Nine years have passed on Earth since Sabrina and Scotty Devon returned from Praxatillus. A surprise visitor to Sabrina's office turns out to be Miahn, sent to retrieve the Devons to deal with the disappearance of Maratobia, Tirqwin, and Khediva. As...
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Mirann, by D. Denise Dianaty
"Is it safe?" she asked as they got out and looked around.
"Parts of it," he replied. "Don't go onto any of the upper floors, where they still exist. The tower is all right; I reinforced it years ago. I used to go there a lot to think."
To get away, Sabrina knew he meant. He continued, "But I thought you might enjoy the garden, what's left of it. It's all gone wild of course, but there are some nice little clearings."
They had to go down several flights of wide, crumbling stone steps to reach the garden, situated beside a rapid little brook. Ford took Sabrina's elbow to steady her over some of the rougher parts, and then kept hold of it as he began to tell her about his first discovery of the place and a little of its history. She listened at first, and then drifted off into abstraction. The sound of his voice became just another pleasant ambient sound, like the brook, and the songbird, the first she could ever recall hearing on Praxatillus. It was all enormously restful.
Eventually he led her to a wide stone bench, where they sat and gazed at their sanctuary, and Ford finally fell silent, his hand dropping from her arm. She didn't even notice the contact until it was gone, and glanced at him. She'd noticed that he was a tactile sort of person; it was one of the things she liked about him. There had been little touching in her life on Earth.
She was only now beginning to realize, as she confronted her memories, that the isolation she had created for herself was not a natural way to exist. She'd thought she was waiting for her reunion with Tassan, but, as she thought about it more, she'd been isolated here on Praxatillus too, before Tassan had made himself part of her life. Had her life on Earth been blighted by the bad habits she'd formed, dealing with all the crushing responsibility and impossible battles she'd endured on Praxatillus? Would she have been able to open up to Tassan again after all the years alone, if she had come back as she planned? Had he, after all, been right to give up on them? She sighed heavily, and leaned her elbows on her knees, staring down at her clasped hands.
After a moment, Ford touched her lightly, rubbing at her back as if she were a small child. It was a friendly gesture, but it brought tears to her eyes. She remembered a scene she thought she had forgotten, a moment of grief shared long ago with a friend who loved her enough to be silent when she didn't want to talk. It had been the night of her parents' funeral, and she and Scotty had been unable to face the chaos in their home, where they'd been packing for the move to England. They'd gone to Sabrina's best friend's house, a place where she felt safe, a place she had always looked on as a second home. The Graysons had been so kind, so helpful, all through the aftermath of her parents' fatal car accident. Scotty had fallen asleep, exhausted by the day's demands, and Sabrina had gone quietly to bed in the spare bed in Cynthia's room but had not slept. Toward dawn, she had gotten up and gone to the window seat to watch the pink sky through the barren trees, feeling only a bleakness in her soul. And quietly, without a word, Cynthia had gotten up and come over to her, rubbing at her back just enough to let her know she was there if Sabrina wanted to talk. But Sabrina didn't, couldn't. So Cynthia had sat there beside her, not intruding, just being there, a familiar, loving presence, sharing what they both knew were some of their last moments together before a long separation. At sixteen, newly orphaned, it had felt like the end of the world.
