Furthermore(13)

—and sighed, disappointed. Alice didn’t much care for the history of harvesting. She found the business terribly boring and, if she were being honest, she might even tell you she resented the whole of it simply because she feared it would be her fate one day. Alice had worried all her young life that she’d end up good for nothing but tilling the fields. Tilling was honorable but it was an exceptionally unglamorous job, and Alice preferred to be on the other side of things: taking raw magic and transforming it into usable matter.

Anyhow, she was about to push on when she remembered the very reason she’d stopped. There were two books on display in the shop window.

The Surrender, The Task, and the Long Way Back:

How to Cope When Your Child Leaves Home

and just beside it

Champions of Recent Past:

Remembering our Ferenwood Heroes

Alice’s eyes nearly split in four as she shoved herself through the shop doors and ran for the books in the window. Limbs trembling, heart racing, Alice picked up a copy of Champions of Recent Past and ran her hand over the cover. There, with a small selection of other town heroes, was a picture of Father, aged twelve and glorious, the winner of his own Surrender just thirty years prior.

Alice had always known Father was a Champion. Father won the title for his dexterity of mind and for his ability to retain and re-create images at will; his task was to travel the land and work with the Town Elders to become the first true cartographer of Ferenwood. He and the Elders had been working together to create maps so precise and so easily navigable that one day all Ferenwood residents would have a copy of their own, enabling them to travel from one neighborhill to another without complication or confusion. In fact, his work had been so remarkable that he’d been asked to stay on with the Town Elders ever after. This kind of treatment was fairly customary for Champions, who were considered the single most talented citizens of their year; but Father had been more than just a Champion. Father was a friend to Ferenwood. He was loved by all. In fact, it was often whispered that one day Father would be named a Town Elder, too. Instead, Father had left, and not a soul knew why.





Mother was making tea when Alice finally made it home—just before dark. Alice pushed open the front door with a secret weighing down her skirts: Inside her pocket was the one dillypop, carefully wrapped, to be saved for a special occasion. Alice would have to wait weeks to get her hands on another fink but she’d made peace with the loss of the last of her money. The triplets were eating appleberry jam straight from the jar, small purple fingers sticking to their faces. Mother was humming a tune as she moved about the kitchen and, even though Alice stood before her, Mother wiped her just-washed hands on her apron and didn’t seem to notice her daughter at all.

Oh, it didn’t matter.

Alice was tired, she was torn, and she took a seat, dropping her chin in her hands. What a day today had been. Nothing would shake the weight of the world from her shoulders tonight, not even a cheekful of candy. Alice wished the world would shed a few pounds. She desperately wanted to find Father, but she also desperately wanted to have a task; and so she’d come to no conclusion at all, leaving Oliver in a twist of his own.

Finding Father meant trusting Oliver. It meant sacrificing her own future to help him with his, and even then there was no guarantee of anything. Besides, just because she could see through a lie did not mean she had any reason to trust Oliver Newbanks.

Alice pushed away from the table and slipped into her bedroom, grateful for the chance to be alone while her brothers were busy in the kitchen. There was one small section of this room that was hers and hers alone, and it was hidden under the floorboards.

Alice had hidden her life underneath this room. Books and trinkets, clothes and flowers: the only precious things she owned.

She carefully removed a few planks of wood and unearthed her outfit for tomorrow. She’d been working on it for two years, carefully stitching it together, piece by piece. Four skirts, a half-sleeved blouse, a vest, and a cropped, sleeveless jacket all to be worn together. The final bit was the headpiece, crocheted by hand, trimmed with a train of yellow tulle and strung with hammered tin coins. Alice had spent months dyeing the fabrics and adorning the plain cloth, embroidering flowers, sewing beads and sequins into intricate patterns, and adding tiny mirrors to the hem to make the skirt glitter with every step. It was an explosion of colors, heavy with the weight of all the work she’d done. She even knew exactly which flowers she’d weave into her braid.

Alice knew she would be incredible.

She would so thoroughly impress the Town Elders that they’d have no choice but to give her the best task—the grandest task. She’d go on to be a town hero, just like Father, and she would make her family proud. She’d had it all figured out.

Children in Ferenwood prepared their whole lives for their Surrender. Each child was born with a singular magical talent, and it was the job of parents and teachers to recognize and nurture that talent and, ultimately, develop their Surrender performance. The performance was crucial because it was a presentation of untapped potential; it was critical to show just how useful your magical talent could be because the best talents would go on to receive the best tasks. The best adventures.

This was what Alice had dreamed of.

But Alice hadn’t needed any of that extra help, because she’d figured it out on her own. Father had told her, many moons ago, what she needed to do. Maybe he hadn’t realized it then, but she had.