton Read Online Free PDF Page A

said.
    “It be bringing you here?” Duster toned in a voice like flint.
    “Mal tried to keep us from coming,” Justice said. “It would fight us to keep us away from here. We came anyway. We want to find a way for Slaker beings to get out of here. They want so much to go.”
    Duster held himself still, alert inside. He searched their faces, then turned to his packen and Siv and Glass. He must not make a mistake now. And it was some time before he made a move. A long kind of time, facing the four, while in his mind he sorted out what was known. He had helped the four hide in his dream. Was it Mal they hid from? Probably it was they who had kept the Mal from discovering his learning mind. As far as Duster could understand, the four had done no harm.
    He raised his fist above his head; he let his arm fall, pointing to the ground, and began a plainsong.
    “Be going, getting out of this place,” he toned. “Getting away, knowing which way, oh, long before anyone. Oh, very small Duster being. So few of my years; never this fifteen of my years. More like eight or nine, tough Duster. Here be me and other youngens one Graylight and not knowing where be me or them the Graylight before. So many Graylights trying to know and running with youngens.”
    “O Duster. O Leader!” intoned the packen.
    “Be running every which way,” sang Duster.
    “Be running one which way, come be feeling so bad. Getting me deep. Knowing be the way out and be wanting to go out, eagerly. And be running that way, me and some youngens. Sickness coming fast. So sickening, make us be backing our tracks. Be falling down. Be lying down, so sick. Never get me up.
    “And the Mal be come, singing to me. Duster will not run away?
    “Be telling Mal, ‘Only try, why not be trying?’ ”
    “And the Mal making me so sick, saying Duster will never run away?
    “Be singing to the Mal, if It be leaving sickness outta me, never me be run away again.
    “Mal saying, ‘Then you lead youngens from sickness. All ways lead them back. No run away.’ ”
    “O Duster! O Leader!” intoned the packen.
    “Poor youngens,” sang Siv and Glass.
    “Grims finding us,” Duster toned simply. “Olders be helping youngens. Then be throwing us away when we be a few more of our years.”
    Duster’s song came to an end. Now he knelt on one knee, with the other beneath his chin and his arms wrapped around it. He stared vacantly before him. Siv and Glass stretched out on their stomachs on either side of him. They made piles of dust and thrust their hands into them. The three of them watched Justice and her brothers and Dorian Jefferson.
    Their at-ease postures meant that they would trust the four completely, Justice realized. Silently she regarded them when Dorian began tracing.
    So that’s how they got here, he traced.
    How? Thomas traced back. All we know is that one day Duster found himself here with some others, with no memory of where they’d been before. The Mal said they had to stay. So they formed a tribe. A pack.
    Are they made to stay here because they’re duplicates? Dorian traced.
    Who knows? traced Thomas. Duster doesn’t even seem surprised that the others look just like him. Maybe it’s like when I look at Levi. It’s like looking at myself.
    Then, in a quiet, respectful tone, Justice asked Duster, “When will Mal come again?”
    “When Mal comes,” Duster replied.
    “Mal must not know we are with Duster’s packen,” she said. She had divined that Duster would permit them to travel with his tribe. “We will hide Levi, Thomas and Dorian in a trip,” she said. “I will not be seen by you or anyone, but I will be with you.”
    All of this Justice enveloped in a mist of daydreams, in case the Mal had some way of staying in contact with Duster’s mind.
    Sleepily Duster followed the daydreams. Siv and Glass had the daydreams and did not wonder about them; they accepted them, knew them.
    A while after, Duster got to his feet. He stretched this way and