Page 138 of Cast in Atonement

“No? I admit I knew very little about the green, and very little about the Keeper. The green was not my concern, although my first master studied it for some time.”

“Was he anything like Azoria?”

“He was much, much closer to Azoria’s personality than to yours, certainly. You would not have cared for him.” Helen smiled. “I loathed him myself.”

Kaylin glanced at her home’s Avatar. Helen was usually very gentle, and she responded to kindness; it was why she’d taken so instantly to Mrs. Erickson. What must it have been like to be forced to obey a man she hated?

“Terrible,” Helen replied. “You are thinking it was like slavery. It was exactly that. But, Kaylin, if you desired it, you, too, could command me. What I destroyed was the part of my internal composition that gave me no choice in my master. I did not wish to ever again obey commands that viscerally disgusted me.”

“What did he know about the green?”

“It was wild; it was untamed. In its folds, the passage of time could markedly slow or markedly increase. He knew of the weapon the green guarded; he knew the green decided the weapon’s wielder. He had been offered a great deal to determine where the weapon was, or failing that, how its wielder was decided.”

“I’m guessing he never found an answer.”

“That would be correct. Long before he could theorize one, he was ejected from the green; the Wardens would not allow him to pass.”

“Do you think the green was aware of him?”

“I assume so—as I said, I knew very little about it. But, Kaylin, I am learning more even as we speak. If I am not standing in the green—and I cannot, given I cannot leave the house metaphorically speaking—you are with the green now; I can feel some shift in the essential nature of the mana from which every part of my structure is drawn. It is why, I think, you were given the dress.”

“I wasn’t given the dress; I lost all my regular clothing to it.”

“Do you feel it was unnecessary?”

“No. No, I don’t. I’m not great with unexplained, instant changes. They set my teeth on edge. But if the green can somehow help me relieve Mrs. Erickson of these particular dead, I’ll consider it a blessing, and I’ll try to be appropriately thankful.”

“If you cannot manage that,” Helen said, “be appropriately respectful when you discuss the dress; I believe your current attitude might offend the Barrani.”

Kaylin doubted it because most of the Barrani present were part of the cohort, who had no reason to love the green.

“I don’t suppose you could tell me how to be like Mrs. Erickson?”

“You are Kaylin; she is Imelda. No, I don’t think I can—nor do I think you should be. But if you mean can I tell you how to interact with the dead as Mrs. Erickson does, perhaps. Mrs. Erickson reacts to people in the same fashion. Only if they harm her, or harm people she cares about, does she retreat—but she starts in the same way with everyone: she listens.”

“I’m listening to them,” Kaylin replied. “I mean, I’m trying.”

“Your head is full of thoughts that have nothing to do with the ghosts.”

“And hers isn’t?”

“Not when she speaks with them, no. Most people think of themselves—not necessarily in an avaricious way, but perhaps a reflexive one. They try to match the experiences and emotions of others with those they themselves have experienced. If they can find a match, they feel sympathy or empathy. Sometimes they overlay their own fears on the experiences of others: fear of abandonment, fear of loss. If another person experiences losses that they fear, they feel a very deep sympathy.

“This is what you do, when you are trying to understand others; you reach for your understanding of yourself first.”

Kaylin nodded.

“This does not work well when the experience is obscured by simple differences: language, for one. Hierarchical differences. Social differences. Monetary differences. Racial differences. People are, internally, very similar, but the externals exert great influence, and they build very real walls.

“You sympathize with people who live in the fiefs because of your terrible experiences living there; you sympathize with people who live in the warrens because you assume your experiences are similar. In my opinion, they very much are. There is nothing wrong with what you are doing; there is nothing wrong with the initial approach.

“Those people live their own lives; their lives are not yours. In some small way, they are your responsibility as a Hawk—but you do not feel they are your burden to bear, having burdens enough of your own.

“But your friendship with Teela and Tain has expanded your sense of sympathy; it has broken down the walls that would otherwise separate you, because you share common ground in your chosen profession. Approaching Teela’s experience has made you more aware that even those in power suffer great loss. She will never starve, unless she chooses to do so for inexplicable reasons of her own; she will never freeze to death for lack of shelter in the winter. She will never be bothered by Ferals.

“But none of this mattered to Teela; she lost her mother at her father’s hand; she lost her father at her own. She lost her only friends at a very young age—and it was only on your trip to the West March that she finally found them again. You understand her attachment to her friends. You understand far more of her fears than you did when you first met her.”

Kaylin nodded. When she’d first met Teela, she’d thought the Barrani Hawk was above something as petty as fear.

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