A Single Stone

by Meg McKinlay

  “Kari?”

  There was no answer, just a confusion of limbs. Girls struggled to right themselves, to disentangle. The light flickered, then steadied. The shadows stopped spinning but still Jena couldn’t see. The weight of the other girls was on her and it took all the restraint she could summon not to push them away.

  “Kari!” she repeated, more loudly this time.

  “I’m out.” The voice that answered was shaky, as though it were fighting for balance. “I’m–”

  “You’re hurt.” It was Min who spoke. She lowered the lamp, tracking it along Kari’s body. Loren leaned back and Jena was finally able to see down the line. Kari was half-collapsed on the floor of the passage, arms outstretched, her hands still clutching Calla’s. Her pants hung loosely in ragged strips where they had caught and shredded on the rock. She was bruised and bleeding. But none of that mattered.

  “Are you broken?” Jena asked.

  Kari hauled herself up onto her elbows, then her knees. She ran her hands down her side, along her hips, her legs, gingerly at first, then more firmly.

  “No,” she said finally. “I think I’m okay. I …” She raised her head. “I’m sorry, Jena.”

  Jena gave a tight shake of her head. “It’s not your fault.”

  Perhaps it was her own, for having led them this way, her thoughts upon her own purpose rather than that of the line, or the mountain. But that was not a question for now. Her eyes sought Kari’s across the tunnel. “You’re all right, then?”

  In reply, Kari nodded sharply, her lips pressed together.

  Jena motioned along the line. “Pass me the lamp.”

  Then she turned away down the tunnel, and began to crawl.

  Deep in the mountain, Lia turns her head towards a sound.

  It is muffled, distant, an echo coming to her through thick layers of stone. And so it cannot be what it sounds like, which is a voice, screaming.

  Perhaps it is a skybird. Something outside, wheeling, calling.

  Up ahead, there is a sliver of light, the edge of the sky leaking into the mountain. She had thought the village was at her back, but the fissures she has followed through the rock have led her up and down and all about. Somewhere along the way she must have got turned around. The mountain, she has learned, is full of such tricks.

  She waits awhile, listening, but the sound does not come again.

  Home soon, she tells herself. A fire in the hearth. Dinner. She must check her snare. Yesterday she lost track of time while she was in here and came out into darkness – too late to gather firewood, too late to catch the bird she had promised Father for the pot.

  She must not let that happen again. It is one thing to come to the mountain; she must not neglect her chores on the outside.

  She is turning back when she sees it. The smallest shift in the light – a shadow slipping across it?

  It must be a skybird. Not something to snare but to see – to watch quietly from a secret place, unobserved.

  She will go home soon. Just not quite yet.

  It is the slimmest crack in the stone but it is enough. She turns towards it and begins to crawl.

  FOURTEEN

  Oh, it was high. Higher than Jena had expected.

  They were above the canopy of the forest, looking down on the treetops. The sun had not yet crested the peaks of the mountain behind them; on the far side of the valley, the village was deep in shadow.

  She leaned out, taking stock of the space, of their options. The sheer face of the mountain loomed from all sides – a sudden drop falling away below, the same rising above and around. There was no slope here, no convenient ladder of stone. There was nothing a girl could point to and say, There is the way.

  But to go back? She shook her head. They were out now and must remain so. Kari was injured and had been close to panic; she needed to rest and heal. There were rocks here they could anchor to. Rocks that reached deep into the heart of the mountain, whose strength would secure their descent.

  She took one end of the rope in the palm of her hand, feeling the fibres rub against her skin. Although they trained for it, they did not often descend like this. And it was rare for them to do so outside the mountain. Usually when they dropped a line it was because a shaft had opened up beneath them, the harvest at its base and no way to get there but straight down.

  “Are we going out?” It was Asha who spoke. The passage was wider here and the girls had gathered just shy of the opening.

  “Yes,” Jena replied. “We’ll go on the rope. But I want you in the middle, Kari. You can swap with Min.”

  It was a split-second decision but one which immediately felt right. Kari would feel more secure flanked by the others just now, and her injury meant she might need help starting her descent.

  There was something else in it too though – a reason Jena had not simply swapped the last two girls, directing Calla to bring up the rear. It was a way of telling Min that she had noticed – her calm, her steadiness; these things should be acknowledged, and granted a certain kind of faith.

  The girls untied themselves and Jena secured the rope near the opening. Though the pull from their descent would make it impossible for the rope to slip upwards, she nonetheless selected a tall rock that curved inwards at the bottom. She drew the rope in tight at the base, tying an extra knot, and then another.

  At this height, it didn’t hurt to secure yourself against even the impossible.

  Once the rope was in place, she fed it back through her legs and then up around her chest and shoulder. She wasted no time heading down, feet planted flat against the rock, one hand in front, gripping the rope, the other behind, feeding it through.

  About a third of the way, she paused. Her lead foot had come away from the rock and was trailing in empty space. There was an overhang here – a point where the mountain sloped sharply back towards itself. But the angle was gentle enough and with a little manoeuvring she was able to swing past and into the rock face below.

  Before long, she was down, her toes reaching for ground. She stepped back and worked herself free from the rope, then looked beyond the edge of the overhang to where the others waited.

  “All right!” she called, and immediately the rope was drawn up the rock face, snaking back and forth as Asha positioned herself on it. A few minutes later, her legs swung over the ledge and she began the journey down.

  Jena reached for the tail of the rope, taking the end in both hands. There was no way to act as a brake but it felt wrong to let the rope dangle in space.

  Loren followed Asha and then it was Kari’s turn. She took longer than the others, wincing as the rope fed along her injured side. Her tattered pants hung loose and though she had gathered them around her as best she could, Jena could see that her leg was bloodied and torn. Even the unbroken skin was purpling into mottled bruises.

  Still, Kari descended smoothly and did not cry out; it wasn’t long before she stood beside Jena on the ground, breathing heavily. She motioned to the rope. “Do you want me to hold it?”

  “Just rest.” Jena pointed to where Asha and Loren had settled on the fringe of the forest, their backs against tree trunks. As Kari joined them, she turned her attention back to the rope – to Renae, then Calla, and finally, Min.

  Min came down as deftly as if she had done this every day of her life. The rhythm of her hands on the rope, the ease with which her body folded into and out of itself.

  She had done so well today, better than anyone might have hoped. Jena resolved to tell her so on the way back; she would take her aside, let the others walk ahead for a time.

  Her mind was on this when the rope jerked in her hand.

  Her fingers closed reflexively about it, or tried to. It whipped erratically, like it had been caught in a sudden storm.

  “Min?” The sun was cresting the top of the mountain just above, darts of light shooting through the narrow spaces between the peaks. It was blinding, the sudden bright force of it hurting her eyes. It took an act of wil
l to continue to stare into it, but she did so, straining to make out the shape of the girl.

  The rope had stilled and Jena took up the end again, feeling herself exhale. Above, in the wash of light, Min seemed to have stopped. She was at the lip of the overhang, poised on the rope.

  There was a slight movement and Min leaned in towards the face of the mountain. Perhaps she was troubled by the overhang, trying to find the best way past. “It’s all right,” Jena called. “It’s easy. Just–”

  There was no sound. No scream. The rope was yanked from her hand, searing heat against her palms. Going and then gone.

  For a moment, pure stillness. The valley held its breath.

  Then let it go.

  Clouds in front of the sun. A shape becoming clear. Hands flailing, feet kicking, holding onto nothing. A figure, freewheeling in the sky. The rope unravelling around Min as she tumbled, as she fell.

  Clear of the rope, now, stumbling, as if she were searching for a foothold in the air.

  It seemed slow but must have been quick. So quick. Behind Jena, someone screamed.

  Min!

  Jena’s hands grabbed pointlessly for the rope.

  Make yourself limp. Be soft upon the ground.

  The Mothers’ words spun through her head, useless.

  Oh. It was high. Higher than she had expected.

  Oh. It was a long way to fall.

  It is not her fault.

  Lia tells herself this but she does not believe it.

  When she presses her face to the crack, she sees not a skybird but a girl. A small white face, neat black hair, lively eyes darting.

  The girl does not notice her at first. And why would she? There is so much for her to see out there in the sky. She must have the whole village from here and far beyond too. The great flat of the land stretching all the way to the coastline and beyond. The dazzling blue of the sea.

  She is an odd-looking girl but Lia would like to know her. Because if she is up here on the rock, she is a girl who likes secret places, who wants to see for herself no matter what people say. Perhaps the kind of girl who might be a friend.

  So Lia speaks, softly at first. “Hello?”

  And when the girl looks around, startled, then shakes her head as if to knock loose some ridiculous idea that has crept inside, she tries again, more loudly.

  “Hello!” And manages now to wedge her fingers through the crack a little lower down, so her hand is reaching out – just slightly.

  The girl’s eyes widen; her lips part. Her pale face jerks to one side. She is swinging, somehow. There is a rope and her hands are on it and then they are not.

  Fingertips brush Lia’s for one fragile heartbeat and then they are gone.

  The girl’s eyes are all surprise as she falls backwards, reaching, scrambling, her hands closing over and over on nothing but air.

  And then she is gone.

  Far below, the sound of screaming. No way to think this a bird.

  It is not her fault, Lia tells herself. But oh, she does not believe it.

  FIFTEEN

  They put Min in the ground under a cloudless sky.

  Her brothers formed a ragged line, their mama and papa between them, the Mothers behind, heads bowed. Jena stood to one side, flanked by the other girls. Kari’s hand slipped into hers, squeezed.

  As the earth closed above Min, her mama stepped forwards, hands clenched at her sides. A sob escaped her throat and her knees seemed about to buckle. But then she straightened and turned back to those who had gathered in the clearing.

  It was almost the whole village. There was no time at this end of the season – no time for anything but the chopping of wood and the laying in of stores – but still they had come.

  “She was a good girl,” her mama said. “She worked hard.”

  You could see the daughter in the mama, Jena thought. Something about the shape of the nose, the jaw. The neat, compact lines of her body.

  Unbidden, the image of that small figure flashed before her, the crumpled bundle at her feet.

  Time had seemed to stop. There was a moment when she felt that if she could just take a step back she might unstitch something, reverse it. That there must be something she could do to put this right.

  Her burning hand, reaching for the girl. The soft head, the downy fuzz at the nape of her neck suddenly unbearable. She thought of Ailin, of what was ahead. Of Min, and what was behind. All those years – wrapping, training, hoping. The barest handful of harvests. This.

  Min’s mama turned to the Mothers. “It is the way, I know. I do not question it. But–”

  There was a cry from one of Min’s brothers, a raw sound like an animal might make.

  Thom. All at once, Jena was inside the mountain again, snug against the stone while the girls’ easy banter ricocheted about her. Precious. She bit her lip, gripped Kari’s fingers hard.

  Mother Berta placed an arm around Min’s mama, drawing her into the folds of her cloak. “It is a great sadness,” she said. “But it is the way.”

  Beside her, Mother Vera held up a hand. As one, the crowd stilled, waiting. They had come to farewell a daughter, but they had come for this too. To hear the reason, to make sense of it.

  When tragedy struck the line, there was always a reason. It meant the mountain had something to teach them, a message they needed to hear. But the village had never lost a daughter like this. If the mountain took a girl, it did so inside. It kept her, holding her deep within its heart. It did not throw her off like a creature swatting an insect from its hide.

  There was a message here, but they could not divine it. That was the work of the Mothers, who spoke the language of the rock, whose ancestors had emerged impossibly from its crevices. Yesterday, they had spoken with the girls of the line, each one in turn, and then quietly among themselves. They had visited the mountain, had sat in its shadow, contemplating the point where the rope hung slackened at its side.

  The rope had not broken. It had not snapped or frayed. Min had simply fallen, dropping soundlessly to the earth as swiftly and cleanly as a bird felled by an arrow, mid-flight.

  Vera began speaking, her reedy voice cutting through the crisp morning air. “We should not tie ourselves to the rock. Nor indeed one to the other.” She looked out across the gathered faces. “We go in as seven and it is the mountain that binds us. It was the way of the first Seven. It should be our way too.”

  Voices swirled around Jena, uncertain. Berta’s eyes met her own and now the old Mother stood alongside Vera. “We need nothing so crude as rope. We must trust.”

  That level gaze, calm and reassuring, blanketing the crowd.

  Of course. How did we not see this? The voices were soft at first, then rose to a hum, the crowd seeming to form a single voice.

  The Mothers’ words hung in the air. Kari’s hand was suddenly clammy in Jena’s.

  The rope. It had been part of their training from the very beginning. Through the loops, like so. Check the knots. Again.

  “The rock cut one rope,” Vera went on, “and we did not listen. We thought we knew better.”

  Jena shot a glance at Asha. Her face was red and blotchy, her eyes downcast.

  “We angered the mountain and it shrugged our daughter off,” Berta said. “We will not make the same mistake again. We learn from the past so as not to repeat it.” She turned to Min’s mama. “It is an important lesson. Thank you for giving us your daughter so we might learn it.”

  “Thank you,” the Mothers echoed.

  Berta reached into her cloak and withdrew something, held it aloft. Then she took the woman’s hand. “A stone for your daughter.” She pressed it into the opened palm, closed the fingers over it as you might those of a child.

  Min’s mama knelt beside the mound of earth.

  Thank you. The refrain was taken up by voices in the crowd.

  Thom stood on the other side of Min’s mama. He was so slight, so pale. There was a brother at each shoulder, as if they were securing him bet
ween them, holding him up. Luka was nearby, on the edge of the family. His lips were unmoving, his mouth set in a thin line.

  “Jena.” Asha’s voice was in Jena’s ear. “I’m sorry about the rope. I didn’t think. I …”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I should have listened. I didn’t realise.”

  “None of us did.” Her reply was sharper than she had intended. There was an unease gnawing at her, something shadowy taking shape on the edge of her thoughts.

  The mountain had not seemed angry. The day – the rock – had been calm about them. A rope had frayed on a sharp stone but that was not so strange. Once or twice a season such a thing might happen. When it did, they simply cut and retied, continued on their way.

  As the mourners began to disperse, Jena let the crowd flow past like the waters of the spring around a log. The ground above Min’s grave was raw, fresh as a wound.

  She looked beyond to where her mama lay. In the long grass, the glass from the bottle glinted as a wan sunbeam struggled through the leafy canopy. Tears pricked the corners of Jena’s eyes, blurring the light. From here, Mama was little more than a ripple on the grassy surface. The earth had sealed over her, leaving no trace.

  Except for me, she thought. I am her trace.

  If there is no one left to speak for her, it has to be me.

  Her hand slipped from Kari’s and into her pocket, closing tightly around the paper. There was a message here. She would learn how to read it.

  SIXTEEN

  “Jena!” The voice that called through the trees was half-shout, half-whisper.

  Kari had gone ahead to visit Ailin, and Jena was on her way back to the village. She had chosen a roundabout path, hoping to avoid conversation, but now Luka appeared, beckoning.

  “In here. I need to talk to you.”

  There was something pleading in his eyes. She turned off the path with a sigh.

  Luka pressed a finger to his lips. He began to walk deeper into the forest, motioning for her to follow. The undergrowth was not as thick as elsewhere and when they came to a stop a few minutes later, Jena realised why. There was a path here once, though it had not been used for many years.