Ashes

by Ann Hunter

  Perhaps that is what the workers heard when they found their place in The Great Wheel. Perhaps people were drawn to a song. Something a little more intangible than a feeling or a knowing. A song on the air meant only for you. Perhaps Father had heard the song in the ticking of his new watch, and Mother heard the song in the sad cries of the dying bird. Rebecca wondered if she would ever hear that song or if she would forever be stuck shooing the Diggory’s pig, feeding the chickens, and tending their cottage.

  When she arrived home, she moved through the paces. The chore list seemed long, but it was short. Sweep the floors. Wash the table. Stoke the fire. Change the bed linens. Cook some food. Light the lanterns. Warm some bread.

  Rebecca sat at the table and drummed her fingers to the tune of her growling stomach, trying to wait for her mother and father. The moon rose. The sun set. Stars twinkled in the heavens. She moved to the window to seek out Khronos’s constellation, and jumped when a knock fell on the door. Perhaps Robert needed help getting Lilly inside again. She rushed to open it.

  Farmer Diggory thrust a full vase of fresh milk toward her, his goat-like gray beard swinging back and forth as he chewed on a stalk of vetch. Rebecca juggled the container, trying to maintain her balance, and landed it squarely on the table. She turned to thank Mr. Diggory, but he was already back in his wagon, driving his horse down the road.

  She peered into the container. Her nose wrinkled. The milk was already beginning to clabber. It was not a bad thing. She had hoped to have fresh cream in the morning for butter, but would be able to make other things instead, like buttermilk for some nice biscuits to go with preserves, or curds and whey, and clabbered cheese.

  Before closing the door, she stuck her head out and stood on tip toe to see if their clockwork carriage was anywhere in sight. She shut the door with fallen shoulders and a frown, and sat down to plain bread, gone cold from waiting.

  She occasionally glanced at the small shelf of books, tempted to open the clock book once more, but when she was done with her bread she doused the fire and retired to bed. Tears slipped down her face as she stared out her window from her bed at the moon. She turned her pillow sideways and hugged it close.

  Rebecca woke to the sound of a crackling fire. Purple twilight filled the sky. The sun was beginning to rise. She was sure she had put out the fire, and had not heard anyone come in. She kicked back the covers and raced downstairs.

  The fire was lit for sure, but the room was empty. She dashed outside. The ground was icy cold beneath her feet. Chickens clucked softly as they roosted in their coop. The water from the duck pond was still. The dew on the grass below soaked through to Rebecca’s bones. A small light was coming from the forge. She ducked in to see her father packing raw materials into boxes. “Father, you’re home!”

  Robert looked up briefly then back down at what he was doing.

  “Where’s Mother?”

  “Your Mother has decided to stay in the city during the week and return home for church on the weekends. It will be less travel time for all of us.”

  “I missed you,” Rebecca offered.

  Robert nodded.

  She stepped further inside. “That’s it? No ‘I missed you, too.’?”

  Robert rocked back on his heels as he squatted near boxes. “You know I did.”

  “It would be nice to hear it back,” Rebecca said softly.

  He brushed off debris from his lap and rose. “Rebecca, it is time you grow up. We must all pull together now. Your mother will stay in the city. You will manage the home. And I…”

  She stared up at him, tears welling in her eyes. “You are going off into the world to find buyers for our wares.”

  He nodded.

  Rebecca folded her arms and looked away.

  Robert crossed to her. “It will not be so bad, dear one.” He reached out to touch her shoulder, but Rebecca swept it away. Robert stammered momentarily. He put his hands on his hips and leaned on his heels til his toes pointed up off the ground. “Your mother and I—”

  Rebecca turned her back to him.

  “Look, this is how we are going to survive, Rebecca. We have a good life, but if we stay here the way we are…”

  “If we have a good life, why change it? It is good to have nice things, Father.” Rebecca looked over her shoulder. “But they are just things. We can live off our land. We do not need things.” Tears welled up again. One escaped and burned a line down her cheek. “We need each other.”

  “Rebecca—” Robert reached for her again, but Rebecca moved away.

  “Don’t.”

  His shoulders wilted. Rebecca walked backwards towards the door. When she was out of her father’s line of sight, she raced back into the cottage and slammed the door. The shelf of books rattled. Two fell with a heavy thunk. Rebecca picked up The Book of Time and placed the loaded tome back on the shelf, then stooped for the other.

  The clock book was open on the floor. She could just make out the blueprints of a device on the page in the long shadows of firelight. Rebecca picked it up, wrapped her arms around it, and stole it away upstairs. Before she made her bed, she shoved the book under the corner of her mattress.

  Angry tears ran down her freckled cheeks. She moved through her paces. Tend the burn. Wash her face. Change in to clothes. Start the day.

  She tried to cheer herself with the prospect of harvesting buttermilk from the container of clabbered milk. But once she gave the vat another sniff, she decided to let it sit a few more hours. She drew water from the nearby basin and pulled a small sack of flour out to cook up food.

  Rebecca thought of her father leaving and was sorely tempted to only make breakfast for herself just to spite him. She pressed her palms against the table and took a deep breath. In to a bowl she measured enough flour and water for two people.

  She marched outside. The chickens were out and about now and she collected fresh eggs from the coop, then took them back inside and cracked two into the bowl, stirred it, and set it to cooking over the fire. She let it simmer for a spell and stirred it until it became thick. When it was done, she carefully retrieved it and sliced it onto two plates. Robert never came in.

  Rebecca put the other portion away for later, and rinsed the plates, staring out the window. The fire in the forge had gone out. The clockwork carriage was gone. Rebecca let tears silently fall down her face as her father had not even bothered to say goodbye.

  She brushed the tears away with the back of her wrist and wiped her hands on her apron, trying to focus on the day ahead. Retrieve the clabbered milk from the vat. Separate the cultured cream from the milk. Churn the cream while the milk clabbered further. Ignore the pain rising in her burnt hand.

  It all made her angrier. She churned harder. Blisters formed under her tight fists. She grit her teeth, but tears came forward anyway. She let out a bellow and kicked the small stool across the room.

  Rebecca placed her hands on her hips and paced. She tried to count to one hundred to calm herself. She beat on the table, threw her self against the door, anything to bang out the pain in her heart. Abandoned.

  At last, exhausted, she righted an offended chair and sunk into it, burying her face in her arms crossed upon the table. She reverently whispered Maker Khronos’s name and felt a small amount of peace rise in her, but the rest of her was still hot with resent.

  She lifted her head and brushed stray brown hairs from her face. There was work to be done. A home to keep. Her home. She had been helping to care for it since she was able to walk. Before she knew it, her mother would be home from the city. They would go to church together. Lilly would surely point out where her needlework needed improvement, or how to get pot pie to turn out just right. She would mend Rebecca’s aching heart. She would do it because she was her mother. Mending is what mothers did best.

  Rebecca looked around the quiet kitchen and dining area. She could plan. It would help the time pass. There was always the basic chores that needed to be done on a daily basis, but then there w
as the cooking. She could plan meals for herself. She rose to find a piece of parchment and a quill.

  She ran upstairs to her parent’s empty room. On a desk was a large open book filled with numbers and items. Rebecca reckoned it was the book her mother kept track of expenses in. She flipped to the back of the book and tore out a page. There was a quill and inkwell at the corner of the desk. She sat down to write.

  Today was Twosday. She had made a breakfast of hasty pudding. Dinner could easily be eggs, but she figured if she ate eggs most days of the week for breakfast, she would soon grow tired of them. She racked her brain. What did she know how to cook? Eggs. Bacon. Porridge. Bread. Hasty pudding. Chicken roly-poly. Hmm. Yes. She thought there might be a chicken in the smoke house her mother had prepared recently. That would do nicely, and she was sure she could keep a bit til breakfast the following morning.

  She kept on like this. Two meals a day. Breakfast, work the day away, then supper. While she was at it, she made a schedule too. She ripped another unused page from the ledger and jotted down the chores for each day. Dress. Wash. Change linens every other day. Launder her clothing every other day as well. Sweep the floors. Wash the table. Feed the chickens. Weed the garden once a week, water it daily. Fetch fresh milk and cream every third day from Mrs. Diggory. Her hands itched as the ink turned them black, but they flew furiously over the page.

  Finally she came to Khronos’ Day. Mother would be home. She just had to make it through the week one day at a time. Keep her head down. Do what her mother had taught her since she could toddle by her side.

  When Rebecca could think of nothing more to jot down, she blew the ink dry on the pages and folded them to fit in her pocket. She could always check back on them when she needed to. She went to her room to wash the ink away from her skin, then wiped them dry and smoothed out her apron.

  She stood tall and squared her shoulders, setting her jaw like her father did many times. She could do this. She would do this. She had to do this. Preacher’s voice echoed in her head, “…Every gear, every cog, and every bolt is big enough to do some thing. Do good.”

  Rebecca nodded her head. She was big enough to run this house. “I will be the good I wish to see in The Great Wheel,” she vowed.

  She would make her mother proud. Her father… Rebecca pushed him from her mind, with a pang in her chest. She bowed her head. “Khronos help me,” she whispered.

  She shut her eyes and uttered a prayer. She knew she could do it all by herself physically, but she would need help tempering her spirit. When she finally mustered the will, she pulled out the paper she had written and read it. Chores. Rebecca took a deep breath and refolded the paper, placed it back in her pocket and went about her day.

  The week passed quickly enough. Rebecca kept her head down and put her shoulder to the proverbial wheel. By sun down on Sixtherday, the cottage was spotless and welcoming. Her chest puffed with pride, but her body protested with the ache of nonstop work. She dragged herself upstairs to bed with barely enough oomph to change in to a shift or actually slide under the covers. Lilly would be home by dawn and Rebecca fell asleep with a smile on her face.

  A noise downstairs woke Rebecca with a start. Her arms ached, pushing her to attention from her faceplant on her pillow. Chair legs scraped the floor below and hushed voices jibed at one another.

  Rebecca grabbed a fire poker she’d been keeping by her bed most of the week to make her feel safe while alone, and crept downstairs. A stair board groaned beneath her feet, giving her away. One of the neighbor’s wives voices called to her.

  “Is that you, Rebecca? Come and help your mother.”

  Rebecca instantly dropped the poker and dashed forward, her eyes and face alight. All the anticipation quickly vanished when she saw Henrietta Bartleby and Petunia Tully supporting her mother on both sides. Lilly’s face was pale. Her breaths were ragged. Henrietta Bartleby, plump and stout and dark of hair, waved Rebecca over. “Do not just stand there, you ninny!”

  Rebecca rushed to her mother’s side, and helped her in to a chair. The wives took to boiling water, pouring ale, and slicing bread. “Has not eaten a thing, the poor dear. Never stops working. Never stops moving. Until she comes home. Coughed all the way here,” noted Henrietta Bartleby.

  “Coughed up a storm,” added lanky Petunia.

  “I was afraid she’d bring up a lung,” said Henrietta.

  “I do not know how you do it, Lilly. When all of this is said and over, I reckon you’ll need a copper lung.”

  Lilly raised her head weakly and offered a rueful smile to Rebecca.

  Rebecca clutched her mother’s hand, and wrapped her arm around her shoulders, until their heads bowed together as one. She dotted Lilly’s cheekbone with soft kisses and rubbed her back. Henrietta waddled over with a dish rag soaked in hot water and laid it over Lilly’s neck, tying it snugly under her chin. Fair haired Petunia pushed a goblet of ale toward her and insisted she eat some bread.

  Lilly chewed feebly at the soft center. Rebecca helped lift the cup to her mother’s lips and slug down the ale.

  The wives seated themselves calmly at the table.

  “How was your week, young Lady Tremaine?” Henrietta asked.

  Rebecca’s head swiveled around. It was the first time she’d been called formally. “Lady…?”

  “Oh, yes, we know you have been running the house. And any lady that runs the house is the Lady of the House. So that makes you now the Lady Tremaine.”

  Rebecca’s mouth formed an “Oh.” She’d never considered it before. “It was… it went well enough, I suppose.”

  “That’s a good lass. Tell us all about it.” Henrietta encouraged.

  Petunia concurred, “Oh, yes, tell us about all the work you did.”

  Rebecca felt slightly patronized, but she told them anyway. “The usual things. Laundry, cooking, tending the chickens. I chased The Diggory’s pig out of the grassy patch.”

  “Gregory Diggory came for a visit, did he now?”

  “Looking for truffles no doubt.” Petunia inserted.

  Rebecca’s brow furrowed. “No, Farmer Diggory was at market.”

  The two wives looked at each other and giggled.

  Rebecca grimaced.

  “Do not you know?” Petunia asked.

  “Know what?”

  “Gregory Diggory is the name of Gregory Diggory’s pig,” said Henrietta.

  Rebecca’s forehead fell against the table with a thud. “Why would they name their pig with the same name as Farmer Diggory?”

  “Search us.”

  Rebecca looked up. The two wives reminded her of a couple of clucking hens.

  “Perhaps one day I shall get a dog and name him Askem,” Rebecca offered.

  “Why, dear, whatever for?” asked Henrietta Bartleby.

  “So when you regard him and tell me to put his name upon you, I will simply tell you Askem.”

  “That makes no sense, dear.” Petunia said.

  “Neither does Gregory Diggory having a pig named Gregory Diggory!”

  Lilly sputtered. Rebecca immediately turned her attention to her mother. The sputter turned into a cough. Lilly’s eyes watered and she squeezed them shut tight as she put a fist to her mouth, hacking up a gooey ashen grey splotch. Rebecca wiped it away without a second thought. “Are you alright, Mother?”

  Lilly looked at the three of them. “All of you are completely off your rockers.”

  The two wives looked at each other and cackled giddily.

  Lilly smiled a real smile.

  Rebecca grimaced and took the rag about her mother’s neck to soak it once again.

  “Why would Mrs. Diggory purposefully let the pig out?” Rebecca asked.

  “Truffles fetch a good price at market,” Petunia Tully informed her. “Your property is rich with them. Did not you know?”

  Rebecca shook her head and draped the rag over her mother’s neck, rubbing her shoulders.

  “And then Farmer Diggory comes at night and take
s the truffles while you are sleeping.”

  Rebecca sucked in a breath. “Because that’s not creepy at all,” she muttered.

  Her mother’s head bobbed in a half chuckle before she suppressed a cough.

  Rebecca instinctually paddled her back to help her as Lilly had done in years where Rebecca had caught the fever as a very small child.

  Petunia and Henrietta looked at each other again and nodded. They both reached across the table and patted Lilly’s forearms. “You are in good hands.”

  Lilly nodded as she coughed hard and deep. The wives rose.

  “Are you sure you’ll be alright?” Petunia asked.

  Lilly waved them off. The coughing calmed momentarily. “I will be fine come Oneday morning.”

  The wives headed for the door.

  “If you need a thing—” Henrietta implied.

  “Any little thing at all—” added Petunia.

  “You know where to find us,” they said together.

  Rebecca offered a polite smile. “Thank you, ladies.”

  The door closed and Rebecca breathed a sigh of relief. “Good riddance.”

  Lilly shook her head. “They are good women, my love.”

  Rebecca wrung out the rag upon her mother’s neck and replaced it with a new one.

  “You should never discount your neighbors. Good neighbors are your best allies. All cogs must work together in harmony for… for…” Lilly began coughing again.

  Rebecca nodded. “The greater good. To turn The Great Wheel. I know.”

  Lilly nodded as she tried to calm her cough.

  “If the Diggory’s let their pig out to find truffles on our land, why do not we get a cut of the profit? It seems awfully unfair, and makes them out to be bad neighbors, not to see any good come of a creature destroying our land once a month.”

  Lilly raised her head with watery eyes and a soft smile. “Where do you think the bacon comes from?”