Five Odd Honors by Lindskold Jane

Author:Lindskold, Jane [Lindskold, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781429947459
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2010-05-11T04:00:00+00:00

In the days following her introduction to Oak Gall, Brenda met several other of the sidhe folk. None of them were at all what she had expected.

Wasp was prettier than Oak Gall, a sharp-featured, vaguely womanlike creature with wings like a wasp’s and a temper to match. When she thought Brenda was being stupid—which was frequently—she spat tiny mud balls at her. Brenda thought it was fortunate that Wasp wasn’t much more than six inches long, otherwise her missiles would do more than sting.

Because no one ever seemed to notice her, Wasp most often spelled Parnell when the seeming young man couldn’t be with Brenda. Brenda had gotten used to feeling those little mud balls hit her at the weirdest times.

Nettle was taller than Wasp and slimmer than Oak Gall, but, like his fellows, he only resembled something human if Brenda stretched her imagination. He was covered in fine hair that shaded between pale green and paler yellow. Sometimes he wore a tunic made from what looked like two multilobed leaves, and a cap that resembled an elongated oval seed pod. Sometimes he didn’t bother with attire, and then Brenda did her best to not look to see if he was more like a man or more like a gangly plant.

Both, she decided. Oak Gall, Wasp, and Nettle look like both. I wonder, does Parnell look like a plant, when he’s not looking like a human? Is he a tree, maybe? A sort of male dryad. That would explain why his blood is white, like sap. Didn’t the druids worship trees? And weren’t the sidhe sort of associated with old gods?

Brenda knew she was struggling to find logic where none applied, but she couldn’t help herself. Anyhow, the idea of Parnell as the human embodiment of some noble tree was better than thinking of him as something else: a dandelion, maybe, or a shamrock.

“Are you keeping up with your lessons now?” Parnell asked Brenda one evening when they’d taken their books out onto one of the greens to study in the pleasant ebbing heat of mid-September.

“Can’t you see I am?” Brenda said, indicating the books spread around her. “My Lit survey teacher seems to think we have nothing to do but read for her class. She’s completely impossible. Thank God my accounting elective is all stuff Dad taught me years ago.”

“No, girlie,” Parnell said with a chuckle, “I don’t mean your college classes. I’m referring to the important lore you spent all summer devoting yourself to learning.”

“You mean the Orphans stuff ?” Brenda asked, knowing perfectly well that he did.

“I do.”

“Well, a little. I’ve been trying to memorize some of the sequences, but it’s not as if I can sit and make amulet bracelets.”

She touched the two she wore, one on each wrist: a Dragon’s Tail for protection, a Dragon’s Breath for attack. These two bracelets and her notebook were all Gaheris Morris would let her bring away. When they’d left Pearl’s house, Brenda had been too crushed to protest.

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