Keven

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT · READING EXCERPT

Enter the story

Ilren had held her breath so long that Eira could hear the effort of letting it out.

“You can breathe.”

“You said to listen.”

“I didn’t mean stop everything else.”

Ilren opened one eye. “You might have mentioned that.”

Rainwater ticked from the teaching shelter’s eaves into a bucket somebody had left beneath the corner. Beyond the open side, the yard was drying in uneven patches. A line of damp footprints led from the house to the bench where Ilren sat with her hands resting on her knees, shoulders drawn almost to her ears.

Eira had brought the bench outside because the room had felt too close. Now there was the bucket, the river beyond the trees, someone splitting kindling behind the house, and Bracken rubbing his face against the rail of the paddock. She could hear leather creak each time he leaned into it.

“Try letting your shoulders down.”

Ilren lowered them with obvious care. “How far?”

“Until they stop hurting.”

“They weren’t hurting before we started.”

From the other end of the shelter came a small, quickly swallowed laugh. Jun’s two other learners were watching them instead of the stones they had been asked to examine. One had collected a handful from the riverbank. The other was turning a chipped piece of roofing tile between finger and thumb.

Eira looked towards her father.

Jun sat on a low stool with a damp cloth spread across one knee. Olian lay beside him, his head on the edge of the cloth. Her father’s hand rested beneath the hound’s jaw. From the twitch at one corner of his mouth, she knew he had been listening.

“What did you ask Ilren to do?” he said.

“Notice what was around her.”

“I’ve noticed all of it,” Ilren said. “The bucket. The wood. My foot going numb.”

Eira folded her arms, then unfolded them when she saw her father notice.

“And what were you hoping she would notice?”

She glanced beyond the paddock. Ripple stood under the trees near the gate, dark mane still holding drops of rain. Eira had known where the mount was before she looked. Through the other small movements around the yard, that presence had remained distinct: familiar enough that she usually paid it no attention until it shifted.

“Something underneath the sounds,” she said.

Ilren shut the open eye. Her forehead creased.

“Don’t strain for it.”

The crease deepened.

Jun lifted his hand from Olian and reached for the cup on the bench beside him. “Eira.”

She waited.

“Would you know if someone had put that bucket there yesterday?”

“No.”

“Then don’t ask her to guess at what she hasn’t learned.”

Her face warmed. Behind the house, the splitting stopped. A few moments later Rowan appeared with an armful of kindling, Boxy close at heel. After a glance from Eira to Ilren, Rowan set the wood down without comment.

“I wasn’t asking her to guess.”

“No,” Jun said. “But you haven’t given her much else to do.”

Ilren opened both eyes. She looked apologetic, which made it worse.

Eira crouched beside the bench. Ilren had wound a loose thread around one finger until the tip had gone pale.

“Let that go first.”

She looked down and unwound it.

“I don’t know how to explain it yet,” she said. “I thought if you sat quietly—” She stopped. “Well. I thought you might feel something.”

“I thought I was supposed to.”

“I know.”

Eira reached for a stone from the other bench and put it into Ilren’s open hand.

“Tell me about that.”

“It’s cold.”

“Where?”

“Against my hand.”

“All of it?”

She shifted it. “This side’s warmer. You were holding it.”

“And?”

“There’s a crack. I can feel it with my nail.”

“You don’t have to find anything else,” she said.

Ilren looked at Jun, then back at her. “Is this still the lesson?”

“It is now.”

Ilren’s faint smile eased her embarrassment.

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End of excerpt. This site presents a selection from the manuscript.