They Also Serve Read Free

struggled to the crest of a small hill, far from the tended fields of Hazel Dell. It was time for Emma and Willow to take their turn with the box.
    "This is far enough. Put it down," Daga ordered. She was really bossy lately. But Nikki did what she was told, taking the moment to stretch her aching muscles and look back. You could see the houses of Hazel Dell, tiny in the distance. Women and men were at work, just specks, their tools invisible. The girls should have worked today. But last night Daga had whispered she'd found something new, something really big, and the four of them had slipped away before dawn and set out on this adventure.
    As soon as Nikki got home tonight, her da would have something to say about her absence. Her ma would remind him that young girls had just as much right to see what was on the other side of a mountain as boys. "You're sounding like a big-city grump, dear. Nikki is thirteen. She'll plow many a row when she has kids of her own. Let her have her summers now." Which always left Nikki wondering what Ma had done when her three children were only a distant question mark. When asked, Ma always smiled and said, "Nothing you haven't done, dear."
    Nikki turned back to her friends. Daga was feeling around the box. Emma and Willow stood aside as they usually did, waiting to see what Daga had gotten them into. Nikki knelt beside the box and started her own exploration. An area near the bottom sank under her pressure. A crack appeared around the middle of the box, hardly wide enough for a fingernail.
    "Oh," came from all four girls. Daga inserted a thumbnail to force the box open; the nail bent. Nikki rummaged in her pouch for her knife, found it, and wedged it in the crack. The ceramic blade bent alarmingly; the crack did not widen. Even with all four girls' knives leveraging together, the crack stayed a crack.
    "Must be a second catch," Daga said, feeling around the box again. "Where was that spot?" Nikki showed her.
    They pressed it again. Nothing. They felt around. Nothing. They tried the same spot at each corner. The opposite far corner depressed when they tried it. "I did that before," Daga scowled as the crack widened to a half inch.
    "Probably have to be pressed in order," Willow suggested. She was the logical one.
    "Well, let's all lift a corner. Together, on my count," Daga said, and the others followed. At their pull, the box unfolded like a flower, struts and accordion parts expanding smoothly and fully. The girls stepped back.
    "Think it's from the Landers?" Emma asked timidly.
    "No," Daga insisted, rubbing her temples. Was she getting another of her headaches? "In school, the townies are all the time telling us how the Landers used everything they brought from the stars and we shouldn't be spreading out and messing up the whole planet. Why would they put something like this way out here?"
    "It's from the little people," Emma breathed. Her grandda, the village storyteller, told wonderful tales of the "wee ones." Nikki was never sure whether they were about the little people of old Ireland on Earth or under the hills beyond Hazel Dell. Both were nothing but stories, Da insisted. Still, Daga kept finding things, and somebody had to make them. Da's answer to that was a snort and a "They're made that way." Ma's answer was a shrug. Nikki wondered what her folks would say about this find.
    As usual, Daga recovered first from the surprise. "Hey, look." A thin square, about a foot on each side and a half inch thick, had risen from the box on two spindly legs. The square went from black to gray to crystal clear on one side in the space of a breath. The other side stayed flat black.
    "That's weird," Willow said.
    "But look on this side," Daga crowed, shading her eyes. Nikki did, and saw the distant mountains. Daga jiggled the glass a bit. Now they had a perfect view of one of the taller peaks on the horizon, as if it were only across the valley.
    "Neat!" Emma exclaimed. "Let's turn it around and see