Clouds End

  * * *

  Shandy handed Brook a cup of peppermint tea. “Well, it seems you handled your haunt well enough. Did you get some help from the Witness of Delta?”

  “Never had a chance to look for her. We did meet the Arbor’s Witness, more or less.”

  Shandy’s eyebrows rose.

  “He said that Jo and I were part of a one twist ring,” Brook said slowly. “The story of the war and the Emperor and all that is still happening, only now it’s between Jo and me somehow. Do you understand that?”

  Shandy nodded thoughtfully. “I believe so. I have often thought the Singer’s stories were like whales. You may only notice them when they jump—the war was a jump—but they are there afterwards too, running beneath the water.” She saw Brook shiver. “Did this Witness give you any advice about Jo?”

  Brook took a sip of tea. “Mm. He told me I could either cut the knot between us, or follow it out.”

  Shandy grunted. “You and Jo both still seem to be breathing.”

  “If this is a story of the real world, a root story, I think I can be stronger than Jo. I have you and Rope and Clouds End. . . . But Jo took the Spark when she stopped the Emperor, and it’s eating her up inside. Her eyes have turned golden—had you noticed? And all the way home she was nervy. Fey. She smokes all the time now, like a woodlander. I feel sorry for her.”

  “After she twinned you!”

  “I know, I know it sounds strange. But we are each shadows of the other, and a part of me cares very much for her. She saved the islands, remember. And while she was in the Palace, taking the Emperor’s Spark into herself, Rope and I were safe in a room far away, making this.” Brook patted her tummy.

  “I was wondering about that.”

  Brook laughed. “Just so you know, we agreed to get married before we, um, you know.”

  “Ah, yes,” Shandy said. “I know about that sex stuff. Moss told me about it once. Sounded nasty.”

  Brook giggled into her tea.

  The Witness grinned, wrapping her hands around her own cup of tea, blessing the warmth that soothed her old joints. “Just remember that this story is not yet over, Brook. ‘Haunts get what they want.’ Jo does not strike me as the sort to go quietly into the Mist.”

  “I know. But I can’t worry about her all the time. I have to live my life.” Brook looked around at Shandy’s dim, cluttered house, rich with the smell of beeswax and cut timber. “I love this place. I love Otter’s house. I love this island. I love the people on it. It is home. I never knew how much it meant to me.”

  Shandy laughed. “Well, you were young. Young people are stupid and vigorous. Old people are lazy and smart.”

  Brook took a sip of tea. “I feel smarter,” she admitted, rising to tend the fire, “but I don’t feel lazy. I feel stronger than I have in my life.”

  “Children will take care of that, I promise you. Children and other things.” A comfortable silence grew between them. “Well,” Shandy said at last, tugging on her blue shell earring. “It’s less than a week to midwinter. If you want a proper wedding you will either have to get married in five days, or wait three more months for spring.”

  “Five days it is, then.”

  “It might be easier to wait.”

  “I want to do it now,” Brook said. “Spring is a false time to wed. Too many promises. Winter is best, cold winter. Then the days just get warmer and warmer.”

  * * *

  Shale went first, picking her way down the steep path to Crabspit Beach. “So what was it like, the Arbor?”

  Brook came more sedately after, holding onto the jack pines that flanked the path. “These trees are so small! They would barely be shrubs in the forest.”

  “Were there very many people?”

  “Thousands! More than I want to meet again in the rest of my life.” They were getting near the shore; the air smelled of cold sand and seashells. “You would hate it. It’s very cramped. Lots of tiny rooms, packed together. No matter where you are, someone is right next to you.”

  “Like here,” Shale said dryly.

  “Well . . .”

  “I think I would like it.” Shale stepped on to the beach, grinding shells into the damp sand beneath her feet. “Do they smoke there? The soldiers did. You could smell their pipe smoke in the dark.”

  Brook stepped down to the shore. “Sounds like you had a busy summer.”

  Shale nodded. Her hood was down despite the cold and her black hair fluttered free. “I guess I should say how terrible the war was—and it was—but it was exciting too. We sailed everywhere in the Inner Islands. There wasn’t much killing, after the first few weeks. Just dodge and counterdodge. I think Twist was stalling, waiting to be called home.”

  Brook joined Shale, feeling the damp chill begin to seep through her boot soles. “Rocks! Rocks to trip over, instead of roots. Bliss.”

  “Did you say they smoked?” Shale asked.

  “Hmm? Oh, yes. Tremendously. Even Jo took up the habit.”

  “Really! Has she got any matches?”

  “Probably. Why?”

  “Aren’t they wonderful? I envied the forest soldiers their matches, I can tell you. I want to show some to Mom. Then I shall sail to the Arbor and trade for them.”

  “You want to—! But what would you trade?”

  “I don’t know. Eelskin, I suppose. Ivory. We must have something here the forest people want.”

  Brook walked down the shingle, listening to the familiar soggy crunch of sand beneath her feet and the cry of faroff gulls. “You amaze me. I never want to leave Clouds End again.”

  Shale laughed. “I want to go everywhere and see everything! Twice.”

  “It is important to have roots.”

  “I have them, I have them!” Shale cried. “It’s all I can do to keep from tripping over them with every step! I have only gotten the first taste of what it’s like to be free, Bug. I want more.”

  Brook walked back up the strand, and slipped her hand into Shale’s pocket. “Well, don’t go yet,” she said. “I am going to need you here for at least another five days.”

  “Oh, no.” Shale shook her head sorrowfully. The fog from their breath curled up between them. “You mean to be a responsible adult. I can just tell. Can’t you put it off until spring?” Brook shook her head, and Shale sighed. “You never did waste time once you made a decision.”

  They watched the pale sun melt like a snowflake into the sea. Shale’s hard hand curled around Brook’s. “War I can handle. Motherhood . . . too scary. But you! You will be fine.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Absolutely. You can have my babies, too.”

  Brook laughed. They walked down the shingle together. “Don’t you ever want to have children?”

  Shale shrugged. “Now? No. If I had a child, I might change my mind. I’m working very hard at not having one.” The surf lapped against the strand. Birds were going to roost in the shore pines and the cottonwoods. “I did have an offer.”

  “For children?”

  “Well, for love. It comes to the same thing in the end.”

  Brook laughed and peered down at her tummy. “I am in no position to call you cynical.”

  “Hunh! Well, Foam is charming, and expressive, and he makes me laugh. Besides, put two scared people together long enough among strangers and they are bound to think about sex.”

  “You too?”

  Shale kicked at an upturned shell, sending it clattering among its fellows. “I’m human, aren’t I?”

  “You are fooling yourself if you think it was no more than that. People really do love, you know. That’s not just a story.”

  “But I don’t love him. Not like that.”

  “Do you think you will always feel this way?”

  Shale looked over, scowling comically. “If I change my mind, I will rescue a handsome prince from captivity and settle down to raise mobs of tiny pink babies. Satisfied?”

  “Satisfied.” Brook huddled beneath her hoo
d. “Shale?”

  “Mm?”

  “I’m scared.” She stared out at the darkening waves. Cold and deep.

  “The pain?”

  Brook shook her head. “Not the pain so much. Scared I won’t be able to have the baby. Isn’t that stupid? Scared I won’t be good enough and it will be born dead, or crippled. Sometimes I can’t believe I could give birth to something that wasn’t broken. And I have these dreams. Terrible dreams.”

  Shale hugged her friend. “Shh,” she whispered. “Everyone has those dreams, Bug. You know that.”

  Brook nodded wordlessly.

  “It will be perfect. You’ll see. A wonderful howling red blob for me to pick up and fling around when you’re not watching.”

  And Brook looked back at her, smiling, with tears standing in her eyes. “Am I going to die?”

  “Yes. But not yet. Not until we are old and wise and wrinkled together.”

  Brook laughed, then shivered. “Let’s go back. If I stay out in this cold much longer, I won’t make it through the night.”

  * * *

  The next few days were a blur of preparation. The villagers held a building party to make Rope and Brook a house. Shandy decided to put Jo up until the ceremony was over, though she sent her daughters away while the haunt was in her house.

  Finch, who had been enjoying an unaccustomed freedom for the last six months, suddenly remembered what it was like to have an older sister, and found that older sisters getting married are the very most time-consuming kind. Making food and sewing took up every moment that wasn’t spent eating or running errands. The only consolation, as she told Otter, was that Brook had gotten nicer since she had been away. She was practically considerate about the drudgery she was inflicting on Finch, and made noises about some kind of reward.

  Finch didn’t put much faith in these promises, but it was nice to be appreciated.

  * * *

  The wedding day dawned clear and cold. The ground was hard with frost; the grass looked made of metal and squeaked underfoot. As the light broadened, Brook and Rope returned from their wedding walks, and the meadow filled with villagers slapping themselves, grinning sleepily, and remarking that at least it wouldn’t rain. They were dressed in their best winter wear, sealskin tunics edged with heavy braid. Shale’s hood was fringed with shark’s teeth, and Foam was resplendent. He had added a shoulder-cape plated with mother-of-pearl that shimmered as he moved. Snippets of conversation eddied around the small meadow as Clouds End prepared for a happy, holy event.

  Jo looked at Stick and shuddered. “What are you doing out on so chill a morning, old man?”

  Stick cackled. “My grandfather came out the year this island was discovered. Haunts are not the only ones to brave the Mist! Begging your pardon, White Lady. He was here for the first wedding on Clouds End, and our family will be here for the last.”

  “It will be your funeral if you stand too long in this cold.”

  The old man grinned. “I reckon I’ll be here for that too.”

  Sweetpea walked by and smiled. “Brr! Too cold for an old woman.”

  Beside her, Otter sighed. “Mother, you are not old.”

  “Hah!” Sweetpea grunted, pushing a coil of white vapor into the morning air. “You just don’t want to be middle-aged.”

  Rope stood near Shandy’s brazier with Brook, happy and scared at once. “You look nervous,” Brook whispered. “Want to back out?”

  “No, it’s just that Net has crawled inside my shirt to keep warm. What if he crawls down into my—”

  “Hey!” Shandy bawled.

  The slanting morning sun struck sparks of color from the glistening snow. A big blue shell hung from Shandy’s ear, and her sealskin jacket bulked over layers of blue skirts. Skirts, sleeves, and jacket were covered in empty pockets.

  “Women and men of Clouds End, it is cold! And yet this cold keeps a secret we come to celebrate with a very special ceremony.” The heat from Shandy’s brazier lapped against her shins, and she reminded herself, as she did at every wedding, not to kick over the cup she had set beside it. For the first time, she looked at the couple before her. Rope first, impossibly straight-backed, nervous, excited, rather pleased; then Brook, smiling and radiant. “Brook and Rope, I stand here with your friends and family, the birds and the beasts, the sea and the sky, to Witness your union.

  “For every force that pulls you apart from the world, from each other, and from yourselves, there are others pushing you together. I want to remind you now of those things.

  “We stand here on midwinter day, when the sun is weak and the darkness strong. But the day of death has a secret, a secret it will tell tomorrow, and every day for many months. Beyond death there is life again. You know times of joy cannot last, but remember that despair is fleeting too. Trough follows wave; they are but aspects of the same sea, a moving pattern of low and high, dark and light, joy and sorrow.”

  She made a signal and the Rolling Hitch began to form, children inside, elders outside. Brook walked to the left of the knot, where little Pebble solemnly presented her with a crab shell she had discovered by the docks. At the other end of the Rolling Hitch old Stick winked and pressed a long ivory comb into Rope’s hands. “Two days’ whittling, but many years’ use, I hope!” Rope grinned and walked the Rolling Hitch, passing Brook at the midpoint, receiving whispered congratulations while the Witness spoke on.

  “As you walk the Rolling Hitch, you make a towline, attaching yourselves to the powers of the world. The Powers surround us and hold us from extinction. The sun gives way to the moon, the sea creates the land, the land creates the mountains, the mountains vanish into cloud, and the clouds themselves end in Mist and sea. Change tears us apart and makes us anew. Feel the world. Look up into the endless sky. Listen to the sea. Feel the rock beneath your feet.”

  The islanders’ breath had begun to fill the meadow with a clean white mist.

  Brook and Rope had reached the ends of the knot. “You are a part of the world, as much as the tree or the otter or the sea itself. All things mingle and mix. When your problems seem the worst, remember that change is forever and forever renewed. You have tied yourselves to the world with a Rolling Hitch; feel its power pass to you as blood passes down the birthcord from a mother to her child.” Gravely the couple gave the Witness their gifts and gravely she put comb and crab shell into pockets on the hem of her lowest skirt.

  Then with a wave, Shandy dissolved the Rolling Hitch, and the Sheet Bend began to form. It was a much more solid knot, including even Jo. “When we are married, we are knotted together, but our ends are still single lines. When we are lonely, we must remember that our mates are not our only company. There is a power in the friendship of others that is smaller, sharper, and warmer than the company of the wind and sea. This power too you can use. Walk the Sheet Bend now, tying yourselves to your fellows. We celebrate you each.”

  At one end Sweetpea folded her arms around Brook, eyes bright with tears, and then gave her a honey cake, still warm from the griddle. Across the knot Stone gripped Rope’s arm and smiled through his thick beard, holding up a shiny brass fishhook. “Good for a few meals, I hope.”

  “We could have used this in the forest,” Rope said, remembering a rabbit-bone hook and a meager breakfast.

  A murmur went along the human corridors as each villager blessed Brook and Rope in turn.

  Shandy smiled, feeling the sun on her face and the stone beneath her feet, feeling the energy of the wedding being gathered, tested, pulled tight into knots that secured them all. “You have walked the Sheet Bend,” she called. “You are tied to your village.” She popped the honey cake in a skirt pocket and let the brass hook dangle from a pocket on her sleeve.

  “And now, the wedding knot. The Reef celebrates a third kind of power, the power that two people have together.” This time they started back to back. Foam hugged Rope, meeting Shale’s eyes as she clasped Brook. “Top this!” he murmured. The crowd gasped as he pulled a shimmering a
rm band from his pouch. “Mistwood. I scraped it off the hulls and spread it on a round stone. I used my dad’s engraver to carve it just as it was setting.” The arm band shimmered pearl and silver. As they watched, the lines of knot-work seemed to writhe and flow into new designs.

  Shale grunted. “I fear my gift is less spectacular.” She held up a wad of leather and shook it out. “How does this thing work again . . . ?”

  “It’s a leather bag with a soft lining,” Foam said, puzzled.

  “That lining was a horror to sew, I’ll tell you.” Shale’s gift had two holes cut in the bottom and a set of straps dangling from the top. “You can wear it either on your front or back.”

  Brook laughed and cried at once. “It’s for carrying my baby!”

  Shale grinned. “No excuses now! This way you can walk across the grasslands with me and bring your kid along.”

  A river of joy spilled from Brook’s heart as she walked the Reef Knot, passing Foam and Shale, Otter, Jo, Finch, Nanny, and all the others; standing before Shandy as they had begun, surrounded by those they loved the most.

  Shandy sized them up when they returned. “So what did you find on the marriage walk?”

  Brook glanced over at Rope and laughed. “Let me go first.” She drew a long white feather from her pouch and held it aloft. The villagers looked and then sighed, for clearly the feather had been touched by the Mist. It seemed to shine from within, and though there was no wind, it tugged and fluttered as if being blown to the east.

  Shandy nodded. “A powerful sign. You have always had the Sight within you.”

  (And in the crowd Jo smiled; for Brook had discovered the present Jo had left for her to find.)

  Shandy took the feather from Brook and tucked it in her left breast pocket. Then she turned to Rope. “And you? What did you find on the shore on your wedding day’s dawn?”

  Rope blushed and coughed and mumbled, reaching into his bag. “This is all I saw,” he said sheepishly.

  “A boot!” Shandy cried, holding it aloft. “A child’s boot!” Shale sniggered, and then Foam laughed, and then Stone chuckled, and soon the whole crowd was rocking with mirth. Shandy dangled the little leather boot above her head. “Has anyone lost a boot?” No answer. Shandy frowned. “Is it a good boot?”