Elemental Magic: All-New Tales of the Elemental Masters by Mercedes Lackey Page B

cholera, and Father often sees dysentery among his charity patients. He volunteers at a hospital for the poor, and he frequently takes El and me along to assist. Again, it’s something she’s better at than I am.
    But I enjoy handling the water during the service. It feels alive to me in a way that fire does not. The other acolytes help me with fire, but they all seem happy to let me do the ablutions: a carefully choreographed routine in which I pour water from a cruet over Father Pearce’s fingers while holding a small silver bowl beneath them, and then turn slightly so that he can take the towel draped over my left forearm to dry his hands. This ritual washing of the hands is purely symbolic; if his hands were dirty, this would not clean them. But before he consecrates the bread and wine so that they become the body and blood of Christ, his hands have to be symbolically clean as well. We finished the ablutions, Father Pearce and I bowed to each other, and I put the bowl, towel, and cruet back on the shelf at the side.
    *   *   *
    Our family stayed after the service to meet with Father Pearce. It was horrible, even though nobody was angry with me. Father was angry enough for everyone in the room to feel it, and Mother was furious as well. And I hate it when people around me are angry. I sat in a chair, shaking, and kept my mouth shut.
    Father Pearce wasn’t angry with El, either, but he was
very
upset to learn that she was a girl. Apparently there’s a rule in the Church of England that says girls can’t be acolytes. He told her she could join the Altar Guild when she was older, but I could tell she did not find that to be the consolation he obviously intended. Still, she thanked him politely, and she pointed out that the Bishop couldn’t blame him; there was no way he could have known she wasn’t a boy. Christ Church didn’t even have our baptismal records; we had been baptized at the estate of our mother’s family, out in the country, so the records were in the parish church there.
    He then tried to mediate between our raging parents, with limited success. Mother was determined to leave Father—and to take El with her. It was finally agreed that she and El would visit her family in the country. Father allowed this on the grounds that it would be better for her lungs, and that’s what he could tell anyone who had the impertinence to ask why his wife had left him so soon after her return. As for Mother’s argument that this would give Eleanora a place to learn to be a proper young lady, Father wasn’t enthusiastic about losing his best pupil and assistant, but he couldn’t say
that
in front of Mother, who would have thought him insane—and she already thought that raising her daughter as a boy was both crazy and cruel.
    From the look on El’s face as Mother promised her lots of pretty dresses and lessons in music, dancing, and embroidery, it looked as if the cruelty was coming from Mother. El had no more interest in those things than I did.
    El hugged me hard, and I hugged her back. Being separated from El was inconceivable; we hadn’t been apart from each other since we were born.
    Mother practically dragged El from the room before we could say a proper goodbye—although I felt as if I were choking and probably couldn’t have said anything anyway. I felt as if half of my soul was going with them. Maybe it was.
    Father scowled after them. “El will be wasted in the country; she’s been doing good work in my practice, and she shows the potential to become an Adept. Why did the one with real talent have to be the girl? The White Lodge doesn’t take women!”
    I was astonished to hear him mention the Lodge in front of an outsider, but Father Pearce’s reply surprised me even more. “You’ll have to find a teacher for her wherever she ends up. She needs to learn more control; she melted several inches of one of the altar candles this morning.”
    Father looked at me, and I said miserably, “I