Gathering Blue. Lois Lowry

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СКАЧАТЬ the excitement in her fingers as her surprising skill grew. She used bits of discarded woven cloth from the weaving shed. It was not a violation. She had asked permission to take the scraps to her cott.

      Sometimes, pleased with what she had done, she showed her work to her mother and received a proud, quick smile of approval. But more often her efforts were disappointments, the uneven products of a girl still learning; usually she threw her experiments away.

      This one, the one she held now in the nervous fingers of her right hand, she had done as her mother lay ill. Seated helplessly by the side of the dying woman, Kira leaned forward again and again to hold a container of water to her mother’s lips. She smoothed her mother’s hair, rubbed her cold feet, and held the trembling hands, knowing there was nothing more she could do. While her mother slept restlessly, Kira sorted the dyed threads in her basket and began to weave them into the cloth scrap with a bone needle. It soothed her to do so, and passed the time.

      The threads began to sing to her. Not a song of words or tones, but a pulsing, a quivering in her hands as if they had life. For the first time, her fingers did not direct the threads, but followed where they led. She was able to close her eyes and simply feel the needle move through the fabric, pulled by the urgent, vibrating threads.

      When her mother murmured, Kira leaned forward with the water container and moistened the dry lips. Only then did she look down at the small strip of material in her lap. It was radiant. Despite the dim light in the cott—it was night-start by then—the golds and reds pulsated as if the morning sun itself had slid and twisted its rays into the cloth. The brilliant threads crisscrossed in an intricate pattern of loops and knots that Kira had never seen before, that she could not have created, that she had never known or heard described.

      When her mother’s eyes opened for a final time, Kira had held the vibrant piece of fabric so that the dying woman could see. Words were beyond Katrina by then. But she smiled.

      Now, secret in her hand, the cloth seemed to speak a silent, pulsing message to Kira. It told her there was danger still. But it told her also that she was to be saved.

      

      KIRA NOTICED FOR the first time that a large box had been placed on the floor behind the seats of the Council of Guardians.

      It had not been there before the lunchtime break.

      As she and Vandara watched, one of the guards, responding to a nod from the chief guardian, lifted the box to the table and raised its lid. Her defender, Jamison, removed and unfolded something that she recognized immediately.

      “The Singer’s robe!” Kira spoke aloud in delight.

      “This has no relevance,” Vandara muttered. But she too was leaning forward to see.

      The magnificent robe was laid out on the table in display. Ordinarily it was seen only once a year, at the time when the village gathered to hear the Ruin Song, the lengthy history of their people. Most citizens, crowded into the auditorium for the occasion, saw the Singer’s robe only from a distance; they shoved and pushed, trying to nudge closer for a look.

      But Kira knew the robe well from watching her mother’s meticulous work on it each year. A guardian had always stood nearby, attentive. Warned not to touch, Kira had watched, marveling at her mother’s skill, at her ability to choose just the right shade.

      There, on the left shoulder! Kira remembered that spot, where just last year some threads had pulled and torn and her mother had carefully coaxed the broken threads free. Then she had selected pale pinks, slightly darker roses, and other colors darkening to crimson, each hue only a hint deeper than the one before; and she had stitched them into place, blending them flawlessly into the edges of the elaborate design.

      Jamison watched Kira as she remembered. Then he said, “Your mother had been teaching you the art.”

      Kira nodded. “Since I was small,” she acknowledged aloud.

      “Your mother was a skilled worker. Her dyes were steadfast. They have not faded.”

      “She was careful,” Kira said, “and thorough.”

      “We are told that your skill is greater than hers.”

      So they knew. “I still have much to learn,” Kira said.

      “And she taught you the coloring, as well as the stitches?”

      Kira nodded because she knew he expected her to. But it was not exactly true. Her mother had planned to teach her the art of the dyes, but the time had not yet come before the illness struck. She tried to be honest in her answer. “She was beginning to teach me,” Kira said. “She told me that she had been taught by a woman named Annabel.”

      “Annabella now,” Jamison said.

      Kira was startled. “She is still alive? And four syllables?”

      “She is very old. Her sight is somewhat diminished. But she can still be used as a resource.”

      Resource for what? But Kira stayed silent. The scrap in her pocket was warm against her hand.

      Suddenly Vandara stood. “I request that these proceedings continue,” she said abruptly and harshly. “This is a delaying tactic on the part of the defender.”

      The chief guardian rose. Around him, the other guardians, who had been murmuring among themselves, fell silent.

      His voice, directed at Vandara, was not unkind. “You may go,” he said. “The proceedings are complete. We have reached our decision.”

      Vandara stood silent, unmoving. She glared at him defiantly. The chief guardian nodded, and two guards moved forward to escort her from the room.

      “I have a right to know your decision!” Vandara shouted, her face twisted with rage. She wrested her arms free of the guards’ grasp and faced the Council of Guardians.

      “Actually,” the chief guardian said in a calm voice, “you have no rights at all. But I am going to tell you the decision so that there will be no misunderstanding.

      “The orphan girl Kira will stay. She will have a new role.”

      He gestured toward the Singer’s robe, still spread out on the table. “Kira,” he said, looking at her, “you will continue your mother’s work. You will go beyond her work, actually, since your skill is far greater than hers was. First, you will repair the robe, as your mother always did. Next, you will restore it. Then your true work will begin. You will complete

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