Free Blood Brothers in Louisbourg by Philip Roy Page B

return.
    He decided the easiest way inside the leader’s house was through the front door, where the guards stood with fire-weapons at the ready. All the windows he could reach were shut. He watched the guards for a long time before choosing this way. They stood at the door continuously but were replaced during the night by fresh soldiers. There was a brief moment, when the old guards left to meet the new, when there was just enough time to slip inside, if he were close enough and waiting. That was the hard part, getting close enough without being seen by the light coming through the windows. Two-feathers used an old trick. He gathered a large clump of grass, lay down on the ground behind it like a snake behind a stone and pushed it forward in front of him. Very slowly he inched his way closer. To the guards it appeared as if the grass wasn’t moving at all. He crawled as closely as he dared and waited. When he heard the new guards coming, he got ready to spring. As the old guards turned to meet them, joking and laughing , Two-feathers lunged forward and disappeared inside.
    The leader’s house was different from the other houses. The rooms were much bigger and the ceilings higher. There was more furniture. Everything was clean and shiny, even in the dim light of candles burning here and there. But though there were many rooms of great size, they seemed empty because there were so few people. Two-feathers came upon only a handful of sleeping persons: servants, who slept close to the cooking areas.
    Upstairs he found the leader, who slept in an enormous room all by himself. Two-feathers had seen the leader in the daytime, when he was dressed up like a strutting partridge. He was surprised to see him wrapped up in sleep in an ordinary white shirt just like everyone else.
    He found another man and a few more servants. Finally, in the last room he found the girl of the rainbow. He knew it was her room because he recognized her smell, like a clearing in the woods where summer flowers were in bloom. But he was not prepared for the sight of her. She was so very beautiful in sleep, so very beautiful, yet there was something about her that moved him even more. He stood and stared for the longest time trying to figure out what it was. Finally, it came to him. His mind went back to the bones of his mother in the tree. She had lain in the very same position in her death sleep. It was identical. Flashes of her brown hair resting upon white bones now startled him. The girl on the bed had white skin almost the colour of bone. And yet, she was breathing. Her body rose and fell beneath the covers. She was very much alive.
    Two-feathers did not want to wake her, though he hated to leave without telling her he would be back. That she might think he had abandoned her bothered him immensely. Why did people abandon the ones they loved? He couldn’t understand that. He only knew that he could not be that way.
    He wished he could have looked her in the eye when he gave her his gift but couldn’t bring himself to wake her. She looked so peaceful in sleep, just as his mother had looked in death. Perhaps, he thought, he could just leave it on the bed and she would find it when she woke and she would know he had been there and that he was looking out for her. Then she would know that he would come back.
    He lifted the blue stone over his head. She winced in her sleep, made a face as if she were having a bad dream, then settled again. He waited. If her eyes opened she would be frightened, he thought, but only for a moment. He laid the stone on the pillow beside her head. Her hair was spread out like a golden river. Her forehead was furrowed. She was troubled in her sleep. Two-feathers took a few strands of her hair between his fingers. It was so fine. He felt a desire to place a kiss upon her cheek. But he couldn’t. She had not given him permission. He took one final gaze at her young face, peaceful one moment, troubled the next,