Once or twice she encountered Binna or Werf on her solitary walks. She transgressed politeness to ask them a few things about old times and the Servants of Abricor. They were not reluctant to talk, merely distressed by it, their pain so palpable that she gave it up. What she had learned from them was already a lumpish knot in her throat, confirming her knowledge that in the Tower she had been used and lied to.
Pamra found a favorite place along the shore, high among a cluster of lichened stones. It was almost a little room, sheltered from the sky, with a tiny moss yard and minuscule pool of rainwater. Here Lila could lie for long hours on the moss, singing her drawn-out notes of gladness. Pamra merely sat, hypnotized by the sound and the River flow.
It was there that Neff came.
She arrived at her sitting place one afternoon to find a spray of flowers laid upon the moss, a delicate crimson bouquet tied with a knot of violet grass, the whole displayed as in a picture. Someone.
From the top of the rock she searched the area. He was sitting on the River shore, face turned from her as though to make it easy for her not to see him. She did see him, and the frustration that had simmered in her for days brought a flush to her cheeks. She would not take part in this silly custom of silence when he had been so thoughtful. She waved, beckoned, called, “Come up!”
He came leaping up the rocks in one flowing motion of power, posed upon the ridge in a posture so unconsciously graceful that she drew breath, belly clenching and loosing like a knot untied. “Artist’s blood,” they might have called such a feeling on the Northshore. “Artist’s eyes,” Thrasne would have said. She was not thinking of Thrasne; she was breathing deeply, almost unaware of her own body.
She motioned to the rock across from her, a flat place with a convenient arm and back for leaning, her own favorite seat. He sat there, looking at her from enormous eyes. “You’re Neff,” she said. “Aren’t you.” He would not speak, she thought, unless she spoke to him first. “Yes,” he said in his bell voice. “Neff!” “Your mother has been very kind to me. Won’t you tell me something about that dance you did the other day? It was very beautiful.”
“Just the dance.” He turned away in shyness, looking at her from one eye only. “The dance we do.”
“I see.” She was at a loss. “We have no dances like that on the Northshore. At least none I have seen.”
“Tell me of the Northshore,” he begged, the words tumbling over one another in their eagerness. “Tell me of the Northshore. There! Over there!”
Poor thing, she thought with immediate sympathy. He’s an explorer at heart. She told him about the Northshore. Wary of those subjects that caused discomfort, she did not speak of the Awakeners or the Servants of Abricor, but of more usual things. Festivals. The Candy Tree. Planting pamet and gathering the ripe pods. Fruit harvest in the puncon groves. As she spoke, she realized how little she actually knew of the life of the people. All her memories were of childhood, before entering the Tower. She could not share with him any memories after that.
“The one who brought you, will he come back for you?”
“Yes. He’ll be back. When the boat is fixed.”
“Would you-would he let me see the boat?”
“Haven’t you seen boats before? Haven’t you seen them when they come to pick up the dye shells?”
“I mean, would he let me go on it? See it? See the inside of it?”
“I’m sure he would.” If those biddies will let you, she thought. “Would that be all right with the … others?”
He shook his head, the edges of his beak flushing as though rouged. “Mother wouldn’t let me.”
“We’ll have to arrange it without her knowing, then.” There it was, out in the open. Rebellion.
He seemed frightened by this; frightened and stimulated at the same time. He stood, posing, stamped, extended his wings, looked at her flirtatiously out of one eye. Then she blushed, and he turned away, as suddenly shy. “That would be wonderful. Please. Do that.” He jittered from foot to foot, finally murmuring, “I have to go now.” He sped away down the rocks.