The boys finished their game; unsurprisingly, Carter won. Afterwards, it wasn’t too difficult for him to persuade Heron to go around to the homes of their other friends and gather them up to tell them. Heron didn’t really want to talk about it in detail or answer many questions, so for now he only told them that he was going away to stay with his godmother for a while, and the little bit about being adopted. He made it sound like the reason he was going to go stay with his godmother was to learn more about his other family.
He didn’t say it outright to Carter, but it had occurred to him that the kinds of things his godmother had told him were the sorts of things that, in stories, were always dangerous to anyone who found out about them – thus his friends would be safer not knowing. Carter seemed to understand; at any rate, he didn’t tell the others anything more than Heron said to them himself.
Then, since it was the last time they would all be together for some uncertain while, for a send-off they played a game that was a perennial group favorite; of the sort involving a lot of running around in the night with a little stealth and strategy.
Heron’s parents were waiting up for him when he got home.
Seeing that as he approached the house, he expected to find them upset or irritated at him for having gone and stayed out late, especially without having even let them know he was going over to his friend’s home in the first place.
But they weren’t angry. They met him with faces of concern and worry, his mother hugging him tight as though – for a moment – she intended to never let go.
It was because of Keri. Heron’s aged godmother had wanted to say something to him before retiring to bed for the night, and had been upset to discover that he was nowhere to be found in the house. She’d accused him of running away, though his sister found his packed travel bag was still there in his room. His parents had tried to reassure Keri that Heron wasn’t the sort to run away like that and was probably just outside with friends.
They had called for him just in case he’d be close enough to hear – he hadn’t been by that time – and Keri had gone to bed muttering darkly about how anything could happen if Heron’s enemies found him before he knew what to watch out for.
