I don’t see the harm in escaping for a moment. A little cool air would do me some good. I crack open the door and glance along the road. It’s clear, so I slip outside into the ocean breeze. And oh, it’s so refreshing. It’s tempting to stay there, but the alley next to the stable is a safer choice.
On my way there, I nearly overlook the smithy’s neighbor—?a small shop with a sign that looks a day away from falling apart. Something about the dappled peeling green and blue paint hooks my attention. The twisting curved symbols are familiar. My sight narrows. I’ve seen those overlapping circles before.
Yes, on my dagger.
I pull the blade from my boot and hold the ivory handle up to examine it against the sign. The intricate carvings on my blade match the faded shop sign. What does this mean? Did Papa purchase the blades here in Celize?
I push through the unlocked door.
An older woman with parchment skin and watery eyes glances up from where she’s sitting at a table covered in bottles of liquids and tied bunches of herbs. The space around her, crowded with shelves of books and jars of dead things, is infused with the cloying scent of sandalwood and roses.
The old woman squints at me and then at the dagger clenched in my hand. “Something you need?”
“I, uh . . .” My grip, which had closed to cover the carvings, loosens around the handle. “The marks on your sign,” I say while keeping my chin down. “What do they mean?”
She doesn’t seem ruffled by my sudden appearance in her shop with a dagger in hand. Chagrined at my odd entrance, I quickly slip the blade into my boot and mutter an apology. She points at a chair.
“Oh, no. I cannot stay. I only wanted to know about the sign.” I consider telling her that it matches the etched shapes on my blade, but push the information away.
“Most people who walk through my door are drawn here,” she says, and I almost expect her to glance at my ankle where the blade presses against my skin. “Sit. I won’t take much of your time.”
I take in the skin sagging under her chin and her rounded dress. She seems harmless, so I relax, allowing myself a moment longer. “What sort of shop is this?” My question is light and carries a lilt to hide my Malam accent.
“It’s not a shop. It’s an Elementiary.” The herbs in her hands drop to the table. She dusts her fingers off and then makes a sweeping gesture. “An Elementiary is like a school. Girls come here when they show signs of having the Channeler gift. I offer them guidance and tools. Most feel drawn to others like themselves. That’s why you’ve come, yes?”
Her words pluck specific thoughts from my mind like meadow flowers pulled into a bouquet. The well, the festival fire women, the moonflowers. All of them come together at once, begging questions in an unsettling way.
When I don’t speak, she takes a handkerchief from her pocket. The small square is stitched with the same design on the shop sign and my blade’s handle. “See the overlapping rings, each different. They represent the four energies that govern our world. Wind and water. Land and flame.”
“Channeler energy,” I say, mostly to myself in puzzlement. Why would Papa’s daggers have Channeler symbols on them? Did my mother give them to him? Is this proof she was a Channeler?
Her spotted skin stretches over her hand as she reaches for a sprig of rosemary and binds it to a vine the color of eggplant. “Aye. Would you like to learn more about them?”
Yes. Yes, I would. I have so many unanswered questions.
Knowing time is short, I quickly walk between wooden crates, looking over jars of peculiar things. Claws of a bird float in pinkish liquid. A tapestry hangs in the back of the shop, above stacks of books. It’s woven with the same Channeler symbols on my dagger, except placed differently. Each symbol rims the edge of a circle like a compass, and in the center is a fifth symbol, the stitching still a shock of blue, considering how old the tapestry appears.
“It was passed down from my grandmother’s mother.”
I spin around to find the woman resting against a cane. She points at the symbol in the center. “That’s the sign of ether. The fifth energy.”
“Ether?”
“Spirit.”
My mind suddenly latches on to the clergyman’s words. “Is ether what Spiriters control?”
She nods. “Channelers influence energy. They connect with it differently than others do. For example, a land Channeler could encourage plants to grow faster, stronger.”
Like the moonflowers at the Merryluna Festival. So would a Spiriter be able to influence a person’s spirit?
“Why haven’t I heard about the fifth power? Is influencing spirit, or ether, black magic?” I repeat the clergy’s words.
“That was two questions.” She winks and taps me with her cane. “I’ll answer both and then you’ll do the same for me. Yes?” She must sense my leeriness, because she smiles, adding, “Harmless questions.”