Frenne stopped talking and glanced sideways again to gauge her daughter’s reaction.

  “I hope they find her soon,” Lacht said evenly.

  “Me too,” she agreed, breathing easier. “Your father is waiting at the message box along with the Burkin Village wise ones. They want to express their deep concern.” She paused, then added, “Crispin and a few of his friends are watching from the shore again.”

  “Are they?” Lacht whispered, and her face twitched.

  “Yes, they sit there and tell scary stories about the Wassandra. Then they accuse each other of being Wet Ones in disguise,” Frenne said, her normally gentle voice hardened with disapproval.

  Lacht’s face twitched one more time before the tears gushed.

  “Don’t worry,” Frenne told her, sorry she’d mentioned anything about Crispin. “The wise ones will handle those young people. They need to grow up a little, that’s all. I’m sure they don’t mean to—”

  “Don’t, Mom,” Lacht said, lips tightening around each word again.

  “Sweetling, what is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  The young woman stood up and wiped her face. “I don’t want to start the inside windows now. I’m going to take a walk. Visit Brownie.”

  The skin on Frenne’s forehead puckered as she watched Lacht go. What on Tarth had happened to her daughter?

  R

  By the time Lacht reached the shop, she had herself under control. Nobody was in the yard, so she sat on the bottom porch step and took a deep breath. A nose nudged one of her hands.

  “Well, Brownie, you came out on your own this time. What a good brave boy,” she said with surprised pleasure.

  “Who’s a good brave boy?” asked a voice from inside the shop, and Ploddin limped onto the porch.

  “Brownie is, yes he is,” she answered, crooning over the brown head raised trustingly toward her.

  Ploddin snorted and stated loudly, “He’s a timidog!”

  Lacht raised a scowling face, but she had to laugh when she saw the young blacksmith’s grin. “Stop teasing. Brownie’s made great progress, and you know it!”

  He promptly agreed. “It’s phenomenal. I told you he follows you home every night.”

  “But I’ve never seen him do it,” she complained, “and I’d love to show him off. The Root people always preferred big gray dogs with long hair. My family’s never even seen a shorthaired, brown dog—I’m sure they’re very rare.”

  “Give him more time. He’ll come around,” Ploddin suggested. He made his way down the steps. “You’re early today.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m escaping window washing,” she said absently.

  “Ugh,” he grunted and limped his way across the yard. “I finished the plow yesterday. Want to see it?”

  She followed him to one side of the forge and stood silently in front of the twisted jumble of iron. “Does it work?” she finally asked.

  “I don’t know,” admitted Ploddin, looking up at the sky and rubbing his chin as if in deep thought. “I’d like to check it out, but I need a yard that needs to be plowed. Know of one?”

  Lacht grinned. “”Anytime! The dirt clumps in our yard deliberately harden when I walk by. I’ve seen them do it; I have!”

  “Your mother invited Crispin and me for supper tonight. Why don’t I come midafternoon and make those clumps behave?”

  “Yes!” she enthused, smacking one fist into the other, and Ploddin grinned again.

  “Want some lunch?” he asked next.

  “Is it lunchtime? I guess I am early,” she said in embarrassment.

  “Go sit by the timidog. I’ll bring it out,” he told her.

  She watched him limp toward the cottage. “I could help,” she offered.

  “No. I may not walk right, but I can put a sandwich together,” he replied without turning his head.

  Lacht followed him to the porch steps, shaking her head the whole way. She’d thought they’d gotten beyond the sourplum speeches. When Brownie poked his head between two steps, she rubbed behind his ears.

  “You’re not an old grump, are you, Brownie?”

  An immediate rejoinder came from inside the cottage. “I heard that. Visitors who call me names get sawdust in their sandwiches.”

  She started to laugh and then stiffened.

  A group was coming down the road—a large group from the sound of it. Brownie’s nose disappeared under the porch, and Lacht wished she could follow it. She sat on the bottom step and tried to keep her face from twitching.

  Crispin and his two friends rounded a corner and shouted when they saw her.

  “Lacht, you should have waited with us. The Wassandra came back to the message box,” Crispin called in his trumpet voice.

  “Well, did you see what they looked like this time?” she asked, not knowing whether to twitch or smile.

  Crispin made her feel like doing both. She couldn’t help but enjoy the young Stalli man’s exuberance. He was definitely the handsomest man in Burkin Village.

  He groaned. “We didn’t see anything at all. The wise ones wouldn’t let us on the pier, and the Wassandra didn’t come out of the water again.”

  Ploddin stumped his way outside with a tray of sandwiches, and Crispin cheered loudly. He took the tray from his brother, passing it around to everyone, as if personally responsible for each and every sandwich.

  “Take all you want. There’s more where these came from” he urged them generously.

  Lacht glanced at Ploddin. Did he ever resent his brother’s ways?

  Ploddin had taken a sandwich to one of the porch chairs. He didn’t look sour exactly, just resigned.

  “Ploddin, are there any more sandwiches?” one of the young men had the nerve to ask.

  “Fixings are in the kitchen,” he answered, his body settling deeper into the chair, and his face losing the resigned look as it puckered into familiar lines.

  “I make the best sandwiches in Stalli. Come on, I’ll show you how,” boasted Crispin, hand flourishing high in the air.

  Crispin and his friends rushed up the steps and into the cottage, but Lacht stayed in the yard.

  Ploddin glanced at her.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think he means—”

  “I know,” he interrupted. “He doesn’t.”

  Neither of them had anything further to say. They finished eating their sandwiches. Then Ploddin pushed himself up and brushed off some stray crumbs.

  “Something to drink?” he asked.

  Lacht opened her mouth, but before she could respond, Crispin, followed by his friends, came outside carrying a tray filled with steaming cups.

  “I made tea. You have to boil the water, steep the tea leaves for exactly two minutes, and add a dollop of honey. Here you go. Have a cup of the best tea in Stalli!” the handsome young man said.

  Lacht thanked him as she took a cup. Ploddin just took a cup.

  Then Crispin announced enthusiastically, “We’re going swimming this afternoon. A little cove south of town gets full sun for several hours. You two should go with us! Lacht, it’s quite safe in the cove area and we’ll stay beside you every minute. Ploddin, you work too hard. I’d like to see you have fun every now and then.”

  Lacht jumped up, shaking her head. “I can’t, I have to go home,” she said, her words jerking like hammer strokes. “I— Mom—they need me,” she finished and took three steps before realizing one hand still held the cup of tea.

  “Here,” she said, pushing the cup at Crispin and sloshing hot tea all over her hand.

  “It’s quite—” he started to repeat, but Ploddin said sharply, “Let her go,” and his mouth twisted as if he’d eaten a dozen sourplums, one after another.

  Lacht’s face flushed and she left before they could see her tears.

  “But,” Crispin began, arms going out to either side in bewilderment.

  “Let her go,” snapped his brother again.

  Crispin shook his head and went back into the cottage. Through narrowed eyes, Ploddin watched Lacht go around the corner. He kept looking. Sure enough, a little brown tail whisked across the road after her.

  R

  “It works!” marveled Lacht later that afternoon.

  “Of course, it works,” Ploddin responded, nose rising to a how-could-you-doubt-me level as he surveyed the front yard.

  The plow certainly did work. Lacht was amazed at the hours of work accomplished in minutes.

  “Do the rest of it, sides and back,” she ordered happily.

  The young man’s forehead lifted a little too dramatically for real crossness. “Easy for you to say.”

  “You’re getting supper. You might as well work for it,” she said, trying to stare him down,

  His gaze shifted up to the violet sky. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and she changed tactics.

  “Mom made blueberry pie and whipped cream for dessert,” she coaxed with a sideways tilt of her head toward the kitchen.

  “Blueberry pie! That’s good. That’s very good. What else?”” he repeated, his gaze dropping swiftly.

  Lacht answered brightly, “We had our well cleaned today. No more boiled water! Tonight we’ll have fresh cold water straight from the well.”

  Ploddin’s face went blank.

  “Oh yes,” she said, hiding a smile at his lack of interest in fresh, cold water. “We’re having a roast with potatoes and carrots and onions. Mom will probably make biscuits too, and we’ll have butter and honey.”

  “Biscuits!” he said so loudly that there was no doubt he and Crispin were indeed brothers. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  He turned the plow and started on one of the side yards, while she ran up the porch steps and into the big Stalli kitchen.

  “Mom, you’re making biscuits for supper, aren’t you?” she asked breathlessly. “We need lots of them.”

  “We heard,” answered her mother with a laugh.

  Winnel, busy cutting up carrots at the counter, laughed too. “Better make a double batch,” he advised.

  R

  Aromas from the roast were wafting out the kitchen windows by the time Ploddin finished plowing. He sniffed appreciatively as he stumbled over to the porch where Lacht sat. Silently, she watched him come. All the plowing had made his limp worse, but she knew better than to say anything.

  “If Keshua had made a flower smell like that, I’d plant a flower bed!” he said as he eased himself into the rocking chair next to her.

  “It’d make you hungry all the time,” she disagreed mildly, still feeling bad about his limp.

  They rocked together for a few minutes, then he leaned forward and whispered, “There,” as he pointed to a neighbor’s row of bushes.

  Lacht looked in the direction he’d pointed, but she couldn’t see a thing except for blue leaves.

  “No, he’s gone again,” Ploddin said, settling back into the chair. “He saw me pointing. That dog can melt into the ground. The dark color of the dirt helps camouflage him, which is why Brownie likes to sneak around under bushes where no grass grows.”

  Lacht quit trying to see through leaves. She sniffed and her nose rose to a how-could-you level.

  Ploddin visibly braced himself.

  “If he’d had green hair, you would have named him Greenie,” she told him accusingly. “If he’d had blue hair, he would have been Bluey, and if he’d had gray hair, but no, some things are better left unsaid.” She glanced back in the direction of the bushes, “Anyway, I’m not convinced you really saw him.”

  Ploddin opened his mouth to defend himself, but Irsht came up one road and Crispin down another, and the conversation ended.

  Seven

  Well Water

  “This is delicious,” Crispin told Frenne thirty minutes later as he reached for the big dish of roast in the middle of the table.

  “I’m glad you—” his hostess started to say, but the unfortunate bump of Crispin’s hand against Lacht’s water glass stopped her.

  Water spilled from the overturned glass, ran swiftly across the table, and fell into the Stalli girl’s lap. Everyone except for her tried to grab the glass at the same time.

  “Lacht, I’m sorry,” Crispin kept saying; but she was staring fixedly down at her lap and didn’t hear him.

  Her legs felt wet underneath her dress, soggy wet, and the cold, damp feeling of material clinging to skin was the most delightful thing that had ever happened to her.

  Wasso Lake water became normal water when it was boiled. Crispin had told them that long ago. But this water was—straight from the well and not boiled; and I’m wet everywhere the water fell on me! I’m equally wet everywhere—no strange dry places. Surely that means—.

  She laughed out loud.

  “I’m sorry, Lacht,” Crispin said again.

  This time she heard him. “It’s nothing, Crispin. I’ll go change. Don’t let anybody eat my piece of pie,” she said with such lighthearted abandon that she felt a little faint.

  Beaming the whole way down the hall to her bedroom, she whipped off her wet things and put on dry ones.

  It wasn’t true all along, she sang to herself. I must have imagined it. Irsht is right. I have too much imagination. I’m wet; oh, I’m wet! I’m so very, very wet!

  A few minutes later, she came back to the table, still beaming. Everyone smiled back except for Ploddin, who sat very still, staring at her; staring hard, with an odd look on his face.

  R

  When it was time for dessert, Frenne put an enormous pie plate on the table and served large pieces of pie, topped with hand-whipped cream. Crispin and Ploddin took their first bites and then sat back, half closing their eyes, reveling in the wonderful mixture of blueberries and custard.

  Yes, you can tell they’re brothers, thought Lacht happily as she munched on her own big bite.

  Winnel opened his mouth to compliment his wife on her culinary masterpiece, but Irsht spoke before he could.

  “Can I have another piece?” she asked feverishly.

  “You’ve barely started that one!” her mother answered, scandalized at the question.

  “Yes, I know,” agreed the indomitable young woman, “but I asked first, before anyone else. Remember that!”

  Frenne shook her head at her youngest daughter, while Lacht and Winnel broke into peals of laughter.

  “You two don’t know the epic love story entitled, ‘Irsht Meets Blueberries,”’ Lacht told Crispin and Ploddin.

  She hadn’t talked this freely in days. Hands gesturing in the air, she explained the background to her story.

  “Enormous blueberry bushes grew in the Root Forest wherever enough sunlight came through the trees.”

  “Heavy dews provided daily moisture. All the bushes needed was sunlight,” Winnel explained.

  Lacht nodded and continued, “Not long after we first arrived at the forest, Irsht ran away.”

  “Did not!” her sister placidly interrupted, stuffing another bite of pie into her mouth.

  “Well, we thought she’d run away. Mom and Dad refused to consider the possibility of kidnapping, but I thought differently. Root Forest people, with their large heads and hands, seemed very strange to me. I felt certain they’d taken my sister and were out to get me.”

  “Lacht stayed with us the whole time we searched for Irsht. Everyone was impressed. I hugged her over and over for loving her little sister that much,” Frenne added with a chuckle.

  “I wasn’t about to leave you,” Lacht agreed cheerfully. “I knew they’d get me too, if I did. When we finally found Irsht, she was sitting under a big blueberry bush with three Root children, all of them stuffing in blueberries faster than a scared timidog can run.

  “It was a contest,” Irsht remarked. “I won.”

  “From then on, Irsht has loved blueberries. In every other respect, she is calm and practical, but if she sees a blueberry bush—get out of her way!”

  “All done,” announced Irsht smugly. “Mom?”

  “Our guests,” protested Frenne weakly as Crispin and Ploddin roared with laughter.

  “Divide what’s left into thirds,” Irsht advised her mother. “Give one third to each boy and one to me. You and Dad and Lacht never take a second piece anyway.”

  Frenne shook her head once more but obediently divided up the remainder of the pie.

  “I’ll take that one,” ordered Irsht, pointing toward the biggest piece.

  “They are equal in size,” her mother responded firmly, a warning glint in her eye, “or they will be once I serve them.”

  Irsht lowered her head, accepting the reproof. She also accepted her second serving of pie.

  “Hurry up, Ploddin,” she said then, examining his plate. “Crispin’s way ahead of you.”

  “Ploddin never could eat as quickly as I could,” Crispin bragged. “Our parents said I lifted a fork faster than anyone else in Stalli.”

  “Well,” Lacht stated in Ploddin’s defense, “he lifts a tool faster!”

  “And much more often,” Ploddin dryly commented.

  Crispin grinned as the whole family laughed at him. “I have important things to do, bringing in new customers and keeping old ones. We have a partnership, see!”

  When Ploddin shook his head at his brother, the expression so resembled Frenne’s face when she’d shaken her head at Irsht that Lacht laughed out loud again.

  “If I didn’t know better,” Crispin said, lifting up his water glass and inspecting its contents carefully, “I would think you’d given us well water mixed with water from Wasso Lake. Outbreaks of hysterical laughter, entirely unprovoked, result from drinking that water, I’ve always heard.”

  “Nobody drinks Wasso Lake water. We got this water from our well,” Frenne answered in amusement.

  “But the water’s all, uh, connected,” broke in Lacht, staring back and forth between Crispin and her mother. “I mean, I know our well water’s green, not gold, but water from the lake must mix in with it.”

  “Most streams flow into Wasso Lake and become golden when they get there. Only a few flow out, and those leave from the other side of the lake. The outgoing streams stay gold a couple of miles before they become green again. People say jostling over rocks is what changes the color back, but we don’t really know,” Crispin informed her.