The Almanac

by E L Stricker

  Laughter. That was why they had sounded like cackling birds. It had been so long since Illya had heard it that he hadn’t recognized the sound.

  Two of the same men who had smashed up the Healer’s hut just the day before had linked arms and were dancing in a frenzied circle in the middle of it all. Julian Reyes, one of the Patrollers, was kneeling on the ground in the midst of the crowd with both hands over his face. Illya couldn't be sure from the distance, but he thought he saw tears running down the boy's cheeks.

  “I think it's okay,” he said to Samuel. Together they left the hut.

  Charlie was standing a little way out of the crowd with his arms folded across his chest.

  “What's happened?” Illya asked.

  “Shoots,” Charlie said. “The melt’s started and the shoots have come back.”

  On the ground in front of Julian was a pile of wet earth. From it, a tiny green spike with a curled end was pushing its way towards the sky. Illya couldn’t hold back a grin at the sight. The shoot was a small thing, but its promise meant everything. Charlie smiled in return, but there was still a tinge of worry in his eyes.

  “It won't be enough for my ma. Hasn't come soon enough,” he said. Illya’s insides twisted, his thoughts skipping to the hollow-eyed littles and to Molly with her strange, swollen belly. Charlie was right. It would still be weeks before the shoots spread across the ground in a carpet of plenty and their worries would be truly behind them.

  Still, the sight of the little shoot went a long way towards filling his spirit even though it would do nothing to fill his stomach.

  A boy took up a reed flute and began to play a tune to accompany the dancing. Soon, an old man joined him with a string instrument, and then Illya’s cousin Benja came with an old buckskin drum. It had been made by their grandfather from a hollowed-out log with a tanned deer hide stretched over it. It was a solid drum and still made a deep, resonant sound although it was old. Benja loved it. He oiled the wood each year with animal fat to keep it from cracking.

  Benja adjusted the strap—a length of leather, patterned with turquoise stones and silver that Illya had found for him in the same ruin the mason jars had come from—across his shoulder. He pounded a rhythm in time with their tune, and a woman joined in, shaking seashell bracelets over her head.

  Illya found a dry bit of ground and sat down, leaning against a rock to watch. He never danced. He couldn’t get over the idea that everyone would watch him and think he looked foolish.

  There was a mosaic set into the ground, left over from the first settlers. It showed a cornucopia full of plants. Its stones pressed the rough approximation of a vine into his calf in a much different way than the real plant would have imprinted. Illya rubbed it and watched Benja toss his head as he hit the drum, smiling to himself as if he had a secret.

  The music crept into Illya's soul, catching at a nameless longing, plucking with fingers made from a strain of flute, a beat of the drum, a clattering seashell-fall. The thrumming of the strings weaved below the higher energy of the reed flute and percussion with a sound that surrounded them, forgettable as a heartbeat.

  The dancing people were infected too. More and more villagers joined. Julian picked up the little shoot, and cradled it in his hands, still kneeling on the ground in the midst of it all. Illya watched as the villagers pranced around the fire, embarrassed to see their bony frames, the way the sagging skin on the backs of their arms flapped, their angular movements in ill-fitting clothes. They moved with abandon, seemingly unaware of the foolishness of their spectacle.

  They were free, and he found himself in a state of acute discomfort that he did not share in the feeling. He scowled, attempting to balance on his superiority and the thought that he would never let himself look so ridiculous.

  A chill sharpened the air and the roughness of the rock pressed into his back. A large, worn-out woman pranced past. She streamed a tattered shawl behind her head like it was a pair of giant wings.

  His thoughts drifted over the day: Molly and her skinny knees, the laughing people, the book and its beautiful pictures. He thought of the two-sound words and how close he was to unlocking it all. He thought of the people in the pictures and how they had lived. Beyond his spinning thoughts, an awareness of someone’s attention grew.

  Sabelle.

  He looked up and met her eyes across the circle. He blushed. Heat rose up his neck and reached past his ears. She glanced away quickly but soon looked back at him. His heart sped up. He kept staring at her when she looked away again, stupidly mesmerized by the shape of her ear, like a little seashell.

  He ducked his head, looking down, and pretended to be deeply interested in a tear in the knee of his pants. He wondered if he had been talking to himself earlier and that was why she had been watching him. He knew that his face was red. When he looked up, she was watching him again, with a little smile at the corners of her mouth. Illya smiled back at her.

  He wasn't sure what they were smiling about, maybe it was the shoots, maybe nothing at all. He grinned like an idiot. It was as if they had a secret together, although he had no idea of what it was. Eventually, Martha Sayen, who was sitting beside Sabelle, elbowed her in the ribs, and she broke the gaze.

  He rubbed his sweaty hand through his hair. On the other side of the fires, Impiri was talking to a few people, flinging her hands around to punctuate whatever she was saying. What was it he had been thinking? He couldn't remember now. Julian got up from the ground, still clutching the clump of earth, and joined the people who were listening to Impiri.

  “…have to share it all around,” Illya caught one of the women saying.

  He glanced at Sabelle again, but she was looking away now, watching the crowd around her mother. Martha whispered something to her, and they both glanced at him and started giggling. His stomach tumbled around like a river rapid, and he looked down.

  A shadow came between him and the fire. He gulped and looked up, both hoping and fearing that it was her. Instead, Benja stood over him, grinning.

  “Not going to ask her to dance?” Benja said. Illya glared at him. Benja knew perfectly well how he felt about dancing. Illya glanced down at his arm and shook his head. He wondered how he would look out there, galloping around, hanging on to her hand.

  “We all know … got to be stores in the cellar there.” Jimmer's voice drifted across the square. He was talking to Impiri, pointing to the stone house. Elias, the village Leader, came and stood between them with his hands up. Illya strained to hear what they were saying.

  Benja plunked himself down beside Illya, sagging back against the rock, chuckling.

  “She would dance with you, you know,” Benja said. Illya felt himself redden again and locked his eyes on the ground. He must have been obvious when he had been watching her if Benja had seen it from where he had been playing.

  “You saw,” Illya said, scowling. Benja snorted.

  “Anyone who was looking saw all that,” he said. Illya cringed.

  “I guess you don't remember that she was doing the same thing you were,” Benja said and punched Illya in the shoulder. Illya braced himself to keep from being knocked over. It wasn’t fair that Benja weighed so much more than him.

  Across the circle, the group around Impiri and Elias was growing. Aunt Ada had joined them, and suddenly Illya did not have to strain to hear at all.

  “A sign? Have we come to that? Looking for signs in the woods and the clouds?” Ada said, her fists shoved into her hips as she glared at her sister.

  Illya and Benja looked at each other then got up and moved closer.

  “Soon there will be plenty for everyone again,” Elias said, holding up his hands. “The shoots have come. We're safe.”

  Some of the people nodded, but many stood back with their arms folded across their chests.

  “If you look at your neighbors and think that your problems come from them, you’re right,” Impiri said, snapping.

  Jimmer took a half step backward. “But it's n
ot because anyone is hoarding food.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Our ancestors set out the rules for survival. As long as we follow in their way, we will have enough. But if we don’t remember them, and what they taught, we will go the way of the Olders!” Her voice reached a high pitch.

  “I thought that we were people who used our minds and survived by our wits,” Ada said, but Impiri paid no attention to her.

  “The Olders angered the gods, yet we bring their things, their corruption here. We bring the gods’ anger down on our village.”

  She looked around, breathless, her eyes hovering on one person, then another, and finally settling on Illya.

  “He has been bringing in more and more,” she said, pointing at him. The people nearby muttered to each other, a rising buzz around him. Illya wished that he could sink into the earth. Beside him, Benja shifted closer.

  Impiri was a person of standing in the village and people still listened to her. Her grandfather had led all of their ancestors through the Calamity. Her father, and Ada’s, Dane Marshall, had been the best Leader they had ever had. Even if her husband struggled to fill his shoes, he was still the head of the village. Many would blame Illya if that was what she told them to do. It would be less frightening than facing the real problem. He tried to glance back at Sabelle without being obvious, wishing he could see her face, but she was too far behind him.

  Elias was nodding. “We've gotten careless. We have to remember that the founders survived when so many others didn't. We can't forget their ways.” Illya looked around the circle. Ada was red-faced with clenched fists. A few people looked uncertain, but too many nodded in ready agreement.

  Elias looked at Impiri and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “He's just a boy. And there are things of the Olders all around us,” he said. Impiri narrowed her eyes at Elias.

  “There is a disease here and it has to be cleaned out before it is too late,” she said then turned back to the crowd.

  “We must find each thing of the Olders that has wormed its way in and burn it.”

  “Time someone did something about the way things are going. People forgetting what the Founders taught. I don't hold with it,” Jimmer Duncan said, nodding. Elias frowned, his eyes darting from Impiri to the other people. He sighed.

  “If there is corruption, we can clean it out. The shoots have returned. We have time,” he said, holding up his hand. He raised his voice so that it reached over the hum of the crowd. “We have been given a second chance.”

  “Don’t need to be feeding people that bring curses down on us either,” Jimmer continued, muttering under Elias’s words.

  “Yes,” Impiri said. “It is a new chance.” She looked from face to face in the circle, squinting in the dimming light as though she could see the corruption hiding inside each of them.

  She moved from Ada to Uncle Leo, to Benja, then to Illya. Before she could say anything, a wail sounded through the crowd, anguished and terrible, driving a chill to his core.

  Jannica Myr staggered into the firelight.

  “It’s too late,” she said.

  She was clutching a small bundle to her chest, sobbing.

  “He's gone. My boy is gone.” Her voice cracked. Her eyes squeezed closed; then her lips parted in a silent sob.

  Another one lost.

  Illya’s heart dropped into his stomach. He looked around for his family, suddenly frantic to find them. The sight of the lifeless boy was burned into his mind, remaining even after he had turned away.

  Molly.

  Stumbling, Illya broke into a run, gripped with fear that he would find her in the same state. Behind him, the people murmured like a swishing sea, and breaking through the sound came Jannica’s sobs.

  “A shame, but one less mouth to feed,” a man muttered as he passed. Illya stumbled. The little boy was the fifth person they had lost to starvation that winter. A person could last through much, but when they were weak, or very young, the fear of finding them still in their beds never to wake again was real.

  Illya burst through the door and found a scene untouched by the tragedy outside. His mother sat with Molly on her bed. Together, they were drawing pictures on the dirt floor. He looked down, and his heart clenched. His sister's hand was tracing a lumpy circle.

  “We are having a feast,” she said and smiled up at him. Her eyes were happy despite the sunken cheeks and dark hollows below them.

  “I’m eating a potato.”

  “I have ramps, greens, fish, and a whole rabbit,” his ma said, pointing at the other pictures on the floor. Illya swallowed, for a moment finding himself unable to speak. He sat down beside them.

  “First shoots,” he said. “They’ve found the first shoots.” Both of them looked up at him, wide-eyed. Grenya smiled, the crease between her brows softening. Illya put his arm around his little sister’s shoulders and hugged her close until she squirmed away.

  Later, after Molly was asleep, Illya told his mother about Jannica and her little boy. She gripped the table edge, going pale.

  “Another one.” She shook her head, gazing down at Molly’s small face.

  “It won’t happen to her. We won’t let it happen to her,” she said. Illya nodded, though he knew that they would be just as helpless as Jannica had been if it did.

  “We can get by a little longer.” He paused. “We have to.”

  Then, because he couldn't stand taking the thought any further, he turned away and pulled the book out from between his furs.

  He scanned the text for two-letter words, letting the rows of letters, orderly and clean, fill his mind. He traced them in the dirt with shaking fingers, making shapes that, while not as perfect as the ones in the book, were at least recognizable. There were a lot of them, but as he drew, he found that many had the letters he already knew.

  His mind skipped feverishly from clue to clue. He read “am,” and “as,” and “is.” Then he found “if,” “go,” and “my.” Now he knew m,a,s,o,n,i,f,g,y. He glanced at Molly, sleeping peacefully in her furs, and held his breath as he watched her chest rise and fall. He rubbed the back of his neck, remembering what Impiri had said and what Jimmer had said before Jannica had come. He thought of the people standing by, too many agreeing with them.

  If Impiri had known that he was reading, she would have him thrown out of the village without a thought.

  He turned the page to the picture of the fat man. The Olders had never sat by helplessly watching their children starving; he was sure of it. He set his jaw and focused on the letters again. If he could learn their secrets, maybe he wouldn't have to watch her starve.

  “Is” was a funny one. The sound of “s” in mason was not quite the same as the sound it made in is. It was like it was dragged out, and he couldn’t figure out why. Illya went through the text, saying the letters he knew out loud as he came to them, trying to match them to words he knew. There were many that he couldn’t guess at, but sometimes, when he sounded the letters out in longer words, he could tell which sounds filled in the gaps.

  He read “can,” “day,” and “hands.” Each new sound unlocked more and more. Soon he had so many sounds that he had to stop and draw them all out in the dirt, with a picture of a word that started with the sound beside each letter he knew, just to keep track.

  He read “fast,” and, a short while later, “past.” He grinned as he added p to his list, beside Molly’s potato.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “YOU'RE NOT SERIOUS. You can read this?” Benja demanded. They sat together on the riverbank, watching a fish trap they had just set. Benja was looking at a page with a picture of a shining red car. There was a square of short green grass with fat people standing on it beside the car, and a large house in the background.

  “Well, kind of. I haven't read very much yet,” he said. Benja looked up from the page, staring at Illya with his mouth still open. Illya reddened. He tried to skip a stone across the water and failed. The rains had come and the river was muddy and ragin
g. Most of the snow had washed away, and the paths through the village had all become running streams.

  “You found something big here, Coz,” Benja whispered.

  “I guess so,” Illya said, grinning.

  “We can see how they did things,” Benja said.

  “Maybe even do some of it too,” Illya said but hesitated. “I want to know how they lived. They had so much.” He glanced past the trees towards the broad path with some longing.

  “I wonder when it will be dry enough to take the bicycle out again,” he said. Benja said nothing, watching him. Illya looked back at the book and scowled.

  “You think Impiri’s right. They…“ Benja said.

  “They all died. They must have done something wrong,” Illya said.

  Benja chewed on his lip for a minute then glanced up from the book at Illya.

  “After you left, Impiri told everyone that we lost Jannica’s boy because of the corruption in the village. The gods punished us, and that’s why the roots ran out too soon,” he said.

  “But … that’s—“

  “Stupid.” Benja nodded. “But not everyone thinks so.” Illya opened his mouth but could find no words to say.

  “Jannica went sort of … crazy,” Benja said. He stopped and swallowed. Illya held his breath, his shoulders tensing slightly. They had not spoken of madness or of Rachel in many years. Benja looked up, met his eyes briefly, then looked out across the river and deftly skipped a stone, succeeding despite the speed of the current. He cleared his throat.

  “She took her boy and left, opened the gates and ran off into the woods,” Benja said. “It was long past dark by then.”

  Illya stared down at the picture. The bright colors had taken on a slightly sinister cast. Benja shivered as if shaking off a chill.

  “The worst thing is people were saying it was good riddance,” he muttered. He breathed in, then out, sharply, looking up to meet Illya's eyes with sudden intensity. He held Illya's gaze for a long moment.