A Single Stone

by Meg McKinlay

  If the rock allowed it.

  The crowd was waiting for the third thing.

  The bundle looked small but that was no kind of measure; didn’t they all seem so in the arms of the Mothers?

  Last year, the village had pinned its hopes on the butcher’s baby. She had seemed slight and delicate, almost fragile. Jena had held her breath for the numbers, but when the Mother finally spoke, her voice was flat.

  “Sixty-two. Fifty-nine.”

  The shoulders. The hips.

  This was what mattered. This was the difference between the mountain and the fields.

  Low fifties was a good-enough number; the Mothers could work with that if they must. But forties was better. Forties meant a girl who would take easily to the regimen, who might be moulded and shaped without undue hardship or the need for extreme adjustments.

  High fifties – sixties? – was another thing altogether; there were some facts of nature for which nothing could compensate.

  “Pfft.” The miller’s wife had spat on the ground and walked away. It was not long before others did the same.

  That would not happen today though. Kari was a tunneller and Mama Dietz before her. This new daughter would surely follow.

  If the rock allows it. The words echoed in Jena’s mind as Mother Dyan came through the door with a measuring ribbon in her hands. Her fingers would be marking the numbers, holding the place where she had stretched the fabric tight. Dyan held up a hand, as if to quiet the already-silent gathering. She cleared her throat.

  “Forty. Forty.”

  Jena waited. The Mother must have repeated the first number, making sure they had heard before moving on to the next.

  But Dyan did not continue. She held the ribbon high, and there was just one finger on it, marking just one place.

  Forty and forty?

  “Thanks be,” someone said – tentative and hesitant, as if they could not quite believe their own words.

  Jena stood perfectly still. It was better than they had hoped for. Better than anyone could have dared imagine.

  “Thanks be!”

  “It is a day!”

  Exclamations rose from the crowd. Faces creased in broad smiles. Cheers rang out and people jostled forwards.

  “Hold her up!” A voice rang out from the rear. “Let us see!”

  Elena stepped into the light. She lifted the baby in a swift movement and held her aloft, the breadth of one hand almost encircling the tiny frame, the other placed loosely behind her head.

  Immediately, the infant stiffened. She seemed to draw back into herself, then release, both arms flying out from her sides. She let out a gulping cry, arms flailing, feet swinging wildly in the air.

  “Fool!” Berta strode past Jena. “Give her to me.”

  The younger Mother obeyed without a word. With one arm, Berta brought the baby in to her chest. With the other, she pulled the shawl from around her own shoulders. She began to wrap the baby, pulling the material swiftly from limb to limb until the swaddling was complete and the only skin visible was her face.

  Jena felt herself exhale, and realised she had been holding her breath, some part of her sharing the feeling of being suddenly untethered, cast adrift with nothing to hold onto.

  The baby quietened immediately. A calm came over her and her eyelids seemed to sink, heavy under their own weight.

  What Berta had done was not real wrapping but it was enough for now. It was what an infant craved after spending so many moons inside, curled tightly upon itself.

  More Mothers emerged, filing down the hall and out onto the verandah. They cooed and clucked over the baby in Berta’s arms. As Mother Anya, who had trained Jena in the maze, came past, she nodded back towards the house.

  “All is well, child.”

  Jena felt weak with relief. The sweet smell had receded and something new was taking its place – richer and stronger. This was a smell Jena knew, as did everyone in the village – from childhood cuts and scrapes; from broken bones and stinging burns.

  Calumb for healing.

  There was a daughter, alive and tiny, a mama who would live to see her grow.

  Jena stared through the door and down the hall. Could it be her place, now? To stand beside Kari, rest a hand on her shoulder. To sit at the foot of a mama’s bed and smile, because everything was as it should be. To tell herself what she felt was only happiness, and had nothing in it of grief, of the past rising up to swamp her.

  The crowd milled around her. She stood at its centre, at once surrounded but alone.

  “Thanks be,” she whispered. Then she turned from the house and slipped away.

  SIX

  “Is she sleeping?”

  Jena threaded her way between the rows of beds in the Wrapping Centre.

  After leaving the house, she had walked back through the forest to meet the rest of the line. They would be eager for news of the birth and she was happy enough to deliver it. But more than that, she wanted to secure the harvest. She was relieved when she had gathered the pouches and slung them across her chest, even more so when she delivered them to the Stores.

  Any other day, she would have lingered in the front room where their tunnelling gear was kept – adding to the maps and checking the rope for signs of wear, the pouches for fraying. They could ill afford to have the rope fail as they descended a shaft, or to lose the hard-won harvest through a hole. But when she had given the last of the pouches to Berta, the Mother fixed her with a look. “The rest can wait, child. Go and be with your sister.”

  Your sister. There was no hesitation in Berta’s words. It was so easy, Jena thought, for others to smooth over her past, to add her cleanly to another family as if her own had never existed.

  “Kari?” Jena’s voice was muted. The Centre was a place that demanded hushed tones, careful footfalls. Even if the baby wasn’t asleep, another girl might be. Even those who had long outgrown naps fell asleep here; the hours of stillness induced a lethargy that was hard to resist.

  Kari raised a finger to her lips, gesturing into the crib with her other hand.

  The baby was wrapped properly now, the soft fabric overlapping in a regular crisscross pattern around her body. Like a cocoon, Jena thought. Beneath the outer wrappings there would be another layer, this one encasing each limb separately, pressing firmly around the flesh.

  It was a long time since she and Kari had been wrapped like this. The schedule changed as a girl grew – both in the number of hours and the way she was wrapped. By the time she was six, she need hardly come here at all; as long as she wore the inner wrappings under her normal clothes, that was enough. At the monthly measurings the Mothers would check that the material was wound properly, but otherwise they trusted the mamas to manage their own daughters. A girl who joined the line earned her family a generous allocation of mica that would see them safely through the winter. There were allocations of food and medicine too, but it was the mica that mattered most. While everything else could be bartered – a day’s labour for some extra potatoes, a few blankets for some smoked rabbit – trade in mica was strictly forbidden. Each household had to manage on its allocation and they all knew how fine a point survival could turn on when the thaw came late. No one would jeopardise their daughter’s prospects by taking liberties with the schedule.

  “Isn’t she perfect?” Kari said. “Papa said she looks like me. I don’t know though.”

  Jena ran a hand along the rough wood of the crib. Papa Dietz was right. There was something of Kari in the baby, something about her eyes – the neat pekoe-nut shape of them, the slight crinkling at the edges as if they were on the verge of a smile.

  She felt a rush of tenderness. This little one. She and Kari would keep her safe. They would hold her close and protect her. And teach her, later – about the maze and the mountain and the work of the harvest. The years tumbled through Jena’s mind. Seven would pass before the child could join the line. Jena tried to picture herself then, at twenty-one. It was not so very old; if she
were careful, she might still be tunnelling then.

  “You should have come in,” Kari said. “Mama was asking for you.”

  “How is she?”

  “She’s good. The Mothers said she’ll be fine.” Kari’s expression lightened. “And Papa … you should have seen him. He’s so proud. I thought he was going to bust out of his skin.”

  Jena couldn’t help but smile. Papa Dietz had always worn his feelings right on the surface.

  She extended a hand, thinking to stroke the baby’s downy fuzz of hair, but then stopped. There was a movement, barely there at first. But then more – eyelids fluttering, eyelashes trembling like the rapid beating of a dragonfly’s wings. A wriggling along the torso, the cocoon stretching as the baby made the slow climb out of sleep. And finally a sound, the faintest of mewlings.

  “She’s waking up!” Kari shot a glance at the back room. Mother Irina was visible through the open door. It looked like she was measuring, for one of the numbered ribbons was draped around her neck and there was a young girl with her.

  The baby gave another cry, louder this time, and Irina called out, “I’ll just be a minute.”

  “She said I could feed her.” Kari’s face was bright. “We can take turns if you want.”

  “It’s all right. You do it.”

  The baby had begun to squirm inside her wrappings. Not against them – it was too soon for that – but simply in the way you reach out when you first wake, finding your own borders again.

  Irina came through from the back room with a bottle and spoon in one hand. The girl she had been measuring followed, her wrappings now covered by a rough cotton dress. She lingered a moment, perhaps hoping for a glimpse of the baby, but Irina made a shooing motion with her free hand. “Off you go.”

  As the girl scampered away, Irina passed the bottle to Kari. It was less than a third full, perhaps a dozen small spoonfuls. “Just a little at a time. Don’t let her hurry you. She’ll cry for more but you have to be firm. You have to–”

  “I know.” There was an impatient edge to Kari’s voice. No tunneller needed Irina to tell her about feeding schedules. About wanting more – always more – until eventually you learned to hold the hunger at arm’s reach so that it hovered outside you. Still there, but bearable. Worth it.

  As if on cue, the baby drew in a swift breath and wailed, an outraged sound that rang up to the ceiling timbers and spread out to fill the room.

  “She can smell it.” Irina motioned to a chair by the window. “Sit down. I’ll bring her in a minute.”

  When Kari hesitated, Irina clicked her tongue. “Go on. It won’t hurt her to wait.” She fussed with the baby for a few minutes, checking her wrappings and stretching the measuring tape against her, then carried her to the chair.

  Kari cradled the baby and scooped spoonfuls of milk into her mouth. The delicate lips pursed in and out in a sucking motion. Sometimes they knocked against the spoon, spilling droplets of milk across her cheeks and chin.

  When she had settled into a rhythm, Kari relaxed and sighed. “She’s so small.”

  Jena put a hand on Kari’s shoulder, gave her the slightest of squeezes.

  “I wonder if she’ll be a cleanskin?”

  “If the rock allows it.”

  “Of course,” Kari said quickly. “I just … I hope so. It would be easier.”

  They fell silent for a while, the only sound the occasional snort or splutter as Kari spooned drops of milk into the baby’s mouth. Jena placed a hand on the tiny head. It was so perfect like this, so right. There was something in her that wanted to close the circle – one hand on Kari, the other on the baby, making a space into which no one else could enter, if only for this moment.

  There was an odd movement, then, the baby’s scalp seeming to pulse beneath Jena’s hand. As her fingers probed gently, she remembered. There were thin plates here that took time to knit together. Until the bone sealed itself there was this fragile border between inside and out. And so you could feel it – the heart beating in the head. Was it her own papa who had told her this, or Papa Dietz? She had been so young when Kari’s family took her in she sometimes had trouble separating memories of one from the other. But she did know this: that it would take only the slightest pressure to rupture it. It made her queasy to think on it.

  She looked past Kari, through the window on the far side of the room. Light slanted through the open shutters and played across the nearby beds. Outside, people hurried past, heading for the centre of the village. A thin line of smoke rose above the Square and it was towards this that they flocked, but there was no threat this time, no cause for alarm.

  Kari inclined her head in the direction of Jena’s gaze. “Do you think they’ll roast a bird?”

  “Maybe two.” It had been a day. It was the least the village could do to welcome such a daughter.

  The baby began to fret. The bottle was empty. Kari dropped the spoon inside, where it came to rest with a hollow clatter. Then she smiled down at her sister, her arms tightening around her.

  “All gone,” she cooed softly. “No more.”

  “Another bowl?”

  Father knows what Lia’s answer will be. He ladles more stew from the pot without waiting for a reply.

  Lia breathes in the steam that rises from the glistening surface. The stew is mouth-watering – rich and full of flavour. Ripe tomatoes have coloured it a deep red and Father has added juicy chunks of orange and yellow peppers. Lia has seen where these grow; there is a farm on the other side of Shorehaven she passes on her way to the mountain. Brightly coloured vegetables stand in seemingly endless rows, their skins ablaze in the sun, which rises from the ocean and drenches the plains until late into the afternoon.

  “I’ll take some too.” Mother holds out her bowl. “That was a good plump bird.”

  “I set the snare again. Maybe I’ll get another tomorrow.”

  “So soon?” Father raises his eyebrows.

  “Maybe.” Lia blows onto her stew then lifts a thick spoonful to her mouth. Though there is no shortage of landbirds on the island, they usually take longer to trap. But lately she has been setting her snare by the mountain, where people seldom go. Perhaps it is that the birds there are less wily, more trusting. Perhaps it is simply that there are more of them.

  Father says that one day he will teach Lia how to loose an arrow, to fell a skybird, but she is not sure she wants to learn. There is something about seeing them soar that makes her heart lift; it feels wrong to bring them down.

  She takes a mouthful of stew, chews slowly. The bird is tender on her tongue, the juices thick and satisfying. She sets her spoon down, slipping it into the broth like a fisherman drops a line into the ocean.

  “Tomorrow,” she says.

  SEVEN

  “Three!” Calla clapped her hands. “Can you believe it?”

  She was standing by Jena at the long table where food for the feast had been laid out. Large platters were piled high with spiced yams and vegetables and fresh bread from the bakery. There was baked fish and a heavy pot of rabbit stew. And directly in front of them sat three plump birds, fresh off the spit. As they watched, one of the Mothers took up a knife and began to carve.

  Calla jiggled on the balls of her feet, her gaze fixed eagerly on the meat.

  “Just a little,” Jena cautioned. “We’ll go inside again soon.”

  “I know that.” Calla turned to Jena. “Still … it’s good, isn’t it?”

  Though most would not get to taste them, just seeing the birds made something in you sing. Since their ancestors, accustomed to abundance, had hunted out the landbirds generations ago, skybird had become their most precious meat. A skybird was not like a fish or a rabbit. You could not just set a snare or cast a net and wait for the hapless creature to stumble in. A skybird called for a keen eye, an unerring arrow. To have one at a feast was luxury enough; for there to be three spoke of the value the Mothers placed on this tiny new life.

  Jena watched as the soft slic
es of flesh fell away from the bone. When she was little she had felt sorry for the birds – one minute wheeling high above, the next plunging groundwards. When one fell from the sky the others would scatter for a moment, circling, and then resume formation, taking up the empty space as if it had never been there.

  There was something sad about that thought, but natural too. A thing gone was a thing gone. There was nothing those that remained could do but observe the loss, fly on.

  “Forty and forty,” Calla breathed. “I can’t even imagine.”

  “Oh, you should see her. She–”

  “Jena? Do you want mash?” The familiar voice made Jena start. Petria stood on the other side of the table, a serving spoon in one hand, a plate in the other. Until last week, she had been one of them, tucked into the centre of the line. Now, it was as if she had always been elsewhere. Her hair hung loose about her face; she scooped yam mash from the pot with an easy confidence.

  Before Jena could reply, the Mother who had been carving began piling slices of meat onto the plate. “Of course she’ll take some, child. And plenty of it.”

  Calla raised an eyebrow. “I thought we were going inside soon.”

  Jena flushed. “It’s not for me. It’s–”

  “I know,” Calla said. “I’m teasing.”

  The others were back at the house. Though everyone loved a feast, Mama Dietz was too tired to come out. Kari was keeping her company while Papa Dietz made soup. With the food Jena brought back, they would have their own feast, just the four of them.

  Once Calla had her plate, Jena turned from the table and began making her way through the crowd of people that thronged nearby.

  “Will you sit for a while?” Calla gestured at the fire pit in the centre of the Square. Low benches ringed its perimeter; later, people would gather there with their meals, talking and celebrating deep into the night. The rough flagstones nearby were burnished by the firelight, glowing with a warmth that made them seem almost alive. Orange fingers of flame reached skywards; some spiralled into smoke while others curled back upon themselves, collapsing into embers.