Ammonite

They went to the Holme Valley cave for the witnessing song. It was evening. Marghe lifted her spitting torch a little higher; mica and quartz glittered redly as the nine pattern singers walked ahead of the women of Holme Valley, their audience. Fine sand sifted, cool and dry, between Marghe’s toes.

“Letitia told me about this place,” Da

Before them, glimmering with natural phosphorescence, a lake slid in blues and greens. They were standing on a wide, natural shelf that ran around the walls of the cavern. Thin‑waisted columns plunged into the water from the lower parts of the uneven roof. The lake poured with light, throwing shadows on the wall at Marghe’s back, sheathing the columns in shimmering cloaks of color.

T’orre Na began the song. Marghe took it up, followed by Thenike and Holle and Cassil; then Aoife, Day, and Ojo. Da

They joined hands: Ojo’s rough, dry hand in Marghe’s left, Day’s–warm and soft–in her right. Marghe smiled as she sang the wordless song, enjoying the way harmonies split off and raced over the water, echoing back from the walls. It felt as though the whole population of the valley was singing.

One by one, the voices dropped out. At the edges of the lake tiny pebbles rocked in a slight current.

They ate together outside, with children crying from fatigue and Ojo and Aoife sitting as far apart from each other as possible. Marghe chewed her bread deliberately, determined not to worry about it; no agreement was perfect.

Later, lying next to Thenike, she fell asleep wondering if some deep, quiet place in the cavern still echoed with the song they had made, and dreamed of small pebbles rocking in the water.

Chapter Eighteen

HARVEST IN HOLME Valley began two days after the trata agreement was reached. The year was begi

Day left first, with T’orre Na. “I want to go home,” she said to Marghe. “I want to watch Jink and Oriyest sitting by our fire. I want to see how the younglings in the flock are doing, and what grass we’ve got left.” She hitched her pack higher on her shoulders, then suddenly thrust out her hand. “It was good meeting you,” she said awkwardly, “but better than that, you’ve… well, you’ve given me hope. Sort of. T’orre Na says that if you can get pregnant, there’s no reason I can’t.” Then she gri

Thenike went with Day and T’orre Na, “Only for a few days, Amu. To see their part of the world again. To hear T’orre Na’s stories. I’ll be back when you’ve finished your business with your kin, here.”

Marghe knew that Thenike was giving her time alone to have that talk with Hiam and say her good‑byes, but when she waved the three of them off, it was hard not to feel as though someone had ripped loose one of her limbs. Thenike would be back, Marghe told herself as she walked through the dry grass. She would be back.

That night she dreamed of Thenike ru

Marghe woke feeling as though something she should know was dancing tantalizingly out of reach. She shook her head and got up. Hiam might be able to help. But when she went to the hospital, Hiam was not available. Marghe left a message.

Further down the valley, she found the women of Singing Pastures mounted, their packhorses weighed down with their possessions and what was left of their herds standing, heads hanging, beneath a cloud of dust. Marghe ran a hand over the muzzle of Holle’s horse, remembering Pella, and looked up. “So soon?”

“There’s maybe thirty days of good grazing left up north. Every mouthful helps. It’ll be a hard winter. You’ll be going back to Ollfoss?”

“It’s my home now.” Home. Last time she had been here, with Cassil, she had had no home.

“Don’t be too late setting out. Winter won’t be long coming this year. And come see us in the spring. With your youngster. Maybe we’ll lend you another horse.”

Holle knew she would not get Pella back. The debt had been written off as part of the trata agreement, but a horse was not an inanimate object. Marghe hoped the mare was still alive up north somewhere, grown shaggy against the cold, ru

Marghe laid a hand on her own belly. This time next year, her daughter would be three months old. A spring child. Born at the same time of year as young taars and foals, when birds began to sing and wirrels ate the last of their hoards. A time when the world smelled fresh and new. She wished Thenike were there to share the thought. But she would be back in three or four days.

Holle and her people urged their sweating horses here and there, closing up the taar herd for travel, then moved out in a swirl of drovers’ whistles and whipcracks. Marghe watched until there was nothing left but the hanging dust.

The harvest at Holme Valley was not the orderly cutting of fields in a straight‑line pattern that Marghe had observed in cultures all over the world. Instead, the women started harvesting in the outer fields and cut to the accompaniment of children singing, clapping hands, and beating drums; almost as if they were herding some small animals towards the center of the fields.

“But of course,” Cassil said when Marghe asked her about it, “we keep the soul of the rice going inward, so that it concentrates, instead of leaving the grain.”

And Marghe, when she stood still listening to the stamp of bare feet and the hissing thresh of olla scythes against stalks, felt… somethingmoving inward with the beaters and reapers. It grew stronger, more focused–like a storm gathering, but warmer, more yellow.

She walked away from the fields thoughtfully and punched in Hiam’s code. The doctor was still not talking. She went to find Da

Marghe spent the next two days at Da

Marghe set off for the hospital, trudging through the muggy heat under an overcast sky. There would not be many clear skies again at Holme Valley until spring. She thought of the bright, hard skies of Ollfoss and wished she and Thenike were starting their journey back the very next day.

When she got to the hospital, the doctor was not there, but Lu Wai was, holding Letitia’s hand. Letitia was awake. “Letitia!” Marghe tried to smile, but the technician looked thin and fragile, like a dark brittle stick against the white bed.

“Don’t look like that. I feel better than I look. Pretty good, in fact. I won’t be turning cartwheels for a week or two, but I’m alive, Lu Wai’s alive. And it looks like things are going to get pretty interesting from now on.”

This time Marghe’s smile was genuine. “You do sound better than you look.”

Letitia gri

“The first one was better.”