A Single Stone (17 page)

She scanned the covers, hoping something familiar might strike her. If only she had thought to mark that particular ledger. She could hardly take them all; while one might slot unobtrusively under her arm, half a dozen clutched to her chest would be sure to attract attention. She flicked through the coarse pages of the closest book. This was a record of remedies rather than people, a recipe book of sorts. She set it aside and turned to the next. This one had names but the pages were not organised into columns as the other ledger had been. She clapped it shut. There was a volume on the other side of the table and she leaned across to retrieve it. She was sliding it over when a sudden sound made her freeze. A key was turning in the front door.

There was a creaking noise as the door swung open down the hall. Jena ducked low to the floor by the corner of the table. It was too late to make a run for the front room, too late to pretend she was here for the tunnelling gear. She could only hope that whoever it was headed for the mica room rather than this one.

But the footsteps stopped just outside. The door rattled softly as a key slipped into the lock, then swung open.

Her thoughts raced. Perhaps she might say she was seeking a tonic – something for Mama Dietz or Ailin. She had been in the front room, had seen the door ajar and thought someone was still here.

But then she ought not to be cowering here, hiding. She ought to stand, to say,
Oh! I was looking for you.

As the cloaked figure entered the room, she pulled herself upright. “Oh! I …”

The figure stumbled backwards. The hood was drawn up, the face beneath it wide-eyed.

“Luka?”

He pushed the hood back and sagged against the table. “You gave me a fright.”

“What are you doing here?”

He glanced at the ledgers. “The same as you, I guess. Berta said the Mothers were meeting so I knew there’d be no one here.” Berta’s keys dangled from his fingers. “I thought I could put it back before the meeting finished. Aren’t you meant to be there?”

“Are they waiting for me?”

“They were talking. I heard your name mentioned though.”

“I should hurry.” Jena turned back to the ledger.

“I can take it. You go. I’ll hide it somewhere safe for later.”

He reached for the book but Jena motioned to him to wait. “I have to find the right one.”

This one had columns at least. And the notations looked similar. She turned the pages hastily, searching for
Dietz
. This might be the only chance she had before winter; she wanted to be certain.

Luka pulled some other ledgers from the shelf. “Do you want these?”

“I’m not sure. Wait a minute.”

Dietz had been near the start but she couldn’t see it now. Maybe this wasn’t the right book after all. There might be several like this, each with different families.

She jabbed a finger at Luka. “Pass that one.”

As he handed her the book, something crossed his face. “That stone you found … do you have it?”

One hand went to her hip. “It’s in my pocket.”

“Can I see it again?”

She drew it out and set it alongside the ledgers, her fingers lingering briefly upon the cool surface.

Luka took it to the window. He held it aloft, trying to catch what little light filtered through from outside. “When I was getting the keys I had another look at Berta’s pendant. Remember I said hers wasn’t as smooth? It’s all chipped and worn, like it’s older.”

Jena continued flicking through the ledger. “I guess it is then.”

“They’re both old. And this one’s been in the mountain, so wouldn’t it be worse?” Luka closed one eye and squinted at the stone. “But it’s different too. That’s what I can’t work out. This hole through the centre is smooth but Berta’s is all bumpy on the inside, and there are cracks, like it broke when they were making it.”

Jena nodded distractedly. “You should get away from the window.”

He came back to the centre of the room and placed the stone on the table before her. “Look how shiny it is. This isn’t from the old times. It’s newer.”

“Don’t be foolish. No one would waste mica like that now.”

“I know, but–”

“We can talk about it later.” A note of impatience crept into Jena’s voice. She scooped the stone back into her pocket and gestured towards the ledgers. “I have to do this, before I’m missed.”

But all of a sudden it was too late for that. Because the dim light had moved, throwing a dark shadow across the table. Someone was standing in the doorway, someone who had come in softly without making a sound.

Thom
, she thought, hope flaring briefly. Perhaps Luka had told him he was coming. Perhaps …

No.

There was no hood masking this face. The Mothers had no reason to hide themselves.

“To think my own grandson would take my keys! And that cloak. It hardly becomes you.” Berta sighed heavily. “I feared this might happen. What happened to the girl was difficult, but you cannot take things into your own hands. They will have enough if they are careful. If the rock allows it.”

Jena’s thoughts reeled. Berta thought they were here for Thom – to get extra for his family.

“Give me the mica.” Berta indicated Jena’s satchel then glanced at the cabinet. “And whatever else you have taken for them. No one need know but us.”

Luka stepped between Jena and Berta. “She hasn’t got anything. She wasn’t … it was just me. She was in the front room. She’s been trying to stop me.”

Berta narrowed her eyes; her gaze rested on Jena, thoughtful.

It could work, Jena thought. She could say she had been checking something on the map before she came to the meeting. Berta would believe her. They would leave the room together, lock the door behind them. She would walk by Berta’s side down the long street to where the rest of the Mothers waited, speak with them of the line and the harvest and the mountain.

Something in her knew she could not bear to make that walk. She put a hand on Luka’s arm. “It’s all right.” She withdrew the bottle from the satchel and set it on the table before Berta. “What does ripening mean?”

Something flashed across Berta’s face; it was just the slightest glimpse before she composed her features, but it was enough. It was like a mask slipping; no matter how quickly it was snapped back on, what lay beneath could not be unseen.

“My mama.” Jena leaned forwards, keeping the bottle within reach. Her hands pressed hard onto the rough wood of the table’s surface. “The ledger said six moons.”

“Because that is when she birthed.” Berta’s small frame seemed to fill the room. “We keep a record. You know this, child.”

“No.” Jena had not meant to lower her voice but it came out as a whisper, cracked and broken. “You made the baby come early. You …”

Berta was so close now; her eyes were right there and they were kind. They had always been so. Yet there was something hard in them too. Flinty and cold, like dull grey stone in the light of a headlamp.

Jena seized the bottle and stumbled around the table. Now the table was between them and she had some time – to take a breath, to clear her head. To think on what came next.

The door was at her back, wide open. She lunged for the remaining ledgers and scooped them up clumsily, one hand still curled around the bottle. Then she spun around and out into the hall. Footsteps pounded, heavy and loud. Her own.

In the front room the ropes hung idle on their hooks. The sudden image of that thin line, trailing limply down the mountain’s side.

And then outside – across the Square and down the street. Homewards. By the time Berta reached her she would have had time to show them – Mama and Papa Dietz, Kari. She would have had time to explain. Not a lot, but a little. Enough.

Wasn’t it Berta who had taught her this – that all you needed was the smallest crack? As long as there was an opening, you could find a way in.

There was a chill in the air and the wind had picked up. The ledgers shifted awkwardly in Jena’s arms. As she rounded the corner into her street, rain began to fall. It was light at first but gathered force swiftly, the first sluggish drops yielding to a downpour that seemed to hurl itself upon her.

One of the ledgers fell, hitting the ground with a dull thud. The spine split, splaying the pages flat. She gathered it up as best she could but scraps of paper flaked off and were snatched away by the wind. She clutched the books to her more tightly. They were damp, the covers and edges of the pages wet with rain.

She stopped, thinking to tuck them beneath her shirt. But they were too large and too many. And she was almost there now, just a few houses standing between her and home. But even as she began to run again, she found herself slowing. For there was Kari’s house and here was home, and for the first time in years she turned her head and looked squarely at the old lot.

A skeleton house.
She did not shy from the words but let them sit in her mind. Papa hadn’t known the things she did but he had challenged the Mothers all the same. He too had set out on a moonlit journey through these streets.

It had been quiet that night but was not so now. There were voices behind her, calling, yelling.

Child! Come back.

Doors opened around her. People emerged, blinking.

What’s going on? Are you all right?

The ledgers were heavy in her arms, sodden. The ink ran together in dark rivulets, blurring and dissolving. Voices whipped around her. The wind roared, pressing close – almost painful – in her ears.

Ahead, her own door opened. Papa Dietz stood framed against the faint inner glow of the lamp, his silhouette filling the doorway.

“Jena?”

But there was another voice now, one she could not possibly be hearing and yet was as loud and clear as if it were right there.

Wake up, Jena. It’s time to go.

And now she was turning, stumbling across the old lot, away from their house to the village outskirts and on towards the forest.

That bird.
The way it had found that space in the trees.

She slipped one arm free and reached into her pocket, her hand clenching around the stone.
This is not from the old times.
Luka’s voice was in her ears, clear as a bell.

She ran, lifting her face – to the mountain, to the sky. A bird’s tail, disappearing, up and up. That space between the trees.

It had been there all along.

The path through the forest, her feet crunching with every step. A fork before her – the wide, looping way that wound back to the village; the narrowing track that led on to the mountain.

This moment, to choose.

She stepped onto the track and then looked back. Berta’s slight figure stood in the distance, poised at the edge of the forest. Her cloak fluttered about her, battered by the wind. And there must have been a lull then, the wind easing just long enough for Jena to hear her calling. “Child, stop! You cannot go inside.”

In spite of herself, Jena nodded. The Mother was right. One girl was not a line. One girl was not anything. Could she really go in alone?

Her reply came almost as a surprise. As if she had not realised what she was thinking until she heard herself say it. And no sooner were the words on her lips than they were snatched away with the last of the waterlogged pages, swallowed into the throat of the wind.

“I’m not going inside. I’m going out.”

Jena is five but it doesn’t matter. Papa says numbers are not important any more, not where they are going.

In the forest, leaves flutter groundwards, wet with night. There is one so cold she thinks perhaps it is a snowflake. But it is too early for that and when she puts a hand to her cheek it is already gone.

The village is behind and the mountain ahead. It curves high above into the quiet dark. The space before them is a patchwork of stone, one piled upon the next like the blocks she played with when she was little. When she was four. Building tower after tower just to tumble them down.

She has been here with the village, to see this place they call the Pass, to remember.

She doesn’t really remember. No one does. But it is a different kind of remembering, Papa says. You tell yourself the story, make a picture in your mind. And then it is almost like you are seeing it, almost like you were truly there.

They are at the rocks and this is where they must stop. Because this is the edge of things and there can be no more going.

But Papa turns to her and there is something in his face, something tired and old, but alive too, a dying flicker becoming a flame.

He holds the tiny bundle out, saying
, Here.

Jena has been good and quiet and so she takes her sister, gathering in the fragile limbs Papa has let dangle loose.

Silly Papa.
She folds the girl into herself, wrapping her snug and cozy against her chest.

Look after your sister,
Papa says, and she knows how to do it.

Something pulses beneath her finger, rhythmic and regular.
The heart beating in the head,
Papa had said, guiding her fingers over the fragile skin.
You mustn’t press. Just let it be.