wardcraftersâsmiths, scribes, spooks, the usual rangeâand on what money I donât knowâto prevent anyone in my dadâs family from finding us. My father hadnât wanted to let us go, and while his family are supposed to be some of the good guys, itâs very hard not to do something you can do when youâre angry and it will get you what you want. After the first year and a day he had probably cooled off, and my mom let the fancy wards lapse. My grandmother located us almost at once, and my mother, who can drive herself nuts sometimes by her own sense of fairness, agreed to let me see her. At first I didnât want to see her, because it had been a whole year and Iâd been sick for a lot of it, and my mother had to tell meâthat sense of fairness againâwhat sheâd done, and a little bit, scaled down to my age, of why. I was only seven, but it had been a bad year. That conversation with my mother was one of those moments when my world really changed. I realized that I was going to be a grown-up myself some day and have to make horrible decisions like this too. So I agreed to see my gran again. And then I was glad I did. I was so happy to have her back.
She and I had been meeting at the lake every few weeks for a little over a year when one afternoon she said, âI donât like what I am about to do, but I canât think of anything better. My dear, I have to ask if you will keep a secret from your mother for me.â
I looked at her in astonishment. This wasnât the sort of thing grown-ups did. They went around having secrets behind your back all the time about things that were horribly important to you (like my mom not telling me sheâd hired the wardcrafters), and then pretended they didnât. Thereâd been a lot of that that nobody explained to me before my parents broke up, and I hadnât forgotten. Even at six or seven I knew that my momâs wardcrafters were the tip of an iceberg, but I still didnât know much about the iceberg. I didnât know, for example, that my father might have been a sorcerer, till years later. And sometimes grown-ups said things like âOh, maybe youâd better not tell your parents about this,â which either meant get out of there fast, now , or that they knew you would tell anyway because you were only a kid, but then they could get mad at you when you did. (That this had happened several times with some of my dadâs business associates is one of the reasons my mom left.) But I knew my gran loved me and I knew she was safe . I knew sheâd never ask me anything bad. And I knew that she really, really meant it, that I had to keep this secret from my mother.
âOkay,â I said.
My gran sighed. âI know that your mother means the best for you and in many ways sheâs right. Iâm very glad she got custody of you, and not your dad, although he was very bitter about it at the time.â
I scowled. I never saw my dad. Once my gran had found me he started writing me a lot of postcards but I never saw him. And the postmarks on the cards were always blurry so you couldnât see where theyâd been sent from. All the postmarks were blurry. Two or three a week sometimes.
âBut sheâs wrong that simply keeping you ignorant of your fatherâs heritage will make it as if that heritage doesnât exist. It does exist. You can choose to be your motherâs daughter in all things, but it must be a choice. I am going to provide you with the means for making that choice. Otherwise, some day, that heritage you know nothing about may get you in a lot of trouble.â
I must have looked frightened, because she took my hands in hers and gave them a squeeze. âOr, perhaps, some day you will be in a lot of trouble and it will get you out of it.â
We were sitting on the porch of the cabin by the lake. Weâd been walking earlier, and had picked a little posy of