The Totem-Maker (part sixty-eight)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Seven

Winter Alone

(part sixty-eight)

I had not made up my mind the next morning. Fine weather meant putting my work table to use; and were I to create a useful thing, I must think of what. By the rules, I had firewood to gather. I abandoned that thought, walked to where I’d found them, pulled from the earth two—

Seeds, I believed, their ends being formed one with a buff circle, the other a nub. My hand might close on a seed comfortably, as on a clay flute. They were smooth, their color purple, and they shone like burnished metal.

Two more I left part-buried, thinking they might sprout some marvelous thing in the spring…but the leaving left me uneasy. In some way the seeds made me uneasy altogether, and it grew in my mind that having four, I could split one and discover what was inside. The wish felt ill-counselled, as though the seed itself dared me, knowing what malignity I would unleash.

At my table I laid the two, and the orb from my basket between. Nothing moved or glimmered until I turned my back. Then a noise came…a knife blade pulled from a sheath. Not, I tell you quickly, any part of my real surroundings, only the sense of such a noise. I decided I would taste whatever was in the traders’ jug. I knew I ought to make a tea, the steam of which the orb was to pass through. When it cleared in its retreating patterns, a seer, as Escmar’s grandmother, might read her answers there.

I did not attempt a tea from the berries. I did, with great caution, sip from the jug. And laughed a bit…the liquor was flavored entirely of honey.

Bhe! Bhe, I said, addressing any or all of them, seeds and orb. To speak the word against evil comforted me. It had always comforted the old woman, and even Elberin, who scoffed at my frequent terrors. He had used his stick on snake and dog alike, saying, “I am old, and I will die when the gods run out of uses for me.”

But Elberin at times made the warding sign and spoke the dispelling word.

Bhe, I said, and went to my garden. I lay on my stomach and reached deep. The seeds had a certain tug to them, as with pulling-stones, those found on hillsides where sand is rendered glass by lightning. I worried out the third but lost the fourth, my fingers slipping and the seed retreating into its crevice.

That, I told myself, is fair answer. Three will come out and one will not.

The orb was off the table.

Rolled to the kindling stack, but not broken. “Here,” I said to the seeds, “is your companion.”

No noise at this reunion, or movement.

“Bhekale, I am going to cut one of you open.”

I turned my back to enter the stable, listening with ears most sharply pricked. I heard the scree of the hawk somewhere above my house. I heard wind, and felt it billow through the shutters, fresh, heartening, fearful…

The weather would turn, of course. With my hand-axe, I came back to the table. I took the baking stone from the hearth. I placed a seed. I brought the axe down with all the strength my labors had built in me. My wrist jarred, pain shot through my arm, and the blade flew from the shaft. But I drew myself up, did not flinch, neither did I stoop to search the floor. I carried the seed to the window’s light, and turned it every which way. Not the least mark was on it.

72

Winter Alone

The Totem-Maker (part sixty-nine)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)