Touchstone

by Mette Ivie Harrison

  This was her offer for trade, for Mama’s meal.

  “No, thank you,” I said, my voice returned to its normal tone. I didn’t want anything from her.

  “I could make it for you, then, Mrs. Fremd?” said Mrs. Martin. “Or find something else, if you prefer.”

  “I’m sure whatever you choose will be wonderful,” said Mama. “I know your judgment is certainly better than mine when it comes to fabrics and patterns.”

  “Well, she is the seamstress,” said Mr. Martin, patting his wife on the shoulder.

  “Indeed,” said Mama. The smile on her face seemed fixed, but it didn’t break until she closed the door behind the Martins.

  “I’m sorry, Lissa,” she said then, her shoulders sagging.

  “I’m not,” I said, which was at least partly true.

  “Why?”

  “Because I needed to know the truth, that I will never sing like Daddy.” I was surprised I could talk without crying, but I felt as dry as wood waiting for a fire. “I needed to know that before I can go on to something else and be happy. I just never knew it before now.”

  “I suppose,” said Mama slowly.

  I went on, thinking out loud. “And maybe that’s why the touchstone hasn’t called me all this time. Because I was hanging onto a dream of something that couldn’t be mine.” I found myself actually cheering myself up. “Now that I’ve put it behind me, I’m sure the touchstone will call me soon.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you’re right,” said Mama after a moment.

  I helped her clean up, not saying anything about how much more mess the Martins made from the others who came to the restaurant. Especially Mr. Martin.

  “Lissa,” said Mama, when we were done with the last dish.

  “Yes?”

  “Promise me something, will you?”

  I nodded. I would promise Mama anything.

  “Promise me you won’t think yourself beneath anyone, whatever calling you get. No one’s better than anyone else here. That’s part of what makes Zicker so special.”

  I knew this already. But I guess she was telling me again because of Mr. Martin.

  Mama waved a hand towards the back of the restaurant, towards the path that led to the outside. “There it’s always a ladder. You’re higher or lower than someone else. And it’s money that decides it. But here in Zicker, no one gets more than their fair share. Everyone works for what they have, but there’s no temptation to get more than that. There’s only what we all do for each other. You see?”

  I nodded. “I just want a calling of my own.”

  Mama let out a deep breath. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

  #

  The touchstone didn’t call me that night. I waited for it long in the dark, then slept badly, with bits and pieces of dreams that made no sense.

  Not the bad dream, though, the one about Daddy drowning. I had that one less now than I did before, but when I did, I had to keep it quiet. To tell Mama about it only made her think of him, and she cried.

  Just before dawn I heard Mama creep down the stairs to the kitchen for bread making. I followed her down. I figured I might as well be of some use to someone.

  The dough was already kneaded and ready to rise by the time I slipped in to sit on a stool next to Mama. She handed me a knob of it—a tradition between us since just after Daddy died. I didn’t stay with Mama in the kitchen much before that. It seems a long time ago, six years now.

  “Did you sleep well?” Mama asked, staring at me with narrowed eyes.

  “Fine,” I lied. Mama didn’t have dreams the way I did. She thought that when you woke, they would go away, but they always felt as real to me as anything and I could never see how I could know for certain they weren’t.

  “No dreams?”

  I shrugged. “No bad ones.”

  I focused on the dough, rubbing it into a perfect ball shape, then poking at it with a finger. It bounced back, just like it always did, dreams or not. Mama never made bad bread.

  Of course, other people in Zicker knew how to make bread. And other simple things. Soup. Hot cakes on a griddle or bacon and ham. They couldn’t come to Mama’s restaurant for every meal. They’d never have time for their own callings if they did. But they came as often as they could, because no matter how good their bread was, it was nothing compared to Mama’s.

  How can you compare with perfection?

  “So, what should I make you for breakfast?” asked Mama. Breakfast was the one meal Mama didn’t serve at the restaurant. It was time for just me and Mama. We ate sitting on stools in the kitchen, faces hot from the heat of the wood stove, and I always got to choose the menu.

  “Biscuits,” I said, deciding suddenly. If I was going to do it, it had to be now. This very morning.

  “Just biscuits? No gravy? No butter and jam? No eggs to fit inside with salted ham?” Mama asked.

  She didn’t understand what I meant.

  “Mama,” I said, then took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to let her tell me no. “I want to make the biscuits myself.”

  Mama’s mouth opened, and it took some time before she found the words to fill it. They weren’t anything like the words I was afraid of, though. “Are you sure, Lissa?” she asked.

  My hands shook, but I nodded to her. I had to try it. I had to know if I would ever do more than serving here.

  “Well—” said Mama, hesitating.

  “Please,” I said. “I know you don’t think it matters if I practice for my calling first. But what if it does?”

  Mama said nothing for a long minute. Then suddenly, she was talking as fast as one of those trains we hear about, on the outside. “I’ll get out all the ingredients for you. And the recipe. And you’ll need an apron. And a good-sized bowl. And a fork for the shortening. And a sifter. And—”

  “Mama,” I interrupted her. Because it was no good having her do everything for me. That would be no test. “Mama, how many times do you think I’ve watched you make biscuits?”

  “Oh,” she said, and her mouth twisted a bit.

  “You think I never paid any attention?”

  “I suppose you did,” said Mama.

  “I’m the one who usually gets all the ingredients together for you. And I sift. And cut the shortening into the flour. I can do it, Mama. Really, I can.” The more I thought about it, the more sure I was I was right. There was no reason for me to be afraid.

  I focused on finding the things I needed and setting them out in a row in front of me. I was more careful than I ever was for Mama. I made sure all the labels were facing front, that the jars went from smallest to biggest. Then I got out the shortening in the can and the milk from the cold box.

  Not noticing if Mama was by me anymore, or even if she was watching me, I measured the flour and the salt and the baking soda into the sifter. My teeth were clenched so tight it seemed hard to breathe. I sifted three times anyway, though every time my arms ached. I knew that no matter how much of a hurry Mama was in, she never skipped steps and sifting was one of the most important ones.

  When it was all sifted, I dipped my finger in and tasted it. It tasted just like Mama’s did. My heart started to thump so loud my ears got hot. Now it was time for the shortening.

  I got out a knife and fork and cut into the can of shortening. I filled a cup, then smoothed off the top and scraped the sides. Then I slid my knife around the edge of the cup and slid the round of shortening into the flour. A little mist puffed onto my face and I could feel the smooth silt on my skin. I probably looked more like Mama then than I ever had before.

  And it was that thought that turned the terror in my heart to thrill. What if I was like Mama? What if the touchstone had just been waiting for me to prove it? I could just imagine the call tonight. I would wake up, and start up the mountain. I’d make sure I wore my thickest pajamas to bed, because it was still cold as winter through the night, though the trees were starting to sing spring.

  I’d climb and I’d climb, while the sun
grew hotter and higher. Then I’d get to the touchstone, reach through the thorn bushes, hardly feeling the pinch that drew blood. I’d put my hands down on the cold, smooth stone of the magical touchstone that had been directing lives in Zicker for more than two hundred years.

  And then—

  “Lissa? Is there anything wrong?”

  I looked up. Mama was staring at me, a concerned expression on her face. “Maybe this is too much,” she suggested. “It was a good start, but why don’t you let me finish it?”

  I swallowed hard. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I even make a batch of biscuits without drifting off inside my own head? I was sure Mama would never do that.

  Mama was already moving in to the bowl and I almost gave up the fork to her. I almost gave up right then and there.

  But I wanted to know the truth.

  “Mama,” I said softly.

  She looked down at me. Then she let go of the fork and took a step backward.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  She nodded.

  And I went back to the biscuits, telling myself I wasn’t going to think about anything but cutting and mixing and shaping and cooking. I wasn’t going to get ahead of myself, either, and imagine what they’d be like out of the oven, how they’d taste, good or bad. I was going to do things one at a time, and make sure they were done one hundred percent right.

  Digging my elbows in to my sides, I worked the shortening in. I knew not to overdo it. But even if I hadn’t, Mama’s anxious looks over my shoulder would have told me something. I stopped as soon as the flour started to look like little pebbles on the edge of the river.

  It was ready for milk now.

  I poured without measuring, just like Mama did. A little bit in the middle. Stir. A little on the side. Stir again. Then a little on the other side. Stirring until it was all just perfectly wet.

  I knew I’d done it right. But if I had any doubt, Mama said it out loud.

  “Exactly right, Lissa. Exactly right.”

  I took one breath of happiness, then went back to work. I greased up a pan good, then dropped the biscuits one by one. I used a spoon and knife like Mama did, and I put them in neat little rows of fours. One dozen in all.

  The oven was already hot because Mama had stoked it when she started mixing bread dough.

  “The bread’s not high enough yet,” said Mama.

  Which I could have told her myself. I knew that much about bread making, after all these years.

  So I put the biscuits in the oven, closed the door behind them, and sat back, waiting for the smell to hit me. I was sick with wondering and so hot I could have been cooking right in that oven along with my biscuits.

  Mama came over and handed me a towel from the cold box. It felt wonderful on my face. Then she put her hands to my shoulders. She smoothed down the round joints to the elbow over and over again.

  My head bowed forward on my chest and I thought of Daddy. How I missed his singing. Sometime it was worse than other times. It wasn’t so bad now, just a wish, something that would have been nice to have.

  Daddy died while I was asleep, out fishing in the river. That’s what Mama told me. There was no body ever found. I woke up and found he was gone. And now the only place I could hear Daddy sing was in memories. And in my dreams.

  When I dreamed of him, he was always dying in the river, and I had to save him.

  I never could. No matter how deep I dived or how long I searched for him in the cold water. He never came back, not a sign of him.

  “Did Daddy ever tell you about his touchstone day?” I asked Mama then. You’d think I’d have asked him that, along with all the other things. But I wasn’t so worried about the touchstone then.

  “I don’t recall that he did,” said Mama. The lines around her eyes got longer and deeper when she talked about him, which wasn’t often.

  “I suppose he was called when he was eight,” I said bitterly.

  “No, I don’t think he was,” Mama put in quickly. “I’m sure he wasn’t, in fact.”

  “Then when?” Did she remember any of the details I would want to know?

  “I don’t remember exactly,” said Mama.

  I sighed, disappointed.

  “How would you like to hear about my touchstone day again?” she offered.

  I’d heard it lots of times before, but I guess it’s never enough. “You were thirteen, weren’t you?” I started.

  It was hard thinking of Mama as that young. She had never seemed to change to me. She’d always been just—Mama.

  “I remember how frustrated I was,” she said. “Because all the other girls my age had already been called, and all the boys, too.”

  “And everyone knows the boys are called later than girls,” I put in. There was one other boy in town my age who hadn’t been called. Joseph Karrie. He put up with almost as much teasing as I did about it.

  Mama nodded. “Even all of the girls a year younger than me had been called. One two years younger than me,” she added.

  “Like Jessie,” I said.

  “Like Jessie,” said Mama. “I was ready to give up. I thought I’d never have a calling.”

  “But you always cooked,” I said. “That’s what you told me before.”

  “Well,” said Mama. “That’s one of the tricks of being called. Once you’re called, you look back and you see everything differently. I could cook, but I thought—that wasn’t a calling.”

  Not a calling? How could she think that? “Weren’t there any other cooks called before you?” I asked.

  Mama tilted her head to the side. “There might have been. There aren’t any others now, though. I’m the only cook in all of Zicker with a calling for it.”

  Which only made me more nervous than before. “It sounded like a bell,” I encouraged her.

  “A big brass bell that shakes you inside,” she said. “I woke up in the night with that feeling inside me. And I knew that what I had been afraid would never happen—had happened.”

  “Then you walked up the mountain,” I said. Because I couldn’t hear it fast enough.

  “Right,” said Mama, smiling. “And the touchstone was just where everyone else had said it would be. An ordinary stone behind some ordinary thorn bushes. But it seemed to glow for me, and when I touched it—”

  “—You saw the biscuits you’d always cooked and the roasts, and the people eating them. And the questions in your heart were gone.”

  “Gone,” echoed Mama. But there was something wrong.

  It took me a moment to realize what it was. There was a smell coming from the oven, the smell of burned biscuits.

  “Oh, Lissa,” said Mama. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have got talking like that. I distracted you from your cooking.”

  I bent over and opened the oven door with one of Mama’s mitts. Sure enough, the biscuits were inside, all black as tar and about as appetizing. I tried not to cry over them. It wasn’t as if Mama couldn’t make new ones, good ones. We had plenty of flour.

  “Have you ever been distracted from your cooking?” I asked Mama as I put the trays carefully down on top of the stove, making sure they didn’t bang.

  “Well,” was all Mama would say.

  “Even before you were called?” I asked.

  Mama took a moment to answer, but I don’t think it was because she had to think about it. “No,” she admitted.

  “Then I know I won’t be a cook like you,” I said. I told myself I wasn’t supposed to be sad about this. It was just one of many callings I knew I wasn’t going to get. That didn’t mean my calling would be a bad one, that it wouldn’t make my happy.

  What had Mama said about Mrs. Martin? In Zicker, no calling is better than another. And I had to believe that.

  “Lissa, I’ve got to put the bread in now,” said Mama. “Look at that, it’s almost over-risen.”

  Almost, I thought, but not quite.

  Mama put the loaves in the oven, in the same pattern she always used. In twenty
minutes, she’d turn them so they got cooked on all sides evenly.

  When she turned back, I took the trays of burned biscuits off the stove and moved to the sink to clean them off.

  “Lissa, why don’t you let me do that?” asked Mama.

  “Because,” I said. “I can do this just as well as you can.” About the only thing I did better than Mama was going off in my own head. What a fine calling that would be.

  #

  The touchstone didn’t call me the next night, either. It wasn’t as if I’d expected it, not really. I had one long dream, of biscuits. A mountain of them, burned, piled all around Mama’s restaurant so no one could come in. I tried to climb over them, but I fell and the biscuits started to smother me.

  When I woke up at dawn, I discovered it was only my blanket smothering me. I pulled it away from my face, let the air hit my sweaty face, and panted. It helped a little, but my mouth was dry and cracked, my tongue thick as paste. I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I went out to the well for water.

  I didn’t use a bucket, just the ladle for drinking. Then I leaned back against the old red maple tree, just starting to bud, and enjoyed the cool, fresh air and the full smell of spring in the air. At least I wasn’t in a kitchen, I thought. And let myself doze, half-awake, half-asleep.

  I didn’t mean to hide. I was in plain sight, if anyone had looked, but it’s true I didn’t move except to breathe. I suppose that’s why when Erica Martin and her friend Susan Seal came by, they didn’t see me.

  Susan was carrying two empty five-gallon buckets across her shoulders on a yoke. She’d been called to be a blacksmith and you could see the mark of the fire on her face. Where it wasn’t black with soot, it was red with heat. She was two years older than I was, but I’d never liked her much, even before she’d been called. I couldn’t see how Erica and she turned out to be friends, but I suppose they had one thing in common, at least.

  They were both called.

  Susan put the buckets down, then leaned over and drank deep of the ladle. Then Erica helped her lower the buckets down and pull them back up full.

  “I’ve been up for three hours already,” said Susan. “And no breakfast yet. Mr. Gregory is working me hard because he wants to retire. Some days I think I’m going to be the one to retire first.” She took another drink of the ladle, then poured the remainder over her face.