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.During the meal, Old Owl recounted for Arrow Comes Back the stories about Joan that were circulating among the traders and the Children.Joan denied everything and did her best to convince them the stories weren’t about her.News of her arrival spread quickly through the camp.Crowds gathered around the tent, wanting to see the Lionheart.By the end of the meal, everyone—Arrow Comes Back, One Who Sees, even the children—were calling her Lionheart.After supper, the children begged for dessert.One Who Sees gave in and cooked part of the leftover fry bread dough.She gave the kids sugar to sprinkle on the bread as it cooked over the fire, keeping the sugar firmly in her grasp because Crackling Fire tried to grab more in an effort to coat his piece heavily with it.The dessert cooked rapidly, popping up in places from filling with hot air.After pulling it off the fire, she drizzled honey over it.Everyone gobbled it promptly.It was one of the best desserts Joan had ever tasted.Later that evening, One Who Sees prepared a sleeping area for Joan in the tent.The whole family lived there.It was roomy yet cozy inside.The middle of the home towered up to a point.A small fire pit burned coals in the center.Colorful blankets sprawled across the entire floor.It exuded warmth.The three children were fast asleep when Joan crawled into the bedding.One Who Sees helped her get settled, while the two men remained sitting outside.Joan couldn’t help herself.“You’re a donor,” she whispered questioningly.One Who Sees sighed and lay next to Joan.Propping herself on her elbow, she looked kindly at Joan.One Who Sees was a donor.She was thirty years old and had been living with the Children for sixteen years.At first her eyes were both blue.But at the age of ten, her benefactor, who had brown eyes, took one of her blue eyes, giving her a brown one—an exchange of sorts.“It was the fashion at that time for citizens to have different-colored eyes,” One Who Sees explained to Joan.When One Who Sees was twelve, her benefactor had cut her loose, and she became a solus.Joan listened in horror as she finally learned about what calamities a solus faced.The Alliance sent One Who Sees, along with other young girls and boys, to army outposts, to be “entertainment” for the soldiers.After a terrible year at one outpost, One Who Sees escaped into the wilderness.Like Joan, she was found and rescued by the Children.Old Owl, who had no wife or children of his own, adopted her.As the days passed, Joan’s apprehension eased.She felt secure at the camp and was getting acquainted with the Children and the others who visited the camp—traders, settlers, and ruffian types, whom the Children referred to as “ruffs.” Many visitors stayed long-term.Most of her time, Joan spent with One Who Sees.The two became very close.Joan played with and helped care for the couple’s children.Crackling Fire, the ten-year-old boy, had dark skin and hair like his father, but his face was the image of One Who Sees.Joan understood how he got his name.He never rested, never stopped moving.He was full of ceaseless energy, always running.Red Lilly, the six-year-old girl, was very shy and sported One Who Sees’s reddish-brown hair.Quiet Snowfall, the youngest, was four years old.She had paler skin than her siblings and blue eyes like her mother.Her eyes, however, shone a darker blue, more akin to the blue of a deep lake.And like her father’s brown eyes, Quiet Snowfalls’s eyes were soothing.Joan felt most at ease with Old Owl.As an old man, he spent his time poking around the tent.His personality was the combination of Joan’s mother’s wisdom and her father’s quiet understanding.Old Owl was also crotchety and prone to complaining, which Joan found amusing.Joan loved hearing his stories.The hum of his voice and the feel of his rough, wrinkled skin when he touched her made her happy.It was Old Owl who, in his grizzled voice, related to Joan the story of how Arrow Comes Back earned his name.He told his stories in an almost-musical mixture of poetry and prose.“The crisp air bit at our throats that morning, the winter’s sun low on the horizon.An early frost blanketed the ground.The young men thought to practice with their bows, with their arrows.On mornings such as those, arrows travel far and straight.“High above them, a hawk rested on a tall branch, surveying its kingdom—possibly enjoying the cold, possibly protecting itself from the cold.Maybe it spotted some prey—a small animal, who knows? But it took flight.One of the young men, a boy with past injuries—injuries that perhaps were not so far in the past and not so forgotten—took aim.He followed the great bird with his arrow and fired.The arrow found its spot; it struck the winged creature.Struck it in the wing.The powerful animal kept flying, struggling against the arrow, even as the arrow struggled to stay.“The arrow lost the battle.It dropped, fell from the bird’s wing, and landed right at the feet of the boy.The arrow came back to the boy.The bird, in its wisdom, arranged it so the arrow was returned to the boy—a gift.But it wasn’t only the arrow that had come back to the injured boy that day.”One day Old Owl caught her gazing at the photo of her parents.“May I?” he held out his hands for the picture.She handed it to him.He slipped on his glasses, saying, “Hate these.They make me look like an owl.”His eyes magnified in size as he looked at her.“I hadn’t noticed,” Joan fibbed.“But I like the color,” he continued, referring to the bright pink.“One Who Sees traded ten of her hand-woven baskets for them,” he explained.Then he turned his attention to the photograph of her parents.“Good eyes,” he said after studying it.“You look like your shima, your mother.Same blue eyes.So light.The color of the sky [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]