Commitment Hour

He bowed his head and covered his eyes.

How do you comfort your father?

Pat his shoulder? Murmur sympathetic words? Hold him till he stops crying?

Of all the people in the universe, your father is the one person you can't touch when he grieves.

I leaned against the kitchen counter, not knowing what to do with my hands.

Eventually he spoke again, no more than a whisper. "It's a pity Dorr ran away — if we all just walked straight to the center of town and a

"What did you do with it?" I asked.

"It's here. In the root cellar."

"You have to get rid of it."

"I know," he nodded. "Tonight I'll throw it into the lake."

"And what if someone sees you? What if Rashid finds out about you and Dorr before then and comes to search the house?"

"How would he find out?"

"Hakoore knows you and Dorr were lovers," I said. "That means Leeta too. Maybe other people — Tobers know a lot about each other's business. If Rashid wanders around the feast this afternoon, asking questions…"

"So what should I do?"

"Give me the gun. I'll get rid of it."

He looked at me with his reddened eyes. "You wouldn't keep it for yourself, would you, Fullin?"

"No," I snapped, "and I'm not going to shoot anyone either, if that's what bothers you. Just get the gun."

Stiffly, he forced himself out of the chair and toward the cellar steps. When I was sure he was steady enough to be left alone, I hurried to my old room at the back of the house. There, laid proudly on my bed, was my Chicken Box.

I've already mentioned that everyone going to Commit at Birds Home carries a chicken foot, symbolizing the Patriarch's Hand. In recent years (as the cove succumbed to Hakoore's "materialism"), the fashion had sprung up for parents to give their children gold-painted boxes reminiscent of the box that contained the real hand. The parents also filled the box with presents, sometimes so many gifts they could barely fit in the requisite chicken foot. Supposedly, the presents went to Birds Home for "blessing" by the gods, but really they were just trotted out so neighbors could see the display of wealth.

Zephram had known what was expected of him as father of a Committing child — a box chocked with trinkets that must have been purchased down-peninsula. I didn't even look at them as I tossed them out on my bed; I was just glad the box was big enough to hold a Beretta.

By the time Zephram returned from the cellar, I had brought the box to the kitchen table. "You're going to take the gun to Birds Home?" he asked.

I nodded. "My offering." It was tradition to leave something at Birds Home as an offering to the gods. Usually people left a token of the soul they were giving up. If you were Committing female, you might leave your spear to show that you were setting aside male ways, or if you were going male, you might give a sample of your last menstrual blood. "I don't know what it means to give the gods a gun," I told Zephram, "but it will be safer with them than with anyone here."

"And you'll make sure no one looks in the box before you get to Birds Home?"

"People will wonder what extravagant Southern gifts you bought me," I told him, "but there's no rule I have to show them."

"Well, then…" He held the pistol cradled in both hands, as if it was as heavy and precious as gold. Last night, I'd only seen the gun by starlight; now, with sun streaming through the kitchen windows, the weapon gleamed with sly eagerness. We stared at it for a moment, then Zephram sighed. "I've put the safety on," he said, "so it won't go off accidentally. You should make sure it's still on before you take it out of the box. Do you want me to show you how?"

"I know all about the safety," I answered. "Steck explained everything to Bo

"A merchant friend of mine was a collector. He had nearly a hundred OldTech firearms of various types… only two of which were preserved well enough to fire. What he wouldn't give for a gun like this…." Zephram shook his head. "But then, he's probably dead. It's been twenty years. Twenty years since I've seen anyone I used to know down south."

I looked at him: an old man, tired to the bone. Tober Cove had been hard on him. He'd been trapped up here by snow that first winter, and frozen in place ever since.

"Rashid and Steck will be leaving in a day or so," I said. "Maybe you'd like to go south with them."

"Steck told me she's with Rashid now."

"Even so… you wouldn't have to worry about bandits if you traveled with a Spark Lord, and maybe you could use some time away from the cove."

"I know you, Fullin," he said with a weak smile. "You just want to claim my house for your own."

I smiled back. "That's it exactly. Never mind that you deserve a vacation after putting up with me for twenty years."

"Well," he said. "Well." He looked around the kitchen with the air of a man who isn't trying to see anything. "If I decided to go south," he murmured, "I'd just go. Throw some stuff in the wagon, hitch up the horses, and leave. Pick a su

He looked at me with a question in his eyes.

I nodded. "Sure. That'd be nice. No good-byes."

After a while, my father set the Beretta carefully into the box. I had already put in a towel as padding, so the gun wouldn't slide around. Zephram picked up the chicken foot lying on the table and moved to put it into the box too; but I stopped him. "Keep it," I said. "A Commitment Day present for you."

"Don't you have to take it to Birds Home?"

"No one checks," I said, "and the gods will understand."

"So, a Commitment Day present," he repeated. "You want me to have a symbol of the Patriarch?"

"It's the only thing I have to give," I told him. "Everything else, you bought me."

He smiled. "I bought you the chicken foot too." But he took it and patted my hand.

NINETEEN

A Pair of Fleas for Mistress Gull

No one in the town square knew how to behave.

There were two black barrels under Little Oak now, and two bodies on the bier — Dorr and Bo

On the other hand, it was Commitment Day — folks had looked forward to this for months. Every kitchen swam with the smells of food for the afternoon feast: pork roasts, crayfish chowder, and wild blueberry pie. Little boys and girls all sported new Blessing outfits made specially for the day… or at least new decorations on old clothes, embroidered or smocked by lamplight over the past few weeks. The day before, a dozen people had asked me, "Fullin, you'll play a few tunes before you go, won't you? Good dance tunes?" And I had said yes, because I never imagined Bo