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pocket Feeling a bit guilty at this belated discovery, she gratefully ate every crumb.
Then she made herself a hollow in the sand, pulled the torn cany-sack over her shoulders, and went to sleep.
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Chapter 6
Lord of the Hold, your charge is sure
In thick walls, metal doors, and no verdure.
Threadfall was well past, the flamethrower crews safely back in Half-Circle Hold before anyone missed Menolly. Sella did because she didn’t want to have to tend Old Uncle. He had had another seizure, and someone had to stay by his bedside.
“That’s about all she’s good for now anyway/’ Sella told Mavi and then hastily demurred at her mother’s stern look. “Well, all she does is drag about, cradling that hand of hers as if it were precious. She gets off all the reed work…” Sella let out a heavy sigh.
“We’ve enough trouble this morning what with someone leaving the Hold doors unfastened and Thread falling …” Mavi shuddered at the thought of that brace of horrors; the mere notion of Thread cascading down, able to wriggle within the Hold, turned her stomach. “Go find Menolly and see that she knows what to do in case the old man has another fit.”
It took Sella the better part of an hour to realize that Menolly was neither in the Hold nor among those baiting longlines. She hadn’t been among the flamethrower crews. In fact, no one could remember having seen or spoken to her all day.
“She couldn’t have been out hunting greens like she usually does,” said an old auntie thoughtfully, purs—
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ing her lips. ‘Threadfall was on directly we’d our morning klah. Didn’t see her in the kitchen then, either. And she’s usually so good about helping, one-handed and all that she is, poor dear.”
At first Sella was just annoyed. So like Menolly to be absent when needed. Mavi was a good deal too lenient with the child. Well, if she’d not been in the Hold in the morning, she’d been caught out in the Thread. And that served her right.
Then Sella wasn’t so sure. She began to feel the first vestige of fright. If Menolly had been out during Threadfall, surely there’d be … something … left that Thread couldn’t eat.
Gulping back nausea at that thought, she sought out her brother, Alemi, who was in charge of the flamethrowers.
“Alemi, you didn’t see anything … unusual … when you were ground checking?”
“What do you mean by ‘unusual’?”
“You know, traces …”
“Of what? I’ve no time now for riddles, Sella.”
“I mean, if someone were caught out during Threadfall, how would you know?”
“Whatever are you tacking around?”
“Menolly’s nowhere in the Hold, or the Dock, or anywhere. She wasn’t on any of the teams…”
Alemi frowned. “No, she wasn’t, but I thought Mavi needed her in the Hold for something.”
w… Therel And none of the aunties remember see-
” ing her this morning. And the Hold doors were un-barredl”
-. “You think Menolly left the Hold early?” Alemi realized that a strong, tall girl like Menolly could very easily have managed the door bars. “You know how she’s been since she hurt her hand:
,\ creeping away every chance she gets.”
Alemi did know, for he was fond of his gawky sister,
; -and he particularly missed her singing. He didn’t share Yanus’s reservations about Menolly’s ability. And he
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didn’t honestly agree with Yanus’s decision to keep knowledge of it from the Harper, especially now that there was a Harper in the Hold to keep her in line.
“Well?” Sella’s prompting irritated him out of his thoughts.
“I saw nothing unusual.**
“Would there be something? If Thread did get her?”
Alemi gave Sella a long hard look. She sounded as if she’d be glad if Menolly did get Threaded.
“There’d be nothing left if she’d been caught by Thread. But no Thread got through the Benden wings.”
With that he turned on his heel and left his sister, mouth agape. His reassurance was curiously no consolation to Sella. However, since Menolly was so obviously missing, Sella could take some pleasure in informing Mavi of this fact, adding her theory that Menolly had committed the enormous crime of leaving the Hold doors unbarred,