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The next time Kasia wrote from Gidna to ask for a jug of water from the Spindle, I brought it to her myself.
I couldn't stride directly from my home to the coast—the distance was too far for the kind of long steps that transported me around the valley. But magic carried me part of the way, and I took up the rest of the distance with my feet. I didn't dawdle while walking, but I didn't hurry either. I took my time and enjoyed the feeling that the distance between us was decreasing.
I made friends with some of the trees along the way. None of them housed a sleeping soul like the heart-trees of the Wood did, but they sang their own songs. I befriended other streams, too, as they chattered the earth's gossip all along their courses, and I learned the patterns in the ground made by harrow and harvest in this part of the country, and the way the clods of dry earth crumbled under my feet.
When I came close, I grew impatient, took three long strides through the outlying towns, and was gone before anyone could express their startlement at seeing me; and then I was there.
My destination was the royal children's grandparents' house—a fine city home—and my plan was to present myself at the door like a civilized person, ask for admittance, surprise Kasia when she was called to see who was there. I had pictured a reunion like that for most of my walk.
But in the end I didn't want to explain, or to wait for someone to call her, or to find out she had gone out somewhere. Instead I sang a little song to myself to find her and I stepped right to where she was, sitting on the floor in a large parlor with a fireplace, reading to the young princess from a large book.
I rolled into the room like a fog. Kasia glanced up as if looking for the source of a draft, and her eyes opened wide when she saw me there. She was beautiful, my dearest one. I had the impression, suddenly, that all the time I had thought her beautiful as a girl, I was really observing a rough sketch, that she had only recently grown into the fullness of her own features. Now her eyes knew something about what they were looking at, and her back was straight not like a well-brought-up child minding her posture, but like a plumb line, something you could use to make your house square and well founded and safe.
I said, holding up my jug, "I heard you were short on water."
Kasia laughed. "Agnieszka!" She got to her feet and reached out a hand that I was suddenly holding in my own, though I had been too far away for that a moment ago. "It's true," she said. "I have been wanting."
Her manner was dry, nothing improper, but she crinkled up her eyes as she spoke, and some of the woodenness left her manner for a moment, just there, where only I could notice it. I curled my fingers, holding her hand tighter for a moment, like I was curling my toes into the earth of the valley, and I kissed her, joyful, home.