Their looks told him everything. Their clan was their last anchor. They’d been utterly lost once — the idea of being adrift again terrified them.
“I’m waiting to see how far my money will take us.” Oilcan tried to temporize.
“If you’re domana,” Cattail Reeds said, “can’t you get funding from Stone Clan?”
He laughed, shaking his head. There were so many things wrong with that question, starting with the idea that he was domana. What he was, though, wasn’t the heart of the issue. “Even if the Stone Clan offered me sponsorship, I probably wouldn’t accept.”
“Why not?” Barley had given up everything for the dream of sponsorship. Obviously he couldn’t conceive of refusing. It felt so selfish to deny the kids. If there were only one or two of them, it would be a simple balancing act, but with five of them and Thorne to consider. .
He knew, though, he couldn’t sacrifice his heart and not become bitter at them. “I was raised in Pittsburgh, surrounded by Wind Clan,” he said gently as he could. “I saw myself as part of the Wind Clan before my cousin became Wolf Who Rules’ domi. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to change clans any more than you want to.”
“But we’re still a household.” Merry reached out a hand to him, imploring him to say “yes” with her eyes.
“Yes.” He gripped her hand tight. “We’re a household. We have money to make this place livable. And we will be able to scrape enough money together, eventually, to furnish it as an enclave. Let’s just focus on today.”
Merry had picked the bedroom beside his, so he decided that they would do hers next. They painted the walls the cheery yellow called Pure Joy, the ceiling a very pale yellow called Lemon Ice, and the trim a crisp white. Cattail insisted on painting Merry’s bed the crisp white and draped one of the fresh painter’s cloths above it. The voluminous canopy made the room seem a little less empty.
“Window dresses. Paintings here.” Cattail Reeds motioned to the long blank wall opposite the windows, then pointed at the hardwood floors. “And put down some sort of rug, it will look even better.”
Oilcan nodded, making note to add the items to his growing list of things they needed. The other kids only had mattresses donated by the hospice. None had lamps or bulbs for the overhead light fixtures and had been relying on elf shines. Still, the room was a hundred times better with its bright and cheery color than it had been with its pockmarked grimy white.
After their six bedrooms, they painted the four spare classrooms on the “family” level, the hallway, and the restrooms. It surprised him that Cattail Reeds and Barley settled on Merry’s color scheme for the “family” level. With the clean windows, it made the entire third floor a happy place.
In just a day, the children had become seasoned painters. They set up the ladders, opened up buckets, stirred the paint, and laid out drop cloths without him having to give direction. Cattail taped, deciding what would be painted which color. Barley cut in high, carefully balancing on the ladders. Rustle cut in low, using his one good hand. He had only lost one paintbrush and his left shoe. Merry and Baby Duck rolled. And they talked and talked.
Cattail Reeds’ household made clothes for all the domana that attended Winter Court. “Oh, the clothes are so beautiful that they bring tears to your eyes.” Cattail sighed as she ran blue painter’s tape along the wainscoting. “But the dresses are all basically the same. Show the charms.” She cupped her breasts. “Nip the waist. Train, train, train.” She motioned as if to an invisible train of fabric behind her. “But then the slickies started to come from Pittsburgh.” She used the English word for the high-end digital magazines. “Vogue. Elle. Such colors! Such beautiful fabric! So wearable!” With the magazines came rumors that the Wind Clan artists that had made their way to Pittsburgh were selling their crafts to humans. “Earth Son’s offer of sponsorship seemed like the perfect opportunity. I could open a boutique that caterered to humans that wanted a hybrid of fashion. Elf high couture meets human common sense.”
“We can still do it,” Merry said.
Cattail Reeds nodded. “I intend to once we’re settled and have more people.”
Barley looked slightly worried until Oilcan said, “Most human enclaves — we call them hotels — have boutiques.”
Barley talked about the remote enclave where he grew up. “It’s perched on this mountain alongside the silk road. We’re high up where no trees grow, so the land is all wind-swept bare. On clear days you can see far, far away far in the distance, to the next enclave. There’s a female there that is seven hundred and twelve years old; she’s the only person under a thousand years old for a hundred miles, and she’s already in love.”
“There was no one our age in my village, either,” Rustle said. “It was nice going to Summer Court to study, and meeting Merry.”
Merry blushed.
Fields of Barley continued from his high perch. “I liked working at the enclave, but no one would ever listen to me. My mother was the youngest before I was born; my father was a weaver that passed through once a year until he’d been killed in a landslide. My household taught me how to cook, but I could never choose what we would make. We would order a new set of dishes every fifty years, retiring the old dishes which were now chipped and worn. It showed how well-to-do we were to our returning clients to have an obviously new pattern. The salesman would bring books with the china patterns and everyone would sit and marvel over them. There was this one pattern that I loved. It was elegant in its simplicity; nothing about the dish called attention away from the food being served. Our sama, though, believed that the dish itself should be stunning, so when it sat empty after the meal and the bill came, the customer felt that the tab was justified. I realized as I sat looking at the patterns that we would never, never pick one that I wanted, not that day or in all the years to come. I would never be able to decide what to cook or choose how we would serve it. The only way I’d have a say in anything would be if I started a new enclave.”
After years of trying to find a means to follow his dream, Barley had heard of Earth Son’s offer and immediately set out for the coast. “And that went so well.”
Baby Duck quacked nervously. She had little to offer as to why she’d traveled to Pittsburgh; her life prior to the whelping pen was still a complete mystery to her. “I remember we had big barns with kittens and chicks. I remember the smell of hay, like the barn was one big nest, and how safe it made me feel.”
Oilcan mentally added hay to the list of things to track down. There were farms in the south hills, source of most of the locally grown produce. They were going to need a shelter for the indi and would have to find enough food to get the animals through the winter.
They were finishing the last classroom when Baby Duck suddenly pointed out the large window to the faire grounds and cried, “Gossamer!”
They paused to watch the great living airship glide in from the east. The sunlight gleamed thru the massive translucent body, rendering it into a moving cloud of cut diamonds.
“It’s one of the Stone Clan’s,” Thorne Scratch murmured as they watched ropes being thrown down to the ground crew to be tied off at the anchors.
The gossamer itself looked no different than those that Windwolf owned, but the teak gondola slung under the creature was painted black with accents of gold.