Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 219

Chapter 219: Holding out
Ford wondered if they were holding out on him. He hadn’t missed the way the older women looked at each other when he asked about getting magic. Martin had said he wasn’t born with magic, which was strange.

What sort of things happened in this country? Was magic not really a right of birth, but something that could be attained? No, that was ridiculous. He cut a glance at Mia. She was looking at the floor, and not at him.

So she knew whatever it was the older women were hiding. Or at least part of it, from the discomfort she displayed.

He let the subject drop, determined to bring it up another time when he could trick or pressure the young woman into telling him more. He already wanted her to help him find the cave, but if she knew anything at all about how to get magic if you weren’t born with it, he needed to redouble his efforts in making her like him.

The conversation turned to more mundane topics before the women migrated to the kitchen to begin cooking supper. Seth and his father came in from the fields, having washed up outside beforehand—this was a daily task for them, it seemed–and the family gathered around the table as they did twice a day, beginning and end.

Ford had become accustomed to the unspoken rituals and routines of the family gatherings: Mia would set the table while the elder women finished the cooking. Seth or Grandpa would haul in a fresh bucket of water from the well, in which a corked bottle of the morning’s milk had been kept cool. First the bread was brought out, and then the rest of the meal, dish by dish.

The men stood when the ladies came in to sit down, and grandpa would serve each of them from the central dishes before the eating began.

The routine was odd at first, but comforting in another way. The repetition gave a natural rhythm to the day that Ford found he quite enjoyed. It was as if the days breathed, in and out.

In his life before, the routine was centered around work. Here, work seemed to center around the family. They arranged their tasks to be completed together often, instead of working in isolation.

It was disarming, but he kept his guard up, while trying to give the impression he was letting it down. These people were naive, in a way. Accepting a penniless stranger into their home was nothing short of foolish, even if it had probably saved his life.

His leg was healing well, thanks to the ministrations of his hosts. His armpit, too, was doing much better. Mia had sewn a cushion for the top of his crutch out of fabric scraps to keep it from hurting him as badly anymore.

He’d reluctantly accepted the gift as being not only thoughtful but also necessary. However, her shyness when she’d presented it to him was rather unsettling. He should have smiled and thanked her and charmed her, but the truth was he was caught so off-guard that he could do nothing but stare.

Why did she care enough to do this for him? He’d offered her nothing, provided nothing, and so far his efforts at manipulating her had been hampered by her family’s near-constant presence and his own lack of practice in the area of getting others to like him.

He took a thoughtful bite of the roasted garden vegetables as he contemplated his plan. He couldn’t fully implement it until he was able to walk long distances, that much was clear. The swelling in his leg was way down since he’d stayed off of it, but the break had clearly been aggravated by his insistence on travel.

He wondered how long it would take to be good enough, and if that would either be long enough for him to earn more of the family’s trust, or long enough for them to finally see through to what a worthless person he was.

At least, for now. He wouldn’t be worthless forever. Once he had magic, the world would be at his fingertips.

“Trace and Anaisa should be back home tomorrow,” Sarah was saying when Ford finally brought his wandering thoughts back to the conversation at hand. “They may come by for a visit to tell us all about it, or wait til the next day so that they can settle in back home.”

“The boys will be tired,” Mia predicted. “They may want to put them straight to bed after so much travel.”

“Or they might miss their favorite cousin so much that they beg to come see you immediately,” Seth smiled at his daughter fondly.

“I’ll bake cookies in the morning, just in case,” She grinned back.

“How simple it is to be a child, when your love can be bought with sweets,” Grandma observed.

“I learned from the best,” Mia teased her grandmother. “If Mama hadn’t made you stop, I would have been the plumpest child this side of the river!”

The family chuckled good naturedly, and Ford wondered how much truth there was in what she’d said. She was thin and pretty now, but had she been a plump child?

There were no plump children around the mines. There would never have been enough food for them to put that much meat and fat on their bones. The thought had never even occurred to him until this moment as being something that was even possible.

“You never could have gotten plump, the way you chased your brothers around,” Sarah responded, and then turned to Ford to include him more in the conversation. “Mia was always the prettiest of our children, nothing could have interfered with that.”

“You feel safe saying that because I’m the only girl and no one will get offended that you said so,” Mia shook her head, “Ford, do you have any siblings?”

He froze with a bite halfway to his mouth.

“No. I’ve always been alone.” He answered dully.