Ebony Hill

by Anna Mackenzie

  There’s no doubt that the buildings hidden behind a dense thicket of trees are the real centre of Vidya’s farm operation. The white-washed house is large and well-maintained, its roof, together with those of the sheds that bracket the wide yard, carrying an array of solar panels. Ronan makes a soft noise in his throat and I follow his gaze, to a long, low building half-hidden behind the house. At its open doorway a figure is bent over the cocked leg of a horse.

  Taking a deep breath I fill my chest with the familiar odour of wood smoke and byre and fresh-dug soil, and a little of the tight-wound spring inside me begins to uncoil.

  CHAPTER 4

  The low bellow of a cow wakes me and I turn to find Sophie – except it’s not Sophie, and it’s not Dunnett. The face that smiles and offers a greeting is only vaguely familiar. I rub my eyes and shake the befuddlement of sleep from my head.

  “You’re allowed to sleep in,” one of the girls whose room I’m sharing tells me. “We’re on first breakfast and early field-shift, but you’re a guest.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I say, pushing myself up against my pillow. “I don’t mind helping.”

  The girl shakes her head. “Truso will want to give you the official tour first. He puffs up like a rooster when he has visitors to show around.”

  The second girl slaps her arm, but not hard. “He’s proud of Home Farm and he should be.”

  With smiles they’re both gone and Sophie slides back into my head – the Sophie of two years ago. I wonder whether she still looks the same; whether she’d know me if I stood before her now. With a snort, I throw back the covers and slap my feet onto the cold floor. Of course she would. My face is as plain and my hair as unruly. Nothing I’ve learned since I reached Vidya can change who I am.

  Light refracted through a prism suspended in the window creeps across the covers of my bed as I reach for my clothes. It’s Ebony Hill that’s brought Sophie to my mind. And not just Sophie. From the casement I look down on the yard and allow myself one memory of my brother Ty: his grin broad as a pickle when he found two falcons nesting at the rocky crest of Cullin Hill. The land runs in Ty’s blood, despite our sea-faring father. For a moment I wish Ty was here with me now; that it was my brother rather than Ronan who’ll be sharing Truso’s tour.

  Closing the door on my dreaming and the bedroom besides, I find my way down to the kitchen and the daunting welcome of a dozen new faces. It’s a relief to see Jago’s familiar smile among them.

  “Missed me so much—” his breath rattles in his chest, “you came all this way to see me,” he jests.

  Esha places a steaming cup in front of him, the corrugations of her brow telling me she’s as worried as I am by his wheezing. “Good morning, Ness. You’re up early.”

  I’ve always been an early riser. Esha knows it. In the months I spent living at the med centre, I often helped her catch up with lab work long before the city woke, telling her, as we tested samples, of the remedies my friend Merryn used to make back on Dunnett. Esha had never heard of using honey as a medicine.

  I wonder now whether Merryn might have a remedy that could ease Jago’s troubled breathing.

  “Your friend from Ister,” Jago says.

  “Ronan,” I supply.

  Jago smiles. “Has he spoken with anyone from archives?”

  “He’s only been with us a few days,” Esha answers.

  “I’ll ask Truso if I might have a little of his time,” Jago says.

  “You’re supposed to be on leave,” I tell him, and try to quash the weed of jealously that sprouts in me each time Ronan claims space in a friendship I hold dear.

  “But not yet completely without use,” Jago says, and smiles.

  My muscles have forgotten the things they once knew. I straighten and stretch backwards, fingers kneading my lower back. Three days we’ve been here, and every muscle aches, though not as much as they might.

  When we came in from the fields last night, Esha steered me to a small brick building at the rear of the house. Clouds of steam swallowed us as she opened the door. “Trust me, it’s the perfect antidote for aching muscles,” she promised.

  She was right. As we sat neck-deep in water hot enough to turn my skin boiled-beet red, I could feel the aches of the day’s labour sloughing away.

  “How can they heat so much water?” I asked, voice floating across the pool’s steaming surface.

  “Partly solar, partly bio-fuel. Truso’s been working on refinements that will let us install a similar plant in the infirmary in Vidya – heat can be very useful in treating tendon and tissue damage, as well as for the aches of age.”

  I’m thinking about how such technology would be useful in more places than Vidya when Manet, one of the farm’s permanent residents, brings me back to the present with a hand on my arm.

  “It takes a few weeks to get conditioned to physical work,” she says. “How are your hands?” She turns my palm between hers. The old calluses are reddened but too tough to blister. “You’ll do,” she says.

  It’s true. Unlike some, I’ve never minded allotment duty in Vidya, though it’s a poor substitute for farming – the city is too close and the air never loses its damaged taste.

  Filling my lungs with Ebony Hill’s crisp air, I adjust my seed satchel and gaze along the stooped line of our field crew. On the slope beyond, a horse team turns the soil in wide swathes, readying it for cereals – I’ve not seen a ploughed field since leaving Dunnett, nor a crop of oats or barley. I picture the hill as it will look in late summer, the crop waist-high and golden, and a little thrill of pleasure quivers its way along my arms.

  My room-mates were right: Truso deserves to feel proud of Home Farm, and his plans for the future. Until seeing first hand the scale of production, I didn’t realise how heavily Vidya relies on his efforts. I wonder if the rest of the city residents share my ignorance.

  I wonder, too, what my uncle Marn would make of Truso’s many innovations. I don’t believe he’d be opposed to them in principle, as Ton or Colm would. Despite his strictness, Marn surprised me more than once during my last weeks on Dunnett. Truso reminds me of Marn, just a little. They’d get on well, I think – I picture Truso giving Marn his guided tour, and try to imagine how my uncle might react to the bath-house, the bio-fuel plant, the solar-powered threshers. Turning one of the purple seed potatoes in my hand, I consider the land that rises rough and steep up the face of Cullin Hill: wasteland last I saw of it, but I find myself wondering whether it might profitably be turned to growing amaranth, and whether early-harvesting potatoes such as these would allow us to carry an additional autumn catch-crop as Truso does.

  With a start I see I’ve fallen behind the line. As I hurry to catch up, I tell myself I have no need to be constantly comparing. But my comparisons are not for better or worse, they’re about how useful such technologies would be on my home island. Except that on Dunnett they’d be seen as teck, and outlawed under the Council’s bans.

  Dunnett’s Council doesn’t believe in salvaging anything of the past. They’d rather hold history accountable for all the miseries of the present. If I could, I’d make them see that it’s their own narrow minds that place limits on their world – but it’s just those limits that would prevent them from hearing my words.

  CHAPTER 5

  Ronan is before me in the kitchen next morning. I glance at him sidelong as I ladle out a bowl of porridge. “Are you coming out with the field crews today?” I ask.

  I’ve scarcely seen him since Truso showed us around the first day. Part of me is glad we’ve not been lumped together, while another part is curious to know how he’s faring.

  He shakes his head. “Truso has something else planned, for you too. He didn’t say what.”

  “Esha said you’ve been helping him with the bio-fuel plant,” I say.

  He nods.

  “Did you have bio-fuel technology on Ister?”

  Another nod.

  We sit silent then, amidst the chatter of the girls
from my dorm, as the rest of the morning-shift field crew file sleepy-eyed into the kitchen.

  Seventeen adults and half as many children live permanently at Home Farm, their numbers swollen, come harvest, by as many again from Vidya. Manet told me that when she came to Ebony Hill she had no plans to stay beyond that one season. “Lots of people enjoy the change and apply to come back each year. I might have done that, if I hadn’t chosen to stay.”

  “Why did you?” I asked, curiosity outweighing my reluctance to pry.

  Manet’s smile had been languid. “My partner, Ben. He grew up at Summertops. We met the first time I came for the harvest. Even without him, I’m not sure I’d want to go back to living in Vidya.”

  I’d nodded. For all the hard work, it was a relief to be away from the devastation of the city.

  “You should think about signing on for the harvest,” Manet suggested. “Between the four farms, we need ever larger crews. Truso plans to build a second bunkhouse this summer, and one at Dales as well.”

  “Do crews from Vidya come to help on all the farms?”

  She nodded. “The other three have fewer permanent residents, which can stretch their resources at the busy times. Truso has sent a planting crew from Home Farm up to help out at Dales. We certainly couldn’t manage the harvest without the extra workers – even with them it can be tight, and everyone’s worn to a frazzle by the end. It’s a relief, sometimes, when the weather finally breaks and the work is over, one way or another – though Truso never sees it that way.”

  “I didn’t realise how large-scale it all was.”

  She’d shrugged and smiled and we’d returned to our tasks.

  The conversation echoes in my mind as the early-shift fieldworkers finish their breakfast and head outside, banter beginning to flow. I’m stacking dishes, wishing I could go with them, when Esha appears.

  “How are you this morning Ness? Did Truso find you? He has something special planned for you and Ronan today.”

  I look around, but Ronan has disappeared. “Ronan said, though not what. He was here just a minute ago.”

  Esha smiles. “He’ll have gone to check on the biofuel plant, I imagine. He and Truso yesterday managed to iron out the last of the problems. They left it running overnight to see how things went.” She slathers jam onto a thick slice of toast. “Truso told me last night that he’d be delighted if Ronan decides to make Ebony Hill his home, though I’m not sure his motives are entirely altruistic. Ronan has an affinity with machinery, apparently.”

  I wonder sourly whether they similarly discuss me behind my back, and whether an affinity with potato planting is enough to make me a desirable resident.

  Esha washes her scanty breakfast down with a mug of lukewarm tea. “If you’re ready, we’ll go and find them.”

  Linking her arm through mine, she leads me across the yard, the expression on her face far too smug for my liking.

  The source of her amusement becomes clear when I learn what c has in store. From a shed behind the barn he brings out an awkward-looking contraption of wheels and rods, and stands it proudly before us. “Cycles are our main method of transport between the farms,” he says. “They’re easy to manage once you know how.”

  Which is little comfort, given I don’t. The flimsy structure looks hardly strong enough to support my weight and I don’t see how it provides transport when it can’t even stand up on its own.

  “They’re a sustainable technology,” Truso assures us. “They harness and extend the energy of our muscles.”

  Ronan bends to study the mechanism, turning the angled cranks with his hand. The contraption rolls forward. Truso’s explanation of the principles does nothing to reassure me.

  “Esha, perhaps you could provide a demonstration,” he says.

  Esha swings her leg over the cycle, lifts her feet and speeds off down the track. Truso’s right: it does look easy. She circles back and hands the cycle to me.

  I climb onto the seat, lift my feet and tumble sideways. Truso picks me up and sets the cycle to rights positioning himself behind me. “One step at a time, lass,” he says. “I’ll hold you upright while you get the hang of pedalling.”

  We wobble forwards. I can make the rickety wheels turn easily enough, but without Truso I’d fall. “I won’t let you crash,” he says. “Just keep your feet pushing on the pedals and use the handlebars to steer.”

  After I’ve veered drunkenly along the road and back, I happily relinquish the cycle to Ronan. He does no better. Truso keeps us at it – and my mouth opens in surprise when, on my fifth or sixth run, I stop at the end of our course and find myself alone. Truso raises a hand from halfway back along the road. “See? You don’t need me.”

  Truso brings out a second cycle and leaves us to practise. Ronan improves faster than me, though he looks more ungainly than Esha, his knees going outwards as much as they go forwards. Starting off is the part that flummoxes me. Until you’ve enough speed it’s tempting to panic and put your feet down.

  “Trust you’re not going to fall,” Ronan says, after my tenth non-start.

  I glare: he’s hardly an expert. He shrugs and pedals off, swerves to avoid a hen that wanders rashly in front of him, and crashes into the shed. I shouldn’t laugh. I press my lips tight to hold my amusement in check.

  “That’s one way to stop,” Ronan mutters.

  A bubble of laughter breaks free. Ronan dusts himself down and checks the cycle. He doesn’t seem to mind my laughing. People laugh more here than in Vidya; far more than on Dunnett.

  “Maybe we’d be better off walking to Summertops.”

  Ronan shrugs. “Cycles are quicker, Truso said. Unless there’s a barn in the way.”

  A small glow of satisfaction at this almost-conversation lights in my chest. My next try, I push off, lift my feet and pedal the length of the yard with scarcely a wobble.

  At midday Esha comes back to watch. “Excellent progress,” she says. “Well done both of you. Try to get in some practice every day, so you’ll be ready for the ride up to Summertops. The hill can be hard on your legs – and other parts of the anatomy – when you’re not used to it.”

  Her warning loses its obscurity as we make longer rides and I discover exactly which parts Esha was speaking of.

  A little over a week after our arrival, Esha wakes me early, before even the field crews are up. Nerves flutter in my belly as I stumble to the kitchen.

  “You’ll need all the energy you can muster,” Esha promises, advising a double helping of porridge. “Ebony Hill is a hard climb even when you’re used to it.”

  The sun’s light has only just slunk across the shoulder of the mountains as we bid Truso farewell and wobble off along the track.

  “It’s easy going for the first hour,” Esha tells us. “After that it’s a slog, but still quicker by cycle.” Her encouraging smile doesn’t quite reassure me. “Even if we walk the worst of the hill, we should be there by midday.”

  Glancing at the dawn-lit spiderwebs spun between the stunted bushes that edge the track, I try not to dwell on the hours between.

  The fog that loitered in low-lying hollows has dispersed by the time we reach the start of the climb. Ronan’s legs are stronger than mine. As he pulls ahead, I grit my teeth and force my feet down on the pedals. I’m sticky-scarlet when I reach the top of the slope where he and Esha wait, my pulse bounding like a snared rabbit’s.

  “You’re doing well,” Esha says, arching her spine in a fluid stretch. “We can have a rest whenever either of you needs it. There’s no hurry.”

  Ronan doesn’t wait to see how I feel, but pedals off along the track. Esha waves me after him. “On you go Ness. I’ll bring up the rear.”

  The track creeps and curves around the flank of the hill, each rise steeper than the last. Finally admitting defeat, I get off and walk, my weight propped on the cycle’s handlebars, legs relieved by the change. When I find Ronan waiting at the crest of a rise, I flop onto the thin grass, too breathless to talk. />
  “I didn’t realise just how out of practice I was,” Esha says when she puffs up beside us, her face slick with sweat. “And they’ve no bath-house at Summertops.” She runs her fingers through her hair so that it stands up in damp spikes. With her loose clothes and flushed face, she looks like a boy. “How are you getting on, Ronan?”

  He mumbles an answer. My ears are filled with the rapid pulse of my blood. A bird lets out a cascade of sharp notes then abruptly abandons its song. Above me an arch of cloud strides smooth across the sky.

  “Are you ready to go on?” Esha asks. “If memory serves, it’s a fairly easy run along the spine of this ridge then there’s one last, steep climb. When we top that, you’ll be able to see Summertops.”

  By way of answer, Ronan reaches for his cycle.

  The road is easier, though the ruts in the track rattle my bones. With my eyes on the potholes, I don’t see a sudden dip till too late and clutch wildly at my brakes. Summertops had better be worth the journey, I think, as the slope reverts to a climb and I stand on the pedals to lend extra force to my legs.

  Truso told us that when settlers from Vidya arrived at Ebony Hill, there was a small community eking out an existence at Summertops. They’d welcomed the newcomers, the two groups trading goods and ideas until, over time, they’d merged into a single community. Soon after, they expanded to Dales and, later, to Pinehill.

  “People come and go between the four farms depending on circumstances,” Truso had told us.

  “How did you come to choose this place?” Ronan had asked. Esha had shot Truso a satisfied glance: gaining Ronan’s participation in a discussion was rare.

  “There was a woman in Vidya whose grandparents had grown up here. It was her idea to return. More than fifty adults, half of them families with children, live on the four farms now, and we get a steady stream of newcomers, both seasonal workers and permanents. We’re looking at expanding Home Farm next autumn and adding another hill block the following spring. There’s plenty of land to be had, but it’s a challenge bringing it back to a useable state.”