He nodded, vaguely uneasy that a ten-year-old child could make him feel so embarrassed. “I’m just doing what I was sent here to do,” he said, the reply sounding lame, even to him.
“No,” she said, her somber face lifting, her eyes fixing on his. “You were sent to help Hawk. Not us.”
She was so smart, he thought. She understood so much. “I know that,” he said. “But I have to do what’s right, too. Helping all of you feels right to me.”
“Even though we aren’t magic?”
“Even though. Anyway, Hawk wouldn’t be very happy with me if I told him we were leaving you behind.”
“Hawk would never leave us,” she said. She studied him a moment. “Hawk is our father.”
He nodded. “I know that. I know that Owl is your mother. Maybe I’m your uncle. Or something like it.”
“You’re our friend,” she said.
He smiled. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
She didn’t smile back. “I just wanted you to know.”
She got up and walked away. He stared after her, wondering at her grasp of things. She knew better than anyone about keeping those she cared about from danger. Except she hadn’t done so lately, he realized suddenly. Owl had told him about her gift, a gift that had saved the Ghosts from harm any number of times. But Candle hadn’t warned them of danger even once since he had arrived, he realized.
What did that mean?
He watched Owl while she finished putting away their dishes and supplies with help from River and Sparrow and then as she gathered the Ghosts around her and read them a story. He sat back in the shadows, listening to the sound of her voice in the darkness.
When she was done and the kids were drifting off to sleep, he walked over to where she was sitting in her wheelchair and knelt down beside her. “I enjoyed that,” he said.
“That story?” She laughed softly. “Everyone likes being read to. Reading and storytelling before bed has become a tradition with this family.”
“It’s a good one to have.” He looked off into the darkness. “I was talking with Candle earlier, and it got me to thinking. You told me she senses trouble, danger. She has a gift. But she hasn’t used it the whole time I’ve been with you. Not even when we walked into that trap set by Krilka Koos. What do you make of that?”
Owl shook her head. Her brow furrowed and her plain, warm features tightened. “I don’t know. She’s always had the gift. This is the first time it hasn’t worked for her. Maybe it has something to do with you being here to help us. Maybe she thought that was enough and wasn’t paying attention.”
“Maybe.” He hesitated. “I was thinking it might have something to do with Hawk.”
“Why Hawk?”
“Because he wasn’t with us. Hasn’t been since we left Seattle. Maybe she can’t use her gift if he isn’t present. Maybe it doesn’t work then.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. It was working before she ever came to us.” Owl studied him intently. “Unless something has changed.”
They looked at each other without speaking for a moment, each waiting for the other to provide the answer to the riddle.
“Maybe you could ask her,” Logan suggested.
“She doesn’t like talking about it. In fact, she never talks about it anymore. I don’t know. I think we have to let it be.”
“We can’t rely on her then. We can’t risk it.” He held her gaze. “Sooner or later, someone is going to ask her if she senses anything. What happens then? We won’t be able to trust what she tells us if we don’t know the truth.”
Owl didn’t answer, her eyes troubled. “I’ll see what I can do,” she told him finally.
After she was gone, he walked over to the AV, retrieved a blanket from the storage compartment, and stretched out on a patch of dry earth. Slipping off his boots, he rolled himself into the blanket and lay back, staring up at the stars. He thought about what he had asked Owl to do. It amounted to asking her to question the value of one of her children. Who was he to ask that of her? He was less trustworthy and dependable than they were.
What right did he have to question anyone else?
He pictured Candle’s young face, and he wished suddenly that he could take back what he had said to Owl. But words spoken can never be taken back. They can only be measured for and judged on the strength of their sincerity and need.
Because here there were lives at stake, perhaps that would be enough.
LOGAN TOM.