A Single Stone

by Meg McKinlay

  This was the place she and Kari used to call the skeleton houses – the quarrying huts in which their ancestors had sheltered after Rockfall, thinking it would not be long before they found a way out, or rescue came from the other side. In a way, this was where the village had begun. Above, the canopy of trees was thick enough that hardly any light penetrated. From here, you could almost believe there was no such thing as sky.

  Jena shivered. As a child, she’d had nightmares about the ruined frames sunk deep in forest, the old timber collapsed upon itself like crumbling ribs.

  Luka sat heavily on the ground near a curtain of creeping rag-vine, wedging his back against the corner of what might once have been a wall. Jena settled opposite on a rotting beam; it was half-sunk in dirt, as if it were returning to the earth.

  “It’s Thom,” Luka said. “I have to do something. I can’t just let them freeze.”

  Jena met his eyes. “They’ve been doing this for a long time, Luka. They’ll find a way.” She did not speak the dark thought that slunk into her mind. That if nothing else they had one fewer mouth to feed.

  “How can they?” Luka’s voice cut across the stillness of the forest. “Seven of them? On three scoops of mica?”

  “Three? But …” Jena’s skin was suddenly cold. With Min gone, her allocation would be too. Five sons, a broken mama, a winter fast approaching. “The Mothers won’t do that. They can’t.” Her fingers worried at the edge of the beam beneath her. The fragile wood crumbled at the lightest touch.

  “They already have. I heard them talking last night. They left an extra half-scoop, for the lesson.” Luka snorted. “Thank you for giving us your daughter so we might learn it.” He stared at Jena, as if challenging her to argue. “We have to get him some.”

  “But we can’t. I–”

  “I thought to take some from ours, but Berta … she’s too careful. Everyone is. No one will give any up, and they’ll notice if it’s gone.”

  “But it’s the same for the pouches,” Jena said. “The girls know what they’ve harvested. There’s no way I could–”

  “I didn’t mean that. I thought … maybe you could go in.”

  “On my own?”

  Luka flushed. “I just thought there might be some way.”

  “It’s not that simple, Luka. I’d have to go deep. People would notice I was gone.” Jena broke a splinter of wood from the beam and traced a thin line in the dirt. “I can’t just–”

  “All right.” Luka’s voice was clipped. “Forget I asked.” He reached up and pulled a tendril of vine down towards him. He did not break it from the plant but began coiling the end around one leg. The vine seemed endless; it straightened as he pulled, dragging more with it, and before long his leg was a mass of dark green fibres.

  He gave a wry smile. “Maybe if I wrap this tightly enough I can go in myself.”

  Jena felt something in her loosen. With everything Luka had been saying, he seemed less like Berta’s grandson and more like her friend.

  She bent the wood between her fingers, snapping it in half. “I want to show you something.” She reached into her pocket and withdrew the crumpled piece of paper, then pressed it into the palm of his hand.

  He smoothed the paper out across his knees as she had done in the mountain. “What is this?”

  Jena explained – about the smell, the broken bottle, Min’s mama, the ledgers. And what Luka himself had said, that night at the feast.

  “But that doesn’t mean anything. The Mothers … they know things. Things other people can’t see. The same way …” He groped for words. “The same way you know the rock. There might have been signs.”

  Jena shook her head. “The ledger said ripen. That’s something you do … something they did.”

  “And this was there?”

  “It was with the bottle. It’s the names of all the mamas they’ve given it to. And that’s the dosage.” She plucked the paper from his lap and pointed at the tiny notations scribbled alongside each name. “See how it changes a bit each time? And the names … they’re all tunnelling mamas.”

  A deep furrow creased Luka’s brow. “You think they’re doing it for the line?”

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but …”

  “Forty and forty,” Luka breathed. He traced the words with the tip of one finger, like they were something he might read by touch. “But didn’t you say Thom’s mama had it too?”

  “That was different. They weren’t trying to … ripen her.” The word was bitter in Jena’s mouth. “Min said the baby had died; the tonic was just to help get it out.”

  “But what about Min? She was in the line. If you’re right, wouldn’t her mama have had it then?”

  “I thought about that. But then I realised … Renae’s mama isn’t there either.”

  “So?”

  “They were never in the line. Their mamas … they’re not tunnelling families. Min only has brothers. Renae’s sister works in the bakery.”

  Jena watched as understanding grew on Luka’s face. It had taken her a while to make sense of it herself. The Mothers were careful. They knew what they were doing was risky and so they only chose certain mamas for the tonic – those who had tunnelled themselves and whose daughters were most likely to do the same.

  Daughters who came earlier and smaller, if the rock allowed it. Seven moons? Six?

  Thanks be.

  But sometimes they got it wrong. Sometimes a mama’s fragile body simply broke under the strain.

  Sometimes they put a mama in the ground and then added a spidery note. Too strong. Reduce dosage.

  Luka’s eyes widened. “Berta said the mountain was showing us favour.”

  Jena did not reply.

  “She said that’s why daughters were getting smaller. She …” He trailed off. “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” Whenever Jena tried to think past what she had learned, she hit a wall as sheer and as steep as the face of the mountain itself.

  “Let me see what I can find out,” Luka said finally. “I can ask her things.”

  Jena hesitated.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

  She considered for a moment, then held out the paper. “Take this.”

  As Luka reached for it, there was a sound in the nearby undergrowth. The rustling of dry leaves, a thin branch bending and then snapping back into position. He rose awkwardly, wincing as the vine tightened about his leg. “What’s that?”

  Jena turned towards the sound. It was late in the morning for a rabbit but there was definitely something. It was low to the ground, a dirty brown colour flashing through the spaces between the leaves. There was a scrabbling sound and the bushes heaved on either side.

  Wings?

  “A landbird?” Luka whispered. “It can’t be.”

  Jena held her breath. But as the creature flapped wildly, sending leaves flying up around it, she saw there was something haphazard, lopsided, about its movements.

  This was not a landbird running madly through the undergrowth but a skybird – trying to take off.

  “There.” Jena pointed as it broke clear of the bushes. But Luka was already moving, circling behind the bird in a wide loop.

  “We can get it!” He stripped the vine from his leg and motioned to Jena. “Go round that side.”

  The bird was between them now, but Jena was closer. She tiptoed towards it, placing her feet carefully to avoid sudden noise. Still the bird turned, as if guided by some inner sense. Its wings came up again and at the same time Jena reached down, folding them back onto its body, gathering the bird between her hands. Beneath her palms, she felt the wings trying to beat but she resisted, holding them firm against its sides.

  “Plenty of meat on it.” Luka picked up a stone from the ground nearby.

  Jena looked down at the bird. The edge of one wing was folded slightly back onto itself but there was no other sign of injury. Was this all it took to bring a creature low?

  She held
the bird and Luka held the stone. They regarded each other silently.

  He had wanted her to catch it and she had. But now it was here, its warm body trembling in her hands. And it seemed impossible to think on what should come next.

  She had seen dead birds before, broken skybirds with arrows in their sides or their necks bent at awkward angles. The hunters brought them back, slung across their chests or between poles with their feet tied together, glassy eyes staring, slackened beaks gaping.

  But this was nothing like that. The bird pulsed with life, straining upwards. When Jena relaxed her grip, the bent wing began to straighten and extend. Perhaps all it had needed was to be clear of the undergrowth. Perhaps it was simply a thing that had lost its way, its family. That might find them again if given the chance.

  Luka did not raise his hand. “We could take it back. I could carry it.”

  Jena considered. The Mothers would be glad of it. They would keep it in a cage behind the Stores to fatten it up, then cook it fresh for a feast.

  Someone would kill it but it wouldn’t be them.

  Did that change things, even a little?

  The bird turned its head, seeming to fix a beady eye upon Jena. She looked at Luka and something unspoken passed between them. He let the stone fall to the ground at his feet.

  Jena held the bird against her chest, cupping her hands beneath its wings, freeing them. They began to flap immediately, reaching out. It was chaotic at first, all struggle and no symmetry. She held fast and waited, and before long the wings began to beat together, finding a rhythm.

  She raised the bird aloft – head height and then beyond, as high as she could manage. Then released.

  It began as a kind of staggering motion, as if the bird were trying to grasp something, scrambling for an invisible handhold. Jena held her breath, hoping, willing it on. And then the wind flared beneath it, and it seemed to mount the air, lifting up and up. It reached the canopy and Jena thought oh, for the branches were thick with leaves and there was no way through.

  But as she thought this, the bird gave a flick of its tail and pushed higher and she saw that there was a space – were spaces – after all. That there had been all along, if you were a bird.

  And if you were not – if you were a girl, feet held fast to earth – you could at least follow its passage, stand below and watch as it went through, turning this way and then that like an old Mother threading the finest of needles.

  Luka stood beside Jena, his neck craned skywards. They watched as the bird disappeared, until the only sign it had been there at all was the quivering of branches, a handful of leaves falling quietly to the forest floor around them.

  There was no need for either to say what they were thinking. They had done a wrong thing, a right thing.

  They would tell no one, ever.

  She will tell no one, ever.

  Papa has been unwrapping her. Jena is five and she has to keep to the schedule. But at bedtime Papa says, What can it hurt? and Who will know? And when the last of the wrappings falls to the floor, he breathes out like he is the one being released, and says, There. Isn’t that better?

  Jena cannot answer. Though there is no girl who doesn’t long for this sometimes, it is not better. It is easier; it is more comfortable. But that is not the same thing. A girl unwrapped will never make the line.

  When Papa leaves, he takes the wrappings with him and so she pulls her blankets tight about her. This will do for now and soon enough it will not matter because she will be at the Centre. The Mothers said she is to spend the winter there with the little ones. Five is too old for that but she doesn’t mind. She will be with her sister and when spring comes the old Papa will be back. All he needs is time, the Mothers said, and winter will give him that.

  The baby will grow over the winter. Already she is changing. When she is unwrapped, she reaches for things – a hand, a face. When she is wrapped, she tilts herself from side to side, as if she were trying to roll, to tip herself over.

  Seeing this makes Jena feel strange, puts an itching in her limbs. And when the baby’s forehead knots in frustration, she feels her own do the same.

  When the baby cries, Jena sits at her bedside. I know, she croons. I know.

  It is hard when you are little and cannot understand. When you do not know about the mountain and the line.

  One day you will see, she thinks. One day I will tell you.

  But for now, she strokes and soothes and soon enough her sister falls asleep, and is still.

  At home, there is no one to soothe Jena. She lies in bed awake.

  Down the darkened hall a door clicks. Footsteps pad nearby and voices drift across the night.

  It is something she once loved – the sleepy sound of Mama and Papa, their soft voices murmuring while her eyelids became heavier, sinking towards sleep.

  But there is no Mama now and Papa’s voice is different. It sounds cracked, as if someone has taken an axe and split it open.

  Trust them?

  Another voice, gentler. Darius, we must.

  Her door is closed but light leaks in underneath. It is late. She knows this because the moon is high overhead and she knows this because slivers of white light slice through the roof timbers, making ghostly fingers upon the walls and the floor.

  Three stripes of moonbeam on her bed means three too-large gaps. Means corridors through which winter might reach its icy fingers.

  She told Papa about them last week but he said, Hush, child. Not now. And looked past her, like he was seeking a point far in the distance.

  It is too bright to sleep. The moon is on her face, pale and cold.

  The voices down the hall rise and fall. It is late for voices, especially this loud. Even the soft voice is louder now and she knows who it is. It is Uncle Dietz and this is lucky because he is good with roofs, like Papa.

  She pushes back the blankets and swings her legs out onto the coarse matting.

  She will tell Uncle Dietz about the moonlight, about the cold. He will listen and say she is good and helpful. And tomorrow he will put on his belt and climb up with his hammer and his nails and he will fix things.

  At the end of the hall, she hesitates. She will wait her turn because that is what big girls do when other people are talking and that is what is happening now. The kitchen door is ajar and words upon words are spilling from it, fast and blurry.

  I can’t, Karl. Could you?

  You have to. What else can we–

  Something. I don’t know. There has to be something.

  It is the way, Darius. You know that. It–

  How can it be the way? Papa is shouting now. Look at what it does to them! My Clara. And Jena … it’s all she wants. She will follow her mama and … I can’t let them, Karl. I–

  And then there is a sound – something falling, shattering?

  She pushes the door open. The light is suddenly bright and Papa is there in the middle of it. His fist is on the table. On the floor, pieces of a bowl lie broken, sharp-edged. Uncle Dietz is half-sitting, half-standing.

  I’m sorry, Darius. I just meant–

  I know what you meant.

  There is something brittle in Papa’s voice. The way his whole body seems clenched, the something-wild in his eyes. It is almost not Papa.

  Everything here is wrong. Papa and Uncle Dietz stare at each other, wary, as if the space between them is too great to cross.

  Papa? Jena steps into the kitchen. When he sees her, something changes in Papa’s face.

  Jena? What are you doing up?

  I can’t sleep.

  We woke you, Uncle Dietz says. I’m sorry. Then he leans down, frowning. Why aren’t you wrapped? He turns to Papa. Darius?

  Jena tugs his sleeve, turns him back to her. I’m off tonight. The Mothers said.

  But Kari …

  She’s four, Jena says. I’m five.

  Of course. Uncle Dietz scoops her up. Come on, then. Let me put you back.

  She is flopped over his shoulde
r and they are halfway down the hall. Papa stands in the open door of the kitchen, one hand raised in a funny little wave.

  As they step through her doorway, Jena raises her own in reply.

  She is five. And that is old enough to know that some things are secrets.

  He has grown strange to her. But he is Papa. So she will tell no one.

  SEVENTEEN

  “That one?” Mother Anya pointed at a dark shape easing its way through the slats of the maze.

  She was flanked by several other Mothers. Their shrewd gazes darted back and forth as a series of girls took their turn in the narrow passages. Just a few remained inside now; a handful lurked nearby, their faces downcast.

  After letting the bird go, Jena and Luka had separated in the forest. While he headed for the Square, she skirted the base of the mountain to the back of the village, thinking to slip home quietly. But as she rounded the last corner, she realised her mistake. A crowd had gathered at the maze. It was crawling with girls, their eyes shining. In the long shadow of the rock, their families, fresh from a funeral, stood willing them on.

  When they saw Jena, they called to her. My daughter … you must see her. My girl … she was forty-eight, forty-nine.

  And then the Mothers beckoned her over. To watch, to help choose.

  The girl Anya had indicated reached an open part of the maze. An arm protruded first, followed by a fair head. She might have been nine, Jena thought, though it was always hard to tell.

  Berta turned to Jena. “What do you think?”

  Jena could not bring herself to reply. Although she had done this before, today was different. Standing here, she felt like a hunter sizing up a bird or a rabbit. Which to take, and which to leave for another day?

  Someone had looked at her in this way once. How eager she had been. Just like these girls. And Kari too. Both of them waiting, hoping for their chance.

  “Child?”

  Jena bobbed her head in assent. The Mothers would make their choice in any case. Soon enough there would be a new girl behind her, the line replenished.