Soldier at the Door(27)

He cocked his head towards the door. “Just take a look outside and see the line of gray-hairs waiting for their turns!” His face softened and his eyes became damp. “Oh, it’s good to see you back!”

He squeezed her so hard he was worried for a moment he might break her. But she was solid. He saw that in her eyes.

“They said you’d come back,” he whispered in her ear as he lifted her, “but that it takes time. I don’t know what changed, but I did pray for you.” He put her down and beamed at her.

“My father,” she whispered.

Perrin looked at her, confused.

“He said all would be fine,” she explained—sort of, “and that I didn’t have to be sad anymore.”

“I wished I could have met Cephas,” Perrin said reverently. “He’s the one you heard argue that the blue sky is an illusion, isn’t he? The one who surmised the true color of the sky is black?”

Mahrree nodded. “He always saw further and deeper than I ever could.”

“Further and deeper than anyone,” Perrin whispered. “I wished I had his strength. He could reach you when no one else could.”

“You would’ve liked him,” she said, running her hand through his black hair. “After all, he’s always liked you.”





Chapter 4 ~ “Send in our man.

Officially.”





That Weeding Season flew by as fast as bees. But oddly, the days crawled as slowly as slugs.

“That’s the definition of parenthood,” an old man called to them as he watched, amused, near the pond at the village green one evening. “Everything seems opposite of what it should be.”

Perrin was chasing yet again after his exploring little girl while Mahrree tried to calm down their fussy two-and-a-half-moons-old son. It seemed the only time they ever saw anyone else was in brief encounters like these. Hycymum dropped by frequently, but the volume of her two grandchildren usually sent her home within fifteen minutes, and on Holy Days they visited the Densals in the evening to find out what they missed as they stood outside the congregational meetings, bouncing their noisy children.

That was the extent of their social world.

Excursions to the large green near the amphitheater were the most entertainment they could handle right now, but getting out as a family at least a few times a week felt important. The Shins simply didn’t have time to care about anything else like politics or the topics of the latest debates that went on without them.

Someday they would have time again, but now nothing was as important as their children. Their goal each day was to make sure their babies made it to bedtime with fewer bumps than the day before. They had yet to reach that goal.

The old man shuffled towards them, but stooped down and caught Jaytsy with unexpected agility as she tried to charge past him. He held her tenderly and continued his slow walk to Perrin, who jogged over to retrieve his daughter. The stooped gray man, whose face and hair were probably as dark as the richest soils when he was younger, chuckled as he sat down on the bench next to Mahrree. He wasn’t disturbed at all by Peto’s whining.

“They amuse you and aggravate you and amaze you,” he said as he stroked Peto’s soft hair. “They grow too fast, then not fast enough, then far away. They won’t talk, then they won’t stop talking, then they won’t talk to you at all. You want them to walk, then you want them to sit down, then they walk away.”

Perrin sat down next the man, but before he could speak he made the mistake of putting Jaytsy down again. She took off like a bolt of lightning, excitedly yelling “Dog!”—her label for anything that moved.

With a groan Perrin leaped back up to prevent her from grabbing an unsuspecting goose.

The old man chuckled, patted Mahrree on the shoulder, and said, “May I try?” He held out his hands for Peto.

Over her son’s arched and writhing body, Mahrree looked at sweet expression on the elderly man’s face. “Are you sure?”

He seemed sincere, but Peto was far too much to inflict on anyone, especially that old.

The man didn’t answer but carefully lifted wailing Peto, put him over his shoulder, and patted him rhythmically and more firmly than Mahrree would have dared. But by the time Perrin returned with Jaytsy, who had narrowly escaped a pecking death by goslings, Peto was asleep.

“It takes a grandfather’s touch sometimes,” he smiled at the astonished parents.

Perrin shook his head in admiration. “But unfortunately our children don’t have grandfathers in Edge.”

The old man’s eyes glistened as held Perrin’s gaze. “I’m sorry about that. I believe grandfathers are the most important influence in a child’s life, after mothers and fathers, of course. Sometimes a grandfather can do and say things to a child no one else can. It may even be that at times a grandfather’s voice will be the only one he ever listens to. But what would I know,” he sighed. “I have no grandchildren in Edge. So I steal others’ grandchildren.” He closed his eyes in contentment as Peto snuggled into his wrinkled neck.