Seeker of Stars: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

too early to say,” she said in her clear voice. “You have done excellent work, keeping the wound clean. There is no infection, and that is the best I could have hoped for. It will be a full moon more before I can begin to know what will happen.”
    My father nodded. “I understand,” he said. “I can be patient.”
    During the next month I became a nocturnal creature, spending long nights with my beauties. When I watched them shift across the sky, I forgot my pain. The stars moved, but I remained still in my black uncertainty—and yet, I thought little about what would become of me. I joined my father for breakfast each morning, then slept all day until he returned at supper. One day Leyla came to visit me, rubbing wine on my temples when I agreed I had a bit of a headache. The smell of her aroused every fiber in my body, and her visit told me she had not been entirely discouraged or disgraced by my rejection two years before.
    Another day, my father roused me from bed to review the ledgers. As I added columns of figures in advance of Taz’s sales, I sensed I was being tested for a new role in the business. Though my mind was dulled, I caught my own errors quickly and was able to please my father. Writing the sums with my left hand was difficult, but I had learned to do many things with my left hand in the previous weeks.
    The day arrived for the healer to pronounce me healed. Salvi and Taz were to return soon, and I knew our father was behind in his preparation for their next trip. I had gone to bed early the night before, knowing that I would be back at work the hour the healer allowed.
    She arrived as we were finishing breakfast, unwound my bandages, and had me stretch and flex my fingers. I had secretly been doing so for more than a week. Though the skin was pale and wrinkled and the scar still fresh and red, I knew my hand was healed.
    The healer smiled as I demonstrated my muscles. Then she asked me to pick up a cup from the table. I was a scorpion with a broken claw—my fingers could not close to grasp or pinch. The smile on her face sank into a look of concentration, and she examined my thumb closely. I did not dare look at my father, but I could hear that he did not exhale.
    She shook her head, and my father sagged. “I was afraid of this,” she said slowly. “The accident severed the joint between your thumb and your fingers. I think the joint is dead. There was nothing more that any of us could have done. I am sorry, Melchior.”
    My father opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again as if to gasp for breath, and then turned and fled the house.
    Though he had disappeared within himself after my mother’s death, this time we did not see my father for three days. He missed Salvi leading the caravan for the first time, with Taz at his side. I had to explain what had happened, and I spent the first night of their return neither on the floor with Salvi, nor looking at stars, but adding figures with Taz. Salvi slipped out to look for old friends and did not come home till morning.

~ 5 ~
    D ream
    Soon after Salvi joined us, our father walked in. He was unshaven, but his face was as impassive as ever. He sat down to eat as though he had just arisen from a regular night’s sleep. Taz fell upon him with a tearful embrace.
    “My brother, we knew nothing of Melchi’s accident.”
    Taz’s tears reminded me that I had not wept myself. Reta brought tea to our father, who drank, oblivious to Taz weeping at his feet.
    Our father had missed that first evening, and there were matters to be settled now before work could be started. Once again I would be the object of their conversation, and as their scrutiny focused on me, like a single eye, I suddenly felt myself more grounded in reality than I had been since the accident. What had been unthinking, unworking limbo suddenly became fixity. I looked at the limb I had already learned to regard as useless, and tears welled up. I excused myself from the table, but our