by Sharon Hinck
I pried his bruising fingers from my arm. “I don’t wish harm on anyone here. Forgetting the Maker caused the harm. Maybe after you hear—”
“There’s nothing in there I want to hear.” He flung a wild gesture toward the bound parchments and growled like an angry predator. Too bad I couldn’t tame him as I had the forest hound.
I leveled my chin. “Your people can make their own decisions. But I can’t leave until I’ve told them about the letter.”
His jaw flexed. “You’re still planning to throw yourself into the path of soldiers while you wander the island, endangering everyone you meet?”
Precious Maker, can’t You make him see? My pulse throbbed in my temples, swelling into a dull ache.
“Carya, they’re ready.” Fiola peered out the doorway, stooped and fragile, especially compared to Brantley, yet strong in her own way. “Brantley, oh good!” she said, as if unaware of the tension in the air. “I’m glad you’re here. Will you help me? My legs aren’t holding up so well these days.”
After shooting me one more warning glare, he went to help his mother find a seat.
I trailed behind, and my fingers spasmed in their fierce grip on the letter.
The long meeting hall seemed larger than it had appeared from outside, with rows of benches encircling the center. The sun had baked the pine walls all day, filling the air with forest scent and hints of smoke. The stern faces around the room reminded me of my testing day at the Order, and I wished my task were as simple as remembering and performing a pattern.
The patriarch introduced me and informed the gathered people that I’d requested an opportunity to speak. I searched his careworn features for a hint of either support or opposition, but as he took a seat, his expression was neutral and unreadable.
All eyes focused on me, some open and curious, others narrowed with speculation. Brantley leaned on the wall near the doorway and glowered. I looked away from him, hoping he wouldn’t interrupt. The benches creaked as the earth shifted in response to an ocean roll beneath us.
I cleared my throat. “Many of you may remember Varney’s grandfather. He had a very special charge, which he meant to pass along to his son.”
A few heads nodded, one or two older men murmured agreement. They remembered the tragedy when Varney’s father was lost.
I held up the letter, turning slowly. “This was the charge, and a few days ago, Varney gave it to me. But before I read it to you, I want to be honest.” I risked another glance in Brantley’s direction. “The Order disapproves of its contents.”
A few dark chuckles sounded from the benches.
“Then we’re sure to like it,” a burly man muttered, eliciting more laughs.
My smile flickered, then faded. “I want to be clear. Even hearing these contents could be dangerous. If you’d rather not be part of this, please leave now.”
I counted my breaths in the same way I had when holding a long pose in a difficult pattern.
In the potent silence, a foot scuffed. A young woman stood, pulling her husband up as well. Without a word, they left. A few older landkeepers shook their heads and walked out also.
One more breath. Another. Would they all dart away like copper fish? Too bad Navar wasn’t here to herd them back together.
Brianna stood and lifted Orianna to her hip. She walked to the door and stopped, watching me. Orianna murmured something, and her mother nodded and leaned against the wall. If Bri walked out, I was sure many other village leaders would leave as well. Her stance near the door made it clear she would listen only until she chose to leave.
Fair enough.
A mother with several children ducked and scurried to the door, as if her crouched posture made her invisible. Instead the whole assembly saw her worried urging of her children as she hurried away.
I waited two slow breaths more. No one else moved. Brantley crossed his arms, but stayed.
Maker, please make Yourself known. We forgot You, but we need You.
I opened the first page and began to read.
When they heard the introduction about the dancer who penned these pages, grumbles rose from the benches. I’d considered skipping that part, since I knew it would only raise antagonism, but it seemed wrong to exclude a single page.
I read faster, passion fueling my voice. After I shared the story of how our world of Meriel was formed and set to travel on the wide oceans, I swallowed to ease my dry throat.
A few of the older villagers nodded approvingly, and I grasped that encouragement, turned a page, and read on.
Soon I was lost in the narrative of a loving Maker who warned His people not to forget Him, His plans for our world, and His longing to be known. The silence grew so thick that at one point I glanced up, wondering if the room had emptied. Instead, everyone listened so intently no other sounds dared interrupt.
I continued reading about the gifts bestowed on each person, some to dance and encourage the ongoing creation, others to keep the land, others to herd, others to cook, and teach, and build. My heart constricted when I thought of the way the Order had corrupted a gift and sought to place itself above all other callings, sought to control the way the gift of dance was used.
A droplet fell onto the last page. I touched my face, surprised to realize tears were pouring down my cheeks. I pressed my lips together and closed the letter. I didn’t know what to do next. Beloved Maker, this would be a good time for You to show Yourself to everyone gathered.
No vivid light approached from the doorway, but Brianna’s mouth hung open, the lines of resentment in her face melting away. I scanned the benches, where many faces mirrored my own tears.
I finally dared look at Brantley. His scowl pierced me like a soldier’s sword. He lurched to his feet and left, the scrape of his bench echoing through the longhouse.
More tears slid down my cheeks, and I stifled a sob.
Fiola, undeterred by her son’s abrupt departure, hobbled to the center. Enfolding me in her arms, she tilted her face upward. “What was lost is found. Oh, Maker, we are sorry our neglect and fear pushed You from our village. Forgive us. Grant us courage to live in truth. Truly, indeed.”
“And truly, indeed,” several people echoed in a hushed tone.
“Truly, indeed!” Fiola repeated with all the volume her frail body could muster.
“And truly, indeed!” The group spoke with more conviction.
A young woman with a babe in arms rose, lifting her gaze past the ceiling of the longhouse. “Precious Maker, we sent our girls away when the Order asked, forgetting that You alone are our Protector. Forgive us.”
Murmured agreements floated up from the benches.
A gruff old man hefted himself to his feet, his voice breaking as he said, “We argued about which gifts are most worthy. I’m sorry.”
As more people stood to speak, I helped Fiola back to her bench, and sat beside her. Although I didn’t see Him in tangible form, the Maker was present, and I wanted to leave the center of the room to Him. Watching Him move throughout the villagers of Windswell was as awe-inspiring as seeing Him travel on light across the ocean or lift me above the world. This was a miracle hidden within the ordinary, but a miracle all the same.
Prayer after prayer rose from hearts broken in repentance and souls awakening.
A hand lightly rested on my back. I glanced up.
Brianna’s eyes were reddened with tears. “Dearest Maker, I resented a dancer who only sought to share truth. Show me how to help her.”
Gratitude filled me like a deep breath, and I stood to hug her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“And I’m sorry for all the harm the dancers caused you.”
The patriarch stood and cleared his throat. “This is an astounding discovery. Our village will make changes.” He sounded congested, his nose clogged and an emotional hitch in his throat. “Let’s celebrate that what was lost is now found.”
Those in the longhouse poured out into the clearing. A man li
t a bonfire and drew in some of the villagers who had left the meeting. Murmurs and quiet interactions built to laughter, hugs, and excited chatter. Mothers bounced children at their hips, and teens jostled each other for a place close to the fire.
I sat on the longhouse steps, soaking in the scene, and whispering my gratitude to the Maker for the way the village had embraced His letter.
In the shadows under a pine at the edge of the clearing, Brantley leaned against the trunk, also watching.
A woman brought out a stringed instrument and plucked a few notes. A cheer rose and she began to strum a folk song that made my toes tap. All those years music had been forbidden to me. Perhaps that had been one of the cruelest losses. I’d never known how powerful music could be.
A boy ran to Brantley and tugged his arm. I couldn’t hear over the singing, but watched as Brantley shook his head, then after more urging, he finally shrugged and drew his whistle from a tunic pocket. Was he going to call Navar inland?
Still remaining in the shadows, Brantley added the high, clear notes of his whistle to the song. In a rhythm similar to a rain pattern, his melody skipped and jumped. A man grabbed his wife and swung her into the clearing. A group of boys joined hands and snaked around the bonfire, galloping and tugging at each other. More people moved and spun in any open space and the music urged them forward.
I pressed a fist to my mouth. What were they thinking? It was taboo for anyone to dance unless they trained for years in the Order. These were no formal patterns, but exuberant expressions. The Maker’s letter had said that some had the gift of dance . . . the special sort of dance that the Maker infused with creative power. However, it hadn’t actually said it was wrong for others to dance just for the joy of it. Yet a lifetime in the Order made me uneasy at the sight.
Uncovering the truth when I’d lived in lies for so long would be an ongoing process for me. I gnawed on my lip, but stayed to watch, wishing I dared join in.
As the rhythm built, everyone began to jump together, bouncing higher each time. How did untrained dancers get such elevation in their jumps? The longhouse steps swayed, and I realized the coordinated jumps were moving the earth like a sheet stretched and billowed between two washer girls.
A surprised laugh broke from my throat. Here was dancing that cast away loss and sorrow and left room for only rejoicing. My sort of dancing was clearly not the only way the Maker blessed His people.
The subsun set as night covered Windswell more deeply. The bonfire died out, musicians put away their instruments, and tired villagers retreated to their homes. Brianna and I helped Fiola to her cottage and poured her a mug of tsalla. Now that Brianna had heard the contents of the letter, she agreed to help us create a copy.
“Will you speak again at the gathering tomorrow?” she asked me.
I shook my head. “It’s not my place to steer any decisions. The Maker simply asked me to share the letter. Windswell will figure things out, now that they remember Him.”
“Wise words from one so young.” Fiola took a sip of her drink and leaned back with a contented sigh. “Perhaps you’ll be the one to help my son hear the truth. Loss and anger have clogged his ears for too long, but I’ve seen how you care for him.”
Heat bloomed on my cheeks, and my gaze shot to Bri, hoping our tentative truce wouldn’t be broken by Fiola’s assumptions. “I’m sure he’ll listen to Brianna. I’ll be traveling on as soon as we can get a copy made.”
Bri tucked a blonde braid behind her ear and smiled, seeming unconcerned. “I have a few ideas for finding parchments so you can begin work on a copy.”
Over the next several days, I grew to appreciate the fiery woman who’d dared travel to Middlemost to rescue her daughter. It was she who informed Brantley that I couldn’t leave yet. I was grateful I hadn’t witnessed that particular argument, but she earned even more of my respect going toe-to-toe with him.
When we discovered there wasn’t enough parchment in the village to complete all the pages of the letter, Brianna sent a team to harvest cattails, blending and pressing them into a different sort of paper. At her urging, her friends produced enough to create an extra copy after we finished the first.
I wrote as fast as I could without making mistakes, going through willow pen after willow pen. Brianna took turns as well, but insisted her writing skill was inferior and urged me to copy as many pages as I could until my hand curled in helpless exhaustion.
Brianna also kept me informed about Brantley’s activities. While I worked on leaving behind the message of the letter, he worked on leaving Windswell a defensive strategy. If the village stood up to the Order and its rejection of the Maker, armed conflict could result—the same sort of clash that had taken the life of his brother. The thought made me uneasy, so I narrowed my focus to the page before me.
One morning Orianna scampered into the cottage, where I sat hunched over the table across from Fiola. She set an empty basket on the table. “Grandma, I went to dig up some of the root crop for you, but they haven’t grown. Nothing but tiny nubs.”
Her distress pulled me from my work. Fiola tapped the table and held me with her gaze. “What was it the letter said about the dance, about creating?”
I leafed back a few pages and read the section about the Maker’s invitation to be part of His creative work, to respond in joy to His gifts. I was still uncertain about exactly what that meant. The Order had been formed to implement that call, but I no longer believed their work served the Maker. Perhaps dance held no more place in our world, now that it had been corrupted.
“Teacher, let’s dance for the garden.” Orianna rubbed one of her eyes with a dirt-streaked fist. The smudge left behind made her look like she had survived a fistfight.
I pushed my chair back a few inches from the table, then hesitated. “We could . . . maybe.” I would be breaking the rules of the Order, but hopefully not the rules of the Maker. “Fiola,” I asked, “can we ask the Maker if I should dance a pattern for growing?”
She closed her eyes and leaned back with a smile. “Of course.”
“It’s just that I’m not used to speaking to Him. In the Order we were taught to speak to ourselves, to declare what we wished for and summon power through our perfection and our will.”
Fiola snorted like an irritated pony. “A feeble patch of tangleroot to stand on. You’ve seen the Maker. Where would you rather put your trust?”
Put that way, it wasn’t even a question. How had I ever believed that my will alone could shape reality? How had the Order come to believe they could control our world apart from the Maker?
I rested my head in my hands while Fiola prayed. “Guide this little dancer to use all she’s learned in Your service. You know the needs of our table and of our village. We trust You to provide us food. Truly, indeed.”
“And truly, indeed,” I whispered.
Orianna led me to the garden patch Fiola shared with Brianna and another family. The vegetables were stubby and uneven. Many of the leaves carried blight, or had been gnawed by forest pests. Too bad Brantley wasn’t the landkeeper he’d once claimed to be. Perhaps he would have known how to bring health to the plants.
Would my efforts make a difference? Even though I’d used tiny bits of movement to coax a forest hound or connect with Dancer Subsun or play with Orianna, I was daunted by the idea of dancing a full pattern out here away from the Order. I’d been taught that only a full group of dancers could perform the creating patterns, and only in the center ground. Another thought frightened me even more. I had always believed only the most worthy and perfect dared dance. The Order would judge me the most unworthy and imperfect.
Would the earth split and tumble me into the ocean beneath?
Thankfully, no other villagers were nearby to watch. Orianna settled under a tree, soles of her feet together and knees stretching open as if she were back in class.
I slanted my face to the warm touch of sunlight. “Stop me if this angers You,” I breathed.
I stepp
ed between the rows, beginning harvest pattern. If I had a dozen dancers, our movements could have quickly covered the garden, but there was only me. I wondered what it might have been like in the time before the Maker’s letter was forgotten. Had groups of dancers once used patterns in a humble way? Had they worked in a sort of unity like the Order, but in love instead of fear?
After so many hours of sitting at Fiola’s table, my arms exalted in opening wide. Each kick of my legs was like a shout of celebration. The steps I’d learned seemed too small and contained, and when I began the second variation, I did something no dancer I knew had ever dared to do. My body absorbed inspiration from the garden, from the breeze, from the suns, and I added leaps and twirls and rapid prancing footfalls.
Like a stenella gliding over the surface of the waves, or a harrier bird banking into the wind, I experienced a new freedom. The steps I’d learned helped to launch me, but now I danced beyond the pattern.
As I finished my improvised variation, sweat dripped down my back, and my legs buckled from exhaustion. Orianna drummed her fingers lightly on the ground, and then for good measure raised her feet and fluttered them to the front, stirring puffs of dust. “You did it! Will you teach me how?”
Catching my breath, I blinked a few times. Broad leaves now stretched thickly amid the rows, and tubers grew so large they broke the surface of the ground. Orianna ran into the garden and pulled up one of the pebbly green rutish plants, shaking the dirt free. “Grandma will make a feast with these.”
Laughter bubbled from my chest. In all the years of precision, perfection, and indoctrination, I’d never before grasped the joy of creating in this way, never saw such tangible effect from using my gift. I could only imagine what it would be like to unite with other dancers . . . not in an effort to empower the Order, but to celebrate the Maker. The villages wouldn’t go hungry. The island could drift to new fishing grounds. Fierce storms could be averted. The possibilities left me giddy.
