She watched the birds twist and turn whilst the sun warmed her face, careful not to look at the yard’s open view to the north. “Perhaps I too can deny it,” she wondered, keeping her eyes to the grey slabs at her feet as she turned and bobbed beneath the washing.
Stella didn’t lift her gaze as she walked out into the main yard, aiming away from its central water well towards the long shadow of its arched gateway. She trod along one of the ruts the centuries had seen countless cartwheels wear into the stone flags. As she came beneath the archway, something glinted back at her from a nick between two of the setts in the lane, a short way ahead.
She bent and pushed her finger into the gap, prising at something solid. A long, tapered point flicked up from the thin stubble of captive grass, a foot or so ahead of her fingertip. Catching it with her other hand before it could fall back, Stella stood up, holding a long and ornately crafted length of thin black metal.
“What on earth...” but then she grinned, looked up at the defunct clock in the tower above the gateway’s arch and smiled. “So, that’s where all the time went to,” and she laughed before putting the clock hand on the wall beside the gate. “If we can only find the other, maybe dad could get the thing working again...”
Inadvertently, she’d let her gaze drift out beyond the wall of Ten Acre field, on the far side of the yard. A darkly verdant spread of forest flooded her view, topped by a fringe of rolling brown hills. Before the mountains could intrude, she quickly turned and marched away from the gate towards the sinking sun.
Past the milking parlours and chicken coops, she followed her nose towards the pig sties. At the end of their low building, old man Ditchwater’s farm gate marked Blisteraising’s border with their neighbour, the gate itself always left open. She could hear snuffling well before the round, black and grey back of their prize sow came into view over the top of the sty wall.
Stella was soon resting her head on her arms, folded on the warm coping stones, the large sow’s persistent grubbing bringing a smile back to her face. When the pig lost interest in what lay hidden in the muck, it tottered over to lean against the wall below Stella. Contented grunts dribbled from the sow’s snout whilst she rubbed herself against the stones as Stella scratched her back.
“How’re you doing, eh, Bertha? Enjoying a last bit of sun?” Bertha looked up from beneath her floppy ears, tiny points glinting in her beady eyes. “A bit lower is it?” Stella said as she stretched down to scratch Bertha’s flank, the pig almost grinning.
“What’s all this then?” her Aunt Prescinda called as she strode between the gateposts of Ditchwater’s gate. “The starmaker getting back to grass-roots is it?” Her broad grin and sparkling eyes lifted Stella’s mood far higher than Bertha had.
“Hello, Aunt Prescinda. It’s good to see you.”
“You’re back a bit early aren’t you?” Prescinda said as she hugged Stella close. “You must have run.” She held Stella at arm’s length, staring at her niece through narrowing eyes.
“I set off just after dawn this time.”
Her aunt’s eyes narrowed more. “You alright? You don’t look as though you’ve slept.”
Stella turned back to Bertha, leant on the wall again and brushed loose straw from the sow’s back as a couple of youngsters ran over to nuzzle fruitlessly at her teats. Prescinda came beside Stella and put an arm around her shoulders, the two falling silent for a while.
Bertha had finally had enough and wandered off to grub some more, leaving Stella absently twisting a stem of straw around her finger. “Aunty?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you remember old man Ditchwater’s niece?”
“You mean the pretty one, Jennifer? Yes. Why?”
“Odd name that, Jennifer.”
“It’s an old one, like yours.”
“Do you know what happened to her?”
Although Stella kept her gaze on the antics of the young pigs, she could hear the frown in her aunt’s voice. “She married a lad from Uttagate. Bit of a mismatch if you ask me. I think he was apprenticed to a cooper, but I couldn’t swear to it. I’ve not thought about them for years. What made you ask?”
“Oh, nothing really. Just something I happened to recall from when I was little.”
Prescinda angled her head against Stella’s. “There’s nothing ... nothing you want to talk about is there?”
Stella dipped her own head, staring between her arms at the wall top. “Why ... why do people get married, Prescinda?”
“Why? Well, to be with each other, and ... and to have children of course.”
“Yes, but what makes them choose one another?”
Prescinda moved away slightly, enough to lean forward to see Stella’s face, but it made Prescinda turn away and stare at the young pigs, one seeming to have got its hind leg stuck in the mud.
She bit her lip. “They each just know deep down that they’re meant to be together. It’s something ... something that comes from inside.”
“Something they feel?”
“Yes, something they feel deep within.”
“How old would Jennifer have been when I was nine?”
Her aunt had to think. “Well, about twenty five. Why?”
Stella turned to face Prescinda, close enough that she felt her breath. “I’m thirty this year, thirty, and I’ve never felt anything for anyone. Nothing like that. Nothing that would make me want to ... you know, be with a man.”
She saw her aunt’s eyes begin to glisten as they flicked about her face, until they briefly lowered then rose to hold hers fast. “We’re all different, Stella,” her aunt said and tried to smile. “Some don’t feel it as strongly as others, or aren’t lucky enough to find ... to find the right one at first. And anyway, until then you’ve got your wonderful new job to keep you...”
“Ah, that. Well, it’s not quite what I expected.” She turned away but stiffened at the sight of the mountains.
“Stella?”
She shook her head and turned back to her aunt. “It’s alright,” she said, a strange resolve welling within. “Forget I mentioned it,” and broke away to run back along the lane towards the farmhouse, leaving her aunt standing by the pigsty, wiping a tear from her cheek.
4 A Father’s Concern
Although Stella had slept in the bath earlier, she still had to fight back tiredness come their evening meal and so missed much of the conversation. Her mother had slipped her the occasional glance but had as usual said little. Only Grog and Prescinda seemed at all talkative, chatting away about this and that.
Her father was clearly tired himself, having spent all day wielding hedge clippers. Whenever his head nodded, her mother would jolt him awake with some mundane question or other; had he had enough to eat, would he like another mug of tea, had he finished Down Barrow yet?
Stella was wondering if this was the right time to be bothering him with her worries when his head again nodded forward only to jerk back sharply. His eyes shot open and he stared at her, unnerving her.
“You had a good month up there, Stella?”
“Oh, it’s been alright,” she said, surprised at his seeming interest.
“Still getting fewer results?”
Stella noticed her mother surreptitiously tap Prescinda on the shoulder, and her conversation with Grog tailed off.
“Err, yes,” Stella said, “yes, I’ve hardly made any at all this month. We’ll be moving on to a new part of the sky before long.”
“That’s good to hear. Nice to know there’s even more life out there than we at first thought.”
Her aunt had risen and stretched her arms, theatrically or so it seemed to Stella.
“Do you want to show me Dasher’s new bridle then, Grog?” Prescinda said, enthusiastically. Grog’s eyes lit up and his chair scraped back noisily as he shot to his feet, and they headed out to the stables.
Geran soon told Falmeard, “I need to bring that washing in before it gets too dark. There’s some fresh tea in the pot if e
ither of you want more,” and she too left. The kitchen felt oppressively silent once the outer door had closed.
“Do you want another?” Falmeard said as he stood, leant forward and tipped Stella’s mug towards him. She’d hardly drunk any.
“No thanks, Dad.”
As he swilled the tea in the pot, his back to Stella, he coughed. “I believe you’ve something you want to talk about?” and he slowly refilled his mug.
Stella bit her lip as she drummed her fingers on the table top. Her father hadn’t turned yet, now carefully pouring milk into his tea. Her dad had some strange tastes, she thought, knowing of no one else who took their tea with milk.
He sat back down, but only when he’d raised his mug, so it half-hid his face, did he say, “Seems you’re a bit unsettled, from what your mum said to me earlier, although she worries too much about nothing sometimes.”
When Stella didn’t answer, he asked, “It’s not to do with work is it? It must get pretty lonely up there on your own.
At last, her mouth stopped feeling numb. “No. No, not directly. Not as such.”
“As such?”
“I suppose ... I suppose it’s the pace of it that’s rattled me.”
“The pace?”
She started to draw shapes on the table top with her fingertip. “College was always so busy there was no time to get ... well, to get bored. To be honest, a starmaker’s job is pretty tedious, Dad.”
“Tedious? Well, can’t you fill the time with something else? A hobby or something.”
Stella stared at her father. “You do come out with some strange words, Dad. Do you know that? What’s a hobby?” and she couldn’t help but grin at Falmeard’s knitted brow.
“Oh, err, no ... no, you wouldn’t understand that, not here. Silly of me. What I meant to say was...”
“The thing is, Dad, what it’s done is give me lots of time to think.”
“Oh yes?” Falmeard stiffened as he shuffled in his chair. “Have you discussed it with that Elrod chap you work with?”
“Elmond, Dad, and no. I’ve tried, but ... well...” She frowned.
“Aye, you always were a bit of a loner, Stella.”
“I know, but I’ve never felt I belonged anywhere.”
Falmeard swallowed, but she noticed his eyes flick briefly towards the cold-store door, to one side behind him. When she looked that way herself, Falmeard reached across the table and squeezed her hand, but soon pulled back. “As you say, Stella, it’s probably the change of pace. Give yourself some time to adapt and I’m sure you’ll eventually feel more settled.”
She rooted through her mind for a suitable word with which to broach her real concern. The word “visions” came to mind, and she was just about to speak when Falmeard again reached forward and patted her hand reassuringly.
“Just at the moment, though, Stella, I’m jiggered. Sorry, love, but can we talk about it tomorrow? When I’m not dead on my feet.”
Stella noticed another almost furtive look at the cold-store door as he stood. He swilled the dregs of his tea down the sink, left the mug on the drainer, bid her a goodnight and was soon through the doorway and onto the stairs.
From out of sight, he called back down, “Oh, and don’t bother your mother with this if you wouldn’t mind, Stella. You know how she worries.”
“Alright, Dad,” Stella half-heartedly called back, too preoccupied trying to see what good had really come of their chat. “I think,” she quietly said to herself as her parents’ bedroom door closed, “I’ve just been fobbed off,” and she yawned, finally too tired to do anything other than go to bed herself.
5 Up Against the Wall
The dairy had become unusually close and humid as the morning wore on, the late summer sun strengthening as it climbed towards noon. Despite all the windows being open, not a breeze stirred the soft, sweet air. Stella finally covered her last churn of butter with muslin and swept the back of her hand across her brow.
“It’s not usually this warm in here. I need a drink,” she sighed. “A long one,” then picked up a basket of cut butter and went out into the glare of the day.
Despite the brightness, the lane felt refreshingly cool after the dairy. She shifted the basket to her hip and pushed matted strands of hair from her face on her way up the lane towards the yard, looking forward to the cool reprieve of the cold-store.
The gable door was shut - a sure sign the house would be empty, and it was. Her mother and father had earlier left for a day at Weysget market, Aunt Prescinda was at old man Ditchwater’s again and Grog must still have been out with the harrow in Bottom Off.
Stella pushed her way past the hanging coats in the entrance passageway, through the kitchen and into the cold-store where she slid the basket onto the slate slabs of its long, broad bench. Her gaze then rested on an earthenware cask of elderberry cordial. Soon back from the kitchen with a beaker, she quickly quenched her thirst.
“I could stay here for the rest of the day,” and she noticed a tray of apples that needed turning. Excuse enough to stay in the cool, she decided.
She’d almost finished when one slipped from her hand and thudded to the floor, rolling behind boxes and baskets stored beneath the bench. “Damn,” and she bent and peered after it, into the gloom. Even when she pulled out some of the stuff, she still couldn’t see where it had gone, and so went in search of a lamp.
When she returned, she slid the lantern in beneath the bench. This time the apple glinted greenly back at her from the corner where the whitewashed stone wall and the bench’s brick support both met. As soon as she crawled in, the smell of damp assailed her nose.
That’s not right, she thought, and shielded her eyes from the lamp’s glare. Rosettes of mildew clearly patterned the flaking wash of the wall and the red of the bricks.
She reached further in and retrieved the apple, the back of her hand catching the sharp edge of the wall’s slate damp-proof course. “Ow,” and her knuckle tasted of mildew and blood when she brought it to her mouth, to suck the cut clean.
“That’s definitely not right at all,” she mumbled past her finger as she backed out from under the bench and stood, putting the apple down. She stared at the other two supports – both of the same stone as the wall, both much narrower than their lone brick neighbour.
Stella moved the lamp further down, so it lit beyond the first stone support, and could clearly see light spilling between it and the wall. She did the same with the other one and that too stopped a foot short.
“So the air can flow freely,” she reasoned, “and so the damp course isn’t bridged.” She stepped back and looked afresh at the brick support she’d known all her life.
“We never see the obvious within the familiar, do we?” but then remembered her father’s furtive glance this way. “I wonder.”
It didn’t take Stella long to find a raker in the tool-shed across the yard and to be back, crouched under the bench, gouging out the ash and lime mortar around a brick at the back.
It was a good half hour and a broken fingernail before the brick finally came lose and she could wriggle it free. She lifted the lamp to the hole and peered in but could see nothing.
The next half hour saw another three bricks join the first on the floor by her side. After each one, a little more could be seen of what appeared to be a dull metal surface. Only when the fifth brick came out did it become clear the thing was some kind of cask.
If it’s resting on the floor, she thought, then it must be a good eighteen inches high. Stella could clearly make out the original stone support tight against it, making the cask about a foot across.
When she reached in and touched it, she jerked her hand away. It had felt warm! “What in Leiyatel’s name?” Whatever it was, it was too big to be brought out through the hole.
Whilst she felt around it, trying to confirm how large it was, her hand brushed something else lower down and out of sight, but this time something cold and loose. She managed to get a grip of one end and lif
ted, but it caught on something and slipped from her grasp. She tried again and this time brought the thing up to the lamplight.
A thin, oblong metal box glinted back at her.
With a bit of effort, she managed to scrape it through the hole and shuffled back from beneath the bench, upon which she now sat with the box on her lap.
The room dimmed and she looked up through the small window opposite, the bright sunshine briefly lost to a cloud. It made her wary of the time, and what she would have to do to put things right before anyone came home.
Opening the door a crack, the silence confirmed she was still alone. She quickly took the box up to her room and hid it beneath her bed.
She was back and just pressing some of the old friable mortar debris in around the last replaced brick when she heard the thump of Grog’s boots dropping to the floor beside the gable door. A few handfuls of mortar dust thrown against the repair hid the disturbance surprisingly well, and she was soon out from beneath, pushing boxes and baskets back into place when Grog called, “Is that you, Stella?”
He popped his head around the door. “Oh, it is you. D’ya want a cuppa? I were just about to make one.” He looked at the state she was in, and she glanced down at her clothes.
“I dropped an apple and it rolled under the bench. Had to pull everything out to get at it. I might give it a proper clean under there tomorrow, it’s not been touched in years by the look of it. How’s your own day been?”
Grog had already lost interest. “Oh, ya know, alright. Dasher threw a shoe so there’s still some of Bottom Off left to do.”
Stella said she’d love a cup once she’d tidied herself up.
Not long after coming down to the kitchen and sitting at the table before her mug, Geran and Falmeard stumbled in, bags and boxes spilling from their arms. The house soon came alive, Geran showing Stella the trinkets she’d picked up at market, and Falmeard telling Grog he’d managed to get some of the new tools they needed.
Stella was soon helping her mother prepare their evening meal as her father lit lamps to ward off the encroaching twilight. At the back of Stella’s mind, though, what lay beneath her bed kept her wishing the time would slip by just that little bit quicker.
Starmaker Stella (Dica Series Book 6) Page 2
