CHAPTER 24
The bowls were still where they had left them, on the floor of the workshop beside the open trap door, eerily glowing their turquoise blue as Cat shone the light of the lantern on them.
“Hmm,” Ouska said, thoughtfully regarding the dishes. She reached out a hand for them.
“NO!” shouted the men. Sepp lashed out to strike her hand away; Guy covered the bowls with his.
“It’s all right!” Cat called out instinctively, then found that she had spoken at exactly the same time, and in the same words, as Ouska. The two women’s eyes met, and held their gaze for a moment, and again Ouska gave her that small, approving nod.
“Don’t fret yourself,” said the older woman to her nephews. “The bowls will not harm me.” Her brown eyes looked, steadily and firmly, into Guy’s turquoise ones, and reluctantly, slowly, he withdrew his hands and pulled back.
Ouska bent down and picked up a bowl. Sepp drew in a sharp breath; it was the twin bowl to the one which had taken him away and had brought Cat to this place.
The wisewoman cupped her hands around the bowl and let her gaze slide into its depths.
Cat could hear Guy’s raspy breathing. Glancing at him from the corner of her eyes, she saw that he was trembling, staring at his aunt’s hands. She turned her gaze fully on him, willing him to turn his eyes to her. He looked up, and the fear in his eyes hit Cat with an almost physical force. It’s all right, she told him silently, it’s all right. Don’t fret, don’t be afraid. It’s all right. His gaze held onto hers, taking courage; his breathing grew calmer, his shaking hands steadied. Cat’s eyes held his, soothing, calming. At least he’s not crushing any bones this time, the little voice in the back of her mind said suddenly, and the corner of her mouth twitched up at the thought.
Ouska drew a deep breath.
“Well,” she said, looking up, and placing the bowl back down on the floor beside the other. “I believe I know how it is now.”
“Why did you not—” Sepp burst out.
“—get taken away?” Ouska finished. “Because I have no desire to leave.”
The men stared, but Cat nodded softly. Yes, that was just how it was.
“There were pairs of them, were there not?” the older woman asked. “Two each that matched?”
“Yes,” said Cat. “The matches to these two were taken to my world. And one bowl was broken, right at the beginning; the remaining one of that pair is still in there.” She pointed into the storage hole.
Ouska nodded, as if it made perfect sense.
“Then this is how it is: the power (the magic, if you will, Catriona) is indeed in the glaze. There’s something, I don’t know what, that has combined in it, through the ash of the tree, the clay it soaked in, and the power of the Septimissimus. The bowls give the person who touches them the power to go from the place they are in to another. But only to the person who wants to go, who has a desire, a deep wish, to leave. That is why it did not harm me and never harmed you yourself, Guy. But each bowl can only take a person one way. If you want to travel back, you need another one, by preference its match, but even a different one will do. However, there is a second use in each of the bowls, just not for the same person. So you, Catriona, came here on the bowl that Sepp went away on, did you not?”
“Yes,” said Cat, who had been following Ouska’s explanation and found it to be perfectly true, “and he came back on Ashley’s—Ashya’s—bowl.”
Ouska gave a curt nod.
“Is that where she is? I thought as much.
“So it seems rather plain. Sepp and the woman went, because they wanted to be gone—isn’t that right?” She fixed Sepp with a stern gaze. He hung his head.
“Yes. I knew I had no powers, knew the people could not use me as Septimissimus. I didn’t want to face that—face them. I thought it would be better for them if I was gone…
“Well, no, that’s not really true.” He scuffed the toe of his shoe on the ground; Cat nearly laughed out loud at how much he looked like a schoolboy caught being naughty. Sepp looked up at his aunt and his brother. “The truth is, I just wanted to be gone, wanted to get out there, to be away from here. And then I was. It was really startling. So you are saying that it was my own wish that sent me away?”
Cat saw the look on Ouska’s face. She did not know if the men could see it, but it was clear to her that the older woman was pleased with her nephew’s insight and honesty. She nodded in response.
“But, wait,” said Sepp, “if there is still the second bowl here, could Cat—could she not go back home on it?”
“She could,” agreed his aunt. “She could also take the other matching bowl along, which would enable the woman to come back again.” Her tone was bland, simply explaining facts, not suggesting a course of action.
Cat shot a look at Guy, who seemed to not have heard the last few sentences. His lips were pressed together hard, his eyes bleak again. He turned away from the bowls on the ground, limped over to the unlit fireplace, and stared blindly into the empty grate.
“So it was my fault then,” he ground out through his teeth.
An angry spark came into Ouska’s eyes, and Cat knew that it mirrored a look just like it in her own.
“Yes,” said the older woman curtly. “Of course it was your fault that a selfish woman did not get her own way and had to take her foolishness to another place—where, I have no doubt, she is well served with it. Of course it was your fault that your brother lost his temper at not having things work out the way he expected and wanted to get away from his home. Of course it was your fault that your powers, which you did not even know you had, had you make something that served other people for just the purpose they wanted.” She snorted. “Have you not heard a word of what your brother just said? Your fault indeed! I wish you would stop that foolishness, boy, right this moment.”
She marched past him through the workshop door into the cottage.
Cat and Sepp looked at each other.
“She’s right, you know,” Sepp said slowly, addressing his brother’s back. “I did get what I wanted. I wanted to leave, and leave I did. And it’s done me good, I think. And the same for Ashya. Of course,” he added slyly, “we can always bring her back with that other bowl, if you really want her back so much.”
Guy whirled around.
“I don’t—”
Sepp grinned. He had got a reaction out of his brother that snapped him out of his melancholy, and he was satisfied.
“Come on,” he said, clapping Guy on the shoulder as he walked past him. “I think Aunt is leaving.”
Ouska was indeed getting ready to go when the young people came back into the cottage. She picked up her cloak from the rocking chair, over whose arm she had laid the heavy wool piece, and set the rocker gently swinging.
Sepp stared at the chair; then with wide eyes he looked at his brother.
“Guy! If I’m not—not it, I can make furniture! I no longer need to hide it, I can have a workshop, I can make whatever I want…” His voice suddenly trailed off.
“… but Guy cannot.” Cat finished. “Ouska—it’s not right! Guy does not have to give up his pottery, does he? But the Septimissimus is not meant to be a craftsman…”
“I cannot believe that to be so,” said the wisewoman. “I think it’s one of those myths that have sprung up around the Septimi, and while most of them are true enough, this one I always found doubtful. Their father, he was happy doing what he did; he had no hankering after a craft. But then he was a Septimus, not a Septimissimus. We do not know if what goes for the one is also true for the other. And Guy is a gifted potter, no doubt about that; it seems wrong for him to lay down his craft. One gift is not paid for with another; that’s why we call them gifts, not merchandise.” She gave Guy a shrewd look. “And stop thinking anyone was harmed by what you did, boy, by what you made. The only one who was hurt was you, and that’s because you take it all harder than you should. It’ll take some time for you to get used to it, that’s all, and t
o find where your true gift lies, the one you can serve the people with—aside from the one that keeps us in pots and jars, that is. I am beginning to believe that your strength is in reinforcing, in bolstering what is already there—that’s why those bowls only work for those who already want to go, not for those who don’t. Your hands give form, they shape what is there—and what’s more, where there is damage, at times they can heal. They make whole.”
Guy had sat back down in the chair by the table, as if his weight was too much for his legs to bear. He drew his hand down over his face, trying to rub away the strain and fatigue of all he had heard and felt in the last few hours. Cat gazed at him absentmindedly, Ouska’s words running through her head. Suddenly she gave a little snort of laughter. The others looked at her in surprise.
“Sorry,” she said. “I just had an irreverent thought. You said you’re dyslexic, Guy, right?”
“Dys-what?”
“You said you have trouble reading because the letters jump around on the page? We call that ‘dyslexic’ where I come from. It usually means you have trouble spelling, too.” He nodded with a slight frown, trying to follow her train of thought. “Well, it seems your gift is dyslexic, too! You’re meant to be a healer, a whole-maker, w-h-o-l-e”—she flexed the fingers of her right hand which he had hurt and healed so recently—“but instead, you’ve become a hole-maker, h-o-l-e—that’s why there have been holes in your pottery ever since you turned twenty-eight!”
Sepp looked from Cat to his brother, his lopsided grin forcing its way out of the corner of his mouth. He tried to suppress a chortle. Guy’s expression changed from consternation to surprise to dawning comprehension, until he shook his head and dropped his face into his hands in helpless amusement.
Ouska chuckled as well. She swung her cloak across her shoulders and picked up her lantern. Turning up the flame a little, she shone its light on the little girl on the bed, smiled, then turned to look at her nephews. Sepp laughed up into her face, and she smiled at him in return.
Then she turned to Guy. She laid her hand on his shoulder and looked down into his face, a tender look full of pride and pleasure. Cat was not sure if the wisewoman said the words aloud, but she heard them as clearly as if Ouska had spoken them right beside her ear.
You can heal now, son.
Then she turned to Cat, and brown eyes looked straight into brown. A look passed between them as between equals.
You will care for them, the look said, I can trust you.
You can trust me, Cat’s eyes answered back. I will care for them.
Ouska turned, and lighted her way out of the cottage into the night.