Nita laughed and bent down to scratch the cats: the black-and-white cat again, and a marmalade- coloured cat with golden eyes, and a tiny delicate white-bibbed tabby, and another black-and-white cat of great dignity, who sat watching the others, and Nita and her aunt, unblinking. "Bear," Aunt Annie said, "and Chessie, and Big Paws. All of you, out of here: you've had your dinners! Now where's the mustard got to?"
She turned away to find it. Under her breath, Nita said hurriedly in the wizards' Speech,"You all get out of here and I'll see if I can liberate something for you later… "
They sat looking thoughtful — since almost everything that thinks can recognize and understand the Speech — then one by one got up and strolled off. Big Paws went last, looking thoughtfully at Nita as he did so. Her aunt had found the mustard, and noticed the exodus. "Huh," she said. "I guess they don't like the smell of the onions."
"It's pretty strong," Nita said, and started spreading mustard on bread.
When everything was ready, they sat down and ate. 'I hope you don't mind being a little on your own tomorrow," Aunt Annie said. "You hit us at kind of a busy time. There's going to be a hunt here in a few days, and we have to start getting ready for it." "You mean like a fox hunt?" Nita said.
"That's right. Some of the local farmers have been complaining about their chicken flocks being raided. Anyway, some of our horses are involved, so we have to have the vet in to certify them fit, and then the farrier is coming in tomorrow afternoon to do some re-shoeing. It's going to be pretty hectic. If you want to be around here, that's fine: or if you think you'll be bored, you might want to go down to Greystones — it's a pretty easy bike ride from here. Or take the bus over to Bray and look around."
"OK," Nita said. I'll see how I feel. I'm still pretty tired."
"Traveling eastbound takes it out of you," Aunt Annie said. "It won't be so bad going back." You said it, Nita thought.And the sooner the better. But she smiled anyway, and said, "I hope not." They finished eating, and cleared the table. "If you want to watch TV late, you're going to be out of luck," her aunt said. "All but one of the TV stations shut down around midnight, and the one that's left mostly just shows old films. But if you feel inclined, go ahead."
"Uh, thanks. I thought I might read for a while. After that I may just go to sleep again. I'm still rather tired."
'That's fine. You make yourself completely at home." Her aunt looked at Nita with an expression that had some of Big Paws' look about it. "It must have been a bit of a wrench, just being shipped off like that."
What did they tell you, I wonder? Nita thought. "It was," she said after a moment. "But I'll cope." Her aunt smiled. 'Typical of our side of the family," she said. "There's a long history of that. Well, if you get hungry or something later, just come on in and take what you need. Use the back door, though: I'm going to lock the front now, and turn in. I'll leave a light on for you in here. You know where everything is, the bathroom and so forth?" "Yeah, Aunt Annie. Thanks."
Her aunt headed off. Nita looked around the kitchen to see if there was anything else that needed cleaning up — her mother had drummed into her that she should make sure she returned hospitality by helping out in the kitchen: her aunt hated washing-up more than anything else, her mother had said. But there was nothing left to do.
Except something that needed a wizard to do it, and Nita set about that straightaway. She headed out the back door, out through a little archway into the concrete yard again. The only light was the one she had left on in the caravan, and it was dim. She paused outside the door. Even now, past midnight, the sky wasn't completely black. Nevertheless, it was blanketed with stars, much brighter than she was used to seeing them through the light pollution of the New York suburbs. And there was no sound here but the faintest breath of wind. Even the dual carriageway a mile away made no noise at all. It was as if everyone in this part of the country had gone to bed all at once. There was only one light visible, about a mile away across the fields: someone's house light. For someone who had always lived in places where the street had streetlights on all night, this utter darkness was a shock.
But the stars, she thought. The Milky Way was clearly visible, even bright. At home it was almost impossible to see it at all.At least there's been one thing worth seeing here. She shivered hard then, and ducked back into the caravan to get her jacket, and her manual. Once she had them she headed out across the concrete yard again, making for the log fence that separated the land immediately around Aunt Annie's house from the fields beyond it. The closest field was planted with something called oilseed rape — tall green plants with flowers at the top so extremely yellow that they had made Nita's eyes hurt to look at them in the sunshine that morning when she had arrived. The field beyond that was clean pasture, grassland being left fallow for this year. That was what Nita wanted, for there was a thick strip of woodland at the far side of it. She made her way through the oilseed rape, enjoying the fragrance of it, and on to the next fence. This was barbed wire: she climbed one of the fenceposts carefully, so as not to tear anything. Cautiously, for the ground over here wasn't as even as it had been in the rape field, Nita made her way into the centre of the field, and opened her manual.
She said the two words that would make the pages generate enough light to read by, though not enough to mess up her night vision. Normally she wouldn't have needed the manual for this spell, which was more a matter of simple conversation than anything else; but she didn't know the name she needed to call, and had to look it up. The manual's index was straightforward as usual. "Canidae," she said under her breath. "Here we go."
The spell was a calling, but the kind that was a request, not a demand. She hoped there would be someone to respond. She recited the standard setup, the request for the Universe to hear. Then, "Ai mathrara," she said in the Speech, "if any hear, let them speak to me; for there's need." And then she put the book down and sat there in the quiet, and waited.
It seemed to take a long time before she heard the soft sound of something rustling in the grass, about a hundred meters away. Normally she would never have heard it, except that her ears were sharpened by sitting in this total silence. The noise stopped. "Mathrara," she said then, very quietly, "if that's you, then I'm here." Another rustling, another silence.
"You speak it with an accent," said a voice in a series of short, soft barks, "but well enough. Let me see you."
Nita saw the long, low, sharp-nose shape come towards her. The dog-fox had a tail bigger and bushier and longer than she would have thought possible. Only the faintest firefly gleam from the manual's pages glinted in his eyes and silvered his fur, giving him enough of an outline for her to see him.
"So," the fox said.
"What accent?" Nita said, curious. As far as she knew, her accent in the Speech was quite good. "We wouldn't say"mathrara" here."Madreen rua", that would be it." And Nita chuckled, for that meant 'the little red dog' in the Speech.
"Local customs rule," Nita said, smiling. "As usual. I have a warning for you, madreen rua. There's a hunt coming through here in a few days."