Fall sunshine sprinkled off the trees onto the chicken coop, dappling the bright red henhouse. The earth beneath Sira's bare feet thrummed with life, suffusing the pebbles, the grass, the fence, the chickens, even the air, with its power. Sira soaked in that power, tasting it like honey on sweetbread, drawing life from it, and returning her own.
The chickens clucked as she stepped into the coop. "Here Dominique," she called to a mottled black and white hen as she spread a layer of corn into the tin pan on the ground. "You too, Frizzle," she said. A red, gray, and brown hen fluttered over along with the rest—each chicken a fuzzy warm spot in the tapestry of power and life that surrounded Sira.
They came to her as she called them, rubbing their feathered heads against her leg and hands then turning to peck the food from the pan. While they ate, she ventured into the henhouse and loaded the speckled brown eggs into a basket.
As soon as she left the chicken coop, she found Seysey, the Jersey cow, waiting for her at the pasture gate, her udder full, ready for milking, her essence a cool strength.
"Good morning," Sira said, rubbing Seysey's white nose. "How is the new hay father just harvested?"
Seysey let out a low moo which translated in Sira's mind. "Sweet. Dry. A little too coarse."
"Oh, Seysey." Sira patted the cow's neck. "Nothing will ever be perfect for you, will it?"
"Life is imperfect," Seysey lowed. "That's what makes it life."
"I disagree." Sira set the egg basket down then picked up a waiting milk pail and squat three-legged stood and ducked under the wooden pole fence into the pasture. "Life is perfect. The way everything has a place and it all works together to make everything else prosper." She sat down and started milking Seysey, enjoying the rhythmic song of the jets of milk hitting the side of the pail.
"Perfect?" Seysey snorted. "What's your excuse for milkweed? I saw a half dozen of my kind die from eating it before I came here. It's dangerous. The world would be far better without it."
"But, Seysey," Sira said, squeezing the warm tits with practiced hands. "If there were no milkweed, we'd have no monarch butterflies."
"Humph." Seysey turned her head and started chewing her cud, pretending Sira wasn't there.
As Sira finished milking and picked up the pail of milk and the basket of eggs, a blinding power surged from the road that ran through her father's land. Someone had passed the boundary. She stumbled under the sheer joy of the presence of the approaching person, then righted herself and raced toward the front gate. In her excitement she hardly noticed the milk slosh over the sides of the pail.
Their guest had already let himself in the gate by the time Sira came around the path from behind the waterfall. Her visitor was a man, and so much more. He wore a gray suit with a white shirt and blue tie and had cut his hair short and dyed it gray. The clothes and hair made him look like a human in his late fifties, but power flowed around him like a crimson robe. Light streamed from his face, accenting his high cheek bones and piercing eyes. A golden crown of power glimmered on his brow. He was Jarasel DeWheat, their king and protector.
Sira dropped into a deep curtsey, still clutching the pail and basket. "Welcome, Your Majesty."
DeWheat smiled and strode over to her. "Sira you've grown." He rubbed her cheek, sending a ripple of joy through her so strong that she could not speak in answer.
DeWheat laughed, took the basket of eggs and pail of milk from her, and stepped back. As his power seeped away from Sira, she regained control.
"Come," DeWheat said. "Let's take these up to the house. I need to talk to your father."
"He was in the south pasture, but he's nearly back now." Sira felt her father's presence like that of a mighty oak, heading toward the house. DeWheat had already strode away, walking with a swift grace that Sira had a hard time keeping up with. He stopped in front of the house with its ornately carved white columns and swarm of brightly-painted iron butterflies decorating the front—her mother's handiwork.
Her father reached the yard at the same moment and bowed. "Welcome." His voice sounded congenial, but his eyes held a wary look. He hated visitors, even Aos Si ones. DeWheat could not fail to feel her father's resentment.
DeWheat acknowledged her father's bow with a nod, then turned a smile on Sira. "Run these inside and leave us alone for a bit. Your father and I have something to discuss."
Sira took the pail and basket and raced up the steps to the mahogany door between the sets of pillars. Her heart sang with delight as she went inside. The king had actually come to their land. In person. In power. So what that he'd made himself look human. He was here. Himself. All her life she'd felt his light and power from a distance, but only ever seen him in person one other time.
Sira hurried to the kitchen. With shaking hands she put the milk in the ice-box along with the eggs. She spread her restless fingers on the cool marble counter top and craned her neck to see through the kitchen doorway, back through the windows in the entryway. He was out there with her father. She wondered what they were talking about. It must be important for him to come from his mansion at the top of the north hills all the way out to her father's farm.
She drifted back out of the kitchen, walking silently over the sparkling granite floor of the entryway and skirted the rug her mother had woven for the front parlor. It had taken her mother nine months to weave the stunning display of flowers and water that accented the colorful rug. Nine months on the loom, her mother weaving while her stomach grew bigger and bigger with an unborn child that would have given Sira a brother or sister.
Her mother had finished the rug just as her labor pains started. But her mother had died giving birth to an ill-formed baby that had died also moments afterward. DeWheat had been there and tried to help, but all the flows of power in the world could not save her.
That was the first and other time Sira had seen the king. When he could not save her mother, he had sat for hours holding Sira, talking to her about life and death, and the cycles of nature, how everything fit perfectly together and nothing happened by accident, how she could see her mother in every flower and butterfly, and feel her in the power that flowed from the land.
Sira had never once stepped on the rug that was her mother's last creation. She had not wanted her father to put it down in the parlor, but he insisted that was what her mother had made it for, so that was where it would go.
Keeping her feet off the rug, Sira edged to the window and peered out, straining to see and hear the two men's conversation. They both stood at the bottom of the steps, her father leaning against the fence rail in his dirt-stained overalls. The powerful essence of soil and growing things clung to him.
While he talked, a daffodil at his feet that had bloomed and died back months ago, sprang up again, shooting thin green leaves out of the soil, then pushing forth a sun-colored head. He leaned over and caressed the tender flower as he murmured to the king.
Both men spoke too softly for Sira to hear, even with her sensitive ears.
Frustrated, Sira pushed her fingers under the window frame and ever so slowly lifted the glass, opening the window a crack.
"Has she come into her powers yet? Has she discovered her gift?" DeWheat asked.
Her father shook his head. "She's too young, DeWheat."
"She turned thirty last month, Springmorning."
"Still a baby."
"Hardly." DeWheat frowned, and the light that shimmered around him darkened.
Her father frowned too, and the daffodil quivered at his feet. "What do you want, DeWheat? You didn't come all the way out here just to chat about Sira."
"Actually, I did." A grim smile creased DeWheat's face. "She's growing up. I know you don't want to see it, but she is."
Her father's frown deepened, and lines appeared on his forehead. "She won't be like the Conewood children. She loves this land and will not abandon it."
"Contrary to what you might think, everything in life is not about farming," DeWheat snapped. He stopped and took a deep breath. The dark power around him turned into a soothing white glow. He spoke in a softer voice. "There is magic and power not tied to the soil. Sira's gift might have nothing at all to do with plants. You need to give her a chance to learn and explore new things."
Her father leaned over, dug his fingers into the soil, and came back up clutching a handful of dirt. He pulled a rich flow of brown power from the earth and wrapped it around himself until he too glowed. "Don't try your gift of persuasion on me," he hissed. "My power is every bit as strong as yours." He closed his fist tight around the dirt, and the white glow around DeWheat blinked out.
Sira gasped.
Both men snapped their attention to the window where Sira stood. She froze, caught in the act of eavesdropping. Her cheeks burned.
DeWheat laughed, a sound that sent ripples of happiness through the air and tore away the swaths of rich brown power from around her father.
Her father's sharp eyes bored into her. His face grew ruddy with anger. He was so focused on her he didn't even notice that the power he'd called forth had faded. He let the soil trickle from his hand and started up the steps toward the house.
Sira pulled away from the window. She'd seldom seen her father so angry.
"Springmorning." DeWheat's power swelled so bright it cast the sun in shadow. It rushed forward and wrapped around her father, barring him from the house. "Don't turn your back on me. I am your king, and you will obey my commands."
Tearing his gaze away from Sira, her father turned to face DeWheat. "What exactly are you commanding me to do?"
"Send Sira to school."
"What school? I have taught her everything she needs to know."
"Everything about farming," DeWheat scoffed. "Nothing about life and the real world."
"The human world you mean." Her father's hands clenched into fists.
"Humans are as much a part of this world as we are. You can't pretend forever that they don't exist." DeWheat took a step up toward her father. "Have you taught Sira their language?"
"She knows enough to get by."
A tiny smile curled the king's lips. "Good. She'll need it. I have registered her for classes at Lincoln High. It is an excellent school."
"A human school?" her father’s voice came out a strangled mix of shock and anger.
"Both humans and Aos Si go there. My daughter even attends. Buck," DeWheat spread his hands in front of him, "Humans are not going away. They are a part of our lives. Your daughter has got to learn how to get along with them."
"No." Her father's pronouncement hung in the air. She recognized the tone in his voice as final. Her heart throbbed. She didn't know whether to be relieved or sad. She didn't understand what her father had against humans, or why DeWheat was so adamant about learning their ways.
The power faded from around the king. He took another step toward her father and spoke in a soft voice. "Be reasonable, Springmorning. You can sense her feelings as well as I do. She'd be happy to attend school. It's lonely here. She has no friends besides the animals, and you spend all your time with the plants and scarce few moments a day with her. Let her go, Buck."
Her father mouthed the word, "no," again.
DeWheat pulled a packet of papers from his suit pocket and held them out. "School starts at 8:00 AM tomorrow morning. A bus will be by to pick her up at the front gate at 7:30."
"I said no!" Her father's shout echoed out across the yard and off into the garden.
A hurricane of blinding crimson power swirled to life around the king and shot forward, sweeping her father off his feet and flinging him up against the front door. He hit it hard and sunk to the ground where the king's power pinned him in place. Buck gasped, unable to breathe under the onslaught.
"I am your king," DeWheat said. "You will obey my command." He walked forward and shoved the packet of papers in her father's hand. Then he Walked away, moving with the speed of light, vanishing into his own ball of brightness.
Sira stood frozen for a minute, staring out the window where DeWheat had been.
The front door opened, and her father walked into the house, carrying the papers. His face was gray, and his hand shook as he held them out to her. "I guess we'll have to do what DeWheat says."
Sira took the papers, expected to see a look of defeat in her father's eyes, but saw instead a burning ember that threatened to ignite at any moment.
"For now." His chin hardened in a grim line, and he stalked back outside.