Free Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry Page B

make it," she was saying. "But some have blue yonder."

9
    The Singer's robe contained only a few tiny spots of ancient blue, faded almost to white. After her supper, after the oil lamps had been lit, Kira examined it carefully. She lay her threads — the ones from her own small collection and the many others that Annabella had given to her — on the large table, knowing she would have to match the hues carefully in daylight before she began the repairs. It was then that she noticed — with relief because she would not know how to repair it; and with disappointment because the color of sky would have been such a beautiful addition to the pattern — that there was no real blue any more, only a hint that there once had been.
    She said the names of the plants over and over aloud, trying to make a chant of them for easier memory. "Hollyhock and tansy; madder and bedstraw..." But they fell into no comfortable rhythm and did not rhyme.
    Thomas knocked at her door. Kira greeted him happily, showed him the robe and threads, and told him of her day with the old dyer.
    "I can't remember all the names," she said in frustration. "But I'm thinking that if in the morning I go back to where my old cott was, maybe my mother's garden plants, the ones she used for colors, will still be there. And then, seeing them, the names will mean more. I only hope Vandara —"
    She paused. She had not told the carver about her enemy, and even saying the name made her apprehensive.
    "The woman with the scar?" Thomas asked.
    Kira nodded. "Do you know her?"
    He shook his head. "But I know who she is," he said. "Everyone does."
    He picked up a little skein of the deep crimson. "How did the dyer make this?" he asked curiously.
    Kira thought.
Madder for red.
"Madder," she recalled. "Just the roots."
    "Madder," he repeated. Then an idea occurred to him. "I could write the names for you, Kira," he suggested. "It would make the remembering easier."
    "You can write? And read?"
    Thomas nodded. "I learned when I was young. Boys can, the ones who are chosen. And some of the carving I do has words."
    "But I can't. So even if you were to write the names, I couldn't read them. And it's not permitted for girls to learn."
    "Still, I could help you in the remembering. If you told them to me and I wrote them, then I could read them to you. I know it would help."
    She realized he was probably right. So he brought pen and ink and paper from his quarters, and once again she said the words, those she could recall. In the flickering light, she watched as he carefully wrote them down. She saw how the curves and lines in combinations made the sounds, and that he was then able to say them back to her.
    When he read the word
hollyhock
aloud with his finger on the word, she saw that it was long, with many lines like tall stems. She turned her eyes away quickly so that she would not learn it, would not be guilty of something clearly forbidden to her. But it made her smile, to see it, to see how the pen formed the shapes and the shapes told a story of a name.
     
    Very early in the morning Kira ate quickly and then walked to the place where her mother's color garden had been. Few people were up and about yet, at sunrise. She half expected to encounter Matt and Branch, but the paths were mostly empty and the village was still quiet. Here and there a tyke cried and she could hear the soft clucking of chickens. But the noisy clangor of daytime life was yet to come.
    Approaching, she could see the pen that was already partly built. It had been only a few days, but the women had gathered thorn bushes and circled them around the remains of the cott where Kira had grown up. The encircled ground was still ashes and rubble. Very soon the thorned fence they were building would enclose the area completely; she supposed they would create some kind of gate, and then they would shove their chickens and their tykes inside. There would be sharp wood pieces and jagged fragments of broken pots. Kira