Everybody ran outside to see the snowfall, a thing that happens in Etra maybe once in a hundred years, so that we children didn't even know what it was called. I wanted to tell everybody about that, it was so amazing, and I did.
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And once I remembered all the streets of the city turning white, and the roofs turning white, and the air full of tiny white birds all whirling and flying downward. But there's the other kind of remembering, or seeing, or whatever it is, like when I remembered seeing the Father come home from Pagadi, and his horse was lame only he hadn't come home yet and didn't until next summer, and then he came just as I remembered, on the lame horse. Lately I have a new remembering: the man in the high room in shadows who turns around and says my name. There's nothing to tell just the silvery-blue water, and reeds in the wind, and sunlight, and aīlue hill way off. I've never told anybody about it, not even Sallo. The first thing I ever remembered, the place with the reeds and the water, is like that. Sometimes what I remember has a secret feeling about it, as if it belongs to me, like a gift that I can keep and take out and look at when I'm by myself like the eagle feather Yaven-di gave me. And I tell her again my memory of the soldiers coming up the street. "Tell all the bits you left out." That's what I need. But I won't laugh I'm so full of what I r emembered, it was so awful and so frightening, I want to talk about it, to tell everybody, to say, "Look out, look out! Soldiers are coming, enemies, with a green flag, setting the city on fire!" I sit swinging my legs, sullen and mournful. She kisses the top of my head and then bumps me so hard I nearly fall off the end of the bench.
"I promise," I say as she says, "I hear." In her other hand she's holding the little Ennu-Mé she wears on a cord around her neck. I fit my grubby paw against it to make the vow. Promise, Gav." She puts up her hand, palm out. So we never talk about anything we can do that they can't. Thatt Marsh people have powers, and the city people are afraid of them. "Why?" "Because only you and I are Marsh people." "So was Gammy!" "It was Gammy that told me what I'm telling you. "Not even Tib?" "Not even Tib," Her round, brown face and dark eyes are quiet and serious. When Sallo says my name in her soft voice, when she says, "Listen, truly," I do truly listen to her. But Gavir, listen, truly, you mustn't talk about it to anybody. And they don't like people to have powers." "But I don't! Just sometimes I remember things that are going to happen!" "I know. "Don't ever tell them about remembering the way you do. And then if an army did invade the city, they'd want to know how you knew." "I'd tell them I remembered it!" "No," Sallo says. "Well, just ready." "But what if it doesn't happen for a long time? They'd be angry at you for giving a false alarm. But I can't keep from remembering what I saw, the dreadful excitement of it, and pretty soon I burst out, "But I ought to tell them! It was an invasion! They could warn the soldiers to be ready!" "And they'd say-when?" That stumps me. The warmth and the hug and the rocking ease my mind and I rock back against Sallo, bumping her a little. "But what if it's going to happen? Like when I saw the snow?" "That's why not to talk about it:' My sister puts her arm around me and rocks us sideways, left and right, as we sit on the schoolroom bench. Le Guin Text set in Adobe Jenson Designed by Cathy Riggsįirst edition ACEGHFDB Printed in the United States of America Summary: When young Gavir's sister is brutally killed, he escapes from s lavery and sets out to explore the world and his own psychic abilities. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Le Guin, Ursula K., 1929Powers/Ursula K.
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