Prentice Alvin ttoam-3 Read online

  “I don't know days coming up,” said the mixup boy. His voice was like music and the words were clearer than any Alvin ever heard that three-year-old say before. “I only know days gone.”

  It took a second for Alvin to hitch himself to what was going on here. What Arthur said was the answer to Alvin's question. Will I ever be a Maker like the torch girl said? That was what Alvin would've asked, and Arthur's words were the answer.

  But not Arthur Stuart's own answer, that was plain. The little boy no more understood what he was saying than he did when he was mimicking Makepeace's and Gertie's quarrel last night. He was giving Redbird's answer. Translating from birdsong into speech that Alvin's ears were fit to understand.

  Alvin knew now that he'd asked the wrong question. He didn't need Redbird to tell him he was supposed to be, a Maker– he knowed that firm and sure years ago, and knew it still in spite of all doubts. The real question wasn't whether, it was how to be a Maker.

  Tell me how.

  Redbird changed his song to a soft and simple tune, more like normal birdsong, quite different from the thousand-year-old Red man's tale that he'd been singing up to now. Alvin didn't understand the sense of it, but he knew all the same what it was about. It was the song of Making. Over and over, the same tune repeating, only a few moments of it– but they were blinding in their brightness, a song so true that Alvin saw it with his eyes, felt it from his lips to his groin, tasted it and smelled it. The song of Making, and it was his own song, he knew it from how sweet it tasted on his tongue.

  And when the song was at its peak, Arthur Stuart spoke again in a voice that was hardly human it piped so sharp, it sang so clear.

  “The Maker is the one who is part of what he makes,” said the mixup boy.

  Alvin wrote the words in his heart, even though he didn't understand them. Because he knew that someday he would understand them, and when he did, he would have the power of the ancient Makers who built the Crystal City. He would understand, and use his power, and find the Crystal City and build it once again.

  The Maker is the one who is part of what he makes.

  Redbird fell silent. Stood still, head cocked; and then became, not Redbird, but any old bird with scarlet feathers. Off it flew.

  Arthur Stuart watched the bird out of sight. Then he called out after it in his own true childish voice, “Bird! Fly bird!” Alvin knelt beside the boy, weak from the night's work, the grey dawn's fear, this bright day's birdsong.

  “I flied,” said Arthur Stuart. For the first time, it seemed, he took notice Alvin was there, and turned to him.

  “Did you now?” whispered Alvin, reluctant to destroy the child's dream by telling him that folks don't fly.

  “Big blackbird tote me,” said Arthur. “Fly and fly.” Then Arthur reached up his hands and pressed in on Alvin's cheeks. “Maker,” he said. Then he laughed and laughed with joy.

  So Arthur wasn't just a mimic. He really understood Redbird's song, some of it, at least. Enough to know the name of Alvin's destiny.

  “Don't you tell nobody,” Alvin said. “I won't tell nobody you can talk to birds, and you don't tell nobody I'm a Maker. Promise?”

  Arthur's face grew serious. “Don't talk birds,” he said. “Birds talk me.” And then: “I flied.”

  “I believe you,” Alvin said.

  “I beeve you,” said Arthur. Then he laughed again.

  Alvin stood up and so did Arthur. Al took him by the hand. “Let's go on home,” he said.

  He took Arthur to the roadhouse, where Old Peg Guester was full of scold at the mixup boy for running off and bothering folks all morning. But it was a loving scold, and Arthur grinned like an idiot at the voice of the woman he called Mama. As the door closed with Arthur Stuart on the other side, Alvin told himself, I'm going to tell that boy what he done for me. Someday I'll tell him what this meant.

  Alvin came home by way of the springhouse path and headed on down toward the smithy, where Makepeace was no doubt angry at him for not being ready for work, even though he dug a well all night.

  The well. Alvin found himself standing by the hole that he had dug as a monument to Hank Dowser, with the white stone bright in the sunlight, bright and cruel as scornful laughter.

  In that moment Alvin knew why the Unmaker came to him that night. Not because of the true well that he dug. Not because he had used his knack to hold the water back, not because he had softened the stone and bent it to his need. It was because he had dug that first hole down to the stone for one reason only– to make Hank Dowser look the fool.

  To punish him? Yes sir, to make him a laughingstock to any man who saw the stone-bottomed well on the spot that Hank had marked. It would destroy him, take away his name as a dowser– and unfairly so, because he was a good dowser who got hisself fooled by the lay of the land. Hank made an honest mistake, and Al had got all set to punish him as if he was a fool, which surely he was not.

  Tired as he was, weak from labor and the battle with the Unmaker, Alvin didn't waste a minute. He fetched the spade from where it lay by the working well, then stripped off his shut and set to work. When he dug this false well, it was a work of evil, to unmake an honest man for no reason better than spite. Filling it in, though, was a Maker's work. Since it was daylight, Alvin couldn't even use his knack to help– he did full labor on it till he thought he was so tired he might just die.

  It was noon, and him without supper or breakfast either one, but the well was filled right up, the turves set back on so they'd grow back, and if you didn't look close you'd never know there'd been a hole at all. Alvin did use his knack a little, since no one was about, to weave the grassroots back together, knit them into the ground, so there'd be no dead patches to mark the spot.

  All the time, though, what burned worse than the sun on his back or the hunger in his belly was his own shame. He was so busy last night being angry and thinking how to make a fool of Hank Dowser that it never once occurred to him to do the right thing and use his knack to break right through the shelf of stone in the very spot Hank picked. No one ever would've known save Alvin hisself that there'd been aught wrong with the place. That would've been the Christian thing, the charitable thing to do. When a man slaps your face, you answer by shaking his hand, that's what Jesus said to do, and Alvin just plain wasn't listening, Alvin was too cussed proud.

  That's what called the Unmaker to me, thought Alvin. I could've used my knack to build up, and I used it to tear down. Well, never again, never again, never again. He made that promise three times, and even though it was a silent promise and no one'd ever know, he'd keep it better than any oath he might take before a judge or even a minister.

  Well, too late now. If he'd thought of this before Gertie ever saw the false well or drew water from the true, he might've filled up the other well and made this one good after all. But now she'd seen the stone, and if he dug through it then all his secrets would be out. And once you've drunk water from a good new well, you can't never fill it up till it runs dry on its own. To fill up a living well is to beg for drouth and cholera to dog you all the days of your life.

  He'd undone all he could. You can be sorry, and you can be forgiven, but you can't call back the futures that your bad decisions lost. He didn't need no philosopher to tell him that.

  Makepeace wasn't a-hammering in the forge, and there wasn't no smoke from the smithy chimney, either. Must be Makepeace was up at the house, doing some chores there, Alvin figured. So he put the spade away back in the smithy and then headed on toward the house.

  Halfway there, he come to the good well, and there was Makepeace Smith setting on the low wall of footing stones Al had laid down to be foundation for the wellhouse.

  “Morning, Alvin,” said the master.

  “Morning, sir,” said Alvin.

  "Dropped me the tin and copper bucket right down to the bottom here. You must've dug like the devil hisself, boy, to get it so deep.

  “Didn't want it to run dry.”

  “And lined i
t with stone already,” said the smith. “It's a wonderment, I say.”

  “I worked hard and fast.”

  “You also dug in the right place, I see.”

  Alvin took a deep breath. “The way I figure, sir, I dug right where the dowser said to dig.”

  “I saw another hole just yonder,” said Makepeace Smith. “Stone as thick and hard as the devil's hoof all along the bottom. You telling me you don't aim for folks to guess why you dug there?”

  “I filled that old hole up,” said Alvin. “I wish I'd never dug such a well. I don't want nobody telling stories on Hank Dowser. There was water there, right enough, and no dowser in the world could've guessed about the stone.”

  “Except you,” said Makepeace.

  “I ain't no dowser, sir,” said Alvin. And he told the lie again: “I just saw that his wand dipped over here, too.”

  Makepeace Smith shook his head, a grin just creeping out across his face. “My wife told me that tale already, and I like to died a-laughing at it. I cuffed your head for saying he was wrong. You telling me now you want him to get the credit?”

  “He's a true dowser,” said Alvin. “And I ain't no dowser, sir, so I reckon since he is one, he ought to get the name for it.”

  Makepeace Smith drew up the copper bucket, put it to his lips, and drank a few swallows. Then he tipped back his head and poured the rest of the water straight onto his face and laughed out loud. “That's the sweetest water I ever drunk in my life, I swear.”

  It wasn't the same as promising to go along with his story and let Hank Dowser think it was his well, but Al knew it was the best he'd get from his master. “If it's all right, sir,” said Al, “I'm a mite hungry.”

  “Yes, go eat, you've earned it.”

  Alvin walked by him. The smell of new water rose up from the well as he passed.

  Makepeace Smith spoke again behind him. “Gertie tells me you took first swallow from the well.”

  Al turned around, fearing trouble now. “I did, sir, but not till she give it to me.”

  Makepeace studied on that notion awhile, as if he was deciding whether to make it reason for punishing Al or not. "Well," he finally said, "well, that's just like her, but I don't mind. There's still enough of that first dip in the wooden bucket for me to save a few swallows for Hank Dowser. I promised him a drink from the first bucket, and I'll keep my word when he comes back around. "

  “When he comes, sir,” said Alvin, “and I hope you won't mind, but I think I'd like it best and so would he if I just didn't happen to be at home, if you see what I mean. I don't think he cottoned to me much.”

  The smith eyed him narrowly. “If this is just a way for you to get a few hours off work when that dowser comes on back, why” –he broke into a grin– “why, I reckon that you've earned it with last night's labor.”

  “Thank you sir,” said Alvin.

  “You heading back to the house?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Well, I'll take those tools and put them away– you carry this bucket to the missus. She's expecting it. A lot less way to tote the water than the stream. I got to thank Hank Dowser special for choosing this very exact spot.” The smith was still chuckling to himself at his wit when Alvin reached the house.

  Gertie Smith took the bucket, set Alvin down, and near filled him to the brim with hot fried bacon and good greasy biscuits. It was so much food that Al had to beg her to stop. “We've already finished one pig,” said Alvin. “No need to kill another just for my breakfast.”

  “Pigs are just corn on the hoof,” said Gertie Smith, “and you worked two hogs' worth last night, I'll say that.”

  Belly full and belching, Alvin climbed the ladder into the loft over the kitchen, stripped off his clothes, and burrowed into the blankets on his bed.

  The Maker is the one who is part of what he makes.

  Over and over he whispered the words to himself as he went to sleep. He had no dreams or troubles, and slept clear through till suppertime, and then again all night till dawn.

  When he woke up in the morning, just before dawn, there was a faint grey scarce brighter than moonlight sifting into the house through the windows. Hardly none of it got up into the loft where Alvin lay, and instead of springing up bright like he did most mornings, he felt logey from sleep and a little sore from his labors. So he lay there quiet, a faint sort of birdsong chirping in the back of his mind. He didn't think on the phrase Arthur Stuart told him from Redbird's song. Instead he got to wondering how things happened yesterday. Why did hard winter turn to summertime again, just from him shouting?

  “Summer,” he whispered. “Warm air, leaves green.” What was it about Alvin that when he said summer, summer came? Didn't always work that way, for sure– never when he was a-working the iron or slipping through stone to mend or break it. Then he had to hold the shape of it firm in his mind, understand the way things lined up, find the natural cracks and creases, the threads of the metal or the grain of the rock. And when he was a-healing, that was so hard it took his whole mind to find how the body ought to be, and mend it. Things were so small, so hard to see– well, not see, but whatever it was he did. Sometimes he had to work so hard to understand the way things were inside.

  Inside, down, deep, so small and fine, and always the deepest secrets of the way things worked skittered away like roaches when you bring a lamp into the room, always getting smaller, forming themselves up in strange new ways. Was there some particle that was smallest of all? Some place at the heart of things where what he saw was real, instead of just being made up out of lots of smaller pieces, and them out of smaller pieces still?

  Yet he hadn't understood how the Unmaker made winter. So how did his desperate cries make the summer come back?

  How can I be a Maker if I can't even guess how I do what I do?

  The light came stronger from outside, shining through the wavering glass of the windows, and for a moment Alvin thought he saw the light like little balls flying so fast like they was hit with a stick or shot from a gun, only even faster than that, bouncing around, most of them getting stuck in the tiny cracks of the wooden walls or the floor or the ceiling, so only a precious few got up into the loft where they got captured by Alvin's eyes.

  Then that moment passed, and the light was just fire, pure fire, drifting into the room like the gentle waves washing against the shore of Lake Mizogan, and wherever they passed, the waves turned things warm– the wood of the walls, the massive kitchen table, the iron of the stove– so that they all quivered, they all danced with life. Only Alvin could see it, only Alvin knew how the whole room awoke with the day.

  That fire from the sun, that's what the Unmaker hates most. Tbe life it makes. Put that fire out, that's what the Unmaker says inside himself. Put all fires out, turn all water into ice, the whole world smooth with ice, the whole sky black and cold like night. And to oppose the Unmaker's desire, one lone Maker who can't do right even when he's digging a well.

  The Maker is the one who is part of– part of what? What do I make? How am I part of it? When I work the iron, am I part of the iron? When I shiver stone, am I part of the stone? It makes no sense, but I got to make sense of it or I'll lose my war with the Unmaker. I could fight him all my days, every way I know how, and when I died the world would be farther along his downhill road than it was when I got born. There's got to be some secret, some key to everything, so I can build it all at once. Got to find that key, that's all, find the secret, and then I can speak a word and the Unmaker will shy back and cower and give up and die, maybe even die, so that life and light go on forever and don't fade.

  Alvin heard Gertie begin to stir in the bedroom, and one of the children uttered a soft cry, the last noise before waking. Alvin flexed and stretched and felt the sweet delicious pain of sore muscles waking up, getting set for a day at the forge, a day at the fire.

  Chapter 10 – Goodwife

  Peggy did not sleep as long or as well as Alvin. His battle was over; he could sleep a victor's
sleep. For her, though, it was the end of peace.

  It was still midafternoon when Peggy tossed herself awake on the smooth linen sheets of her bed in Mistress Modesty's house. She felt exhausted; her head hurt. She wore only her shirt, though she didn't remember undressing. She remembered hearing Redbird singing, watching Arthur Stuart interpret the song. She remembered looking into Alvin's heartfire, seeing all his futures restored to him– but still did not find herself in any of them. Then her memory stopped. Mistress Modesty must have undressed her, put her to bed with the sun already nearing noon.

  She rolled over; the sheet clung to her, and then her back went, cold from sweat. Alvin's victory was won; the lesson was learned; the Unmaker would not find another such opening again. She saw no danger in Alvin's future, not soon. The Unmaker would doubtless lie in wait for another time, or return to working through his human servants. Perhaps the Visitor would return to Reverend Thrower, or some other soul with a secret hunger for evil would receive the Unmaker as a welcome teacher. But that wasn't the danger, not the immediate danger, Peggy knew.

  For as long as Alvin had no notion how to be a Maker or what to do with his power, then it made no difference how long they kept the Umnaker at bay. The Crystal City would never be built. And it must be built, or Alvin's life– and Peggy's life, devoted to helping him– both would be in vain.

  It seemed so clear now to Peggy, coming out of a feverish exhausted sleep. Alvin's labor was to prepare himself, to master his own human frailties. If there was some knowledge somewhere in the world about the art of Making, or the science of it, Alvin Would have no chance to learn it. The smithy was his school, the forge his master, teaching him– what?– to change other men only by persuasion and long-suffering, gentleness and meekness, unfeigned love and kindness. Someone else, then, would have to acquire that pure knowledge which would raise Alvin up to greatness.