A Psalm for the Wild-Built

by Becky Chambers

  The production began. Dex went back and forth between the public space outside and the home within, ferrying all that was needed. Boxes were carried, jars arranged, bags unpacked, kettle deployed, cooler of creamers at the ready. These were placed on or around the folding table, each in their usual spot. Dex filled the kettle from the wagon’s water tank, leaving it to boil as they artfully placed carved stones, preserved flowers, and curls of festive ribbon around the table’s empty spaces. A shrine had to look like a shrine, even if it was transitory.

  One of the villagers from the waiting crowd walked up to Dex. “Do you need help?” she asked.

  Dex shook their head. “No, thanks. I’ve got kind of a…” They looked at the jar of flowers in one hand and the battery pack in the other, trying to remember what it was they’d been doing.

  The villager put up her palms. “You’ve got a flow. Totally.” She smiled and backed off.

  Rhythm regained, Dex unfolded a huge red mat and laid it on the paving. A bundle of collapsible poles was unpacked next, and from these Dex made a rectangular frame, on which hung the garden lights that had been charging on the outside of the wagon all day. Comfy cushions came next, arranged on the mat in inviting heaps. In the middle of this Dex placed another table, a good deal smaller and quite low to the ground. This, too, was decorated cheerfully. They then opened a small wooden box and removed six objects, one by one, unrolling them from the pieces of protective cloth that shielded against the bounce of the road. Dex could easily print replacements if these got damaged; most towns had a fab shack. That wasn’t the point. No object should be treated as disposable—idols least of all.

  The icons of the Parent Gods were the first to take their place on the small table, set upon a wooden stand cut for this very purpose. A perfect sphere represented Bosh, God of the Cycle, who oversaw all things that lived and died. Grylom, God of the Inanimate, was symbolized by a trilateral pyramid, an abstract nod to their realm of rock, water, and atmosphere. Between them was placed the thin vertical bar of Trikilli, God of the Threads—chemistry, physics, the framework that lay unseen. Below their Parents, directly on the table, Dex arranged the Child Gods: a sun jay for Samafar, a sugar bee for Chal, and of course, the summer bear.

  At last, Dex sat in their chair behind the larger table. They pulled their pocket computer from their baggy travel trousers and flicked the screen awake. It was a good computer, given to them on their sixteenth birthday, a customary coming-of-age gift. It had a cream-colored frame and a pleasingly crisp screen, and Dex had only needed to repair it five times in the years that it had traveled in their clothes. A reliable device built to last a lifetime, as all computers were. Dex tapped the icon shaped like a handshake, and the computer beeped cheerily, letting them know the message had been sent. That was Dex’s cue to sit back and wait. Every person in Inkthorn who had previously told their own pocket computers they wanted to know when new wagons arrived now knew exactly that.

  In comic synchrony, everybody in the crowd pulled out their computers within seconds of Dex’s tap, silencing the chorus of alerts. Dex laughed, and the crowd laughed, and Dex waved them over.

  Ms. Jules was the first to arrive, as always. Dex smiled to themself as she approached. Of all the Sacred Six’s constants, Dex could think of few more predictable than of Ms. Jules being stressed out.

  “I’m so glad you’re here today,” Ms. Jules said with a weary huff. Inkthorn’s water engineer looked back at the village with deep annoyance, one thumb hooked in the belt loop of her grubby overalls, flyaway curls of grey hair bobbing as she shook her head. “Six reports of muckmite nests. Six.”

  “Ugh,” Dex said. Muckmites loved drains and were notoriously difficult to discourage once they took up residence. “I thought you had that sorted last season with the … what was it?”

  “Formic acid,” Ms. Jules said. “Yeah, didn’t work this year. I don’t know if my crew didn’t apply it right, or if the little bastards have become resistant, or what. All I know is, I’ve got a to-do list as long as both my legs put together, Mr. Tucker’s grey line keeps gumming up for reasons I can’t fathom, and my dog—” She glowered murderously. “My dog ate three pairs of my socks yesterday. Didn’t chew holes. Didn’t rip them up. Ate them. I had to get the vet from Ellwood to come make sure she wasn’t gonna die, which I did not have time for.”

  Dex smirked. “Didn’t have time to see the vet, or didn’t have time for your dog maybe dying?”

  “Both.”

  Dex nodded, assessing the situation and the tools they had at hand. They picked up a wide mug and one of the many jars. The latter was filled with a melange of hand-mixed leaves and dried petals, and bore a hand-labeled sticker reading BLEND #14. Dex opened the lid and held the jar out for Ms. Jules to smell. “What do you think of that?”

  Ms. Jules leaned in and inhaled. “Oh, that’s nice,” she said. “Beeweed?”

  Dex shook their head as they scooped some of the mix into a metal infuser. “Close. Lion grass,” they said. They winked. “It’s very calming.”

  Ms. Jules snorted. “Who said I need calming?” she said.

  Dex chuckled as they filled the mug from the kettle. A puff of fragrant steam joined the forest air. “I remember you liking both honey and goat’s milk, right?”

  “Wow, yeah.” Ms. Jules blinked. “You’re good.”

  Dex spooned in a generous dollop and a creamy splash, then handed Ms. Jules her cup of tea. “Give it four minutes to steep,” they said, “and all the time you want to drink it. Let me know if you’d like another.”

  “I don’t have time for two,” Ms. Jules said grimly.

  Sibling Dex smiled. “Everyone’s got time for two. Anybody who sees you here will understand.” And they would, Dex knew. It was hard to find a Pangan who hadn’t, at least once, spent a very necessary hour or two in the company of a tea monk.

  Ms. Jules’s curls retained their frizz, but as she took the mug, something in her face started to let go, as if her features were held in place by strings that had been waiting months to loosen. “Thank you,” she said sincerely, taking out her pocket computer with her free hand. She tapped the screen; Dex’s chimed in response, and they nodded in gratitude. Respite from muckmites and sock-chomping dog granted, Ms. Jules took her tea to the comfy cushions, and—in what looked like it might be the first time that day—sat down. She closed her eyes and let out a tremendous sigh. Her shoulders visibly slumped. She’d always had the ability to relax them; she’d just needed permission to do so.

  Praise Allalae.

  Dex swallowed a wistful sigh as they saw their next visitor approaching. Mr. Cody was a good-looking man, with arms that split logs and a smile that could make a person forget all concept of linear time. But the two babies strapped to his torso—one squealing on the front, one dead asleep on the back—made Dex keep any thoughts about the rest of Mr. Cody’s anatomy completely to themself. From the circles under Mr. Cody’s eyes, it looked as though sex was the last thing on his mind. “Hey, Sibling Dex,” he said.

  Dex already had a jar of feverfig in hand, and was reaching for the boreroot. “Hey, Mr. Cody,” they said.

  “So, uh—” Mr. Cody was distracted by the front-facing infant gnawing wetly on the carrier strap. “Come on, don’t do that,” he said in a voice that had no illusions of his request being respected. He sighed and turned his attention to Dex. “So, the thing is…”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Dex said, grinding a complex mix of herbs.

  Mr. Cody opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “I have twins,” he said. He added nothing further. The one on his chest unleashed a happy shriek at the top of their lungs, as if to underline the point.

  “Mmm-hmm,” Dex replied. “You sure do.” They poured the ground herbs into a storage bag, tied it up with a ribbon, and pushed it across the table decisively.

  Mr. Cody blinked. “Do I not get a cup of tea?”

  “You get eight cups of tea,” Dex said, nodding at the bag, “because y
ou sure as shit need them.” They scrunched their nose at the baby, and the baby smiled, loudly. Dex continued to address said baby’s hot dad. “This is a nice feverfig brew. It’ll relax your muscles and help you fall into a deep sleep. Two tablespoons in a mug of boiling water, steep for seven minutes. Take the strainer out when it’s ready to go or else it’s going to taste like feet.”

  Mr. Cody picked up the bag and sniffed it. “Doesn’t smell like feet. Smells like…” He sniffed again. “Oranges?”

  Dex smiled. “There’s a dash of zest in there. You’ve got a good nose.” And a good face, they thought. A really, really good face.

  Mr. Cody smiled, even as the first child’s exultations awoke the second and kicked off a duet. “That sounds nice,” he said. Relief began to melt the lines around his eyes. “I would love some sleep. It won’t knock me out, right? Like, I’ll wake up if—”

  “If your kiddos need something, you’ll wake up fast as always. Feverfig is a gentle cuddle, not a brick to the head.”

  Mr. Cody laughed. “Okay, great.” He tucked the bag into his pocket with a smile, and transferred pebs to Dex. “Thanks. That’s very nice of you.”

  Dex smiled back. “Thank Allalae,” they said. And me. That’s cool. You can thank me, too.

  They sighed again at the sublime sight of Mr. Cody walking away.

  Over on the mat, the timer on Ms. Jules’s pocket computer chimed. Dex watched out of the corner of their eye as she took a careful sip. Ms. Jules licked her lips. “Gods around, that’s good,” she muttered to herself.

  Dex beamed.

  And so they worked through the line, filling mugs and listening carefully and blending herbs on the fly when the situation called for it. The mat was soon full of people. Pleasant chatter naturally drifted along here and there, but most folks kept to themselves. Some read books on their computers. Some slept. A few cried, which was normal. Their fellow tea-drinkers offered shoulders for this; Dex provided handkerchiefs and refills as needed.

  Mx. Weaver, one of Inkthorn’s council members, was the last to arrive that day. “No tea for me, thanks,” they said as they approached the table. “I come bearing an invite to dinner at the common house tonight. The hunting crew brought in a great big buck this morning, and we’ve got plenty of wine to go around.”

  “I’d love to,” Dex said. Gifted meals were one of the nicer perks of their work, and an elk roast was nothing they’d pass on, ever. “What’s the occasion?”

  “You,” Mx. Weaver said simply.

  Dex blinked with surprise. “You’re joking.”

  “No, seriously. We knew from your schedule that you’d be doing service here today, and we wanted to do something special to say thanks for”—Mx. Weaver gestured at the contented group lounging on Dex’s cushions—“y’know, what you bring to this town.”

  Dex was flattered, to say the least, and unsure of what to do with a compliment like that. “It’s just my vocation,” Dex said, “but that means a lot, really. Thank you. I’ll be there.”

  Mx. Weaver shrugged and smiled. “Least we can do for the best tea monk in Panga.”

  * * *

  The road from the Woodlands led to the road to the Coastlands, which led to the Riverlands, which led to the Shrublands, and back to the Woodlands once more. Dex made their circuit again, and again, and again, and every stop they made, they found gratitude, gifts, goodwill. The crowds got bigger, the dinners more frequent. The blends Dex served became a little more creative every time. As far as the life of a tea monk went, this was about as successful as could be.

  And yet, at some undefined point, Dex started waking each morning feeling like they hadn’t slept.

  This was the case one particular morning, when they woke up in Snowe’s Pass. They knew they had slept. There was a deep absence of memory stretching unbroken from when they’d been listening to the frogs in the dark trees outside to now, as they squinted at their pocket computer and noted that a clean seven and a half hours had passed since the last time they looked at it. There was no good reason for waking up tired, but there had been no reason for it any of the other mornings, either. Maybe they needed to eat better. Maybe there was some vitamin or good sugar or something they weren’t getting enough of. That was probably it, they thought, even though a recent clinic checkup had cleared them on these fronts.

  Or perhaps, they thought, it was the frogs. The frogs were fine. They were darling up close—pudgy green jumpers that looked like nothing so much as gummy candy. Their song began every evening around sundown and faded away before dawn. The sound was pleasant, in a funny, croaky way.

  But frogs weren’t crickets.

  The lack of stridulated melody in the night air hadn’t bothered Dex when they’d first left the City. They’d noticed it, of course, but honing their craft had consumed them, and they knew crickets to be absent in the satellite villages. It hadn’t bothered them in the Coastlands, either, where they assumed crickets weren’t endemic. But once they reached the Riverlands, the question began to sharpen. Do you have crickets here? Dex had asked with affected nonchalance around dinner tables, in public saunas, in shrines and tool swaps and bakeries. It wasn’t until after Dex’s first full circuit of the villages, when word of their services began to spread, when their calendar had been carefully blocked out with a schedule that tried to make as many people as happy as possible, when Dex returned to a village to find a group of four people already awaiting their arrival, that Dex stopped asking about crickets and finally just looked the damn thing up.

  Crickets, as it turned out, were extinct in most of Panga. While numerous species across all phyla had bounced back after the Transition, many others had been left in a state too fragile to recover. Not all wounds were capable of healing.

  But so what, right? Dex was the best tea monk in Panga, if the chatter was to be believed. They didn’t believe such hyperbole themself, and it’s not like anything about their work was a competition. But their tea was good. They knew this. They’d worked hard. They put their heart into it. Everywhere they went, they saw smiles, and Dex knew that it was their work—their work!—that brought those out. They brought people joy. They made people’s day. That was a tremendous thing, when you sat and thought about it. That should’ve been enough. That should’ve been more than enough. And yet, if they were completely honest, the thing they had come to look forward to most was not the smiles nor the gifts nor the sense of work done well, but the part that came after all of that. The part when they returned to their wagon, shut themself inside, and spent a few precious, shapeless hours entirely alone.

  Why wasn’t it enough?

  Dex climbed down the ladder from their bunk, and the sight of the lower deck made them feel drained. It wasn’t the wagon itself but the contents. Herbs, herbs, herbs. Tea, tea, tea. Handmade things lovingly gathered in an effort to make people feel good.

  Dex shut their eyes to it and walked out the door.

  Outside, the world was enjoying a perfect day. Light streamed golden through the branches overhead, and the tips of budding branches waved good-morning in the shy breeze. A stream chattered nearby. A butterfly the size of Dex’s hand alighted on a thistle and spread its purple wings wide and flat, savoring the sunshine. Everything about Dex’s surroundings, from the temperature to the floral backdrop, was the ideal accompaniment to the smooth, downhill bike ride that awaited them.

  Dex sighed, and the sound was empty.

  They unfolded their chair with a practiced shake and dropped down into it. They pulled out their pocket computer, as was their habit first thing, dimly aware of the hope that always spurred them to do so—that there might be something good there, something exciting or nourishing, something that would replace the weariness.

  Everything on the little screen should have fit the bill. There was a schedule of their own making, built for sharing the things they’d worked so hard on with eager participants. There were thank-you notes from villagers who had felt moved enough to take time out of
their days to share a piece of themselves with Sibling Dex. There was a lengthy, heartfelt letter from their father, who told Dex all the things they’d missed at home and, most importantly, that they were loved.

  Dex swiped every one of these aside, a sliver of guilt rising up as they did so. They set that sliver precariously atop the heap of all the other slivers from the days before. They placed their forehead in their palm. In seven hours, they were supposed to be in Hammerstrike, a smile on their face, a mug of comfort extended. They believed in that work; they truly did. They believed the things they said, the sacred words they quoted. They believed they were doing good.

  Why wasn’t it enough?

  What is it? they asked without speaking. The gods did not communicate in this way, and would not—could not—answer, but the instinct to call out was there, and Dex indulged it. What’s wrong with me? they asked.

  Dex listened, though they knew they would hear nothing—nothing in relation to their question, anyhow. There were many things to hear. Birds, bugs, trees, wind, water.

  But no crickets.

  Dex picked their pocket computer back up and began a reference search. Cricket recordings, they wrote, not for the first time. A list of public files popped up. Dex played the first of them, and the reedy pulse of a cricket-filled forest was conjured through their speakers, an immortal snapshot of an ecosystem long gone. These were pre-Transition recordings, taken by people who thought—with good cause—that the sounds of the world they knew might disappear forever. The recording jutted discordantly into the sounds of the living meadow around them. It was out of place, out of time. Dex stopped the playback, looking idly at the archival information on each recording. Yellow cricket, Fall 64/PT 1134, Saltrock. Cellar cricket, Summer 6/PT 1135, Helmot’s Luck. Cloud cricket, Spring 33/PT 1135, Hart’s Brow Hermitage, Chesterbridge.