Safety Assured Leaving East of Medicetti

They weren’t going to get settled that first day, because, as Yudit had predicted, a few people stopped by. After Shem had gone home, and Yudit and Noch went next door to help with Jaytsy and Deck’s house, Mahrree had hoped for a few quiet minutes to lock herself in her new pantry to tell the Creator that she finally understood what He’d been trying to show her for so many years, and that she was overwhelmed by the enormity of His gift. That she ever entertained the thought of being mistress of the mansion in Idumea seemed preposterous compared to the beautiful valley, tall wood home, and enormous gardens they had today.

  But the Creator wasn’t finished yet. Soon after the Zenoses left, Salemites streamed to the house by the dozens. Mahrree met teachers, Jaytsy met new mothers, Deck met ranchers, and Peto met new foods in the eating room where everyone dropped off something for the family to ‘get by on.’ They had enough that half of Edge could ‘get by’ for several days. Peto sat happily at the broad table sampling Salem’s cooking. His newest favorite was a kind of cake made out of a soft cheese.

  “Shem was right,” he said after another helping loaded with preserved berries, “this place is Paradise.”

  Perrin spent the day meeting people who had passed through Edge on their way to Salem. He even became acquainted with the family from Quake, the couple with two little boys that Fadh’s wife had mourned over just before the attack on Moorland.

  “She was the only person who greeted us when we moved in at Quake,” the mother said. “The only one who showed any interest in us. I feel awful that she mourned our loss. We even named our daughter after her. I hope someday she might know we’re fine.”

  Perrin only nodded, knowing Mrs. Fadh would likely never know that a little girl in Salem was named Shaleea.

  The visitors poured in all day with welcomes and thanks and stories about how they left the world. An older man who was friends with Yordin’s grandparents verified Jothan’s story. King Querul the Third had been threatening Gari Yordin’s grandfather, and was just days away from stealing young Gari to hold him hostage until his grandfather figured out what metals would blend into gold. The elder Yordins vanished to Salem just in time.

  Over the years they had received updates from scouts about their family. When Gari went to Command School, his grandfather was furious to realize his grandson would be pledging allegiance to the son of the king he escaped. But he was also proud of his grandson’s accomplishments, and just before Grandfather Yordin passed away, he learned about Gari being appointed as commander of the fort at Mountseen.

  Perrin also met men who had served under Pere and Relf Shin. He asked them to write down their memories so he could compile them for the generals’ descendants. When Perrin and Mahrree stood on their wide front porch waving goodbye to a great-grandfather who worked for the garrison’s surgeon when Perrin was eleven—and helped set Perrin’s finger that he dislocated after he jumped off the garrison wall trying to make a point to a young Versula Cush—Perrin whispered, “I feel like I’m at a reunion for a family we didn’t know we had. Amazing!”

  Even Rector Yung dropped by with a very apologetic Rector Chame who, once more, told Perrin how sorry he was for causing that wagon jam in Edge before the offensive at Moorland.

  But Yung, his eyes twinkling merrily, hugged Perrin and said, “I told you we would meet again sometime. See why I was traveling light when I stopped by to say farewell? Everything I need is here!”

  Mahrree teared up as he approached her. “Mrs. Shin, I have something to say to you. ‘There will be a day when you will be ready to leave it all behind and embrace the truth. Until then, think of this night never again. Should your mind ever find itself surprised by this memory . . .’”

  Mahrree laughed through her tears as she hugged their rector. “To think, I met your wife all those years ago.”

  Rector Yung chuckled as he pulled out of her embrace. “I memorized her speech for you. She gave me a copy the morning after she met you. I think she knew—” he stopped to clear his throat. In a softer voice he said, “I think she knew she’d be watching this development from the other side. But she knows you’re here,” he said with tears in his eyes. “And she’s thrilled you made it to Salem! The reunion that she and Dormin must be having . . . I like to think they’re over there at that boulder, chatting and laughing and watching us—”

  Neither Mahrree nor Rector Yung could speak anymore. They just put their arms around each other and wept in joyful misery.

  “So does everyone know us?” Peto asked later that day, breaking away from the table to watch his family wave goodbye to yet another man whose grandfather served under General Pere Shin. Peto chewed on a chicken leg, not noticing the young mother who was talking with his sister.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, we do,” she said. She was in her late twenties and had two quiet children holding on to her cotton skirt. “You are Peto, and you love to eat.”

  “Well, that was easy to guess,” Peto said, unimpressed as he tore off another piece of meat from the bone.

  “My name’s Anne, and it’s also right here.” She pulled a piece of thin folded paper from her skirt pocket. “Yesterday’s news update. All of you are in it.”

  Perrin groaned. “Let me see that, please. I had a suspicion.” He took the paper from Anne, unfolded it, and his family huddled around to read. It was an unusual document, with yesterday’s date on the top, and several columns of information below. In prominence was, “Shin Family Escapes to Salem—Arrival in the Morning.”

  “What exactly is this?” Mahrree asked.

  “Newspaper,” Anne said. “My husband is working on tomorrow’s edition, or he’d be here to meet you. He was hoping he could schedule some time to do a proper interview?”

  The Shins shrugged in reluctant agreement, unsure of what that meant but not feeling they should disappoint anyone today.

  “He’ll come by to ask you questions,” Anne explained. “This is how we get news to everyone in Salem. Don’t worry—every refugee from the world is interviewed.”

  Perrin was shaking his head. “This makes us sound like some kind of . . . heroes or something.”

  “You are,” said Anne. “Everyone who escapes from the world is. But Mr. Shin, your family means everything to Salem.” Her voice quieted, and Perrin looked up from the paper to see why. “We’ve known your trials over the years, and what you’ve done for us, too, albeit unintentionally. And we know what you will become for us.”

  Perrin squinted suspiciously.

  Anne continued. “We’ve even prayed for your family, and when you resigned from the army, all of Salem fasted for you to ask the Creator to keep you and your family safe from the Administrators.”

  Perrin swallowed and looked down at the newspaper. There was an update about improving sheep health that seemed interesting.

  “Fasted?” Peto said. “Shem mentioned he did that, too.”

  Anne nodded. “We all went without food while we prayed for all of you, for a full day and night.”

  Peto guiltily analyzed the chicken leg in his hands.

  “But don’t worry, we’re not fasting today,” Anne assured him.

  “Glad to hear it,” Deck said, as uncomfortable as Perrin, and equally as grateful. “Thank you.”

  “Yes,” Mahrree whispered. “Maybe your husband can write that for the paper? That we’re overwhelmed with all you’ve done for us?”

  Perrin cleared his throat in agreement.

  “I’ll make sure it gets in,” she promised. “While he writes the column, I’m the local editor. Nothing gets printed from our section of Salem until I approve it. Then it goes to be typeset.”

  Perrin looked closer at the paper. “This isn’t woodcut? Of course not,” he answered his own question.

  “We have thousands of letters and even short words already set in lead, which holds up much longer than the woodcuts used in the world,” Anne explained. “We have typesetters who can lay out a sheet of news quite quickly. Then we ink the letters,
press down the paper, and distribute to Salem three times a week. You may keep that copy, if you wish. We have all the back copies bound in the library. You can read what we printed about you in the past.”

  Jaytsy giggled at the pained expressions on her parents. “You mean there’s more about us?”

  Anne nodded, almost apologetically. “You’ve become our best story. If you don’t want that copy, turn it back to the news deliverer when she drops off the next one. We shred the old copies into new pulp and into newspapers again.”

  Perrin turned over the paper in his hands. “So this has been around before?”

  “Segments of that paper may have been around for years,” Anne told him. “Since when we first began to write about the Shin family.”

  Perrin just rubbed his forehead.

  Once the press of visitors died down, Mahrree finally paid attention to a man she’d noticed hanging around for the past several hours, usually sitting under a tree, and with a stack of papers and a box of charcoal. Frequently visitors stopped to talk to him, stood in front of him for a few minutes, then went on their way.

  Perrin had been eyeing him too, and before he could march over to find out what the man was up to, he had gathered his supplies and came up to their porch.

  “It seems it’s now my turn to introduce myself. My name’s Davinch, and I’m a portrait artist.”

  Perrin folded his arms. “A what?”

  But Davinch was already making his way to their sofas, since the table was full of food, and he laid out the pages.

  “Oh . . . my,” was all Mahrree could say to the striking images that fairly leaped at them.

  “That’s me!” Peto exclaimed as he examined a sketch of him sitting at the table and happily gorging himself. “So that was you peering through the windows?”

  Davinch chuckled. “I try to draw people in action. We want to help you commemorate your first day in Salem, so one of us in our artists’ group spends the day drawing those who come visit you, as well as your reactions.”

  Perrin gingerly picked up a larger, detailed picture of him and Mahrree standing on the porch. She was cheerfully waving to someone, and he had his arm around her.

  And he was smiling, Mahrree noted. His real smile, not The Dinner smile or any other practiced turn of his mouth. His real, devastating smile which, even on the page, made her knees go weak.

  “That’s my favorite,” Davinch said. “I’ll be taking that back with me for a few weeks so I can reference it for a painting.”

  Perrin looked up, surprised. “A painting?”

  “I know in the world paintings are for only the wealthiest or highest ranked, but here in Salem everyone has a painting of themselves, often at different ages, for the walls.” Davinch gestured to theirs. “Look a bit bare, don’t they? All of these are yours,” he nodded to a drawing Jaytsy was holding which showed her and Deck surveying their new lands. “But if you don’t mind, I’ll bring them to my brother who’s a framer, first. We don’t want the charcoal to smear.”

  “A framer?” Deck asked, looking at a sketch of him talking with Boskos Zenos, who had dropped by to show Deck around the ranch.

  “You’ll see,” Davinch assured them. “You’ll have them all back in a few days.”

  “Remarkable,” Mahrree breathed, admiring a hasty yet lifelike sketch of Perrin chatting with a couple while Mahrree was shaking hands with their new rector. “How do you do this?”

  “It’s a gift,” he said humbly. “One which I spend hours each day improving. I’ll do a painting of each of you—”

  “This one,” Perrin said, picking up another of Peto. “But without him ready to shove that pie into his face? Can you do that?”

  Davinch nodded at the detailed drawing of Peto sitting on the front porch railing. “Not a problem.”

  “Good,” Perrin said, grinning. “These are excellent. Did you know there was a portrait of my grandfather down in Idumea? But the proportions were a bit off.”

  “Was he more slender?” Mahrree asked.

  “Oh, no. Not one bit. The only thing that artist got right were his eyes. But these? I feel like I’m looking into a mirror that reflects only blacks and whites.”

  Davinch blushed with modest pride. “Then you’ll love the full color paintings even more. Mr. and Mrs. Briter? Which one do you want as a painting of you two? And Mrs. Briter, it’s up to you if you want your full belly in it or not.”

  Jaytsy decided on a portrait from the shoulders up, and Davinch agreed to come back in several moons to do a drawing of their baby. He labeled the dozens of drawings he’d made with the names of those who had visited, then carefully gathered them back to bring them to his brother’s for framing, whatever that meant.

  There was another visitor waiting on their front porch, with a broad grin focused on Mahrree. “You’re the woman I’ve been eager to meet for many years!” he exclaimed as he walked into the house.

  Mahrree was taken aback. So far most everyone had wanted to meet her husband.

  Perrin watched the man, about his age, who gazed fondly upon his wife. Tucked under his arm was a large bound book.

  Mahrree eyed it as he held it out to her.

  “Is this what I think it is?” Mahrree asked, hoping it was a new edition of The Writings.

  “Probably not,” the man said. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Professor Kopersee, and I’m the director of World History at the university. And this,” he waved the book, “is a pathetic and incomplete piece of writing, authored by yours truly. I do my best to cobble together what we know of the world into some kind of text for our students. But you, my dear Mrs. Shin—”

  It was only because his ardor was so wholly academic that Perrin silently sniggered instead of becoming worried that this balding, portly man was after his wife.

  “—you, YOU lived it all! Shem told me of your library loaded with history books, and that there was no one who knew the world like you do. And so I’m here to ask you—no, to plead with you: will you write our next history text?”

  The man swayed, as if he were about to fall to his knees right there in front of her, and Mahrree chuckled nervously at his earnestness, until he added, “My wife won’t let me back into the house until you agree. She doesn’t want me trying to write another book. Ever.”

  Mahrree laughed. “Well, of course! I mean, I’ll try my best, but I doubt my version of history will be too objective. At the end, we created the history.”

  “The most compelling versions of history must come from the victims of it,” Professor Kopersee declared. “Don’t you think?”

  Mahrree shrugged and held her hands out for the text. “May I see what you’ve already put together?”

  “Of course. Everything from Chapters 10 to 23 is my rubbish. Before that is history that we believe is fairly accurate, from when our ancestors were still in the world.”

  Mahrree thumbed through the pages. “Salem! The beginning of it! Now there’s something I know nothing about.”

  “You don’t?” Kopersee said. “That’s right, you were given the brief, ‘You’re coming to Salem tomorrow’ lecture. You probably don’t even know what Salem means.”

  Perrin frowned. “What Salem means? I thought it was just a name Guide Pax came up with.”

  Kopersee grinned. “Not at all. Salem is an acronym.”

  “A what?”

  “You know, taking a string of words and reducing it to a representative word? Originally it was a code. ‘Salem’ was one of several words we devised, back when King Querul was on the hunt for the followers of The Writings—”

  “Wait a minute,” Perrin said. “Querul actively hunted followers of The Writings?”

  “Of course,” Kopersee said. “Why do you think our ancestors ran away? That’ll be your first reading assignment, Mr. Shin. I’ll write you up a study plan.” Ignoring Perrin’s astonished expression that he’d just been given homework, Kopersee went on. “I’ll give you the abbreviated version. Querul and
Pax had been arguing. Pax tried to convince Querul that the Great War was primarily Querul’s fault, and Pax wanted nothing more to do with him. Querul knew Pax wanted to leave the world, and take his followers with him, but Querul couldn’t allow so many people to leave. Who’d be his laborers if part of the population up and left?

  “So Pax started sending out scouts in secret, looking for ways to leave the world to somewhere Querul would never find them. Pax and his twelve assistants had a few theories where they could go, and created codes for those places. The code for Salem was, Safety Assured Leaving East of Medicetti.”

  Perrin scowled. “East? But we went north! And who was Medicetti? And your ancestors came up with the first codes? We thought it was Querul, and then the Guarders!”

  Kopersee grinned. “You’ll love Chapter 9, Mr. Shin. Write up a summary for me, and I can check it next week to make sure you didn’t miss anything good. Anyway,” he turned back to Mahrree who tried to keep a straight face. “There were four routes suggested. To Terryp’s land in the west, to the far southwest, to the east on the sea, and to the north,” he nodded to Perrin. “In case there were any spies among Pax’s followers, Pax mixed up the codes even more. He shifted direction headings, so that north became east. Anyone reading ‘east’ would know that he really meant ‘north,’ and ‘north’ became ‘west’ and so forth—”

  Mahrree knew the first person who would read the chapter would be her, because Kopersee was obviously skipping details.

  “—Pax also scrambled up the names of the areas he suggested fleeing to. He suspected that behind Mt. Deceit would be a good area, so he scrambled up its letters to become Medicetti.”

  “No, no, no,” Perrin said. “I know a bit about history as well, and Mt. Deceit didn’t get its name until after Querul ‘lost’ Pax in there. It was called Deceit because Pax was betrayed and deceived there by his men who killed him . . .”

  Perrin’s voice trailed off as he realized that the history he knew had been heavily influenced by Querul.

  “Just never mind,” he added. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. Maybe I should read Chapter 8 as well?”

  “You should. That’s where you’ll learn that Deceit was given that name a few decades before the Great War, when it rumbled and spewed out smoke and ash for a few days. Everyone started saying that for a mountain, it was deceitful. Begin with Chapter 7, though, Mr. Shin.”

  Perrin dutifully nodded.

  “So,” Kopersee turned back to Mahrree, “word went out among our people, along with portions of the reward gold Querul had given his guards who had ‘killed’ Pax, not realizing that those same guards were followers who had saved Pax, not eliminated him for Querul as he had insisted—”

  Mahrree wondered if Kopersee’s book was as clipped and rapid as the man who authored it.

  “—now it was those guards, remember, who slipped out among the world in secret, passing along the code to those ready to follow Pax. And all they said, as they handed over slips of gold to allow them to buy supplies, was Salem.”

  “Did Querul never catch on to the code word?” Perrin wondered, and immediately regretted opening his mouth.

  Kopersee tapped the book again. “In Chapter 9, sir. Quiz next week. But yes, he did, near the end. He sent soldiers to every eastern village looking for someone named Medicetti. Even had soldiers poking around Edge for a while which, for some families, was a trailhead to Salem. But most everyone slipped out by Moorland or above Sands in the west. Soldiers made lists of everyone’s names, looking for Medicetti. That’s when people started changing their names, especially those whose families had already fled to Salem. Lopped off a few letters at the beginning or the end—”

  “Wait, people changed their names?” Perrin asked, then nodded. “I know—read Chapter 9, summary and quiz to follow.”

  “—quiz to follow, yes. Of course they did,” Kopersee said. “Many in the world have last names that are shorter than they originally were. And I doubt any of them know that. Querul took all of the family lines, you know, claiming to want to combine and distribute them, but he was really just trying to destroy their history. Then he could create his own. His-story, if you will. He who controls the world controls its perception of it.” He grinned. “That was my preface to the latest edition.” The grin faded. “A little trite, though, now that I hear it out loud. Mrs. Shin? Please help?”

  “Will I be quizzed on all of this?” she tried not to smile.

  “Of course not. I trust you completely.”

  Perrin cleared his throat, offended, but bursting with a question. “But the letters in Mt. Deceit—they don’t add up to create ‘Medicetti.’ There’s an extra ‘i’.”

  Kopersee regarded him with renewed interest. “So you’re more than just a blustering officer? You’ve got some brains, too, do you?”

  Behind his father, Peto was covering his mouth in an attempt to muffle his laughter.

  “You’re correct, sir,” Kopersee said. “Does that happen often for you? Pax added the extra ‘i’ just in case Querul figured out it was a code and tried to decipher it. Throw in extra letters for extra confusion.”

  He turned to Mahrree. “Here’s my office number at the university,” he handed her a slip of paper, “and please let me know how I can help. We should begin planning your writing schedule, and—”

  As much as Mahrree wanted to write the history, planning it on the first day in Salem was more than she was ready for.

  She was thrilled to spy a teenage boy at the open door, knocking on the frame and saying, “Excuse me, but I’ve been sent to fetch the Shin and Briter families. My great-grandma Gleace is almost finished making dinner.”

  Professor Kopersee enthusiastically shook all of their hands. “My cue to head home. Mrs. Shin, I’ll be in contact. Mr. Shin, Chapter 9,” he reminded Perrin.

  “What about the rest of my family,” he said, only half in jest. “Don’t they get a homework assignment?”

  The professor shrugged. “Sure, if they want it, but it’s you, sir, who most needs these chapters.”

  Ignoring the chuckling of his family, Perrin asked, “Why me?”

  “Because of who you are, sir!” Kopersee declared. He nodded a farewell to Mahrree, and as he headed out the door he called, “And welcome to Salem, where your safety is assured! With an extra ‘I’!”

  “Well, how do you like that!” Perrin exclaimed as the man trotted to the road. “Because of who I am? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Gleace’s great-grandson said, “Did he assign you an essay?”

  “No, but a summary and a quiz.”

  “You got off pretty easy then, Mr. Shin. But I’ve heard from my aunt that his quizzes are tough, so take notes.”

  Ignoring Perrin’s scoff, Mahrree turned to the Gleace’s great-grandson. “How should we dress for dinner?”

  He frowned at the question as if it were the strangest thing he’d heard in years. “Probably in clothes?”

  Mahrree chuckled. “Sorry, but in the world having dinner with someone important requires a change of clothing.”

  The boy’s frown deepened. “Why?”

  “Good question!” Peto said.

  “Maybe we should change out of our breeches?” Jaytsy said.

  “Do you have cow muck on you?” the boy wondered. “Granny Gleace doesn’t like people smelling like cow muck at the table.”

  “Neither do I,” Jaytsy chuckled. “No muck, but I’ll feel better in a clean skirt.”

  She and Mahrree headed upstairs, and Mahrree remembered The Dinner, and how none of her new plain clothing would have been worthy of even the stables—

  That’s when she realized she hadn’t even noticed what their visitors wore that day, because she noticed the people, not their clothes.

  As the Briters and Shins walked with the Gleace’s great-grandson to a property a mile and a half to the southwest, Mahrree surveyed the neighborhoods, expecting to come closer to an area of splendor, akin
to the mansion district of Idumea. The Creator’s Guide surely would live in the grandest home, in keeping with his position: the Creator’s Chairman, so to speak, with his own set of twelve administrators, called Assistants.

  After a mile she realized that every neighborhood was the same: large gardens with ample space around homes, all kept in good repair. No house was impoverished, or even a bit disheveled like their place in Edge. Perhaps those were in a different section of Salem—

  Or perhaps, the thought struck her, they didn’t exist at all.

  Mahrree didn’t have time to ponder that because their guide for the guide announced their arrival.

  But . . . no. Surely, not that—

  Between two ranches with sprawling houses sat a tiny cottage.

  The young man bid them farewell and headed to one of the houses, and the Shins and Briters hesitantly continued on to the tidy little house.

  The plain door flew open, and warmth poured out.

  “Welcome, welcome!” cried Mrs. Gleace. Her white hair was pulled into a loose bun and she wore a pale yellow dress, looking like sunshine personified. “You have no idea how long we’ve waited for you! I mean, not tonight of course, but for these past many years.” Her eyes were as kind as her husband’s, and she caught Mahrree in a hug. “I can’t believe I’m able to finally greet Mrs. Shin herself.”

  “It’s Mahrree, please.”

  Mrs. Gleace turned to Perrin with the playful expression of one who was going to get her way, even if she had to sweetly guilt someone into it. “I suspect you’re not one for being hugged by strangers, but may I anyway? I feel like you’re my long lost son.”

  Perrin was too smart to say anything else but, “How can I possibly say no to that?”

  She was hugging Peto, after Jaytsy and Deck, when Guide Gleace came to the door, wiping his hands on a cloth as if he had just changed and washed up. Considering his occupation, Mahrree was sure he’d been smelling like cow muck quite recently.

  “Dearest, these poor people will starve before you finish telling them how happy you are they arrived.”

  “No chance of that, sir,” Peto said, “this place has kept us well stocked.”

  “True. One thing you won’t do in Salem is starve,” the guide smiled as he led them into the gathering room.

  If it were big enough to be called a room. Mahrree was struck by how the cheery house was just the right size for two people.

  Hycymum Peto would have had a difficult time living here, Mahrree thought with a brief and sad smile.

  “I understand many houses in the world are far larger,” Mrs. Gleace explained as she saw Mahrree take in her surroundings: four rooms and little else. “But we don’t need things that just sit and do nothing. If we keep our home small, we keep our desires small as well. If I have a dozen people to dinner, I use my daughter’s eating room instead,” she gestured in the direction of one of the houses they passed. “It may take a little getting used to, our simpler way of life,” she continued. “But in time you’ll find it easier. I imagine this house seems quite dull compared to, well, you see, we’ve heard about the High General’s mansion—”

  “Which I gladly turned down,” Perrin said to her. “No man should live like a king. And that’s what it was: a house for a king.”

  “Actually,” Peto began with a smirk, “it was originally a house for the king’s mistress—”

  “Not now, Peto!” Mahrree cut him off.

  Mrs. Gleace wasn’t as shocked as Mahrree feared she would be. “I know about that as well,” she nodded. “His mistress was a dreadful woman,” she said to Peto in a loud whisper. “One of our scouts worked in the stables before she left Oren. He said she was mean-spirited and looked something like this,” and Mrs. Gleace pulled a face that made Peto laugh.

  Mahrree was impressed. Very few older women in the world would care about making a teenage boy feel comfortable.

  “And Dormin agreed,” Mrs. Gleace said, her voice twinged with remorse. “He said his mother wasn’t the most pleasant creature. I’m sure he’s making peace with her now. I’m sure he’s doing all kinds of wonderful things in Paradise.”

  “He is,” Guide Gleace said in the silence that followed, and it seemed to Mahrree that he knew that for a fact.

  “We’ve had people in Idumea for a long time,” Guide Gleace explained, gently shifting the topic to lift the mood. “Working in the stables, in the kitchens, as servants, and midwives, and recorders—‘invisible’ people hear many things. A few had been in the mansion, before and after the king’s acquaintances.”

  “Any that I might have met?” Perrin asked.

  “Perhaps. We had two working at the mansion when your parents first moved in. But then the excitement shifted to the new Administrative Headquarters, and we pulled them out to work there instead.”

  “Amazing,” Perrin whispered for maybe the fifty-seventh time that day.

  “While the mansion was beautiful and grand, I don’t know that I ever would have been comfortable in it,” Mahrree said. “We were accustomed to our little house. We had the opportunity to buy something bigger, but it never felt right. Maybe because we always felt the need to rebel against whatever anyone told us we should do.”

  Her husband winked at her in agreement.

  “But Mrs. Gleace,” Mahrree said, “I must admit that two nights ago I shed a few tears about all that I was leaving behind. But now that it is behind, I’m already forgetting what I was sure I could never live without.”

  “See?” the guide said, “You do belong here. Leaving behind the world was no sacrifice at all. You’ll wish you could have done it sooner. Now, speaking of doing things sooner, let’s eat. You may be filled, Mr. Peto, but I’ve been delivering calves since this morning, and calves don’t care what time a man gets hungry.”

  “He’s just a regular man, isn’t he?” Jaytsy whispered to her mother as they followed them to their small eating room. “Hew Gleace? Except when I look in his eyes. There’s definitely something more going on in there.”

  The guide gestured for them to take their seats, but he caught Peto by the shoulder. “I just want you to know, young Mr. Shin,” he said quietly, “that I’m ready for you.”

  Startled, Peto said, “I’m sorry, what?”

  “You have a lot of questions, and you’re the kind of person who wants to push something as far as he can. Well, I hereby give you permission to do so. Throw at me all you’ve got. I’m ready.” Gleace smiled and waggled his eyebrows.

  Peto glanced worriedly at his parents, who were sitting down and wondering why he wasn’t. “Did Shem or Jothan warn you about me?” he whispered.

  “I haven’t spoken to either of them since last night.”

  “So . . . who—”

  “I just know your type,” Gleace said, giving his arm a friendly squeeze before releasing him. “I’ve been doing this for many years.”

  Peto chanced a smile.

  “So don’t disappoint me, Peto.”

  “Well, then, I won’t, sir!”

  Gleace took his seat. “Because it was the Creator who warned me about you,” he said casually.

  Peto nearly fell off his chair.

  Chapter 13--“Everything has been given to us freely.”