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28
Kava ignored the meat we hauled in for most of the day because of her concern for Tolliver. Instead, she has tended to the scratches on his chest and a gash she found on his forearm. After bandaging him, she forces him to lie down. Tolliver protests, telling her he is fine, but eventually he concedes to her will.
When I approach Tolliver’s room to ask how much of the meat we should dry, I find they have fallen asleep together. Deciding not to wake them, I amble back to the kitchen. Angus, Hollis and I work in the kitchen all day. Stripping meat from bone, salting some of it for drying, boiling some for stew, and looking for more ways to store it for later use.
“Can we talk about Kava?” Angus breaks the silence.
“Okay,” Hollis replies. “Why?”
“She doesn’t seem like herself lately. She seems,” Angus pauses, deep in thought.
“Lost?” Hollis fills in his blank.
“Yes,” Angus says. “She is losing it.”
“What can we do about that?” I doubt we can do anything.
“I think they need to get married,” Angus states.
I burst out laughing, but Hollis nods. His statement is ridiculous and unnecessary. Marrying Tolliver will not heal her. “I don’t think so,” I say. “Maybe they need a break from each other.”
“No, son, she needs him.”
“Don’t call me that, Angus. I’m not your son!” I snap.
My father claws his way into my mind and pats me on the head. Anger rises in my throat, my hands ball into fists. I’m sick of being treated like a child by anyone who is even a day older than me.
“Sorry, Ledge,” Angus replies with his hands in the air. “I didn’t mean anything by it. He made the contract with her father over the summer. They were supposed to be married at the Harvest Festival. They need each other.”
My teeth clench, and my head throbs. “She’s just being dramatic! Tell her to take one of her tonics or something,” I shout.
Angus’s eyes are wide with shock and Hollis is uncomfortably looking at the floor.
I can’t listen to this. It’s just crazy. I head out the door.
Stomping up four levels in a fury, I think about Tolliver and the fact that he became of marrying age last summer. It hits me hard. He was supposed to get married after the Clash. When the Sky People weren’t there, I made a mess of their lives, everything changed. All their plans were ruined...because of me.
***
“This is disgusting,” I say, nearly gagging over the slimy sea snail.
Alouette digs through her basket and pulls out another delicacy. “Okay, sorry. I should have given you this one first,” she says, handing me a small bowl of yellow chunks. “This is a pineapple.”
Warily, I pick one out like it’s a dung beetle. I bite into it carefully. It is juicy and sweet. Delicious. My eyes widen as I chew faster, taking two more pieces and shoving them into my mouth. “Oh, that’s much better,” I say, juice dripping from my lip.
Remembering Alouette’s smile and how her brown eyes sparkle in the sunlight gives me a drop of what I need. Hope. She is the reason we are on Ellery. I realize Kava doesn’t need Tolliver for sanity’s sake. They belong together and I’m standing in the way. It’s time for me to get out of the way.
***
Day 142
As we make our way across the sky hovering above fields and forests, hills and lakes, the skies blow in a relentless storm. Day and night for three days it has been raining. Water is pouring in through the windows and doors, landing in the center courtyard and washing through the grand hallways. I notice a gentle slope to them, guiding the water out of the castle, down the steps, and off the edge of Ellery, finally washing away the last of the volcanic ash.
Now I know why there is a step up into any of the rooms on the ground floor of the castle. It is plenty high enough to block water from flooding those rooms. I stand in the doorway of the dining hall, looking across the courtyard. Rain is overflowing the fountain, pouring over the sides of each bowl, one successively larger than the other all the way down into one large pool. It is quite mesmerizing.
The rain is cold, but each day is warmer than the last. Spring is coming. I head down the back stairs. The loud pounding of the rain diminishes as I reach the kitchen. Kava is making a stew in the large pot hanging in the hearth. I watch her chop a few of the tubers we got from Wolf Man. They taste like potatoes. Weeks ago, I was shocked when Angus said Kava needed to marry Tolliver. As I watch her care for Tolliver the way Mother takes care of Father, it seems as though they are already married.
“You don’t have to wait,” I state, interrupting the silence.
“Wait for what?” Kava doesn’t look up from her chopping.
“To marry Tolliver,” I say.
Her head jolts up and she looks at me. Her eyes, full of pain, scrutinize me. “Yes, we do.” She goes back to chopping. The knife slams loudly on the wood slab and echoes around the room. Her lips pinch angrily.
“We could,” I start.
“No, Ledger. It would be dishonorable to break tradition.”
“I was going to say we could do the whole ceremony,” I explain.
She pauses and sets down the knife. “The whole ceremony?” Her eyebrows reveal anger directed at me. “What about my father? What about our families? Where would they be for this ceremony?”
“We can do the ceremony exactly the way it is supposed to be and we can fill in the parts that your family would have.”
She looks down at the vegetables in front of her. I see a droplet land on one of them and then another. “I don’t know, Ledger. My father...” She cries for a moment. Kava scoops the pale yellow vegetables and dumps them into the boiling pot. She sniffles and wipes another tear.
Uncomfortable with her emotions, I leave to fetch what I came for. I pull out my pouch ready to fill it in the pool. Without thinking, I walk right into a big puddle all over the floor.
“What is this?” I say, realizing my feet are soaking wet. Our water supply is gushing out onto the floor and heading for the door.
“Kava?” I call.
She hears the panic in my voice and gets down the hall quickly. “What’s the matter?” She stops short of the waterline. “Oh.”
“What do we do?”
She stares at it and doesn’t answer.
“Is there a way to stop the flow?” I consider that it is rainwater. “It must come from outside.”
I run out in search of Tolliver.
I find him in the throne room sitting on the king’s throne. He does not look very royal with his leg draped over the arm of the chair. But he does look older. And tired. His pale hair hangs over his eyes.
“Tolliver, the pool of water in the kitchen is overflowing from all the rain,” I shout. My voice echoes off the wall and by the time it returns, Tolliver is on his feet. He is wearing a clean white shirt with a black thick fur vest.
“Really?” He saunters to my side, “Suppose we can close it off?”
“I looked for something in the water room to use, but there is nothing. We’ll have to find where it goes into the kitchen from the outside.”
“I might know where that is,” he declares and steps into the rain. Out the front entrance, we exit left, following the outer wall for several paces. The rain beats down on me like many hands slapping me on the head and back. The droplets are huge and heavy.
“Look,” he yells above the hammering rain. There is a huge pool of water filled all the way to the top. At the base of the wall there is a slight whirlpool where the water could be draining into the kitchen. “Find something to block the drain.”
We look around and find plenty of large rocks to use. We each grab one of a different size. Both of us are drenched from head to toe, so stepping into the pool of water doesn’t quite matter anymore, though it sends a chill up my spine as the water level reaches my knees. I lead the way to the center of the whirlpool looking for the drain. The dark clouds block the sun and the spattering rain blurs the surface of the water making it difficult to see.
“We’ll have to figure out how big the hole is,” I say loudly. He nods. I kneel, and the water is up to my waist. I pant at the sheer iciness and reach a shaking hand into the frigid water. “The rock is too small,” I shout. “Give me yours.” We trade, and he tosses mine into the storm. The wind whips around us and my body is convulsing from the cold. I place the rock down over the opening, but it is too small as well. “It needs to be twice this size.”
“Okay,” Tolliver agrees and splashes off to find another. I stand and lob Tolliver’s rock. The rain is rushing down the side of the castle into the pool. It really is quite genius the way they built it to collect drinking water and drain into the kitchen basin.
I hear a voice in the wind. I find Tolliver through the graying sheets of rain. His hair is soaked and sticking to the sides of his face. The clean white tunic is translucent, and the fur vest is a matted mess. “Ledger,” he yells again, waving me over. He directs me to a rock that has been hewn into a rough rectangle. “This one looks as if it was carved.”
I nod and decide to share what’s been on my mind. “Why don’t you and Kava get married?”
We lift it together and Tolliver laughs and snorts. “I would, but she won’t.”
We wade into to the frigid pool together, stopping just over the hole and I ask over the wind and rain, “Why doesn’t she want to marry you?”
“Ledger, one thing at a time. Can we put this down, then talk?” he groans. We let it down easy. It lands on the bottom and the whirlpool stops. The surface is hammered with circles everywhere the rain hits.
Tolliver slaps me on the shoulder and shouts, “She wants to marry me, but she wants to do it at home.”
“I don’t get it, why did you two come if you already had a contract to marry?”
“I had to. Don’t you see that now?” he shouts over the pounding torrent.
“No, I don’t see,” I say, wiping the rain off my face, only to have it replaced by more. My whole body is shaking from standing in the icy pool of water and the intensity of our conversation. There is a deep chasm between us like there are things he’s not saying. I am to blame. Why doesn’t he just say it?
Tolliver grunts and walks away. I follow his wet footprints through the castle. We slosh to the kitchen where Kava is stirring the stew.
When we enter, she gasps at our sopping wet clothes and hair. “Oh my stars, what did you do?”
“Come see,” Tolliver waves her over and she follows us to the side room. The water is not rushing anymore. It is only a trickle. We stopped it just as it reached the doorway.
“Wow, good job,” Kava exclaims. Beneath his soaking wet hair Tolliver smiles mischievously. He reaches out his wet arms to hug her and she squeals, “No, you’re all wet!”
She pushes him away and races up the hall. Tolliver scuttles after her and whines for her to give him a hug.
I wander into the warm kitchen. Dragging a bench near the fire, I sit and peel my skunk skin shoes from my feet while Tolliver taunts Kava, chasing her around the kitchen. There are several holes along the bottom of my worn out shoes. I had added pieces of leather, but now the shoes won’t even stay together enough to keep the pieces inside. “I can’t wear these anymore,” I say, flinging them into the flames beneath the pot of stew.
“Ledger,” Kava scolds. “Why did you do that?”
“I can’t wear them anymore. They were crumbling off my feet,” I explain.
“No, why did you throw them in the fire?” Her intense brown eyes stare me down. “Now our food is going to smell like your feet.”
