She never did move her latrine farther than the corner of the hut because she could not shovel very far or very effectively with only one fully useful arm and an aching hip. Fortunately the hut had produced a shovel-and a broom, for sweeping what fell indoors upon the opening of the door back out again-and boots, mittens, hat and coat, all of the latter enormous.
The clothing had been in a bin beneath the bed, along with several blankets and pillows. The bedframe itself bore nothing but a straw mattress, smelling rather strongly of a small wild animal. The bed troubled Lissar, though she did not know why, and she had only to recall the existence of the shadowy, never-quite-motionless panic-monster in the corner of her mind to decide not to investigate why this, or the other things that namelessly disturbed her, might be so. She kept the pillows and blankets tidily rolled up in the bin, and at night she took them out and spread them in front of the fireplace.
Ash occasionally slept in the bed for a little while, but usually she woke herself up by rootling little hollows in the canvas covered mousiness with her nose, and when she decided she actually wanted to go to sleep she joined Lissar on the floor. She also caught several of the resident mice and one squirrel.
She ate the first one or two-Lissar heard the crack of her jaws and then the brisk, immediate sound of swallowing-but one evening when she left Lissar's side in a leap, Lissar heard the sound of pounce-and-snap but no ensuing gulp. Missed, she thought, not moving from her place facing the fire; but then a long pointed face thrust itself over her shoulder, a long pointed face with a little furry morsel dangling from its jaws.
"Thank you," Lissar said gravely, taking it by the tail a little hesitantly. At least it was already dead, she thought. She had never cleaned or dressed out anything; she was aware she had some idea how it was done, but not a very large or very clear idea.... Did dressing out apply to something as small as a mouse? She didn't know.
Perhaps it would be good practice. Good for what?
She stood up, still carrying Ash's contribution to their food supply, and took it over to the table. She picked up the smaller of the two knives that were another of the hut's valuable resources. The knife was so old, and had been sharpened so often, that the blade was barely wider than a finger, and curved abruptly in from the use-dark horn handle. Their onion and potato broth that night had splintered mouse fragments in it.
After a certain inevitable amount of experimentation, both Lissar's soup and her bread improved. She had found herbs in the food cupboard upon further exploration, as musty as everything else was, but still capable of imparting flavor; and she set her bread-sponge out for a day to catch the wild yeast before she kneaded it and baked it; Rinnol had taught her about this.
There were also further shapes and smells in the bins where she had first found apples and onions and potatoes that were undoubtedly other vegetables, and while she and Ash ate them, she never did know what most of them were. Some grew recognizable upon scrubbing clean, like carrots, even old wrinkly rusty-orange ones.
But there was a carrot-shaped thing that, when cut, was creamy-colored inside, and which disintegrated in the soup-bucket much more quickly than carrots, which she did not know, although the taste seemed vaguely familiar. Some things, like a long round brown root that had to stew most of a day before it was soft enough to eat, she had never met before. There were also a few bags of astonishingly dry and rot-free grains of various sizes and shapes, round or oval or folded, tiny or not so tiny, all of which she and Ash ate, although the husks of some of them caught unpleasantly in the teeth and the throat. And, best of all, there was a big rough sack of salt: salt for bread and salt for soup, salt for any and everything, lots of it, more than she could imagine using. The salt-sack made her feel rich.
They had been in their cabin for several days or perhaps several weeks when Lissar woke up one morning and thought, What is that smell? There must be something rotting in the vegetable bin after all. She would attend to it later-she wasn't going to get up yet. She curled up more snugly on her side, drawing her knees up and tucking her chin down over her crossed hands; and a breath of warm air slipped up from beneath the blankets, beneath her flannel petticoat and addressed her nose.... Oh, she thought. It isn't the vegetable bin. It's me.
Taking a bath was an arduous process. There was only the one bucket and a few bowls of varying sizes and depths to hold water. She tore another strip from the blanket that had already yielded floor-scrubbing and dish-washing and hot-bucket-of-soup-holding cloths, to wash herself with. Her clothing had ... adhered to her skin in several places where the ... wounds were the worst; and here her mind began blanking out on her again. But by then she had begun to remember what it was like to feel clean; even though that required a clearer memory of what it was like to live in her body than she usually permitted herself. She found that she wanted to feel clean again.
Grimly she soaked the crusted flannel free; sometimes she wept with pain suddenly awoken from uneasy quiescence; sometimes she gasped from the reek.
She heated the water over the fire; but she no longer let the fire burn as high and hot as she had at first, as she realized how quickly they might use up their wood-pile, and going back outdoors for more snow to melt made her shiver the worse from her ablutions with luke-warm water. Furthermore she was impatient. She had learnt to put their supper on early in the day that it might be cooked by evening; but she wanted to be clean now.
Finally she could peel her shirt off; bent over, her filthy hair tied back to keep it out of her way till its turn came, she saw her breasts for the first time in ... she did not remember, but a howling darkness sprang up from nowhere and struck her down. When she climbed to her feet again, grabbing for the table edge to support herself, she twisted her body, and one soft breast brushed against her upper arm.
And with that gentle touch she fell again, and retched with great force. There was little in her stomach to lose, but it felt as if her body were turning inside out to get away from itself; as if her flesh, her inner organs, could not bear the neighborhood of the demon that ate at her, that by exposing her body the demon became visible too.
She came to herself again slowly, taking great heaving breaths. She lay on her side, the arm beneath her stretched out in front of her; she could feel the weight of that breast against that arm, and she dared not move. Slowly, slowly, slowly, she made her other hand approach her body and ... touch it, touch her own body, stroke her own skin, as if it were some wild beast she hoped to tame, or some once-domesticated beast whom she could no longer trust. She touched her side; even after a good deal of soup and bread, each rib stood up individually from its sister, stabbing up through her skin. And I have not even a coat of fur for disguise, she thought, caressing the thin, shivering side. I have less charity for you, my own poor flesh, than I do for Ash.
Her fingers crawled upward and touched the outer curve of her breast, and the fingers paused, quaking in fear; but after a moment, despite the panic trying to break out of its shadows and seize her mind, she told her fingers, Go on. This is my body.