It seemed to take as long as my life had, too; but gradually the solid-seeming incidents of my life became thinner and more tenuous, less real than the face of Painted Red beside me; and I returned, a little surprised, yawning a huge yawn and feeling I had slept a whole night's refreshing sleep, to the little room where the pattern still burned on the wall.
"Rush that Speaks," Painted Red said to me gently. "You are Palm for sure, and doubly Palm."
I said nothing to that, because in my growing up I had learned it was regarded as something secret, not to be spoken of, and possibly shameful, that my father Seven Hands was Palm cord as my mother was. It doesn't happen often that both your parents are of the same cord; it's almost as rare as when they are sister and brother. The gossips warn against it; it makes, they say, for knots.
"When will Seven Hands leave?" she said.
"I don't know," I said, not surprised that she knew Seven Hands's secret; she seemed to know everything. I wasn't surprised either that she knew it was my greatest sorrow. "Soon, he says, is all."
"And you want him not to go."
Again I said nothing, afraid of what would show in my speech. Seven Hands was my best friend, though I saw little enough of him; and when in the middle of some game or story he would fall silent, and sigh, and talk about how big the world is, a fear would take hold of me. The fear was that the world - outside Little Belaire - was big; it was vast, and unknown; and I wanted not to lose Seven Hands in it.
"Why does he want to go?" I asked.
"Perhaps for the untying of a knot." She rose up, her joints cracking, and took from the long box another thin square of glass. She put this before the mirror in the box with the first and drew out the tube a little to make the picture clear. And suddenly it was all changed. The fine-lined pattern was altered, colored, darkened, obscured.
She looked at it in her dreamy, attentive way. "Rush," she said, "lives come in many shapes, did you know that? There are lives that are like stairs, and lives that are like circles. There are lives that start Here and end There, and lives that start Here and end the same. There are lives full of stuff, and lives that will hold nothing."
"What shape is mine?"
"Don't know," she said simply. "But not the same as the man Seven Hands's. That's certain. Tell me: when you are grown up, and a truthful speaker, what will you do?"
I lowered my head, because it seemed presumptuous; as it wouldn't if I were to say that I wanted to make glass, or keep bees, or even gossip. "I'd like to find things," I said. "I'd like to find all our things that are lost, and bring them back."
"Well," she said. "Well. There are some things that are lost, you know, that may be better unfound." But I heard her say too: don't lose your thought, Rush, it's a good one. "Did you tell Seven Hands about it?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"He said that things that get lost - get lost for good - all end up in the City in the Sky."
She laughed at that; or perhaps not at that but at something she saw in the tangled figure on the wall. "Palm cord," she said, and was absorbed for a long time. "Do this, Rush that Speaks," she said then. "Ask Seven Hands if he will take you with him when he leaves."
My heart leaped. "Will he?"
"No," she said. "I don't think so. But we'll see what happens. Yes. It's best." And she pointed to the figure on the board. "There's a path out of that. Its name is Little Knot, and the path isn't so long…"
She had seen enough; she seemed to rouse herself from a kind of sleep. She rose, picked out the two squares of glass and wiped them clean; then she took out the little mirror and wiped that clean too, and put them all away. As she did so, I saw that drawn on the end of the long box was the palm sign that signifies my cord. So the entire box was my cord. I hadn't seen my cord at all, but only a fraction of a part of the ways it can be. "How," I said, pointing to the box, "how does it..
"It would take you till you are as old as me," she said, "to know how does it do it, if that's what you mean." She stowed it all, without haste, and returned to me. "But think," she said. "They are all of glass, like the two you saw, thin and clear."
"So you could put three at once in the tube," I said, "and the light would shine through all three, and you could see how it changes, how it…"
Painted Red clapped her hands, smiling at me. "Or seven, or ten, however many you're clever enough to read at once." She knelt down near me and looked at me closely. "They all have names, Rush, and each has its knowledge to add about you as you are Palm. Each added to the rest changes the whole and makes a difference. The Filing System is very wise, Rush, far wiser than I am."
"What are the names?" I asked, knowing I would not be told.
"Well," she said, "there will be time to learn that, if you want to learn it. Listen, Rush: How would you like to come see me, often? There are a few other children who come often. I tell stories, and we talk, and I show them things. Does that sound like fun?"
Fun! She had just seen that I was Palm cord, and that in this room I was in the presence of knowledge far beyond me. "Yes," I managed to say, hoping the little truthful speaking I had would let her know how I felt.
Her spectacled face was crinkled in smiles. "Good," she said. "When you've spoken to Seven Hands, and done - listen to me now - done exactly as he asks you or tells you, and when you are done with it, come and see me. I don't think it will be long." She ran her hand through my hair. "Go now, Rush that Speaks. Untangle yourself. Then come back." She could see my wonder and confusion and excitement, and her laugh rolled out into the room, saying a thousand things and distilling a thousand years of holiness.
When I went out, Mbaba was gone. That was all right; Painted Red's rooms were near Path, and though there were places in Little Belaire I have never been, there was nowhere there that I was lost, because Path was drawn on my feet.
Third Facet
There are places in Little Belaire where you're likely to find people of a certain cord. By the stream and out by the willows on the Morning side you'll find Water cord, that's easy; but Water cord is an easy cord, they always do what you expect they will. Palm cord isn't as predictable, but of course I knew where to look, and I found Seven Hands among friends in one of the old arched rooms with dirt floors that were built toward the Afternoon side for meeting rooms hundreds of years ago when we still had meetings. Light fell from great slabs of glass that faced the afternoon sun, and smoke arose into the sun like thunderclouds from the noisy little group that sat in the warmth talking.