The Farwalker's Quest by Joni Sensel

to put the telling dart back in his pocket. He paused.
    â€œTell you what.” He dangled the dart before Ariel. “So youknow that I mean it, you keep this until you decide. If the answer is yes, you’ll already have it to carry”.
    She drew the brass gingerly from his fingers before he moved to the door.
    â€œI’ll be about, trading for provisions,” he said. “Or Scarl’s just there across the lane. When you’ve reached a decision, let one of us know.”
    Once he was gone, Luna turned to her daughter. A dozen arguments flicked over her face. She voiced only two. “They’re practically strangers, Ariel. I’m not sure I can trust them. And I don’t know if I can bear to be without you that long.”
    Ariel dragged her palms along her thighs. She had no idea how it felt to be away from her mother. She didn’t want to imagine. It would confuse her too much.
    â€œIf I was going to apprentice with somebody else,” she said slowly, “I’d be away, too.”
    â€œNot nearly so far. Not out of Canberra Docks.”
    â€œIt’s just a few weeks, though,” Ariel said.
    â€œWell, I have a mind about it,” Luna said, “but I can tell that you do as well. Let me wash up our lunch dishes and we’ll see if Zeke’s father can guide us.”
    Word of the Finders’ offer skipped from one neighbor to the next before Ariel and Luna even reached Jeshua’s house. Two people they met along the way remarked on the reward, simply assuming that she would accept.
    â€œHeavens, you can be a Healtouch next year,” said one, “but you might never get another chance like this.”
    Another neighbor observed, “It’s lucky for the rest of us, too, since it means the Finders will be back in a few weeks—more trading then!”
    â€œWe haven’t decided yet,” Luna told them, plucking uneasilyat one elbow. “It depends on what Jeshua and the sycamore say.” But Ariel could see the opinions of others nibbling at her mother’s misgivings.
    As they neared Zeke’s house, she kept her eyes on the sycamore, silently begging its approval. Meanwhile, her skin prickled with worry that the tree might actually give it.

CHAPTER
9
    â€œI’m glad you came to ask me,” Jeshua told Luna. He, too, already had heard that Ariel might go off with the Finders, but unlike most others, he didn’t approve. After saying so, he added, “My opinion means nothing, of course,” and went to sit for a long time alone near his tree. Ariel and her mother waited on the edge of the square, far from his voice.
    When he rose and approached them at last, he looked somber. But he shared what the sycamore had said.
    â€œIt is best that she go. And she will.”
    Through the waiting, Ariel’s own fears and her mother’s had sneaked over her heart. The tree’s answer sent relief surging through her and bolstered her nerve.
    It seemed to have the opposite effect on her mother. “She will?” Luna demanded. “As if I have nothing to say about it? What does that mean?”
    Jeshua shook his head. “I can’t tell you. Regardless of my question, that is the answer I receive.”
    Luna drew Ariel to her. “I won’t let her go. I can’t do it.”
    Reaching a sympathetic hand to her arm, Jeshua replied,“You know how I feel about ignoring their advice, especially when it’s this clear. That always seems to cause trouble.”
    Luna smoothed Ariel’s hair. Feeling too much like a pet, Ariel pulled away.
    â€œI can’t command you,” Jeshua added, “but if she were my child, I would send her.”
    At that, Ariel’s mother bowed her head, pressed her fists to her chest, and nodded. Ariel squirmed, a silent shriek of excitement vibrating through her bones.
    She wanted to tell the Finders herself she was coming. Her mother insisted on knocking