Larkspur Mittel: The Lark & Owl Trilogy

32 - Poor Aggie

The Choma band camp sat in the foothills of the Moor Mountains, about a two-hour journey from the banks of the Snailwell Lode, and along an old bog route.

They moored the boat, loaded the fen bands (they used the boat itself as a bridge this time, to bring the ponies and second band across from the far side) and set off. The boys drove the first band while Hero sat in the back of the second one driven by Pa-nush. She felt chilled. And so they wrapped her in blankets with Pancake as company, and she watched the landscape change from flatlands to dry hills as they climbed.

Ivan and Adelmus had been sullen the whole morning. She hoped that the excitement of driving a fen band might cheer them, and help them to forget for a little while.

But in truth she knew that nothing could ease the misery they all felt for Aggie.

Poor Aggie! Hero fretted. She'd never done anything to deserve such harm.

When they were younger Hero used to think she was annoying, with all her cooing, sweetness. She was the most innocent, unselfish, uncorrupted lark orphan Hero had ever known. Hero used to think it was all an act, just to get attention. But then as she got older, she saw that Aggie wasn't like the other children. She never felt that she was owed anything as an orphan and didn't beg in the marketplace the way the others had, even though Boer Mam looked after them as best she could. Aggie also didn't play the game of 'who was your mother?' the way the others did, pretending and making things up. Hero loved the game, and always told very elaborate stories about who her own parents might have been.

Aggie also had that way with animals, large and small. And Hero saw that it gave Aggie purpose, a sense of place in the world, and the jealousy Hero had once felt turned to respect.

It was Aggie who first made Hero take a hard look at herself and think about her own destiny. She did this one day about a year and a half ago by pointing out that Croo Mickel needed Hero much more than she needed him.

The idea stuck with Hero, and she began to change then, to be a nicer person.

First struck by a poison dart and now taken by some gruesome bird to an unknown end with the Bolvekr. . . it was cruel, and she hated to think of where Aggie might be now.

Hero would have turned back immediately as well, as the boys wanted, but her life now. . . she struggled to put it into words.

She opened her satchel to pull out her notebook, when she saw the small pouch with the globe.

The words came to her then.

Her own life she suddenly realized, was not hers for the moment but belonged to a greater purpose: to protect an ancient pocket globe.