Ever by Gail Carson Levine Page B

that.
    I sit at the edge of my brook and watch her. She squats by her aunt’s chair and puts one hand on her aunt’s knee. “Aunt—”
    Aunt Fedo straightens. “My rabbit ears heard Nia tell me to leave. Why didn’t I listen?”
    Kezi smiles. I think I understand why. I’ve observed that Aunt Fedo’s rabbit ears hear well, but often they don’t listen at all.
    â€œYou spared my life! Oh, Kezi . . . Kezi . . . thank you.”
    Kezi’s hand on Aunt Fedo’s knee turns palm up.
    After a long pause Merem says, “Kezi hasn’t breakfasted yet.”
    They go to the eating room, which faces the alley behind the house. Senat and Merem and Aunt Fedo have their second meal of the day while Kezi has her first. It’ssimple fare: sheep cheese, barley flatbread, roasted onions, and sweet cucumbers. Kezi closes her eyes while she sucks on the cheese. The others begin to tell stories. While they talk, one or another touches Kezi’s shoulder or her cheek or adds more food to her plate.
    Their first tales are about her when she was a baby.
    â€œYou were motionless only when you slept,” Merem says. “You hardly ever cried.”
    â€œI used to keep you with me in the counting room sometimes.”
    â€œPado, you did?”
    â€œIf you could wave your hands and kick your feet, you were happy. I’d stand over you and watch when I should have been planning crops.”
    â€œYou never crawled,” Aunt Fedo says.
    Merem corrects her. “Once or twice you crawled.”
    Aunt Fedo ignores the correction. “You were too eager to walk and dance.”
    â€œAnd climb!” Merem says. She pats Kezi’s hand.
    Senat, Merem, and Aunt Fedo laugh.
    â€œNothing was safe from you,” Senat says, breaking off a section of bread for her.
    â€œOnce when Aunt Fedo and I took you to the market . . .” Merem begins.
    Aunt Fedo says, “I had nothing to do with what hap—”
    â€œAlmost happened,” Merem says.
    â€œWhat happened?” Kezi looks from one to the other. She seems happy.
    They all seem happy. How can they be happy? But I notice that I’m happy too, listening and watching.
    They tell the climbing story, in which Kezi almost poked her face into a hive of wasps. Then Aunt Fedo tells about Merem when Merem was a little girl. Senat and Merem talk about their courtship. Merem can hardly speak for laughing over an occasion when Senat set his beard on fire.
    â€œBecause he was looking at me!” Merem says, gasping for breath.
    Senat blushes.
    Kezi blushes too, and it occurs to me that she is thinking of me. But she couldn’t be.
    They remain in the eating room all afternoon and into the night. My fresh breeze ripples through to keep them comfortable. They have a wonderful day. We all have a wonderful day. Sometimes Kezi looks away while her aunt and her parents speak. Her face is alert and peaceful. I’m certain she’s concentrating on their voices. Sometimes she watches their faces, her eyes passing from oneto the other.
    Senat never goes to his counting room. Merem and Kezi don’t work at their looms. Aunt Fedo doesn’t leave to manage her own affairs. It’s a holiday, a holiday because Kezi is to die, but a holiday nonetheless.

22

    KEZI
    T HE NEXT MORNING I go to my loom. Mati is already working. On my loom is the marriage rug. I hate the sight of it, but I begin to tie my knots. Even now, I cannot waste so much work.
    Mati’s yarn tangles. For a few minutes she tries to untangle it. She calls herself bumble-fingered, then calls herself cursed, then looks at me, her face stricken, because I’m the one who’s truly cursed. She runs from the courtyard.
    I sit back in my chair, my hands in my lap. I don’t want to weave or even to move. If I could, I would turn myself into the lizard that’s sunning itself on the edge of a fern pot.
    Nia comes into the