The Almanac

by E L Stricker

  “You haven't lost it,” he said finally. “The gift.”

  Illya shook his head. Benja seemed to relax slightly. He grabbed the book and pulled it closer.

  “What’s it say then?” he said.

  “This word,” Illya said, pointing, “is 'chicken.'“ Benja burst into laughter, all remaining tension dissolving from his posture. Illya grinned and let go of his breath.

  “That's what they’re afraid of? Chicken?”

  “Well, there is a lot more, but I have a key to almost all these symbols. Each one stands for a sound. They repeat over and over, you see? There are only about thirty of them.”

  “But have you read anything else?” Benja asked.

  “A few. I started with the short ones. Chicken was hard to get actually. The sounds run together,” Illya said.

  Benja shook his head and stared at him in wonder.

  “How do you keep it all straight in your head? I never could,” he said. Illya shifted uncomfortably.

  “You know that song the littles sing at each other? When they jump rope or play patty cake.”

  Benja shook his head. “Sure, but there's lots of those,” he said.

  “It's the one that goes A, B, C, D, E, F, G.”

  Everyone knew that song. It was just a string of nonsense sounds. Littles liked to compete to sing it as fast as they could so that parts of it made silly words. When Molly had been a little younger, she had loved to yell, “ELEMENOPEE!” at the top of her voice, which would always send her into a fit of giggles.

  “Sure,” Benja said and shrugged.

  “I actually didn't figure this out until after I had most of the sounds, but that song is letters,” Illya said. “There's this place at the end of the book where there are long lists of words that all start with the same letter.” Benja stared at him.

  “I thought it was weird, so I'd been looking at it a lot, and then I realized it was the same as that song, all those letters in the same order, one after another,” Illya said.

  “A, b, c . . .“ Benja said, and ran his fingers through his short, sandy hair, scratching his head.

  “They are a little bit different. It's like the song takes a sound and makes a whole word out of it to make it easier to say. Instead of just 'buh', it's 'bee'.”

  “Do you think that song was made to help people read then?” Benja asked. “Way back in the Olders’ days?”

  Illya nodded.

  “That's what I thought, but there are places where the sounds don't fit when you read them. I could just have it all wrong.”

  “I don't think you have it wrong.” Benja was looking at him, wide-eyed. Illya studied his feet, more embarrassed than ever. Benja had grown up beside him and had been Illya's closest friend for as long as he could remember, but Illya couldn't remember a time when Benja had been impressed by anything he had done.

  “These pictures are something too,” Benja said. “There aren't huts in any of them, just big houses, like the stone house.” Illya shook his head, thinking of what it could mean. What if all of the Olders had lived in houses? There were ruins nearby, all of them houses, but they had always assumed that the huts that ordinary people had lived in had been swept away by time. Their own huts were flimsy things. Every few years they were damaged by storms and floods and had to be rebuilt.

  “What'd that be like? You would always be safe.”

  “Don’t know,” Benja said.

  They sat together for some time, working out the first line of the passage.

  “Can you imagine a regular, egg-laying hen turning into a crowing rooster?” Illya sounded out.

  “That's it? That's what it's about?” Benja snickered. Illya went on.

  “It happened to a chicken belonging to Jeannie and John Howard, whose prize hen, Gertie, started crowing instead of clucking, and grew a wattle,” he read. He pressed his lips together. After all his work, it was nothing but a bunch of nonsense.

  “That can't be right, maybe I did it wrong,” he mumbled. Painstakingly, he checked over each letter. There were a few places where he wasn't sure. Still, even the difficult words were close enough to recognize what they were.

  “No, that's right,” he said finally. Benja laughed.

  “What?”

  “Well, you have to admit it's kind of funny,” he said. “They knew so many things, and they had so much, but this is what they wrote about. Chickens.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHEN THEY PULLED in the trap, there were two wriggling fish inside.

  “Whoo!” Benja yelled and punched the air. Illya held them up, their silver scales flashing in the sunlight. The river was a tricky spirit, sometimes giving nothing, sometimes giving plenty. At times, it took from them to pay for what it had given. It could take a boat, a hut, or even a person. Not five years before, Illya's father had been lost that way.

  He struck each one with a rock until it stopped flopping. They were a decent size for this early in the spring, one of them two hands long, and the other just a little shorter. They gutted the fish and ran twine through their gills, Illya tying one to his belt, and Benja taking the other.

  “Back in a minute,” Benja said, nodding toward a stand of trees. Illya folded the book into a soft buckskin and slid it into his pack.

  A yell followed by the sound of a struggle came from the direction that Benja had gone. Illya dropped his bag and ran towards the sound, but before he reached the trees, there was a splash. He whipped around just in time to see Benja swept down the current, struggling to keep his head above water. Illya froze, visions of his father disappearing under muddy rapids flashed through his mind, paralyzing him.

  Benja fought the waves, splashing to keep his head above water. Illya shook himself out of his stunned state. He ran along the bank and picked up the fish trap as he ran. He would not lose Benja too.

  He flung the fish trap across the water to Benja. The trap fell a few stride lengths short. Benja fought to reach it. His strokes were not enough against the current. Illya pulled with all his might, dragging the rope back in as fast as he could. Benja was swept downstream; he gulped then went under the water.

  The seconds stretched into eternity; then Benja's head resurfaced. He gasped in the air, kicking and flailing his arms. Illya took a running start and flung the fish trap toward his cousin with every ounce of strength he could find.

  This time, it landed a few feet away from Benja. He kicked, reached out, and caught the slats in his fingers. Illya dug his heels into the muddy ground, leaning back as the added weight of Benja in the current pulled on the rope. Unable to pull the rope hand over hand, he staggered backward with it a step at a time, digging his feet into the mud with each step as he went.

  Benja kicked against the water, lending what strength he could to Illya's efforts. Finally, he crawled onto the bank, his chest heaving. He coughed and spewed a mess of debris and river water onto the ground. Illya loosened his fingers from the rope and flexed the stiffness out of them. Benja rolled over and looked up at the sky, still catching his breath. A bruise was beginning to form along his jaw, and a trickle of blood dripped from a split lower lip and blended with the beads of river water on his chin.

  “Someone came up behind me, I was taking a pee,” he said and sat up, pausing to spit a glob of bloody mucous on the ground. “Had my pants down 'round my ankles. Barely got them up and they hit me.” He rubbed his jaw.

  “Shoved me in the river.” He scowled and looked at his feet. “Took the fish too. I didn't even see who it was.”

  Illya sucked in a sharp breath. He let it out slowly, shaking his head.

  “I didn't think even the worst of them would drown a man for a fish,” he said.

  “I think there are some of them that would do anything,” Benja said, shivering. He nodded toward the other fish that was still strung to Illya’s belt. “Better hide that.”

  It was one fish, but it meant everything for their families. Meat. With it, Molly would be safe for a few days more, maybe lo
ng enough for the new shoots to spread.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ILLYA LEFT THE village early the next morning and stowed the book under his jacket. He needed light to read by but didn’t dare sit beside his hut to do it. He was so early that he was the first person to reach the gates to unbar and open them. Outside the walls, he sat at the base of a big maple tree with bare branches and flipped through the book. The sun was coming up over the flats to the east, blazing fire across the sky.

  “Shows what sort of weather will follow the moon’s entrance into any of its quarters,” he read. He frowned. How could they have known something like that?

  The moon was still visible above the horizon: a circle cut perfectly in half. He wasn’t sure if it was the same thing the table meant by a quarter, but it could be. He traced his finger down the column and slowly studied each word.

  The time of day was another thing he didn’t know. He decided to look at all of the entries for the morning. The first prediction was “Rain,” and the next one down said, “Stormy,” the one after that said, “Cold rain if the wind is west, snow if the wind is east.”

  He held up his hand. West.

  There would be rain then, no matter what time of the morning it was.

  For a few heady seconds, he imagined going back to the village and telling the people at the central fire it would rain today.

  He laughed at himself. Impiri and those who thought like her would have him thrown out of the village if they knew he was actually reading an Olders’ book. He could hear her now. Corruption! Curses! Banish him!

  There were more words below the table.

  Old wives' tales to predict the weather: Those Old Wives knew a thing or two! The common adage “Red skies at night, sailor's delight, red skies at morning, sailors take warning,” holds truth and can be used to forecast the weather with reasonable accuracy. The effect of red skies is caused by an accumulation of dust and humidity in the air, which refracts the light of the rising sun.

  He caught his breath. Though the blaze of sunrise was fading as the sky lightened to a pale yellow, there had been a red sky. That was two signs.

  He read on a little, then he heard a shout coming from beyond the walls. It was followed by more shouting. Quickly, he stowed the book under his jacket and hurried back to the gates.

  They were raiding again. They were on the far side of the square, away from his mother’s hut he was relieved to see. They were heading in the direction of Samuel’s.

  He kept out of sight from the growing crowd, and made his way around them by ducking behind huts, hoping to warn Samuel before they reached him.

  ***

  Illya hesitated at the Healer’s door. A low murmur of voices came from beyond it. He paused then leaned closer, pressing his ear to the rough gray wood.

  “…not with the talk that's been going around.” A boy was mumbling.

  “Two scoops in hot water,” Samuel's voice came through the door, louder.

  “But if there's any more blood, you have to bring him to see me himself.” There was silence then a rustle.

  “Do you have…” Illya only caught some of the words. “…comes with the drink, the wildness.”

  “Nothing can be done for that if a man hasn't got the sense to stay away from it,” said Samuel. There was a grunt followed by a scuffle. Suddenly, the door opened, and Conna came out. Illya leaped backward to avoid being hit. Conna stopped short and glared at him, stuffing something into his pocket. Illya took a few heavy breaths, hoping that he looked as if he had just run up to the hut.

  He kept his face as blank as possible. Conna regarded him with narrowed eyes then slid his gaze away before taking off down the path at a walk so quick it was nearly a run.

  Illya shrugged away his discomfort. He had more important things to worry about.

  “Samuel,” he said, pushing his way inside, “they’re raiding the huts, dragging out any food stores that are left.” He glanced over his shoulder, through the open door, towards where Conna had disappeared, wondering for a moment why he wasn’t with the rest of them. His father was leading the group.

  “After what they did before, I thought…” He gestured around the hut.

  The Healer's eyes flickered towards the door.

  “I hope they learned before, but still…” He sighed and trailed off. The wrinkles in his forehead deepened. “May be better if we don’t stay here to see.”

  He went to the corner and took two skin bags off hooks then turned around, holding one out to Illya.

  “Willow bark,” he said.

  “That will take most of the day,” Illya said.

  “Exactly.”

  Willows did not grow nearby. They were nearly in the lowlands, about ten bends downriver. If they went now, they wouldn’t be back until mid-afternoon.

  The raids had moved to the far side of the village. They made their way out of the hut, staying out of sight and off the main paths as much as possible. There was yelling in the distance, crashing, and the sound of splintering wood from beyond the stone house. The raiders had gone through his family’s hut a few days before and found nothing. Still, Illya stopped there before they left to tell his ma to bar the door and keep Molly inside.

  Ten bends downriver was not a bad distance to go in the summer. You could take a day and lie back in the shade of the tree, fishing the little swirling pool under the willows’ overhanging branches. At this time of year, the drifts were still waist-deep in the places where they had not washed away. Rain and runoff had created a grid of shifting bogs and streams across the hillside, alternating with the snow. Samuel was surprisingly nimble for his age, keeping up without trouble as they descended.

  Illya's foot punched through a snowdrift to find a running stream of frigid water underneath. He shook it off and stepped over a mound of deep snow. Soon, he found a well of dry ground where the snow had melted from around the base of a tree, and they stopped to catch their breath. Idly, he kicked at the damp earth, uncovering a net of withered leaves and stems. Recognizing the shape of the leaves, he crouched to examine them closer.

  “A sunchoke,” he said.

  “Humph,” Samuel grunted, breathing heavily now that they had stopped.

  “Too bad it isn’t grown back yet. Think of that. Roasted sunchoke roots,” Illya said.

  “Might be better not to think of that kind of thing.”

  Samuel rubbed his elbow with a grimace and closed his eyes. Illya leaned back against the tree and considered the merits of scraping some of the tree bark off with his knife to chew on. It had been many hours since the fish the night before. A lump of bark dug into his back, and he shifted his weight off it, pushing back against the tree. Instead of rough bark, his elbow found a space. It wasn't a lump at all but a hole.

  “Hey, a squirrel nest!” Illya said.

  Samuel brightened up, opening his eyes.

  “Anything left in it?”

  Illya shrugged. He hadn't seen a squirrel in these woods in months. If he had, he probably would have eaten it. He reached inside then grinned, pulling out a handful of pine nuts and small striped seeds that had probably come from the sunchoke at their feet. The squirrel that had made this stash had not returned to eat its store.

  There were enough that they could eat some and still stuff his pockets with handfuls to take back to his mother and Molly.

  He divided them with Samuel, but after a few bites, he stopped chewing. His eyes widened, and he clutched the seeds tighter in his hand.

  For a moment he barely breathed, remembering something he had read. It was the page after the one about the chicken. Gold light lanced through the trees and shone on his face as the midmorning sun parted the clouds.

  “Seed saving,” he whispered.

  “What’s that?” Samuel asked.

  “Oh, nothing. Just thinking,” he said.

  He had taken to carrying the book with him everywhere, not trusting to leave it in his hut. It was in the pack on his back, but he didn't nee
d to look at it to remember the words.

  No matter how your food reaches your table, it all begins the same way . . . With a seed! Nothing is more rewarding than being able to walk out your back door and pick your dinner right out of a backyard garden full of vegetables. Follow these tips to collect and save your own seeds for a bountiful, home-grown harvest.

  Seeds.

  They had died out many years ago. The seeds for the plants the Olders had grown didn't even exist anymore. The way the story went the first settlers had come out of the cities and become Planters to survive. They had seeds in packages, and for a year, there was plenty. The second year, they planted seeds that had come from the first years' plants, and not a single plant had grown. A man in the group called Bernard Jones, Ph.D., saved them. Before the Calamity had come, he had studied famine foods of the Pacific Northwest.

  He had taught the villagers about edible plants that they could find in the woods near the Planter's house. Jones Ph.D. was the reason they had all survived. Illya was descended from him; it was one of the few things he felt proud of.

  When Illya had read the passage about seeds, he had dismissed it as a lovely but impossible dream. The very thought of a garden was blasphemy. His people had survived because they did not plant. Garden plants died; wild plants thrived. Everyone knew that.

  But a garden out the back door. The thought of it took his breath away. They could grow hundreds of plants; as many as the seeds they could find. They could grow so many that they wouldn't even need to look in the forest anymore. More than enough for a whole winter.

  He said nothing to Samuel but stowed his half of the seeds in his pocket. They set off again, making good time despite the difficult terrain. Illya kept going over it in his mind. Was it possible that he could put these very seeds in the ground and a sunchoke would come up?

  The more he thought about it, he didn’t see why not. Sunchokes grew everywhere, even right outside the walls. Why wouldn’t they grow? Ground was ground, wherever it was.

  They made good time, despite the difficult going, and got almost enough willow bark to replace what they had lost. The way back was uphill and slower. When they could see the walls in the distance, the sun was half down from its height. Neither of them spoke as they neared the gates. There was no shouting anymore. In fact, there was no sound of any kind.