Then she felt a desire to walk away to that dandelion, or that clover. She knew that she was fashioning Follownot, Oda’s sheep, who was fed in winter on chopped straw and dried peas, and who had such a taste for flowers she would wander away from the herd.
She did not know she was feeling power. She could only feel her joy that when she was done it was a fine thing, and that she could see into the little things eyes and know its name. “Follownot,” she said. She had begun to make a valley doll, and she knew how.
When Annakey put the man doll in the little meadow, she began to make her own story.You must understand this if you are to understand how it happened that the next day Manal and Areth brought to my house black feathers that they had found. Within hours the whole village knew that the robber people had found our valley. There was weeping and wailing while everyone searched their houses and fields to see if the robber people had stolen anything. The only thing that came up missing was Oda Weedbridge’s sheep, Follownot.
Chapter 7
Inscription on the Recipe dolclass="underline"
Rutabagas: Oil the greens, toss with salt. Boil the root with butter and bones. Mash the meat or bake into bread. Give the peelings to the pig.
Annakey was hard at cleaning my chicken coop the next morning when Areth and Manal came to me with the black feathers.
“This is not possible,” I said to Manal when he reported that Oda’s sheep Follownot was missing.
“It is true,” Oda said. She had come with the boys.
“In my hidden village doll, there is a sheep named Follownot,” I said to Oda. “He is hidden there still, beneath a sky blanket, behind closed doors. The robber people could not have found him here in the valley.You let him wander out of the safety of the valley onto the mountain where he was eaten by a cat.”
Manal cleared his throat. “Dollmage,” he said, “he was taken out of the sheepcote. That is where we found the feather they left for Follownot.”
I ran to check the village doll in my secret room. Had mice eaten holes in the blanket? No. How could I have known that the village story was being taken away from me?
When I returned, Oda was speaking harshly to Annakey while she kept to her work. “You have brought bad luck to my house. It is that frowning promise doll you wear. You killed your own mother with it, and now you will kill me. Already it has begun, for my sheep is stolen.”
Before you know what Annakey answered, you must know this: Annakey Rainsayer loved three things and feared only one thing. This makes her unusual from the beginning, for most of us love one thing — ourselves — and fear many things. Because we fear more things than we love, our lives are blown this way and that way by our fears.
I have already told you one thing Annakey loved: dollmaking. It was her first joy. The first joys last forever.
Now, in her concern for her people, Annakey discovered a new love. She loved her valley. She loved the crooked creek that wound through, changing its mind and twisting a different direction every league, and the little brick footbridges that arced over the creek at every twist and turn. She loved the mountains that made it a valley. She loved Mount Lair for its woods and waterfalls, and the stags among the firs, forgetting that it was unfriendly to men, that in its everchanging undergrowth men had been lost to death.
Who can account for the way Annakey thought? The mountains are dangerous, wild with forests that are filled with bears and wolves and cougar cats. Their brows are menacing, their snows impassable in winter. But Annakey saw that they offered their green feet for gardens, their meadows for summer grazing, their high pines for firewood, and their dark forests for game. Their rivers filled the valley with cold white water and fish in the water. The mountains frowned down the clouds and took the brunt of the cold winds so that the snow in Seekvalley fell gently and straight down.
Mostly the reason Annakey loved the valley was because in it was her people. Why did she — does she — love you? Perhaps, you think, it is because you cared for your yards, decorating them with rockeries and flowerbeds, ponds and trellises. Perhaps she loved you because you built little bridges, and gave them names like Coffee-At-My-House, and Come-Sit-By-My-Fire, and Visit More. Perhaps it was because she loved to see the mothers in their kitchens, wielding their rolling pins, making biscuits and pies and loaves, rubbing their knuckles off onto washerboards, then tending their babies gently with their worn, rough hands. Perhaps she loves you because you are a fair folk, tall and curly-haired and green-eyed. Surely she loves you for your songs and fine poetry.
It was none of these things that made her love you, her people, though she loved all these things. No. What was most precious to Annakey was that her people kept their promises. This, she recognized, was their worship. What they spoke became what was. Bagger Cornfield once promised Annakey the best melon from his garden. When harvest time came, Bagger, who was never the smartest one in the village, realized he could not tell which melon was the best. Though Annakey released him from his promise, he would not be released. He cut every ripe melon in two to see which was the pinkest and the sweetest and the most succulent. Of course the melons had to be eaten right away, so he held a melon party for the village.You remember? For a little while he regretted his promise, all his lovely melons eaten. But after the party — is it not true?—everyone loved him a little better than before. It is always best to keep one’s promises.
Annakey loved the way the old women cared for their old husbands long after they had stopped being of any use to them — because they had promised. She loved you for the way you raised your children and fed them, even when they were ugly babies, which seldom happens, and even when they became ugly adolescents, which often happens. This is why Annakey loved her people, and why, when she heard the robber people had taken Follownot, she was sick with fear and shame. She knew now the power in her hands, and she knew she was responsible.
Some of you nod your heads now and stroke the stones at your sides .You are right to stone her, you say. You do not care that she loved you, her people, that even now she loves you enough not to hate you for binding her, for dragging her to be executed. Look, look into her eyes.Yes, that is good. Look, and see, and remember.
Now I have told you two things that Annakey loved. The third I shall tell you shortly. The children say, “The story, the story.” They are right. What matters but the story? I continue.
“Leave her be, Oda,” Manal said when Oda accused Annakey. “It is not her fault.”
“Perhaps it is, Manal,” Annakey said softly. She propped the shovel and came closer. “I made a sheep. Yesterday. I called him Follownot.”
I looked at her long in silence. The skin at her throat was quivering and goose-fleshed. I said, “Bring me this sheep.”
Annakey began to walk away. Manal went with her. He followed her silently, without thinking, and she accepted his presence silently, without thought. As they walked I knew a thing.
I knew the third thing Annakey loved was Manal.
How can I tell you the strength of their love? Would my silence tell the matter more? How strange are words to both give and take away meaning. But you see him at her side now, willing to share her fate. That will tell you more than words will.
Annakey and Manal had befriended each other as only children can since they had herded the sheep together. But now Manal had come to love Annakey as a man loves a woman. I will tell you how.