“Alnor says the magic is running out, Tahl told me. Is it the same with us?”
“Why do you think I’m here, girl, this time of year, at my age, with my hip and all? But could I tell them? D’you think they’d have listened to a word I’d got to say?”
Meena stood for a moment, glaring out at the downpour, then sighed with exasperation and turned back to Tilja.
“No reason to load it all on you,” she said. “You’ve troubles enough of your own. But you see what I’m talking about? When your grandfather wanted to marry me I told him about the cedars, listening to them, and sowing the barley field, and singing by the lake—all that. He didn’t like it much, but he took it for my sake, I’m glad to say. And the same with your own father. There’s no way either of them would have tried to stop us from doing what we know we’ve got to do. But supposing they’d come to us knowing our heads were full of crazy nonsense about unicorns . . . Your grandfather was specially fond of Grayne. She was always his pet. For all I know your father thinks it’s more than hard on you, being cut out by Anja, but they’ve known the reason. Supposing it was for something they’d grown up not believing in, couldn’t bring themselves to believe in . . . Do you see now why it’s better like it is, in spite of what it’s doing to you? And did to Grayne? I tell you, girl, it’s a knife in my heart every time I see her, thinking of it.”
“Yes,” muttered Tilja. “Yes, I think I see. Thank you, Meena. Look, I think the rain’s stopping.”
Once back at Woodbourne, Tilja told the others what had happened at the meeting, but not about her conversations with Tahl, or with Meena in the barn. She was, in a sense, no less miserable about knowing that she must one day leave Woodbourne, but at least she knew why, and could accept it as a fact, something that she had been born with—yes, like a kind of birthmark such as her cousin Rinter had on the side of his neck, a great ugly blotch that he wore high collars to cover up, because he didn’t like anyone to know it was there.
When she’d finished, Ma sighed angrily and looked at Da, who shook his head and shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. It crossed Tilja’s mind to wonder whether, next time she was alone with him, she could ask him how much he knew, but she was afraid to. Neither of her parents talked about anything like that, private stuff. They just got on with what had to be done, and expected you to do the same. She couldn’t imagine Ma saying the sort of thing Aunt Grayne had said to her about having to leave Woodbourne, nor talking to her as Meena had, with tears streaming down her cheeks at the thought of the way she had been forced to treat her elder daughter.
Next time Tilja went down to Meena’s, the door opened as she reached it. Tahl came out, pulled the door almost shut behind him, then faced her, amused, waiting for her to show astonishment. He was too late. She’d got over that while his back was turned.
“Hello,” she said. “Run away from home, then?”
“Come to seek my fortune,” he said.
“Here? You’ll be lucky. I suppose Alnor wanted to see Meena again. Where’s your horse?”
“We walked. He’s a tough old thing, but my feet are all blister. I saw you at the gate and came to warn you. Just go in quietly. Meena’s reading her spoons.”
Tilja nodded, took off her cloak and boots in the porch and slipped through into the kitchen. Alnor was sitting by the stove, his beaky profile dark against the glow from the open fire door. Meena was opposite him, crouching forward over a low table spread with a dark blue cloth. She was always stingy with her oil, and kept the shutters open on the bitterest day until it was almost too dark to see across the room, but this afternoon she had her lamp lit, with her three spoons lying side by side in its circle of light.
Silently Tilja moved to watch. She had seen Meena reading the spoons only twice before in her life, once at the family gathering after Tilja’s grandfather, Verlad, was buried, and she was making up her mind whether the time had come to pass the farm on to Ma, and the second time after Anja was born and she had been asked, as was the custom, to choose a name for her. Both times Tilja had been too small to understand what was happening, but there was nothing specially secret about fortune spoons—reading them wasn’t much more than a game to most people—so she knew enough by now to see what Meena was trying to do.
The spoons—two dark ones with a paler one between them— lay facedown, with their elaborately carved handles pointing away from Meena so that she could study the backs of the bowls. The pale one was a true named spoon. That is to say it had been cut from the timber of the very tree that had grown from the stone of the peach that Faheel had given to Dirna. Its name—or rather her name, for these spoons had personalities and genders—was Axtrig. The other two were not named, but they were also very old, and having been kept wrapped in the same cloth with Axtrig all those centuries, had absorbed something from her. A named spoon could not be sold or stolen. Not only would the buyer or thief be unable to read it, but it would bring the worst of luck into any house where it was kept. It could only be inherited, or else given as a gift, and then only if the gift was freely made, without being expected or asked for.
To read a spoon, all that was needed was to unwrap it, wipe it lightly with fine oil to bring out the grain, lay it under a good light and study the smooth back of the bowl in silence, thinking steadily of your need, or the need of whoever was consulting you, and after a while some of the lines in the grain would seem to become more marked. You could then “read” these lines, much as a palmist reads the lines of a hand. It was as simple as that, and as difficult.
So Meena stared at the spoons, snorting slightly with each slow breath. At last she pushed herself upright and sighed.
“Well, all I can tell you is I’m going on a journey, and a long one. I can think of a lot better things to do with my time, at my age, but it’s there, and there’s no getting away from it. There’s a lot of other stuff there besides, but I can’t make it out. That you, Tilja? Just lift the lamp, so I can wrap the darn things up and put ’em safe. Snuff it out, girl! What are you thinking of? I haven’t got oil to burn. And then you can nip off home and fetch one of the horses, so Alnor and me can come and have a word with your parents. And take that boy with you before he goes and says something that’ll cause him to feel the weight of my hand.”
“Want to know what it’s all about?” said Tahl, as he hobbled up the lane beside Tilja. “Alnor’s going to go and look for Faheel to get him to renew the magic in the mountains and the forest. I’m going with him.”
“Faheel! But that was centuries ago! He can’t still be alive!”
“The millstream says so. I told you at the Gathering, didn’t I? We can hear what it’s saying, just like your sister can hear what the cedars are saying.”
“But . . . how are you going to get through the forest?”
“On a raft, at snowmelt, when the river’s in spate. You remember the story, the Emperor’s soldier who got through on a very fast horse? He’d passed out, but he made it. Alnor thinks we may pass out too. That’s why we’re here. We’ve got to have a woman to steer the raft, or it’ll run aground on a bend, or something. He tried to persuade my aunts, but none of them . . .”
“And Meena’s going on a long journey.”
“I don’t know about long. Whoever it is has only got to get us through the forest, then they can come back. Look, Alnor’s going to try it whatever happens, and I’m going with him because somebody’s got to, but it’ll be a lot less of a risk with a steers-woman. I suppose Meena would do, if we can’t find anyone else. What about your mother? Or your aunt who was at the Gathering? It’d be best if it’s someone who can hear what the trees are saying, so they can tell her the way back. . . .”