Trinka and the Thousand Talismans by Christy Jones
Chapter Five
Fields of Gold
“It’s beautiful,” Trinka breathed.
“Yes, it is,” Tarian agreed. “We visited Parthalan a lot when I was growing up. I even thought about living here someday, but then I met Kar…”
“Ah, yes,” he sympathized morosely. “And so she gave up the quaint and quiet farm life to live in a goat-hair shack with an overgrown, smelly herder like me.”
“You’ve got the smelly part right!” Tarian teased.
“Well, why didn’t you want to move here?” Trinka asked her brother.
“You know I hate being cooped up,” he shrugged. “What’s the point of being outside if you have to work in the same field everyday?”
Trinka turned her attention back to the lush landscape before them. She couldn’t imagine anyone preferring the rough rocks and roaming goats of Bedrosian to the scene her eyes feasted on now. Amidst the green fields rose stands of trees that reminded her of the glass towers on Ellipsis, but instead of being frosty white, great clouds of green covered their tops.
Beneath the trees, colorful wildflowers in pastel pinks, purples, and golds dotted the soft, green grass so unlike the stiff, dry plants that sprung from the rocky soil of Bedrosian. A stream of water wound between the trees, as if someone had left an aquarock running while dashing between them. As they came to the edge of the group of trees, glimpses of more green fields appeared in the distance. Not far from the water’s edge stood rows of small, low buildings. With walls of branches and roofs of leaves, they seemed to spring from the ground like the very trees that surrounded them, as if the the people of Parthalan had woven living trees into buildings the way the people of Bedrosian wove yarn.
Near some of the buildings, a large oval of thin, young trees reached toward each other, their spindly branches barely beginning to intertwine. It was funny to see a “baby” building just starting to grow, and Trinka wondered how long it would take them to become a whole house.
“That’s where you’ll go to school,” Kolinkar pointed to one of the larger, leafy ceilinged buildings.
“School?” Trinka paled at the thought. She had finally arrived in what seemed to be paradise, and they had to ruin it by sending her to school?
“Here,” Tarian said proudly as she handed Trinka a small bundle. “I packed you a lunch. It’s not goat meat,” she whispered. “The people in Parthalan don’t really accept that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with eating goats,” Kolinkar retorted as their cart, drawn by four enormous, thick-legged goats, rolled to a halt.
“Just the same, you don’t need to overwhelm them with your barbaric ways all at once,” Tarian chided. Kolinkar stepped down from the cart, his boots sinking slightly into the soft, green ground. He put his hands around Tarian’s waist and swung her over the edge.
“How gallant,” Tarian commented. “Or did you not think I could get that far by myself?”
“Just trying to prove I’m not a total barbarian. Hey, sis, you need a hand?”
Trinka jumped the short distance to the ground. The sudden breeze sent her robes from Ellipsis fluttering, and the filmy, white fabric peeked out from beneath her heavy skirt before she hastily set it straight and adjusted the herder’s horn that hung from her belt. She eyed the school building for a moment, and gently rested her fingers against the vial from Annelise, still safe in the folds of the robes underneath her dress. Oh well, she had come this far. She might as well see what it was like.
And if I don’t belong here either, she thought as she dragged herself toward the schoolhouse, I can always use the vial.
Tarian and Kolinkar had already reached the door, and she found them talking with a small, respectable-looking woman whose light brown hair formed a soft poof at the back of her head.
“Fionula, this is Trinka.”
“This will be such a culturally important experience for us all!” the teacher gushed. “Do come in.”
Trinka took one last look back at Kolinkar and Tarian, who smiled encouragingly, then followed the teacher into the room. It was much smaller than her old school―simple, round, and brightly lit by the holes that dotted the walls of tightly woven branches. She would have liked a seat in the back row, but all the chairs sat in a circle.
The teacher beamed at Trinka and patted her on the shoulder. “Why don’t you take a seat next to Oana,” she mouthed boldly, as if she didn’t expect Trinka to understand her very well. “Class, I would like to introduce you to Trinka, who is visiting us from Bedrosian, the outer circle of Ampersand.”
Trinka’s cheeks flushed as she slid into her seat next to the dark-haired girl, who pushed her hair from her eyes and smiled shyly, then quickly turned away. The girl kept twisting her fingers nervously, crossing and uncrossing her ankles, and glancing down at the large container crammed beneath her chair. Trinka wondered what was in there, as it certainly looked too large to be a lunch.
“As some of you may know, Tarian and Kolinkar, two of Bedrosian’s leaders, are visiting the council in Parthalan.” Fionula paused. “They’re not your parents, are they?”
“No,” Trinka managed. “I’m Kolinkar’s sister.”
The girl next to Trinka suddenly clapped one hand over her mouth, while the other reached frantically for the edge of her chair.
“Oana?” Fionula prompted. “Do you have something you’d like to share with the class?”
In response, the dark-haired girl’s chair suddenly reared into the air and fell backward with a thud. Something shot from the basket, and a series of shrieks went up as whatever it was rose toward the ceiling, hitting the branches of the roof with a crack. Two little blurs of yellow and pink zoomed around the room.
“We’re freeee!” their tiny voices chattered.
“Ickle! Fiszbee! Stop this unseemly behavior at once!” Fionula commanded.
“Are you okay?” Trinka reached down to help Oana, who nodded but looked close to tears as she watched her pets fly out of control. Ickle and Fiszbee rushed past them, still shrieking with merriment. They soared right over the students’ heads, disrupting class completely.
As the whizzed by her, Trinka tried to get a good look at them. They seemed to be just little balls of fluff, with tiny hairs sticking out in all directions. Each of them had two large, round eyes and a wide open mouth that was screaming in delight as they bounced off room’s ceiling and its occupants’ heads.
“Oana, catch them!” Fionula squealed as the pets touched down on her briefly, blowing her hair out of its neat bun and into her eyes.
But Oana, still watching in horror, was too dazed to do anything.
Trinka grabbed the basket. This can’t be any worse than herding goats, she decided. She watched and waited until Ickle and Fiszbee both zoomed down toward the floor together, then pounced, catching them in a single swoop. The class applauded as the basket jumped and wriggled in Trinka’s arms, and Oana looked at her with sheer relief and gratitude.
“Oh, how marvelous, how agile,” Fionula gushed as the two girls squished the squirming basket back under the seat. “What wonderful Bedrosian strength.”
Trinka’s face flushed, and she looked down, letting her hair drop over her eyes as Oana’s did, as the students slowly returned to their seats. Soon all was quiet again, except for an occasional thump from the basket under Oana’s chair, as Fionula resumed her speech about intercultural enlightenment.
Some of the students made strange marks using sticks on what appeared to be large, flat white leaves. Trinka craned her neck to peek at the marks the other girl next to her made. The girl noticed and gave her a strange look, but said nothing. The rows of small lines looked a bit like rough, repeating drawings of branches and leaves. Since Trinka didn’t have anything to mark with, she just sat quietly and hoped there wouldn’t be a test anytime soon.
Trinka’s stomach was just starting to rumble when Fionula finished her speech. As the other students eagerly opened their small baskets, a wonderful aroma filled the room. Th
eir lunches looked like vanity cakes, only denser and darker. Trinka felt her stomach stir in anticipation as she carefully unwrapped the package Tarian had given her. A horrible stench rose out of it, and Trinka gasped and put her hand over her nose as she stared at the putrid blob.
“Ewww, what’s that smell?”
“I think it’s her lunch,” the girl next to her gagged.
Trinka folded the cloth back over the offending substance, but even the people on the other side of the room were shifting uncomfortably as Trinka sank deeper into her seat in embarrassment.
This is it, thought Trinka when she spied Fionula coming toward her. I’m going to get thrown out of school again, and this time it’s all because of my stinky lunch.
“Well, well, what have we here?” Fionula bravely peeled back the cloth and peeked inside. She gasped excitedly. “Oh class, I do believe our new student has brought a wonderful treat from Bedrosian. May I?”
Trinka nodded and tried to hold her breath as Fionula held up the wobbling, white substance for the whole class to see.
“This,” she explained, “is goat cheese.”
A few of the boys leaned forward as if they wanted to poke it, but most of the students pulled back in dismay. The boy directly across from Trinka raised his hand.
“Fionula? Perhaps if Trinka would share some of her cheese with us, we could all share our bread with her?”
Fionula beamed. “An excellent suggestion, Ewen. What a wonderful opportunity for a cross-cultural experience.”
She turned expectantly toward Trinka, who sat stunned for a moment. They were going to give her their wonderful-smelling food? In exchange for that awful goat cheese?
“Yes, please!” she answered quickly.
As the teacher divided up the offending substance, the class began breaking off pieces of their lunch and bringing them to her. Most of them, Trinka suspected, weren’t doing it as an even trade but because they felt sorry for her. Trinka wondered who would be the first to actually gag down any goat cheese, but Ewen quickly answered that by chewing on his piece thoughtfully for a moment, then polishing it off.
“It’s very interesting. Thank you.”
Trinka bit into her first piece of bread. It was tougher than a vanity cake, but still light, fluffy, delightful. And such a welcome change from goat meat. Oana gave her the most generous piece, covered in a sweet, creamy red substance, and Trinka savored her kindness.
The rest of the school time passed quickly. Most of the other students took turns talking to the class, but Trinka was allowed to just sit and listen. Some told about their families, others talked about their farms, and Ewen gave a particularly long and eloquent speech about negotiation.
At last Fionula ended with, “Excellent work today, class. You may now return to your farms and your families. Perhaps someone would care to show Trinka their home?”
Trinka casually looked over at Oana and saw that Oana was already looking back at her. Trinka smiled, and Oana’s face lit up with a warm glow of relief and a friendly smile reminiscent of Tarian’s.
“Hello, Trinka?”
Trinka looked up and immediately wished she could hide under her seat like Oana’s pets.
“Hi, I’m Ewen.” The boy from across the room flashed her a confident smile and stuck out his hand. “I was wondering if you would give me the honor of showing you around Parthalan this afternoon.”
Trinka flushed and glanced over at Oana. She tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t upset either of them, when Fionula bustled over.
“How nice to see you two attending to our new little student,” she beamed. “Have you decided to work together this afternoon?”
Trinka quickly took in Ewen and Oana’s expressions.
“Yes, I think we have,” she murmured.
The three of them walked out from under the trees into the warm fields that seemed so bright and golden compared to the cool pathways near the school. Everything around them felt free and open, from the sweet, musty scent of the air to the tall yellow stalks that rippled beneath the pale blue sky, dotted with white clouds. The smell made Trinka long for more of the bread she had tasted in the classroom—here, maybe she could even look forward to eating.
Ickle and Fiszbee seemed to enjoy the change of scenery tremendously as they chased each other along the tops of the fields, their bubbling giggles occasionally emphasized by the sudden snapping of a stalk.
“Hey, keep those pests out of my grain!” a man yelled.
Embarrassed, Oana picked up two tiny pink and gold objects that hung from a braid of stems around her neck. She blew into one, then the other, and a faint high-pitched noise escaped. Ickle and Fiszbee chattered and laughed, and tumbled a little bit higher.
“They never do listen,” Oana sighed.
The three of them passed more fields as Ickle and Fiszbee skittered ahead. The path wound past several small, low buildings. But unlike the buildings beneath the trees, they seemed to grow from the golden plants around them.
“Oana! Oh…” a round-faced woman with dark hair and eyes just like Oana’s stopped outside the doorway of a somewhat larger, lumpier building. “I didn’t know you had company.” She took a second look at Ewen, and her eyes swept Trinka’s dress uncertainly.
“Mom, this is Trinka. She’s visiting from Bedrosian,” Oana stammered. “Fionula asked someone to show her what family farming is like. Is that okay?”
“Yes, yes.” Oana’s mother answered slowly, unable to take her eyes off Trinka until another visitor grabbed her attention―and her pant leg. A baby girl with big, brown eyes had crawled out from the house and used her mother’s clothing to hoist herself up. She peeked out for a moment then shot them a mischievous smile. A blur of pink and yellow swept by overhead, and a crash inside the house signaled that Ickle and Fiszbee had gone inside.
Oana’s mother sighed.
“I’d tell you to pick up after them, but right now I need you to watch Leffa while I help our neighbor with her weaving.” The little girl tottered toward them with both fists clutching her mother’s guiding hands.
Another crash, followed by Ickle and Fiszbee’s exuberant giggling, rattled the house.
“The bread dough’s ready to make into loaves. And mind your brothers and sisters as soon as they get home from school!” Oana’s mom called as she hurried down the path.
“That’s funny. It’s usually our house that has holes in it,” Oana mused.
Right on cue, Ickle and Fiszbee burst outside. And, Trinka realized a moment later, they did not come through the door.
“Ho-wuh!” Leffa pointed.
“Yes, that’s a hole,” Ewen repeated. “Very good, Leffa.”
But Oana did not look so amused.
“Trinka, help me fix it, quick! Mother will practically cry if she comes home and finds there’s more weaving to do.”
“But I don’t know how.”
“I’ll show you,” Oana scooped up her sister in her arms and ran back toward the house as Ickle and Fiszbee continued tumbling outside. She emerged with Leffa in one arm and a small basket in the other, which she started rummaging through.
“I’ve got the shuttles.” She held up two small, flat sticks with gently pointed ends and a large, oblong hole in the middle. “But we haven’t got nearly enough straw,” she eyed the hole desperately.
“Why don’t you start weaving while I harvest some more. There’s got to be enough grain that’s nearly ready,” Ewen suggested.
Oana nodded as she began trying to stick one end of the straw through the hole in the shuttle, her panicked fingers missing every time.
Trinka looked to the field outside where Ewen had wrapped a long, sparkling thread around a patch of grain and started running. A great rustling arose as the thread swept across the tops of grain. With a multitude of whispering noises that reminded Trinka of the whistle Oana had used, the heads of grain flew into the air and became tiny specks that scattered in the light like a golden rain against
the bright, endless blue.
Trinka watched in awe for a moment, but her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of two boys who came dashing up the path. If they had held still long enough, Trinka guessed, one of them would have come up to Oana’s shoulder, and the other to her nose.
“Eoff, Edelen! Will you help Ewen get some straw?” Oana called without looking up.
“Yeah!” her brothers answered. Both had bright, flashing eyes, easy going smiles, the same round, open faces as Oana and her mother, and a boundless amount of energy, as if they were as happy to be free from their schoolroom as Ickle and Fiszbee had been from their basket. They immediately ran toward the field.
Trinka turned her attention back to the hole and noticed that, if anything, it looked slightly bigger than when Oana had started. Trinka was about to encourage her when she found the shuttle being thrust into her hands.
“Oh, Trinka, will you try it for awhile?” Oana’s large eyes looked close to tears. “I’ve got to go get Leffa.”
Trinka didn’t think she could, but as she watched Leffa toddle further and further into the field, she knew she couldn’t refuse.
“Thanks, Trinka. Just touch the new straw to the ends of the old ones.”
Skeptically, Trinka took one of the new-cut straws, looped it through the shuttle, and carefully touched the end of the shuttle against the broken edge of an old straw. The two straws instantly fused together as if they had grown as one piece.
Maybe I can do this, she thought as she tried another. And another. This is actually kind of fun. Within minutes, all of the straw dangled from the bottom edge of the hole, their cut ends swaying gently in the breeze that whistled in from outside. Trinka picked up the loose end of one straw, fed it through the shuttle, and touched it to the rough edge of the top of the hole. It instantly attached itself. She tried another and another. No matter what part of the hole she touched them to, the straws always seemed to be just the right length. Some became fatter, some thinner, as if the extra length got pulled down inside them.
The hole was almost completely covered with a thin layer of straw now, and Trinka admired her work for a moment when she felt something press against her legs.
“Hey, you two, don’t come over here,” Trinka turned to brush off Ickle and Fiszbee, but instead she found two more little girls standing behind her, who shyly withdrew from petting the thick gray fur of her goat-hair skirt.
“Hello,” Trinka greeted them as she crouched down to their level. They both looked up at her with huge, brown eyes and round, innocent faces, and the smaller one shrank behind her sister. Like the other girls in Parthalan, they wore loose, comfortable looking tops made from a much lighter material than goat hair, but instead of pants like Oana and her mother wore, they had long, layered skirts that reached nearly to the ground. Unlike the pale blues and yellows that the older students seemed to favor, they wore cheerful hues of pink and purple that made them look like they were dressed in giant flower petals.
“I’m sorry,” Oana said. “These are my sisters, Lellawyn and Isyllit. I didn’t know they…” she stopped and gasped. “Trinka, you did it!”
“It’s not done yet,” Trinka tried to protest through Oana’s hug.
“Do you want to come in? I’ve got to put Leffa down and get the bread started.”
Trinka followed the girls into the simple straw house, and marveled at the extravaganza that met her eyes. Like the schoolhouse, the oval-shaped room had a central table surrounded by chairs made from gracefully intertwining branches, but much of the wall area was covered by three curtains made of tiny swatches in all different hues and shades, patterned and pieced together in an incredible array of color, as if hundreds of beautiful butterflies had decided to alight on the sky-blue fabric and stay there forever.
Oana’s small sisters pulled back the curtain with the most pink “butterflies,” revealing several very large floor cushions covered with blankets of the same amazing piecework.
“Will you read me a story?”
Trinka looked down to see Lellawyn holding out a stack of flat, white leaves full of strange marks like she had seen in the schoolhouse.
“Um…” Trinka hesitated.
“Trinka’s busy working on the house,” Oana chided them. “And I’ve got to shape the dough.” She was already working the strange, pale substance she had pulled from the bowl, stretching and rolling it on the table. Trinka wondered what it would be like to shape things, not with thoughts, but with your very own hands.
“Here, I’ll read to them,” Ewen offered. He gave Trinka a small pile of straw and a promise that Oana’s brothers would be bringing more. “Give me the book.”
They sat down as Ewen took the stack of leaves and began telling them about a farm maid who turned out to be a princess in disguise. The girls sat enthralled while Trinka began weaving the straws across the inside of the hole using the shuttle.
“What are those marks for?” Trinka finally asked when the story was over.
Ewen looked at her in surprise. “That’s writing,” he explained, assuming the confident tone he used in school. “Like you use in Bedrosian except the marks represent sounds instead of words. We use stick marks for consonants and leaves for vowels.”
Trinka looked back at him blankly.
“Read us some more!” Lellawyn commanded.
“Read all of them!” Isyllit added, jumping up excitedly.
Ewen obliged while Trinka completed the weaving as best she could. The smell of baking bread filled the room, making Trinka not just willing, but eager to eat.
“Do you want some fruit?” Oana offered shyly. “We went berry picking this morning—they’re a little squashed, but they’re still fresh.”
Trinka took a few of the bumpy little spheres and ovoids, which ranged from pale purple to deep maroon, and cautiously sampled one. Unlike the rock-hard akenes she had struggled with in Bedrosian, these immediately burst open in her mouth, sending streams of flavorful juice down her tongue.
Soon they were all munching fresh, crusty golden bread, and wiping up the last of the smashed berries, as they looked at their work in satisfaction. The patch was a little bit bulgy and uneven, but not really more so than the rest of the house. Oana’s mother, Alin, and father, Eiden, seemed pleasantly surprised by the peaceful sight that greeted them when they returned home.
So this is what it’s like, thought Trinka, to have a real family that stays together. What it’s like to have a home.
“Well, I should be getting back now.” Ewen handed the book back to the girls and rose to his feet. Trinka did the same. “Thank you for having us,” he added. Trinka mumbled her thanks as well and smiled at Oana.
The sky was just starting to go slightly dark as they started back down the path, but they could still see easily, as the fields and houses all around them gave off a soft, golden glow.
“You’re very good at weaving, Trinka,” Ewen said as they approached the cluster of trees.
She felt her cheeks redden in the growing darkness. “I’m not good at anything.”
“That’s not true,” Ewen insisted, “Everyone’s good at something. You just have to find it.”
Trinka suddenly had an urge to pull out the truthstone and find out what he really thought. But they were almost there.
Just as they had in Bedrosian, Kolinkar and Tarian had taken the tent with them and set it up beneath the trees of Parthalan, right alongside the branch houses of Ewen’s village. The four cart goats munched contentedly in the nearby grass, and a heavy, greasy odor indicated that Kolinkar and Tarian had already started cooking dinner. Trinka paused outside the flap.
“Trinka, can I ask you something?” Ewen began earnestly.
“You just did,” she grinned.
“Would you and Oana come visit my house tomorrow? It might not be as exciting as today, since we live in the village.”
“Of course I would.” Trinka smiled but wondered if she dared to ask something in return. ??
?And the day after that, maybe you and Oana could come over here to the tent, if you want.”
Ewen seemed surprised but nodded.
“I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
Trinka turned to go inside.
“Wait,” Ewen stopped her. She watched as he reached for something in his pocket. “Here,” he handed her a small weaving shuttle.
Trinka looked at it for a moment, then looked back at him.
“What’s this for?”
“So you’ll always remember something you’re good at. You may be from Bedrosian, but you fit right in here in Parthalan.”
Trinka felt her cheeks flush with excitement as she turned and slipped inside. Tarian looked up from the fuming pot that sat on the heat-stones in the center of the tent.
“How was your first day of school?”
Trinka broke into a wide grin as she answered with words she never expected to say about school:
“It was great!”
Fields of Gold
“It’s beautiful,” Trinka breathed.
“Yes, it is,” Tarian agreed. “We visited Parthalan a lot when I was growing up. I even thought about living here someday, but then I met Kar…”
“Ah, yes,” he sympathized morosely. “And so she gave up the quaint and quiet farm life to live in a goat-hair shack with an overgrown, smelly herder like me.”
“You’ve got the smelly part right!” Tarian teased.
“Well, why didn’t you want to move here?” Trinka asked her brother.
“You know I hate being cooped up,” he shrugged. “What’s the point of being outside if you have to work in the same field everyday?”
Trinka turned her attention back to the lush landscape before them. She couldn’t imagine anyone preferring the rough rocks and roaming goats of Bedrosian to the scene her eyes feasted on now. Amidst the green fields rose stands of trees that reminded her of the glass towers on Ellipsis, but instead of being frosty white, great clouds of green covered their tops.
Beneath the trees, colorful wildflowers in pastel pinks, purples, and golds dotted the soft, green grass so unlike the stiff, dry plants that sprung from the rocky soil of Bedrosian. A stream of water wound between the trees, as if someone had left an aquarock running while dashing between them. As they came to the edge of the group of trees, glimpses of more green fields appeared in the distance. Not far from the water’s edge stood rows of small, low buildings. With walls of branches and roofs of leaves, they seemed to spring from the ground like the very trees that surrounded them, as if the the people of Parthalan had woven living trees into buildings the way the people of Bedrosian wove yarn.
Near some of the buildings, a large oval of thin, young trees reached toward each other, their spindly branches barely beginning to intertwine. It was funny to see a “baby” building just starting to grow, and Trinka wondered how long it would take them to become a whole house.
“That’s where you’ll go to school,” Kolinkar pointed to one of the larger, leafy ceilinged buildings.
“School?” Trinka paled at the thought. She had finally arrived in what seemed to be paradise, and they had to ruin it by sending her to school?
“Here,” Tarian said proudly as she handed Trinka a small bundle. “I packed you a lunch. It’s not goat meat,” she whispered. “The people in Parthalan don’t really accept that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with eating goats,” Kolinkar retorted as their cart, drawn by four enormous, thick-legged goats, rolled to a halt.
“Just the same, you don’t need to overwhelm them with your barbaric ways all at once,” Tarian chided. Kolinkar stepped down from the cart, his boots sinking slightly into the soft, green ground. He put his hands around Tarian’s waist and swung her over the edge.
“How gallant,” Tarian commented. “Or did you not think I could get that far by myself?”
“Just trying to prove I’m not a total barbarian. Hey, sis, you need a hand?”
Trinka jumped the short distance to the ground. The sudden breeze sent her robes from Ellipsis fluttering, and the filmy, white fabric peeked out from beneath her heavy skirt before she hastily set it straight and adjusted the herder’s horn that hung from her belt. She eyed the school building for a moment, and gently rested her fingers against the vial from Annelise, still safe in the folds of the robes underneath her dress. Oh well, she had come this far. She might as well see what it was like.
And if I don’t belong here either, she thought as she dragged herself toward the schoolhouse, I can always use the vial.
Tarian and Kolinkar had already reached the door, and she found them talking with a small, respectable-looking woman whose light brown hair formed a soft poof at the back of her head.
“Fionula, this is Trinka.”
“This will be such a culturally important experience for us all!” the teacher gushed. “Do come in.”
Trinka took one last look back at Kolinkar and Tarian, who smiled encouragingly, then followed the teacher into the room. It was much smaller than her old school―simple, round, and brightly lit by the holes that dotted the walls of tightly woven branches. She would have liked a seat in the back row, but all the chairs sat in a circle.
The teacher beamed at Trinka and patted her on the shoulder. “Why don’t you take a seat next to Oana,” she mouthed boldly, as if she didn’t expect Trinka to understand her very well. “Class, I would like to introduce you to Trinka, who is visiting us from Bedrosian, the outer circle of Ampersand.”
Trinka’s cheeks flushed as she slid into her seat next to the dark-haired girl, who pushed her hair from her eyes and smiled shyly, then quickly turned away. The girl kept twisting her fingers nervously, crossing and uncrossing her ankles, and glancing down at the large container crammed beneath her chair. Trinka wondered what was in there, as it certainly looked too large to be a lunch.
“As some of you may know, Tarian and Kolinkar, two of Bedrosian’s leaders, are visiting the council in Parthalan.” Fionula paused. “They’re not your parents, are they?”
“No,” Trinka managed. “I’m Kolinkar’s sister.”
The girl next to Trinka suddenly clapped one hand over her mouth, while the other reached frantically for the edge of her chair.
“Oana?” Fionula prompted. “Do you have something you’d like to share with the class?”
In response, the dark-haired girl’s chair suddenly reared into the air and fell backward with a thud. Something shot from the basket, and a series of shrieks went up as whatever it was rose toward the ceiling, hitting the branches of the roof with a crack. Two little blurs of yellow and pink zoomed around the room.
“We’re freeee!” their tiny voices chattered.
“Ickle! Fiszbee! Stop this unseemly behavior at once!” Fionula commanded.
“Are you okay?” Trinka reached down to help Oana, who nodded but looked close to tears as she watched her pets fly out of control. Ickle and Fiszbee rushed past them, still shrieking with merriment. They soared right over the students’ heads, disrupting class completely.
As the whizzed by her, Trinka tried to get a good look at them. They seemed to be just little balls of fluff, with tiny hairs sticking out in all directions. Each of them had two large, round eyes and a wide open mouth that was screaming in delight as they bounced off room’s ceiling and its occupants’ heads.
“Oana, catch them!” Fionula squealed as the pets touched down on her briefly, blowing her hair out of its neat bun and into her eyes.
But Oana, still watching in horror, was too dazed to do anything.
Trinka grabbed the basket. This can’t be any worse than herding goats, she decided. She watched and waited until Ickle and Fiszbee both zoomed down toward the floor together, then pounced, catching them in a single swoop. The class applauded as the basket jumped and wriggled in Trinka’s arms, and Oana looked at her with sheer relief and gratitude.
“Oh, how marvelous, how agile,” Fionula gushed as the two girls squished the squirming basket back under the seat. “What wonderful Bedrosian strength.”
Trinka’s face flushed, and she looked down, letting her hair drop over her eyes as Oana’s did, as the students slowly returned to their seats. Soon all was quiet again, except for an occasional thump from the basket under Oana’s chair, as Fionula resumed her speech about intercultural enlightenment.
Some of the students made strange marks using sticks on what appeared to be large, flat white leaves. Trinka craned her neck to peek at the marks the other girl next to her made. The girl noticed and gave her a strange look, but said nothing. The rows of small lines looked a bit like rough, repeating drawings of branches and leaves. Since Trinka didn’t have anything to mark with, she just sat quietly and hoped there wouldn’t be a test anytime soon.
Trinka’s stomach was just starting to rumble when Fionula finished her speech. As the other students eagerly opened their small baskets, a wonderful aroma filled the room. Th
“Ewww, what’s that smell?”
“I think it’s her lunch,” the girl next to her gagged.
Trinka folded the cloth back over the offending substance, but even the people on the other side of the room were shifting uncomfortably as Trinka sank deeper into her seat in embarrassment.
This is it, thought Trinka when she spied Fionula coming toward her. I’m going to get thrown out of school again, and this time it’s all because of my stinky lunch.
“Well, well, what have we here?” Fionula bravely peeled back the cloth and peeked inside. She gasped excitedly. “Oh class, I do believe our new student has brought a wonderful treat from Bedrosian. May I?”
Trinka nodded and tried to hold her breath as Fionula held up the wobbling, white substance for the whole class to see.
“This,” she explained, “is goat cheese.”
A few of the boys leaned forward as if they wanted to poke it, but most of the students pulled back in dismay. The boy directly across from Trinka raised his hand.
“Fionula? Perhaps if Trinka would share some of her cheese with us, we could all share our bread with her?”
Fionula beamed. “An excellent suggestion, Ewen. What a wonderful opportunity for a cross-cultural experience.”
She turned expectantly toward Trinka, who sat stunned for a moment. They were going to give her their wonderful-smelling food? In exchange for that awful goat cheese?
“Yes, please!” she answered quickly.
As the teacher divided up the offending substance, the class began breaking off pieces of their lunch and bringing them to her. Most of them, Trinka suspected, weren’t doing it as an even trade but because they felt sorry for her. Trinka wondered who would be the first to actually gag down any goat cheese, but Ewen quickly answered that by chewing on his piece thoughtfully for a moment, then polishing it off.
“It’s very interesting. Thank you.”
Trinka bit into her first piece of bread. It was tougher than a vanity cake, but still light, fluffy, delightful. And such a welcome change from goat meat. Oana gave her the most generous piece, covered in a sweet, creamy red substance, and Trinka savored her kindness.
The rest of the school time passed quickly. Most of the other students took turns talking to the class, but Trinka was allowed to just sit and listen. Some told about their families, others talked about their farms, and Ewen gave a particularly long and eloquent speech about negotiation.
At last Fionula ended with, “Excellent work today, class. You may now return to your farms and your families. Perhaps someone would care to show Trinka their home?”
Trinka casually looked over at Oana and saw that Oana was already looking back at her. Trinka smiled, and Oana’s face lit up with a warm glow of relief and a friendly smile reminiscent of Tarian’s.
“Hello, Trinka?”
Trinka looked up and immediately wished she could hide under her seat like Oana’s pets.
“Hi, I’m Ewen.” The boy from across the room flashed her a confident smile and stuck out his hand. “I was wondering if you would give me the honor of showing you around Parthalan this afternoon.”
Trinka flushed and glanced over at Oana. She tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t upset either of them, when Fionula bustled over.
“How nice to see you two attending to our new little student,” she beamed. “Have you decided to work together this afternoon?”
Trinka quickly took in Ewen and Oana’s expressions.
“Yes, I think we have,” she murmured.
The three of them walked out from under the trees into the warm fields that seemed so bright and golden compared to the cool pathways near the school. Everything around them felt free and open, from the sweet, musty scent of the air to the tall yellow stalks that rippled beneath the pale blue sky, dotted with white clouds. The smell made Trinka long for more of the bread she had tasted in the classroom—here, maybe she could even look forward to eating.
Ickle and Fiszbee seemed to enjoy the change of scenery tremendously as they chased each other along the tops of the fields, their bubbling giggles occasionally emphasized by the sudden snapping of a stalk.
“Hey, keep those pests out of my grain!” a man yelled.
Embarrassed, Oana picked up two tiny pink and gold objects that hung from a braid of stems around her neck. She blew into one, then the other, and a faint high-pitched noise escaped. Ickle and Fiszbee chattered and laughed, and tumbled a little bit higher.
“They never do listen,” Oana sighed.
The three of them passed more fields as Ickle and Fiszbee skittered ahead. The path wound past several small, low buildings. But unlike the buildings beneath the trees, they seemed to grow from the golden plants around them.
“Oana! Oh…” a round-faced woman with dark hair and eyes just like Oana’s stopped outside the doorway of a somewhat larger, lumpier building. “I didn’t know you had company.” She took a second look at Ewen, and her eyes swept Trinka’s dress uncertainly.
“Mom, this is Trinka. She’s visiting from Bedrosian,” Oana stammered. “Fionula asked someone to show her what family farming is like. Is that okay?”
“Yes, yes.” Oana’s mother answered slowly, unable to take her eyes off Trinka until another visitor grabbed her attention―and her pant leg. A baby girl with big, brown eyes had crawled out from the house and used her mother’s clothing to hoist herself up. She peeked out for a moment then shot them a mischievous smile. A blur of pink and yellow swept by overhead, and a crash inside the house signaled that Ickle and Fiszbee had gone inside.
Oana’s mother sighed.
“I’d tell you to pick up after them, but right now I need you to watch Leffa while I help our neighbor with her weaving.” The little girl tottered toward them with both fists clutching her mother’s guiding hands.
Another crash, followed by Ickle and Fiszbee’s exuberant giggling, rattled the house.
“The bread dough’s ready to make into loaves. And mind your brothers and sisters as soon as they get home from school!” Oana’s mom called as she hurried down the path.
“That’s funny. It’s usually our house that has holes in it,” Oana mused.
Right on cue, Ickle and Fiszbee burst outside. And, Trinka realized a moment later, they did not come through the door.
“Ho-wuh!” Leffa pointed.
“Yes, that’s a hole,” Ewen repeated. “Very good, Leffa.”
But Oana did not look so amused.
“Trinka, help me fix it, quick! Mother will practically cry if she comes home and finds there’s more weaving to do.”
“But I don’t know how.”
“I’ll show you,” Oana scooped up her sister in her arms and ran back toward the house as Ickle and Fiszbee continued tumbling outside. She emerged with Leffa in one arm and a small basket in the other, which she started rummaging through.
“I’ve got the shuttles.” She held up two small, flat sticks with gently pointed ends and a large, oblong hole in the middle. “But we haven’t got nearly enough straw,” she eyed the hole desperately.
“Why don’t you start weaving while I harvest some more. There’s got to be enough grain that’s nearly ready,” Ewen suggested.
Oana nodded as she began trying to stick one end of the straw through the hole in the shuttle, her panicked fingers missing every time.
Trinka looked to the field outside where Ewen had wrapped a long, sparkling thread around a patch of grain and started running. A great rustling arose as the thread swept across the tops of grain. With a multitude of whispering noises that reminded Trinka of the whistle Oana had used, the heads of grain flew into the air and became tiny specks that scattered in the light like a golden rain against
Trinka watched in awe for a moment, but her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of two boys who came dashing up the path. If they had held still long enough, Trinka guessed, one of them would have come up to Oana’s shoulder, and the other to her nose.
“Eoff, Edelen! Will you help Ewen get some straw?” Oana called without looking up.
“Yeah!” her brothers answered. Both had bright, flashing eyes, easy going smiles, the same round, open faces as Oana and her mother, and a boundless amount of energy, as if they were as happy to be free from their schoolroom as Ickle and Fiszbee had been from their basket. They immediately ran toward the field.
Trinka turned her attention back to the hole and noticed that, if anything, it looked slightly bigger than when Oana had started. Trinka was about to encourage her when she found the shuttle being thrust into her hands.
“Oh, Trinka, will you try it for awhile?” Oana’s large eyes looked close to tears. “I’ve got to go get Leffa.”
Trinka didn’t think she could, but as she watched Leffa toddle further and further into the field, she knew she couldn’t refuse.
“Thanks, Trinka. Just touch the new straw to the ends of the old ones.”
Skeptically, Trinka took one of the new-cut straws, looped it through the shuttle, and carefully touched the end of the shuttle against the broken edge of an old straw. The two straws instantly fused together as if they had grown as one piece.
Maybe I can do this, she thought as she tried another. And another. This is actually kind of fun. Within minutes, all of the straw dangled from the bottom edge of the hole, their cut ends swaying gently in the breeze that whistled in from outside. Trinka picked up the loose end of one straw, fed it through the shuttle, and touched it to the rough edge of the top of the hole. It instantly attached itself. She tried another and another. No matter what part of the hole she touched them to, the straws always seemed to be just the right length. Some became fatter, some thinner, as if the extra length got pulled down inside them.
The hole was almost completely covered with a thin layer of straw now, and Trinka admired her work for a moment when she felt something press against her legs.
“Hey, you two, don’t come over here,” Trinka turned to brush off Ickle and Fiszbee, but instead she found two more little girls standing behind her, who shyly withdrew from petting the thick gray fur of her goat-hair skirt.
“Hello,” Trinka greeted them as she crouched down to their level. They both looked up at her with huge, brown eyes and round, innocent faces, and the smaller one shrank behind her sister. Like the other girls in Parthalan, they wore loose, comfortable looking tops made from a much lighter material than goat hair, but instead of pants like Oana and her mother wore, they had long, layered skirts that reached nearly to the ground. Unlike the pale blues and yellows that the older students seemed to favor, they wore cheerful hues of pink and purple that made them look like they were dressed in giant flower petals.
“I’m sorry,” Oana said. “These are my sisters, Lellawyn and Isyllit. I didn’t know they…” she stopped and gasped. “Trinka, you did it!”
“It’s not done yet,” Trinka tried to protest through Oana’s hug.
“Do you want to come in? I’ve got to put Leffa down and get the bread started.”
Trinka followed the girls into the simple straw house, and marveled at the extravaganza that met her eyes. Like the schoolhouse, the oval-shaped room had a central table surrounded by chairs made from gracefully intertwining branches, but much of the wall area was covered by three curtains made of tiny swatches in all different hues and shades, patterned and pieced together in an incredible array of color, as if hundreds of beautiful butterflies had decided to alight on the sky-blue fabric and stay there forever.
Oana’s small sisters pulled back the curtain with the most pink “butterflies,” revealing several very large floor cushions covered with blankets of the same amazing piecework.
“Will you read me a story?”
Trinka looked down to see Lellawyn holding out a stack of flat, white leaves full of strange marks like she had seen in the schoolhouse.
“Um…” Trinka hesitated.
“Trinka’s busy working on the house,” Oana chided them. “And I’ve got to shape the dough.” She was already working the strange, pale substance she had pulled from the bowl, stretching and rolling it on the table. Trinka wondered what it would be like to shape things, not with thoughts, but with your very own hands.
“Here, I’ll read to them,” Ewen offered. He gave Trinka a small pile of straw and a promise that Oana’s brothers would be bringing more. “Give me the book.”
They sat down as Ewen took the stack of leaves and began telling them about a farm maid who turned out to be a princess in disguise. The girls sat enthralled while Trinka began weaving the straws across the inside of the hole using the shuttle.
“What are those marks for?” Trinka finally asked when the story was over.
Ewen looked at her in surprise. “That’s writing,” he explained, assuming the confident tone he used in school. “Like you use in Bedrosian except the marks represent sounds instead of words. We use stick marks for consonants and leaves for vowels.”
Trinka looked back at him blankly.
“Read us some more!” Lellawyn commanded.
“Read all of them!” Isyllit added, jumping up excitedly.
Ewen obliged while Trinka completed the weaving as best she could. The smell of baking bread filled the room, making Trinka not just willing, but eager to eat.
“Do you want some fruit?” Oana offered shyly. “We went berry picking this morning—they’re a little squashed, but they’re still fresh.”
Trinka took a few of the bumpy little spheres and ovoids, which ranged from pale purple to deep maroon, and cautiously sampled one. Unlike the rock-hard akenes she had struggled with in Bedrosian, these immediately burst open in her mouth, sending streams of flavorful juice down her tongue.
Soon they were all munching fresh, crusty golden bread, and wiping up the last of the smashed berries, as they looked at their work in satisfaction. The patch was a little bit bulgy and uneven, but not really more so than the rest of the house. Oana’s mother, Alin, and father, Eiden, seemed pleasantly surprised by the peaceful sight that greeted them when they returned home.
So this is what it’s like, thought Trinka, to have a real family that stays together. What it’s like to have a home.
“Well, I should be getting back now.” Ewen handed the book back to the girls and rose to his feet. Trinka did the same. “Thank you for having us,” he added. Trinka mumbled her thanks as well and smiled at Oana.
The sky was just starting to go slightly dark as they started back down the path, but they could still see easily, as the fields and houses all around them gave off a soft, golden glow.
“You’re very good at weaving, Trinka,” Ewen said as they approached the cluster of trees.
She felt her cheeks redden in the growing darkness. “I’m not good at anything.”
“That’s not true,” Ewen insisted, “Everyone’s good at something. You just have to find it.”
Trinka suddenly had an urge to pull out the truthstone and find out what he really thought. But they were almost there.
Just as they had in Bedrosian, Kolinkar and Tarian had taken the tent with them and set it up beneath the trees of Parthalan, right alongside the branch houses of Ewen’s village. The four cart goats munched contentedly in the nearby grass, and a heavy, greasy odor indicated that Kolinkar and Tarian had already started cooking dinner. Trinka paused outside the flap.
“Trinka, can I ask you something?” Ewen began earnestly.
“You just did,” she grinned.
“Would you and Oana come visit my house tomorrow? It might not be as exciting as today, since we live in the village.”
“Of course I would.” Trinka smiled but wondered if she dared to ask something in return. ??
Ewen seemed surprised but nodded.
“I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
Trinka turned to go inside.
“Wait,” Ewen stopped her. She watched as he reached for something in his pocket. “Here,” he handed her a small weaving shuttle.
Trinka looked at it for a moment, then looked back at him.
“What’s this for?”
“So you’ll always remember something you’re good at. You may be from Bedrosian, but you fit right in here in Parthalan.”
Trinka felt her cheeks flush with excitement as she turned and slipped inside. Tarian looked up from the fuming pot that sat on the heat-stones in the center of the tent.
“How was your first day of school?”
Trinka broke into a wide grin as she answered with words she never expected to say about school:
“It was great!”