“Oh, come on,” said Luke.
The whole thing seemed very mysterious to Elliot, but he trailed after Luke out to the fields—oh, lovely, Elliot could never get enough of fields. Even if Luke had not known where he was going, it would have been easy to spot the Sunborns: every one of them was tall and the kind of person you looked at, with golden hair that shone as if a whole host of tiny suns had congregated on a picnic blanket. Serene sat among them looking very dark and pale and solemn indeed, but if you knew her you could tell she was happy to be there.
There was a man who had to be Luke’s father with shoulders basically the size of a mountain range, they should probably have a name, and a girl Serene was sitting beside who Elliot assumed was Louise. She was very grown-up looking—she was eighteen, Luke had said—and her hair was all done up in a coronet of braids, and she was about the most beautiful person Elliot had ever seen. Weird magic land might not have electricity, but he had to admit it was full of hotties.
The other woman stood up, her bright hair flying like a flag, as they approached.
“Well, here the boys are at last,” she said and gave Elliot a hug.
“Oh my God,” said Elliot, somewhat muffled, into Luke’s mother’s bosom. It was not entirely covered, and she was wearing a very large, very ornate golden necklace. Elliot was not sure if he should be worried about being suffocated or having his eyes put out by one of the jewels.
“I’m Rachel Sunborn,” said Luke’s mother. “You must be little Elliot.”
She released him, and Elliot reeled back, breathing in deep grateful lungfuls of air.
“I may be slightly below average height at present, but I am the same age as Luke,” said Elliot. “I’m very sorry for being late. I didn’t realize you were expecting me. I think Luke must have confused the issue somehow. His command of the English language is not what it could be. Well, you must have noticed that for yourself.”
“Nice command of the English language you have there, genius,” said Luke. “Very appropriate way to talk when you’re a guest.”
Elliot took a deep breath. Rachel Sunborn laughed.
“You are just like I thought you would be from Luke’s letters,” she said. “Come sit by me, Elliot, and tell me how you got Luke to actually learn facts about ancient history.”
“Mum!” said Luke.
“And he knows his way to the library and everything!” said Rachel Sunborn, rumpling Luke’s sunny hair as he went by her on a quest for consolation and sandwiches. “My little man. It’s a miracle.”
She patted the place beside her. Elliot cautiously went over to it and sat beside her. She ruffled his hair, too, and pulled him in occasionally for another suffocating hug. She asked him to tell her the story about the throwing knives in his own words and laughed when he did.
Elliot got the impression, due to the laughter, that she didn’t take him particularly seriously. But she was a very lovely lady, he decided after a while. He felt guilty, since she obviously assumed he was friends with her son, but he could not explain the truce to her. He sat with her and tried to make her laugh instead. It must be nice, to have a mother like that.
“And you don’t have to worry about your safety if the camp is attacked,” Louise Sunborn added, with a lazy stretch like a lioness. “We’ll protect you. None of us have ever missed a target with a knife. Except Luke.”
“I was six!” said Luke.
Louise laughed, and they had a casual wrestling match, there on the picnic blanket, which was only interrupted by Michael Sunborn asking about Luke’s Trigon games. Elliot bore nobly with this subject and was relieved when it turned to the fact that Luke and Serene were going to be sent on their first mission, accompanying a new captain and a band of the third and fourth years to witness the signing of peace treaties between a small village and the dryads who lived in a wood near them.
“You’re going into the forest?” Elliot asked. “To talk to dryads? I want to go!”
“Right, Elliot, but you can’t,” Luke explained. “Because only those in war training go on missions, since they are the ones who can protect themselves. Those in council training stay where it’s safe in camp, and go over the papers.”
“All we want is your safety,” Serene contributed.
“Do you hear what I’m saying, Elliot?” asked Luke. He sounded anxious. Elliot thought that was very wise.
“I do, Luke,” he said, so earnestly that it made Rachel Sunborn laugh again. “I do hear what you’re saying.”
He didn’t know why Serene and Luke had to act so surprised when they uncovered the supplies wagon on their mission and found that he had stowed away in it. He understood everyone else wandering around saying that they couldn’t believe his behaviour, but he’d hoped they were coming to know him better than that.
He forgot that disappointment, and stopped paying attention to the lecture Captain Whiteleaf—who seemed a dull and unimaginative man—was giving him, when he looked around at the woods.
This far from the Border, there were harpies, like lion-sized eagles, pinwheeling in the sky. He could hear water trickling somewhere, and if he followed the sound he might find mermaids. There was light brimming around and wind rushing through the leaves of the trees, and as the leaves rustled together Elliot heard a few words in the wind, and knew it was not his imagination. He knew it was dryads.
Elliot forgot about the wonder of the woods when they bullied him into helping with the tents, despite his protests that he’d turned and walked out of the Boy Scouts when they told him that he had to make his bed every day.
Elliot spent a good deal of his time on the mission explaining that these living conditions were too horrible to be borne, and speculating on who would die of a chill first because nobody had proper medical care available in the otherlands.
Eventually Captain Whiteleaf gave him the treaties between the dryads of the Aegle Wood and the nearby village to shut him up, with the air of someone offering a toy to a child. “See, council-course people like papers,” the captain might as well have said. “Lovely papers!”
“I wrote them myself,” the captain said proudly. He was about twenty, and apparently thought swagger was the perfect cover for inexperience.
“After listening to the wisdom of your appointed councilors?” Elliot asked.
“Ah,” said the captain, who Elliot heard had a very important father, a war hero in the fight against the evil saltwater mermaids. “Sure.”
Then Captain Whiteleaf nodded happily and went off to hunt rabbits with the rest of the mission. Serene always brought home more than the captain or any of the others did: the older boys, Elliot noted, had grown more and more polite the more they saw her use her bow.