Authors: Nathan Lowell
She awoke with a start and a banging in her chest. She held her hands up and looked at them. Fingers, yes. Fingers were good. She pursed her lips and blew before she dared to touch her face to see. She lifted the woolen blankets and looked down at her normal body–the cold air of the cabin washing the length of her, chilling her sweat. She pulled the blankets back down and held on to them tightly. The banging in her chest became a banging in her head and then it stopped. Her eyes flew open and her hand when to her chest to feel, but then the banging began again and she realized that it was somebody at her door.
“Mother Fairport! Mother Fairport! Are you alright?”
She opened her mouth to speak and the croak that came out scared her until she recognized her own dried throat and swallowed once to moisten it before calling again.
“I’m fine!”
She threw herself out of her bed and took one more inventory of extremities before slipping into her boots and hurrying to the door. She released the latch and swung it open to see Sadie standing there, bundled against the snow and carrying a basket over her arm.
“I’m fine. Really.” She stood back. “Come in and warm yourself, my dear.”
Sadie smiled brightly. Her cheeks were pinked by the wind and cold but she seemed energized by the snow. She came in and hurried over to stand by the side of the fire where the snow dropping off her boots and clothes would fall on the side of the hearthstone and soon evaporate.
Tanyth peeked out to see the snow fall tapering off. A ray of golden sun tried to break through the overcast. She closed the door securely, and turned to her visitor.
“When you didn’t come over after breakfast, we thought you might be under the weather, mum.” Sadie pulled down her muffler and extricated her arm from the basket.”
Tanyth pulled a couple of sticks from the woodbox and poked up the fire. “I’m fine, Sadie. Really. I just didn’t want to go out in the snow so I stayed close to the fire. I got drowsy and saw no good reason not to go back to bed.”
Sadie didn’t look convinced but she put the basket on the mantle board. “I brought you a couple loaves of fresh bread, mum, and there’s some cheese in there, too.” She looked around the small house and smiled. “You keep things so neat.”
Tanyth snorted. “It’s just me here and I don’t have that much to spread around.” She nodded with her head in the direction of Sadie’s house. “You’ve got your two, Thomas, all your things, all their things, and then visitors and hangers on.” She shook her head with a warm smile. “Your house is full of joy, Sadie. Joy isn’t neat.”
Sadie looked at the older woman for a moment before crossing to her and giving her a big hug and kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, mum.” Her voice was a husky whisper. “You’re welcome in my house any time, you know.”
Tanyth smiled. “Thank you, child. I’ll take you up on that, never fear. By spring you’ll be sick of seein’ me layin’ about on your hearth.”
Sadie pulled back to look her in the eye before hugging her even harder. “That will never happen, mum. Ever.”
Sadie pulled back suddenly and started bundling up. “Well, I better get back to my little house full of joy before the children decide to experiment with how well blankets burn on the hearth. We’ll be having dinner with Amber and William, if you’d like to join us, mum.”
Tanyth nodded with a smile. “Thank you, my dear. Perhaps I’ll pop over there this afternoon.”
Sadie grinned as she finished wrapping up. “Frank should be back today.”
Tanyth smiled. “Yes, and just in time.”
“Mum?” Sadie looked up confused.
Tanyth waved a hand. “Snow falling. William wanted to get the roof up before the snow.”
“Oh! This is nothing. I bet it’ll be gone by tomorrow. This time of year we get a bit of snow one day and go back to fall the next. Makes a mess, but doesn’t stay around. Hunter’s Moon is like that, but once we hit the Solstice...” She shivered dramatically. “Then the snow will get serious.” She shook her head. “No, with the foundation stones that Frank’s bringing, they’ll have a frame up within a week and a roof on by the new moon, you see if they don’t.”
Tanyth was surprised. “That fast?”
Sadie nodded with a grin. “They’re men, but they can move when they want to and there hasn’t been this much excitement here in ages.” Her musical laugh bounced off the rafters and Tanyth held the door for her while she climbed out and back into the snow.
The sun had broken through and while there were still flakes in the air, they sparkled brightly as they tumbled to earth. Sadie held out her hands to her sides, palm up. “See, mum? Almost stopped and I bet it’s half melted by nightfall.”
“I hope so! I’m not quite ready for snow yet.”
Sadie laughed again and gave a little wave as she headed back to her house, taking kicks at the snow as she walked just to see the sparkling drifts fall back to the ground.
Tanyth couldn’t help but laugh softly to herself. The terror of her waking dream had dissipated and if her vision were true then Frank should be along within a couple of hours. Remembering her vision, she frowned and stuck her head closer to the door, looking out to see if the raven had, in fact, come back. She didn’t see anything and had almost closed the door when she heard a faint thump on the roof followed by some scratching sounds. A small fall of snow cascaded down in front of the open door.
“Well, there you are.” She said it out loud wondering if the raven would hear, or understand.
She closed the door and latched it, listening to the scrabbling sound on her roof. She looked around for a moment before pulling yesterday’s bread heel from her breadbox and broke it into several pieces in the bottom of a flat basket. Her root cellar yielded one of the wild apples, and she scraped her left over oatmeal from the morning’s pot onto the side. She looked around but didn’t have anything else that looked appropriate and was leery about putting out too much.
Conscious of the rest of the village, she opened her back door and pushed the snow back from her threshold with her broom, clearing the loose snow from a small area before sliding the basket out onto the ground. “Thank you, my dear. Here’s a bit of breakfast for you in payment of your efforts. Sorry, I have no rabbit today.”
She felt strange talking to the raven and wasn’t even sure the bird could hear her, but the scrabbling sound of talons made a deliberate-sounding scratch and Tanyth saw the large bird sail out toward the tree line a few yards before turning and flying back toward the house. The raven landed on the snow a few feet from the back door and eyed her–or more probably the basket of food–but didn’t approach any closer.
With a feeling of something like awe, something like fear, she swung the door closed and clicked the latch down.
Chapter 36
Homecoming
In the middle of the afternoon, Tanyth heard the jingle of harness and the heavy tread of draft horses. She grabbed her wrap and woolen cap and ventured out into the bright sunny afternoon with staff in hand. As Sadie had predicted, the storm had cleared and the sun blazed in the afternoon sky. The snow seemed to evaporate even as she watched.
Frank saw her come out of her house. He nodded with a tip of his hat and big smile as he passed. The whole village turned out to meet him. The children broke off their snowman building in the back to come running down to see what was on the wagon. When they saw it was just a few rocks, they lost interest and went back to playing. From her vantage, Tanyth could see they were already soaked through. She didn’t envy whoever would be peeling the cold, clammy clothes from chilly bodies when the sun set.
William ran up to the building site to direct Frank and the team in the placement of the lorry wagon and after a bit of discussion, Jakey and the quarrymen hefted the heavy stones, one by one, off the bed of the wagon. Nine blocks were roughly cube shaped and about two feet on a side. Nine more were squared columns of rock some five feet long and nearly a foot across. They were all lashed to wooden handles that allowed six men to heave together to move them. As it was, six men could barely move the blocks and they didn’t move the stones far, except to pull them down off the wagon and place them near the prepared holes.
Tanyth stood with the women at the back of Amber’s house and watched the proceedings anxiously. The treacherous footing could easily result in a broken limb or worse with the heavy stones. Jakey directed and crew soon placed the stones neatly around the site.
When the crew pulled the last stone from the lorry, William climbed up beside Frank and the two men rode the wagon toward the barn while Jakey and his crew finished fiddling with the blue stones.
Amber blew out a breath as it became clear that the excitement for the day was well over. “That coulda been ugly.”
Sadie agreed with a nod. “But they really needed to get the weight off the wagon. If they’d left it sitting there the wheels would have been up to their hubs by morning.”
“I know.” Amber sighed. “Still makes me nervous, them messing about with stuff that can kill ’em.”
Megan laughed. “They’re just big excited kids. They can’t wait to play with the toys.”
Amber grinned. “Yes, well, I worry about the little kids, too.”
“What’ll they do now?” Tanyth watched the men looking at the stones and peering down the holes. The sun cast sparkles off the scuffed and muddy snow, but the crew remained at the site.
Amber pursed her lips and twitched her nose while she was thinking. “I think they’ll wait at least until tomorrow, if not the day after.”
Sadie made a humph sound. “Yeah. Probably so. I bet those holes are pretty wet on the bottom right now.”
Amber grinned. “I was thinking of them trying to get traction on the grass, but you’re probably right.”
Megan shook her head. “I bet they try to put one in today so they can use the Hunter’s Moon as the founding date.”
Amber frowned. “Does that matter?” She looked at Tanyth. “Mum?”
Tanyth shrugged her shoulders. “Beats me. I’ve never been around when they started buildin’ a building before.” She thought about it. “Usually you plant on the new moon, but that’s two weeks out and I can’t imagine they’d wait that long.”
The women all stood in the warming rays of the sun, sheltered by the house and listening to the kids shrieking as they played on the other side of the village. The men stood out in the middle of the scuffed up snow and continued to mill about looking down in the holes.
“What are they doing out there?” Sadie’s exasperation was evident in her voice but she kept the volume down. “You’d think somebody out there would be looking for a cuppa tea or something, by now.”
Amber shook her head. “They’re waiting for something. Maybe William is coming back.”
Tanyth saw movement through the trees and nudged Amber. “Yep. And he’s got Bester. Looks like you were right, Megan.”
“Looks like.” She shook her head. “I was really just joking.”
They shared a quiet laugh before Amber nudged Tanyth. “Well, mum. You’d best get out there. If they’re gonna lay a stone, it would best if you blessed it.”
Tanyth started to object. She really wasn’t a holy woman to be blessing stones. She couldn’t remember ever praying more in her life than she had since arriving in the village. As she opened her mouth to say something, she saw the raven fly up out of the forest and alight in the top of the tall spruce at the edge of the wood. She thought better of her objections and walked out onto the cleared area, leaning heavily on her staff.
As William and Bester approached, Jakey and the boys picked up a tripod arrangement from the ground, brushed off the snow and then stood it up to straddle the north-easternmost hole in the ground. By the time William had Bester in place, Jakey and the crew had positioned the stone over the hole and it sat there on its handles.
The men stepped back and nodded as Tanyth approached. She surveyed the ground as she went, making sure she knew where all the holes were so she didn’t fall into one. William smiled and nodded a greeting.
She stopped and leaned on her staff, peering down to look in the hole. It wasn’t as deep or as dark as she thought and she saw a bed of gravel in the bottom of it–wet-looking but unsullied by snow. She looked around at the men who were looking at her. “So? You’re going to start laying stones now?”
Jakey nodded and spoke before William could. “Yes, mum. It’ll be good if we can sit the footers on the sand while it’s wet. It should help stabilize the stone and keep it from shifting.” He shrugged. “We won’t wanna fill in the hole until it’s had a bit of a chance to dry, but this should make a good solid footer.”
Ethan, the building expert was bobbing his head, and William stood at Bester’s traces, getting ready to use the muscular animal to do what the men would have trouble doing on their own.
She looked at William who shrugged. “That’s the plan, mum. Would you say a blessing on the space, please? I have a feeling we’re going to need all the help we can get.” He grinned boyishly.
She looked around at all the serious faces before sighing to herself. “Alright. Give me a moment.”
The sun was warm, but it was on the way down and it had been a cold, cold day. She was tired and still scared by the raven dream. As she stepped to where the men had marked out where the chimney would be she had to stop and gather herself. She leaned heavily on her staff, holding it with both hands and leaning her head against the top. The iron foot was stabbing through the snow and into the yet unfrozen ground below. “Mother give me strength.” It was more than a whisper, less than a grumble, and none of the men standing around seemed to notice.
She lifted her eyes to the northern sky and began. “We ask the Guardian of the North, Bones of the Earth, to bless and protect the foundation, to make our stones as solid as the mountains, unyielding in adversity and strong as the earth itself.” Turning to the east, she spoke again. “We ask the Guardian of the East, Breath of the Earth, to bless and protect the walls, to fill them with life and spirit and to welcome all who enter our doors in good will.” Turning to the south, she felt a tension growing in her that she couldn’t name. “We ask the Guardian the South, Spirit of the Earth, to bless our hearth, to keep our fires warm and welcoming and our hearts open to all who sit before them.” The tension mounted as she turned to the west. “We ask the Guardian of the West, Blood of the Earth to bless and protect our roof, to shed the rain and snow and to protect those who seek shelter beneath it.” She closed the circle by turning to the north and she felt the tension tighten more. It was something behind her eyes and the blood pounded in her ears so loudly she couldn’t hear the wind in the trees any longer. “We children of Earth beg your help, your protection, and your blessings in the name of the All-Mother and the name of the All-Father. So mote it be.” With that she raised her staff and struck the stone that was resting beside the central hole. The iron shoe rang against the rock and a bell-like note echoed through the village. She grounded the staff again and didn’t so much lean on it as hung from it to gather herself while the tension inside her leached away into the ground beneath her feet and radiated into the air around her.