A Single Stone (9 page)

Thanks be.

The rock has allowed it.

The thought twisted in her mind. No. It couldn’t be.

A birthing tonic because they knew a birthing was coming.

Because they were making it come?

Under the thick canopy of forest, the clearing was deep in shadow. Although trees had been felled here, those which ringed the space had grown out across it, seeming to reach for each other.

Jena entered softly, her feet nimble across the leaf-strewn ground. She had not meant to come to this place, had scarcely known she was doing so until she found herself skirting its edges.

There had been a point at which she veered from the path, telling Min to go on ahead of her to the Stores. Now Min was in the line, she must go and see Berta and claim her allocation. Under normal circumstances, Jena would have been eager to accompany her. Most in the village would never be permitted to visit the mica room and it was a memorable occasion when a new tunneller did so. Unless she went on to lead the line, it would happen only once; for Jena, there was something special about standing beside a girl, watching her take it all in. But right now she could not imagine being in the same room with Berta. She could not look at her and think the things she was thinking.

She cast her eyes to the ground. To the rough stones dotted at regular intervals, marking out each small mound, one from the other. There was no stone for Mama though – not any more. Would she even be able to find her after all these years?

People had been so angry back then. Angry enough to steal a stone from a grave. Angry enough to come to the Centre, demanding that the Mothers unwrap Jena, send her to the fields where she could do no harm.

She’s her papa’s daughter. Such a girl cannot possibly be fit for the line!

The words rang in Jena’s mind, as shrill and clear as they had been all those years ago. It felt like she was unravelling. Things she had thought long forgotten were all of a sudden right
there
, bright fibres of memory unspooling. And she had seen how this worked, how it began with one frayed corner, a single loose thread. It seemed harmless at first, because it was just this one small strand, so you tugged it a little and before long you were pulling and pulling, unstitching the very fabric of things.

She closed her eyes, gathered herself in. Then took a deep breath and opened them again, intent only on the ground before her. It was easier, sometimes, not to let your gaze stray to the left or right.

She need not have doubted, for when her eyes lit upon the grassy mound by which she and Papa had spent so many hours, there was no mistaking it. There was no longer even a depression where the stone had been, nothing to say it was ever there. But she knew and that was enough.

She knelt upon the ground, feeling the dry undergrowth crackle beneath her.

Mama.
She rubbed the surface of the glass in her pocket. Something to make the pains start … was there really such a thing? Min was young. She had been younger then. It was so easy for a child to misunderstand, to get things twisted around.

Jena considered the haphazard rows of grassy mounds. Would there be a stone for a child born still? Would there even be a grave? If there was, it would be so tiny that …
oh
. The realisation hit her with a clarity so fine it almost hurt.

A baby had died and Min’s first thought had been for how small it was. Jena’s had been for whether it was a daughter. Neither of those things mattered and yet they were all that seemed to. How much
more
would they matter to the Mothers? More than the life of a mama? More than the life of a child?

She pressed her finger onto the sharp edge of the glass. Gently at first, and then more firmly. As it pierced her skin, it was not pain she felt, but something like release.

Her hand closed around a piece of the bottle and she withdrew it from her pocket. The side which had struck the rock had shattered and most of the base had sheared away. But the top remained intact, the cork wedged in place. She laid the chunk of glass on the ground, faint droplets of blood welling from her finger.

That blooming flower.

She scooped the other pieces out of her pocket and set them down alongside it. Perhaps she might leave them here for Mama. Not a stone, but something all the same.

There would never be a stone for Papa, but there was nothing she could do about that. Nor could she bear to think of it – the way he had stumbled and fallen, the wall of rock lowering itself upon him. Her hand rubbed absently at the knot between her shoulderblades. Beneath her fingers, the scar was cool and smooth.

A noise behind her made her start – a stick, snapping. Perhaps there was a rabbit in the underbrush.

But as she turned, the sound came again, and with it another, louder and steady. Footfalls.

Her instinct was to hide – even after all these years she could not afford to have people thinking this was where her heart lay – but there was nothing but clearing around her. Along the treeline, a dark head flashed between the leaves.

“Jena?”

She felt herself breathe out. “Luka?”

“Thom told me what happened.” He ducked his head under some low-hanging branches. Twigs caught briefly on tufts of his hair, making them stick out at odd angles. “I wanted to talk to you. I saw you heading this way as I came along the path.”

“I don’t usually come here,” Jena said. “I just–”

“I know.” Luka’s eyes met hers. “It’s all right.”

Still, the guarded feeling lingered. As grateful as Jena was for Luka’s assurance, the truth was he didn’t know – how precarious things had once been, the effort it had taken for her to win back people’s trust. It wasn’t only that she had stopped coming here. She had given herself completely to the Mothers, to her training. Sometimes she wrapped herself at home and built a maze from chairs and tables, running it over and over until it came easily – forwards, backwards, eyes closed. Again. Then she rebuilt it, making the passages narrower, the bends tighter.

She kept her head down and hugged her arms close to her chest. If someone said,
It is a day
, she said,
Thanks be
. If they offered her a bowl, she shook her head.
No, thank you.
Said she wasn’t hungry. And never was.

The girl she had been before was gone. Slowly, carefully, she became a new one. Papa and Mama Dietz’s daughter. Kari’s sister. This was the girl Luka knew, the girl everyone looked up to.

This was the girl she was, wasn’t it?

“I won’t tell anyone you were here,” Luka said. “I just wanted to talk about Thom.”

“What about him?”

“Only that … it’s been tough for them. For him. And I know he acts a bit strange sometimes. But–”

“A bit strange? He was
inside the mountain
. It’s tough for lots of people, Luka. You know that.”

“He almost died.” Luka’s voice was soft, as if he didn’t want to say such words too loudly. Perhaps especially not here.

“I know.” Had it been this thaw or last? Papa Dietz had cleared their own doorway and set to helping those still snowbound. Jena was with him at a house a few streets over when she turned and saw the boy, stumbling through the streets like a wraith. It had been a lean season and a long winter and with eight mouths under one roof …

“Don’t worry,” she said finally. “I’m not going to tell. And things will get easier now.”

“Min?” Luka’s face brightened. “Do they know?”

“I just told her. She’s really good, Luka. She’ll last. If they’re careful, they should be all right.”

“His mama broke, you know. It doesn’t seem fair.”

“I know, but …” Jena trailed off.
It is the way
, she ought to say. But the words seemed suddenly hollow.

“The other night,” she said. “At the feast … you said the Mothers were getting ready for Mama Dietz’s birthing the night before.”

Luka nodded.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Of course. Why?”

Jena hesitated. Luka was her friend, but he was also Berta’s grandson. She could not look at him without being reminded of the old Mother – the piercing blue of his eyes, the firm set of his jaw. She gave what she hoped was a nonchalant shrug. “No reason. I just didn’t realise the birthing took that long.”

No matter where her thoughts led her, she was still that five-year-old girl, scrambling for her place in the world. She could not say anything, not without proof. She thought of Min, in the mica room with Berta. Of the small room opposite, filled with bottles and jars.

She glanced down at the shards of glass. On the surface of her skin, a fine point of pain shrilled sharp as a needle.

Moonlight filtered through the clouds, casting a ghostly pale across the cobblestones. Jena skirted the edges of the Square, a shiver rippling through her. In a few hours the sun would begin to rise. The first lazy fingers of light would filter through the Pass and the line would gather for the harvest.

In a few short hours, a few short feet from here.

She slowed as she reached the cluster of buildings that formed the Stores. Each building had its own particular function; the one she sought had three rooms, each of them forbidden to most in the village. The girls of the line were permitted to enter the first but only to return or retrieve their tunnelling gear. For that purpose – and for that room – alone, Jena had a key. She drew it now from her pocket and slid it into the lock.

The rope and belts were laid out on a bench just inside; pouches hung on hooks nearby, each one packed and ready to go. She closed the door behind her and hurried on.

A short hall now, a single room on each side of it. To the right, the windowless room where the mica was stored. Min would have stood there this afternoon, her eyes wide, watching Berta work by the pale lamplight. It was a wonder seeing so much mica in one place, the way it rippled and spilled across itself, patterns shifting and reforming, the room seeming to hum with its luminous blue glow.

Jena remembered her own first time as if it were yesterday – how Berta had reached for the thick ledger before her and flipped through, making tiny notes in one column and another. The hemp bags piled on the table around her – some bulging heavily, others collapsed upon themselves.

But the bags were not Jena’s concern now. The room she wanted was on the left. From within, its telltale smells bled into the hall, layering one upon the other: the tart sting of citron; the deep musk of yarrow; the fruity sweetness of wickerberry. This was the dispensary, where roots and herbs of all descriptions were ground and mixed, blended into complex combinations known only to the Mothers. Many a time Jena had glanced down the hall and seen Mother Dyan bent over her mortar and pestle, or holding a bottle to the light, weighing and pouring.

This door was locked too but Jena had considered that. She was her papa’s daughter, after all – and Papa Dietz’s too. She knew how old wood warped, that a door once tight in its frame would become less so as the years wore on. And these inner doors were less secure than the front entrance, perhaps on the belief that anyone inside would be worthy of trust.

The thought gave her a moment’s pause, but only that. She took the thin wedge of wood from her pocket and placed it between the door and the frame, then worked the handle up and sideways, jiggling as she felt it begin to give. The hook slipped clear of the latch. She leaned into the door with her shoulder, easing the old wood forwards, and stepped into the dark room.

She closed the door behind her but did not lock it. There was no need just now.

It was dark but the faint glow of moonlight would have to do. It would be foolish to burn a flame so close to the mica, and equally so to run the risk of being seen.

The walls around her were lined with tall, wide shelving which sagged with bottles and jars and packets tied with string. Sheafs of paper were piled in unsteady bundles. Thick bunches of dried herbs and roots hung from the ceiling, some as low as head-height; it was like walking through a strange, aromatic forest. There was a table in the centre of the room with a low stool alongside it. The surface of the table was mottled with patches of red and orange and dotted with piles of powdered residue. Two bowls sat next to a pair of scales, and spoons of various sizes were laid out nearby, one half-full. The effect was vaguely unsettling, as if Dyan had been briefly distracted in the midst of something and might return without warning.

The thought spurred Jena to search more purposefully. But there were so many smells competing in the heavy air. Medicine was dispensed according to need and this was Dyan’s busiest time, as she set herself to the task of preparing for the winter ahead.

Jena picked up a slim bottle containing a clear liquid.
Kalite.
It was labelled – they all were – but that meant nothing without knowing the name of what she had smelled, and she could hardly open every container and test them one by one. She felt a wave of despair.

She riffled through the shelf before her, examining the labels. There were names she recognised, which could be quickly eliminated.
Correas leaf
, which she had for a fever two seasons ago.
Gingeria
, familiar from childhood colds. And
willow-wort
too. Berta had dosed her with that in the days after Papa left; the wound on her shoulder had troubled her longer than it should.

It was none of those, she thought, but then caught herself. Hadn’t her fever remedy been sweetened with honey? And the gingeria with wickerberry? Didn’t the Mothers add elderflower to willow-wort sometimes, to strengthen it?

There were so many possible combinations. Maybe the exact mixture the mamas had been given wasn’t even here. Maybe it was something Dyan mixed up fresh only when it was called for.

Jena could not have said how long she stood staring at the densely packed shelves, picking up one bottle after another, willing them to give up their secrets. The light shifted as the night receded. How much longer before people might start to rise? She glanced at the door. There was another shelf just inside the entrance, this one lined not with bottles, but with books.