THE NEW tree was growing nicely.
It was a deep-watering day, so Alana removed the nozzle from the hose and let the water trickle slowly into a spot around the tree's base. She had to let the water run for fifteen minutes before moving the hose to the next spot, so she brought her Latin notebook to conjugate verbs while she waited.
Alana liked conjugating verbs. It was mindless work and the repetitive loop of her handwriting was comforting. Latin club resumed two days ago and she was supposed to be translating a poem, but her thoughts were too muddled for that task.
She sat cross-legged next to the hose while the water trickled. Sadie, tired from a long morning of chasing the sheep, snoozed next to her.
"You're not at school today?"
Alana had sensed Kalluto around the property but, yet again, failed to notice him approaching her.
"I didn't feel like going," she replied.
She wasn't embarrassed by what happened in the auditorium, but the emotions she was experiencing were extremely inconvenient. She had animals to feed, trees to water, and Latin translations to complete. School wasn't as high on Alana's priority list, so she chose to eliminate it until she sorted herself out.
Kalluto had a knowing look on his face, so she didn't bother explaining herself. He always knew things about her, just like how she always knew when he was close by.
"May I join you?" Was what he asked instead.
Alana gestured at the free space next to her.
Kalluto sat. Without the cover of night or the safety of a funeral home's alley, he'd swapped his kimono for jeans and a sweatshirt to blend in. Sadie stirred, lifting her head at the new presence, but laid down again when she saw who it was.
"You're one of my brothers, aren't you?" Alana asked, not caring that the question was sudden. Kalluto wouldn't care.
She had a feeling there was more than one. She remembered more than one.
Kalluto's eyes softened. "I am. We never stopped looking for you, you know."
We. There was that word again.
Alana thought of a rumbling voice, a pair of hands stronger than thunder twirling her around in a circle. Someone who smelled of tuberoses, carefully leading her through a garden and eagerly whispering about a new addition. Someone shaking some kind of crackers into her cupped, waiting hands. Someone with a ghost inside them; Alana was scared of that one. And there were a lot of tall people in suits.
Like the ones who had been in the car with her.
It would be easy to ask Kalluto to tell her more. He would oblige.
But this was her journey, no one else's.
"I couldn't sleep last night, so I conjugated verbs," said Alana, changing the subject. She held out her notebook.
Kalluto thumbed to her most recent conjugations, and she watched the water trickle from the hose.
"You spelled this verb wrong," he announced.
"I did not."
"It's supposed to have two 'l's, see?" He flipped back to an earlier page, where Alana had written the verb correctly, and then turned back to the most recent entry, where the spelling was different.
She felt herself scowl and snatched the notebook back. She ripped out the page with faulty spelling and began conjugating the verb again. At the top of the page, she wrote the verb in blue ink: TOLLERE - to take away; to remove.
