Which Lakewalkers have done to farmer suitors before, I do believe.”
Dag fell very quiet for a little, then said, “I’d walk with her.”
Nattie’s brows went up. “You’d break with your people? Can you?”
“Not by choice.” His shrug failed to conceal deep unease. “But if they chose to break with me, I couldn’t very well stop them.”
Fawn blinked, suddenly disquieted. She’d dreamed only of what joy they might bring to each other. But that keelboat seemed to be towing a whole string of barges she hadn’t yet peeked into. Dag had, it seemed.
“Huh-huh-hm,” said Nattie. She tapped her cane gently on the floorboards.
“I’m thinkin’ too, patroller. I got two hands. So does Fawn, actually.”
Dag seemed to freeze, staring at Nattie sharply. “I’m… not at all sure that would work.” He added after a longer moment, “I’m not at all sure it wouldn’t.
I have some know-how. Fawn knows this land, she can help gather the necessaries.
Hair from each of us, other things. Mine’s a bit short.”
“I have tricks for dealing with short fibers,” said Nattie equitably.
“You have more than that, I think. Spark…” He turned to her. “Give me a piece your aunt has made. I want to hold something of her making. Something especially fine, you know?”
“I think I know what he’s wanting. Look in that trunk at the foot of my bed, lovie,” said Nattie. “Fletch’s wedding shirt.”
Fawn hopped up, went around to the wooden trunk, and lifted the lid. The shirt was right on top. She picked it up by the shoulders, letting the white fabric fall open. It was almost finished, except for the cuffs. The smocking around the tops of the sleeves and across the yoke in back was soft under her touch, and the buttons, already sewn down the front placket, were carved of iridescent mussel shell, cool and smooth.
She brought it to Dag, who laid it out in his lap, touching it clumsily and gingerly with his right fingertips and, more hesitantly, letting his hook hand drift above it, careful not to snag. “This isn’t just one fiber, is it?”
“Linen for strength, cotton for softness, a bit of nettle flax for the shimmer,”
Nattie said. “I spun the thread special.”
“Lakewalker women never spin or weave thread so fine. It takes too much time, and we never have enough of that.”
Fawn glanced at his coarse shirt, which she had thought shoddy, with a new eye.
“I remember helping Nattie and Mama set up the loom for that cloth, last winter.
It took three days, and was so tedious and finicky I thought I’d scream.”
“Lakewalker looms are little hanging things, which can be taken down and carried easy when we move camp. We could never shift that big wooden frame of your aunt’s. That’s a farmer tool. Sessile, as bad as barns and houses. Targets…”
He lowered his gaze to the cloth again. “This is good ground, in this. It used to be plants, and… and creatures. Now its ground is wholly transformed. All shirt, whole. That’s a good making, that is.” He raised his face and stared at Nattie with a new and keen curiosity. “There’s a blessing worked in.”
Fawn would have sworn Nattie’s lips twitched in a proud smirk, but the expression fleeted away too fast to be sure. “I tried,” Nattie said modestly.
“It’s a wedding shirt, after all.”
“Huh.” Dag sat up, indicating with a nod that Fawn should take the shirt back.
She folded it away again carefully and sat on the trunk. A tension hung between Nattie and Dag, and she hesitated to walk between them, lest something delicate tear and snap like a spiderweb.
Dag said, “I’m willing to try for the binding strings if you are, Aunt Nattie.
It sure would change the argument, up home. If it doesn’t work, we’re no worse off than we were, except for the disappointment, and if it does… we’re that much farther along.”
“Farther along to where?” asked Nattie.
Dag gave a wry snort. “We’ll all find out when we arrive, I expect.”
“That’s a fair saying,” allowed Nattie amiably. “All right, patroller. You got yourself a bargain.”
“You mean you’ll speak for us to Mama and Papa?” Fawn wanted to jump up and squeal. She stopped it down to a more demure squeak, and leaped to the bed to give Nattie a hug and a kiss.
Nattie fought her off, unconvincingly. “Now, now, lovie, don’t carry on so.
You’ll be giving me the heebie-jeebies.” She sat up straight and turned her face once more toward the man across from her. “One other thing… Dag. If you’d be willing to hear me out.”
His brows twitched up at the unaccustomed use of his name. “I’m a good listener.”
“Yeah, I noticed that about you.” But then Nattie fell silent. She shifted a little, as if embarrassed, or… or shy? Surely not… “Before that young Lakewalker fellow left, he gave me one last present. Because I said I was sorry to part never having seen his face. Well, actually, his lady gave it me, I suppose.
She was something of a hand at Lakewalker healings, it seemed, of the sort he did for my poor ankle when first we met.”
“Matching grounds,” Dag interpreted this. “Yes? It’s a bit intimate.
Actually, it’s a lot intimate.”
Nattie’s voice fell to almost a whisper, as if confiding dark secrets. “It was like she lent me her eyes for a spell. Now, he wasn’t too different from what I’d pictured, sort of homely-handsome. Hadn’t expected the red hair and the shiny suntan, though, on a fellow who’d been sleeping all day and running around all night. Touch of a shock, that.” She went quiet for a long stretch. “I’ve never seen Fawn’s face, you know.” The offhand tone of her voice would have fooled no one present, Fawn thought, even without the little quaver at the end.
Dag sat back, blinking.
In the silence, Nattie said uncertainly, “Maybe you’re too tired. Maybe it’s…
too hard. Too much.”
“Um…” Dag swallowed, then cleared his throat. “I am mightily tired this night, I admit. But I’m willing to try for you. Not sure it’ll work, is all. Wouldn’t want to disappoint.”
“If it don’t work, we’re no worse off than we were. As you say.”
“I did,” he agreed. He shot a bleak smile at Fawn. “Change places with me, Spark?”
She scrambled off Nattie’s bed and took his spot on her own, as he sat down beside Nattie. He hitched his shoulders and slipped his arm out of his sling.
“You be careful with that arm,” warned Fawn anxiously.
“I think I can lift it from the shoulder all right now, if I don’t try to wriggle my fingers too much or put any pressure on it. Nattie, I’m going to try to touch your temples, here. I can use my fingers for the right side, but I’m afraid I’ll have to touch you with the backside of my hook on the left, if only for the balance. Don’t jump around, eh?”
“Whatever you say, patroller.” Nattie sat bolt upright, very still. She nervously wet her lips. Her pearl eyes were wide, staring hard into space.
Dag eased up close to her, lifting his hands to either side of her head. Except for a somewhat inward expression on his face, there was nothing whatsoever to see.
Fawn caught the moment only because Nattie blinked and gasped, shifting her eyes sideways to Dag. “Oh.” And then, more impatiently, “No, don’t look at that dumpy old woman. I don’t want to see her anyhow, and besides, it isn’t true. Look over there.”
Obligingly, Dag turned his head, parallel with Nattie’s if rather above it.
He smiled at Fawn. She grinned back, her breath coming faster with the thrill shivering about the room.
“My word,” breathed Nattie. “My word.” The timeless moment stretched. Then she said, “Come on, patroller. There isn’t hardly nothing human in the wide green world could be as pretty as that.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Dag. “You’re seeing her ground as well as her face, you know. Seeing her as I do.” “Do you, now,” whispered Nattie. “Do you. That explains a lot.” Her eyes locked hungrily on Fawn, as if seeking to memorize the sightless vision. Her lids welled with water, which glimmered in the candlelight.