Jonas was startled out of his fitful doze by a sound.
Claire was sitting up. The room was still quite dark, but he could see that she had pushed her coverlet aside. Her eyes were bright, and her shoulders, once frail and hunched, were now straight and firm.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
Suddenly, within the simmering wrath and agony of the veer, Gabe felt hunger. It startled him. Such a small and unimportant feeling—one he had felt himself often as he headed home to dinner.
But this, he realized, letting himself go deeper, to feel it completely, was not a yearning for a bowl of soup or piece of bread. Trademaster was starving.
Gabe remembered what Jonas had told him about this kind of evil—that it is fed by its victims.
He wants to know how his tragedies play out, Jonas had said. He likes to see how things end. He gloats. It nourishes him.
It came to him quickly and was so simple. Those who aren’t nourished will die. Those who starve will die.
Knowing exactly what he must do, Gabriel shed the veer. Sound returned. Trademaster still stood before him, sneering, in his cloak. Nothing had changed except for Gabe’s understanding.
He stood up straight and said loudly, “Remember Mentor?”
Trademaster curled his lip and laughed. “Blotchy face? Old, saggy skin? That miserable fool. Of course I remember him.”
“He was my teacher.”
“I ruined him.”
“No. You ruined him for a while. But he’s himself again. He has his honor back. He’s happy.”
On hearing Gabe’s words, Trademaster gasped slightly. He clutched his stomach as if a sharp pain had stabbed him. Or perhaps a gnawing ache? Hunger?
“Remember someone named Einar?”
Gabe had recoiled in horror when Jonas had related Einar’s terrible history to him. Now he watched Trademaster’s face. “He’s the one who turned you down, remember? He said no to a trade!”
Trademaster spat on the ground. He laughed in contempt. “I destroyed him.”
“You didn’t, actually,” Gabe told him calmly. “He made a good life for himself.”
“The life of a cripple?” Trademaster taunted, and briefly imitated Einar’s lurching walk.
“No. The life of a good man. He knows each lamb by name. He can make the sounds of every bird.
“And a beautiful girl fell in love with him,” Gabe added.
Trademaster groaned. He sank onto one knee. His cloak flapped around him, too large suddenly, as if the man inside had shrunk.
“You remember her, I know. Her name was Claire,” Gabe said. “She was looking for her little boy. And you know what? She found me, Trademaster.
“She was willing to give you everything she had. And you took it from her. You took her youth, and her beauty, and her energy and her health—”
For a moment, thinking of his mother, Gabe couldn’t continue speaking. He fell silent and choked back tears. Then he took a deep breath and went on, “—and it didn’t matter. We found each other. None of it mattered but that.
“You won’t ever know what that’s like, to love someone. In a way, I pity you. But I hope you starve.”
Gabe found himself looking down on his enemy, who was hunched over on the ground, whimpering.
His voice, which had earlier been low and sinuous, now gave a loud drawn-out howl, as if of grief. His eyes were closed, but he groped in the dark for the weapons that had been discarded on the ground. When he touched them, he howled again. At that moment, the moon once more emerged from dissipating clouds and the wind fell still. In the new light, Gabe could see that the weapons had changed. They were broken toys, bits of rusted tin, as if a careless child had left them out in the rain.
“Your power is gone,” Gabe said.
The only response was a moan. As Gabe watched, Trademaster shrank further. Soon he had become a formless, unidentifiable heap of something that smelled of rot.
Gabe nudged with his toe at what was left. It had never been human—he knew that. Now it fell away when he touched it with his foot, and became nothing. He stared at it for a long time as the night lifted and dawn seeped into the sky. Then he found a sharp rock and dug into the earth until he had made a hole just the right size. He planted his paddle there and banked the damp earth around it so that it stood and marked the place where Evil had been vanquished.
Then he turned and looked at the river and at the pale wisps of smoke coming from chimneys in the village beyond. It was, all of it, familiar and beckoning and safe. He lowered himself into the gently flowing water and swam easily across.
Sunrise woke Jonas. He had fallen asleep in the chair after feeding Claire some of the soup that Kira had brought. She had murmured a thank-you. Then he had tucked the blanket around her and waited there beside the bed while she resumed her sleep. Her breathing was stronger. He realized that tonight would not be the night of her death after all.
Was there a chance that somehow Gabe—? Jonas didn’t allow himself to finish the thought. For a moment he had simply watched Claire sleep, marveling at her resilience. Then he had returned to his chair and his worry about the boy.
Now, waking, he was stiff and disoriented. He yawned, stretched, and looked around, confused, then remembered Claire and rushed to the bed. But it was empty, the covers thrown back.
The door to the cottage was open. She was standing there in her nightdress, breathing deeply of the daybreak air. She was tall and slender, with coppery hair that fell in curls around her shoulders. Hearing him, she turned to Jonas and smiled.
He thought he heard her say, “I see the sun.”
Indeed, the sky was pink with dawn light. Then Jonas looked past Claire and saw Gabe approaching on the path.
THE END
A Guide for Discussion and Classroom Use SON by Lois Lowry
About the Book
Claire had hoped for a prestigious assignment when she turned twelve, and harbors disappointment when she is named Birthmother, the least favored assignment. She is fourteen when she gives birth to “Product number Thirty-six,” but something goes terribly wrong with the birth. She is a miserable failure and reassigned to the Fish Hatchery, and number Thirty-six is whisked away to the Nurturing Center. When Claire begins to experience an unfamiliar “yearning” for her baby, she makes excuses to leave the hatchery and visit the Nurturing Center, where she learns that her son isn’t thriving according to schedule. Then Jonas, the main character in The Giver, escapes with the baby to Elsewhere, and Claire has a mother’s urge to find her son. She leaves by boat and lands in a seaside village, where she meets a wise old woman and a lame sheep herder who help her come to terms with the secrets of her past and find a path to her son. Her greatest obstacle is the evil Trademaster, who demands that she trade something precious for a glimpse of her child. This is a story of a mother’s love, and a son’s desperate desire to discover his past.