by Meg McKinlay
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.
ELEVEN
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.
Her heart began to race almost before the thought had formed. The Mothers and their lists. The ledgers full of names and columns and numbers. Of who got what and how much and when.
Several dusty books leaned against each other on the shelf but it was the one on top that drew her eye. None appeared to be labelled but this one was cleaner, as if it had been used more recently. If nothing else, it was a place to start.
She retrieved the ledger and carried it to the table where there was more light, leafing through the pages even before she had set it down. When she reached “Dietz” she stopped and ran her finger down the columns. It was all here. There were individual entries for each of them. Papa and Mama Dietz’s began when they got married and Jena supposed they had earlier entries from their own families elsewhere. Kari’s entry began at birth and there was a new one just below it. The Mothers had not added a name yet though – only the numbers. Perhaps they too were waiting, cautious.
Her gaze fell upon her own entry. It was not alongside Kari’s as she had expected, but several rows down. A large space had been left between their names and it was there Ailin had been added. Keeping the real family together, Jena supposed – her own addition to the household acknowledged but kept separate all the same.
But it was not her record she sought. She peered at the writing next to Mama Dietz’s name.
Beside each entry, one column noted the ailment or condition and the next the remedy that had been dispensed, along with a series of numbers. Strength, perhaps, and dosage? There was a third space filled with tightly packed scrawl – almost illegible in places – that appeared to be notes on the progression of the illness or whether the medicine had proved effective. In this way, a picture of each person in the village had been put together. Jena’s finger trembled as it traced its way along the lines.
Greta Dietz. A fever here. Something for stomach cramps there. A three-day headache eased by feverfew. A pregnancy – Kari. Willow-wort and comfrey during the birthing; some other scrawled names Jena didn’t recognise. Pennyroyal? Calendula? She filed the unfamiliar words away in the back of her mind and read on.
Ailin’s birth. A six-moon baby. This was the one that mattered.
Some of the remedies were the same as those for Kari’s birth, differing only in the numbers alongside them and the accompanying notes. Fourteen hours. Small tear. Birthed clean. Healed well. No break. No infection.
But others were different. And there was a note beside one that made Jena catch her breath. Her finger pressed hard onto the page, smudging the ink.
Ripen at six. Rubus.
She had almost missed it. Because it wasn’t from the birthing, but earlier, immediately following the notation, With child.
From there, an arrow had been drawn to a series of notes in the margin. Yarrow 1/2. Raspberry leaf 6ds. Willowbark 2ds.
She set her hand on the page to hold the place and continued leafing through the ledger. The entries seemed to be roughly alphabetical. If she was right, the one she sought would be near the back. Her fingers felt wooden; it took her several tries to separate the last few pages, to find the one she needed.
Werner.
The name returned to her from a distant place. It was not that she had forgotten, but somewhere over the years she had left it behind, locking it away in a dusty corner far from the light.
Clara Werner. Ripen at seven.
And there again, that list of ingredients. Yarrow 3/4. Raspberry leaf 10ds. Willowbark 4ds.
The numbers were different but the names were the same.
She studied the rows that told the story of Mama’s pregnancy. Something for strength, something for nausea. The birthing, and afterwards. Willow-wort. This last appearing several times – the strongest painkiller they had, the dosage increasing with each new entry. Until there were no more entries – not then, not ever.
Except for an underlined note in the final column: Rubus too strong. Reduce dosage?
Jena gripped the edge of the table, her legs suddenly weak. Was this what had taken Mama? Not the mountain but a too-strong medicine? A medicine given to her by the Mothers to make her … ripen, like a piece of fruit they might hasten to the plucking.
Rubus.
She turned to the nearby shelf, again scanning the rows of packets and bottles. Rubus. She found herself
repeating the word over and over, as if to hold onto it.
Searching was no simple matter. There was an order to things, she realised. Some remedies were sorted according to usage – fever remedies on one shelf, painkillers another – and within that there was a kind of alphabetical order. But when she finally found what she sought, it was not ordered by either type or spelling. It appeared to have been shelved with just one design in mind – that of concealment.
It was a single bottle on the very bottom shelf, tucked in the far back corner behind a clutch of dried roots. It was empty and had been thoroughly cleaned. There was no trace of sticky residue, no smell of any kind. But there was a label, this one unlike the others in that it was not stuck to the bottle with tree sap but tied loosely around the neck with twine.
When Jena picked it up, she noticed a wadded piece of paper wedged in the corner behind it. Some old label, perhaps – discarded and forgotten. But something made her reach for it and as she drew it out she saw that it wasn’t crumpled but folded, neatly and carefully. As if someone had set it there on purpose, and might return to it later.
She unfolded it. It was another list of names and scrawled notations, but the light was dim by the floor and she could only make out part of it. Werner, again, and Brandt. And Armen? She stood, angling the paper beneath the light coming from the window. But as she did, shadows flickered around her. There was movement outside.
She ducked, crumpling the paper quickly into her pocket. A figure passed the window. A slight frame, its steps short but purposeful.
Jena shoved the bottle back into place and half-stumbled, half-crawled across the room. If it was Dyan, she would come straight here. If it was Berta, she would go to the room opposite. Either way, Jena had to get out, at least as far as the front room. The Mothers would not question her being there on a harvest morning, but it would be a different matter if they found her here.
