***
Isabelle sat in her office, reviewing the progress of each student in the day’s lessons. The Harton School was not all that large, and she liked to know where each of her pupils stood in his or her studies on a daily basis, in no small part because if any of the teachers fell ill, it would be Isabelle who took over the class until the teacher was well again. She felt it, the moment her husband crossed the threshold, of course, the moment when everything inside her relaxed and said, “Yes, my other self, my other half, is at my side again.” Her heart rose, as she looked up from her work, feeling him draw nearer with every moment.
Her door was open—it was never closed, unless she was having a private conference—and he limped in. Frederick Harton was a fine figure of a man despite his limp, with broad shoulders, the unruly wheat-colored hair of the Cockney street urchin he had once been, and merry blue eyes. “Well, my angel,” he said, with that open grin she cherished, “How is your newest imp?”
“Not an imp at all,” she replied, getting up and coming around to his side of the desk to nestle unself-consciously in his arms. “Truth to be told, she’s a little dear. A touch of telepathy, both receptive and projective, I believe, and as young as she is, it may get stronger. I can’t tell what else. She has the most remarkable set of tales about a pet of hers that she left in Africa that I hardly know whether or not to believe, however!”
At his look of inquiry, she told him some of the stories little Sarah Jane had imparted to her about her Grey Parrot. “I know she believes them to be true—I am just not certain how much of it is imagination and how much is real.”
Frederick Harton looked down at her somberly. “This shaman gave her the bird in the first place, did he not?” he asked.
She nodded.
“And he said the bird was to be her protector?”
“He did. And I see where you are going.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Well, in that case, I think we should assume the tales are true. I wish she had been able to persuade her mother to allow her to bring the bird here.”
“If the bird is meant to be with her, a way will be found,” he replied, and kissed the top of her head. “And I believe if a way is found, little Sarah will prove to have more interesting Talents than merely a touch of telepathy!”
He let her go, and rubbed his hands together. “Now, I am famished, my love! I trust Vashti has prepared one of her excellent curries?”
She had to laugh at that and reached up to ruffle his hair. “How fortunate we are that your tastes are so economical! Yes, of course she has, and she is waiting in the kitchen to spoil her favorite man!”
***
The object of their discussions was tucked up in bed in her own room, although it was a room that had another empty bed in it, feeling very mixed emotions. She was horribly homesick, and longed for her parents and her parrot, Grey, and her friends among the African tribe that had adopted the little family with an intensity that was painful—but she was not as unhappy as she had been on the journey here. In fact, there was a part of her that actually felt as close to happy as she had been since she left. Mem’sab Harton was everything Mummy and Papa had promised, and more, kind and warm and always with a comforting hug for anyone who looked in need of one. The journey from Africa to London had been sheer misery. Once alone with the children, the nannies had been horribly standoffish and cold, scolding anyone who cried or even looked as if they wanted to. The children had had to share the tiniest of cabins, two to a bunk. The food had been bland and mostly cold. The other children had not been particularly nice, and one of the boys, Nigel Pettigrew, had three older brothers who had made this trip before him and he was full of stories about “schools” and how terrible they were until all of the children were ready to weep with fear as they got off the ship.
For Sarah, at least, the nightmares had vanished like morning fog, and now she felt sorry for the others, who were not being sent to the Harton School, even though some of them had looked down their noses at her because she wasn’t being sent to a “first-class academy.”
When Mem’sab had determined that Sarah’s tummy wasn’t going to revolt, she’d done her best to give her a supper like the ones she was used to, the same as the grown-ups were getting. Most of the children and both cooks were from India rather than Africa, so it was, at best, an approximation, and she had milk for the first time in as long as she could remember (milk tended to go “off” very quickly in the Congo). She’d never had a “curry” before, but it all agreed with her, and if it tasted strange, it also tasted good, and didn’t make her feel half starved like the watered-down tea and toast and thin broth and gruel which was all the three English nannies seemed to think suitable for children on the ship. Now she was in a soft bed, with enough blankets to make a tropic-raised child finally feel warm again, and with a little fire in the grate to act as a night light. She sighed, and felt all of her tense muscles relax at last.
For all of her nine years until this moment, Sarah Jane Lyon-White had lived contentedly with her parents in the heart of Africa. Her father was a physician, her mother, a nurse, and they worked at a Protestant mission in the Congo.
She had been happy there, not the least because her mother and father were far more enlightened than many another mission worker—as Sarah well knew, having seen others when she and her mother visited other mission hospitals. Her parents took the cause of Healing as being more sacred than that of conversion, even though they were technically supposed to be “saving souls” as well as lives. Somehow that part never seemed to take any sort of precedence… and they undertook to work with the natives, and made friends instead of enemies among the shamans and medicine people. Because of this, Sarah had been a cherished and protected child by everyone around her, although she was no stranger to the many dangers of life in the Congo.
When she was six, and far older in responsibility than most of her peers, one shaman had brought her a parrot chick still in quills; he taught her how to feed and care for it, and told her that while it was still an immature bird, she was to protect it, but when it was grown, it would protect and guide her. She had called the parrot “Grey,” and the bird had become her best friend—and she missed Grey now more, even, than her parents.
Her parents had sent her to live in England for the sake of her health. Now, this was quite the usual thing. It was thought that English children were more delicate than their parents, and that the inhospitable humors of hot climes would make them sicken and die. Not that their parents didn’t sicken and die quite as readily as the children, who were, in fact, far sturdier than they were given credit for—but it was thought, by anxious mothers, that the climate of England would be far kinder to them. So Sarah’s Mummy had carefully explained to her, and explained that the climate of England would probably be bad for Grey, and so Grey would have to remain behind.
Though why, if the climate was supposed to be good for Sarah, it could be bad for Grey, Mummy had not been able to sufficiently explain.
“Perhaps if I’m good, Mem’sab will tell Mummy that Grey must come here,” she whispered to the friendly shadows around her bed. Some of the other children already had pets—two of the boys and one of the girls had rabbits, one girl had a canary, and there were fine, fat, contented cats roaming about perfectly prepared to plop into any lap that offered itself, all of whom seemed to belong to the school in general rather than anyone in particular. So it seemed that Mem’sab was more than willing to allow additions to the menagerie, provided any additions were properly taken care of.
If there was one thing that Sarah was well versed in, it was how to take care of Grey, and she had already determined that the same vegetable-and-rice curries that the cooks made for the school meals would serve Grey very well. So food would not be a problem. And this room was warm enough. And Mem’sab had explained (and Sarah saw no reason to doubt her) that she had made it very clear to the cats that while they were welcome to feast on as many mice and rats and insects as they could catch, anything with feathers was strictly off-limits. So that was sorted. All she had to do, really, was figure out a way to ask Mem’sab to explain to Mummy—