CHAPTER 27
Watersday, Maius 12
“I’m sorry, Meg,” Merri Lee said. “But I think Henry is right. You shouldn’t have made that cut, especially when you were feeling out of control.”
They were sitting in the back room of the Liaison’s Office making a record of what had happened to precipitate Meg’s need to make the cut, including everything Lizzy had said while the pins-and-needles feeling escalated to the painful buzz. Now Meg pushed away from the table and went into the sorting room, looking for something to do that would give her an excuse to end this discussion.
“That’s not what you wanted to hear.” Merri Lee followed Meg into the sorting room and set the pad of paper and pen on the counter.
“I had to cut!” Meg shouted. “Why doesn’t anyone understand that?”
“Maybe no one understands it because no one else sees it that way,” Merri Lee replied hotly. “You screwed up, and now you’re trying to justify your actions.”
“Lizzy . . .”
“Threw a hissy fit and tried to get her own way. Maybe she’s a spoiled brat and thinks she should always get her own way. Maybe she’s been misbehaving—and getting away with it—because her mother caved when she started whining and Lieutenant Montgomery wasn’t there to insist on good behavior. Or maybe she’s acting up because she’s only six or seven years old and has been through a lot in the past twenty-four hours.” Merri Lee blew out a breath. “Look, Meg, you tried to do something nice by showing her the ponies. They’re chunky and they look kind of cute in a grumpy sort of way. And everything was fine until she started going on about riding a pony, right?”
Meg laid a hand against her waist, feeling the bandage over the cut. “Yes, but then . . .”
“Then you got that prickling warning that something was going on,” Merri Lee interrupted. “Which escalated into feeling so bad and desperate that you would have done who knows how much harm to yourself if you’d been alone with the razor.”
Tears stung Meg’s eyes. She’d expected support, not someone else telling her she was wrong, that she couldn’t cope with the world outside a sterile cell.
“I did it for Lizzy,” she insisted.
Merri Lee made a face. “All right, let’s take a look at that. You did it for Lizzy because you were absolutely sure the prickling you felt was a prophecy about Lizzy. But if you told me everything you remember, Lizzy wasn’t the only person with you. You focused on Lizzy, so the visions you saw were about Lizzy. But maybe the initial prickling had really been a warning about trouble for Nathan or Jester or the ponies or one of the Elementals, since Fire was standing there when Lizzy made the grand statement that Grandma would have let her ride a pony. Which may or may not be true, by the way. You can’t exactly call Grandma and ask, can you? That prickling might have been about you, warning you that you needed to get away from Lizzy and the Pony Barn because something might happen to you if you stayed. Did you even consider that?”
Meg stared at Merri Lee. “You think I should have walked away.”
“Yes, I do. Your skin prickles several times a day. We’ve all seen you rub your arms or legs. But you don’t cut yourself every time you get that feeling. Why are those times different from what happened today?”
“Sometimes the pins-and-needles feeling fades away.” Meg rubbed her arm, not because she had that feeling, just as a way to recall what she usually did. “When the sugar lumps were poisoned, I knew the danger was in the back room of the Liaison’s Office, but I had to cut in order to see the vision that would tell someone what was wrong.”
“How did you know the danger was in the back room?”
“The feeling went away when I left that room and came back when I went in.”
Merri Lee picked up the pen and began scribbling on the pad of paper. “So the prickling goes away when you put some distance between yourself and a person or an object, giving you an indication of what might be important. That means the prickling is a kind of dowsing rod. A tingle might mean misplaced car keys—a minor thing that’s not worth a cut—while a buzz that causes physical discomfort usually means something really important. Is that accurate?”
Meg nodded.
“So if you’d walked away and then had each person approach you, you might have realized what you were feeling wasn’t about Lizzy at all.” Merri Lee put the pen down and took Meg’s hands in her own. “Lizzy was on overload, which is understandable. But so were you. Going with her on your own wasn’t the best idea. And having Nathan with you doesn’t count because he didn’t know what to do with a human child throwing a hissy fit.”
“He would have nipped a puppy. He’s nipped Skippy plenty when the two of them are the office watch Wolves.”
“There you go.”
Meg sighed. “What should I do?”
“If I were you, I’d call that bakery in Ferryman’s Landing and buy Nathan his own box of Wolf cookies as an apology for upsetting him. And then . . .” With a tight smile, Merri Lee released Meg’s hands and stepped away.
“And then?”
“And then Meg, the Trailblazer, should think about what you would want other blood prophets to learn from what happened today. I made some notes. You add your thoughts; then Ruth can fix it up a bit and give it to Vlad to send out.”
After Merri Lee left, Meg looked at the clock. Too early to close the office. Deliveries had dwindled, but there was still a chance something might arrive.
Sighing, she went into the front room and saw Simon in the passenger seat of the minivan right before it pulled out of the delivery area and drove away from the Courtyard.