For a moment Nettle resembled her mother right before she would fly into a temper. I looked at her and my heart smote me. Why had I so often provoked that look from Molly when she had been alive? Couldn’t I have been kinder, gentler? Couldn’t I have let her have her way more often? Black and utter loneliness rose in me. I felt sick with it, as if the emptiness were something I needed to vomit out of my body.
Nettle spoke in a low voice. “It’s not a decision that she is competent to make for herself. Think of the days ahead. How are you going to take care of her, when you’ve barely taken care of yourself these last two weeks? Do you think she can go without eating, as you have? Do you think she can stay up until dawn, sleep a few hours, and then drag herself through the day as you do? She’s a child, Tom. She needs regular meals, and a routine and discipline. And, yes, you are right, she does need lessons. And her first lessons need to be in how not to be strange! If she can speak, as she just so clearly did, then she needs to be taught to speak more often, so that people know she has a mind. She needs to be taught all that is needful for her to know. And she needs to be encouraged to speak, not let everyone think she is a mute or an idiot! She needs to be cared for, not just day-to-day food and clothing, but month to month and year to year, learning and growing. She can’t run about Withywoods like a stray kitten while you soak yourself in old books and brandy.”
“I can teach her,” I asserted, and wondered if I could. I remembered the hours I had spent with Fedwren and the other children of Buckkeep. I wondered if I could find the patience and tenacity he had possessed in teaching us. Well, as I must, I would, I decided silently. I had taught Hap, hadn’t I? My mind leapt sideways to Chade’s offer. He had said he would send me FitzVigilant. He had not told me yet that it was time, but certainly it must be soon.
Nettle was shaking her head. Her eyes were pink from both tears and weariness. “There is another thing you are ignoring. She looks like a six-year-old, but she is nine. When she is fifteen, will she still look like a much younger child? How will that affect her life? And how will you tell her about what it is to be a woman?”
How, indeed? “That is years away,” I asserted with a calmness I did not feel. I realized that my Skill-walls were up and tight, keeping Nettle from feeling any doubts that I had. Yet by the very impenetrability of my walls, she would know I was keeping something from her. That could not be changed. She and I shared the Skill-magic and had been able to reach each other since she was a little girl. That unforgiving access to each other’s dreams and experiences was one reason I had refrained from using the Skill to know Bee’s mind. I glanced at her now, and to my shock she was staring directly at me. For a moment our gazes met and held, as they had not for years.
My instinctive response surprised me. I dropped my eyes. From somewhere in my heart, an old wolf warned me, “Staring into someone’s eyes is rude. Don’t provoke a challenge.”
An instant later I looked back at Bee, but she, too, had cast her gaze aside. I watched her and thought I saw her sneak a glance at me from the corner of her eye. She reminded me so much of a wild creature that I knew a lurch of fear. Had she inherited the Wit from me? I had left her mind untouched by mine, but in many ways that meant I had left it unguarded as well. In her innocence, had she already bonded with an animal? One of the kitchen cats, perhaps? Yet her mannerisms did not mirror a cat’s. No. If anything, she mimicked the behavior of a wolf cub, and it was impossible that she would have bonded to one of those. Yet another mystery from my peculiar child.
“Are you listening?” Nettle demanded, and I startled. Her dark eyes could flash fire just as her mother’s had.
“No. I’m sorry, I wasn’t. I was thinking of all the things I’d need to teach her, and it distracted me.” And gave me more reason than ever to keep her safely at Withywoods with me. I recalled an incident with a horse and felt cold. If Bee was Witted, then home was the safest place for her. Feeling against the Witted was not as publicly hostile as it had been, but old habits of thinking died hard. There would still be plenty of folk at Buckkeep who would think even a Witted child was best served by hanging, burning, and being cut into pieces.
“And are you listening now?” Nettle persisted. With an effort I pulled my gaze from Bee and met her eyes.
“I am.”