Unath

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT · READING EXCERPT

Enter the story

My father had left a space for my name. He had ruled it himself, pressing hard enough that the line showed through the other side of the paper.

I stood at the end of his desk with my coat still on. Rainwater had found the seam above my right shoulder. It was moving slowly down my back, and I wanted to remove the coat, sit beside the stove, and have this be some ordinary correction to a warehouse account. Fedric had a way of finding my mistakes just before supper. Usually I could mend them.

“Read it,” he said.

“I have.”

“All of it.”

Anseth shifted by the window. She was holding the curtain back with two fingers, though there was nothing outside worth watching: the delivery yard, a stack of wet barrels, a man struggling to cover them. My sister had spent the afternoon checking those barrels. There was a split across one of her knuckles, filled with the dark residue of sealing pitch.

I read the last paragraph again. It said the members of my mother’s family who had occupied the eastern rooms had departed of their own accord, carrying sufficient provisions for their journey, with accommodation secured in advance. It said I had inspected their supplies.

That last part was true.

The rest had been made to resemble it. Father had given the paragraph the same measured shape as the entries in his ledgers: a date, a quantity, a condition satisfied. There was no word in it that appeared unreasonable by itself. Departed. Provisions. Accommodation. I could imagine a stranger reading it and wondering why anyone had made a difficulty.

Below the paragraph he had written my name in his own hand, leaving the line for me to sign above it. He had done that when I was young and needed to authorize small collections from suppliers. The first time, I had practiced my signature on a scrap until I thought it looked old enough to be trusted.

There were two copies of the present account. The other lay beneath a flat stone he used to keep papers from lifting when the window was open. On its edge I could see the beginning of Anseth’s name. She had signed already.

“You could have asked me before you wrote it,” I said.

“I am asking you now.”

“To sign it.”

“To read it first, as I’ve said twice.”

I rested my fingertips on the desk to keep from putting my hands in my pockets. He disliked that when we were discussing work. Even then I was arranging myself to avoid a lesser argument.

The stove gave a small metallic tick. Behind me, Mother moved a chair. I knew the sound of its uneven leg and knew she had lifted it first to spare us the scrape.

“The accommodation wasn’t secured,” I said.

Father put his finger on the paper, close to mine without touching it. “Arrangements were made.”

“They weren’t admitted.”

“We can’t answer for another householder.”

Anseth let the curtain fall. “He said he had room.”

I looked at her. “Did he?”

She wiped her injured knuckle with her thumb. “He expected to.”

Outside, the man swore as a corner of the covering lifted. Father glanced toward the sound, impatient with an interruption nobody had made.

“Expected,” I repeated.

“He had people leaving. They didn’t leave.”

“When did you learn that?”

“After.”

“After they went?”

“After I told you.”

I waited. She folded her arms. We had stood like this as children while each tried to decide how much the other knew. She had always been better at waiting than I was.

“Before they went, then.”

“I didn’t know there would be no room. I knew it wasn’t certain.”

The paper crackled beneath my hand. I had bent it against the desk edge without noticing.

I remembered Dorrenna in the yard that morning. Not in the snow where she had died; I had never seen that place. In our yard, with her sleeves rolled to the elbows because she had been helping tie bundles. She had made me move the flour from one pack to another. I had told her the weight was the same either way, and she had said I was welcome to tell that to the person carrying it.

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