Book 1 - James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing

dressed in front of his closet mirror, choosing another pair of heavy denim overalls and a different
flannel work shirt. He dipped his comb into the water basin on his dresser and raked the stiff
bristles of his gray crew-cut until it was as flat as the face of a new stump. He examined himself
grimly over the lenses of his glasses, and then went downstairs to meet Rachel for breakfast.
He flew over to the barn to slop the pigs and feed the horses. Getting airborne, he
discovered, was something that quickly became easier with practice. When he was done milking
Bethel, he made a spontaneous attempt to fly back to the house with the milk pail in his hand. He
stood behind the barn, just outside the pig fence, and flapped steadily with his right hand, using the
left to hold the pail. The air sang between his sieved fingers, thickening as it had before, but he was
hardly able to get one boot off the ground while holding the bucket. He put the pail down on the
straw-covered ground and stared at it dourly. What good was flying going to be if he couldn't carry
anything?
A fuzzy thought appeared in his mind, offering a solution. Perhaps he could make himself
a belt-hook to hang things on, so he wouldn't have to use his arms to carry anything. The picture in
his mind limped with the effort. It was like something from a child's crayon drawing. He saw
himself flying gamely over the barn, trying to keep steady while a bucket of milk slopped from his
belt. The picture disintegrated. Too messy. Too impractical. Why go to the effort to fly the milk
over to the back veranda with a hook, spilling most along the way, when he could just as quickly
walk it?
No, he concluded, flying wasn't going to be the sort of thing that would revolutionize his
farm life. Maybe he'd do it now and then just for the enjoyment of it, like walking down to Strecker
woods and back on a summer evening. He'd tell Rachel he was just going to step out for a little fly.
No harm in that. Otherwise...
Otherwise Clete would simply go about business as usual. Being able to fly didn't get the
fields plowed and seeded. It didn't get the pigs slopped or the cow milked. He was still Cletus Arvil
Starcher, flying-man or not, and he still had farming to do.
That decided, Clete picked up the milk pail, turned on his heel, and whistling a strangely
melodic near-monotone, headed smartly through the open barn toward the house.
lunch.
Later that day, while plowing the rest of the Strecker loop, he decided to fly home for
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