Free A Fistful of Sky by Nina Kiriki Hoffman Page B

spurts or glories or anything else. I had no sense that there was power inside me and I could use It. I laughed. “No. I was just sick. Boring, normal sick. There’s no—what makes you think—?” I stared up at him. His eyes looked dark and ancient. A moment later, though, he smiled. I coughed. “What’s an unkind power? The power of curses, like GreatGreat-Aunt Meta died of?”
    “Probably.” He stroked my hair. “There are several kinds: backwards power, souring power, others we don’t need to speak of unless it turns out you have them. We can do a diagnostic if you like.”
    Bewildered, I looked at Jasper. “But when he—but when Opal—right away, they could do things.”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m not doing anything.”
    “Not yet. You had better start, or you’ll get sicker.”
    “Start … start cursing things?”
    “Yes, if that’s your power. The sooner the better.”
    “Uncle? What does this have to do with the stalker?” Beryl asked.
    “Look.” He nodded toward the window.
    A face peered in, pale against the darkness. I screamed and jumped up, backed to the wall across the room from the window. My heart struck hard inside my ribs.

Chapter Four
    JASPER rose to his feet. “How did it get here? Why don’t the wards
    drive it away? Uncle!”
    Beryl licked her lip and walked to the window. “But—” She glanced at Tobias, then reached for the latch. He nodded, and she opened the window.
    The figure paused on the windowsill. It stared at me. Then it stepped into the room. It was all swathed in black, its hair dark, only its face pale. It stood silent.
    “But Gyp,” Jasper said. “It’s you.”
    I held my hand against my chest. Slowly I came away from the wall and walked toward the stranger. Was that what I looked like? Oval, pale face, chubby, rosy cheeks, deep-set hazel eyes below dark brows, clever mouth. Hair a dark froth of curls. Body so hidden in black that I couldn’t make it out, not size nor shape.
    I would never have seen myself in that face, but now that Jasper mentioned it, I looked harder. It was not the mirror me, but it looked a little like the photographed me. I usually didn’t look very hard at pictures of myself.
    “Uncle,” I said.
    The stalker stood quiet.
    “It appears you did something pretty sophisticated. You split off the power part of yourself and sent it away. This usually takes training in techniques I haven’t taught any of you; it’s not a good thing to do. Untrained as you are, you didn’t completely sever your bond to it, which is a good thing; if you had cut it off, I’m not sure what would have happened. You would have been diminished, probably in horrible ways, that much I know. But look: it has found you, and now it wants to come home.”
    She took a step toward me, held out dark-gloved hands.
    I gulped and backed up. “She’s an unkind power?” I squeaked.
    Tobias went to his tool cupboard and took out a wire loop as big as a head. He held it up and stared through it at the stranger. “Let me see in the language I know,” he murmured. Something flashed across the space inside the loop. “Thank you.” He lowered the loop. “Yes,” he said. “She is the power of curses.”
    “But I don’t want the power of curses!”
    “She’s part of you now. If you don’t accept her, you’ll most likely both sicken and die.”
    “But—” I looked at Jasper, and at Beryl.
    “Go on, Gyp. You can curse me,” Beryl said. She smiled at me, but she looked scared.
    Curse my beloved little sister? My comfort, my friend? How could I? “But I don’t—”
    “Come on,” Jasper said. “What’s a curse, anyway? We can ward against them.”
    I looked into the stranger’s face. She looked sad, and somehow, strangely, beautiful. So unlike me.
    “Please. Accept her,” said Tobias.
    She was a power of curses.
    She was a power.
    She was part of me. How had I sent her away? I couldn’t remember doing anything powerful, not in my whole life, except when I