I didn’t wish to face anyone. I stood silently in the hallway for a few moments, confirming that my father and Rosse were in his study. My father was talking, his words indistinguishable but his disapproval plain. Obviously Rosse was hearing a lecture on all the ways I had failed the family. I strode quickly past the door of the music room. I heard Elisi’s harp and recalled that often my mother and sisters gathered there to play music or read poetry after dinner. I opened the front door quietly and slipped out into the Widevale night.

My father had created an oasis of trees around his house. It was an island of illusion, a way to pretend that we did not live far from civilization on the endless sweep of prairie. Over one hundred carefully nurtured trees cut the wind and screened a nearly flat vista. My father had even had water piped up from the river to form a little pond and fountain for my sisters’ pleasure in their private garden. The soft splashing drew me toward their bower.

I followed a graveled pathway through an arched gateway. The latticework I had helped to erect years ago was now completely cloaked in vines. Small night lamps with glass chimneys hung from the branches of a golden willow, illuminating their silver reflections in the pond’s surface. I sat down on the edge of the stone-banked pool and peered into the dark water to see if the ornamental fish had survived.

“Planning to eat one?”

I turned in shock. I had never heard my sister Yaril sound so sarcastic and cruel. We had always been close as children. She had not only been my faithful correspondent while I was at school, but she had also managed to smuggle Carsina’s letters to me, so that we might carry on a private correspondence away from our parents’ supervision. She was sitting on a wrought-iron bench under a graceful trellis of pampered honeysuckle. Her dove-gray dress had blended her into the shadows when first I approached the pond. Now she leaned out into the light, and anger hardened her face. “How could you do this to us? I am going to be so humiliated at Rosse’s wedding. And poor Carsina! This is certainly not what she was anticipating! The last two weeks, she has been so excited and happy. She even chose her dress color to go well with your uniform. And you come home looking like this!”

“It’s not my fault!” I retorted.

“Oh? Then who has been stuffing food down your throat, I’d like to know?”

“It’s…I think it has something to do with the Speck plague.” The words jumped out of my mouth as quickly as the idea had suddenly come into my mind. On the surface, it seemed a silly thing to say. Everyone knew that Speck plague was a wasting disease. But the moment I said it aloud, odd bits of memories suddenly fell into an accusing pattern. A long-ago conversation I’d overhead between Rosse and my father combined with the dour words of the Fat Man in the carnival freak show tent in Old Thares. He’d claimed he’d once been a cavalla soldier until the plague had ruined him. Even Dr. Amicas’s fascination with my weight gain now took on a darker significance.

But those seemed trivial clues compared to words recalled from a dream. Tree Woman had encouraged my Speck self to gorge himself on the magical essence of dying people. I suddenly recalled how I had seen myself in that dream; I’d been full-bellied and heavy-legged. Tree Woman herself was an immense woman. In my dreams, my arms could not encompass the rich curves of her body. I felt a disturbing flash of arousal at that memory and thrust it from me, but not before I heard like a whisper in my ear, “Eat and grow fat with their magic.” I stood absolutely still, my every sense straining, but all that came to my ears was the gentle splashing of the water and the shivering of the leaves in the evening wind. They were followed by my sister’s snort of disdain.

“Do you think I’m a fool, Nevare? I may have had to stay here and be tutored by some silly old woman from Old Thares while you were sent off to the grand city to learn at your fine school, but I’m not stupid. I’ve seen men who have had Speck plague! And one and all, they have been thin as rails. That is what the Speck plague does to a man. Not fatten him like a hog raised for bacon.”

“I know what I know,” I said coldly. It was a brotherly remark, one that I’d often used to end our childhood arguments. But Yaril was no longer the innocent little golden-haired sister I’d left behind almost a year ago. She would no longer be cowed by a simple assertion of superior knowledge.

She merely sniffed and replied, “And I know what I know! And that is that you are as fat as a hog and you’re going to humiliate all of us at Rosse’s wedding. What will Remwar’s family think of me, having such a brother? Will they fear that I, too, will inflate like a bladder? I was hoping that this wedding might be a chance for me to make a good impression on his parents, so that his offer for my hand might become formal. But they won’t even see me. I’ll be eclipsed behind you!”

“I didn’t choose this, Yaril. You might stop for one moment to think of my feelings.” All the resentment I felt at my father’s harsh treatment of me was blossoming into fury at Yaril’s childish concern for her dignity. “You’re such a selfish little girl. Every letter you sent me, you begged me for gifts. And fool that I am, I sent them. And now that I’ve returned home after nearly dying in the filthy city, you disdain me because of my physical appearance. A fine welcome I’ve received from any of you! The only one who has shown one jot of sympathy for my situation is Mother!”

“And why shouldn’t she?” Yaril flashed back at me. “You were always her favorite! And now that you’ve ruined yourself for being a soldier, she can keep you here with her always! Carsina won’t have you, fat as a hog, and when she looks around, she and her family will take Remwar away from me! He was her father’s first choice for her anyway. You’ve ruined it for everyone, Nevare, you selfish pig!”

Before I could even reply to that, she played a woman’s trump card. She burst into tears and then ran off into the darkness, sobbing into her hands. “Yaril!” I called after her. “Come back here! Yaril, come back!”

But she did not, and I was left standing alone by the stupid fish pond that I’d helped to build. At the time it had seemed like an enchanting concept. Now I saw it for the folly it was. The fish pond and fountain were completely at odds with the land that surrounded us. To build something that could not be sustained save by daily effort was a vanity and a waste and an insult to the beauty of the true nature that surrounded us. What had seemed a shady retreat from the harsh plains that surrounded our home now seemed foolish self-indulgence.

I sank down onto Yaril’s bench and considered the words she had flung at me. She’d been angry and she’d used her best ammunition to wound me. But how much of it was true? Would Carsina ask her father to break his agreement with my father? I tried to worry about it, but a wave of hunger washed through me, leaving me feeling both nauseous and hollow. I rocked forward over my belly and embraced it as if it were an ally instead of my enemy.

I was in that undignified posture when I heard a light footstep on the pathway. I straightened up and prepared for battle, but it wasn’t Yaril returning. Instead it was my mother, holding a lantern to guide her steps as she came softly down the walk.

“There you are,” she said when she saw me. “Why didn’t you come down to dinner?” Her tone was gentle.

“I thought it better to stay away.” I tried to make my voice jovial. “As you can see, perhaps I’ve had too many dinners of late.”

“Well. I won’t deny that your appearance surprised me. But I did miss you. I’ve scarcely had a chance to speak to you. And…” She hesitated a moment and then went on delicately, “I do need you to return to the house and come to my sewing room with me.”