by E L Stricker
“I hit Aaro too.” Conna jerked his head up and glared at him, sharp, defiant. “Had to. When he was little.” Illya kept his mouth shut, having no idea what to say to this.
“Someone had to teach him to take it and not cry. With him”—Conna nodded toward the stone house, where Jimmer was locked up—“it's worse for a little guy if he cries. First, he is just swinging, mad at the world. Doesn't have anything to do with you. Then you cry and he focuses in on you.” Conna took another drink. “Gets a lot worse. Better to just take it and keep your mouth shut.”
Illya was quiet. He watched Conna's face crumple in anger.
Conna tipped the skin up again but stopped mid-drink to look at something. Illya followed his gaze and saw Sabelle coming across the circle towards them. His breath caught.
“Hi,” she said, stopping in front of them. Illya wasn't sure who she was talking to but guessed that it wasn't him. She hadn't spoken a word to him since the night when her mother had dragged her away. Conna smiled at her; somehow he didn't seem awkward in her presence at all. Illya wondered if drinking the brew every day would cure him of awkwardness forever. His head was full of a fuzzy feeling as if he was looking out from behind a blanket.
“Hey,” Conna said. He moved over for her to sit down. “You remember Illya, right?”
Sabelle looked up and smiled at Illya with adorable hesitation. Her eyes darted away and came to rest on the ground between them. Illya stared. Somehow, the brew tingling inside his head was making his eyes get caught on the shape of her chin.
“Hi,” he said, after far too long. He glanced over Conna, who was watching the interaction. Conna rolled his eyes and got up.
“I'll see you guys later. I'm tired,” he said and walked away, still swigging the brew. Illya froze. He told his breath to come out evenly. What had just happened? Conna had left him sitting alone with Sabelle and he couldn't begin to think of why.
The blanket that the brew had wrapped around his brain had softened all of his thoughts, making them form slowly, but he had the sense that it would protect him from making any mistakes too.
He had been thinking about something but couldn't remember what. The only thing in his mind was the picture of Sabelle's face. He had thought she was angry with him for locking up her father. He had also thought she liked Conna.
“It's pretty out,” he said eventually.
“It is.” She looked up at him again from under long eyelashes. “The stars are bright.”
“They aren't as pretty as you,” he said. Immediately, his ears started burning. He ducked his head away, feeling incredibly stupid. The brew had not protected him after all. He had made a complete fool of himself. He wondered if she was going to get up and leave. She didn't.
He risked a glance at her and saw that, for some reason, she was smiling. They sat together, watching the fire crackling.
His tongue had become lodged in a block of stone. Even if he had been able to think of anything else to say, he couldn't have gotten it out.
Still, she was smiling, and it felt like a bubble was inflating in his chest. He realized that he must have a giant, stupid grin on his face because he could feel his cheeks stretching.
He became vaguely aware of the growing attention of the rest of the villagers, still sitting in groups around the circle. Though there were no obvious stares, he knew they were watching.
“Um.” He cleared his throat. “Do you want to go for a walk?”
Sabelle's eyes widened then darted back to the ground. She opened her mouth to speak and closed it again. He held his breath. His head was clearing, and the old awkwardness was coming back too.
She sent a fleeting look in the direction of the cooking fires, where her mother was hovering. Illya hoped it was his imagination, but he thought that Impiri might be muttering to the pot again.
“I don't think I can,” she said. With an apologetic smile, she got up then walked to the fires. Illya watched her go and scrubbed his hand through his hair. With nothing else to do, he got up too and headed back to his hut although it was still early.
Walking made him feel the brew much stronger. His steps wove. He was confused, unsure why she had left when it had seemed to be going well. Then he realized that she had probably come over to see Conna and had only stayed to be polite.
Illya's heart broke a little. His ribs felt like they were squeezing in to crush it, and his head spun. He growled and slammed his fist into a tree, furious with himself for being so stupid.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WHEN HE GOT back to the Enforcers' camp, he saw that they had made a fire of their own. Conna was there, and when he saw Illya approaching, he raised his eyebrows.
Illya turned towards his hut.
“Hey Illya, come over. We've got a game going,” someone said. Illya looked back at them, wrinkling his forehead, wondering if they had planned a joke on him.
“I don't know,” he mumbled, kicking the doorway of his new hut and squinting through the darkness to see what they were doing.
“Come on,” Conna said. “It's fun.”
He wanted nothing more than to hide away from the world, but he didn't want them thinking he was a loser either. Illya went over to sit by Aaro, who scooted over to make room.
Once he had joined them in the glow of the fire, Illya started to feel a little bit better. Strangely, they seemed genuinely happy to see him. They laughed readily and joked with each other, making wild claims about their hunting prowess as they played a game of slingshot, flinging pebbles to bounce off the trees, trying to hit randomly spaced circles drawn in the dirt. Everywhere else in the village there was tension, the weight of everyone's constant scrutiny and expectations. Here, they were just having fun.
Illya could not help grinning when Julian handed him the slingshot. It was by far his best weapon. He still had an old crossbow that his father had rigged for him, but he had never gotten over the feeling that hit him when he braced it against his shoulder. The first day he had used it was the day his father had been lost. It stirred up far too many memories and too many regrets for him to develop any talent with it. A slingshot, though, was a different story.
He placed the pebble then held on to the handle and drew back the sling. Squinting one eye to aim, he let go and ricocheted the pebble off a nearby tree to land squarely in the center of the smallest circle.
The boys around him erupted into cheers and whoops, the ones nearby pounding him on the back. He smiled unchecked then, reveling in the praise, and passed the slingshot on to Aaro.
***
Illya didn't talk to Benja or anyone in his family at all over the following days. Samuel, too, was conspicuously absent, almost seeming to avoid him. Each time Illya began to feel a twinge of guilt over it, he reminded himself that none of them were seeking him out either. If they didn't want anything to do with him, then that was just fine, that was the way it was going to be.
The plants were growing well, and there had been no further sabotage of the wheel. Illya spent more and more time with Conna and the Enforcers. After being gawked at by the rest of the villagers all day, it was a relief to sit among them and laugh, playing games and passing the skin of brew around.
Ban, who Illya knew was responsible for one of his greatest successes, had taken the name “Builder” to heart. With the water wheel complete, he was working on plans for reservoir troughs near the field and had already forged several new digging tools of metal, similar to the ones that had been left behind in the shed beside the stone house.
These accomplishments reminded Illya, even at his lowest moments, that it was all worth it. Still, he could not completely suppress the nagging worry that he had made a mistake. Everyone was doing their job, but he wished that they were following him out of something other than fear.
Alone one evening, Illya sat back against the wall of his hut, thinking. If only everyone had taken to their work with the same pride that Ban had. Ban Builder. It was as if, by naming him, he had given the bl
acksmith an identity. Something he could be proud to be.
He wondered what it would be like if all the gatherers, cooks, and soil-diggers could do their jobs with the same love. They would get a lot more done and probably be happier doing it.
As he thought, a new idea began to form in his mind.
Control. His mother had said he couldn't control everything.
Anger flared through him at the memory.
She didn't think he could do anything right, but hadn't he succeeded in protecting the plants? Since the arrests, two weeks had passed without an incident. He thought again of Ban and his new building projects. It was because of Illya that Ban had the chance to build new things at all. Any other year, he would have joined the rest of them gathering, desperate to get enough before winter. Because of what Illya had done, there was the sea of waving leaves in the field. It was because of him that they were all going to have enough to eat.
The things that he was controlling were the things that were going right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AARO SHOOK HIM awake before dawn.
“It’s time,” he said.
The air was sharp and bit at Illya’s face: a chilly morning, the first in months. It felt like it had come far too soon. He shivered, more from the trepidation that was building inside him than the cold. Every time he thought about what he was about to do, he became more nervous. Resolutely, he stopped himself from thinking about it at all.
He had agonized over what to do to make everyone happy. After days of worry, he had approached Conna. When Illya had mentioned how Ban had seemed to take to the title of “Builder”, Conna came up with an idea. It was radical, but Conna had said that it would be the first step towards making sure the new way of life continued for future generations. If they didn't think about the future, if everything that they had learned would be forgotten and they might as well not try at all.
He had a good point.
Illya allowed himself a moment of wild fancy, dreaming of future generations. He wondered if they would remember him and what he had done, the way they remembered Jones, Ph.D. and the first settlers. People in the future would learn about him as littles. “This is the gift that Illya left us,” they would say when they planted and harvested the fields.
Despite his nerves, he couldn't suppress a grin at the thought of that. He couldn't chicken out now.
A cry of agony ripped from the hut at the end of the lane. Illya halted his steps involuntarily, shuddering, then went on, glad that Conna and Aaro were with him. Usually, he would have been left far outside the circle of mystery that surrounded birth. When Molly had been born, he had spent the night at Benja's. What he remembered about that night was the novelty of sleeping away from home and that he and Benja had gotten into a sword fight with Aunt Ada's carved wooden spoons and broken one of them.
There were births in the village every year, and the intensity of the cries always terrified him. But it could be so sweet when it was all done, with another little in the village.
When a mother finally emerged from her hut, clutching a wrinkly new person, all wrapped up in furs, everyone would feel the joy of it. She would be exhausted but carry a new grace, as if she had taken a glimpse at infinity and lived to tell about it. Birth was a mystery, dark and beautiful and terrible. Just now, Illya felt like he had little right to be a part of it.
They didn't all turn out like that; sometimes they didn't come back at all. It seemed like women had one foot on the other side during this time. It didn't take very much to take another step that way instead of returning to the world with a new life.
There was another howl. He wondered what was happening inside the hut and if the baby would be born soon. They called him a prophet, but he could predict nothing of this.
Leya howled and howled. Charlie paced up and down outside the hut. Illya stood beside him, putting his hand on Charlie's shoulder awkwardly from time to time, knowing that he could do nothing to help.
There was a new scream, if possible worse than the ones that had come before. Charlie started towards the door of the hut. Conna stopped him.
“Keep it together,” he said.
Charlie paced, starting his way into the hut again and again, and stopping himself again and again. Illya, Conna, and Aaro leaned against the wall of the hut in silence.
“Oh, Leya!” Charlie sobbed.
After some time, she fell quiet. They stood up, holding their breath, while the silence seemed to last an eternity. Illya caught Conna's eye. Conna shook his head and looked at the ground.
Then the night was pierced by a cry, with Leya's laugh closely following. Charlie pushed his way into the hut, sobbing freely. Marieke poked her head out of the door and smiled at the three of them.
“It's a boy!” she said.
The sun had just risen in the sky: a bright yellow disk.
To Illya, it seemed like a sign—a new birth and, with it, a new dawn. Conna gave him an encouraging nod and he pushed his way inside.
Leya, wrapped in blankets, was holding a tiny, red-faced bundle. Charlie stood over her, stroking her hair, kissing her forehead. He didn't appear to be capable of words and kept looking back and forth between his wife and the new baby as if he couldn't decide who he wanted to look at more. Illya's hands sweated, for a moment he felt wrong for intruding on the scene. Then Leya looked up and beamed at him.
“Congratulations,” he said, returning her smile. He slowed his breaths, trying to still his nerves. “Come with me and bring your son,” he said to Charlie.
Charlie followed him without a question, cradling the baby with extra care as if he didn't quite know what to do with it. Leya lay back against her pillow, looking radiant.
They walked the short distance to the central fire, where the villagers were already starting to eat. Illya pulled Charlie with him up onto the stairs. When they saw Charlie and the baby, everyone broke into spontaneous cheers. They would have been awake for hours too, waiting and hoping as they listened to Leya's screams. Illya took the baby from Charlie. Holding him in the crook of his arm, he turned to face the crowd. He took a deep breath, rehearsing what Conna had suggested in his mind for a moment, to make sure he said it right.
“I would like to announce the birth of our newest villager. He is the first since we planted our seeds and the first of many more to come! Charlie, what will your son be called?” he asked.
“Ezekiel!” Charlie said, beaming. “Ezekiel Polestadt.”
“I give you Ezekiel!” Illya cried. “But not Ezekiel Polestadt, as we would have called him in the old days. He is a son of the new dawn! I give you Ezekiel Soil-Digger!”
Charlie stared at him. His mouth fell open. There was a stunned silence from the gathered people. Then rage flooded their faces.
Everything started moving in slow motion. The faces, which had been full of excitement, preparing to celebrate, contorted into anger. Charlie stared at him dumbfounded, and his face reddened then turned purple. They were all shouting. Illya thought that Charlie might have attacked him if he hadn't been holding the man's newborn son.
“Wait!” he yelled, frantic to head them off. He held on to baby Ezekiel like a shield.
“If you don't want—” He started to speak, ready to take it all back, to do whatever they wanted, but Conna cut him off.
“Look at those plants!” He flung his arm out toward the field. “Look at them! You know there wouldn't be anything there if it wasn't for Illya. Think about where you would be right now if it weren't for his ideas.”
The people halted, still furious, but at least they were listening.
“You know what we would be doing now. Fall is getting near; you can feel it in the air. Have you forgotten that fear so quickly? Are you so quick to lose gratitude for what he has given you that you don't remember?” Conna was breathing heavily, his chest heaving as he yelled over the crowd at the top of his voice. “Right now, we would be scrambling, spending every hour of daylight to find enough just to get th
rough winter. But look at what we have, more than we have ever had before, and it's right there. It's all right outside your doors.“ Conna let his arm fall.
“I didn't do anything,” Illya said. The people, who had been focusing on Conna, shifted to him.
“You did it yourselves. None of this would be here if it wasn’t for all the work you did, the soil-diggers especially.” He glanced up at Charlie pleadingly. The man still frowned, but his expression softened.
“I just wanted you to be proud of it,” he said.
“This baby is inheriting a noble purpose,” Conna said. “Think how future generations will remember you, the first Soil-Diggers, the first Builders. How we think of the first settlers and know that we are here and alive because of them. If we hadn’t planted this summer, we would have no future generations.”
There was a long stretch of silence. Illya had to remind himself to breathe. He could tell that Conna's words had reached them, struck a chord in a few. But for as many as there were looking thoughtful an equal number continued to glare. Impiri and Sabelle were standing together a little distance away, still beside the cooking fires. Sabelle looked disturbed, her arms crossed across her chest.
Illya supposed that she must be considering the idea of being called Sabelle Cook and thinking that she didn't like it. Near them, Benja was leaning against a tree, scowling. He would be Benja Fisher. It was a name to be proud of, Illya thought with a surge of anger. His cousin should be grateful to have it.
Impiri, alone of everyone, did not appear disturbed in the slightest. She smiled at Illya as if it had been her lifelong ambition to be called Impiri Cook. He wrinkled his forehead and blinked. On second glance, her expression looked more like a smirk, as if she knew something that he didn't. At that moment, Illya was sure that it was not the smile of a madwoman.
The baby was still nestled in the crook of his arm. Ezekiel was awake and looking around. Illya swayed with him unconsciously, soothing him. It was something he had done with Molly when she was small.