Ashes

by Ann Hunter

  The crowd cheered and hooted.

  The muscles in Rebecca’s father’s jaw tensed. She looked back toward Preacher, who turned to the women. “Sisters, I ask you to tend your homes and children today, and when you are free this evening, you will return here and we will discuss what you can do to drive home the message we are going to send to The Corporation.”

  Lilly reached down to grasp Rebecca’s good hand and squeeze it.

  Preacher continued. “Bretheren, do what you must to ready your homes and protect your families, for we are taking the fight to King Andrus. You are the providers and protectors. None of us will stand idly by while Andrus hammers us until we are bent to his ruthless will. And children…”

  Although a number of her neighbor’s children stood in the crowd, Rebecca was sure Preacher’s eyes singled her out.

  “Heed your parent’s council and seek out your place in The Great Wheel. Every gear, every cog, and every bolt is big enough to do something. Do good.”

  The Tremaines worked tirelessly to finish all of the chores as early as possible. Before dinner, Lilly helped Rebecca change into her night clothes, for it would likely be late when she returned. When the moon rose, her mother slipped out to return to church. Rebecca sat by the window as her father finished his dinner. She watched the last light of day fade behind the hills, and the sky turned indigo.

  Robert cleaned up his bowl and fork and set them aside. “You should get to bed.”

  She blinked at him as he wiped his hands with the dish rag. He nodded his head toward the stairs. “Go on.”

  Rebecca reluctantly padded upstairs, and slipped under the covers, wondering what the women folk were discussing with Preacher. She was not sure how long she had nodded off for when she heard her mother’s voice down stairs.

  “… The Corporation.”

  “That’s lunacy!” Robert hissed. “Why would he suggest such a thing?”

  “All of the women have agreed. We will apply there in the morning. You and Jones down the road will take us.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  The silence then was penetrable. Rebecca hopped out of bed and pressed her ear to the floorboards to make sure she was not missing anything.

  “Do you have any other suggestions, Robert?”

  There was a thunk against the table. Rebecca could just picture her father’s finger drilling into the countertop. “What Preacher proposes is outright treason. I thought we were going to do this civilly.”

  “The treasonous activity began days ago, Robert. Long before King Andrus brought down his wrath on every prospect we have. Some fool in the city insisting that he was no subject of the king’s.”

  “You heard about that?”

  “Every clock person heard about that.”

  Rebecca smirked.

  “You asked for trouble, Robert Tremaine. Now we are going to make it.”

  IV

  The following morning, the cottage was still and empty. On Rebecca’s nightstand lay her mother’s salve and clean dressings. She gingerly removed her bandages. Her hand was looking much better and did not smart as much as it had the day before. The pain was still there, but it had gone from excruciating to barely tolerable.

  She tended to the burn as her mother had done the days before. It still stung, but she was able to work through the pain by going slow and breathing deeply. When it was done, she changed in to a basic petticoat and caraco. The fire in the hearth down stairs was long dead and the copper kettle washed clean. A note waited on the kitchen table.

  Rebecca,

  Your father and I have gone to the city. We will likely not be back until nightfall. Please feed the chickens and look after yourself. Stay out of trouble. We love you.

  ~Mother

  A fine spring day unfolded from the other side of the kitchen window. The chickens had left their coop and were pecking and scratching near the garden patch. Small fuzzy brown balls ran beside them. Rebecca’s eyes widened and she smiled. The chicks had hatched.

  She opened the window to let fresh, cool air in and listened to their tiny peep peep peeping. She rushed outside to feed them all. It took longer than usual because of her hand, but she managed. She filled a copper bucket with feed and slung the bucket over her offending arm. She used her good hand to doll out the feed.

  After a good feeding, some of the hens nestled down in a patch of emerald grass with their little ones safely tucked and gathered in beneath their wings. Rebecca stole away to the coop and peered inside. Her mother had taught her how to sort fertilized eggs from the non fertilized, for any freshly laid egg was likely not fertile. They only borrowed the neighbor’s rooster a few times a year. In a few weeks the chicks would be sorted and offered to the rooster’s owner as payment for the siring.

  Rebecca took the fresh eggs and placed them in her petticoat pocket. A quick check in their smokehouse revealed a few rashers of bacon.

  She took them inside and placed them on a warming stone, then carefully lit the hearth fire. The sparks startled her at first. She held down the scrap of metal with the knuckles of her injured hand and scraped the flint stone against it. Tinder finally caught the sparks and started crackling. Rebecca blew into it until a fire jumped to life.

  She used a fork to turn her bacon when it crackled and spit. The smell of juicy goodness made her forget the pain in her hand temporarily. She watched the egg white slowly turn from liquid to solid, and the bacon from pink to red.

  She placed the bacon on a plate before it got too crispy and slid the egg onto the plate as well, then doused the fire and grabbed a small loaf of bread. She managed to cut a few slices, and spread the fresh butter her mother had churned the other day and what little honey was left from their winter harvest.

  Rebecca tucked in to her breakfast reveling in the warmth and taste, and the fact that she did it completely by herself. Of course she’d cooked before, but this was the first time she’d done it without her mother nearby to help or make suggestions on spices or anything of the sort.

  After she swept the floor, washed down the table, rinsed her plate and utensils, and washed the windows, she stood back to admire her work. It felt good to stand on her own two feet. She appreciated her work for a moment more until the throb of her hand brought her to attention.

  With the day was half over, she started another fire in the hearth. She was drawn to a small shelf of books belonging to her father. Her free fingers danced over the tops of the spines pausing at their own copy of The Book of Time, but then noticing the one beside it about the history of clocks and tinkering. It was quickly pulled from the shelf and dusted off. The tattered corners and dog-eared pages showed how well loved it had been, but it was dusty and looked like it had not been read in a good while.

  Rebecca blew the dust from it, and coughed and sneezed, then brushed the remaining dust from the cover. She took it over to the chair by the window and sat down. Rebecca shut her eyes as she opened the book, and the old pages fluttered against the air. The musty smell of ink and book glue filled her.

  She began to read, and continued reading until there was no more light from the sky, only starlight and the flicker of the fire dying on the hearth. She took a piece of tinder from the hearth and lit a candle, then worked on riling up the fire a bit before retiring to the chair again. Her stomach grumbled momentarily as she had not eaten since early that morning. She briefly considered cooking up some johnnycakes, but her hunger was soon forgotten as she delved back in to the book.

  It was a real treat being able to read this long. A part of her almost felt guilty at the indulgence, for sitting this long with quiet hands was looked down upon. Oh, how she wished pursuits of the mind were just as worthy as pursuits of the daily grind. But such knowledge was really only approved of for the minds of men and great thinkers, such as those who actually created the sacred clocks and pocket watches they measured their lives and endeavors by. Whose blueprints, and tickings, and instruction for making were in this very book.

>   A rush of forbidden excitement ran through Rebecca. She hunkered down in the chair and drew her knees closer to her chest. Her long shadow dancing on the wall and the flicker of firelight only made learning the information all the more exciting and delicious.

  She lost herself in it until the front door swung open. She jumped and shut the book with a gasp only to see her father helping her mother in. Lilly was coughing. Robert’s brow was furrowed as he hugged his wife close to his side, and held her arm over his shoulders.

  Rebecca placed the book on the table near the window and rose to meet them. Her father looked at her with tired, sullen eyes. She stepped back, allowing him to seat her mother.

  Lilly’s face was gray and she sank in the chair the moment it was pulled out for her. She leaned her arms against the table and coughed in to them. Rebecca touched her shoulder gently. Robert pulled some plates and and knives out, and grabbed a loaf of bread and some farmer’s cheese. He sat down at the table and broke off chunks for his family.

  “The air in the city was worse than usual today,” Robert said casually. He glanced between them, smearing cheese on bread, then tipped back in his chair to grab some goblets from a hutch, and a pitcher. Golden ale poured into the cups and he passed one to Lilly. She drank greedily before she could muster another cough. She sputtered at the end, then dropped her head back in to her arms. Robert pushed the plate of bread and cheese toward her.

  Rebecca sat and watched her mother with an ache in her heart. Lilly sat very still for a long while. Robert gnawed at the crust on his bread and licked the creamy farmer cheese from his finger tips. When Lilly sat up, her eyes were blood shot and teary, her face drawn. She reached tiredly for the plate of bread with a shaking hand. Rebecca inched it the food toward her. Lilly looked at her, and Rebecca was sure she was trying to smile, but Lilly’s face was very nearly blank.

  “May I know why you went in to the city?” Rebecca asked her parents.

  Robert swallowed a hunk of bread and washed it down with ale. “Work. Your mother applied at The Corporation. They need menders in the factory.”

  Rebecca rubbed her mother’s back. “Did they accept her? Will you both be gone every day?”

  Robert chewed and swallowed. “’Fraid so, love. Several of the neighbor’s wives are going in daily. The men folk will help keep things running here at home.”

  Lilly looked at Robert. Rebecca sensed something was not being said. Her eyes shifted to her father. “What about you, Father? Will you be here?”

  Robert brushed the crumbs from his mustache. Lilly placed her hand, now beginning to steady, upon Rebecca’s. “I think you should go to bed,” she said slowly in a raspy voice.

  Rebecca’s brow crinkled, but she straightened and left the table. She dragged her feet up the stairs, hoping she would catch more information from her parents, but none was to be had.

  She changed in to a shift for bed, and tended her hand. Rebecca gnawed her lower lip, bothered that her parents would not answer her question. After climbing under the covers, she tried to focus on the hollow above her nose and breathing deeply.

  Her mind ran wildly. Her stomach churned a little. In that airy place between wake and sleep, she dreamed restlessly of being home alone always. Never seeing her mother again. Never seeing her father again either. Tending the baby chickens, the hens, the bees, turning the soil by her self, seeding, weeding, fetching the milk from Diggory’s wife, harvesting apples from the forest orchard, tending the house, mending socks, sewing blankets, stitching up the holes in her father’s shirts and waist coats, the list went on and on and on.

  The mere thought of doing all this on her own should be exhausting, but it only put her further on edge. She tunneled into her bed sheets and buried her head under her pillow.

  Rebecca opened one eye, wincing with the other, her face all scrunched up. A thin seam of light scurried across her bed linens, under the corner of her pillow; warmth followed over her arm and elbow. She lifted her head, the pillow tipping up. Morning had come.

  She squinted and rubbed eye crust from the corners of her eyes. The day seemed like any other. She made her bed, then checked her burnt hand. The pain was well manageable this morning. It looked better, but not very good.

  Rebecca was duly grateful for her mother’s salve. This morning she kept it in her apron pocket and decided to let her burn breathe today. She left the bandages off and began her morning. She washed her face, and cleaned her hands, and brushed her hair. She tied her hair back, wincing only once as the burnt skin stretched and flexed over her bones.

  The hearth fire had gone out downstairs and the cottage was still. She ran outside to feed the chickens. Someone had to be around. The hens squabbled over the food as though no one had fed them in days. A pit formed in Rebecca’s stomach.

  She poked her head through the door of her father’s forge, but no sign of activity was there. The tools, normally neatly placed with great care, were gone. Her shoulders slumped. She was completely alone.

  A noise deep, guttural, grunting noise came from the other side of the forgery. Rebecca grabbed a broken branch from the ground and picked off the leaves as she made her way along the edge of the building. Something small, pink, and twisted wagged at the far end. She raised the branch over her head and took a deep breath.

  She paused momentarily, shutting her eyes and leaning against the building, then opened them and swung around the corner only to find… Diggory’s pig.

  The big pink boar startled, his haunches swinging away from her. He looked at her and wriggled his dirty, wet nose. A truffle fell from his partially full mouth. A small amount of them remained where he had been digging. The pig gnashed his gums and flicked his ears. Rebecca sighed. “You again?”

  The pig snorted.

  He was half as high as she was tall, yet he was docile. Rebecca waved her hand. “Go home, you old boar.”

  The pig wiggled his tale and snorted again.

  Rebecca huffed and waved the branch. “Shoo.”

  He turned his bottom toward her and burrowed his nose through the damp earth.

  Rebecca poked his rear gently.

  The boar squealed and trotted forward, then stopped to root some more.

  Rebecca grimaced as she realized she’d have to drive him home. “I don’t know why they have not made rashers of you yet.”

  The walk was not terribly long, but the pig frustrated Rebecca, and her mother as well. He found his way to their property at least once a month. He was also very easily distracted on the walk home. Rebecca made up a song as she went.

  “Diggory’s pig, Diggory’s pig, Diggory’s pig likes to dig.”

  The pig trotted jovially down the dirt road, occasionally getting ahead a ways of Rebecca, but only to pick out wayward seeds from Diggory’s field.

  “Diggory’s pig does a jig,” Rebecca jogged forward and pressed the branch into his rear, “when I poke him with this stick.”

  He squealed and moved forward, gnashing his chompers.

  “Diggory’s pig, Diggory’s pig, he’d make some wonderful bacon big. I would eat it with delightful figs.”

  She poked him again to prod him along. They turned down the lane to Diggory’s farm house.

  “Diggory’s pig, Diggory’s pig, if you come again it will be your last gig. Dear pig, sweet pig, Father will make us roast pig.”

  She found his pen and locked him up, then knocked on the door of the farm house. “Mrs. Diggory?”

  A round, rosy cheeked, white-haired woman came to the door, drying a dish. “Hello, dearie.”

  “Your boar got out again,” Rebecca said flatly.

  Mrs. Diggory stood on tip toe as if trying to see over Rebecca’s head, even though the girl was at the bottom of the stoop. “Mr. Diggory?”

  Rebecca rolled her eyes. “No, the pig.”

  “Mr. Diggory’s gone to town.”

  Rebecca kicked at the dirt.

  “Would you like a cookie, dearie?”

  She glanced
up. “I put your pig away.”

  “No, no, Gregory Diggory will not be back til nightfall.”

  Rebecca’s tipped her face skyward and stifled a groan.

  Mrs. Diggory opened the door and waved Rebecca inside. “Come and have a cookie, dearie.”

  “Do you have any cream today?” Rebecca asked as she climbed up the stoop.

  “Oh, yes, the cookies are a dream. Quite nice, quite nice.”

  Rebecca was convinced that Mrs. Diggory was either stone deaf or incompetent. Normally it was not this hard to communicate with her. Why were the adults giving her the run around today? She smiled politely and pocketed the cookies for later.

  “Oh and I reckon you’ll be wanting milk today, won’t you, dearie?”

  Rebecca nodded a huge, slow nod. Then Mrs. Diggory noticed Rebecca’s offending hand.

  “Oh but that will not do, will it?” She shook her head and poured the milk into a tall ceramic container. “If I send you with a cart it will splash everywhere, and all that nice cream… such a waste! I will send Mr. Diggory over with it the moment he’s home.”

  Mrs. Diggory’s frown held more pity than Rebecca wanted as she shoved more cookies into the girl’s pockets. “You run along now.” She escorted Rebecca to the stoop by her elbow. “Be a good girl, and watch out for that pig. He’s always getting loose.”

  Rebecca almost tripped down the stairs. She found her feet at the bottom and turned to scowl at Mrs. Diggory, but the farmer’s wife had already shut the door.

  The pig wrinkled his snout at Rebecca from his pen, brushed his curly pink tale and snorted jovially.

  Rebecca ambled home, kicking the rocks on the road. The workers in Diggory’s fields pounded away at the ground, turning the soil and picking out any weeds. Their dark skin glistened with the efforts of hard work in the mid-morning sun. They worked steadily and without word. Ruckbags hung around their shoulders and chests. Copper tools on wooden poles swung through the air with an audible ring and thudded into the earth. Sometimes they hit rocks. If Rebecca listened closely, it almost sounded like a song.