"Where is the western wellkeeper, Tyter's guardian? Maybe it wasn't just a dream. Maybe something really had happened to Tyter during the night.” Again, her mind returned to the dream. "A male - wet - so very wet - and hot - and ... and ... oh, if only I could remember why. But who was he? Could it have been Tyter and I just didn’t recognize him.” Dreams do such funny things to the mind. They intertwine the threads of fantasy and reality to create a tightly woven tapestry where even the most undeniably absurd take upon themselves the illusion of logic. “Oh, how I hate dreams!”
She reached down and pulled her sleeping garment as high as it would go, holding it under her armpits and clutching the hem with her hands as her teeth gnawed nervously at the seam. The rest of her was exposed, but no one noticed. Few people in Nuttinnew had awakened from their slumber yet, and those who did had much more sensual images to behold with their sleepy eyes. They had their magnificent pieces to admire, to hoard and desire - and, of course, to count and recount, again and again.
Without taking her eyes off the male who was walking toward Tyter's hut, Brindle reached for a swatch of cloth, dipped it in a bowl of air-warmed water and began to dab her nude body here and there. For a few fleeting moments she felt a hint of coolness as the water on her skin rapidly evaporated.
The male she was watching walked directly up to Tyter's hut and knocked on the door. Several anxious moments passed before the door opened. When it did, she didn’t recognize the physique of the male who answered. It was too large to be Tyter’s and too small to be his guardian’s.
The male on the porch was making broad gestures with his arms, obviously relaying some message. The male inside the hut patiently listened, then responded with far less gesticulating. When he’d finished, the messenger threw up his arms and began pacing around in gradually widening circles. Several times he shrugged his shoulders, gesturing toward Loden and the other fellow at the well, but neither of them seemed to notice. They were busy talking as they looked down into the well.
"How much water do you think we have left?" asked the younger male as he stared into the black hollow hole. It was his first time to actually peer down into the well’s depths, and his voice quivered with a combination of awe and worry. He continued. "I mean, how many days do you think we have if - you know - if it doesn't rain - soon?” He looked up into the clear, greyish sky rapidly dissolving the night into day.
Loden didn't answer his companion right away. Instead, he inspected the rope, the swing chair, the crank assembly and its handles. Finally, he shook his head and spoke. "We need a new rope. This one is frayed - could give way at any time. Time - huh - something we have so little of - surely not enough to weave a new rope.” The younger man's face wrinkled with despair as he realized the wellkeeper had just answered his question. Loden continued.
"We almost lost wellkeeper Bourg's young charge, Tyter, down there, you know?"
The other male just looked at him with a blank stare. The thought of being lost in the deep, dark, dank depth of the well was almost unimaginable to him. And what he could imagine didn’t calm his angst about it one iota. Just looking into its gaping mouth gave him a queasy feeling. The thought of being lowered into it made him sick to his stomach. The thought of being lost in it was a thought he couldn’t even bring himself to ponder.
Brindle felt only slightly relieved when she saw Bourg finally come to the door. He lifted a small cup to his lips and took a drink. Then he dipped two fingers into the cup and drawing out its liquid, patted his eyes with them. It was his usual morning bath during a drought. Such conservation of water made Brindle feel hedonistically dissolute as she continued to dab herself with the damp cloth in her hand until it was nearly dry. Then she let her garment drop back down over her body, and immediately, she felt hot and sweaty. "How momentary are the pleasures in life,” she thought, then scanned the sky for even a singular rain cloud.
When the messenger saw Bourg at the door, he ceased his pacing and rushed to him. Again, he punctuated his words with wide gestures, appearing to tell a most vigorous tale. Bourg, however, wasn’t intimidated by the young male's aggressiveness. He slowly took another swig from the cup and patiently allowed the young male to continue his message. When Bourg had heard enough, he interrupted the messenger, and immediately disappeared back inside the hut, leaving the door open. Meanwhile, the other fellow returned to his pacing.
After a few moments, Bourg reappeared at the door. Behind him Brindle could see the unrecognized male who had originally answered the door. The wellkeeper paused to say something to him, then with short choppy strides he marched off toward the well. The young messenger darted after him. The stranger in the doorway watched for a moment, then closed the door. Tyter was nowhere to be seen and Brindle's heart fell to her stomach.
Bourg was glad to see his friend and fellow wellkeeper at his post despite what had taken place the day before. Bourg would gladly have relegated it all to just a bad dream, if there were not a caretender in his hut, tending to his young charge.
"Surprised to see me here, my friend?” Loden called in a cheery voice. Bourg’s face remained expressionless beneath his burly beard. "Well, don't worry. I'll not desert you under this present water crisis. In fact, I have no thought of leaving Nuttinnew at all - ever.” Loden had much more to say, but could tell from the dazed look in Bourg's eyes, this was not the time to say more on the subject. He watched Bourg walk to the rim of the well, lean over it and look long and hard into the black shadows below. Then without looking up, he spoke. "Tyter has the sickness."
Loden gasped. “What? Are you sure?” As soon as he spoke the words, he realized it was a stupid question. His own heart cursed him for it. After a short pause he made another attempt. "I'm sorry Bourg. I'm sorry for the lad. And I'm sorry I have to bring this up, but the water level in the well ....”
"I know!" Bourg interrupted, gruffly. "We'll just have to get someone else to go into the well. Tyter can’t do it! He may never do it again - ever.”
"I've just checked the rigging. It won't support the weight of an adult male - this blasted sun has dried the ropes to chaff - even if we could find someone crazy enough to volunteer.”
"It’ll have to be another child!" Bourg interrupted again. His voice didn’t sound pleased with the words as they passed through his lips.
"Yes, a child,” Loden repeated somberly. He knew as Bourg knew, no loving parents were going to let their child make the hazardous voyage into the black abyss of the well. Loden inspected the well seat rope one more time. There was no way it was going to hold his weight. Besides, he was no more anxious to die than the next fellow.
As Brindle ate her breakfast, her ears were filled with sounds of her mother vehemently protesting her father’s actions the day before at the well. She absolutely insisted that he go, directly, even before rations, and apologize to her brother, Gidwell. Reluctantly, but wisely, her father agreed. Her mother appeased, the hut fell once again into relative silence. Her parents barely spoke to one another outside the venue of discordance.
Grateful for the temporary respite, Brindle finished washing the cups and bowls while her parents counted and re-counted their pieces for the third time since awakening. Somewhat assured none were missing, Brindle helped them put the pieces into two reinforced sacks which were originally made as wedding presents for cousin Brilbb.
Tossing their sacks of pieces over their shoulders, they headed out the door. But not without Brindle’s mother complaining her sack of pieces felt heavier than the day before. Her husband countered that her constant harping at him was just making her weak. After all, he pointed out, they had taken great pains to insure there were exactly the same number of pieces in each sack. Besides, if by some numerical error, one sack contained more than the other, it was certain the heavier sack contained the greater number of pieces.
With this explanation Brindle’s mother fell into silence. Her father, too, became silent for as his sack settled upon his own shoulder, he was su
re his was the heavier load and had no desire to press for a recount.
Brindle followed her parents outside and watched them stagger away under their weightier loads. When they were some distance removed she went around to the side of the hut facing the well. There she made a halfhearted effort to find veget roots still suitable for eating, but her real intent was to watch the four males at the well, and hopefully catch a word or two about Tyter.
The two wellkeepers were speaking together and, she deduced from their postures that they were both very troubled. One of the other males was walking about in ever widening circles, gesticulating wildly, though no one seemed to pay him any mind. The fourth male sat silently beside the well counting the pieces in his small sack.
Brindle wondered why Tyter wasn’t being lowered into the well to check the water level. It was way past time by Brindle's reckoning. Despite the evidence, she refused to believe her young hero could be too sick to perform his daring daily deed. Desperately, she wanted to know what the two keepers were saying. Quickly, she plucked up two barely edible veget roots to support her ruse. Then, she slowly began to ease her way toward the well. She planned to get just close enough to hear, but not close enough to draw their attention.
After examining the well rigging himself, Bourg agreed that it definitely wouldn’t hold the weight of a full-grown male - or even a relatively small one. It would have to be a child or - "A female?" Bourg blurted out the thought.
Loden looked at him with an expression of initial surprise, which gradually drew into a broad smile.
"Well, I'll be! We'll make a rebel out of you yet, Bourg!" Loden thought, but exclaimed aloud, "You think the rigging would be kinder to the smaller mass of a female than to a small male?” This was, of course, a purely academic question for as of yet, they had no one to take Tyter's place, male or female, large or small. “Good idea - but, even a female would have to be slight of frame. Don’t you think?”
For Bourg this last question was the final straw. There were too many factors to consider - too many questions without answers. His mind was already clouded with thoughts of Tyter. He felt as though his head would burst if he had to think even one more thought.
Loden didn't wait for Bourg to answer, anyway. Instead, he searched his own mind for a solution to the problem and discovered he had no answer either. All he could do was restate the problem. “We can't check the well level without a child and there isn't a parent in all of Nuttinnew who would let their child go into this pit. And even if there were, there isn't a child with the courage to do it. Hello there?"
Brindle hadn't meant to come so near to the well, but when she heard they needed someone to go down into it in Tyter's place, her heart soared with more excitement than she could contain. Oh, how she wanted to enter the world about which she had so often dreamed: a world until now, known only to Tyter. Before she even realized it, she found herself standing only a few rods from the wellkeepers. Their eyes trained upon her.
The moment she had so often longed for had come at last. Taking the reigns of her destiny in hand, she opened her mouth to tell them of her immense desire to enter the well in Tyter’s stead. Carefully positioning her lips to form the words, she spoke. "Ah ga fo Thyda ib weh!”
Bourg stared wide-eyed at Brindle. Her face was flushed red with excitement. Her body trembled like a fragile veget puff just before being launched into its destined, reproductive flight. Her eyes shone with moisture and set deep within those eyes was a determination Bourg had not seen since he last looked into Talon’s eyes. But the sounds from her mouth made no sense to him at all. Puzzled he turned to Loden for help, "What did she say?" he asked in a half whispered voice, as if she wouldn’t hear.
Loden's face was lit up with constrained excitement as he intently studied the young female before him. "Can we help you?" he asked, then shifted his attention to the two veget roots in her hand. They were still edible - but barely. The sight of these only made him more anxious about their problem.
"Who is she?” Bourg asked, looking back at the young female. He felt strange talking about her, especially since she was standing right there. He would have asked her who she was directly, but he was afraid she might answer him with those same strange sounds.
"Her name is Brindle. She lives in the hut nearest the well on the east - the one originally meant for the Eastern Wellkeeper. She's an only child and for some unknown reason has never been able to talk - not in a way anyone else could understand. Poor child! I'm afraid she'll be an outcast all her life just like...” he paused.
"Like Tyter,” Bourg concluded, reflectively.
At the mention of the wellwalker’s name, Brindle sprang toward them excitedly. "Yah, yah, Thyda! Ah ga ib weh fo Thyda!” In a single bound she leaped onto the well rim, grabbed the well seat rope and began yanking on it. "Ah ga ib weh! Ah ga! Ah ga!" she shouted, over and over again.
Immediately, Bourg seized her about the waist. "There, there, child, don’t play with the well rope!" he scolded. But Brindle ferociously fought his grip. She knew they couldn't understand her words, so she was determined to make them understand any way she could.
"She’s having a fit!" Bourg shouted. "Help!"
The fellow who had been pacing in gradually widening circles earlier ran up and grabbed at Brindle's feet which she kicked about violently, all the while yelling at the top of her voice, "Ah ga ib weh! Ah ga!"
Loden grabbed the well seat rope and tried, to no avail, to wrench it from Brindle’s grip. Finally, he ordered the fourth male, who had continued, undaunted, recounting his pieces, to join into the fracas. The fellow responded immediately, albeit begrudgingly. Grabbing one of Brindle's hands, he attempted to pry her fingers from around the well seat rope, but she only gripped it tighter.
Struggling to twist her head toward Bourg's hut, she screamed even louder. "Thyda! Thyda! Hup, Thyda!” Tears were streaming down her face as her frustration turned to anger, then to rage. She was strong for her size and sex, but she was no match for four grown males, especially when one had the strength of ten. "Oh, blast my tongue!" she cursed in her mind. “They must understand me! I’ve got to make them see. I’m the willing answer to their problem.”
Bourg could wrestle a boulder from its eternal foundation, but he couldn't manage to hold down one determined, young female. He was like a male holding an infant for the first time. He feared his strength would crush the beautiful, delicate life form in his hands.
Meanwhile, this delicate life form proceeded in getting a foot free and kicking loose the two front teeth of the young male who had been trying to hold her feet. Blood streamed from his mouth as he began to run around again in ever increasing circles, cupping one hand over his mouth while waving the other around wildly.
The fellow holding Brindle's hands had better luck, successfully prying one of them loose from the well rope, one finger at a time. Unfortunately, that’s when his luck turned against him. For he had rather large ears, protruding from the side of his oddly narrow head, giving him an appearance similar to a pitcher with handles.
Desperately reaching for something to grab onto, Brindle's freed hand soon got hold of one of those handles and - well, it was a most painful experience for the poor fellow, who now found himself, trying to pry that same tight grip from his ear. Meanwhile, her other hand clung to the well seat rope as if her very life depended upon it - and to her, perhaps, it did.
Bourg's ears filled with the groans of the male running about in circles and the screams of the male whose ear was being stretched even further from his head than before. Added to these was the piercing, incomprehensible caterwauling of the young female at the other end of that ear. In no time, Bourg was driven to the edge of his tolerance.
"Blast! Enough is enough!” he roared, then grabbed the female around her shoulders and under her knees and pulled her into a tight, immoveable ball. Brindle suddenly found it difficult to scream, or even breathe as her knees were pressed hard against her chest. Soon the world began to sp
in inside her head from the lack of oxygen. She felt like she were about to enter one of her strange dreams. Her entire body went limp. Nearly unconscious, her grip relaxed on the fellow's ear, but not on the well rope.
Out of breath, Loden fell against the well wall as he looked at the grizzly male grunting as he held fast to the bundle in his arms - a bundle which could no longer shout, but struggled still to speak. Bourg looked down on her and hoped he wasn’t hurting her. She struggled for a breath, then she rolled her eyes upward. As their eyes met, each could see the determination in the other's.
"Ah ga (gasp) fo Thyda ib (gasp) weh,” Brindle pleaded. Bourg's heart ached to understand her words, and something in her eyes told him he didn't need to hold her so tightly, so he eased his grip - slightly. Then, spoke firmly to her.
"No sense calling for Tyter. He’s sick on his cot. He can't help you - you prankster."
Loden jumped with excitement. "That's it!” he shouted.
“Huh?" Bourg grunted, like he always did when he hadn't the slightest notion what someone else was talking about.
"Tyter - she's calling for Tyter. Don't you see? She can talk and you understood her."
"I didn’t!" Bourg protested the accusation firmly. What he wanted most was to understand her, but in plain truth, he didn't have the slightest inkling what she was babbling about - and that frustrated him to belligerence.
Loden bent down closer to Brindle. "Tyter? Do you know Tyter? Is Tyter your friend?"
Bourg could feel the bundle in his arms tremble. He tightened his grip not knowing what to expect.
"Tyter is sick, very sick. Do you understand - sick?" Loden asked tenderly.
The young female didn’t attempt to speak. Her only response were the tears welling up in her eyes.
"Look, Bourg! She understands, as well. She can communicate. She's been trying to tell us something. I'm sure of it. Release her!"
Pieces: Book One, The Rending Page 17