“It won’t be enough for my ma. Hasn’t come soon enough,” he said. Illya’s insides twisted, his thoughts skipping to the hollow-eyed littles and to Molly with her strange, swollen belly. Charlie was right. It would still be weeks before the shoots spread across the ground in a carpet of plenty and their worries would be truly behind them.
Still, the sight of the little shoot went a long way towards filling his spirit even though it would do nothing to fill his stomach.
A boy took up a reed flute and began to play a tune to accompany the dancing. Soon, an old man joined him with a string instrument, and then Illya’s cousin Benja came with an old buckskin drum. It had been made by their grandfather from a hollowed-out log with a tanned deer hide stretched over it. It was a solid drum and still made a deep, resonant sound although it was old. Benja loved it. He oiled the wood each year with animal fat to keep it from cracking.
Benja adjusted the strap—a length of leather, patterned with turquoise stones and silver that Illya had found for him in the same ruin the mason jars had come from—across his shoulder. He pounded a rhythm in time with their tune, and a woman joined in, shaking seashell bracelets over her head.
Illya found a dry bit of ground and sat down, leaning against a rock to watch. He never danced. He couldn’t get over the idea that everyone would watch him and think he looked foolish.
There was a mosaic set into the ground, left over from the first settlers. It showed a cornucopia full of plants. Its stones pressed the rough approximation of a vine into his calf in a much different way than the real plant would have imprinted. Illya rubbed it and watched Benja toss his head as he hit the drum, smiling to himself as if he had a secret.
The music crept into Illya’s soul, catching at a nameless longing, plucking with fingers made from a strain of flute, a beat of the drum, a clattering seashell-fall. The thrumming of the strings weaved below the higher energy of the reed flute and percussion with a sound that surrounded them, forgettable as a heartbeat.
The dancing people were infected too. More and more villagers joined. Julian picked up the little shoot, and cradled it in his hands, still kneeling on the ground in the midst of it all. Illya watched as the villagers pranced around the fire, embarrassed to see their bony frames, the way the sagging skin on the backs of their arms flapped, their angular movements in ill-fitting clothes. They moved with abandon, seemingly unaware of the foolishness of their spectacle.
They were free, and he found himself in a state of acute discomfort that he did not share in the feeling. He scowled, attempting to balance on his superiority and the thought that he would never let himself look so ridiculous.
A chill sharpened the air and the roughness of the rock pressed into his back. A large, worn-out woman pranced past. She streamed a tattered shawl behind her head like it was a pair of giant wings.
His thoughts drifted over the day: Molly and her skinny knees, the laughing people, the book and its beautiful pictures. He thought of the two-sound words and how close he was to unlocking it all. He thought of the people in the pictures and how they had lived. Beyond his spinning thoughts, an awareness of someone’s attention grew.
Sabelle.
He looked up and met her eyes across the circle. He blushed. Heat rose up his neck and reached past his ears. She glanced away quickly but soon looked back at him. His heart sped up. He kept staring at her when she looked away again, stupidly mesmerized by the shape of her ear, like a little seashell.
He ducked his head, looking down, and pretended to be deeply interested in a tear in the knee of his pants. He wondered if he had been talking to himself earlier and that was why she had been watching him. He knew that his face was red. When he looked up, she was watching him again, with a little smile at the corners of her mouth. Illya smiled back at her.
He wasn’t sure what they were smiling about, maybe it was the shoots, maybe nothing at all. He grinned like an idiot. It was as if they had a secret together, although he had no idea of what it was. Eventually, Martha Sayen, who was sitting beside Sabelle, elbowed her in the ribs, and she broke the gaze.
He rubbed his sweaty hand through his hair. On the other side of the fires, Impiri was talking to a few people, flinging her hands around to punctuate whatever she was saying. What was it he had been thinking? He couldn’t remember now. Julian got up from the ground, still clutching the clump of earth, and joined the people who were listening to Impiri.
“…have to share it all around,” Illya caught one of the women saying.
He glanced at Sabelle again, but she was looking away now, watching the crowd around her mother. Martha whispered something to her, and they both glanced at him and started giggling. His stomach tumbled around like a river rapid, and he looked down.
A shadow came between him and the fire. He gulped and looked up, both hoping and fearing that it was her. Instead, Benja stood over him, grinning.
“Not going to ask her to dance?” Benja said. Illya glared at him. Benja knew perfectly well how he felt about dancing. Illya glanced down at his arm and shook his head. He wondered how he would look out there, galloping around, hanging on to her hand.
“We all know… got to be stores in the cellar there.” Jimmer’s voice drifted across the square. He was talking to Impiri, pointing to the stone house. Elias, the village Leader, came and stood between them with his hands up. Illya strained to hear what they were saying.
Benja plunked himself down beside Illya, sagging back against the rock, chuckling.
“She would dance with you, you know,” Benja said. Illya felt himself redden again and locked his eyes on the ground. He must have been obvious when he had been watching her if Benja had seen it from where he had been playing.
“You saw,” Illya said, scowling. Benja snorted.
“Anyone who was looking saw all that,” he said. Illya cringed.
“I guess you don’t remember that she was doing the same thing you were,” Benja said and punched Illya in the shoulder. Illya braced himself to keep from being knocked over. It wasn’t fair that Benja weighed so much more than him.
Across the circle, the group around Impiri and Elias was growing. Aunt Ada had joined them, and suddenly Illya did not have to strain to hear at all.
“A sign? Have we come to that? Looking for signs in the woods and the clouds?” Ada said, her fists shoved into her hips as she glared at her sister.
Illya and Benja looked at each other then got up and moved closer.
“Soon there will be plenty for everyone again,” Elias said, holding up his hands. “The shoots have come. We’re safe.”
Some of the people nodded, but many stood back with their arms folded across their chests.
“If you look at your neighbors and think that your problems come from them, you’re right,” Impiri said, snapping.
Jimmer took a half step backward. “But it’s not because anyone is hoarding food.”
Her eyes flashed. “Our ancestors set out the rules for survival. As long as we follow in their way, we will have enough. But if we don’t remember them, and what they taught, we will go the way of the Olders!” Her voice reached a high pitch.
“I thought that we were people who used our minds and survived by our wits,” Ada said, but Impiri paid no attention to her.
“The Olders angered the gods, yet we bring their things, their corruption here. We bring the gods’ anger down on our village.”
She looked around, breathless, her eyes hovering on one person, then another, and finally settling on Illya.
“He has been bringing in more and more,” she said, pointing at him. The people nearby muttered to each other, a rising buzz around him. Illya wished that he could sink into the earth. Beside him, Benja shifted closer.