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Her mouth is by now hanging open, and instead of answering she claps delightedly. Spokelse tips her head to one side, perplexed by this Chosen's strange and undignified antics.

"But how will you get out!" she demands. "When you get out I'll give you some cheese. It is very good cheese," she adds proudly. "My mum makes it."

She laughs again--and she is not a girl prone to much laughter, nor a person with much reason for it--and only hesitates for a moment before she obliges. "Maybe if you eat too much cheese," she says shrewdly as she "helps" him, "you won't be able to fit into that hoop any more. You'll need one like they put around the necks of plow horses."

She claps--not the clap an audience gives, but the delighted clap that is startled out of you when you have seen something truly joy-inducing. She wraps an arm around Spokelse's neck and the bell tinkles, which causes the doe's ears to fan back gently in disapproval.

"And then your Guardian would refuse to carry you around until you stopped eating cheese," she says, and at the reminder she begins digging in her pockets. Out comes the tobacco pouch again, the first mouthful having been discreetly spat out before she'd joined him, and she replaces it before she continues searching, pulling out a small bundle wrapped in a cloth. She begins unfolding it and the sharp, earthy smell of goat cheese becomes quickly evident. "This was for my lunch but I didn't eat it," she informs him. "You can have it. What else can you do? Does she do things besides balance a ball on her nose?" she indicates the deer beside her as she extends the food, and indeed, true to her words, it seems particularly fine, balanced between cream and crumble and white as a cloud.

"Wren! That is a pretty name. She is so sweet," says Petra dreamily, watching her take the apple. "I like her ribbons. I'd like to see her play ball one day--one day when she's bigger maybe I can find you and watch you do tricks on her back." It is a little girl's comfort to be knowledgeable, and so she adds: "They are stronger than they look."

Her fingers brush over Spokelse's bright collar, a little longingly, and then over the ends of the ribbons in her own hair, messily placed. "When I was in the ward tree," she says suddenly, emboldened by happiness and the strangeness of her experiences today, "I saw a totem there, with red paint on its antlers and spots like a cow and bright swirls on it and it looked like it was dancing and laughing. And Wren--Wren reminds me of him. Even though she looks different."

She hopes he understands; hopes he, too, felt the strange sense of history and personality that had weighed on each deer-shaped stone, the vague contours of emotion and character that had jostled one another among the branches. Almost apologetically, full of guilt, she wraps an arm around Spokelse's neck and the doe, with an air of understanding and forgiveness, touches her nose to the girl's ear. The bell chimes gently. "Spokelse isn't much for paint and ribbons," Petra confides. She tries to sound cheery and upbeat, and is embarrassed at how poorly she manages.

She is silent while she considers this, spitting the wad of tobacco daintily into a scrap of handkerchief from her pockets so that she can take the apple, which she chews contemplatively. She is thinking about her own time at the tree, much different than Warwick is assuming, marred by disappointment, self-loathing, fear, doubt, anger. Guilt--waves of guilt. She subconsciously shakes out her hand as if burned as she recalls trying to take the bright totem.

With sudden decisiveness, she reaches up to loose the toggle on the braided collar, the bell and rope falling loose, and she kisses Spokelse's neck where it had been resting with affection and acceptance. She's had years to come to grips with the nature of her Guardian, and she loves her for her alien, ghostly dignity; the way she holds herself aloof from the world, the way that only Petra knows what thoughts pass through her mind and what emotions play themselves out behind the stoicism of her expressions and posture. She is a book written in a beautiful secret language that Petra and Petra alone knows.

"It's good Wren likes to be in your show," she agrees. "I think Spokelse is good for being Spokelse." She holds the bell out towards Warwick, its brightly colored braids dangling from her hands. "Since I don't have any money to put in your hat."

She nods, totally sure that this is true. Spokelse leans her forehead into the girl's shoulder like a cat. "She would," she agrees. "And probably paint too. But I don't need her to. I was just--just being selfish." This is a large admission for a young girl and it is clearly startling to her to put it into words. "Anyway Wren would wear it pretty. Or you could wear it." At this she grins, gesturing at his neck. "Or you could just give it to a pretty lady next time you do a show. I saw a man with a trained dog do that, once, with a ribbon."

She offers her slice of apple to Spokelse, who takes it daintily, like a queen on procession bending for a flower offered by a child.

"What was your name, anyway?"

"My name is Petra Turnbull," she says gravely, after observing the front of the trunk for a moment by shoving her legs to the side, leaning over, and nodding significantly. "But I go by Petra. It was very nice to meet you, Warwick." She rises to her feet, dusting off her skirts, and Spokelse turns to head back towards the cart after a final sniff at the other deer.

"I should get home before mum worries I've run off and joined the circus," she says solemnly. "Thank you for showing me your tricks. Don't get fat."