“Oh yes. It’s over there. But it’s too far to go before dinner. Do you want to?”
Anja, who could barely be trusted to find her way down to Meena’s cottage, let alone know how long it would take to get there . . .
“How do you know?”
“I just know. It’s in my head. It’s always been. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Only you can hear what the cedars say. I can’t. And you know the way to the lake. Not me. And one day it’ll be you singing to the cedars, like Ma does. Not me. And Woodbourne will be your farm. Not mine.”
Anja was staring at her. Of course she’d known she could do those things, but she hadn’t known what it meant, hadn’t understood. She was too young.
“But you’re eldest,” she said.
“Aunt Grayne’s older than Ma,” said Tilja. “I’d never thought about it. Well, at least at first snowfall I’ll be able to lie snug in my bed and think of you having to get up and trudge out into the forest and sing to the cedars.”
She did her best to smile. Anja didn’t try.
“It isn’t going to be like that,” she said. “Not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“Singing to the cedars. Something’s happening. The cedars keep talking about it, only . . . oh, Til, I’m not allowed . . .”
Anja burst into tears, and wouldn’t be comforted. All Tilja could make out was that the cedars had told her something and said she mustn’t tell anyone else except Ma.
Next morning, when they were out in the freezing scullery washing themselves before getting dressed, Anja said, “It doesn’t mean anything, Til. I won’t let it. This is your home too.”
“No it isn’t!” Tilja snarled. “Not anymore! Don’t talk about it!”
She knew it was unfair. Anja was doing her best, and it wasn’t her fault, but Tilja couldn’t help it, and when Anja started to cry she just stood there, scowling.
Then Ma came in to see what the trouble was, and though Tilja, in her hurt and pride, had made Anja promise to say nothing about what had happened in the wood, she blurted it out. Ma knelt between them, hugging one in each arm, trying to comfort them both, but stiffly and awkwardly, because she wasn’t good at this sort of thing. Almost at once Tilja wrenched herself away and shoved her clothes on and went out on an empty stomach to look for a horse to groom. She chose Calico, because she was sure to be in just as bad a mood as Tilja herself, and Tilja could curse and slap her much more satisfactorily than she could have done sweet and amenable Tiddykin.
Still no true snow fell, and despite the incessant gales it was far warmer than it should have been. All winters in the Valley, since anyone could remember and long before, had begun with two weeks of steady, settling snow, followed by almost three months of clear skies and hard frosts, with just a day and a night of more snow now and again. This winter the ponds barely froze, but there was day after day of lashing rain and sleet, and if you saw the sun once a week for half a morning or so you thought you were lucky, and all the lanes were mire, and the animals stood hock deep in the paddocks and got mud fever and worse—a miserable time.
Meena had gone back to her cottage and Tilja plodded down to visit her most days, which she’d never willingly done before. She didn’t expect any kind of welcome, and didn’t get one, but she knew Meena was glad to see her, and if for some reason Tilja missed a visit she sulked like a child at the next.
Tilja told herself she went because she’d become fond of Meena, but there was another reason she didn’t want to think about. While she was at the farm, everything that she saw or felt or heard or smelled reminded her again that it would never be hers. It would be Anja’s, and she, Tilja, would have to leave it. Go away and live somewhere else, like Aunt Grayne.
Of course her parents knew how unhappy she was, and did what they could. Ma didn’t try hugging her again, but made a point of doing household chores with her instead of sending her off on her own, and Da would sometimes take her with him when there was a job she could help with, and even let her manage Dusty once or twice. But neither of them tried to talk to her about what had happened. It wasn’t their way. They weren’t talkers.
Meena was different. Tilja got no sympathy from Meena, who only said, “Well, you’ll have to make a life of your own like most people do. No point moping about it. Sooner you get used to the idea, the better you’ll be.”
Despite that, Tilja felt that Meena understood how she was feeling better than any of the others.
One afternoon late in the year, when Tilja was wrapping up to plod back to the farm, Meena said, “And by the by, you can tell that father of yours we’ll need one of the horses to take us to the winter Gathering. And not that rackety brute, Calico, tell him.”
Tilja was startled. One of her parents went to the midsummer Gathering most years, to trade and gossip, and last year Da had taken both her and Anja with him. But no one had been to the winter Gathering since she could remember, and there’d been no question of Meena going even to the midsummer one because of her hip.
“I’ll ask him, if you like,” said Tilja.
“You’ll do no such thing. You’ll tell him. From me.”
Tilja grinned at her and got a scowl back, but that evening at supper she said, “Meena wants me to go with her to the Gathering.”
“Me too,” said Anja.
Da frowned, and was starting to shake his head when Ma said, with sudden, unusual firmness, “Yes, they must go. They’ll need a horse.”
“Not Calico,” said Tilja quickly.
“I can spare Tiddykin for a day or two,” said Ma. “She’s not up to carrying the pair of you, so—”
“Three of us,” interrupted Anja, perfectly aware there wasn’t any question of her going, but characteristically not missing the chance of a bit of spoiling and petting to make up for it. This time, though, she’d misjudged the mood.
“Anja, be quiet,” said Ma. “You’ll have to walk the whole way, Tilja, but you won’t get there and back in a day, this time of year, anyway, so you can stay with Grayne, and you won’t get too tired. All right, my dear?”
Tilja glanced anxiously at Da. She’d scarcely ever heard Ma take charge like this before—that was his job. He didn’t look surprised or put out, though, but simply nodded and that was that.
Aunt Grayne looked like a plumper, jollier version of Ma. She had married a farmer’s son whose family owned a rich bit of land by the river. His father had died when Tilja was a baby, and he was the farmer now. Their house was larger and newer than Woodbourne, with glass in the kitchen windows, but they didn’t give themselves airs.
Despite what Ma had said, it had seemed a weary distance to walk, all the way from Woodbourne, and by the time Tilja led Tiddykin into the yard she was far too tired to pay much attention to what was going on, and fell asleep almost as soon as she’d finished her supper. But next morning, when they were alone in the kitchen, Grayne said, “Tilja, I’m truly sorry for you. I know what it’s like. It happened to me, too, you know, having a little sister who could hear the cedars, when I couldn’t.”
“Oh, Aunt Grayne, why didn’t they tell me long, long ago?”
“Because you don’t start hearing the cedars the moment you’re born, or even as soon as you can talk. You sort of grow into it. I wouldn’t know, of course, but that’s what your mother says. It wasn’t too late for you last summer, even. . . .”
“That’s why Ma took me to the lake!”
“Yes, but then, when she realized Anja was starting to listen to the cedars . . . As I say, I’m sorry, Tilja. I know how it feels.”
“You really minded?”
“I don’t think I stopped crying for a month. There were times when I felt I could have killed Selly.”
Yes, thought Tilja. Aunt Grayne had known how it felt.
“But you’re happy now?” she said.
“Yes, of course. Very. I often dream about Woodbourne, but . . .”