The Sleeping City

Chapter Seven: Gifts

An unfamiliar ceiling, and the sounds of her sister breathing. Ketua was awake and dry and somewhere new. A den cottage with earthen walls and a hard pact floor. China cabinet, table, chairs, rows of hanging herbs above and alongside them length of red wool. She lay on a rope bed like the one she had at home. She could feel the poke of corn husks from the mattress.

She heard a voice she thought at first must be coming from inside her own head, but when she turned towards the sound she realized it was genuine. A dark-colored mousekin had been squatting beside a low burning fire, but he straightened himself when he noticed her moving. He greeted her."You're awake."

He was dressed in a white tunic with a wide red belt similar in style she herself liked to wear only it was pinned with a bright gold star-shaped brooch. He was holding something, rolling it between his palms, but she couldn't make out what it was with her mind so full of river water. She cracked her mouth open to speak to the stranger."Where are we?"

He smiled showing all of his teeth."It's a safe house. A resting place."

Ketua murmured her words while noticing she had been changed in her sleep. She wore a plain white nightshirt, as did Leita."You saved us, from the river. It was you." The red she had seen upon waking were hers and Leita's clothes set to dry. Then, as she was about to thank him, she realized what it was he held between his palms. It was the eye, and he was rolling and tossing it around like a plaything. It was still wrapped and she was not sure if he knew what it was he had.

Ketua's face hardened to him instantly. Her mouth barely opened as she spoke. "That doesn't belong to you!"

The Mousekin made a face of his own."How do you know? You don't even know what it is.I might be the very thing you are looking for. Maybe this whole misadventure ends for you right here."He tucked the eye into his tunic pocket before turning his back on her. "Wouldn't that be nice for you. You could go back home with your sister. I know you want to. You're a very little sort of thing inside you know."

Ketua climbed quickly to her feet. She reached up for the red wool that hung above her. It was close enough to being dry now. She wondered how long she had been asleep as she pulled the tunic on over her head, followed by the fur coat as she spoke to the strange Mousekin."It isn't you, though. I can tell."

He pulled opened one of the china cabinet drawers and began rummaging through noisily; the stone still in his pink paw. "Tell! , Tell! How can you tell?"

Ketua's voice was firm. "I just know."

He pivoted on his pink exposed feet holding a dagger which he lifted towards her."How do you know?" Ketua was taken off guard.

All authority was gone from her voice now. She realized how stupid she sounded and mumbled her words."I know...because I know...I can just tell. I realize it doesn't make sense to you."

He handed the amulet over, holding her eyes with his as he spoke."You realize nothing. That answer is the only answer that does make any sense." She did not hesitate to snatch it up and tuck it back into her belt where she could feel it pressing against her abdomen.

Ketua stepped towards the Mousekin who had relaxed his dagger at his side. "How do you presume to know me...to speak this way to me. You are an outsider. You do not know me, or what I can do.."

He wrinkled his nose at her and laughed."Ha! You presume to know me when you are the outsider, who does not know what I can do, or for that matter; what I have done."

Leita was awake now as well. She sat up in the bed,and wrapped all of the blankets around herself, before opening her mouth to speak."Who are you?"