Gareth took a long pull on the drink. “This is not my doing. I refuse any responsibility. You can tell her I don’t want to take Tad with me on a dangerous trip. Hell, I don’t want to go. He was my father.”
“Calm down, Dad. Tad is our youngest, and she’s fighting that. Inside she knows you are trying to do what’s best for all of us.”
“What else can I do?”
Paul leaned forward and reached for the mug Gareth held. Once in Paul’s hand, he tossed the contents onto the strip of grass. “I need something else from you. And Amy, too. We talked after you left and neither of us really understands what’s happening.”
“There are no words for some, or I do not have the words. It’s like a woman telling a man how she gives birth. She can describe parts of it, but he will never fully understand a new life growing inside her.”
“Good comparison. I’ll use it with her, but we cannot understand, and even with a pregnant woman there are the signs she will give birth. We see her shape change, so we have a positive sign. I came here tonight to ask for one sign from you.”
“I cannot mind-speak with you or Amy. I can influence you, but that is not the same.”
“No, but we sort of set a small test for you so that she will believe. Tad is asleep in his room. Amy is sitting our porch and will say or do nothing. She wants you to wake Tad and have him climb from his bed and come here. I’ll take him back home. Can you do that?”
“Tad’s abilities are only beginning to develop.”
“You don’t know if you can do it?”
I wish he hadn’t poured out my drink. “I can try if it’s that important to you.”
“It’s not. If you say this is the way we have to do this, I may not like it, but I’ll go along. It’s Amy that was not raised in our home, and I don’t think she fully believes all she hears of your abilities. It’s not her fault.”
Gareth nodded and closed his eyes. He reached out and felt around until he found Tad’s mind. “Wake up, Tad. Wake up and climb from the bed.”
“She’ll be much easier to convince if you can do it. This test was all her idea, and she’s convinced it will fail.”
“Be quiet.”
“You’re doing it?”
Gareth ignored him. “That’s right, Tad. You’re standing beside your bed. Now you need to go see your Grandpa. He’s waiting for you.”
Paul sat in silence, his eyes watching the walkway but probably seeing nothing. Two figures emerged from the gloom of the night. Tad walked ahead in the stumbling shamble children use when awakened from deep sleep, and a few steps behind him was Amy, looking even less steady on her feet. Tad climbed the steps and walked to face his grandfather with sleepy eyes. Gareth gave him a hug. Gareth’s eyes met Amy’s.
She nodded a single time before scooping Tad into her arms and turning her back to them as she returned him to his bed without a word to either of them.
“I’ll pack his clothes in the morning,” Paul said. “I think Amy is okay, now. Not happy. Okay. At least she believes you.”
“She doesn’t understand, and that makes it even harder for a mother to do what she needs. I believe it’s a capacity we men do not have.”
They sat together for a while, listening to the soft night sounds and the roll of the surf, neither speaking again. Then, after finishing his drink, Paul stood and silently followed his wife and son home.
Gareth watched Paul leave while he again touched minds with Blackie. The dragon had located a cleft on a stone cliff with a perch just large enough to squeeze into for the night. Above was solid rock too high for the longest rope to reach down. Below was half a mountain of solid rock where there were no torches, lanterns, or fires within sight. Blackie was irritated at being awakened, so Gareth exited and left him to rest. After the long flight, he needed it. Gareth closed his eyes to shut out the world around him, and he listened to the crashing of the waves on the beach for a short time. The breeze picked up and rustled through the palms in soft rhythmic interludes as if accompanying the rhythms of the waves.
He woke with the sun full in his face and a blanket spread over him, but he still slumped in the chair. His body would protest all day. Sara must have put the blanket there, and let him sleep. Instead of climbing to his feet, he stayed seated, listening with his mind to the random mental world outside the island. He heard a Sister tell the sheep in her flock that the grass in the upper meadow was new growth, soft and covered with morning dew that they’d love to eat. A Brother reported on the fishing catches in the Far North Sea. He heard hundreds of simultaneous conversations between men of the Brotherhood, like listening to a crowd of men speaking at once in a crowded park. Some words, or thoughts, or ideas, filtered through like they would as if men talked, shouted, or called to one another at the park.
The difference was that most were all on the mainland, many days away. A few were local fishermen, the residents of nearby islands, and sailors at sea.
He sat and filtered what he heard, trying to focus in on a mention of his name, the name of his island, or any other specific mention that related to him or his father. Like the men at the park again, if he heard a particular word or subject he could hone in on it and listen while ignoring the mass of other conversations.
People do it with normal speech daily. Nobody hears the rustle of leaves, the crackle of an insect, the buzz of a bee, the conversations of the nearest twenty people, or all of the other background noises around them at any time. But, let one rattlesnake shake its rattles ten paces away and the person’s ears center on that sound, ignoring all others. Or perhaps a better example would be a dozen children playing, and one cries out in pain. The mother of that child runs to help because she hears her child in the crowd of others.
Gareth listened and ignored most thoughts. Then he heard his name mentioned within the din. Or perhaps the voice was speaking of The Gareth, his father, but no matter, it was a subject he needed to hear. He shut out the rest of the noise in his head and waited. “Gareth is coming soon.”
It was not a man he heard. It was the mental voice of a woman, obviously of the Sisterhood. She was not communicating with anyone, it was her private, unprotected thought. He felt guilty at singling her out and listening to her private thoughts, but more important was what she was thinking, and why. How does she know I’m coming?
Sara chose that moment to carry a tray of bananas and mangos to the porch. She glanced at his face. “Something wrong? Has Amy been over here already and I missed it?”
“Someone knows I’m going to the mainland.”
“How can that be?” She fell into the chair beside him and sighed.
He reached out again with his mind and touched the masses of people speaking to cats, dogs, mice, and each other, a jumble of conversations that buzzed in his head like angry bees. Then he heard his name again and followed the link to a man speaking with his mind to another. One of the Brotherhood. He appeared be reporting or passing on information in a dull, monotonous manner. The gist of the end of the thoughts said, “. . . And no other sightings of Gareth.”
It was the solemn, unexcitable thought process of the Brotherhood. Simple, no emotions, and only the basic information required. But it hinted that earlier conversation had also been about Gareth and that the Brotherhood was actively searching for him. While it had been true they searched for him for the last thirty years, the coincidence of that conversation at this time suggested the hunting had intensified. Again, why?