Craft (5 page)

“They…will…come…for me,” he told
her.

He passed out again.

Ellie had frozen at his words. She
stayed frozen a moment after he closed his eyes, to make sure it
was not a trick to draw her closer. He did not move; his breathing
became regular and fixed. She could not feel any pull of craft in
the air. He was asleep again.

Reasonably certain he was not about to
attack her, she crept over to the sofa. She poked him once, to make
sure he was not faking, and jumped away. He snorted through his
sleep, but he did not move. She sat down on the floor and
hesitantly raised her hand.

Despite the fear his words had caused,
she was more committed to healing him now than when she had found
him. His words were proof that she needed to heal him as quickly as
she could and send him on his way before things got complicated.
Her fear fueling her, it did not take her long to find the needed
concentration to heal him.

Though her body screamed for sleep,
and a headache was pounding against her senses, she worked on him
until her strength was completely gone. By then, he was healed. His
injuries were gone as if they had never happened. He remained
unconscious, however, his face peaceful in his sleep. Ellie could
not help but notice his features as he slept. His nose was round
and cute, his jaw angular. He had soft-looking lips and a clear
complexion. He was handsome, despite being a Cooper. The connection
she felt to him was stronger with the peacefulness of the moment.
She shook away the feeling, knowing it was wrong to think such a
thing about a Cooper.

Her work done, she moved back to the
door, which felt safer. Worried he could wake up at any moment, she
tried to fight the sleep, but her exhaustion was too complete.
Despite her best efforts, and her fear he would kill her if she
fell asleep, her eyes slowly slid shut. Sleep took her over. Her
dreams were full of the fight she had witnessed. The violence
circled her subconscious. In her dreams, she was not afraid to face
the Coopers. She was brave, as brave as the rest of her
family.

Ellie jerked awake when she heard
Neveah’s call. She was not certain if it had been hours or moments
since she had fallen asleep. The candles had gone out while she
slept. The shack was completely dark. The darkness scared her.
Where was the man she had healed? She lit the candles again with a
wave of her hand and saw the man was still asleep on the sofa. She
took a deep breath, counting herself lucky that he had not woken up
in her moment of weakness. She heard Neveah call again and jumped
to her feet in panic. Neveah never had to call twice.

Ellie rushed out of the shack and
hurried to the house. Careen was waiting for Ellie on the lawn.
Careen’s face was tight with her fear. Even Careen did not like
Ellie to cross the grandparents. Careen had faced her own beatings
and did not wish it on anyone, even Ellie.

“The grandparents are here,” Careen
whispered. “Where you been?”

“I feel asleep reading,” Ellie lied.
“Didn’t hear the call.”

“Never mind that.”

Careen dismissed Ellie’s excuse with a
wave of her hand. Careen looked Ellie over carefully. Ellie had the
same clothes on from yesterday. Her dress was torn, and dirt
decorated the fabric from Neveah’s push and Ellie’s time cowering
in the dirt. Ellie’s sweat made the dirt look caked on to her face.
The only part of her that stood out from the sweat and dirt were
her bright eyes.

“You look a mess. No time for a proper
cleaning the slow way,” Careen added.

Careen waved her hand at Ellie, and
Ellie was instantly clean and wearing a Sunday dress. “Don’t
back-sass,” Careen warned quietly.

Ellie nodded, not needing the warning.
She never back-sassed the grandparents. It was healthier that way.
Careen opened the screen-door to the kitchen and gestured Ellie
inside first. Ellie took a deep breath to prepare for the coming
moments, then made a path through the kitchen.

Neveah was in the living room talking
with Grandma and Grandpa Bumbalow. She was wearing a new dress, and
her hair was brushed to perfection. She was on her best behavior as
she talked with them. Her manners were impeccable, her language far
from the crass words Ellie was used to her using. She was entirely
polite and civilized, just the way Grandma and Grandpa expected all
of the Bumbalows to be. When Neveah saw Ellie, she
frowned.

“I called you twice,” Neveah
said.

“She fell asleep reading in that shack
of hers,” Careen said.

“Books!” Grandma Bumbalow scoffed.
“What good is reading when there’s work to be done?! That fluff is
gonna tear up her brain, Neveah.”

To an outsider, it would have looked
as if Grandma Bumbalow was frowning at Ellie’s hobby of reading,
but Grandma Bumbalow was always frowning. She was the sort of woman
who never took pleasure in anything not thought of by her first.
Even then, one was hard-pressed to find her smiling over her ideas.
Grandpa Bumbalow was a mirror of his wife, not only in the long,
hard years reflected on his face – he was the oldest living
Bumbalow in recorded Bumbalow history – but also in his expression.
Some said Grandma Bumbalow’s foul temper had worn Grandpa down to
where he even looked like her, while others thought the feud had
made him bitter and angry. All Ellie knew was that the two of them
combined made Neveah look saintly in comparison.

“Reading’s for the Coopers,” Grandpa
Bumbalow added. “People who don’t know good common sense if it’s
spitting in their face. You a Cooper, girl?”

It took all of Ellie’s patience not to
speak back to them. Her heart was pounding with her increased
emotion. They could have insulted her until time ended and she
would have managed to ignore it, but her books were another matter.
Her books had taught her more than the grandparents ever had. They
were her friends in a sea of people who saw her as nothing more
than a girl who cleaned Neveah’s house. She fought the anger with
effort. She reminded herself how dangerous it was to lose control.
She kept her smile in place.

“Momma sends the books to her,” Careen
answered before Ellie could.

“Your momma is as foolish as the
Coopers,” Grandpa Bumbalow said. “Never trusted that girl with my
son. ’Course she’s a Thomas by birth, a local, sure enough, but too
far from a Bumbalow, if you ask me.”

Ellie knew it was the worst insult he
could think to make. Calling her momma similar to the Coopers was
the same as calling her trash. Ellie’s face grew red from the
insult. It was harder to keep her cool at that insult. Though her
momma had left her in Neveah’s care, which was bad to anyone with
sense, her momma was also the only person in the family who treated
Ellie as if Ellie understood anything. Momma was the only one who
sent Ellie books. She had shown Ellie a world outside of the house
she had always known. The stories gave Ellie hope for the future.
There was more to life than cleaning and beatings.

Sensing trouble she was not in the
mood for, Neveah changed the subject. She was focused on the
Coopers and the attack on the house. She was eager to understand
how the Coopers had managed to attack them, and what the family was
going to do about it next. She needed to understand, so that she
could properly pay the Coopers back for the attack.

“How do you think the Coopers got
through the boundaries we keep up?” Neveah asked the grandparents.
“The boundaries have lasted since your day.”

“It wasn’t done with their crafting,
to be sure,” Grandma Bumbalow said. “They ain’t got enough skill in
the lot of them to get through our craft.”

“True enough,” Neveah said. “But I
think we need to increase the wards on our side of the line, to be
sure it don’t happen again. Even an old dog learns new tricks
eventually. They must have figured out the wards. We gotta assume
they got more tricks up their sleeves.”

Grandpa and Grandma Bumbalow nodded at
the same time. They could see Neveah’s point. They had spent a
lifetime around the Coopers. They knew that even the Coopers
occasionally came up with some surprising craft.

“Could be,” Grandpa Bumbalow decided.
“I’ll get Cousin and his boys to get to work on our end. You and
your sister get Eugenia to help on this end. We’ll get this
situation resolved before they can come back again.”

“How’d you know they were coming for
you anyhow?” Grandma Bumbalow asked.

“Saw ’em creeping in the field,”
Neveah said, taking credit from Ellie. “One of ’em made a light.
They were as obvious as day.”

Ellie knew better to refute Neveah’s
claim. The grandparents would side with Neveah. There would only be
pain for trying to take credit from Neveah. Neveah’s statement was
the last straw. Ellie could not sit through the conversation any
longer. Her body shook with her anger.

“May I be excused?” Ellie
asked.

“To where?” Grandpa Bumbalow asked.
“You ain’t got nothing to do. The way I hear it, you’re a lazy,
good-for-nothing girl who takes advantage of her sisters’ crafting,
then acts hateful for it when it’s done. If I were in your shoes,
I’d be feeling grateful I had sisters so willing to look after me.
It’s not like your momma wanted you…”

“I don-” Ellie started to
protest.

“You can go,” Neveah
interrupted.

Neveah was more worried about the
Cooper’s attack than getting Ellie in trouble. The fighting was
more entertaining right now. Neveah wanted to make sure the family
was safe. Her concerns outweighed her normal desire to punish Ellie
any way she could. Punishment would come later.

“We got some adult talking to do,
anyway,” Neveah added.

Ellie was glad for the excuse to go.
For once, she did not have to endure the hour of her grandparents’
stay with smiles and nods of agreement. She hurried out of the
living room before the grandparents could add to the insults they
had already piled on her.

Outside again, she paced in front of
the kitchen door to get hold of her temper. The day was already
hot, though it was not yet mid-morning. The sweat gathered on
Ellie’s neck and back. The heat added to the anger funneling
through her veins.

Ellie could not decide what to do. The
shack was her normal refuge, but she was slightly scared to go
back. The man might have woken up. It was possible he was currently
lying in wait to kill her when she returned. Hanging around the
house meant dealing with the Neveah and the grandparents. She did
not want them to see her ‘doing nothing.’ The second option was
definitely the worst of two evils. Ellie decided to take the risk
and check on the man. At least he would kill her quickly. She would
not have to suffer for very long. Decided, Ellie moved through the
tall grass to her shack.

The man was still out cold. She
checked his head and his side to make sure she had crafted the
healing properly. As she checked him, she felt strangely afraid. It
was not fear for her safety. It was fear for his. She hoped he was
unconscious because of exhaustion and not from her craft. She was
not confident that she had done everything right.

Sometimes, her first attempts at new
craft had unusual results. Her first attempt at creating a chair
had filled her shack with bees. It was a lesson she had never
forgotten: to keep her mind focused on what she wanted. Was it
possible she had gotten distracted while healing him? Had she done
something irreversibly wrong to him? That thought worried her as
much as the thought of him waking up to kill her. She did not want
to be responsible for hurting him. She was committed to healing
him. She would not know the truth until he woke up. There was
nothing she could do until then.

Ellie crafted a chair near the door
and picked up her book off the coffee table. Around her reading,
she kept a careful eye out for signs he was stirring. She saw more
of his face than she did the page. It was not just fear that drew
her eyes to his face. The curiosity of him lingered in her mind.
She knew she would never have another chance to meet someone so
strange. She would never have another chance to be so close to a
Cooper without the threat of immediate death.

Though her eyes remained locked on his
face, Ellie did not expect the craft when it came. Ropes appeared
out of nowhere and twisted around Ellie’s wrists and ankles. She
felt the craft as soon as the man started it, but she was unable to
perform her own counter-crafting before the ropes had wrapped
around her wrists. The man was too quick, and she was not used to
using craft to fight.

The man jumped off the sofa as the
ropes tied themselves in careful knots around her ankles. Ellie
felt terror crawl through her chest as he approached her. His eyes
were darker than when he had first looked at her, and his
expression was hard. He was not nearly as handsome as when he was
sleeping peacefully. To her, the hard expression reflected the face
of her killer. He stopped directly in front of her and glared down
at her.

Ellie’s first instinct was to call out
for help. She sucked in a deep breath in preparation for the yell,
but the man was quicker with his words.

“If you call out, I’ll kill you,” he
said in an unaccented voice.