Conna would cut off chunks and pass them out as they cooked. Usually, he would have started with himself and the other Patrollers before moving on to the rest of the villagers. Illya would have stood back with the rest of them. He thought of going to find Benja, but Conna saw him first.
“Leader!” Conna said and motioned him over.
“Almost done here,” Conna said. He poked the knife into one of the parts closest to the fire—a leg—then carved off a slice. With a smile that did not quite reach his eyes, he held it out to Illya on the end of the knife. Illya took it.
“Look at the good luck the book has brought us,” Conna said in a louder voice so that everyone could hear. He slapped Illya on the back, and the villagers broke into a spontaneous cheer.
Illya grinned despite his discomfort. With meat in his hands ready to eat, it was hard not to feel like everything was going to be all right. Conna carved a piece for himself next then for each of the boys around him, ending with his little brother Aaro.
Illya looked around for Benja and found him on the edge of the circle, standing with his parents. Mud was smeared across his face and covered his clothes. He met Illya’s eyes for a moment then looked away. He was not smiling.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“WHAT IS IT?” Illya asked.
People came to him nearly every day now with petty disputes and questions. It was as if they had decided he was truly their Leader and that meant that he should solve all of their problems.
The man in front of him was mumbling something about a new fence his neighbor had put up between their huts. Apparently, they had very different ideas about where it should go. Illya wondered why on earth people couldn’t solve problems like this on their own, not to mention why they thought he had any idea of what to do.
The one thing that was saving him in this mess, though he had never thought he would say it, was Conna. Again and again, when Illya found himself floundering in front of the crowd, Conna managed to pipe up with a comment to save him. Just like on the first day, somehow, he always knew what to say.
The plan was working. The digging was going well. It was hard not to feel hopeful when progress could be seen in the field every day. He had inspected it that morning with Conna, and they thought it might be ready by that afternoon.
The man in front of him was droning out a list of grievances that his neighbor had committed in the past. The seeds sat in Illya’s pocket, their fate fast approaching. In a few hours, they would be put in the ground. With his idea so close to becoming real, it was hard to focus on anything else.
“Do you suppose?” the man was saying. “Would you have a look at the… Almanac?” He whispered the name of the book as if he was afraid to say it out loud then continued, “You know, see if it has anything to say about it?”
Illya realized that he had no idea what the man had been saying for the past few minutes.
“I don’t really think…“
Then he stopped himself. As tenuous as his position as Leader was, the last thing he needed to do was to deny the main thing that gave him credibility.
“Well… alright then,” Illya said.
He picked up the book and sat up straighter. Hoping that what he found would somehow apply to the man’s situation, he opened it to a random page.
“Hmm,” he said. The man’s eyes widened.
“What’s it say?” the man asked.
Illya held up a finger. Deciphering the letters was still a slow process. The man stared at him intently, his eyes trying to penetrate Illya’s skull as if he could see the reading happening. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of Illya’s neck. The words didn’t make very much sense.
Finally, he looked up and cleared his throat, hoping that the man would be so impressed that he wouldn’t notice.
“How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?” he read aloud. The man was silent.
“Ah,” he said after a bit, looking at Illya with a somewhat frantic expression. “It has a… deeper meaning?”
“Yes.” Illya coughed. “The words they used back then were different than we use now. We must look for meaning that applies to our lives today.”
The man nodded. “Maybe it means that a good neighbor is as precious as a campfire,” he said, his eyes darting and nervous.
Illya nodded. “Yes, I think you have it,” he said. A smile spread across the man’s face.
“The book has something to teach everyone. You are wise to see its message so quickly,” Illya said. Privately, he thought that he may have to ask this man again if he ever needed to find meaning in the book where there seemed to be none. Beaming, the man rose. He thanked Illya and shuffled backward out of the hut, ducking his head repeatedly in thanks as he went, so that he resembled a bobbing pigeon.
With some reluctance, Illya forced his attention back to the passage he had been translating when the man had come in.
“Finally, another unanswerable question,” he sounded out loud, haltingly. “Why is it that our feet smell and our nose runs?”
Illya groaned and held his face in his hands. Except for the sections on weather and planting, a lot of what he had read had turned out to be very confusing. He flipped to the next page, just as there was a quiet knock on the door. Undoubtedly another villager with a stupid problem.
“What now?” he snapped.
“Oh… sorry. Never mind.” Benja had poked his head through the door and was now backing out hastily.
“No, wait!” Illya got to his feet quickly. “I didn’t mean that. I thought you were someone else.” Benja stopped and rested his hand on the doorframe, frowning.
“Okay then,” Benja said. He stared down at the open book, and his eyes widened. It seemed to be forever since they had looked at it together and laughed over the fact that it was about chickens. Illya blinked, realizing that it had barely been two weeks.
They stood in awkward silence, Benja looking at the book and Illya looking at him. Finally, Illya cleared his throat.
“How’ve you—“
“I just wanted to say it’s good. What you’re doing,” Benja blurted out, interrupting him.
“Oh,” Illya said. “Thanks.”
He felt like squirming at the tone of admiration in Benja’s voice. He needed someone to talk to, someone who wasn’t Conna. He needed someone to tell him if he was going crazy or doing the stupidest thing in his life. He didn’t need another villager to come stare at him. He needed Benja.
His heart sunk into his stomach.
“I wondered how you’d been,” Illya said. He looked down at the ground and dug his toe into the earth.
Benja shrugged.
“This has been really weird,” Illya said.
Benja breathed in deep and let his breath out in a slow sigh.
“Do you want to go fishing?” he mumbled.
For a second, Illya started to say yes. He would have loved nothing more than to leave it all behind and sit by the river with his cousin, but then he remembered the seeds in his pocket.
“The field is supposed to be ready soon,” Illya said.
Benja nodded and turned away. “I know. I’ve been out there,” he said.
“Will you watch the planting?” Illya asked.
“Yeah,” Benja said. “Wouldn’t miss it.” He gave Illya an awkward smile and left the hut, his shoulders slumped and his hands shoved into his pockets.
Illya clenched his fist to stop himself from hitting the wall.
It was eerie to walk through the village and find it deserted. It reminded him of the day of the flood, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that, like that day, something must be wrong. Everyone was finishing the digging in the field; a simple enough explanation, but in his dark mood, he imagined the spirits of everyone who had starved haunting the empty huts. In the distance, the Terrors had started to howl. The shadows of the evening took on a sinister cast. He walked faster, as if they could reach out and grab him.