Scarecrow

Small Sigmund saw it first.

Not Wren, counting. Not Corin, asking. Not Dory, who hears everything. Small Sigmund, who has a spark that runs round his ear when he’s thinking and a cloud over his head when he’s dreaming, and who doesn’t notice things, Risa says, unless they’re weather.

It was weather.

It was the ninth morning after Vessa. At breakfast. In the kitchen of the house on the rise, at the long table, with everyone at it. Mother at the end with her tea. Maura at the stove. The General reading Konrad’s sheet upside down over Konrad’s shoulder. Twelve children, if you counted Vessa, which everyone did, asleep on Andraste’s chest facing the window.

And Risa. At the other end. Eating toast. With her cloud.

She has a cloud. She’s always had one, since the queens gave her more. Very small. The size of a plate. It sits over her head when she’s thinking, or happy, or cross, and it rains or doesn’t depending, and everyone in the house stopped noticing it years ago the way you stop noticing someone’s hat.

Small Sigmund was noticing it.

He’d stopped eating. He was sitting very still with his spoon halfway to his mouth, with his spark going round his ear faster and faster, looking at the air over his mother’s head.

”Mama,” he said.

”Eat your porridge.”

”Mama,” said small Sigmund. ”There’s two.”

Everybody looked up.

He was right.

There was Risa’s cloud. The size of a plate. Grey. Not raining. Over her head, where it always is.

And beside it, a little lower, very close, so close they were almost touching, another one.

Tiny. The size of a thumbnail. Pale. Very nearly white. So thin you could see the window through it. It wasn’t doing anything. Not raining. Not moving. It was just there, beside the big one, the way a duckling sits beside its mother on a pond.

And every few breaths it flickered.

Very faintly. Silver. Like a spark going round an ear.

Risa put her toast down.

She didn’t look up. She knows where her cloud is without looking; she always has. She sat very still at the end of the long table with her hands flat on either side of her plate.

”Oh,” she said. ”Damn.”

”Risa,” said Mother.

”I know,” said Risa.

”Language. At the table.” Mother put her cup down. ”And you’ve known for some time, love. Haven’t you.”

Risa looked at her for a long time.

Then she looked at me.

”Since the wheel,” she said.

Nobody said anything.

Then Andraste, at the other end of the table, with Vessa asleep on her chest, started to laugh. Very quietly. With her hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t wake the baby.

”The wheel,” she said. ”The red house. On the north field. The night after Orrin.” She was shaking. ”Where it didn’t rain.”

”Shut up,” said Risa.

”He is very good at making babies,” said Andraste. ”I said so. At breakfast. In front of everyone.” She wiped her eyes. ”Nobody listened.”

”Everybody listened,” said Sera. ”Everybody’s been listening for months.” She looked down the table at Risa. ”Since the wheel? That’s—”

”I know how long it is,” said Risa.

”That’s ages,” said Sera. ”That’s before Vessa. That’s before Thera. That’s before—”

”I know,” said Risa.

She put her hands over her face.

The big cloud over her head started raining. Very gently. On her hair. On the toast.

The little one didn’t.

I got up.

I went round the long table, past Mother, past Konrad and the General, past twelve children watching me with their spoons in the air. And knelt down beside her chair.

”Why didn’t you say?”

Risa didn’t take her hands away for a long time.

When she did, her face was wet, and it wasn’t from the cloud.

”Because of Andraste,” she said.

Andraste stopped laughing.

”Because she was carrying,” said Risa. Very fast. Not looking at anyone. ”And it was taking so long. And every night she was on the roof facing out and I could see her from the window and she looked so tired. And everyone was so worried. Halloway was counting the weeks and Kyria was sleeping in her armour and the Scarecrow queen said she was waiting for it to be quiet.” Risa swallowed. ”And I thought: I’m not going to stand up at breakfast and say me too. Not while she’s on the roof. Not while she’s waiting. I’m not going to take one minute of it off her.”

The table was very quiet.

”So I waited,” said Risa. ”Until Vessa came. And then I was going to wait a bit longer. So she’d have her own week. Her own ridge. Her own name.” She looked at the little cloud. ”And then he noticed.”

Small Sigmund put his spoon down.

”I’m sorry, Mama,” he said.

”Don’t be,” said Risa. ”You’ve got very good eyes.” She held her hand out to him across the table. ”It’s yours, anyway. That one. It’s for you.”

Small Sigmund looked at the tiny cloud for a long time.

”For me?”

”You’re always on your own in the thunderstorms,” said Risa. ”I told your father. On the porch. Before the wheel.” She looked at me. ”I said, I’d like him to have someone to make rain with.”

Andraste got up.

She came down the table. With Vessa on her chest. Slowly, because she’s still slow, after the ridge. And stood beside Risa’s chair. And looked down at her.

Risa looked up.

”You fool,” said Andraste. Very gently.

”I know.”

”You absolute fool.” Andraste put her free hand flat on Risa’s head. On her hair. Under the raining cloud. ”Twenty-six weeks on a roof. And you sat in the window every night. Watching me. Carrying. Saying nothing.” Her hand didn’t move. ”On Hyrran, that’s what a shield-sister does. Stands behind you on the ridge with her own wound and doesn’t tell you until the fight is over.”

”I’m not a shield-sister.”

”You are now,” said Andraste.

She bent down. With Vessa between them. And kissed Risa on the forehead, through the rain.

And Vessa, between them, woke up. And turned her head. Not out. Up. At the two clouds over Risa’s head.

And looked at the little one for a long time.

”She says hello,” said Andraste.

The little cloud flickered. Silver.

Halloway came up from the long ward an hour later. Furious. With her bag.

”How long?” she said.

Risa told her.

Halloway sat down on the kitchen bench. Very suddenly. And took her spectacles off, which she never does, and rubbed her eyes.

”I’ve delivered every one of this family’s children since Dory,” she said. ”Every one. I have a book. I have every week of every one of them written down. Every time I’ve been woken in the night. Every ridge. Every kitchen floor. Every oven.” She put her spectacles back on. ”And the Wing Commander’s been carrying for fourteen weeks in front of my face and I didn’t notice because I was watching the First Blade on the roof.”

”That was the idea,” said Risa.

”I know it was the idea,” said Halloway. ”That’s what I’m cross about. It was a good idea. And it worked.” She opened her bag. ”Lie down on the bench. I want to see her.”

”Her?”

Halloway looked at her over her spectacles.

”Your mother told me on the stairs this morning that she knew you were a girl before anyone did, because she could feel the weather,” she said. She pointed at the little cloud. ”That’s not a boy’s weather. Lie down.”

Ingrid hadn’t said anything all morning.

She’d been at the table the whole time. Beside Konrad. With her hands flat in front of her. Very still. The air round her very still too, the way it goes when she isn’t trying to make it.

She got up now.

She came round the table to the bench where Risa was lying down with Halloway’s hands on her middle. And knelt down. Slowly, because she’s not young. Beside her daughter.

And looked at the two clouds for a long time.

”The Kesh ford,” she said. Very quietly. ”When the handlers came up out of the river. Three hundred. And I walked out in front of them and put my hand out.” She put her thin hand on Risa’s. ”I was carrying you. Four months. Nobody knew. Not your father. Not the line. Not Dot.” ”That’s why you’re like this. That’s what I’ve always thought. You came into the world already knowing what the inside of a lightning bolt was like.”

Risa looked at her.

”You never told me that.”

”Nobody asked,” said Ingrid. ”I was in a room. With a band on my neck. For a long time.” She didn’t let go of Risa’s hand. ”I’m telling you now.”

Konrad stood behind her.

He didn’t say anything either. He’s not good at saying things. He’s good at sheets and ledgers and reading everything before he signs it.

He took his hat off.

And held it. In both hands. Against his chest. Looking at his daughter on the bench and his wife kneeling beside her and the two clouds, the big one and the little one.

Then he said, very quietly: ”Third.”

Risa looked up at him.

”You said three,” said Konrad. ”At the kitchen table. That winter. Luna asked how many each and you said three. Dory and two more. So none of them would ever be the only one at the table.” He swallowed. ”I heard. I was in the doorway. You didn’t know I was there.” He turned the hat over in his hands. ”I’ve thought about it ever since. You said it was because you grew up with one brother and a father who signed things and never looked up.”

Risa didn’t say anything.

”I’ve been looking up,” said Konrad. ”Since the ford. Since the long table. Every day.” He put his hat back on. ”I’d like to look up at this one from the very first day.”

Then he went out onto the porch. And stood there for a long time with his back to the house.

The General went out after him. And stood beside him. And didn’t say anything either.

They stayed there until dinner.

Dory came in from the long ward at noon.

She’d been out all morning holding the door to the voice for Tally, the way she does three mornings a week. She hadn’t been at breakfast. She came in through the kitchen door with Pebble at her heels and stopped.

And looked at her mother. On the bench. With the two clouds.

She didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then she went across the kitchen. Very carefully. The way she does everything. And climbed up onto the end of the bench, by her mother’s feet. And put her hand out. Flat. Toward the little cloud. Not touching.

Her silver net came up bright on both arms. Round the back of her neck.

Checking.

She’s done it to everyone she’s ever met. Since she was very small. Every person on every porch. Every brood. Every queen. Every world. There you are. There you are. There you are.

She did it now. To the little cloud.

And the little cloud flickered.

”Oh,” said Dory. Very quietly. ”There you are.”

Then she looked at Risa.

”She’s loud,” said Dory. ”Inside. Like Sigmund was. But she’s listening too.” She frowned. ”Like Vessa. Only not out. Up.” She thought about it. ”She’s listening to the weather.”

”That’s your grandmother’s,” said Risa. Very quietly.

”I know,” said Dory. And put her head down on her mother’s knee. ”I asked for a sister. On the ridge. When Vessa came. I asked the sky.” She shut her eyes. ”I didn’t think it would listen this fast.”

Risa didn’t tell her the sky had been listening since the wheel.

She put her hand on Dory’s hair. And left it there.

Halloway said fourteen weeks.

She said it was a girl. She said the little cloud was the baby, or something the baby was doing, she didn’t know which, and she wasn’t going to pretend she did. She said the baby was very strong and very well and building itself very fast, the way all of mine do, and that she’d be surprised if it was more than six more weeks.

Then she said the thing Risa didn’t want to hear.

”No flying.”

”No,” said Risa.

”Yes,” said Halloway.

”I’m Wing Commander.”

”I know who you are.”

”There are forty-nine worlds left on Konrad’s sheet,” said Risa. Sitting up on the bench. With both clouds over her head, and the big one going dark. ”Forty-nine. And the Hands can come to any of them any day. And the wing goes out with every arch. And I lead it. I go up first. I’ve always gone up first.” Her voice was rising. ”I went through every tower on the ring. I went through a Hand front to back. I flew the whole of Merrow with the Hungry coming down out of the sky—”

”Pregnant,” said Halloway.

Risa stopped.

”You flew the whole of Merrow pregnant,” said Halloway. ”As lightning. Through a cloud of things that spit acid. With the Hands opening over your head.” She was very calm. ”And Imber. And Orrin. And Kessen and Lir-Anwe and Greyfold and every world since the wheel.” She closed her bag. ”You’ve been going up first with a baby in you for fourteen weeks, Wing Commander, and you didn’t tell anyone, so nobody could tell you not to.”

Risa didn’t say anything.

”That was very brave,” said Halloway. ”And very stupid. And I’d like you to stop.”

Risa looked at her mother.

Ingrid looked back.

”I walked out in front of the Kesh ford carrying you,” said Ingrid. Very quietly. ”I’ve just said.”

”Then—”

”And I’ve thought about it every day for thirty years,” said Ingrid. ”What I’d have done. If one of the handlers had got a hand on me. In the water. At four months.” She didn’t let go of Risa’s hand. ”I’d have lost you. And I’d never have known it was my fault, because nobody would have known you were there.”

Risa looked at her for a long time.

The big cloud over her head stopped going dark.

The little one flickered.

”Who leads the wing?” said Risa. Very quietly. ”If I don’t.”

Nobody answered for a moment.

Then Ingrid got up.

Slowly. Off her knees. With Konrad’s hand under her elbow. And stood beside the bench. Thin. Old. With the air round her very still.

”I’ll go up,” she said.

Risa stared at her.

”I’m not Wing Commander,” said Ingrid. ”I’ve never been anyone’s commander. I was at the ford and then I was in a room.” She put her hand on Risa’s head. On her hair. Under both clouds. ”But I can go as lightning. And I can hush anything that sings. And I know every one of your pilots by name, because you’ve told me about every one of them on the porch every night for a year.” She took her hand away. ”Callum and Rowan fly. You talk. I’ll go up first.”

”You’re—”

”Sixty-something,” said Ingrid. ”Yes. I know.” Her mouth moved at one corner. ”So was the Mom Squad when it started. Ask Lucas’s mother how that went.”

Mother, at the end of the table, put her tea down.

”Very well,” she said. ”Thank you for asking.”

Jessa found Risa on the porch that evening.

Sigmund’s wife. Risa’s brother’s wife. With Inga on her hip, asleep. She stood at the top of the steps and looked at the two clouds over Risa’s head for a long time.

”Congratulations,” she said.

Risa looked at her.

She knows. Everyone in the house knows. Jessa and Sigmund have been trying since the ring, and it hasn’t happened, and Halloway says there’s nothing wrong, it just takes longer sometimes, it’s very ordinary. And it’s been a very good year for babies. Wren. Anja. Andraste. And now Risa, in front of everyone, at breakfast, with a cloud.

”Jess,” said Risa.

”Don’t,” said Jessa. She sat down on the step. With Inga. ”Don’t be sorry. I’m not. I’m happy for you.” She was quiet. ”I’m just tired of being happy for people.”

Risa didn’t say anything.

She reached over. And put her hand on Jessa’s. And held it.

They sat there for a long time. The big cloud over Risa’s head, grey. The little one, white, flickering. Inga asleep.

Then the little cloud did something.

It drifted. Very slowly. Off Risa’s head. Across the air between them. And stopped over Inga. Over her small sleeping face.

And glowed. Silver. Very faintly. For one breath.

And then drifted back.

Jessa looked at it.

”What was that?” she said.

”I don’t know,” said Risa. She was looking at the little cloud too. ”She’s never done that. She’s never moved.” She swallowed. ”I think she likes Inga.”

Jessa didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then she put her hand on Inga’s head. And laughed. Very quietly. With her eyes shut.

”Your brother,” she said, ”is going to be impossible when he hears a cloud picked his daughter.”

So that was how it went.

Not Risa grounded. Risa wouldn’t have it. She said a Wing Commander who sits on a porch while her wing goes out isn’t a Wing Commander, she’s a grandmother, and she wasn’t ready to be a grandmother, thank you, not for at least another twenty years.

So Okafor gave her something else.

”The arch,” said Okafor. At the dawn count, the next morning. With the slate. ”You stand at the arch. This end, or the other. Wherever the wing goes out from.” She wrote it down. ”You see everything. You talk to every pilot through the silver. You tell them where to go.” She looked up. ”You don’t go up.”

”That’s not flying.”

”No,” said Okafor. ”It’s commanding.” She put the chalk down. ”I’ve been doing it for twenty years. You’d be surprised how much it feels like flying when you’re good at it.”

Risa looked at her for a long time.

”Did it?” she said. ”For you? The first time?”

Okafor didn’t answer straight away.

”No,” she said. ”The first time it felt like standing in a doorway watching everyone I loved walk out of it.” She picked the chalk up again. ”The second time, too. And the tenth.” She wrote RISA — ARCH on the slate, under the wing. ”Somewhere after the hundredth, I noticed I could see the whole of the sky at once. And they couldn’t. And they needed someone who could.”

She put the chalk down.

”That’s when it started feeling like flying,” she said.

Risa didn’t say anything.

But she took the chalk off the table when Okafor had gone. And under RISA — ARCH, very small, in her own hand, she wrote: for now.

Okafor saw it at the next dawn count.

She didn’t rub it out.

Small Sigmund made rain the next morning.

On the porch. Before the dawn count. Before anyone was up but Mother, in Father’s chair, with her tea. And me on the step.

He came out in his nightclothes with his spark going round his ear. And stood at the top of the steps, looking at the plain. And put his hands up. The way his mother does.

And a cloud came over his head. His own. The size of a dinner plate, the way it always is. Grey. Rumbling, very slightly.

He looked at it.

Then he looked at the door behind him. Where his mother was asleep inside, on the other side of the wall, with two clouds over her bed.

”Come on,” he said. Very quietly. To the door.

Nothing happened.

”Come on,” said small Sigmund. ”Mama says you’re mine. So come on.”

And through the wall, through the window of the bedroom, very slowly, the little cloud came.

Not all of it. It can’t go far yet. Halloway says it’s tied to Risa, the way the baby is. But a thread of it. Thin and white and flickering, like a ribbon of mist, out of the window and along the porch and over the rail. To small Sigmund. To the edge of his cloud.

And touched it.

His cloud rained.

Not hers. His. On the porch. On small Sigmund. On the boards and the rail and the step where I was sitting. Very gently. Warm. Not much. A few drops.

And every one of them, where the thread of white touched it, flickered. Silver. Like a spark going round an ear.

Small Sigmund stood in it with his face turned up and his eyes shut and his mouth open.

”She does it,” he said. ”She does it too.”

Mother put her tea down.

”Well,” she said. Very quietly. To me. Not to him. ”That’s the thunderstorms sorted.”

The first world after that was Cassel.

Fifty-third on Konrad’s sheet. Coded outbound three tithes running. A small world, warm, with shallow green seas and long low islands, and a people who lived in the water half the time and on the islands the other half, and who’d paid every two years for ninety years in children who could hold their breath for a very long time.

The council said yes on the first morning. Before Ysolt had finished speaking. They’d heard about Imber. They’d heard about Orrin and Merrow. They’d been waiting.

So I went up the thread and stood on the biggest island, and Kyria cut, and Dory sang, and it opened.

And Risa came through. First. Before anyone. In her flying leathers, worn through at both elbows, with the iron cloud on her shoulder from Odra. And both clouds over her head.

And stopped at the arch. With her feet on the sand of Cassel.

And didn’t go up.

I watched her not go up.

It was the hardest thing I’ve ever seen her do. Harder than the tower on the ring, where she thought she wasn’t coming out. She stood at the arch with her hands at her sides and her face turned up at the sky over Cassel, where the wing should go, where she’d always gone first. And her whole body leaned. The way a dog leans on a lead.

And she didn’t go.

”Ingrid,” she said. Through the silver. To every pilot at once. ”Up.”

Ingrid went up.

As lightning. From the arch. Straight into the sky over Cassel. Thin and blue and very fast.

And then the wing. Callum and Rowan first, side by side, eleven minutes apart. Then all of them. Forty pilots. Up after her. Into the warm green sky.

Risa watched them go.

”Spread,” she said. Very quietly. Through the silver. ”Rowan, the north islands. Callum, the south. Ingrid, high. Higher. Higher than that.” She was very still. Her eyes were shut. ”Good. Hold there. You can see everything from there. Tell me what you see.”

It was a good day. For a long time.

The people of Cassel came out of the water and off the islands in long boats, and up Luna’s ice onto the big island, and through the arch. Half a million. Hana breathed for the ones who’d been underwater too long. Sera kept the boats warm. Maura gave out bread to people who’d never eaten bread and didn’t know what it was and ate it anyway. Mother stood at the bottom of the beach with her hand up, and nobody ran.

And Risa stood at the arch, with her eyes shut, and talked.

The Hands came in the seventh hour.

Ingrid saw them first. From high. Higher than that.

”Six,” she said. In my head. In everyone’s. Very calm. ”Coming in from the east. Low. Over the water.”

”Six,” said Risa. At the arch. Her eyes still shut. ”Callum, how many boats still out on the south side?”

”Forty,” said Callum. ”Maybe more. The far islands.”

”Rowan.”

”Twenty on the north. Coming in.”

Risa was quiet for one breath.

”Ingrid,” she said. ”Can you hush six?”

”At once?”

”At once.”

Ingrid didn’t answer straight away.

”Not and stay up,” she said. ”I’ll come down after. Hard.”

”Then come down on the beach,” said Risa. ”Where I can catch you.” She opened her eyes. ”Callum, take the wing south. Every boat. Get behind them and push. Rowan, the same, north. Mother—” She stopped. For one breath. And I heard her decide.

”Mother. Hush the Hands. Now.”

Ingrid hushed them.

From the top of the sky over Cassel. Six Hands, coming in low over the shallow green water with their palms opening. She put out her one thin hand and called the charge out of all six at once. The way she did on the road outside the long ward. The way she did on the Hathri steppe with Risa throwing.

Only Risa wasn’t throwing.

Risa was at the arch. With her eyes open. Watching her mother do it alone.

Six Hands stopped. In the air. Over the water. With their palms half-open and nothing coming out.

And Ingrid fell.

She didn’t come down as lightning. She didn’t have any left. She came down as Ingrid. Thin. Old. From very high. Over the green water. Falling.

Risa leaned.

The whole of her. Toward the sky. Toward her mother. The way a dog leans on a lead. And every bit of her wanted to go. I could feel it. Through the silver. Through the arch. Through everything.

She didn’t go.

”Lucas,” she said.

I didn’t let go of the arch.

I didn’t need to. I didn’t scatter. I didn’t go up.

I reached.

Out. Up. The way Mother lifts. The way the queens gave me, years ago, when they made my lifting as strong as hers. Into the sky over Cassel. To one thin falling woman, very high, over the water.

And held her.

And brought her down. Very slowly. Very gently. Onto the sand. At the arch. In front of her daughter.

Risa caught her.

On her knees. On the sand of Cassel. With both clouds over her head raining. Holding her mother.

Ingrid opened her eyes.

”Did they stop?” she said.

Risa looked up.

Six Hands, over the water. Still. Silent. Palms half-open. Drifting very slowly on the wind, like dead leaves on a pond, with nothing coming out.

And under them, every boat. All forty on the south side, with Callum’s wing behind them pushing. All twenty on the north, with Rowan’s. Coming in. Fast. Onto the sand. Up Luna’s ice. Through the arch.

”They stopped,” said Risa.

Okafor put the six Hands in the sea afterward. One at a time. While they were still silent. She stood on the beach with her hands up and made each one heavy and watched it go down into the shallow green water until it was gone.

”That’s not for me,” she said, when she’d finished. To nobody. ”That’s for Ingrid.”

CASSEL. 512,000.

Through: 509,874.

Not all. A boat on the far side, past the last island, that nobody had seen. Callum found it after. Empty. The Hands had passed over it before Ingrid hushed them.

Konrad wrote it down. Under the line.

Home.

And then, smaller, beside it, the number that wasn’t.

He never leaves that out.

I found Risa on the roof, before supper. Where Andraste sits.

She was sitting in Andraste’s place. With her back against the chimney. With both clouds over her head, very still. Looking at the north field, where the wheel turns with the lamps in the little houses.

I sat down beside her.

She didn’t say anything for a long time.

”I leaned,” she said.

”I know. I felt it.”

”I wanted to go so much.” She put her hand flat on her middle. ”And I didn’t. And she fell. And I didn’t go.” Her voice was very level. The voice that means storms. ”And you caught her.”

”You told me to.”

”I did.” She turned her head and looked at me. ”I’ve never asked anyone to catch someone for me. Not once. I’ve always been the one who goes.”

I didn’t say anything.

I put my arm round her. And she let me. Which Risa doesn’t, often. She leaned her whole weight into me against the chimney and shut her eyes.

”I’m proud of you,” I said.

”For not doing anything?”

”For standing still,” I said. ”For letting your mother go up. For talking forty pilots through it with your eyes shut. For not going.” I put my hand over hers. On her middle. ”For waiting fourteen weeks so Andraste could have her ridge. For all of it.” I swallowed. ”I love you. I don’t say it enough. Not to you. You always go first, and I always think there’ll be time after.”

Risa didn’t open her eyes.

”There’s time after,” she said. ”That’s the point.” She was quiet. ”That’s what she’s for.”

”Who?”

”The little one.” Risa moved her hand under mine. ”She’s the after. She’s what you stand still for.”

The little cloud flickered.

”Have you thought of a name?” I said.

Risa almost smiled.

”Not yet,” she said. ”Mother says don’t. Not until she’s here. Not until I can see her face.” She opened her eyes. Looked up. At the two clouds. ”But I know what I’m going to call the cloud.”

”What?”

”Wheel,” said Risa.

And laughed. And the big cloud rained on both of us. And the little one didn’t. Not then.

It was saving it.

Risa sat on the porch steps that night with her mother.

Both of them very tired. Ingrid with a blanket round her shoulders and Konrad’s hat on her head, because he’d put it there and gone inside without saying anything. Risa beside her. With her two clouds. Not raining.

I was in Father’s chair. I don’t think they knew I was there.

”I didn’t go up,” said Risa. After a long time.

”No,” said Ingrid.

”I wanted to. I’ve never wanted anything so much.”

”I know,” said Ingrid. ”I saw you lean.”

Risa was quiet for a long time.

”Is that what it’s like?” she said. ”Being the one who stays?”

Ingrid didn’t answer straight away.

”I don’t know,” she said. ”I’ve never been the one who stayed. I went up. Every time. And then I was in a room, and I couldn’t go anywhere.” She turned her thin hand over in her lap. ”Your father stayed. At the ford. On the bank. With his slate. Writing the report.” She looked at the little cloud. ”He told me once it was the worst thing he ever did. Standing there. Watching. Writing down what he saw.”

”He’s never told me that.”

”Nobody asked,” said Ingrid.

She leaned her head on her daughter’s shoulder.

”You’ll be a very good mother to this one,” she said. ”You already know how to stand still and let someone else go up first. I had to learn it in a room.”

The little cloud flickered. Silver.

And very gently, for the first time, rained.

On both of them.

Days 4475–4489. Two Clouds.

Small Sigmund saw it at breakfast: two clouds over his mother’s head. Since the wheel. Fourteen weeks. She waited, so as not to take a minute off Andraste on the roof. Andraste: you fool; shield-sister. Vessa said hello to it. Ingrid walked out in front of the Kesh ford carrying Risa. Konrad: third; I’d like to look up at this one from the very first day. Halloway: a girl; no flying. Okafor gave her the arch; she wrote for now. Small Sigmund’s rain flickered silver. At Cassel she stood at the arch and leaned and didn’t go up; Ingrid hushed six Hands alone and fell; I brought her down; Risa caught her. 509,874 of 512,000. On the roof: she’s the after, what you stand still for; the cloud is called Wheel. Dory asked the sky for a sister. The little cloud rained, at last, on Risa and her mother.