A Single Stone

by Meg McKinlay

  The sight sent Jena’s hand instinctively to her chest, but then she relaxed. The mica was well away, safe in the Stores. It was another irony of life in the valley that the substance they relied on for warmth could not be exposed to fire; it must be struck but never lit. Set alight, mica would burn itself out rapidly, uselessly. A single stray spark could see the harvest wasted.

  “Jena?”

  She shook her head. “They’ll be waiting at home.”

  Calla glanced at Jena’s plate and then back to the table. “It’s so strange seeing Petria. I can’t believe she’s thickening. She looks the same to me.”

  “You can’t always tell. The Mothers wouldn’t pull her without reason.”

  “Of course.” Calla paused. “She said she might learn to mill grain. Can you imagine?”

  Jena couldn’t imagine anything but the tunnels, though she supposed she must eventually. No matter how careful you were, you could not keep nature at bay forever. The thickening would come to all of them one day and while for some it was hardly noticeable, even a small change was enough to put the line at risk. When the Mothers found your numbers moving upwards in that telltale way, they would pull you from the line and relax the regimen – no more wrapping, no more need to count every mouthful. It would not be long then before you began to bleed, and to think of your own daughters – more use to the village as a mama than a tunneller once the thickening set in.

  “I wonder how they’ll manage over winter.” Calla plucked a string bean from her plate and began to chew one end slowly.

  “They’ll be all right,” Jena reassured her. Though Petria had left the line, she had tunnelled three seasons. When making the Wintering allocation, the Mothers would consider that, along with the hope of future daughters.

  On the other side of the Square, Petria ladled scoop after scoop from the pot.

  “Maybe she’ll become a Mother,” Calla said with a half-smile.

  Jena did not reply. It was the mountain that would decide and yet they both knew Petria would never be a Mother. It was the heaviest of responsibilities they bore – for allocations, for the harvest, for everything on which the survival of the village rested. A Mother must be close to the mountain so it might speak through her; no girl who had tunnelled fewer than six seasons had ever been chosen.

  “How about the new one? Will you keep her?”

  “Yes.” The firmness of her own reply caught Jena by surprise. “She’ll do well.”

  “Have you told her? I can do it if you want.” Calla turned to scan the crowd.

  “It’s all right. I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

  It was a pleasant thought. The news that a girl had been accepted into the line was always welcome, but would be more so this time. A sixth child. A first daughter. It would mean a lot to have a tunneller in such a family.

  They said goodnight and Jena made her way to the edge of the Square. Occasionally, someone caught her eye and murmured, “Congratulations!” or “It is a day.” But most people were gathered by the table, waiting for their chance at a plate. It was understood that tunnellers were served first; after that, a rambling queue had formed. No one wanted to be on the end of it, mouth watering for meat while only yams remained.

  Jena was almost clear of the Square when she felt a hand on her arm. A low voice muttered something indistinct.

  “Thanks be,” she replied. For the most part, this was as good an answer as any. But in response, there was a soft laugh. She turned to see a familiar face framed against the orange glow from the Square. The effect was an odd one, as if the boy were lit from the inside.

  “I asked if you were all right,” Luka said. “Funny way to reply.”

  “I didn’t hear you. I just thought …”

  “So are you then?”

  “All right? Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Luka shrugged. “Berta said you were tired. She was going to make you a tonic.”

  “I don’t need a tonic. I’m fine.”

  It was true. What had happened that afternoon already felt far away, like a dream that had receded.

  “That’s what I said.” Luka grinned. “I told her how tough you are. She said she knew but you could still use a tonic.”

  Jena returned his smile. Although the long hours of wrapping and training meant that girls tended to keep to themselves, as Berta’s grandson, Luka was often around, and over the years they had developed an easy rapport.

  “Anyway, congratulations. Forty and forty.”

  His words did not call for a reply. There was something to simply hearing the numbers. Jena looked down, taking in the compact sweep of her own body. She herself had been forty-four, forty-six, numbers that had made the village gasp back then. But babies had been coming earlier lately, and smaller. Perhaps there would be a day when a girl began with thirty, when forty didn’t earn you a bird and fifty was enough to make people spit on the ground.

  “Six moons.” Luka gave a low whistle. “You should have seen the Mothers getting everything ready last night. They were so excited.”

  “Last night?” Jena’s eyes widened. She hadn’t realised Mama Dietz had laboured through the night. It must have started after she and Kari had gone to bed; they always turned in early when they were tunnelling and rose before dawn, slipping out soundlessly almost before they were fully awake. Even if Papa Dietz had heard them, he would have said nothing, not wanting to worry them, knowing they must keep their thoughts on the harvest.

  Jena considered the thick slices of bird on her plate with satisfaction. There was strength in there and that was what a mama needed after a birthing.

  “I should go.” She gestured down the darkened street.

  “Me too. Berta said she’d save me a mouthful of bird.” Luka looked back towards the Square. The table was all but invisible in the midst of the swarming crowd. “See you around then. You’re not going inside tomorrow, are you?”

  “No,” Jena began, “but …” I’ll be busy, she was going to say. With Min and the baby and Mama Dietz. But Luka was already moving away and so she did the same, turning her back on the fire and the feast and hurrying away down the narrow road towards the rock wall, towards home.

  EIGHT

  “There you are!”

  Papa Dietz’s voice was chiding, but gentle all the same. He was stirring a shallow pot on the hearth, steam rising as he turned the spoon in slow, lazy circles. The liquid inside was a pale brown, so thin as to be almost clear.

  “How’s the soup?” Jena asked.

  Kari flashed her a wry smile. “How do you think?”

  “This should help.” Jena slid her plate onto the table.

  “So much bird! That’s very generous.” Papa Dietz lifted the spoon, letting a stream of liquid fall onto the soup’s surface. Aside from his porridge, it was the least appetising thing Jena had ever seen.

  “Where’s Mama Dietz?”

  He nodded down the hall. “She’ll be along soon. You should go and see her though. We missed you earlier.”

  “I know. I–”

  “It’s all right. Go on.”

  The door was ajar but not wide open. Jena knocked gently and waited.

  “Who’s that knocking in her own home? Come on in!”

  Though Mama Dietz’s tone was light, it was shot through with weariness. She was sitting on the edge of the bed. Her nightshirt was unbuttoned and she had one hand at her breast, squeezing. The other hand held a bottle and with every stroke of her fingers, fat droplets of milk fell into its open neck. As Jena came in, her face softened. “I’m glad to see you.”

  Jena approached the bed. “How are you?”

  “Tired. But well, I think.”

  “Was it hard?”

  “It’s always hard. It is the way of these things.” She gave one final stroke and then set the bottle down on the bedside table. It was about half full, a creamy yellow tideline circling the container’s transparent perimeter. As the liquid seemed to bead and thicken, Jena felt her stomach lurch
.

  What Kari had given the baby today was a paler version of this, thinned with boiled water. When a daughter was new it was important she have milk from the breast. It was full of things to make her strong, to turn her eyes to the world and make her thirst for the life it offered. But it was also rich. Too much, too soon, was not good for a daughter. Acquired early, a taste for fat was difficult to unlearn.

  Mama Dietz clipped a lid onto the bottle. She shrugged her shirt back across her chest and began fastening the buttons. Jena couldn’t help casting a sideways glance. Even through the coarse material, the outline of her heavy breasts was unmistakable.

  Had it been the same for her own mama? She supposed it had. But how strange it must be to have your body swell beyond you like that. First the belly and then the breasts, and things never quite returning the way they had been, even when the baby was long grown.

  There was no need to think on such things though. Jena showed no signs of thickening early and people said her mama had been the same. She had tunnelled sixteen seasons before Jena was born, the longest of anyone before or since.

  Like mama, like daughter, Jena hoped. Mother Irina had said as much once when she was measuring her at the Centre. She had clicked her tongue as she stretched out the tape. It comes easy to you, doesn’t it?

  At six, Jena had heard only praise in the Mother’s voice. By the time she realised there might have been something else, the day was long past.

  “Perhaps you could take this to Irina in the morning?” Mama Dietz slid the bottle towards Jena. “She’ll need more and I wouldn’t mind sleeping in. Actually” – she reached to the floor beside the bed – “you could take this to Berta too.”

  It was a different sort of bottle – long and brown, with a cork stopper in the end. There was no milk in this one, just the final dregs of a thick, dark liquid congealed at its base.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure,” Mama Dietz replied. “Just something she gave me yesterday. After a while you stop asking. It seems like every time you turn around there’s a Mother holding a bottle. Something for nausea, or strength, or to help you sleep. I wonder if they do much of anything, really.” She gave a faint smile. “Still, I can’t say I wasn’t glad of a good night’s sleep this morning. I couldn’t believe it when the pains started.” She rose slowly to her feet.

  As Jena reached for the bottle, something struck her. “This morning?”

  “I thought they were just cramps at first. It was so early I thought they couldn’t possibly be the real thing.” Mama Dietz gave a rueful laugh.

  “So you didn’t labour overnight?”

  “No, thanks be. This one was short and sharp.” Mama Dietz hesitated. “Is something wrong?”

  Jena realised she was frowning. “No. It’s just …” She was thinking of what Luka had said about the Mothers. About how excited they had been last night, thinking a six-moon baby was coming. But if the pains hadn’t begun until this morning, then …

  She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

  Maybe Luka had simply misspoken. Or perhaps it was just another of those strange things about the Mothers. Sometimes there was no explanation for the things they seemed to know.

  Mama Dietz threaded her last button into place. “All right. Shall we eat then?”

  Jena took Mama Dietz’s arm for the walk down the hall. In the kitchen, she put the bottles into the cool-box by the door and then followed Mama Dietz to the table. Once they were seated, Papa Dietz set a bowl of soup and a plate of bird and vegetables before each of them.

  “Goodness!” Mama Dietz exclaimed. “How many did they roast?”

  “Three.”

  “Three! Well, it is a day, after all. Forty and forty.”

  “She’s so small,” Kari said. “Papa says she’s like me but my numbers were nothing like that. Her nose is different too. And her hair’s so dark.”

  “Hair often changes colour,” Mama Dietz said. “Yours was red at first.”

  “Red?”

  Papa Dietz nodded. “Like wickerberry it was. And lots of babies start out fair then get darker.”

  Kari reached for the end of Jena’s braid and ran her fingers through the dark strands. “How about Jena? Was she … oh.” She flushed. “Sorry.”

  Mama Dietz put her hand on Jena’s. “You were never fair. I remember when you were born. You had this serious little face, all wrinkled and puckered, like a tiny old Mother. And dark eyes and dark hair, from the very first day.”

  Of course Mama Dietz would know. She and Jena’s mama had been friends since they were children and even though Mama Dietz hadn’t lasted long as a tunneller, they had remained so. It was why Jena and Kari had been so close. It was why the Dietzes had taken Jena in when she had nowhere else to go.

  Mama Dietz looked steadily into Jena’s eyes. “Your mama loved you so much, Jena. She would be very proud of you.”

  “Your papa too,” Papa Dietz added quietly.

  Something fragile seemed to hover between them. No one talked about Papa any more and, somewhere inside her, Jena had come to find that a relief. There was no way of explaining what he had done and no point trying. It was easier to simply forget, to move on and hope others would do the same.

  Mama Dietz squeezed Jena’s hand, then released. “I heard it was a good harvest.”

  “Better than good,” Papa Dietz said. “Perhaps we’ll be all right this year.”

  We. It was the slipperiest of words. Was it the family he meant, or the village? For most of the year they were nearly the same thing, everyone pulling together, making things work. But when the snow came, the world narrowed to four walls and a roof, to a “we” that spoke only of those within arm’s reach.

  “Thanks be.” Mama Dietz finished the last of the soup and set her bowl to one side.

  Kari slid hers across the table. “Here, have this.” The bowl was still close to half-full and she had scarcely touched the plate Jena brought.

  “I’ve had enough.” Kari sat back, one hand patting her stomach.

  It was an old gesture, a carryover from the past that had become something of a joke. People used to do this after meals, they said. Only instead of saying enough, they would say full. They would rub their stomachs, declaring, I’m full, as if it were something to be pleased about. As if taking more than you needed were something to be proud of. Oh, I could just burst. Sometimes they would loosen their belts so they could stuff more in.

  “Enough?” Mama Dietz said gently. Even this was a word not often heard in the valley.

  “I’m fine, Mama.”

  “All right then.” Mama Dietz took up her spoon gratefully.

  Kari exchanged a look with Papa Dietz. He leaned forwards, sliding his arms towards Jena across the table. “We thought to name her.”

  Already? Jena didn’t need to say it. To name a daughter barely a day old was an act of great faith or great folly. Perhaps both. Giving someone a name might pull them towards you, into the world. But if it did not, it would make their loss more difficult to bear.

  Kari’s eyes met hers. “She’s strong, Jena.”

  “Ailin,” Mama Dietz said. “That’s what we were thinking.”

  Jena caught her breath. “It’s beautiful.” It was, but it was risky too, if risky was the right word. Little stone. It was a name that made a girl part of the mountain. She would have to be a tunneller or live at odds with herself for the length of her days. It would be a cruel thing, with such a name, to spend your life baking or ploughing fields. But still, not so different perhaps from the many girls given names meaning “slender” and “slim” who grew far beyond their family’s hopes, and ended up doing the same.

  She looked around the table. We, Papa Dietz had said. That word again.

  “It’s perfect,” she said finally.

  Mama Dietz reached for her hand once more. “I’m so glad you like it.”

  Papa Dietz and Kari put their hands in too, placing them on top.

 
“Ailin.” Papa Dietz gave the name a finality, as if something that had been shifting had now settled, taking on its final shape.

  “Ailin,” Mama Dietz repeated softly.

  Jena imagined her saying it thousands of times in the years to come. Ailin, breakfast is ready. Time for bed, Ailin. Ailin, this needs to be tighter. Just one more mouthful, Ailin.

  Keep your head down, Ailin. Follow. The others will show you the way. It is a day. Thanks be. The rock has allowed it.

  “Ailin,” said Jena, and the word sounded right and good on her tongue. “It’s perfect,” she said again, and prayed it would be so.

  Jena is four, perhaps five.

  No, she is five.

  Her birthday has slipped past unremarked upon. Unnoticed.

  There has been no present – no doll stuffed with dried beans or straw. No rough-cut chunk of rabbit roasting on a spit in the hearth.

  It is all right, she tells herself. She doesn’t need a doll, because she has something better – a tiny sister, all her own.

  Priya. Alana. Sian.

  She has so many ideas but when she tells Papa, he shakes his head.

  It is too early, he says. The baby is weak. The weight of a name will be too heavy upon her.

  Still, they tumble through Jena’s head, weave quietly through her dreams.

  Ilona. Caren.

  Some are pretty and others strong. It has something to do with the way they end – some are open, reaching into sky, while others are sure and steady, like stone.

  Give my sister a strong name, she thinks. Give her a name that will keep her here with us.

  It is two moons since Mama went in the ground. There is a chill in the air and a ring of white on the tips of the mountain’s fingers.

  Sometimes Papa takes Jena to the place where she lies. Jena strokes the pebble they have chosen from the spring. Rollers are allowed too, and crumblers – stones the mountain has released from itself. But water stones are the best. They are cool and smooth. They come from a quiet place and that seems right for Mama, for this.