a tale of two castles by gail carson levine

Mother and Father would understand once I found a master or mistress to serve and could join the guild someday. I mouthed the word into the wind, the word that held my future. Mother and Father's instructions were to apprentice myself to a weaver, but I would not. I wished I could pick outĭair Mountain, where our Potluck Farm perched.įarewell to my homeland. For the first time it seemed precious, with its wooded slopes and snowy peaks, the highest wreathed in clouds. The last I could make out of them, they were still waving. If fate was cruel, never.Īs they shrank, Mother losing her tallness, Father his girth, Albin his long beard, I waved. If fate was kind, in ten years I would see my parents and Albin again. The sail, decorated with the faded image of a winged fish, bellied in the breeze. I laughed through my tears and raced up the plank.

Lambs and calves! Behind me, Mother cried out. I ran, leaped over a coil of rope, caught my foot, and went sprawling. The master of the cog roared, 'We're off!' He whispered into my hair, 'Be what you must be.' Mother flicked a gull's feather off my shoulder. I hated the geese, but I would miss them. 'The geese'-Mother straightened, and her voice caught- 'will look for you tomorrow.' A whited sepulcher is someone who seems good but is, in truth, evil. I wanted to soothe her, but her instruction seemed impossible to follow. The whited sepulcher was Mother's great worry. Mother bent so her face was level with mine. I would be glad to meet either one-if I had a quick means of escape.Īlbin said, 'Remember, Elodie: If you have to speak to a dragon, call it IT, never him or her or he or she.' Maybe ogres and dragons bothered you especially if you didn't bother them. 'Elodie.' I wondered if Father's adage was true. 'Don't finish your elders' sentences, Lodie,' Mother said. The castle that wasn't the king's belonged to an ogre. At least one of each lived in the town of Two Castles. He was the only one of us who'd ever been in the company of an ogre or a dragon. '-don't bother them,' I said, glancing at Albin, who shrugged.

'Don't befriend them! They won't bother you if you-'

,' Father said, sounding nasal, 'stay clear of the crafty dragons and the shape-shifting ogres.' He took an uneven breath. 'Elodie,' she said, 'don't correct your elders. The master of the cog called from the gangplank, 'The tide won't wait.' Albin stood to the side a few feet and blew his nose with a honk. Salt water to salt water, a drop of me in the brine that would separate me from home.įather's eyes were red. A tear slipped into the strait through a crack in the wooden dock. Mother wiped her eyes on her sleeve and held me tight.

A tale of two castles by gail carson levine