Vertical Media proudly presents Stellar Shock, an immersive
audiobook podcast experience from the visionary storytellers
at Vertical Media Book 1, Embers of Rebellion.
Chapter 3 Pearl SER Serafin stepped out of his uncle's mud
walled house, the faint heaviness of his uncle's voice
still pressing through his skull.
The knight grabbed him with its heat.
It was sticky, close, and filled with the kind of light that
brought out every line in a face torch poles stood hammered deep
into the soft jungle mud, ropes of lanterns running from gutters
and poles to branches and back again.
The glass in each Lantern shed yellow, muddled light wherever
it hung. The shadows seemed to gather up
tighter beneath the eaves. Sir looked right, letting his
eyes drift past the slope of the Seraphin plot, a slouching wood
fence, mud still clotted onto the rails by the floods 2
winters past. Beyond the fence shimmered the
houses of Tuitoma, the colours of cloth banners slung between
them like lines of drying laundry.
Every family had hung up whatever they could, patched
blankets, faded festival flags, scraps of dyed sheet.
A row of jars was set down outside the Adele house, each
with a little candle inside and paper shades that glowed white
and orange. He walked forward, the stones of
the lane pushed into the soles of his feet, through the holes
in his boots. Overhead, the big jungle moths
batted themselves against the Lantern glass.
A group of girls, maybe 8, maybe 12 years old, ran shrieking
around the mud rats, each holding a peeled stick that
sparked at the tip. The smoke trailed after their
laughter. Sir kept his eyes low.
The conversation floated off porches and through narrow
doors, voices singing the same old songs, talking the same
gossip by the well, jovial. Dalru and his son whittled
pieces of Greenwood for fire arrows.
They didn't notice Sir, as he walked past, but the sound of
their blades, long strokes, measured and dry, followed him
toward the main road. The centre of Twitoma, if it had
a centre, stretched around the big community hall.
Here, families gathered, wading through a river of feet.
Oxen yoke yawned near gateposts garlanded with real flowers, not
the paper ones. The oxen snuffled and chewed,
watching the crowd with eyes that never seemed to blink.
Boys chased a ribbon ball between clusters of legs,
shouting every time the ball slipped under a cart or boot.
Most years, nights here filled with quiet, the steady hush of
the woods, insects clicking their teeth in some unseen
chorus. Tonight the air squirmed with
excitement. Minstrels had come to Titty Toma
Reel minstrels in bright motley and wooden shoes.
The last time the minstrels had come, Sir had been shorter by a
head and afraid of anyone in a mask.
Tonight the crowd carried a fever.
Even the oldest, most stubborn villagers crept out of their
houses to sit on the steps with a cheap jug of wine cupped in
both hands. Sir watched old Mann Gourat get
helped to a bench by his daughter.
The woman's mouth was so tight against her teeth it had almost
vanished, but her eyes sat bright in her wrinkled face,
reflecting torture. Zur let the crowd carry him
toward the narrowing mouth of the lane.
Voices pressed in words at his shoulder, behind his ear, at his
elbow. Everybody seemed determined to
talk, to laugh, to jostle old wounds and old jokes.
Ahead, the doors of the main hall had swung open, a big black
curtain drawn across the low stage against the end wall.
Somebody had thrown coloured rugs over the dirt floor, and in
the light from the lanterns the room glowed with impossible
warmth. He stepped between two men
arguing good naturedly over the best river for fishing crabs.
He skirted around a woman haggling for a seat with a cold
clay jug of something that splashed purple stains on her
fingers. Sir got elbowed by a boy wearing
a single red shoe and a black sock who giggled and sprinted
away after pinching the Baker's daughter half a step past the
threshold. Something smacked his rib cage
from the side. He went sideways into the edge
of a bench and caught the flash of brown hair, long and stringy,
sticking out across his vision. It smelled of thick mud and the
cheap flower soap from the tatter's wife, Vera Rajada,
short and lean, her arms locked around him, face tucked in
against his chest. She dragged him almost off his
feet and laughed in his ear, too loud.
Breathless, Sir, you dummy. She stepped back, her hair in
her face, hands keeping him from bolting.
I saw you sneaking in like a mouse, you scared to death.
He grunted, stepped away 1/2 pace, and brushed her hair from
his left eye. Vera's eyes were a hard light
green, round and sharp as new peas.
She grinned, freckles lost in the shifting shadows from
swaying lanterns. He kept his face flat, but let
her see his relief. You knock me over one of these
times, Vera. You're going to have to drag me
to the blacksmith for new bones. She gave him another push
lighter. Don't get shy now.
Somebody's got to keep you practicing your falls.
He wrenched free but grabbed her hand, Less a handshake and more
a tug of war. Her fingers were calloused, the
nails chipped, but she squeezed back.
He tried to glare, but she just grinned wider.
She wore a patchwork dress with purple patches at the knees, the
fabric bunched under the belt her mother had mended with a
knot of hemp twine. A slice of skin showed where the
collar had torn and not been fixed.
Veera's family never seemed to care about sewing, despite her
mother's skill. From across the stretch of
Raglan floor, a handful of younger boys glanced over and
started up that rolling laugh that always followed Sir and
Vera. He shot them a quick sneer,
which only made them hoot louder and nudge each other with dirty
elbows. Vera elbowed him in the ribs.
Ignore them, they're just jealous I got here first.
He watched the crowds move, Kids slouching, old men, mothers
squeezing through with heavy baskets piled full of fried
dough and roasted fish. The smells flicked, Sir.
Ash yeast, cheap wine, sweet flower weed and animal fur,
sweat and nervous heat. Vera pulled hard on his sleeve,
grinning. Better get in there before all
the spots get taken. Unless you want to kneel on mud
all night, Sir. Let himself be dragged further
in, a hand pressed to his brow for the glare as the crowd
tightened through the Babble. New faces pressed in.
Farmers done up in their market shirts, young women with beads
in their braids, toddlers stumbling around, grown up feet.
He nearly kicked over an old dog sleeping under a stool.
The two of them crouched on a patch of carpet near the centre,
Vera's hand not leaving his wrist until he got settled all
around. Voices thudded and ricocheted in
the timbered hall, alive with the sort of energy the village
never had at council meetings. A slap hit his back.
SER, some idiot boy with sticky hands and Jack rabbit teeth,
locked an arm around SER's shoulders and yanked him so
close SER almost head butted a plate of caramel corn.
Viti, Balu and Lavu hung near both of them, heavy limbed and
shifting from foot to foot at the edge of the carpet.
Couldn't wait, could you? Vera's got you halfway broken
already. Sia rolled his eyes.
You stayed jealous, Viti. Maybe you'll catch up by the
next harvest. Viti grinned, letting his dirty
hand fall away. What's it matter?
Tonight's all about the music. I bet I can dance better than
you and Vera put together. He winked at Vera, who stuck her
tongue out and flicked him two fingers.
Balu Najlalu popped a bit of crust into his mouth and shook
his head. I'd like to see you dance, Vt,
but I'd rather not die from shame.
Vt grabbed at the hem of Sir's shirt, started his old
performance again, voice rising so the families at the edges of
the rug could hear. You'd better stick close, Sir.
Otherwise, Vera, I'll trade you off for a boy who can sing, or
at least who doesn't wear holes in his boots.
Then, slipping seamlessly back into the game, he crooned.
It's our first date, Sir. You promised me at the well, and
your word is your bond, right, Vera?
Vera snorted. She flicked her head to toss
hair from her mouth. He already backed out and sold
you to Lavuviti, didn't you hear?
The laughter at this swelled a few heads.
Turning to watch the banter, the villagers seemed content to let
the younger ones have their splash of drama.
Perfect. Viti said.
I'll tell everyone about our failed courtship.
Make sure you can't get hitched anywhere from here to the sea.
He threw an arm toward Balu and Lavu.
Come on, lovebirds, let's find seats before Sir here starts
reciting poems. The crowd closed around them,
Balu and Lavu moving off, their elbows digging into ribs as they
pressed for a spot. SER edged closer to Vera, who
dropped onto the mat with her thumb and started shoeing a
patch of mud away with the edge of her tunic.
She yanked him down by his shirt.
The hall was almost full. Every so often a door clattered
at the back and somebody tried to squeeze through, usually with
a bowl or a child or a blazing Lantern.
SER looked over his shoulder and caught Roland Chahal sitting
with his aunt and uncle, all three of them on cushions near
the back wall. Roland's thin face creased above
the cushion, Gray eyes bright under his thick black hair.
He waved with two fingers. Sir waved back before Vera
caught his arm again and made him sit properly.
Old Benki Cagle tramped along the wall, snuffing candles,
smoke unfurling from the Wicks. Cagle barely paused, as though
he'd done this 1000 times, the crowd giving him his space out
of respect or fear. He'd been blacksmith, surgeon,
and grave digger in his long tuiterman life.
Now he stubbed out a torch at Vera's right shoulder, sending a
cloud of stink across their row. The hall went from bright to
dim, torches vanishing until only the ones ringing the
makeshift stage remained. A hush grew along the benches.
Crickets in the grass beyond the windows seemed to pause a beat.
Then the black curtain twitched, shoes scraping on boards.
A performer swept out. The applause welled up, instant
and thick. Even those who would have
pretended indifference clapped, as if afraid to stand out in the
hush. The minstrel who came first wore
an ivory mask, carved smooth, painted with a broad sweep of
black across the eyes and a single red feather stuck through
a crack at the side. He wore layers of shirt in blue,
a vest in green, 2 sashes red, a muddy bolt of brown across his
chest, and a Cape that trailed red behind him.
The Cape pulled toward the stage's edge whenever he moved,
as if it wanted to leap into the crowd.
He lifted his hands, and every voice cut out.
It stayed silent for a heartbeat, the way a village
always does when something rare and strange is standing in its
midst. Then the minstrel spoke, voice
cutting through the hush. Ladies and gentlemen, I am
Cancion's amuse. Tonight we celebrate life,
happiness, and destiny. Shouts and stamping rose from
every part of the room. A girl at the side spilled half
her bowl of noodles on a mat and didn't even look down.
And Sion swung his arm for fresh silence, waited for it, then
pointed his gloved hand at the stage.
Tonight we bring you the music and stories of strange lands
from the far corners of Navara and the wildest hearts in Afiri.
Someone shouted from the back, shaped half as a joke, Stranger
than offer it. Laughter rolled again, the kind
that made teeth gleam in the dancing firelight.
Cancion didn't blink, didn't flinch, didn't offer a nod.
We will share our songs with you, and you will share your
voices. But all things begin with the
ceremony, the origin of us. He took three striding steps
along the front of the stage, light reflecting in painted
eyes. The room tensed and shifted,
getting ready. SER remembered this well.
The song and story passed from mouth to ear for as long as he'd
had memory. Tonight it felt older, sourer in
some part of himself. Cancion began, the words
spilling out low and level, every phrase cutting the air as
crisp as rain on roof tiles. That in the beginning there was
the Creator and there was darkness.
The words rolled and the story built light.
The four elements, the cool earth, the rivers, the trees,
the split of fire into shape and then into life.
Serre had always liked the middle best, the pieces where
things formed, where things changed.
The people nearest the stage started to shift, glancing
between the minstrel and each other, measuring the words
against their own stories, when the first of the keepers names
rang out. Tandros Sugiura, the Fireborn
stood and shoved their hands up. They roared until Cagle banged
the blacksmith's hammer against the stone slab and the room fell
quiet for the second name. The waterborne howled even
louder. Earth and wind came after the
crowd, marking every line with a voice so held quiet.
He never cheered for any, no matter who called, though
sometimes the urge hit. He watched Vera's hands as she
clapped against her thighs at the water lines.
Her skin stung from it, but she kept clapping until her palms
glowed. The finale of the tale came
quick. The Keeper of Keepers, the Seats
of Power, the placement of Lathia and the Black Spire.
All the formal markers of the world carved up and handed out.
But the Creator's Black Spire awaits his return.
Cancion finished, voice pitched just above a hush.
Somewhere down the center, a voice screamed.
Made the black Spire stay empty. The crowd thundered back,
repeating the call, and for half a minute it sounded as though
Tiatomo would blow the roof off the hall with a bouncing echo.
Cancion flung a hand upward and fireworks slipped from between
his shoes, squealing as they looped out into the low hanging
haze above their heads, Little pieces of silver burned blue
before snuffing in the air. Vera's mouth dropped open, her
hands trembling from clapping. She laughed, a rolling, warm
sound that pulled Sir closer. She nudged him and he tried to
mirror her smile, though it felt off kilter, toothy and nervous.
Musicians boiled out from behind the curtain. 3, then five, then
a full dozen, each marked by a different mask.
Bulls, eagles, Medusa, mountain shapes, all painted in crude
thick shapes over bone colored wood.
They hoisted pipes and flutes, pounded tambourines, their
layered robes swirling in streaks of blue, red, copper and
Gray. Above it all, Cancion stalked,
moving the way a big dog herds carves.
A whistle here, a gesture there, enough to get the crowd on its
feet. The music built, the first song
looped through around where the crowd sang with the chorus,
unsure and off key but defiant anyway.
SER felt every bone jostle under Vera's grip as she yanked him
up. They tumbled out onto the rug as
the Hall's circle opened, spinning him one way, then the
other, Vera's two lanky limbs catching at his waist, her feet
barely avoiding his toes as they crashed and reeled around the
knot of dancers. Serre's right knee cramped as
always. The bone ached from breaking it
last winter. Vera spun, belly laughing as
they came around and nearly toppled into one of the
flautists. Couples rotated around them.
Vt pushed through from the other direction, wearing a carved mask
with a crack at the chin, grabbed SER under the arm,
pulled him into a wild pinwheel, then back to Vera again.
SER moved with the panic of someone who was built for
digging rows, not dancing. A woman's skirt caught fire from
a spark, and three men and a boy stamped it out before she even
squeaked. The main hall spun, rugs
slipping, feet pounding, children screeching on the edges
with sugar and freedom. The minstrels ran through 4,
then six, then more songs, instruments swapped out between
numbers, ragged voices pushing up through the dark.
Every family had something to say, something to sing or shout.
Some ran from the hall for more jugs, or for clumps of cake, or
to drag in another wild uncle from the mud.
The heat climbed. Sweat pasted SER's shirt to his
back. The dirt floor grew sticky, feet
sliding and clutching at the soft spots where the rugs had
bowled up. Colors blurred faces, red arms,
brown hair flinging sweat in arcs.
Vera slipped her arm around Sears waist and pulled him into
a slower turn, then kicked a stray dog out of their circle
with her heel. The music grew stranger by the
hour, the tunes slanting into foreign time, masks exchanging
between musicians, voices blending into a heavy wash.
By midnight, the smoke hung low and thick, the lamps guttered,
sweat dripped from chins onto collars, and wine ran across the
floor in seep lines. Benki Kegel sat on a bench by
the wall, his hands slack in his lap, mouth pressed into a
pinched frown. Next to him, Man Gurat slumped
sideways, snoring onto her neighbour's shoulder, mug tipped
against the wood. Couples lay tangled at the edges
of the rugs, some staring at the haze, some face down,
insensible. The younger kids dozed on piles
of old coats. No one went home, Sir.
Hunched near the foot of the stage, the heat of bodies
pressed in and the stink coming up from feet spilled food and
the tar of cheap lamps rolled together.
He breathed through his mouth. Vera lay curled next to him,
hair in her face, skirt rucked at the knees, eyes shining.
In front of them, two minstrels fought to tune a battered old
liar, while another fiddled with his mask, a wooden eagle's face.
The others gathered up pipes or took deep pulls from a wineskin,
their movements rough, tired. The crowd had fallen half
silent, chatter dropping to whispers.
Some people had started packing up empty plates.
Muttering about whether the feast had been too rich or if it
was too hot in the hall. The big clock above the curtain
didn't work anymore, but everyone knew it was late.
Still, Cansion banged a drumstick on the boards and the
music lurched to life again, calling even the drunks to their
senses. Up up to Toma.
There are minutes left to the night.
His voice cracked, but nobody said a word.
He launched into a tune with all the softness of a slap, sharp
chords on a borrowed guitar, his own voice roar from hours of
shouting. The minstrels moved in a wide
circle around the crowd, letting villagers push in, show off
steps, sing lines from old ballads.
There was a contest of funny voices around, where the oldest
couple and youngest girl paired off for a slow shuffle, and one
where four boys wrestled out of their shirts and jostled for the
right to bang the drum. Seer didn't sing.
When people pushed him forward, he slipped away, ducking nearer
to Vera or to the rough logs that framed the edge of the rug.
The slow songs came last. Someone belted a tune, half in
Novera, half in a language Sir didn't know.
The crowd joined for the chorus, off key slurring sweet.
The lanterns on the far side of the room flickered, wind seeping
in from the main doors, dragging the smoke higher.
When Cancion called for the closing song, people rouse
themselves again, some swaying, some stumbling upright, some
sitting straighter where they'd gone boneless against their
neighbor. Vera turned, poked SER hard in
the ribs. You go, it's yours tonight.
He blinked. She dug in again.
Go. Everyone wants it, and you know
the words better. A ripple passed through the
crowd as Cansion picked it up. A song for us, Tui Tama, give us
voices to remember you by. He fixed Sir with a look from
behind the mask. All painted wood, no eyes, just
red and black and white. Then Vera started shouting.
Sir, Sir Zorafin let him. Voices picked it up, like a
cough spreading in a field. Seraphine, Seraphine, He let
himself get shoved along, Vera's hands on his back, Vitty to one
side grinning and whooping, several of the girls jeering
good naturedly. Don't chicken out seeing Farm
boy. Show us how it's done.
The minstrels caught him by the elbows and yanked him up onto
the low planks. Standing above the crowd, the
bodies churning and packed beneath the light glaring in his
eyes, he could barely think. His uncle's shape moved at the
exit. Head bowed, face locked in
shadow, He dragged one hand through his matted hair.
His heart thudded so wildly it hurt.
The drums behind him ticked a slow beat.
He shut his eyes a second, opened them.
Cansion in the bull mask loomed over him.
Sing, Sir. The mask didn't move.
No comfort, no warmth. He nodded, shuffled a fraction
to one side, then coughed. The sound echoed, bright and
hollow in the thick dark. The first line came rough.
Mother, may I weep for you? She wished me fast asleep in
true the darkness comes to shepherd me to pay your final
due. The verse closed.
For a heartbeat, nothing. Then the crowd clapped, not
loud, nothing like before. The minstrel's faces turned
quiet and respectful. Cancion raised his arms, but he
seemed smaller now, bent in on himself.
Chorus grew behind SER Vera's voice, strong in it.
Vitti's wavering. Everybody pressed in together.
He went on in the midnight lasting hour.
Stars twinkling, glanced in dour.
I slept under stars for free. That quickly turned to showers.
Each word sharpened. The villagers kept the tune
alive, their voices climbing over each other.
Outside, the wind in the palms pressed against the thin wood,
shadows sliding along the floorboards.
SER lost track of whether he was leading or if the crowd was
dragging him along. It no longer mattered.
We turned it to Eleventy. In death there ain't no hurry.
He sang until his throat ached. The crowd shaped the sound
carried it. At the end he let the final
lines fall off, hands slack by his sides.
A hush, long and heavy cancion stepped back.
The masks came down, the minstrels clapping for him and
for themselves. Faces in the audience looked
different. Soft, drawn, tight, eyes hollow.
Each carried their own grief, their own memory, the beauty of
the night now mixed with something sharper, smaller,
something that would outlast the wine hangovers.
One by one people gathered their things, murmuring to each other,
dragging the sleepiest children up, some rubbing at faces, some
silent, some laughing. But the laughter was faint and
not sick with joy any longer. Vera touched Sir's shoulder as
he stepped down from the stage. Her hand trembled.
She smiled. You did fine.
Sweat streaked dirt down her forehead.
He nodded without speaking and joined the shuffle to the exit.
He made his way out past the side of the hall, boots sinking
in the soft ground, the last of the light catching on the
flooded patches beneath the steps.
The crowd spread in the dark, peeling off towards homes,
shoulders hunched. Tuitoma's night pressed back in
the jungle buzzed with Corus frogs, the chewing insects, the
slow lump of the oxen lying down in their stores.
Above it all, the stars burned unfazed.
Seer's feet ached, his throat felt sanded, raw.
He climbed the east track back towards the Seraphine house,
kicking a stone down the path, each step heavier as the quiet
settled on his spine. No lights in the house by the
time he got to the door. He opened it and the dark
swallowed him, every sound louder, boards creaking, his
breath echoing off mud walls. The mutter of Ward snores
through the thin door at the back.
His uncle's bowl, half crusted with Stew, waited on the table.
He picked it up, rubbing his thumb over the rim.
The bowl clinked and rolled as he carried it toward the basin
behind Ward's bedroom door. He heard a sound, a gasp, wet
and harsh, like breath dragged through mud.
Sere froze. He set the bowl down slow.
The sound behind the door pulsed, cut off, then silence,
thick and pressing. The eased closer.
Fingers curled, the soft board squeaking.
He pressed his ear to the wood, breathing out once steady.
Nothing. He knocked once, waited, heard
the thump and drag of a body in the room.
Hey. He kept his voice low, not sure
if he wanted Ward to answer. No reply.
He knocked again, voice rising. Uncle Ward?
Nothing. Then the scrape of a bed frame.
Ward's voice, thick and drunk. What do you want trying to
sleep, kid? Sarah pulled back.
Sorry, just thought I heard. Ward's answer was a snarl.
Heard what? A ghost.
Maybe you want to swap beds with me, see how that feels?
SER stood back as Ward slouched out in the weak lamp light, his
shirt button drawn, hair wild and sticking out around his
face. His eyes were swollen, veins
shot through with darkness and anger.
SER knew the signs, wad drunk, was wad hungry for someone to
blame. He edged further back, fingers
pressing into the table edge. Ward jerked forward.
Think this is funny? You and them lot singing like
fools? He hiccuped, spit flying.
What do you know about it, huh? What do you know about any of
it, Sir? Kept back, hands up, voice
tight. Didn't mean to wake you.
The festival's done. Thought you wanted.
Never mind. Ward lurched close, swinging an
arm. His hand caught SER's shirt,
bunching the cloth to near tearing Ward stank of stale
spirits, old sweat, a Tang of something rotten up close.
His face shook, old blood vessels swelling purple and red.
You little shit. You think you're better than me.
You think you're owed something because the village likes you
and not me anymore. Sir shook his head, eyes on the
wall on the door, counting the distance one hard kick might
buy. I never said.
Ward's other arm cocked back. You don't say anything, you
stand, you judge. You and your dead parents.
Ward's face twisted, spit flecked his beard.
I kept you alive, I did it. You don't get to judge me, you
little shit. Sir Ground his teeth, feeling
the old anger pull up through his bones.
Alive. That's funny, coming from you.
Most days it feels like you're digging me a hole instead.
Ward snarled, lost for words. He yanked hard, then let go and
punched a blunt fist across the cheek.
Says vision split, knees buckling.
He felt the impact, the way his skin split, tasted blood on his
lip, sharp and sudden. He sagged sideways, breath hot
in his throat, hands up for cover.
Ward stepped back, arms spread, face caught between rage and
horror. He stood that way a moment,
breathing ragged, hands trembling.
He looked at the cracked painting of a toma above the
mantle, muttered almost to himself, What have I done?
Then turned, stumbling back into his room.
The door slammed. Quiet, Sir.
Slumped hands over his face, breath stuttering.
Pain radiated out from the spot where Ward's fist had landed.
He pressed his palm against his cheek, feeling the swelling
begin. He sat there in the Maddaki
kitchen, eyes closed. A whimper worked out of his
throat, half choked. Nothing like singing the music
from before, the cheers. All of it bled away, leaving him
with nothing but the sting, the bruised bone, and the cold rush
of quiet outside. The night was shifting, the last
of the party shuffling through mud, heads down.
Tear stayed there, jaw aching, the silence closing in on
itself. SAR sat on the floor, back
against the rough mud wall. His breath caught sharp in his
nose. He pressed his hand under his
left eye, working his fingers along the skin.
The heat spread, throbbing. He didn't move for a long time.
Somewhere in Ward's room, the bed spring wind, something fell
off a table. The low mumble of Ward talking
to himself pushed through the door and vanished.
The lamp on the table ran out of oil, flames snapping.
Sere stayed there in the thick dark as mosquitoes landed on his
bare arms. He didn't slap at them.
The pain in his cheek gave every other hurt.
New company. Across the house, a mouse
scurried, scratching in the ashes.
Sere listened to its claws, counted them.
Outside, somebody passed on the path, boots sinking in muck, a
drunk voice muttering a tune from the main hall.
He didn't try for the comfort of his bedroom.
He found a bit of cold bread in a bowl, snapped it in two,
chewed without tasting. He ran his tongue over his
teeth. The front left wiggled a little.
Blood turned iron decked along his gums.
He spat in the waste hole under the window.
The blood trailed down the bowl, thick and slow.
He heard the soft knocking of rain above the roof.
In the gap near the eaves, he watched a brown moth struggle,
its wings dusted with fine web or sawdust.
He reached up slow, let it rest on his thumb, then set his hand
under the eaves so the moth could escape.
It wouldn't. It tumbled down into his palm,
and he let it sit there, wings trembling, until it stopped
moving from deep in the house. The old boards thudded as Ward
turned over. The man groaned, not words, not
pain, just a grunt. Sir wiped his hand on his
trousers, crumbs sticking to his palm.
He crept to the doorway, eased the half broken door open.
Creaks echoed. He stepped into the yard.
The air cut cold now, sharp and sudden.
No breath of music. The torch at the end of the line
still burned, a Halo of bugs spinning around its rim.
Someone had left their sandals under the Saraphine fence, say a
nudged one aside with his toe sat on the bottom rail.
Light from neighboring houses flickered until a woman came out
and doused the lanterns, plunging that side of the road
into full dark. He pressed his face against the
top of the fence would damp against his skin.
The pulse in his jaw matched the ache in his temple.
Somewhere deep in the village, a dog bade a long, broken note.
Sarah looked up as rain started in earnest.
The roof of the hall made a good drum for it.
The whole place sounded different.
Alive, maybe, or wounded. Water ran off the eaves, hissed
into the dirt, carved new channels for the next flood.
He didn't think of his uncle. He didn't think of the crowd, of
singing, or even of Vera. He looked past the trees on the
far edge of the light, shadows moved thin, twitching animal
shapes. He forced a slow breath, traced
1 bruise with his index finger. Rain mixed with his sweat,
tucked the bruises colder, meaner against his face and
barefoot knees. Inside, Ward barked out a
wordless argument, turned something over, fell still
again. SER sat at the fence for a long
time, until the rain. Colder.
He flexed his jaw, checked his teeth again.
The dog quieted. The last of the halls lamps went
out. He stood, joints stiff and
unwilling. The mud sucked at him with every
step. He reached the house, dragged
the door closed and made straight for his bed.
The straw mat pressed its old bugs into his ribs, but he felt
nothing. The ache along his face kept him
anchored in small things. He didn't sleep.
When he closed his eyes, the sound of Ward's voice swirled,
venom mixing with memory. He listened to the rain.
When he swallowed, pain shot down his jaw.
He lay awake, tracing leaks on the ceiling as water crept in
and waited for light. The morning didn't come so much
as seep. Cloud cover held back the sun,
making the mud in the yard shine like bruised metal.
Sarah rose before Ward's cough echoed from the backroom.
He spat another string of blood, wiped his mouth on the only
clean patch of sleeve left. He slipped outside, careful as
peeling old bark from a log. Cold air bit through his shirt.
Pigs had already started rooting near the cook fire pit.
Two of the neighbors hens scrambled for insects on the
edge of their lot. No one else moved.
The festival's debris littered the road, strips of soggy
bunting, broken crockery, a bent pot left in the weeds.
Pression SER filled a pot at the well, the wet rope thinning and
thickening in his grip as he drew.
Roland Chihal spotted him and ambled over, shoulders hunched.
Roland's tongue pushed at a cracked tooth, voice low.
Rough night, SER. Sir rolled his jaw, kept his
eyes on the rising bucket. Usual.
Roland eyed the swelling and cut under Sez's eye, but he didn't
mention it. He inspected the rope, thumb
over a worn spot, ward kicking up again.
Sir shrugged, water sloshing over his knuckles.
Never stops. Roland spat, looked back at the
line of houses, at his own muddy boots.
He's a bastard, but he's still the only reason anyone listens
to the Seraphins. They said nothing, watching the
swirl of well water, grey dirt gathering on the surface.
The bucket rose smooth. No catches, no surprises.
He lifted it out, set it on the lip.
Rulon caught his sleeve. You want to come by for bread
later? Mum says she's baking.
Sarah shook his head. Even dried crust held no
comfort. Not now.
Roland shrugged. Suit yourself.
Roland drifted off, pushing at a stick in the mud, his body
rolling with a 12 year old's casual slouch.
Sir raised the bucket, carried it home.
Behind closed doors, Ward snored deeper, the old man snores
rattling the frame. Sir poured out the freshwater,
used it to clear the bowls, wiped crumbs from the trampled
old rug, sat on the floor and scraped a finger along the
bruise on his cheek. The oil lamp needed filling, his
shirt stuck to new small scabs. Ward staggered out as Sir put a
pan on the stove. The man's hair stuck up like
thrown straw, his eyes glassy and red.
He didn't greet Sir. He sat, head hung low, hands
braced against his knees. When he spoke, it came in a
voice strained and cracked. Don't burn anything.
Sir poked the coals, silent. His head throbbed.
The old man propped his elbows on the table and watched.
Nothing. I heard you sing last night.
SER kept to his work, setting the crust to warm over the small
flame. Ward let out a sound, not a
word, not a sigh. You're your father's son, then.
SER braced the hand on the stove, felt the heat under his
palm. He didn't turn.
After a minute, Ward stood, left dishes untouched on the table,
and left the room. SER heard his boots splashing
through the mud, listened until Ward's voice faded farther off.
In Teutoma's slow morning, he stood over the toast, staring
into it. His world contracted.
Rain started again. Inside, there was shelter and
the Hume of the new day, everything bent under the weight
of what had not ended the night before.
He flexed his jaw, chewed stiff bread, and waited for the sun to
breakthrough the sour clouds. Sere stood in the kitchen with
his hand pressed to his cheek. The burned bread on his tongue
tasted like dust. The quiet felt thick.
He washed the bowl and set it by the window, watching grey water
sluice over his fingers. Down the path, other houses came
alive, smoke curling from dung heaps.
Veera's door banged, her mother calling something impatient.
A pair of Raja de boys sprinted past the Seraphin fence, each
carrying a length of rope, yelping at a dog that gave them
exactly 2 steps before bolting. He scuffed a foot against the
floor, ran water over the worst of last night's plates, stacked
them clean, and set the broom against the corner.
The pains throbbed, but when movement called for muscles, Sir
answered he'd been raised that way.
Work first. Shut up, keep the line straight.
He tried to shake the feel of Ward's fist.
Couldn't. His jaw pulsed without mercy,
the ache worming into his ear. He knew the bruise would show
soon, deepening and purpling. By nightfall, no one in the
village would need to ask what happened.
They'd seen Ward swing before. The morning pressed on with no
sign of relief, damp fields sagging with last night's storm.
He went out into the yard, picking through mud that reached
his ankles to reset the fence. Mosts that had loosened again.
Each stake needed pounding. He fetched the mallet from under
the sagging step and got to work.
Sweat came up under his collar. Even in the morning chill.
He noticed every chip nail, every tooth mark from oxen, each
groove chewed by rain and wire. 2 posts leaned too far.
He pulled them up straight, packed mud in with his boot
hammered until it stuck. His hands turned brown and
clogged. He wiped them on the back of his
pants and checked the row again. By the next plot, old Tavleen
Adelae crouched with her arms in a basket, tossing out seed for
the ground birds. She looked at SER, not at once,
and then not at all. Her white hair trailed out from
a cap, stringy and thin. She watched him a moment, then
returned to her work, scattering seed and cursing at the greedy
crows. Her voice was sand over gravel,
words climbing through decades. She didn't ask about last night,
but he read the question in how she looked at his swollen cheek.
He didn't offer her a wave, just moved down the fence, keeping
the board tight to the first post.
He heard a cough in the next yard, Balu's father splitting
kindling, flinging it into a basket next to a crooked door.
Every corner of Tuitoma felt slower today, as if the whole
place waited for a new blow. By mid morning, he finished the
row. He leaned against the last stake
to check his work. The mud sucked him down.
He felt sweat run along his shirt, cold where the breeze
snagged him in the lane. Vera hopped from dry patch to
dry patch, holding a bucket in each hand, water slopping.
She grinned without much of her usual spark.
Your jaws swelling? She called.
He pressed his palm to the side, unconsciously shrugged.
Nothing new. She set the buckets by the
wheelbarrow, wiped her hands on her hem.
She moved closer, lowering her voice.
You want me to see what Maz got for ointment?
He tipped his head. Not worth it.
She studied his face, lips pressed tight.
Might help. From the regatta door, Vera's
mother shouted her name. Vera jerked, called back.
Coming. She turned, stepped towards Sir,
then hesitated. Her voice dropped lower.
Was it Ward again? He answered without looking at
her. Yeah.
Vera sighed. She crouched, dug her thumb into
the mud, sketching nothing. You want to come by tonight
after supper? He shrugged.
Maybe Uncle's headed to the council later, I think.
She nodded, gathering her buckets.
If he's not there, come around. I'll save you a heel.
He watched her leave, the line of her back carrying the day's
whole weight. She'd been cheery before
everyone said it. Now she only grinned when she
meant it, not the careless, running, smiling girl of
Winter's earlier. Maybe everyone had changed.
Maybe last night only proved it. He bent to the fence.
Oltevlen was gone, her birds pecking over the rough patch of
ground. The sun tried to punch through
the clouds failed and left the yard sullen.
He scraped mud from his boots and headed for the fields, back
bent, arms moving the hoe in careful lines.
He let himself forget music, forget Ward, forget Vera's
careful half smiles. Dirt, root, the drag of weight
over each planted row. All of that made a better song
than anything that still rang in his aching skull.
Word spread fast in Twitwimmer. By noon, Balu found him at the
edge of the cassava plots, face pink from running, hare
plastered. Balu called from the rut.
SAR, there's something at the hall.
They're setting up again. Minstrels are still here.
Tear stood. His muscles twinged from a
morning's work. What for?
Balu hopped the trench, beamed, told the elders they'd do
stories for the kids because the rain kept everybody up.
Come on, you coming? Sere wiped his brow, considered
the field, if Ward would look for him, Let him.
Sere swung his hoe into the dirt, brushed past Balu.
Yeah, I'm coming. They took the back lane, mud to
the calves, ignoring the stones that shifted under foot the
whole way. Balu rattled story after story,
minstrels who juggled hot coals one year eaten alive frog.
Another told a tale sharp enough the guards from a fear it's
patrol nearly sent them packing. Sere let him chatter, the words
running, peeling the day open just a little.
Inside the hall, the place felt smaller, air dense with smoke
from last fires. The minstrels hadn't changed,
still in their colors, still with faded paint lines along
their jaws and fingers. Today, masks hung backwards over
their shoulders, revealing faces lined and sun worn, eyes sharp
from years of travel. One of the younger ones, a boy
with dark braids and a lopsided jaw, played a pipe while the
others arranged chairs in a ring.
Children packed the front, legs tangled, giggling, pulling
threads from their sleeves. Couple of old women sat with
knitting 1/2 circle behind the smallest kids.
Balu shouted for Lavu, who was already on his knees by the 1st
row, passing out honey cakes. Sarah sat to one side, knees to
his chest. Someone called for a story about
the firekeeper. Cancion obliged, voice low,
gestures painted in wide swipes. He spun them, tales of Candross,
the bull, how fire split the night, how stripes of light
could run from a sword to the sea.
He handed off the story to another, a woman with sky blue
ribbons in her hair. She limped as she worked the
circle, her voice rising, catching the kids attention.
Her tale was of the black Spire, retold as a warning.
If you cut corners, she whispered, the Spire takes note.
If you tell 2 lies, it listens, and every time you hide your
face, it marks your name in the dust.
Up on high. Children leaned forward, silent
except for the oldest, who made faces behind the minstrel's
back. The tails rolled through the
hour. Tricks, riddles, small lessons
sunk under jokes. Roland's sister piped up.
Tell the one about the tree with 100 doors.
Cancion obliged, standing to mime climbing and falling and
cursing in 10 voices. Seal at the words.
Wash by tracing the old groove in the wall behind him.
Each new voice, every cheer, every peal of laughter from the
children lifted some of the pain edging his mind.
An old man next to him, Cain propped against his knee, leaned
over during one pause. Best showing years, eh?
Even with the world gone to mud. Sarah looked at him, nodded.
The man's chin was yellowed with tobacco.
His shirt bore 9 patches of differing cloth.
He grinned, flashing 2 broken teeth and earned sly smile back.
Stories folded 1 into the next. The crowd shifted, grown-ups
carrying the smaller kids, girls braiding each other's hair, boys
nudging elbows to get closer to the cake.
The music drifted into hums and half tunes, nobody needing a
full song, only the slow Press of human voices. 1 by 1.
As the clouds broke into steam, the hall emptied back into the
slow swirl of village day. SER lingered, the minstrel's
faces tired and plain again, cleaned up, careful as fishermen
preparing Nets. Kenxion mask, now tucked into a
satchel, courts SER's eyes and nodded once.
You sing. Good for your folk, the minstrel
said. His voice was quiet, scratchy,
better than most. SER shrugged.
It was just a song, and Seon slung the bag over one shoulder.
There's no such thing. He moved off, boots slogging
through the floor mud. His steps left what looked like
regular footprints until you watched long enough, each shape
blurred at the heel. When the last of the noise died
and the children wandered home, SER stepped back out into the
bright mud and the wind, shoving his hands deep into his pockets,
his jaw stinging. The hall and the stories and his
own voice echoing in his chest. Zaire kept his eyes low as the
wind shifted. The square in front of the main
hall looked different now. Lanterns pulled from their
hooks, trampled banners rolled under cartwheels.
The mud lost any shape it had been patted into during the
festival. Mothers herded squabbling
children home for midday scraps. Balu and Lavu tossed rocks onto
a plank until the plank cracked. When it broke, both boys just
shrugged and wandered toward the old stone bridge, hunger driving
them on. Sarah watched the minstrels
gather their leftover gear. Canceon and the blue ribboned
woman loaded satchels onto their old ox.
The animals stood with flies crawling in its eyes.
Canceon used a stick to flick the flies, but the beast only
shifted wider than the minstrel bulk, rooted in the thick mud
and not giving a damn about music or stories.
A pair of small children with honey cake crumbs on their
cheeks trailed Conquillon. Are you coming back?
The taller girl said. He reached into his coat, pulled
a wooden ring painted blue and yellow, and flashed it at them.
If the roads hold, the stars stay clear, and nobody's cut a
new toll across the old track, we'll find to Atoma again.
He tipped the ring onto the smaller boy's finger, ruffled
his hair, then turned back to the packs.
His hands didn't shake, not even with all the eyes following his
every slow movement. The shortest minstrel, dark
skinned and gap toothed, came out of the hall carrying a
cracked drum. She spit out a clump of dust,
rolled the drum with care, and whistled to the ox.
A bell around the animal's neck clanged once, flat and ugly.
Vera, who'd been standing off to the side, ran fingers through
her hair and drifted towards Sarah.
She stopped, just out of reach. Bet they'll never come this deep
again. Sarah shrugged.
He eyed the ox. Depends.
Maybe next time. Stories change the way folks
listen, too. Vera rubbed mud off her
knuckles. She looked tired in a stubborn
way, same as most folks did after a night of no real sleep.
You want to come to the fields? She didn't say to get away from
Ward, but she didn't need to. Sia nodded.
He caught a last look from Cancion, who watched everyone
the way a crow watched a plow, seeing what got stirred up, not
what ended. The walk out of the square
brought quieter sounds. Spilled water, Pigs nosing empty
cups, the rush of new weeds climbing the fence posts.
A trio of old men stood by the well, arguing about whose pot
had been broken during last night's mess.
Every so often one of them jabbed a finger at the hall.
Each retelling got rougher and sharper.
Names dropped like accusations. Everyone would have their
complaint by nightfall. To Atoma always remembered
slights. Vera set her pace slow until the
fields came in view. She carried a sack over one
shoulder seed for the afternoon planting.
She kept close, but not right at Syd's side.
She handed him half the weight of the bag.
Without a word, he slung it over his back and braced for the
drag. The fields always looked the
same rose carved by sweat and hope and old aches.
Today puddles gleamed in the trenches.
A pair of gulls picked at something deep in one of last
season's ruts. They moved into a rhythm.
Bend, scoop, scatter, seed, heal the line with a boot, shift over
and repeat. Tuitima fields had nothing
pretty about them. The mud reeked of old compost
and harder times. The wind clawed at their
collars. Above, a hawk circled, hunting
in the thin grey. For a long time, they worked
without talking. The sack got lighter.
The sun never broke free. Vera grunted, stood, wiped her
brow. You make peace with Ward this
morning. SER paused, rolling a Pebble
under his boot. No, She squinted at the hill he
met about the song. He's mad 'cause there's nothing
left for him to lead, and nothing left to drink but the
dregs he saved for himself. She spat into the mud, then
stared at her boots. SER knelt to split one more
furrow. He'll get loud again when
tonight comes. He needs someone to swing at.
Always has. Vera kneeled next to him, hands
in the dirt. Don't let him break you.
If you get tired, come sleep at ours.
Ma won't say no, Sir. Try to nod, though.
Something heavy twisted in his chest.
I'll manage. They fell to work at the edge of
the field. A cluster of crows gathered,
stealing at the seed. Each time Vera glanced away, she
flung A clod and missed. The birds only hopped farther
back, patients in their thin bones.
By late afternoon, the bag was nearly empty.
The sun flashed once through a rent in the clouds, then
vanished. Sere stretched his back until it
cracked. Vera laughed a little, the sound
scratchy from the dust. Together they turned for the
fringe village, dragging The Dirty sack, feet pushing deep
lines through the smooth patch of mud.
Passing by the hall again, they found Viti and the Rajada twins
fighting over the remains of a burnt pie.
Viti barked a sharp laugh, broke off the last bit and stuffed it
in his mouth, his chin smeared black with Berry.
Viti stared at Sir for a long second, then raised the crust as
salute. You still owe me a dance lover.
Sir managed half a smile. Vitty shoved Lavu, but the mood
had shifted. All the kids were tired, like
the music had melted from their bones overnight.
A pair of women hosed down the entryway to the hall, gossip
rolling hot and bitter. Sir and Vera kept going.
At Vera's fence. She hesitated, shifting from
foot to foot, then stared at the house.
Her mother's voice carried through the broken window.
Be in for supper or eat dirt. I'll bring something later.
Vera said. She grabbed Sarah's hand,
squeezed once. Don't let that bruise scare off
any girls, even ugly. You're all we've got.
She turned, hair swinging, and vanished through the door.
So watched the curtain twitch, then turned back toward the
Seraphin yard. He stood at his own doorstep for
a long minute, tracing the split in the lentil with his thumb.
Inside, Ward's boots sat under the table, turned out but empty.
Somewhere at the back. The soft sound of snoring, a mug
on the table stank of the last dribble of wine.
Outside the village, world moved slow, oxen pulling in before
dark, the crack of split wood, voices rising, tired and
ordinary. He sat on the step, his jaw
still hot dirt under his nails, the echo of all that had
happened crowding his head. The night would come soon
enough. For now, only the slow beat of
feet in mud, the small, real sounds of Titoma, the weight in
his chest, the dull pulse under his skin.
No music. But the world didn't care.
The day ground on SER waited, still and unheard, at the edge
of the coming dark. Night crept up the alleys and
cow paths, pressing cool air into the ground where sunlight
had not dried out the tracks. By dusk, the villagers had
finished their business. Smoke rose in thin lines above
the patchwork houses. Doors slammed, shutters banged
shut, and chickens settled along fences.
Heads rolled under battered wings.
Lamps blinked awake 1 by 1, each window shading another pale
square out into the dark. They sat by the open window,
mending the strap on Ward's old satchel with hands that ached
from field work. He squinted by candlelight as
the wax puddled over yesterday's stains.
The pain rattled in the freshening wind.
On the path below, 2 girls from up the hill walked by with a
basket between them, talking low and sharp, not bothering to look
up. Their voices faded behind the
sound of a dog scrounging for dropped crusts.
Inside, Ward hadn't moved for an hour.
The old man's snores were harsh and uneven, as if each breath
tried to punch through a wall. A cough cut through every 7th or
eighth of them, a hard, wet growl that sounded like it
belonged in the gut of a dying bull.
Evros let the sound soak through him.
Every time it reminded him how close the rooms were, how air
and walls made no difference when someone wanted to reach
you. He poked the needle through the
strap, hand steady despite the ache in his knuckles.
He'd learned small repairs over winters of boredom and need.
No one in Tutuoma let things go to ruin if they could help it.
As he worked, a moth circled the flame, smacked the glass, fell.
Tried again. It's pint pinched it between two
fingers, set it outside the ledge.
Its wings flailed in open air, and then it shot off into the
dark. Something clanged in the street,
a dropped bucket or a cart catching a loose stone across
the yard. Vera's house glowed behind a
curtain. Voices spilled out laughter and
argument. The Rajada boys yipped in the
space between childhood and sleep, their father's steady
baritone answering them. Knock came at the door, Sir
stilled, waiting. The knock came again, firmer
this time. Three times pause, then another.
He pulled the door open. Vera stood on the steps, wind
burned, hair tucked under a faded scarf.
She carried a crock covered with a dirty cloth, steam twisting
through the cracks. She held it up, not smiling, not
quite. Told you I'd bring something.
Don't get used to it. Sir stepped aside.
She entered, scanned the room, found no sign of Ward, and let
out a slow breath. She dropped the croc on the
table. The broth inside leaned heavy on
the nose. Pepper bone, something green and
old. She set out two bowls, filled
them to the black line. She eyed the bruise leaking
purple above SER's beard. Is he out?
SER shrugged. Had half a bottle before sunset.
He won't be out. Vera grunted.
We get half an hour then, maybe longer if the cough keeps him.
They ate in silence, the soup thick, every scrape of spoon on
croc echoed as if in a cave. Vera kept working her jaw, as if
words gathered and died on her tongue.
When she finished the bowl, she set it down, wiped her mouth,
met Seyer's eyes. You did right last night, she
said. No one else could have sung that
one. Even Ma said so.
And she hates anything sad. Sir blinked.
He felt the praise like sand in his shoe, noticeable, not
exactly comfortable. He wanted to say something about
how nothing felt right, but the word slipped away.
Vera squared her shoulders, bracing against the table.
You mean it about coming over? If, Ward, if things get worse.
Zur looked past her, out into the dark, where the fence leaned
into its own shadow. If they get worse, I'll come,
but for now, I'll stay. Vera pushed up from the table,
set her dishes in the wash pan, returned to the door.
We've got room. Don't wait for it to get worse,
Sir. He nodded, but said nothing.
She let the door rest against its frame for a moment, her hand
white on the wood. You leave the window cracked
tonight, she said. If you need out, I'll hear.
He watched her disappear into the mass of shadow at the end of
the yard. Head turned back once as a gust
threatened to take her scarf. Sir shut the door, set the crock
aside, and blew out the candle. The bed spring wind as Ward
shifted and coughed, then went quiet.
Sir found the mat stretched out slow, one arm flung across his
chest. He listened to the fire's last
hiss in the corner until the walls blurred, the ache in his
jaw blending with the heaviness in his limbs.
Somewhere deep in the house, a floorboard popped, settling or
shifting in the cold. The rest of Titima wound down
with him, 1 by 1. Lamps scuttered.
Songbirds along the edge of the jungle called out, then hushed.
Wind creaked the fence and teased at the thatch.
So waited for sleep, counting the breath between ward snores,
measuring the long quiet that filled the space between each
cough. Hands curled around the hope
that morning wouldn't bring worse.
Burst. Light crept through the cracks.
Dogs barked at things unseen. Roosters called their cries
ragged and pale. Families moved behind shuttered
windows, pots clanging, fires catching for the day's meal.
They rose, stiff, tongue thick, jaw throbbing.
He set aside the old blanket and dug his boots from the edge of
the bed. He worked them on, silent.
In the dim light, everything showed itself as grey, the
walls, the rug, his own face in the bowl of water by the door.
Ward hadn't come out yet. The old man's door set ajar, the
snores gone faint. Sir didn't check.
He pulled on his coat, found the hoe by the door and stepped into
the new day. The village looked the same as
any other after a hard night. Soot streaked a row of houses by
the well. Someone's Lantern must have
tipped after midnight. A cluster of women picked over
the refuse, shouting at the small children to keep away from
the sharp bits. Roland's father stood out on his
lentil, donning a hole in his shirt with care and cursing
whoever had spilled ale on his pile of kindling by the well. 2
farmers haggled. Sir caught snatches as he
passed. Never heard such foolishness.
A party every year the fields will go to rot.
We need a little foolishness, Fanny.
The world's all rot otherwise. Farther down, Vt chased A
crippled hen, waving a broken stick like a sword while the
twins pelted him with grit and seed husks.
The hen flapped, screeched, and missed their feet altogether.
Beak full of mud and victory. Sit tugged at the collar of his
shirt, moving toward the edge of the fields.
The sky spread dull clouds sitting heavy on the jungle rim.
He bent to the furrow, broke the clumps with the heel of his
palm, and put his back to work. The job needed doing, reign or
no. He let the voices fade and the
ache in his muscles become the only thing for a while.
The ground and the constant sound of birds foraging were
everything. He didn't look back at the
house. He didn't think about Ward.
He worked the day opening before him like a scar, unmended, but
no worse than every day before it.
By midday, the village pressed onward as if nothing had
twitched the night before. The mud dried in scattered
patches, leaving a crust on boots and hands.
Vera's voice drifted over the fence line.
She argued with her older brother about a rake that
someone had nicked, her words short and biting.
Behind her, the Rajda goat shrieked every time she raised
her voice. A cockerel nearby crowed at the
sun and got chased by a little girl until both tripped into a
puddle, legs flying from down the lane.
Roland trudged, carrying a length of rope.
He'd wrapped it around his shoulder to look like a Squire
and kept one eye peeled for anyone who might test him on it.
He saw a Sir lifted a chin by way of greeting.
The two didn't need much. Roland drifted over, unloaded
the rope with a practiced shrug and kicked at a clump of dirt.
Heard the minstrels finally left.
Roland said, no question in his tone.
He watched a group of women scrubbing tablecloths at the
well, the colour slowly working out of rough thread.
Left this morning. Gone slow, Sir.
Answered. He raked a line with his hoe.
Took half the cake. Barloo's mother.
Odas. The boys shared half a grin.
It was enough. Ward appeared around the corner,
moving like his boots pinched him.
He carried himself braced for an audience, but no one stopped
working to notice. He wiped his nose on his sleeve,
squinted into the sun, and plodded toward the hall.
He didn't look at Sir once. The outline of the old man's
shoulder jutted softer than last night.
Less certain. Roland watched the old man limp
off, then turned sharp. You eating with Vera's lot
tonight? He asked.
SER drove the whole deep, chopped at a stubborn root.
Depends on the weather. Roland caught the meaning,
nodded. If your uncle gets to yelling
again, I'll tell my ma you're helping me mend the fence.
Sir raised an eyebrow. You ever mend a fence in your
life? Roland shrugged.
Never had a reason. Then he set off, whistling sharp
once through his teeth, swinging the rope so the loose end
flicked above his head. Far behind, Balu and Lavu ran
after Viti, each shouting that he'd stolen the string bag of
crabapples. The three darted between huts,
Viti shrieking like a bird as the twins dove for his heels.
Vera lost himself in the fields, pulling weeds that threatened to
outgrow the yams. The sun pressed, the mud
quickened flies. Every so often he straightened
to check the house, watchful, though he knew Ward would not
stumble back before the usual hour.
Somewhere on the path, Vera's laughter rang as she finally got
the better of her brother. He shouted in protest and she
snapped back, voice only half playful.
Sir's hands darkened with earth. He straightened only to tip his
hat against the glare. Each furrow took shape by force
of habit, boots flattening the Ridge, the day moving by in
repetitive comfort. The sky stayed stubbornly grey,
the air thick with SAP from the jungle shade, and the village
settled into a rhythm that made sense only if you counted it by
calluses and breath. When he finally broke from the
foreos, Vera was already waiting in the lane baskets, lung from
one arm. She bounced her shoulders, chin
forward, shoes caked with clay. Her eyes traced his jaw, but she
didn't mention what she saw. The swelling still there,
darkened but no longer fresh. Ma says dinners West and
welcome, she said. Quiet.
Sir set the hoe against the fence, brushed off his palms.
Wards not due back yet. Might as well.
They walked in step. Everyone they passed offered a
nod, a tip of hat, a slanted word. 1 old woman asked after
his uncle. Sir Jest shrugged and Vera moved
them on quick. Inside the Rajadha home, heat
gathered in the rafters. Vera's mother kneaded dough with
fists thick as fence posts. She looked up as they ducked
through the door and pointed a chin at the sink.
Clean up or starve tables not for animals.
Sir scrubbed at his nails while Vera washed onions in a battered
tin. Her mother sliced 1, sniffed and
flicked a slice onto the board in front of Sir.
Eat, she said, or you'll never fill out.
Vera's father limped in, shirt damp at the collar, eyes shifty
but kind. He dropped two fish wrapped in
wet leaves on the counter and winked at Sir.
You bring appetite, you earn seconds.
They ate at the narrow table, knees banging, shoulders close.
The food was rough boiled greens, black crust, bread, fish
pulled apart with hands. But SER knew no better meal.
Laughter simmered under the roof, easy and unforced.
Conversation drifted to the remains of the festival, the
dancing, the streaks of colour left in the street.
Vera's mother cursed gently about the Lantern wax, the
stains impossible to scrape from boots.
Vera rolled her eyes and mimicked Kenzion's voice,
summoning a laugh even from her father.
SER found himself eating slow, letting bite after bite work the
taste of mud from his mouth. Afterward, Vera helped her
mother clean. SER sat outside with her father,
watching the sun dip behind the last Hut on the east slope.
The man rolled a bit of tobacco, offered SER A twist.
He waved it off. They sat quietly, the older man
humming a stretch of the festival chorus, his voice not
sharp or sweet, but gritty and honest.
When the last light bled away, Sir stood, thanked them, and
headed home by the narrow back lane, his boots squished, soles
peeling, dusk folding in around him.
The night bugs rose. Doors slammed one, then another,
then a call of good night down the row.
He reached his own yard, silent as a stone.
Ward was inside, boots tangled by the threshold, Old Man's
voice grumbling. Sir ducked past, washing his
hands, then stretched on his mat and listened to the cicadas.
When Ward finally fell still in the far room, Sir pressed the
heel of his palm to his jaw, feeling old bruises and the
stubborn rhythm of new ones building under his skin.
The dark wrapped the house. Sir kept still, breathing with
the house, feeling the empty space growing around each sore
spot in his chest. Tuitoma snipped.
Somewhere an ox snorted in a dream.
Far off the jungle hissed river mist winding through roots and
leaving footprints no one in the village would ever see.
Sir waited for morning, heavy eyed, feeling the day's aches
settle for once, not worrying if he'd wake to a new kind of pain.
Sir woke before the dawnbell. The house ached with cold.
He shifted out from under the mat, working his jaw, listening
for any other movement in the dark.
Ward's door stayed shut. No snoring, no coughing, only a
hollow silence that made Sir skin prickle just the same.
He stood in the yard, boots sinking, Daybreak creeping over
the trees. Light found the mud and made
everything glow. Bronze and black mist hung thick
above the fields, old to Lena. Delay stepped to her coop,
swinging a bucket. She glanced at Sierra, didn't
speak, hunkered over the shapes of hens shoving at her feet.
SER unlashed the pen and brought the pigs their slop, thick and
cold. Steam billowed where it hit the
through. The boar snorted once, stub
faced and mean, but didn't bite. The rest of the animals crowded
in their backs, rippling with the growl of hunger.
Bits of last night's music ran through Sir's head.
Bits of pain twisted through his cheekbone.
The field weighted duckweed bursts in every trench.
He eyed the row where birds had picked the new seeds.
A pair of crows skulked at the edge, weary, watching.
He waded in and started again, hoe in hand, the same small work
driving out weeds, rooting the bad before it took hold.
The rhythm steadied. His chest gave him a clean thing
to press at, louder than memory, harder than bruises.
As the sun climbed, voices started breaking over the
village. Roland jogged past with the
twins in pursuit. One had a wooden sword, the
other a bundle of nettle clippings.
Vt waved from a wheelbarrow pushed by his father, legs
sticking up at odd angles, mouth running.
Sir kept to his work, furrow, drop seed, pack mud until sweat
spotted his brow and his hands went gritty.
By mid morning Vera came by, boots heavy with mud, hands
holding a scrap of bread and a lump of cheese.
She crouched at the end of the row, tore a bite, handed what
was left to Sir. You've been out since first
light. He nodded, crumbs catching in
his teeth. She peered at his face, then
looked away, jaw working as if she might say more.
Ma'am's baking today. I told her if you didn't come
by, you'd turn to rutabaga, get stuck in the next storm.
He shrugged. Maybe I already am.
She snorted. They worked 2 furrows side by
side. When she found a fat root worm,
she tossed it into the weeds on the path, wiped her hand clean
on her hem. Vera slumped onto the fence
rail, eyeing the yard. You ever think of leaving?
She asked, just loud enough for him to hear over the rustle of
the breeze. Jammed his boot into the earth.
Leave for what? Fields are as good here as any
everywhere else. Folks are at war or starving or
both. She squinted into the distance,
where the jungle pressed close and the first shapes of the
hills cut against the haze. The minstrel see a new village
every week. Bet they don't remember half the
names, but they remember the roads.
I'd want that someday. Something different?
He stabbed at a root, grunting as it split.
Difference. Not always better.
Vera shook her head. Maybe not, but it's not always
here either. They moved on, silence heavy
between them. She nudged his arm, more a habit
than anything, then trekked back toward the house, shouting at
her brothers. Before she even reached the
door, the familiar clamour returned like morning Thunder.
Loud, hard to love, harder to do without late in the day.
Ward roused. He slammed his door, blinking
red eyed, the smell of last night's wine rising off him.
He didn't greet Sir, just poured water spilled, half grunted.
Sir paused at the edge of the room, the hoe still in his hand.
Ward didn't notice. He found a heel of bread,
chewed, glared at the flame on the stove.
Who was here? Ward asked, voice dull.
Vera. Sir said, too tired to lie.
Ward grunted and tossed the bread into his mouth, the rest
dropping to the floor. He stared at SER, eyes full of
something old and battered. For a second the simmer of anger
seemed gone, a grayness in its place, like a field left fallow
too long, unable even to sprout weeds.
Don't let her fill your head with nonsense, Sir.
There's nothing out there for the likes of us.
He grunted, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and walked
back into the dark of his room. SER watched him vanish, fell to
the slow wash of anger rising, held it down.
He set the hoe against the wall, washed rough hands in the basin.
When the sun hit the windows, he could see his own reflection,
face long, jaw purple and thick, eyes less tired than yesterday
but not less wary. He watched the fields as evening
came, the slow return of farmers from weed pulling, the calls to
supper echoing from house to house.
Smoke rose in curled banners, doors banged, shutters clapped
closed. He sat braced in the doorway,
listening for the sounds of music, but the only tune was the
scrape of balls, the bark of the neighbour's mutt, the steady
chorus of insects as darkness drew in around the houses, thick
and absolute. He sat there a long time, quiet,
until even Vera's house fell silent.
And the night scattered its cool weight over every bruised, half
heeled thing Tutoma raised and kept.
Dusk returned to Tewatoma as it always did, slow, cool and thick
with the stink of wood smoke, animal sweat and damp earth.
SER sat on the stoop with his elbows braced to his knees,
boots sinking deeper into the mud each time he moved.
In the last of the light, he watched neighbors finish their
routines, girls hauling water, men patching thatch on the lean
toes, someone herding A limping sheep away from the far fence,
moths battered at his shirt. Out by the lane, Vera's
silhouette ran from one end of her yard to the other, bellowing
for one of the rajada boys to bring in the goat.
The boy answered with a filthy word in a throne stick, both
ignored by everyone but the goat, who jutted its jaw and
shuffled under the house. Chur kept still.
The bruise at his jaw had stiffened into something solid.
He pushed his thumb under it, finding a throb.
It wasn't the worst ache he'd carried home.
Just another reminder, old and new, pain crowding out the music
that had once rung through the stones.
The houses across the path folded in behind their drawn
curtains. The Raja Da windows glowed down
past the well. Someone argued, voice growing
until clatter and swearing cut off as a door slammed.
Roland scurried past with two slabs of bread, nodding once.
Sir caught the flash of dry humour in his friend's eyes and
let it slide. He didn't head inside right
away. Ward's voice came now and then.
A cough, a snort through the wall, feet scraping, then
silence. Most nights, Sir would have
slipped in and started the Stew, but he couldn't bring himself to
move yet. He let the cool settle along his
bones and listened to the night roll in, the scrape of beetle
legs, the hush at the edge of the jungle, the rustle of a wild
cat nosing along the fence. A hand clapped the back of his
head. Sir jogged, spun, found Vera
behind him, hair gone wild, cheeks flushed.
She balanced a satchel on one hip, eyes narrowed with a smirk.
You Daydream all night, or just hoping someone drags you out of
that mud. He almost smiled just thinking
to grunted, dropped to the step beside him.
Out came a bread heel, a wedge of smeared cheese wrapped in old
waxed paper. She split it with a dirty thumb
shoved half into his hand. Don't get soft on me, Serafried.
Nobody in this dumps got time for pity.
They ate with their knees touching.
Silence kept as close as kin. At last, Vera wiped her fingers
on her sleeve. Ma wants us to go down early
tomorrow. She says if the fields aren't
dug again, the elder men will blame all the girls.
SER scraped dirt from the cheese rind, worked his jaw as evenly
as it would allow. She's right.
They don't care who breaks bread or who pays for it.
Just want to know whose hands get dirty next.
Vera snorted loud enough to rouse the goat under the house.
One more year, I swear, then I'll walk if I have to find work
in the valley or Stow on a wagon.
Your uncle can keep his rules. Zerne looked at her out of the
side of his battered face. You won't leave, not without the
kids. Not unless you know how not to
starve out there. Her mouth twisted.
I could figure it out. I'm smarter than half these men
you are. He agreed.
They left it there a bit. From inside, Ward yelled Serre's
name, voice fraying at the edges.
Serre stood, flicked the last crumbs off, and handed the paper
back. Thanks for supper.
She hopped up, dusting her backside, and fixed him with a
hard stare. Tomorrow, if I got to drag you
by 1 ear. He headed inside.
Ward hunched at the table, sweat slick on his neck, lip curled.
Where you been? They rinse cheese from his hands
forced his voice even outside with Vera.
Weave work in the morning. Ward sniffed, squinting, aching
for a fight but too tired to rise off his bench.
Good. Some folks need to remember what
work is. Ladled lightning, cold Stew from
the pot, set bowl and bread where Ward could reach.
He waited as Ward 8, jaw twitching with the rhythm of
chews. When the old man finished, he
pushed the bowl away. Sir scrubbed the pot.
Hands roar in the sandy water. Ward complained about politics,
about the elders being fools, about the minstrels being
nothing but beggars and thieves. Sir, let the words fall and
scatter. No answers.
Not tonight. Later, as Ward collapsed on his
mat, Sir crept out into the yard again.
Vera's house still tossed light from its window.
Her shadows moved about the room.
Her her brothers, her mother, pinching off candle Wicks far
beyond the jungle, watched with 1000 eyes he'd never see there
in the yard. He leaned on the rough wood of
the fence, felt the bruises at his jaw and in the old knots of
his back. He looked up through the tree
line, found a wedge of stars. His breath curled in the cold.
The world spun on, uncaring, hungry, permanent.
He stayed until the ground cooled under his feet, and only
then did he finally step inside, letting darkness have the last
word. Long before light broke behind
two Atomas hills, SER woke to the scrape of Ward's feet on the
packed earth. Ward's silhouette crossed the
doorway, shouldering a sack and muttering oaths.
The old man's cough tore at the air.
Without looking back, he trudged outside, boots slapping puddles
from the night's rain. Sere listened until the door
banged shut. He got up, stretched joints
stiff from hard sleep, and spat metal tasting dryness into a
bucket by the wall. Rats scurried along the beams.
The air held the stink of boiled greens and sour sweat.
He found the clothes he'd left drying near the fire and pulled
them on. The bruise along his jaw stayed
stiff and purple, mood skin tugging with every yawn.
He cleaned his teeth at the basin, scrubbed grit from under
his nails, packed a wedge of bread into a sack for later.
With the sun not yet risen, he made for the fields.
Soggy grass soaked his pants. The field lines stretched dark,
each trench still marked by the Press of ox hooves and work
boots. The air thinned, missed in the
low places, caught the tracks of crows and dogs, Sir, should the
hoe, and waded to the north side, where Vera already waited,
arms crossed, mood set hard. She tossed him a stick.
About time you showed Mars. Been up an hour.
Says if we want a row left after the grubs.
We're skipping breakfast. A braid stuck out behind one
shoulder, muddy at the tips. She'd already broken ground on
the new strip line, almost straight, rhythm strong.
Sir joined beside her, his knees protesting wards at it again.
Vera grunted. Broke a bottle last night, we
heard it. She stomped A clod, making mud
splatter. The field slowly filled as the
rest of her brothers spilled out, each carrying tools, rake,
spade, hatchet. They worked in pairs, knives
hacking at old vine, fingers flicking out worms.
Sir, let Vera drive the pace. When she grumbled, he grumbled
back. The more the cold bit his hands
and weeds tugged his boots, the less mind he paid to old pain.
Other villagers bled in from the alleys, dragging sacks and
towels. Roland waved from 2 rows over,
working with his mother, both chained to a stump of bitter
yam. Veeti hurled sticks at 4 pigeons
until one took off and he ran, yelling towards the far ditch,
launching rocks with practice. By full dawn, the fields were
alive with voices. Tavlin Adele counted chickens by
the fence, stopped twice to jab a stick at the rajada goat who'd
left teeth marks in her onion bed.
The twins tried to build a scarecrow from scraps and ended
up breaking each other's noses with a splintered plank.
Their mother whacked both on the back of the head, sent them
running to the well. Sere wiped sweat with the edge
of his sleeve, spitting grit now and then.
Clouds, low and heavy pressed down sky holding back the sun
until late. He pressed the heel of his boot
into the next trench, feeling each Ridge give.
He and Vera pushed through until mid morning when she called
break. They plopped down on a stone at
the edge of the beans. Their boots oozed mud.
Birds darted between the furrows, pecking what they could
before the kids shouted them off.
Vera pulled bread from a pocket, ripped it in two, offered the
bigger chunk. She bit, chewed, coughed at the
dryness, found nothing better to say.
Sarah looked back at the homes. Smoke from a dozen fires curled
up and faded. The hall, it's banners gone limp
and streaked, loomed behind a haze of burning scrub.
Vera poked at his boot with a stick.
You figure Ward or make trouble at council tonight?
SER worked a bit of crust loose from his teeth.
He might. Nothing good ever comes of his
speeches. He blames the minstrels for the
fields running wild. Says if it went for outsiders,
aphriti'd be richer and we'd all have less mud under our nails.
Brishi mumbled. He'd blame the moon if he could
reach it. Duh.
Half smiled. He felt his lip crack.
Vera glanced sideways. He hit you bad this time.
Sir shrugged. The pain pulsed, dull as memory.
She spit a crumb. Next time, come by.
Don't make me repeat it. He nodded.
Quiet down the row. The Rajdar boys started a
wrestling match, rolling through last night's cowpats, coming up
brown and laughing. One swung a hayfork at the other
and missed by half a yard. The SER tore into his bread,
chewed, and let the sky pale behind the clouds into Itama.
Each day meant old work and new bruises, but the work didn't
care how you showed up as long as you filled the room.
They stood and went back to it, splitting clods with boots,
driving back the roots, refusing to give an inch to anything
softer or meaner than the mud. Let me know if you want the
story to move through Council, a festival's lasting impact.
Deeper tension between elders fall out with Ward or more of
Vera Sere and the villagers in daily grinding life or moments
of rare levity. Their space to add scenes,
deepen conflict, introduce outside threats, or show more of
what makes Twytema keep going. Late afternoon brought the
shuffling of Council Day 2. Thomas Elders convened in the
main hall on the last day of every 10 day.
By the time certain Vera finished their row, distant
voices carried along the wind, rising and falling.
Some moaned, others barked steady as cattle.
The Hall's front porch filled with legs, boots, bare feet
patched shoes. Inside, benches scraped as folk
claimed their patch of floor. Seer washed mud from his hands
in a rain barrel, wiped dry on his trouser fronts, and followed
Vera uphill. At the door, Benki Cagle blocked
the entry with both arms out. He looked each of them up and
down. Unless you're here to speak,
stand at the back. No foolishness.
Last council you near set fire to the place.
Vera shrugged. That was your son, not me.
Hegel snorted and stepped back inside.
The air already turned thick, half from sweat, half from the
slow cooked bitterness hanging over any room where old men
gathered and tried to remember what was theirs and what wasn't.
Ward sat near the middle, elbows wide as branches, voice already
working the crowd. His eyes found Sir skated off
him, then straight ahead. The rest of the seraphine, lined
just Sir, stood behind a plank propped against the wall.
Old Tavlin Nadil took her usual seat near the board with her
hand fanned, flapping flies off. Roland perched on a crate in the
rear, half listening, half whittling a knot of branch with
his pocket knife. Balu and Lavu lounged against
the lentil, eyes bright with the possibility of mischief.
But every so often their mother's eyes pinned them, so
they straightened out. The head man started meetings.
Come round again. We got business first.
The minstrels. He leaned back as if he'd run
out of fuel. Another elder, Missus Cagle took
over her voice. Sure, the minstrels left gifts,
but the Hall's carpet is ruined, and two window shutters were
torn from their hinges, pinning a ripple of bitter laughter.
Names named who drank what, who broke the cup, who loutishly
chased the minstrel's wagon. As they left, Ward raised his
hand, slow and deliberate. Don't kid yourselves.
Outsiders left, but they'll remember Tuitoma if they want
trouble. You start letting anyone in, let
alone those who make their living from stories and slight.
You'll wake up short a roof or a goat.
Missus Cagle didn't yield. We've always welcomed a tale.
Your father used to beg for a story, same as any child.
Ward spat on the floor, wiped his chin.
The silence stretched. Sir pressed his first against
his thigh, slow, keeping his face empty.
From the benches, Vera's father cleared his throat.
Festivals. Festival.
What's broken? We can patch.
No point making ghosts out of travellers.
Ward rolled his jaw, stuck his chin out, but didn't answer.
The talk shambled onward. Who owed what for the pie?
Whether the north fence could wait another week?
Which family claimed the Berry patch just passed Cagle's Field?
Each issue went three rounds. Blame, argument, A squeeze of
laughter. When it came to payment for the
minstrels, Ward made noise. Stories.
Don't buy bread. I'd rather see our coins stay in
the granary. SER caught the edge in his
uncle's voice. Everyone else did too.
Balu coughed into his sleeve. Roland's knife dug deeper into
the wood in his first. The rest let it pass.
Counsel always more bark than bite.
By sundown, business dried up. Tavlin nodded off her fan
listing in her lap, hair a white Halo.
Viti snuck behind a bench and yanked Lavu's belt till the
buckle snapped. No one noticed except Lavu, who
whacked him on the back of his head.
Talk dulled. Who would sweep the hall?
Whose turn to fix the leaking? Well, on and on.
Ward lingered after the more sensible folks had left, arguing
about oxen and seed rights with the head man.
Sir watched him, saw the words wind into circles and shrivel,
leaving only Ward's stubborn frown and empty hands.
Finally the old man trudged out into the blue dark, no one
keeping up with his pace. Upside, the air felt cleaner,
the evening heavier with relief. Roland caught up to Sir,
flipping the branch into the grass.
You hungry? Roland asked.
Sir nodded. Didn't get lunch and by man made
Stew says we'll all eat lean if Ward keeps running down the
minstrels. Old fool thinks if you don't
sing about a place, it didn't ever matter.
Balu and Lavu barrelled past, chasing Viti, who carried half a
stolen loaf. Vera called after them, her
voice torn between irritation and fondness.
SER followed Roland down the slope as the night dropped,
hunger and a dull satisfaction humming in his veins.
A day almost like any other, only a little softer at the
edges, the crowd's judgements quiet for now.
Smoke snaked up from Chimneys, Doors thudded shut.
Tomorrow would come, cold and sure, the fields waiting for the
same hands and wards, mood pulsing beneath it all.
For now, Sir kept his boots steady, down the ruts, head
down, breath sharp, the world settling to a hush behind every
dark window as Roland LED Sir toward the cluster of houses
along the Valley's lowest step. Dusk thickened old smoke and
cook fire, heat crossing between houses like rough hands.
The lane was still slick from the day's trampling and last
night's rain. Every footstep drew up the faint
stink of yesterday's feast and the unmistakable reek of the
dung heap by the Tanner's plot. Roland's house stood halfway
down, a squat wood thing propped on stone and slouching under 3
repair jobs. His mother, arms dusted by
flour, stood in the doorway. She squinted at Sir, then at the
dirt on his boots and the tired set of his jaw.
Wipe your feet, Seraphine, she said.
And Roland, if you trample mud to my stove again, I'll skin
your left ear. They did as told, slipping
inside where the air was dense with boiled onion and the Tang
of boiled pork bones. Roland's sister picked string
from a ball of cheese, then tossed it to the cat on the
window shelf. The old man, Roland's uncle by
marriage, sat facing the hearth, pipe cold in one hand, eyes
following Sir a moment before drifting back to the flame.
The meal was quiet, only the scrape of spoons, the odd grunt
from Roland's uncle. Sarah ate slow, letting the
broth soothe his teeth and jaw. Roland's mother pitched him
seconds, barked at Roland to keep his elbows close, smiled a
thin slant of thanks for whatever help Sere had given
that day, even if it wasn't much.
After Sere helped clear the bowls, they worked quick, hands
bumping, working out a rhythm. Roland wiped his hands on his
shirt and nudged Sere's shoulder.
You coming to the well? Sere nodded, the chill outside
caught in his collar straight off, but the night was still,
stars making pinpricks in the holes between the clouds.
By the well, a few other boys loafed, passing a jar between
them. Milk or the last of the wine,
Sir, couldn't tell and didn't ask.
Balu was there, a scrape on his chin, dirt on his knuckles,
trying to win a slap game against Lavu and failing with
every try. Vt ran laps around the well,
daring anyone to catch him. Laughing, wild breath steaming,
the boys talked about nothing. Roland started it, asking if
anyone else had seen the mark left by the minstrel's wagon.
An odd rut cutting through the back track leading up toward the
old wash. Lavu said he saw a bunch of
feathers at the edge of the field.
Balu bragged about how his mother had almost caught one of
the minstrels pinching stones from the wall for their
juggling. Viti not to be topped.
Said he'd stolen a ribbon from the lead muses own mask.
He flashed a strip of red to prove it, waving it in front of
the others, then tucking it into his sleeve when Lavu tried to
grab it. They moved on to stories of the
council, who blamed what, who called which neighbor a thief
said, didn't add much except to shake his head when someone
asked if his uncle was as mad as ever.
Roland offered. He wore himself out tonight,
fought Mrs. Cagle and the head man both.
Or to let him sleep two days if we're lucky.
Or he'll just dream himself angrier.
Lauru said and all the boys groaned because they knew the
type. A hush landed as the air cooled.
Hens called from their perches. Dogs barked down the lane 1 by
1. The others drifted home, Viti
last running off at a full break when someone's father shouted
his name. Balu limped away with a stone in
his shoe. Roland said good night at his
gate, leaving Sir to take the longer way back to the edge of
the village. He took his time, hands in
pockets, feeling out the new aches in his knees.
Passing Vera's fence, he heard the last scraps of her family's
laughter, the kind that rolled in near sleep, growing slower,
trailing out as doors swung closed and the lamps blew out.
At the Seraphine house, only one lamp glowed.
Ward didn't greet him. He heard movement and muttered
curse as the old man bumped a cup to the floor.
But no words came Sarah's way. He kept to himself, stripped off
boots by the door, wiped dirt from his face, and crawled onto
the mat by the back wall. That night, the house remained
silent. Sir let the hush soak in.
Above, the wind pressed the thatch flat but brought no rain
inside. His head rested between his
curled arms, and despite the throbbing at his jaw and the
roll of new bruises gathering, his breathing slowed.
The village slept, even Ward, even the stray goats wandering
in the lanes, the foxes pouring at the refuse outside the old
laundry. In the dark, SER's mind drifted
over faces, songs, the taste of bread and Stew, the Press of mud
under foot, the way Vera's hand had brushed his.
He let these things shape the hours loose and formless, until
sleep found him not sad, not hopeful, just alive and awake in
the world, waiting for whatever the next morning ground into
him. There woke to the sound of rain
drumming on bare earth, heavier than yesterday, soaking
everything. The sun never quite dried.
In the dimness, his uncle's snores rattled like gravel in a
metal pail. He blinked at the ceiling, mud
and straw, water crawling down a line of sagging Reed.
His cheek had stiffened through the night.
He prodded it with two fingers, found the saw and left it be.
He dressed quick, shoulders hunched.
The house was cold with last night's smoke.
Everything inside smelt of sweat smothered coals.
Half dried socks hung near the stove.
Ward didn't stir as SER slipped out the yard, squelched under
his boots. Rain hit the bins and sheets
hard, bouncing fat drops into his cuffs.
He forked what slop was left to the pigs, the boar rooting too
deep for clean scraps. The hens didn't fuss, just stood
in a knot near their lean to feathers, spiked and drooping
past the fields. The jungle's edge blurred in the
Gray, all leaf and mud and trunk heavy with heat below and chill
on top. Work got done, whether the rain
called for it or not. SER fetched the hoe, dragged the
old Barrow in a slow grind up the path.
Every rut was filled with brown water.
The row near the cane patch needed clearing of roots, a
tangle from last year that never softened, just grew tighter and
wetter. He made himself keep a rhythm.
Hack, turn, clear, toss. He worked the first hour with no
words, breath hissing. His hands went raw, mud layering
each palm, the skin inside his shirt damp and cold.
Now and then he lifted his head to wipe rain from his eyes.
A shout pulled him up. Vera trotted down the track,
wrapped in a quilted shawl, hair darker in wet strands, her boots
splattered to the ankle. Hiding out here?
She called, voice thin under the rain.
He answered by lifting the Barrow, letting the noise do his
talking. She set herself at the next row,
tearing weed from the stalk, fingers quick and uncomplaining.
For minutes they worked like that.
Whenever a bird flitted up, she threw a clump of dirt at it,
missed, but kept trying, grinning at her own
stubbornness. When their arms burned and backs
ached, they huddled under the awning of the old pump shed,
knees knocking. Vera fished out a waxed lump of
sweetbread, tore it in half, handed what she could spare.
He bit down, the sugar bright on his tongue.
Wind battered the tin above. She kept her face down, letting
rain drip from her nose. Ward come home all right last
night. Help never leaves, SER muttered.
She offered her half grin. Least you had quiet then.
He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, thumb resting on the
bloom of bruise peeking down his jaw.
Vera didn't look. Her own hands bore new scrapes,
a dark cut across the knuckle. How's your lot?
Sir asked. She rolled her shoulders.
Boys got sick on the soup. Ma blames Viti, says he snuck
fish in and left it out in the damp.
If we die, we blame him. That's the rule now.
Sir snorted. The wind changed, bringing the
thick muddle of pig and compost, the sharper Tang of wood smoke
from farther off. They sat wordless, rain ticking
louder on the roof. In the gloom, someone hollered
from the village square, news of a sheep loose or trouble at the
bread oven. Vera's head turned, but she made
no move to leave. Some nights I think about
walking out for eel, she said, not bragging.
Straight up to the road, see what I'd find.
Tia's foot found a rock. He scuffed it into the grass.
Wouldn't get far in this mud. Vera's lips pressed tight.
No, but I mean it. He nudged her with a shoulder,
soft as the space allowed. If you go, you'll take half the
village with you. Nobody's got the sense to run on
their own. She snorted, laughing once, then
coughed. The noise echoed, smaller than
before. We ought to try it, just to see,
or pause, both breathless in the rain.
Oxen called from the far field, their low song muffled.
We stay, SER said, not sure if it was truth or habit.
We stay. Vera agreed.
The rain slackened. They swallowed the last bits of
sweetbread, got to their feet and trod back down the lane.
Their boots left clotted shapes in the mud.
Nothing neat, but sure as ever. By the time they reached the
separate paths, Sir to the Rajadha threshold, him to the
sagging Sarrafin fence, the rain had found its slowest, heaviest
pattern. The world was mud and water, but
work still waited, and behind every door the same brittle
stories pressed for another day. Sir stole a last look at Vera's
retreating figure, then braced for another hour in the field
before Ward's temper and the slow grind of night.
The evening wound tight. SER dragged himself through the
yard, boots heavy, shoulders slicked with sweat and old rain.
He brushed past the leaky chicken fence, through the mud
choke doorway. The house sat in a Stew of steam
and stale air. Ward hunched over the table,
sucking at a cracked clay mug, breath hot and sour.
The lamp light showed pouches under his eyes, the skin around
them more paper than meat. SER set his pack on the floor,
pulled off boots, washed in the basin until his skin felt raw.
He scooped up a handful of cold Stew from the pot 8 direct from
the ladle, leaning on the counter to keep weight off his
knees. Behind him, Ward made a noise
half between a burp and a curse. Eight.
Ward said, voice slow from drink.
Sere kept his head turned. Wasn't much to rush home for.
Ward scraped his mug along the table.
He didn't stand, but his voice picked up.
We need to talk about you running out every night.
Villagers all see it ain't right for a Seraphin.
SER let the words pass, chewing slow.
Ward spat into the fire pit, wiped his chin with his sleeve,
glared at the window. I see you running with that
Rajada girl. One day her old man will come
here shouting and I'll have to throw you out.
Better to fix it before then. Ward said, voice thick.
SER dropped the ladle in the pot.
The clang rang sharp in the still kitchen.
We work the same roads, eat the same scraps.
Nobody cares except you. Ward slammed his palm against
the clay, rattling the cups. If you're so clever, maybe you
can explain how you'll eat next year.
Farms this size don't keep two men fed, not with the minstrels
stirring up soft heads and the elders stealing what they can't
grow. SER spoke low, slow to anger but
unable to keep the edge from his jaw.
I do the work, same as you, only difference is I don't stink up 3
rooms while I do it. Ward scraped his chair back,
flinched as if to rise, but let the chair legs screech against
the floor. He clamped 2 shaking hands on
the table top. The bruises along his knuckles
showed old fights, old nights with nothing left but shouting.
A silence worked itself through the kitchen, tight and long.
Sir wiped his mouth, rolled his shoulders, clutched at the pain
in his jaw. The air between them stayed cold
and bruised. Ward shook his head, his glare
gone flat. Just remember whose roof you eat
under, he said. The bull down stared at the
window. Far off, a dog barked.
Lamps flickered in the lane. Vera's house shone gold behind
the drawn curtain, voices sharp and clean.
His uncle worked his jaw, muttered against the table,
poured another half cup of fire latter with a trembling hand.
SER didn't talk more. He rinsed his bowl, wiped his
hands, took the old coat from behind the door.
Ward kept to his complaints, voice dull and tired, eyes
muddy. SER slipped outside.
The yard brimmed with quiet frogs calling from the roadside,
rain slucing through the gutter where the eaves drooped, distant
kids laughing. 2 houses down. He sat on the broken step, knees
to chin, feeling every pulse of ache.
The village had settled into evening routines.
Roland's place sent up smoke. Balu and Lavu played at pelting
a tin with mud balls near the well, their shouts tallying each
hit. Someone sang quietly, 2 houses
away, 1/2 familiar tune. Vera padded out from her porch,
headscarf pulled low, hugging her arms to her chest.
She passed close and offered a nod, nothing more, before
ducking inside, door creaking on old hinges.
Sarah watched the lane drain away in blue shadow.
The festival's memory washed deeper under layers of new
chores and older arguments. He listened to his own breath.
Hands bowled in the pockets of the coat as the chill nipped
under the collar. The night gathered tiotama into
itself, piece by piece, until only the smallest sounds
lingered. A tired man's cough, the flick
of a match behind a curtain, the lull of boots knifing mud.
Sir held his place, waiting for his back to loosen, his heart to
slow, or the last lamp to go out.
Inside, Ward coughed and knocked a cup against the wall.
The noise rattled for a moment, then faded.
Seer let himself feel nothing, just cold hunger and the careful
silence that always came when there weren't enough words left
in the world to fill a room. The house went still.
Sir listened for footsteps or another outburst.
Ward's groan stayed behind the walls.
A single bug ticked at the glass.
The Stew on Sir's tongue tasted like water and root.
He chewed the last bit and set his bowl aside for cleaning.
In the morning, rain traded pace from stutter to steady.
It hammered patches in the yard, dripped through the left eave
and pulled along the sill. Sir listened for breaks between
drops, picking out the slap of boots.
In the muddy lane, two men bickered, short and fast, names
muffled by rain. A dog barked, cut off.
The lane emptied. Voices shrank to the edge of
hearing. He shifted his weight on the
step, feeling the ache in his hip and the stitch across his
chest, the coat held in last week's sweat.
The lining scratched through his shirt collar, rough on the new
scab at his neck. Sir watched a line of yellow
light crawl through Vera's window, the shade flickering as
her brothers moved past. He counted the sways of her
Lantern, once, twice, three times.
Dull. She'd go early to the field in
the morning, he thought, how the bread she gave him that morning
had left crumbs in his pocket, how the sound of her voice had
cut through mud and wind with nothing soft about it.
He prodded the bruise on his jaw, tested the split above his
left tooth. An old pain built there matched
the grind in his knees, the throb below the ribs from last
night's work. Village sounds said enough rest.
Tomorrow will come on the same boots, Sir.
Closed his eyes, pressed his arm against his chest, tugged the
coat tighter. When the cold finally seeped to
the marrow, he slipped inside, stripped off the coat and
stepped to the water bowl. Clouded glass, bits of grit at
the bottom. He splashed it across his face,
tasting mineral and the day's dust.
He spat into the bucket, wiped his hands on his trousers,
smelled the stale stink his fingers picked up from Ward's
turnip. Wine Ward's breath soared back
and forth through the thin door, hanging on each snore, followed
by a slow choke. Sir stood silent, listened for
the rhythm. After a while he crouched at the
side wall, pulled out the old pack he hid behind stacked
crates. Inside, a dull knife. 2 old
letters, a bit of colored glass, a picture torn from a paper.
Three people, faces brown and serious.
He glanced at the faces but didn't search them.
He pressed the glass between his palm and the letter, tucked
everything back. Ward barked out a curse, louder,
half waking. Sir pulled up short, wiped his
nose on his sleeve, and slipped into bed.
He tugged the mat up high, let it cover his arms.
Feet curled in the stale warmth. His feet felt each grain from
the dirt floor, every lump of straw, every chew hole a rat had
made in spring. As his eyes closed, night
pressed the ache tighter. Serre let himself drift, every
sound in the house tying him to a day that would start the same
as the last. Rain, mud, bruises, new and old
fields that didn't care which Seraphin or Rajdah named them,
and the weight of stories nobody needs but nobody wants to
forget. A board popped near the stove.
A coal hissed out. SER kept breathing slow, body
braced for Ward's voice to cut the quiet, but the only thing
that came was the hush of Twitomo.
Lockdown for another night. Too tired to dream, too wary to
rest, waiting again for another dawn to give or take what little
it could. The next day came clouded with
air damp enough to stick cloth to skin.
Sir woke to the dull ache of his jaw, the mats twisted under his
knees, spine sore from sleeping wrong.
Ward's door gaped open, no sign of boots or sack.
The house smelled of cold ash and that morning's piss pot.
Someone outside rattled a bucket against the pump.
Sir found his shirt wedged under the corner post, tugged it on,
and shuffled barefoot into the yard.
Slim trails of mud ran off the porch, his and Ward's both
prints from yesterday overlapping, then vanishing in
the puddle at the fence. Pigs rooted at the gate, snouts
slick, grunting over nothing much.
The cockerel jumped the fence, landed in a pile of windblown
husks, flapped once and crowed at no one.
He dumped his head at the pomp, wiped hair out of his eyes, felt
the cold rinse settle over the night sweats.
Over at the well, Roland's mother herded a clutch of
chickens, tossing the Millet. She glanced once at Sir, didn't
smile, just nodded, face set. No one in Titoma made easy work
of mornings. He stepped into his boots,
hissed when the left heel pinched A scab, shrugged and
hauled the hoe onto his shoulder.
The north side of the field called Rose tangled by last
week's rain. He passed Vera's house.
Her brothers fought over a worn cloak, their shouts running out
as soon as their mother's voice lanced through the fog.
Vera herself walked out the door, swinging a basket, hair
tied up, ragged ropes of sleep still pulling her eyes smaller.
She clocked Sir with a look, took inventory of his limp and
winced right at the swelling under his jaw.
You're going to live? She asked, voice flat.
Can't stop yet. He said Fields will eat us
first. She didn't argue, just handed
him a crust of dark bread, her own teeth tearing off the end.
They ate, walking boots losing tread in the muck by the cane.
Rose, Roland and Vt joined Roland, silent hands deep in his
coat, Vt waving a stick like a peddler looking for a mark.
Can't believe the council argued over who gets the pie, Vt said,
swinging at a weed. My lot got nothing.
All that fuss for crumbs, Serchut.
Jaw stiff, watching the mud working deeper into Vitti's
cuffs, Ward said stories don't feed folk.
Vera gave a short grunt, not quite a laugh.
He say what does? Never seen him plant a thing
this season. They reached the furrows, each
settling to a row, tools hacking, boots squelching.
The village behind them got louder.
Smoke climbed, kids clattered buckets.
Someone called for help with a stuck wheel.
Tuitoma woke the way it always did, grinding, stubborn, pushing
into another morning whether anyone wanted it or not.
Time stretched thin each hour unfolded in field work, chop,
break, dump, repeat. Sun came limping out, turned mud
to steam, baking sweat into every shirt.
Roland limped off early when his mother shouted recipes over the
hedge. Viti wandered off, chasing
frogs. Vera and Sara made it through
half the plot, barely speaking, pausing only to split the last
of her bread, watching the clouds crawl up and close the
sky again. When the bell for the midday
meal rang from the hall, they stood straight, back snapping,
shoulders caked in field dust. Ealing home?
Vera asked, voice small, thumb rubbing a dark line on her
wrist. Sir watched Ward cross town
toward the well, coat buttoned wrong, head down, lips still
moving around an argument he was too tired to keep private.
Guess I have to. I'll see you after maybe, she
said. He nodded, boots dragging
through the dirt. He walked slow all the way home,
shoulders heavy with the weight of the field, the ache in his
teeth, and the way the air thickened with old rain that
never quite quit the soil. At his door, he wiped his shoes,
braced himself and stepped inside to whatever waited
another round, another day, another evening, in a house that
always seemed too close and too cold at the same time.
He didn't look back over his shoulder.
The lane behind him filled with children's shouts and the scrape
of wooden wheelbarrows, the only music left from a festival that
no longer seemed to have touched the world at all.
The afternoon did not let up. Sun pressed low and left the
lanes in shadow, the humidity making every shirt cling to ribs
and each step into the mud a battle behind Sir's house.
The pigs rooted through wet straw, quiet now except for the
odd grunt. Chickens crouched under the rain
bent fence, eyes following flies in lazy arcs.
Drips from the eaves kept time with a memory Sir could not
shake. The drumline of festival
clapping swallowed in this sodden quiet.
Across the village, festival detritus still coloured the mud.
Lime green bunting drooped off the gutter at Kaggles.
A pair of cracked masks hung from the Smith's nail wax
puddled into the ruts where dancers had once cleared a space
in front of the hall. Balu and Viti poked at a
glimmering white feather with a stick, debating whether it had
dropped from Cansion's mask or if a gull just lost its nerve.
Midst SER limped along the side lane, basket empty, careful to
keep hold the scabs at his knuckles.
The twins barrelled past, yowling in the tones of high
mischief 1 clutching A slingshot, the other their
prize, the leftover scraps of honey cakes someone had stashed
behind the water barrel. Their mother snapped after them,
apron twisted, and went back to mending a torn Reed mat In every
doorway someone stitched beat dust from a boot.
Brow furrowed, lips sapped of humour by thick heat and thicker
rumour at the well. 2 old women exchanged snatches of gossip
between heaves on the rope. The bucket clattered against the
stone, sending up a wet slap. Didn't you see Cagle's boy chase
after that red hatpelled girl in the alley last night?
She'd never. Lena saw her crying by the fence
before the song. Old Ward.
Such a brute. Poor Seraphin, I had not wished
that man on a dog. Sir kept his eyes low as he drew
water, but the words pricked at him.
He sloshed a bucket up the lane, tripping over a new rut.
Water splattered to his boots. On Adelaide's porch, Tavlin
stabbed a clod with her staff. Rain's coming again, I feel it,
she said, Not really to SER, but the edge of her voice demanded a
reply. Never left, SER said and handed
off what was left in his bucket so she could feel her kettle
without hauling. When he circled by the rajada
fence, Vera waited with arms crossed, stance wide, watching
her little brother try to rope their goat into the shed.
The animal bucked, head low, legs wide and the child braced,
red faced, teeth bared. The rope snapped free and the
goat darted, nearly toppling Vera.
She shoved her hair back, made no move to help, so leaned
against the gate. Always the goat.
Vera grunted, flicked mud off her fingers.
He's got more sense than the rest of my brothers together.
Ma says if he learns the door latch, maybe he can take over
the house. She jerked her chin at the duck
board. You see all the streamers picked
up? Viti says he's going to sell
them for copper pieces in the square.
Sir snorted, glanced at the worst knot of rags tangled in
the fence. Like anybody to buy that?
She shrugged. Viti's never let the truth stop
him before. Roland says he's trying to save
enough for boots without holes. They watched her brother wrestle
with the goat. 2 chickens joined the melee, pecked at loose
scraps, their wings drumming across the fence.
The twins threw pebbles at each other's hats.
Each miss a new round of curses, each hit a victory.
Vera cocked her head, listening past the noise.
You hear what they're saying about the minstrels?
Sir shook his head. Merely say Missus Cagle found a
bolt of cloth missing from the storeroom.
Figures outsiders went off with it.
Roland heard them at the council, arguing over whether to
call for a patrol from a fear it or just chalk it up to luck.
Sir shrugged. We never had luck.
Not real luck. He squinted at the sky cloud
piling behind the jungle Ridge, wet and yellow and endless.
If a patrol comes, it's because someone wants an excuse to stir
dust. Vera's mouth pressed thin.
Cagle's grandson's been squirmy all day, hiding out back every
time his Gran yells. If anybody's got sticky Fingers,
it's him. Just then, a shout rose from the
square. Balu sprinted past mouthful of
Berry skin, waving a lump of string.
Lavu barrelled after hands red with stolen fruit.
Behind them, Missus Caggle's curses bloomed over her ruined
garden. She stumbled into view, waving a
Reed broom. Face beat red.
Viti, at a safe distance, mined a dirge on a driftwood flute.
Nobody stopped to help. Inside every home, the old
festival ring lingered. Sweet oil clung to window
ledges. Wax pooled in corners.
Feathers and bits of dye stained the clothesline ropes.
Small children squabbled over mask fragments. 2 babies balled
out their hunger while mothers ignored them in favour of the
slow politics of bread dough. Even the dogs moved slow,
tongues lolling, hip bones sharp from the summer's tightness.
Near the well, 2 old men poured over chalk lines on a slate
measuring the cost of new thatch versus borrowed bundles from
council stores. God trust, rain, nor council
promises. Never could, one said, jabbing a
knot on the drawing. Down by the Smithy, Cagle
hammered a horseshoe, sweat stinging the inside of his
collar, pausing only to eye a boy trading sticks for the
battered old bolts that came from the minstrel's wagons.
No good comes from strangers, he muttered, loud enough for the
yard to hear. At mid down, the sky darkened.
Children scattered indoors, fires lit in every main room.
Kettles clattered against iron grates, windows pulled tight.
Boys had started a dice game under the eaves of the hall,
pooling together copper and shell.
Lavu lost twice, cast lunged at Vt.
Balu broke them up, took the pot and got chased.
Sere ducked under the Rajadha roof when the sky opened.
Thunder shook dust from shelves. Vera's mother handed around the
last of the boiled roots. Vera's brothers slouched in from
the goat yard, splattered thick with new mud.
Sere stood awkward near the stove, elbows tight, while
Vera's mother worked a spit through an onion and didn't look
up. The soup steam closed around
Sez's head, thick with pepper, bitter with root.
Vera nudged a mug his way. You look like death, Saraphin.
He grinned, not showing teeth. Bring me back with soup.
The storm kept them inside. Nothing to do but scrub hands
and watch window panes fog in the corner.
Vera's youngest brother mined Kankyan's mask, stomping in a
circle, belt tied around his brow, humming the creation song
until the others threw peels to make him quit.
Vera's mother rolled her eyes, corrected his posture,
straightened the belt. If you're going to mock the
muse, at least do it with your back straight.
Kaggle may have no class, but you can keep your own.
Above the racket, Vera's father lit a pipe, crouched in the
doorway as if guarding the world from further nonsense.
Outside the rain, inside the boom of voices, SER let his mind
move slow. He soaked bread in the soup,
tore it with sore fingers, allowed warmth to fill new
bruises and old places. Left hollow, the house filled
with the sound of meal and noise.
Cups clinked. Bread broke when the storm
passed. Sarah took the trail out under
dripping leaves. The mud gathered in fat puddles,
each print a dark echo of passing.
He found Balu and Roland at the back fence, poking the last of
the sticks into a wasp's nest, daring each other to touch
closer. The game broke up quick when a
snake slithered out, slow as rope, and the boys ran for the
road, screaming, half in fear, half in thrill.
Not far off, old Tavolin called for help.
Her fence had slumped in the rain.
Sir sloshed over, bracing the planks while she wrapped cord
and cursed each knot. She eyed his jaw once.
He's still hitting you, boy. He didn't answer.
She spat over her shoulder, shook a Bony fist at the Adele
roof. Men without wives turn rotten
every time. She jerked the cord tight.
You come round if he gets mean, bring your own spoon.
I don't share. I know, SER said.
She nodded and let him finish the cord, her hands steady even
in the shaking wind. Toward dusk, Sir headed back
toward the hall. Smoke hung low.
Traces of last night's argument clung to the eaves.
News had spread. Someone saw a shape moving
beyond the field at the edge of Teatoma.
Something not quite animal, not quite wagon.
The stories rolled from one house to another.
Maybe a fox, maybe a sick dog, maybe one of the minstrels lost
behind, maybe something else. At the hall, the council's
oldest headman. Cagle, Missus Cagle.
A few more stood close and low, voices dropping in the storm's
wake. Sir kept to the shadow under the
overhang, listened without meaning to.
Says they left more tracks than oxen.
Gate not locked. We should send a watch tonight,
like that's worked before. We haven't lost anything but a
bit of old cloth and pride. 1 Elder coughed, spat out the side
door. I'll take the first round.
Nobody wants to stay up, but nobody wants to be first to find
out if strangers come. Back inside, Balu's mother
argued with the bread, women counting coppers, splitting
bills for ruined flour. In the lane, Larvu and the twins
plotted with Viti to sneak a cup of dried wine from Kegel's
stores, daring each other by dark, the whole of Tuyekamma
drew in again. Doors slammed, lamps lit,
arguments muffled, laughter broken by Thunder.
Viti darted past Sere in the last streak of light, fists
clenching a red streamer and a half empty flask, yelling
nonsense until a neighbor barked to quiet and he vanished.
Sere watched the last shimmers fade from Vera's window.
He nursed another saw in his jaw, tongue worrying at the raw
edge. Ward's silhouette loomed behind
a curtain at home, face still red, hunched tight around a
small flame. The old man paced, argued with
invisible enemies, punched the air, then slumped again, small
and mean as a shadow. The Stew closed up the yard,
drove the gate deep through another wedge in the latch in
his uncle's house. He washed mud from his hands,
knuckles rough and red, numb to pain for the moment.
The Stew was cold again. He ate anyway.
Ward didn't speak. He ripped it bread with his
teeth, drank deep, stared at the empty wall.
The silence cracked when rain spat on the roof and the world
outside tensed. Sir braced for the strike, but
it didn't come. Only Ward's ragged breathing, a
grunt, then the shudder of his old body folding toward uneasy
sleep. Sir did not sleep.
Soon, every sound from the night pressed close.
Distant frogs, the fitful moan of swamp wind, the jangle of
shackles on the tethered pig Outback.
He watched the shadows tumble on the ceiling, counted the moments
between Ward's coughs, his own heart beating out every old
familiar ache. He pulled the old pack from the
straw again, felt the letters inside and kept them pressed
tight. Words unspoken, names unshared.
The weight of parents gone, leaving space for nothing but
what work and bruises could fill.
Each scar, every line of pain, was one step closer to what the
village called a future. By the time the rain quit its
hammering, dawn waited low and Gray.
Twitama, bruised and battered, opened another day on its same
churn. Sir awoke stiff and silent, the
taste of bread and old Stew still thick in his mouth as the
village outside rolled through another morning full of secrets,
ache, memory, and the weight of a song that only the living
bothered to remember, A dog bolted through the square in the
blue half light. Sir watched it spook a group of
pigeons from the roofline, feathers rattling in the puddles
at the well. A pair of old women passed a
chunk of cheese back and forth. Dried crust broke under their
thumbs. Crumbs flicked to their ankles.
They traded soft, sharp words about lost ribbons, watched the
smoke crawling from the hall, and finished with their heads
close. A racket at the Smith's hatch
caught his eye. Viti and Lavo hung upside down
from the joist, their feet roped with a cord that wouldn't have
held a real thief for a minute. Kaggle came after them, the
hammer in one hand, apron full of bent iron in the other.
Swear to all the gods you 2 come near my oil again and I'll tell
your da to use you for scarecrows.
Lavu twisted free, dropped hard, smacked mud across his trows.
Vitty flailed, laughed, then dangled, waiting for mercy that
didn't come. Balu half heartedly dragged a
plank across a rut, tried to splinter the worst bits with a
rock. The rajada goat bleated at the
fence. Vera's brothers slopped buckets
over the stoop, arguing about who lost the new knife.
Vera herself worried at a battered basket picking through
beans, tossing out shrivelled ones.
She called across to SER with her eyes, then went back to
sorting, jaw set, rhythm unbroken.
By noon the children had turned sullen.
Clouds pressed low. 2 council elders hobbled through the
field, stepping careful, muttering about footprints,
arguing over who ought to pay for repairing the gate by the
southern plot. Atop the Ridge, Roland squatted
with his hands dirty. He scraped letters into the dust
with a stick, squinting, lips moving silent.
Every so often he glanced up, caught Sir watching, scrubbed
out the marks, and set to drawing again.
Tavlin shouted for help. Her hens had scattered, pecked
another woman's shoelace to shreds.
Vera's youngest brother ran shrieking after a spotted piglet
that slipped from a basket meant for the stewpot.
Four other children joined, barking at the animal until 1
tripped into a barrel, tipped water across the yard and howled
about it louder than the rest. Rumour moved under every window
who had started singing first, where the cansion's people left
with more than their pay. If Cagle's grandson was hiding
that missing cloth, Roland's aunt made rounds with a plate of
fried white root, collecting stray gossip for her own Stew.
She listened, smiled and pressed each story flat, never missing
the smallest detail. An elder from the outlying huts
strode along the lane, cloak pulled to his jaw, cane poking
holes in the mud. He paused at each porch for a
word, always brief, always with one wary eye on the jungle's
edge. When he stopped at Sere, he only
nodded, looked past him, and trudged to the next house.
By late afternoon, chores slowed as heat pressed between the
houses. The ovens in the hall kicked out
thick, sharp clouds that stuck to every shirt.
Out by the ideal coop, Vera wiped egg off her skirt, glared
at the clucking hens. She muttered about running for
the river, taking every girl who could walk.
Sir raking Bean Rose muttered about following her, but only a
step behind. Just before dusk, the north
fence snapped loose at the post 2 oxen Lombard through tails
swinging mines on the sprouting greens inside the square.
Sir belted the old rope around the post, braced his feet and
pulled the rail back. Chauvelin swore at the animal.
Chased it with a Willow branch, her curses stringing longer than
her arm. Roland and Balu ran up, hands
out, shouting nothing at all. It took three men and a piece of
oil cake to corner the ox, Vera's brother hurling himself
over the tail to grab its collar in the scramble.
Balu cut his palm. Blood fell to the dirt, bright
and short lived. Roland spat on it, made a rough
patch with his shirt, and grinned at the mess.
They left a trail of muddy handprints as they headed back
to the well distance. Screech rose from the Baker's
house fire, smell not strong, but enough for a clutch of women
to bolt outside, waving towels. Black smoke traced up one wall.
Tablin whacked at the sparks with a wet coat.
Someone dumped a bucket over the sill, steam chasing the worst of
the ash. Vera's mother took charge.
By the time Ward limped around the corner, it had been handled,
the whole mess left for tomorrow's cleaning.
Sarah's hands packed black earth into the breech at the fence,
pressing with the heel and thumb scraping under fingernails as
the light failed. A cold sweat worked up from his
back. Words from the square carried
over vacant lots, all the things not forgotten or forgiven
stitched into every break. Dinner was salt bread, a few
slivers of charred beat, a mug of thin soup that tasted of
nothing but wood. Ward glared at the table, eyes
red and glazy, mouth pulled thin as fence wire.
His hand shook around the mug up, ending half before he could
drink. Sia watched the old man chew,
set his own bread down, waited for another outburst.
Ward said nothing, not even when Thunder shuddered past the lamp
lit window as night thickened. The wind pooled at the edges of
the roof, slapped against the patch above SER's head, the
lampspat smoke he tucked into the mat, back to the kitchen
wall, knees up, hands curled to chest, raindrummed, cold as a
secret. From across the room, Ward began
again. Quiet at first, cursing in
sleep. Then a full breath, a grunt, A
muted howl into his first. Sir shut his eyes.
His hand drifted to the rough pack beneath the plank, fingers
finding the edges of his father's old knife and the bent
scrap of his mother's cooking spoon.
Not for hope, just to remember what hands had built, what hands
had failed in the lane. Laughter ran a while longer as
the boys made a last bet by Lantonite, Roland betting on a
worm in a jar and Viti threatening to eat it whole.
The twins howled, 1 stomping mud on the other, neither willing to
quit before one got cold and filthy and ran crying to a
mother who'd only roll her eyes. Bar off a branch snapped.
The oxen grunted in their pen. The knight pressed in, sticky
and dense, fretted with voices, thinned with wind.
Sir, let the day fall away. He breathed in the sour air.
The ache locked where fist met jaw, the stretching pain in both
hands, the memory of music almost crowded out by work,
hunger and the voice on the other side of a fragile wall.
The house eased into that kind of sleep where every sound
threatened to cut. The rain kept at it.
Somewhere near dawn, a rooster called too soon, and nobody
answered. The mud beneath the houses
shifted, cold and deep. Tewatoma's next day waited, the
steps of its waking slow and sure in the dark, with SER at
the edge of his mat, listening, flexing his hands and knowing.
Nothing had closed, nothing had healed.
Morning light dragged its way across the walls, grey through
the wet. The shadows hung low.
Table, stove, wards, heavy boots by the door.
Sir lay half awake, body aching. A rind of cold sweat stuck him
to the mat. He listened towards cough,
scrape around the stove corner and then die off, thick and
damp. The house smelled of rain soaked
mud, bread crust and last night's sour soup.
Sir got up, washed at the bowl and held stone cold water in his
mouth until he spit pink in the drain.
The bruises under his jaw looked old now, a cut at his cheekbone
throbbed hard when he bent to lace his boots.
Outside, Roosters barked. The lane was a soggy rut.
Sir trudged around puddles. Stepping over last night's fence
patch, he grabbed the old shovel from the shed and chopped at the
drainage, hand dug along the yard's low corner.
Water pooled thick and brown, glinting in the weak dawn.
Vera's mother hollowed at the boys to carry ash buckets.
Tavlin cast at a brood of wet hens.
Roland's father called after a pig that had worked its way past
the patch fence, barrelling into cabbages.
The whole of Titioma, wiped raw by the rain, grumbled and pushed
forward near the well. Vera hooked mud off her boots
and shook her head at Sarah's limp.
She handed him a heel of bread. Her other hand held 1/2 wrapped
clump of berries meant for the kitchen, blue juice staining her
cuticles fields. After breakfast.
She didn't ask so much as offer a map of the day.
Sarah nodded, chewing slow. Wards in one of his moods.
Saw him turn out the lamp twice, then go rooting for wine.
Vera smirked. Sounds like he woke on the wrong
side of every day. The Councilman tromped by boots
like Anvil's. The headman in back, whispering
with Kaggle and shaking his head, Roland jogged past with a
sack of seed tied tight with string, chasing the two smallest
adile girls who shrieked and played hard to catch.
By mid morning, Tewatoma fell into its old beets, Fields
muddied, chores measured out. Boys snuck a throw at each other
across rows. Vera's brothers bickered over
the sharpness of a hoe. Vera stacked weeds for burning
hands, unconcerned about mud on her neck or knees.
While he worked a row, Sears caught a streak of memory, his
mother's voice singing over broken grass, the high hum of
song where her hands shelled peas by the porch.
He wiped at his jaw, blinked hard, and stabbed the shovel
deeper, The hurt sharpened, cleaned by the work.
At the edge of a field, Vera dragged a rotten root and flung
it toward the ditch, missing a hen by an inch.
She grinned when Sarah caught her doing it.
Maybe I'll catch it on purpose next time.
The twins, muddy from head to heel, staked out the far fence
with sticks, fighting over who'd be first to chase a stray goose
from the Bali. Viti baited them to bet a coin
on it. Both swore they'd win and shook
hands behind their backs. Rawlan came sweating up the row,
stopped near SER and crouched at the furrows edge, sketching
shapes in the mud with a stick. Heard you sang at the festival.
Must have been something to get Vera's brothers to shut up
there, shrugged. You miss nothing but sore feet
and red eyes. Nobody sings sober around here
if they don't want trouble. Roland's grin flattened.
You'd do better out, you know. There's a merchant sometimes at
the Path. Sells salt News, all sorts.
So whacked weeds with his boot. Never talk to him.
Roland shrugged. Not yet.
Maybe one day. At the far end of the plot,
Tavlen called for help fixing her gait, cursing bent nails as
she went. Vera dropped her weeds, stalked
off slow, and SER followed, shaking mud from his hands.
Near noon, a commotion rose toward the well, yelling, the
sudden clang of a dropped pail. Lavu sprinted past, face wide
with fear, shouting that the Smithy was on fire.
Vera looked at SER, face blank, and ran.
When Sir got there, the thatch behind Kaggle's workshop was
smoking, red tongues lapping at the dry grass.
Villagers formed a line, buckets torn from wells and kitchens.
Sir joined, chest heaving, the weight in his arms forgotten as
the bucket passed to his grip. Children wrangled smaller pails
and ran to the ditch. Kaggle howled at the blaze,
flailing at embers with a mat Vt hounded the tail end, dragging
out baskets of sooty nails, hollering for someone to save.
The bellows surpassed buckets, arms aching.
Roland slipped mud on his knees, face stark.
Vera brought water in a cracked jug, hands bleeding from a gash.
She didn't seem to notice. Smoke grabbed at the roof.
Flames chewed the patched eaves. Tavlin stood in a circle, gangly
with worry, barking orders sharp as nails.
Dogs darted behind the crowd, chewing, dropped bread and
barking at the heat. The line broke, buckets emptied.
The last of the thatch flopped wet the fire, coughing steam
into the grey. Someone hacked away smoulder
with a spade. Caggle pounded sparks down with
a stone. The crowd pented, sooted and
coughing, chief and child alike. The whole bell rang 3 sharp
times. The elders called council
voices. Rough Ward showed up, hands in
pockets, lips pinched, and sent a curse toward the ruined
Smithy. A knot of women herded the
children away. In the aftermath, the crowd
milled and counted. Lungs burned, eyes streamed,
questions loaded every pause. Cagle crouched near his soaked
forge, face blank as hammered tin.
The bellows lay ruined. Roland tried to speak, but the
words sat in his mouth, heavy and round.
Ward pushed to the front, voice hard.
What good is a festival that brings fires and thieves?
Stories don't fix roofs or fences.
Missus Cagle stood near him, face pinched.
You care so much for work. You never do, Ward Seraphin, but
the rest of us do what must be done.
No outsider set that fire. Ward spat on the ground, boots
caked in ash. He glared at Sere, then out at
the crowd. No one ever blames the right
man. The headman stepped up, eyes
ringed red. Enough, Ward.
We'll see to the Smithy as a village.
No more ghosts, just hands, old and young, together.
In that thick hush, Sir grabbed A rag, knelt by the dead fire
and worked beside Vera, Roland, Vitti, the twins, even Balu, as
the rest of Tuatoma emptied out their panic into scraping soot
from stone. By sunset, the world pulled back
to its old diameter fields, fences, soup drawn too thin.
The air was heavy, the silence a little brighter, the streets
spattered with black and memory. Ward left early, walking the mud
with a limp, untouched buckets at his feet.
The crowd did not call him back. Vera wrapped a rag around her
gashed hand and pressed herself shoulder to shoulder with Sir,
both silent under the weight they'd carried.
When it was over, Sere stood in the road, scraped raw inside.
His jaw burned, his arms shook. Across the village, people
drifted home, carrying everything they had not lost.
He looked at the ruined work, the spent faces, the bellows in
a heap and Vera at his side, biting the pain.
He waited for the world to reform, for hands to rise and
shape something into tomorrow, and for night to claim the last
spent stretch of the day. The air hung raw and thick after
the fire, smoke trapped in sweat and hair and skin.
SER limped past the Smithy, the edges of his hands black,
casual, sifted ash with the heel of his boot, not looking up, jaw
trembling. Rollin leaned on a splintered
post, dirt plastered halfway to his elbows.
Vera let her hand bleed into a torn bit of rag and watched her
youngest brother dig a groove in the cinders with a stick.
Kids picked half melted nails out of the mud, arguing over
who'd found more. The bellows smoked behind them,
a broken heap. Grown men grabbed shovels and
buckets and moved in slow circles, scraping and lifting,
shoulders hunched like they could still ward off sparks.
Old Taveline circled the Smithy 3 times, muttering curses.
She chided 2 of the twins for poking hot metal with Willow
switches. Never seen sense in a seraphine.
She muttered to no one, but her voice cut sharp enough to slice
mud. A group of elders gathered by
the well, low and tight voices clipped the head man barked
orders. Kaggle's face clouded in the
gathering. Missus Cagle stood with her arms
folded and asked who'd seen anyone near the forge before it
caught. Ward hovered on the fringe, jaw
set, spit shining, his chin shooting looks at Sir that stuck
like splinters. The village shifted to patchwork
work, neighbors joined to haul buckets to the roof.
Clear gutters kick up embers hiding in the weeds.
The younger Rajada boys dragged soggy boards to the woodpile.
Balu and Viti traded quick bets over who would step in the muck
pit first. La Voux lost, slipping shin
deep. He shrieked, mud oozing over his
boot, and Viti doubled over, howling.
So took a spot beside Vera, thumb pressed to the black under
his jaw. Whole day's gone to flame and
mud. She glanced at Cagle, who
crouched silent, staring at the crushed bellows.
We'll fix it. Ma always says what you can't
burn the first time, you burn the second.
Down the lane, Roland's uncle barked for tools, demanded the
twins sweep ash from the porch. Balu lost his rag, flinging it
at a chicken, which retaliated by pecking his knuckle.
Old men swore about the state of the Smith's roof, every phrase
starting and ending in shoulda. And next season, as dusk snuck
closer, the council reformed under the eaves.
The headman promised timber from the east, cops for patching iron
from every house to be pounded into nails and labour counted by
hands instead of names. Ward rolled his eyes, hunched by
the door. But the decision stuck.
No one answered the questions about who or what sparked the
fire. The talk wound down with curses
tossed at the crawling dark missus.
Cagel snapped last. If the gods want to test us,
they can show themselves. No outsider did this.
There stretched his palms, callous to callous, tried not to
wince. Smoke pricked at his eyes, old
pain wrapped tight in every bone.
Vera knelt near him, pressing mud onto the cut at her palm.
Neither spoke as the crowd thinned and the village began to
return to what it's still owned. Ward stumped off homeward,
dragging his heel. Vera's father wrapped her cut in
a clean scrap, quick, silent, and pressed the back of her
head. Balu chased La Vue through a gap
in the fence, the twins trailing after.
SER scraped the last cinders with a scarf.
He caught Kagan's stare for a bare breath, long enough for the
blacksmith to nod curt. When the sky had dimmed, he
stopped by the Rajara fence. Vera met him there, wiping her
hands over the grass. They stood quiet, letting the
bugs find their bare arms, letting breath catch.
She didn't ask, and he didn't say what burned worst, the cut,
the bruise, the smoke, or Ward's glance.
We'll have work at the Smith in the morning, she said.
Cagle never lets a fire turn his hammer soft.
Zehr nodded. The shadows climbed up her face,
the old sounds muffled beneath rain beaten boards.
Doors closed down the lane. Ward's window flickered with
lamp light for a few seconds, then went dark.
He walked back slow, feet slogged by new aches and the
knowledge that nothing burned away had been truly lost or
found. The house waited, silent and
blank. He eased the door shut, the
night pressing close, the taste of smoke still deep in his
mouth. Distant laughter darted across
the ruts. Another joke, another story,
starting somewhere else. Stella lay down on the old mat,
hands cracked and stinging, the day's wait easing off his eyes.
The bed, cold and rough, kept him up a while.
He traced the old memories, a song, a hand, the clang of a
blacksmith's forge filling the night until sleep, stubborn as
any field row, claimed him and carried him nowhere at all.
The next morning brought wood smoke and a slow haze.
The rain had eased, but the air kept everything slick.
By the time SER stumbled from his mat and wiped the last grit
off his face at the bowl, Ward was gone.
No note, no sound, just the brittle echo of boots dragging
down the lane. SER rolled his sleeves and felt
the stretch along his battered arms.
Bruises underlaid every motion, but chores did not spare.
Out the door, the yard glistened beneath a heavy sky.
Smoke drifted from Cagle's shop. Even burned, the forge had heat
this side of dawn. Already hammers rang against a
broken sheet of tin, children's voices bobbing under the sound.
Near the well, the council headman divided the work.
Half the men were detailed to frame a new thatch for the
Smith. The younger boys cleared the
tangled wire, still sticky from the fire.
Tavlin Nadila raked nails from the mud, tossing them in a
bucket. Beside her.
Roland joined SER, his hair stuck flat and shirt stained.
Looks like a feast for crows. Roland muttered.
He squatted, pushing ash aside to reveal a still warm
horseshoe. SER picked a soot stained
shovel, pressed his palm down on the warped grain, and got to
work. Near the scorched yard, the
twins tugged half burned planks. Balu wrapped a torn cloth round
his hand, tucking his thumb tight, grimacing with every
pull. Vera passed Sarah's slab of
bread, already cold and hard. She flexed her bandaged hand,
ignoring the stain spreading there.
Never seen Kaggle so quiet, she whispered.
Sir only nodded, still scraping at the compacted black.
The Smith moved among them, silent except for orders to keep
the line clean and to mind the hot spot under the smoke.
Ward turned up by midmorning, face stormy.
Nursing a tin of ale, he leaned on the fence and watched work
get done, offering the odd grunt but none of his usual
complaints. By midday, most of the worst was
hauled out to the dump behind the Tanners, the villagers
pressed thin and sullen. Gathering at the hall for bread
and weak soup, children snuck bits of blackened metal and
banged them together behind benches, making a racket until
Missus Cagle took the pieces away.
Gossip had shifted from the fire's blame to the next
planting. Balu griped about beetles in the
new yam. Rose Rowland's brother peddled a
story about seeing something near the marsh.
No one believed him, but his voice carried Tavlen.
Adila feigned sleep in the shade, her ears wide open.
In the lull before work picked up again, SER caught Vera
watching the Smith, his eyes on the forge.
The blank in his stare drove a hollow into the ground.
He'll get over it, Vera said, tracing a Pebble with her shoe.
Tools break, roofs burn. Nothing new.
Sia shrugged, jaw clamped. He scraped mud from a stone and
waited for the elders to call the next task.
When work resumed, folks patched what could be patched.
Cagle swung the hammer slower, but each strike landed clean.
By dusk, rafters stood again and a few Todd shingles cover the
gaps. As the work ended, the village
drifted apart. Children hauled new timber to
the side yard. The twins chased the rajada goat
into the alley, who escaped in a storm of curses and bent nails.
Roland slunk home, knuckles bruised.
Vera pressed her cut hand, eyes catching seers once before she
slipped back through her yard. Gate Ward left early, muttering
to his first tin, swinging in his first, headed nowhere.
He needed to be. Sir stood a while at the side of
the darkening Smithy. His bones ached, his jaw
swelled, the pain old and reliable as the mud at his feet.
Around him, the world moved. Nothing fixed itself, not
outright. Planks creaked, hammers dropped,
and mothers hustled their own inside to clean up and start
again. He dragged himself up the lane,
boots packing the dirt, carrying new dust along old scars near
his stoop. The lamp in the Seraphin house
flickered but didn't beckon. Ward's harsh voice stumbled
through the door, hollowed out by drink.
Sere sat on the bottom step, let dusk gather in his lap, and
listened. The last calls of children
rolled through the spaces between huts.
A dog barked at an empty path. The sky bruised itself, black
and blue. Across the way, Vera's window
lit once and winked out. Tui pressed his aching hand to
his jaw. He closed his eyes while the
cool and the ache held him in the thick close dark.
Behind him, the low sweep of wards grumbling meant nothing.
Before him, Tui Toma clicked into silence.
He didn't move, not for a while, not even when a light wind
carried the hammering of Cagle's forge.
Steady, relentless, tapped from the roots of what the village
meant to save. The lane outside the Seraphin
house went dull as soot. Sir stayed on the step, sweat
drying on his face. He pulled his knees close and
scraped mud from the edge of his boots.
Wind carried smell of rain, wood smoke and the last dregs of
burnt grease from the Smith's yard.
Rooftops shivered. He heard evening settle as a run
of small sounds, the clack of 2 bones in a dog's mouth, Vera's
youngest brother shrieking when the goat nosed his dinner,
Tavlin hauling a pail by its bent handle, cursing it with
each step. Ward's voice ebbed inside, too
soft to make out words. Now and then the floor creaked
as he paced the room, or dragged at a bottle.
SER rubbed his thumb along a scab at his jaw, feeling the
raised edges. He watched the dark swarm of the
fence posts and tried not to think.
A pair of boys slid quiet down the lane, shoes in hand.
Sir caught Vitty's lopsided run and the dark blot of lavu behind
him. They hurled a chunk of bread at
the window, then ducked behind a stump, giggling.
The bread mist bounced into the mud, picked up by a mutt chewing
at the fringes of the crowd. Sir, let them be.
Cicadas started up as the last bell rang from the hall.
Their drone blunted. The scrape of a spade somewhere
past the fields the village cooked down to embers.
Moms calling in kids. A pair of teens fighting over a
deck of painted cards in the square.
The slow shuffle of Ballu home behind his mother, SER watched
the way the smoke from Kaggle's forge hugged the ground even in
the cooling air. He stood and pushed the door
open. Ward hunched at the table,
elbows wide, head low, bread gone hard and a chipped mug
shook on the table. Sir passed him to rinse grime
and torn flesh from his hands. Water Browning In the bowl, he
found the old pack where he stashed it, fished out the
knife, checked the blade. The dullness in the steel looked
like everything else in the house, worn by too many bad
days, Little left shut. He set the blade aside and
started in on a heel of bread. He ate slow while Ward muttered
about rain, tools and the uselessness of stories.
He paid the words no heed. The night cooled, lamplight
thinned. Later, he lay back on the mat
and listened to Ward. Grown in the dark, sometime in
the pitch, the old man, snoring, turned wet and hollow.
Sir propped himself up on one elbow and watched the shape of
the wall until his own eyes itched.
He slipped into sleep, counting ridges of the old roof beam.
He dreamed he could not move his legs in the dream.
The field kept getting longer. The dark drew out behind every
step. He woke rough, cold, pushed in,
scraping his throat. Ward's place at the table was
empty, the half mug gone, dawn pooling against the window in a
trickle of yellow. The yard looked battered.
One of the pigs had dug under the fence again, and now rooted
in a patch of weeds near Vera's fence.
His body told him every bruise and every new ache.
He went out anyway, boots dragging.
He worked the pen shut and baited the animal's back, salted
bits of bread rattling in his palm.
Across the path, Vera hauled a wash tub with a good hand and
nodded without speech. Her mother lashed a line to the
posts and called for help with the wood.
At the edge of the road, Roland lugged 4 bundles of reeds up to
the Smith. One of the twins chased the
Rajde goat down the far lane, every other step a splash and a
curse. SER didn't think about what day
it was. Each minute came as another
small thing on his back, Rope to haul, water to draw, animals to
chase. Heat caught in his shirt.
He stretched his jaw, waited for the sharp reminder, prodded the
bruise to see how long it would last.
Near noon, a hawk passed overhead.
Crows scattered and then settled again, gorging on what the
fields gave up. Balu shouted.
Bets Tavlin snapped a branch and smacked 2 hens for fighting in
her onions. The entire place felt patched
and wheezing, a house built to hold in mud and let out smoke.
Ward didn't return before lunch. When he did, he said nothing.
He set his boots near the mat, undid his belt and sat with head
lowered to the table. Sir made tea and split bread
into each cup, thick as mud, swallowing without taste.
Afternoon gave way to more chores, replacing fence rails,
turning a sodden bitter field, emptying grey water from the
pail. He didn't think about singing or
the festival, just the way Vera's eyes stuck to his as she
limped past him with her hand bandaged and her jaw set and her
words few. By evening the mud had dried
where the sun cut through. The village sounded like itself
again. Tired, lived in tight with
tension where the gossip curdled.
SER watched dusk claim the light above the last house.
He stood until the bugs rose, arms caked, sweat settling below
his collar, waiting for nothing in particular.
Just another reason to go back inside, eat, try to sleep, and
begin again. The sound of Cagle's hammer
ticked faint and far off. No one spoke.
Each house nursed its own ghosts.
The whole of Tewatoma lowered the lamps, turned twice in its
own slow ache, and let night thicken across the rows,
promising a day tomorrow just like the one that dragged behind
every scar, now stitched tight beneath the skin.
The next morning started sharp. Sir woke toward moving heavy
around the kitchen, rattling for a cup, poking the embers for
heat. The house had gone cold, the
muddy light through the door made everything look washed and
grey. Stir dressed, wiped his face at
the bowl and stuffed his feet in boots still damp from the last
storm. Ward grunted, not looking up,
his hands shaking as he sipped burnt tea.
The air between them kept the flavour of old arguments and
newer silences. Sierra stepped out, shoulder
aching, the bruise under his jaw now a yellowed splotch.
Chickens squabbled along the fence, and one of the pigs
rooted where the corner posts sagged across the lane.
Vera's mother hefted a sack of feed, her back bent like a tree
in wind. The Rajada boys crashed a bucket
to the ground, one cursing the other for spilling half the
corn. Vitty perched on the low
Stonewall near the crossroads, trying to flip a coin and catch
it on the back of his hand. Each miss ticked off another
complaint about how nobody ever paid him for anything decent.
Odd jobs, carrying wood, watching goats.
Balu trailed behind him, carrying a stump for firewood,
and told everyone who'd listen about how he'd nearly caught the
wild goose last dusk. The twins rolled dice in the
dirt and tackled each other after every loss.
Near the well, Roland sat hunched over a book with torn
covers, drawing neat rows of boxes and lines with a stub of
charcoal. When Vera passed, she jabbed a
foot at his heel. He ignored her but kept his hand
over the page. Eyes steady, SER moved through
it all. Without thinking, he mended the
pig fence, set a rock at the corner, then helped Vera haul
water up from the well. The rope burned through his
palm. Rough as always, Vera worked one
handed and bit down on every curse.
When her bandaged palm dug against the wood, her face
looked older in the light, smile short and tight.
Smoke curled from Cagle's roof. The new thatch still sat uneven,
but it kept out the rain. By mid morning, the ring of
hammer on anvil brought most boys to the yard, some hoping to
see the Smith at work, others angling for a spare nail or a
bit of bent iron. Cagle let them watch, handed
none of them a tool, and worked slow and deliberate.
Tavlin cursed at a basket of eggs, 2 cracked, 1 missing.
She swore a fox was about, though every trail pointed to
the same black rooster that had plagued her hens fall after
fall. She waved her cane, daring the
bird to return, and muttered stories about the animal that
grew more elaborate with every repeat to every neighborhood.
Listen. At the midday break, the headman
passed through to count hands for the Timber Hall.
Council had decided, with only minor bickering, that patched
roofs would get mended first. The headman asked after Ward.
But Sir only spat and said he'll turn up when there's trouble.
Word of the fire and rumours of the missing cloth still shivered
at each back fence. Cagle's grandson kept to the far
side of the square, shadowed by his mother, face bent down.
Vera's youngest brother claimed to have seen the lost fabric
behind the bakery, but nobody found it when they checked, and
the story faded into talk about the coming rain.
Afternoon wore out. The sun pressed at the edge of
cloud, not enough to dry the mud but hard enough to bake ruts
into the lane. Children played stick ball at
the boundary and called foul every toss that landed near the
ox shed. When the ball burst apart, Lavu
tried to blame a stone. Viti tried to blame Balu.
Balu insisted Lavou never pitched a straight throw in his
life. The argument grew into a chase,
each more mud splashed than the last.
Back in the garden plots, Vera and Sere turned vegetable rose,
picking rocks from root patches. At one spot, Sere found an old
buckle tangled in nettles. He rolled it in his hand.
Dull brass pitted from seasons underground.
He wiped it with his sleeve and let Vera see it.
She held it, thumb pressing the dirt from the clasp.
Belonged to someone. Everything here used to.
She flicked it back to him. He pocketed it, feeling the
weight, the echo of a life before.
With dusk, the last light cut hard along the fences.
Farm smoke rolled heavy and the swamp frogs shivered out their
evening chorus. House after house shut their
doors, lanterns glowing yellow and dim.
Sir went home slow muscles heavy, boot laces soaked clean
through. Ward slumped at the table, drunk
and silent, face blotched, eyes reddened from drink or wind.
Sir ladled soup, tore bread and ate with small mechanical bites.
The house pressed in, old arguments waiting out of sight,
weight and tension throbbing in the stale air.
He lay down late. Rain started in, murmuring on
the thatch above his head. Every ache made itself known.
He pressed his eyes shut, waiting for morning to drag him
up with the rest of the village. One more day, one more test of
what would hold, what would break, and what would sing.
When Sir woke again. Gray bled in through the patched
window, thick as glue. Ward hacked up another cough,
spitting into the ash bucket, then sat hunched for a long
stretch on the edge of his bed, staring at the floorboards.
Sir moved soft and slow, careful not to spark another round of
snarling. The old man looked rung out, his
anger spent or saving itself. Sir worked the morning alone,
knees sinking in the churned ground where Pig Hoof sucked at
the mud. He tossed scrap to the boar,
first in the through, then tossed again when the smaller
sow muscled in. He stooped, jaw throbbing dull
in the cold. His shirt clung heavy with the
stink of pig and sweat at the well.
Vera lugged 2 buckets, face set, hair loose around her brow.
She didn't ask him to help, and he didn't offer.
Roman trailed behind, showing Viti how to tie a Slipknot.
Both boys distracted, hands more interested in the game than the
dirt on their boots. Across the lane, Lavu and the
twins lashed together a sled from junk, arguing over whose
idea it was and who got to ride first.
Once chores were through, Vera called Sir to the lane.
They sat by the fence, knees pitched close in the mud.
She picked at the bandage on her palm.
Ma says you stuck out the worst of the fire.
SER shook his head. Cagle did the work.
Rest of us just threw water. Vera dug her heel in the dirt.
Wind pulled her braid. Nobody slept last night.
Air still stinks of burnt things.
Mars afraid that patchwork roof will give first storm that
comes. It might, SER said, voice Even
half the villages patched. A chicken strutted between them,
pecked at the thread on Vera's cuff.
She batted it aside. You think your folks recognize
this place now? Her words hit offhand, but she
watched his face. He watched ants working the old
root at his boot tip. They wouldn't, not in this mud.
But some things haven't changed. Rain, fights, stories.
Vera smiled, then scowled, her face always half ready for
laughter, half ready to spit wards always shaking at the roof
or complaining about the same fence.
Feels like nobody moves unless they're pushed.
Somebody has to be the push. She drew her knees tighter,
picking more threads. One day you'll up and go.
Don't leave me to do it alone. He snorted.
Probably you dragging half the village behind, not me.
The sound of Cagle's hammer drifted over pause after each
blow. The sons of Balu's family
whipped A sled through a patch of weeds, laughing as the twins
rolled off. Farther down, Tablen cursed
another lost hen and chased it behind the laundry.
Midday pressed hot. The headman stomped past, sweat
glued to his back, barking at Rawlins brother to mind the
grand scallion patch. Veera wiped dust from under her
knee. You ever think about Roland?
She said he's always drawing, never shares what's on his mind.
He's got something to prove, SER said, just like the rest.
He'll get his chance and bury it in mud like everyone else.
Later work took SER and Vera to the Northfield, where the marsh
grass climbs and the soil stinks of iron.
They patched a break in the canal, bent low and silent, only
the sound of boots squelching and reeds shaking in the wind.
Once a gleam of colour surfaced in the muck.
Half a festival mask red flaked away.
Just the string left. Sere picked it up, turned it
over. The holes where the eye threads
had been were black now, and empty.
He tossed it aside without much thought.
Afternoon shrank, the sun eating away.
Cloud fires thinned to white smoke behind kaggles.
Fewer voices in the street as they walked back.
Vera pulled her jacket tighter, jaw set.
Hope it doesn't storm tonight. I'm too tired to fix what breaks
at the gate. Vera squeezed his hand.
Her grip landed hard. Then let go.
Suppose you'll be needed at your place with Ward if things go
sideways. Sir didn't answer.
He watched her go. The wind carried bits of sour
grass and wood smoke and the singed memory of minstrel songs.
He stepped inside. Ward napped by the table, mouth
slack, streaks of old sweat and grey whiskers making a map along
his chin. Sir put on a pot, scrubbed at
his nails, stared out at the mountains as dusk weighed down
the sky. Night rolled up fast.
Families circled indoors, laughter pressed close,
arguments quieter than the fields.
Cagle's hammer quit, doors pinched tight before the wind
turned best cold. Sir waited by the window, his
face framed in shadow. A dog barked by the well, then
nothing. He lay in his mat, listening for
what didn't come. Old songs, anyone's voice.
He waited on sleep while the house held its breath.
Dawn would return, as it always did, dragging field work and
more ache in its wake. The world pressed in, fence,
field, Stew, bruise, and the knowledge that tomorrow would be
just as unchosen, just as sharp as the last long line of days.
Morning crept up without changing anything.
The floor creaked under Sir's feet as he checked the holes in
the roof above the stove. Damp crept down the inside
walls. Ward snored in a way that
rattled tin cups left on the table overnight.
When he woke, he pushed the chair back with his knees and
peered at SER with watery eyes, but said nothing there.
Dressed quick, pulling his shoulders forward to hide the
fresh marks where the mat's straw had pressed into his skin,
He didn't bother with water. The bucket was a murk of old ash
from the night before. The bread was stale, but he
gnawed off a corner and worked it down dry.
He stepped outside the village, moved slow.
Too much rain, too much work undone from the last storm.
A cloud of gnats waited by the pig fence, chickens picked at
old corn cobs. The piglet dug at the same patch
Sir repaired every two days. Near the regatta yard, Vera
hefted a bucket, jaw tight, a strip of hair sticking to her
cheek. She caught Sir's eye, gave a
small nod. Pavlin's out again, Claimed a
rat, chewed through her bin. Wants help trapping Sir.
Looked up at the thick grey. Got anything better to do?
She didn't smile. Already promised two of the boys
a share of whatever she finds, Likely a single rat and 100
curses at the well. Vallu and Lavu tossed stones at
a mark, neither 1 coming close. Vitty huddled over his own feet,
working on a patch in the sole of a boot with a stick and
smudged twine. Roolan came up slow, holding a
bit of paper folded high. He waved it at Sir.
Found this by Cagle shop. Looks like a shopping list or a
map. Sir took the scrap and looked,
the marks muddled, but the outlines of the village easy to
make out. A red X marked near the field's
edge by the old canal. Roland pressed his lip.
I think it's old, but Viti says there could be copper buried
from last year's lottery. Gira snorted.
Viti says a lot, Sir. Tucked the note into his boot.
Show it to the tweens, they'll dig up half the field by dark.
Balu laughed. Booted Lavu in the shin near the
Smithy. Kaggle hammered slow, sweat
streaking his neck, the smoke curling steady from his fire.
The ruined patches of roof from the fire still glistened, but
most of the wood was sealed thanks to all the hands pulled
in for repair. Neighbors wandered past and gave
the new worker hard look, some approving, some already judging
every uneven line. Afternoon brought the first real
sun in days. Sarah worked the fence line
while Vera helped Tavlin haul her broken trap from the hen
house to a harder patch of earth.
The old woman grumbled non-stop about rats, bad luck, careless
children, soggy corn. The trap itself was a mess, bent
wire missing a latch. Vera tried to fix it with a
stick and a loose nail. After a while, Roland joined,
watched the work with his hands in his pockets, Saw the
merchant's wagon on the far Ridge.
He mumbled. Maybe he stops at the inn
tonight. Seg glanced over.
He'll want coin or eggs, stuff. Nobody's got extra.
Roland shrugged. Heard he's buying scrap metal
too. Worn tools, busted locks.
Haggle. Wandered over, listening in
while pretending to fuss at a shovel blade.
He eyed Sir, then Veer, then spat and wandered back to his
fire. Balu and the twins wrangled an
old wheel near the Smith's fence, cheering when it broke
free of the mud. By supper, the sky flooded
orange along the West. Work drew down.
Ward slid in the door just before dark, reeking of lamp oil
and sour ale, his boots leaving deep prints in the clay.
Sir kept to the stove, filling 2 bowls, dropping stale bread in
wards when he wasn't looking. They ate in the long drag of
dusk, the kind of meal that didn't need speech.
Ward finished, pushed the bowl away and stared at the chipped
wall. He grunted, nothing softer, and
retreated to his corner, breath thick and bitter.
There sat at the window a while beyond the world ran long in
shadows, the field scarred from boots and digging, Vera's house
lit and filling with noise. Down the lane Balu sang the
chorus from the festival, out of tune but undeterred, until his
mother hissed him quiet. The merchant's Lantern glimmered
near the main track, a brief flare then gone out of sight.
Sir turned from the dark and pulled the mat up over his
chest, letting the scratch and dust of the old house wrap
around him. He lay flat, each rib mapped by
the day's effort, and let rain start, first tapping, then
thickening. Boots thumped at the neighbors
doors. Cagle's Anvil fell silent.
The village drifted into shut eye, bruised, busy, waiting on
another day. Nothing fixed, nothing fair and
nothing ready for rest but the bodies that work forced to lie
down. A thin hush followed the rain.
Every roof in Tuatama leaked somewhere, one board swelling or
a gutter sagging, letting water creep in at odd angles.
Sir listened to the drip on the pail by the kitchen wall.
Ward snored, deep, lines of spit webbing the grey of his beard.
Sir's thigh twitched from yesterday's digging.
He counted the shakes until sleep came.
The next light crawled slow, thick as Stew.
SER sat up, hands chapped, body rubbed raw along one side.
Ward leaned in the doorway, boots half laced, eyes sunken,
but nothing pointed or mean there.
He poured himself tea from yesterday's pot, slurped it
cold. SER slipped out.
Fog covered the fields, so nothing but fence posts and
shadow animals moved. The lane stank of manure and
burnt fat. Roulin sat by the well, rubbing
tired eyes, the scrap of map clutched in his damp palm.
Without words he handed it back to Sere.
No copper, he mumbled. Whole full of old string and
broken tile. Said Tuck.
The note in her pocket shrugged. Worth a try.
Vera limped up, 1 boot coming apart, hair fluffed out where
the mist caught it. She wiped her hand under her
nose. Tablen's got 6 rats now and
still claims there's a 7th living under the floor.
Wants me to sleep in her yard all night to catch it.
Told her to pay in eggs or not at all.
She'll have you fixing the fence next, Sir said.
Vera spat, nodded. We're all fixing something.
She jerked her chin at Roland. Merchant passed this way, didn't
see him. Wagon rats out by the inn, but
that's all, Roland said. Vitty tramped up, holding a
battered tin pail rag trailing both hands, black to the wrists.
Cagle let me sort old nails, said If I find 10 not bent, I
can keep one. Only found two, but Cagle says
that counts for nothing. The twins spun around to Balu,
who pointed out over the swamp. Goose tracks, he said.
Saw three, maybe 5 headed for the marsh.
Told Ma she said that's supper if we catch him.
Nobody answered. The village hunched smaller,
everyone working slower after the storm.
By mid morning, Tavlin counted her eggs, grumbled about wet
straw, and sent Vera for broken wire.
Roland fetched water until the rope soared new blisters into
his palm. Lavu and Balu dragged an old
wheelbarrow down the path and nearly lost it to a ditch.
Sarah put his back into patching puddles on the Seraphin plot.
He reset 3 fence posts, the mud wet to his shins.
Ward passed twice, never speaking, once stopping to press
a thumb to an old nail and scowl at the sag of the new rail.
The work filled the day, left no room for anything but tired
muscles by supper. By dusk, shop smoke curled the
length of the main track. Cagle tapped iron in the half
light while the council headman counted beans at his door.
Ward raided the stewpot and found it scraped clean.
He muttered, but did not raise his voice.
A knock sounded at the door. SER opened it to find Vera's
brother, cheeks flushed, breath short.
Ma says their soup left. She made too much.
He shoved a covered croc at SER and vanished into the blue
gloom. Sayer brought the croc to the
table, set a pair of bowls, cut bread half to Ward, half for
himself. They ate in silence, night
pressed in, no stories, no songs.
Ward cleaned his bowl, sat hunched, head in his hands, then
staggered back to his bed, boots still on, still wiped the table,
set the croc by the window. Thunder creaked somewhere
outside, heading off West near the fence.
Frogs started up in the new puddles.
Tweetoma held its breath. The world paired down to boots,
mud and chores under the neck slow sky.
He lay down, saw ribs straining, the taste of onion and bone in
his mouth. Before sleep, he listened for
Vera's laugh through the walls and Cagle's last hammer against
the night. Only the frogs answered, loud
and plain, chorusing under the bruised light, unbothered by
scars or bruises, tight under every shirt.
Morning sifted in, thin as flower.
Sir blinked at the ceiling, his first pressed under his cheek,
jaw stiff from the night in Ward's bed.
The old man coughed, spat, shambled to sit with his back to
the door, play cup in hand. Sir stood, dressed cold, rubbed
the knight out of his shoulders and ducked outside.
The air bit cloud still blanketed the patchwork roofs.
Chickens clucked over the churned mud, picking grit from
the scar at the fence line. A lone goat picked at a Thistle
by Tavlin's boundary. Rolon carried a sack with two
potatoes. Hunched, face pinched round the
mouth. He gave Sir the briefest glance,
a quick tilt, nothing more. There.
Check the rails. Another splinter loose, another
bout of snuffling around the through with the pigs chewed
rinds. His boots soaked through before
he made it to the first post. He jammed the tip of his boot
into the hole, feeling for footing, prying up new mud with
numb fingers. Vera crossed from her house with
a stack of grass for bedding. She shuffled, keeping her weight
off the bandaged palm, mouth set hard.
Today she wore someone else's coat, sleeves bunched up to her
elbow, shoulder seams puckered from an old mend.
She stopped at the fence but said nothing.
Sir nodded, let the old wire slip through his fist, pressed
it straight by force, not finesse.
Tavlin whistled from her porch. Rat again in the bin.
Vera, bring the stick. Don't spare it.
Swear it's breeding. Vera huffed, rolled her eyes
skyward, headed off with a muttered promise to kill
something before noon. Children's voices crept up and
faded, Balu yelling about a lost ring, the twins hollering that
the merchant left a pile of ash when last year's fabric went
missing. Viti, dirty as a weasel, circled
the main lane, shaking a tin of bones and offering to trade luck
for a copper. By midday, the sun showed as a
pale lump behind clouds. Sir and Roland patched the
pothole at the gate, hands stinging from the icy water
washed down from the spring mud caked over every tool.
Balu tried to help, tripped into the ditch and limped off,
cursing his heel and swearing someone would answer for it.
Ward stalked in for lunch. Silent sat at the table with
palms flat. The Stew had little left but
mushroom and root, but he scraped his bowl.
Silent when he finished, he stacked the dish, stared at SER,
then stood without a word, Coat pulled on rough SAR went back to
the fence, waylaid by La Vue and one rajada boy, both arguing
over whose turn to check snares at the marsh edge.
Vera drifted back, Hare wild, shirt torn at 1, cuff zavelin
still. After that rat gave up, told her
to set fire to the bin. SER laughed, startled by the
sound. Balu could help.
He sets fire just by looking at things.
Vera grinned, her own laugh, a crack in the day's mud.
She pressed her shoulder to the fence, close with none of the
old clumsy space afternoon inched by, the workers stretched
thin. Youths gathered outside, Kajols
trading half truths as coins. Whose roof would cave next?
Which dog had gone to the mountain, if Kajol's minstrels
would pass through again in the wet season?
Tavlin warned about ghosts waving her stick, but most only
smirked and picked at their boots.
Sir pressed down post after post, knuckles hissing, never
ending work, mending, patching, shoring up.
What the last flood washed out. He let the ache spread shoulder
to thigh, let the air and the hum of field and Hut dull the
old marks. As dusk covered the yard, Vera
called it quits. She wiped her hand on her skirt,
tossed a loose stone at a puddle.
See you tomorrow, if Taflin doesn't find a bigger stick.
SER flicked water from his hands, watched her leave.
Smoke slipped flat from each roof, from the far Ridge.
Kaggle's hammer gave a last, dull cry.
Then the village shrank into the usual dark.
Inside, Ward filled the air with his snoring boots, scattered.
Nothing. Put away.
Sir folded his arms at the sill, let the cold slip up the
sleeves, watched the dark eat every edge of the village.
Rain pressed thick at the window, ticking quieter than his
pulse in the brief patch of quiet when night ran slow, Sir
let his head rest against the wood and closed his eyes,
breathing wet air and field sweat.
Another day done, another string of bruises, small victories,
jokes cut from Nettle and luck. Nothing fixed, nothing fair.
The rows waited. The walls waited.
Dawn waited. Sir, let tomorrow have him as he
was, whatever that turned out to be.
Before light filtered on the rafters, SER sat up with his
back stiff and his head mottled by dreams.
Ward coughed in a tone that rattled the cutlery in the
kitchen tin. For five heartbeats the house
breathed dry and hollow. No sound from out past the
broken fence, nothing but the pulse of coming rain.
Then a straggle of hens picked their way by the sill.
The goat bellowed. Dawn got on with it.
So poked the fire to a grudging life, boiled what water hadn't
gone slick in the bucket, and scraped bread crust into a bowl.
When Ward limped to the table, shoulders hunched under a patchy
coat, Sir poured tea. Neither said a word, both
chewing and sipping, like anything spoken might break the
morning for good. The village churned in routine.
Vt tried to peddle lucky stones by the lane, his voice shrill
until Missus Caggle shushed him with a slap of dish towel.
Roland and Lavu squared off with sticks near the ditch, showing
off the two good knots they'd learned from the merchant's
crew. Berlu perched on a bucket at the
well, telling Vera's youngest that anyone who caught A7 legged
beetle could swap it for three eggs and a slate chip.
Vera shouldered a bag and met Sarah at the gate.
She flung a heel of bread at his chest.
Saved you a piece so you don't turn all thin and tragic.
He broke it in half, tossed her a quarterback.
They set off toward Tavlin's plot, boots folding small
trenches into the sludge. The air clung tight.
Every post glimmered with the Sheen of another restless night.
The morning's work ran straight as a plow line, lifting rocks
from the carrot patch, writing the pig through, bracing the gap
under the fence with a pair of scavenged bricks.
Vera teased him as he bent to hold the last brick, poked him
in the ribs until he threatened to push her into the mess of
weeds. The twins, muddy and pink with
cold, charged past with squeals, making for the stone pile.
Roland limped behind, complaining that Lavu cheated at
every game worth betting on. Old Tavlin prowled the edge with
her stick, quizzing every kid and adult for sightings of her
vanished rat. She didn't glance at Sir's jaw,
only passed him the wire snare and told him to set it good or
get gone. As they tightened the fence,
Vera jerked her chin at the square.
Merchant's cart came back. Cagle says there's rumour of a
farm nearby going empty. Lucky if it's true, Sir.
Granted, nobody he's got coined for luck or stories.
Vera answered, a warmth flickering under her words.
The merchant's rig rolled in by noon, Ox breathing heavy, wheels
muddy and scarred. Head Man and two elders turned
out pockets counted out handfuls of bent copper and one battered
knife for a coil of salt pork and a tin of cracked beans.
Cagle bartered for three new boot soles, swearing at the fit.
Rowland's brother pressed a bundle of old nails at the
merchant's feet, but the man waved him off with a waggle of
dirty fingers. Children hovered wild eyed for
treats or tails. Viti palmed an apple of the low
rail bit into it. Before anyone looked.
The merchant caught his eye and wagged broken spoon in lazy
warning by the Smithy Balubet Viti.
He couldn't sell 5 lucky stones before sunset.
Vera's youngest tried swallowing a Pebble to see if it would work
faster. All the while, the grown-ups
fretted over the merchants wares, gossip breaking through
the mud and smoke in snapping threads.
Vera's mother traded for thread and a patch of blue cloth, which
she'd used to mend whatever sleeve wore next.
She flapped it at Vera, who pulled her face but said
nothing. Tevlain scolded the crowd.
If they needed salt, she said, they should walk to the river,
not buy from any mud track. Tinker.
By dusk, the merchant's cart rattled down the lane.
Bags light, promises lighter, The village pressed in against
night, houses tight with voices and the smell of frying pork and
root. Sir hauled water and split wood
under the kitchen eaves. Vera crossed over to pass him
the blue patch, shoving it into his pocket before ducking away.
He didn't look at it, just pressed it flat with two fingers
and let evening drag. After supper, with Ward, slumped
drunk and silent by the cot, Sir wandered out to the fence.
Night ran deep. Dogs barked from yard to yard.
He watched fog roll in from the marsh, slow as thought.
Vera's window flickered with lamplight.
Someone sang near the well. Cagle struck his anvil twice,
once for the merchants going, once for luck.
So stood brace to the fence, rail coat pulled up to his jaw,
and waited. Bruises glowed along his face
and arms, his hands still shook from the day's lift, but he
stayed there, wrapped in the hush, until the dark filled up
and there was nothing to feel but the cold and the knowledge
that, for tonight at least, nobody in Teutoma had gone
missing and nothing had burned. Fog thickened in the yard.
SER pressed his elbows to the fence, breath coming out, white
ribs aching under the shirt. Father up the lane.
Vera's house, let's spill a slice of yellow light.
A family's voices carried in snatches, a mother scolding
about spilled milk. A chair dragged, a sudden burst
of laughter that faded soon as the shutters thumped.
He watched that window kept count as faces moved past the
light. Vera's silhouette joined her
brother's head bent low, tugging at something below the table.
The goat kicked once at the stoop, then clattered off Into
Darkness. Ward's snoring punched through
the mud wall behind him, then mellowed.
Somewhere behind the next roof, a dog yowled, then got shushed.
Vt drifted through the lane, saying nothing, hands in ragged
pockets, feet splashing the puddles Balu and the twins had
dug up earlier. Tia didn't want to go back
inside. He let the cold bite his lips,
worked each bruise between thumb and knuckle, the pain away to
mark the night's slow passing. Kirotoma's roofs lay crouched
and squat here and there. Smoke snaked up from a dying
fire, hints of pork and boiled roots dulled by the wet.
The sound of Cagle's hammer didn't ring tonight.
He remembered a different night, a festival long before, when his
mother still hummed, before Ward had worn out all the promises
he'd tried to keep. Music floated up behind his
eyes. The chorus muddled the faces
younger and farther away. The smell of fried beans and hot
bread worked loose in memory, mixed with smoke and voices.
He let the picture pass, finished, left only the damp and
the ache behind the eyes. The merchant's wagon rattled
past the far crossing, iron rim echoing off the stone Lantern
light. Ghosts drifted under old eaves.
A woman, her hair cropped close, jogged after the cart, holding
her purse. She didn't speak to Sir as she
passed, but nodded, her face hard.
Old Tavlin leaned out from her porch, called to the woman.
Don't let him cheat you, man. But got no answer but footsteps
in the rut. SER flexed his hand, nails caked
with fence tar, palm still cut where he'd slipped earlier.
A frog churred under the boardwalk, far across the lane.
Vera's laughter peeled once more, a short spin of sound
before her window blinked dark. He let go of the fence, boots
sucking at the clay, and crossed the yard.
The mat in the kitchen was cool and too short.
Ward mumbled once, then fell back to snoring, the sound
hollow, not as angry as it used to be.
Just worn down, Sir. Listen to rain start to patter
again on the eaves. Slow at first, then quickening
as the sky pressed down. He turned the blue cloth in his
first thumb, running the hem where Vera's mother's stitching
left a rough knot. He stared into the night.
One more dawn would come, one more round at the fence, one
more meal with Ward, one more song never sung, at least not
out loud. Rain hammered the roof as the
world ground itself down to mud and quiet, and Sir gave himself
over to the old ache, the promise of another day arriving
rough and sure as boots in wet dirt.
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