Chapter 84:
Meeting in the Sunken Lane
One morning, before the birds were awake, Moth stood in the barn and carefully brushed Aggo.
He was still covered in a webbing of scars, but he’d recovered beautifully under Lt. Grotte’s tireless, focused care – though Moth was very careful as she put on his saddle and tightened it, worried he would twitch or pull away in pain, as it was the first time he’d been tacked up since his returned from Picky Woods.
But, he submitted to the saddle with his usual stoic gentleness.
“You’re growing a mustache,” Moth told him, stroking his neck. “And your beard is getting unkempt. I need to give you a trim.”
When he was ready, Moth led him out into the grove in front of Poor Loom.
The porch was covered with her bags and luggage – as well as a few threadbare sacks stuffed full of Lt. Grotte’s belongings, and a small trunk of clothes that Feldar kept at Poor Loom.
Lt. Grotte was standing at the door of the house, chatting with Lt. Saavule.
After the sunstones incident – which many were calling the sunshower – word had spread quickly from the farmers to the sentries of what had occurred. Not knowing what to do with Hiren’s sudden zealousness, Guyrede Rill had written Commander Waden. Until conclusive directions were given, Captain Rill appointed Lt. Grotte to supervise Moth.
All Lt. Grotte’s typical sentry duties were suspended until further notice as she travelled with Moth around Hiren. Lt. Saavule had been appointed to watch and maintain Poor Loom.
Moth knew he helped her with tending to the fogspotted because he owed it to her father and grandfather – but still, every time Moth saw him she felt terribly grateful, wondering if there was some way to repay him.
She wished there was something she could do to help him and Elizabeth Cride, but she doubted – even as the ferryman’s wife – she could persuade Paul Cride to relent and bless his sister marrying a sentry.
“Look after the place,” said Lt. Grotte to Lt. Saavule. “None of your gambling and drinking parties, eh?”
Lt. Saavule, who looked about as prone to parties as the wood porch they stood on, said cooly, “It’ll be standing when you return.”
“Invite that tinner lady over, then, how about? Speak honey words to her and convince her you’re worth her time.”
Lt. Saavule entered the house and closed the door.
Moth felt guilty about leaving him alone in the house with the strange skin – but she knew from the shaman books they were safer in a house Quin couldn’t touch than traveling in a tent. Moth had locked the skin in a chest and hidden the chest in the attic.
Feldar and Lt. Grotte began loading up the horses – Cobbler, Tatters, and Aggo – and together all three of them set off for the Pahkinna farm.
It had been Feldar’s direction to leave so early – most farmers’ work began at that early hour, so they’d be too busy to notice or follow Moth while she travelled.
“The tents are set up near the Pahkinna main home, Aunt Karina had them assembled for us,” said Feldar, leading the procession.
Moth was relieved she wouldn’t have to stay at anyone’s house. “Ah, I need to thank your aunt for her generosity.”
“I wouldn’t call it generosity.” Feldar scanned the rolling farmlands as they emerged from the edge of Poor Loom property and began following a highway that ran through the heart of Hiren. “She will call in a favor with me. I imagine, to have an audience with you eventually.”
Small price to pay, Moth thought.
Lt. Grotte shook her head. “Karina Herdson scares me. I ran into her a couple times at her bar and goodness, Feldar, she makes you seem warm and naive.”
“I am warm and naïve. I sleep in your bed most nights, you should know this.”
“Smelling of whatever hogshit labor you did that day,” grunted Lt. Grotte, and Feldar grinned at her.
The highway had a good view of the surrounding farms. Moth could see farmers already about their work in the fields, setting their hand to the spring labor. The dents and ditches that surrounded the highway were full of lingering snow, banding the landscape in white amongst the aggressive, persistent green that glowed undaunted against deep black earth.
The air was pure, chilled, and as invigorating as fresh spring water. Moth breathed it deep, having gotten too used to the musty pine of Poor Loom in the last few days.
The softly undulating hills of Hiren began to steepen as they progressed along the highway, until the highway finally dipped into a sunken lane that cut through a copse.
Feldar whistled, and Lt. Grotte looked over.
Someone was standing at the mouth of the sunken lane, waiting for them. The figure in the deep shade couldn’t be distinguished – with a quick jab of his boots, Feldar urged Cobbler ahead to speak with the figure.
Moth waited until Feldar gestured her over – he looked annoyed.
“Did you arrange for this without telling me?” he asked.
“Arrange what?” Moth replied. As she got closer, she saw the figure waiting in the shadows.
The lean silhouette was familiar to her. She knew it was Ama.
Moth gasped, swung down off Aggo and rushed to Ama, catapulting herself into her sister’s arms.
She had healed excellently, though she wore a stocking cap to cover her headwound, which was still bandaged. Like Aggo, she had a web of shallow scars over her arms and face.
“I knew she was coming this way; I’d heard it from dad,” Ama said to Feldar. “Let me talk to Moth. Give me a few minutes! I swear I won’t take long!”
Feldar beheld Ama’s bold, earnest face, and said flatly, “You know I can’t say no to you, it’s unfair every time.”
Ama smiled impishly and together she and Moth went further into the lane to talk privately. Ama had ridden Nest the gelding, and the horse was happily grazing amidst the trees.
“You got the sunstones back,” she said at once, holding Moth’s hand.
“Yes, yes, they all came back. The magpies–”
“I heard,” said Ama quietly. “Any news about Ira or Nehem?”
Moth gripped tighter onto Ama’s hand. “I sent someone to go get them. If everything goes alright, they should be home soon.”
Ama nodded fretfully, scratching at the cuts on her face. She looked up to say something to Moth, but bit her lip as tears came into her eyes.
Something else was bothering Ama.
“What’s wrong?” she asked urgently.
Ama looked away. “You never said goodbye. You’re not the you who left.”
Silently, Moth let go of Ama’s hand as she stood up restlessly.
The sunken lane, with its high walls of root-tangled earth, felt much colder than the open road. Woodpeckers drummed diligently somewhere out of sight, and the wind filled the tops of the coppiced trees.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t say goodbye.” Moth looked down at her gloved hands, while Ama paced on the path – neither able to look at the other. “The last thing…I think the last thing we spoke about was the rejected gifts we found in the springhouse. I was so tired, I barely made sense, and I worried you. I wish I had…said something to you, but you would’ve tried to stop me.”
Ama stopped pacing and looked at Moth over her shoulder.
“I did try and stop you.”
Moth snapped her head up. “What?”
“I was there!” Ama shouted, gripping her hands into fists. “I was at your offering, I tried to save you! But Paul Cride stopped me.”
“Ama…”
“I saw you. In your wedding dress, and Halig pushing you – you fell, forever, and the splash, Moth, I can still hear it, like a rock in a well. I thought everyone had gone insane – no one else was there to stop this. Mom, Priscilla, they cut the pattern to give to the women who sewed the dress – Grandpa, telling us not to stop it, not to look for you. He was so broken, so guilt-ridden he wouldn’t get out of bed. I kept thinking that I was the only one who cared.”
“Ama, I chose this!” exclaimed Moth. “I asked–”
Ama gasped out: “You killed yourself, Moth. For six months you were dead! I am mad – I’m so angry I want to slap you, I want you to feel what I felt.” She heaved for breath. “You chose this, but what about us? What about me?”
Moth had no response. She watched Ama helplessly and then hung her head in bewildered guilt.
The lane was silent - all the birds fled from Ama’s shouting.
Ama, seeing Moth’s face, walked away to compose herself, hands on her hips and leaning over to get air as if she’d just sprinted a mile.
Moth took a deep breath and said shakily: “I hurt you. I’m sorry, I don’t ever want to hurt you, to make you feel that awful.”
She hovered over her own words, thoughtfully, watching Ama’s back.
“But” Moth said, “I’d do it again. I’d do it again for Hiren.”
Ama whirled around. Tears were now a raging scowl.
“Who the hell cares about Hiren?” she bellowed. “I’d let it all burn to save you, Moth.”
“You don’t mean that–”
“Don’t tell me what I mean!”
“Like Mr. Larris?” asked Moth.
Ama’s eye twitched.
“Watch him burn? He’s Hiren. When no one would buy moms weavings because dad kept teaching the sentries to farm, Mr. Larris still bought from her, and always paid her what they were worth. Or his son, Kulti, the only one of his siblings that survived that wave of tuberculosis? Isn’t he Hiren?”
Ama looked away, forehead flushed.
“Or Feldar? Mrs. Tunhofe? They’re Hiren – should they burn too?”
“I don’t care! I don’t care about them – I care about you, Moth, you’re my sister and I love you, and I would hang all of them if it meant you’d be safe.”
“I care about them,” said Moth. “And I’m sorry if it hurts you, when I – when I put myself in danger to help them. But I won’t stop.”
Reeling, Ama whispered, “You…do you love them more than me?”
Moth looked at Ama, her little sister, with her almond eyes and sun-loved skin, a girl who – from her birth – was never meant to be indoors, who was meant to hold a bow in her hand and ride the hills of Hiren like one of the wild reindeers. That sister who had once been so small Moth could pick her up.
“How could I love anything more than you?” Moth murmured, taking Ama’s head in her hands. “I want to – I am trying and learning to love Hiren as much as I love you. I strive every day to take care of them as if they were you.”
Ama touched Moth’s hands, entirely befuddled, and together they sat on the side of the road. Moth leaned her head on Ama’s shoulder, and Ama didn’t respond as she looked blankly down at her feet.
They sat like that for a while, listening to the returning birdsongs and the breeze, in their private world in the sunken lane.
“You, dad, and grandpa are all the same,” muttered Ama. “I never got why dad and grandpa would help the sentries farm when…when it would make us so disliked by everyone else. They said it was the right thing to do, but how could it be, if it hurts the family? I don’t understand. The only right thing should be keeping the family safe, and together, even if it hurts other people to do it.”
“I just don’t agree.”
Ama leaned her head on Moth, sorrow in her voice: “I know.”
They sat like that – hand in hand, head to head, for as long as they could.
Moth did not want the moment to end, she wanted to remember it forever, with the smell of the wet earth full of fiddleheads surrounding them, serenaded by robins and blackbirds, a gentle hum of newly wakened bugs rippling the sound of the copse.
But, the moment ended when Feldar and Lt. Grotte trotted up to them around the bend.
Feldar gestured for Moth to get on her horse, and then leaned forward to look at Ama. “You said a few minutes.”
Ama grinned. “I was trying to see how far I could push you.”
Feldar tried not to laugh.
“You’re going to the Pahkinna place, right, for the first burial?” asked Ama, and tugged on Feldar’s coat, “Let me go with you! Dad said it was alright if only one Hevwed was with Moth at a time.”
“Norwin said that?” Feldar considered it, and then waved his hand. “Hop on your horse, come along.”
Ama swung herself up on Nest, saying happily, “The Pahkinnas set up amazing parties.”