Scarecrow

Jessa wouldn’t let anyone look.

She’d said so on the porch, after the ring. To me, when I offered. To Sigmund, who can hold a heart so still you can count the time between the beats. To Halloway, who said there was nothing wrong and it was very ordinary and it just took longer sometimes.

I don’t want you to look and find something and fix it, she said. I want it to happen the way Inga did. On its own. When it’s ready.

So nobody looked.

That was the hardest part, Sigmund told me afterward. Not the waiting. The not looking.

”I can feel her heart,” he said. On the porch steps. Late. With a spark going round his ear the way his son’s does, though he’d deny it. ”Every heart in a room. I can’t not. I’ve been able to since the ring.” He looked at his hands. ”And every month, for months, I’ve been lying next to her in the dark with my hands shut. Not feeling. Because she asked.” He swallowed. ”Do you know how hard it is to not feel something?”

I did. I can feel every atom in a room.

I didn’t say so.

”She said she’d tell me,” said Sigmund. ”When she knew. She said she wanted to know first. On her own. Without anyone’s silver in it.” He turned his hands over. ”So I’ve been waiting for her to tell me.”

”And she hasn’t.”

”No,” said Sigmund. ”She hasn’t.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time.

”I think she’s stopped hoping,” he said. ”And I can’t tell her not to. Because I’m not allowed to look.”

That was on the fourth night after Cassel.

The third night after Cassel, he’d held four hundred hearts.

Tiran. Fifty-fifth on Konrad’s sheet. A grey world, very cold, very old, where the people lived in long halls cut into the sides of mountains and came out only in summer. Konrad said they’d be soon. Crane checked it and nodded. The Overseer said the middle had heard the word Tiran twice in a week, and both times next to far yard.

So we went. Not thin.

And when the arch opened in the long hall on the side of the highest mountain, and Ysolt walked through and said we’re from a world that burned, come now, the council of Tiran said yes before she’d finished. And then said: the sick.

There was a hall at the bottom of the mountain. Deep. Warm. Where Tiran kept its sick in winter. Four hundred of them. Old, most of them. Some young. Lying very still in rows under blankets, with the breathing of people who couldn’t be moved without something giving way.

Halloway looked at them for a long time.

”I can’t move them,” she said. ”Not up a mountain. Not through an arch. Not fast.” She looked at the rows. ”Half of them would stop on the stairs.”

Sigmund was beside her.

He’d come because Halloway asked. Because he can hold a heart still in a crowd better than anyone. He stood at the top of the hall and looked down at the four hundred, and I saw him put his hands out. Flat. The way he does.

”Not still,” he said. ”Steady.”

He walked down the middle of the hall.

And his fence came up. Not round the hall. Round every bed. Four hundred small fences, one round each heart, so fine you could only see them when the lamp caught them. Humming. And inside each one, a heart that had been stumbling went steady. Not fast. Not slow. Steady. The way you’d hold someone’s elbow on ice.

”Now,” he said. To Halloway. ”Carry them. I’ve got them.”

They carried them for six hours.

Up the mountain. Through the long halls. Through the arch. Down onto the red glass and along the road to the long ward. Four hundred beds. Maura and Ingrid and Teshka and the smiths and anyone with two hands. And Sigmund walked beside them. Up and down the line. All six hours. With four hundred fences humming round four hundred hearts and his own face going whiter and whiter.

Every one came through.

Every one.

He sat down on the floor of the long ward afterward, beside the last bed, and didn’t get up for an hour. Halloway put a blanket round him.

”Four hundred,” she said. ”At once. For six hours.” She looked at him over her spectacles. ”I’ve never seen anyone hold four hundred hearts.”

Sigmund didn’t look up.

”I could hold four hundred strangers’ hearts,” he said. ”Up a mountain. Through an arch.” He put his hands over his face. ”And I can’t let myself feel my own wife’s.”

Halloway sat down beside him on the floor.

”Because she asked,” she said.

”Because she asked.”

”Then that’s holding too,” said Halloway. ”The hardest kind.” She put her hand on his shoulder. ”You’ll know when she wants you to.”

Konrad wrote it on the sheet that night. At the long table. Under Tiran.

Home. And the number. Every one of them. And beside it, very small, which he’d never written beside anything before:

All.

He looked at it for a long time.

Then he showed it to Okafor. Without saying anything. Just turned the sheet round on the table so she could see.

Okafor looked at the word.

”First one,” she said.

”First one,” said Konrad.

Okafor took the chalk. And went to the wall. Past ORRIN and Not again and ASKED. STAYED. To the bare space under them, where she’d been writing the worlds as they came home.

And wrote: TIRAN. ALL.

Then she stood back and looked at it. For a long time. With the chalk in her hand.

”Forty-seven,” she said. Very quietly. To nobody. ”Forty-seven to go.”

On the fifth morning, Inga held on.

I’ll write it the way it happened. In the kitchen. At breakfast. Because everything in this family happens in the kitchen at breakfast. Maura says it’s because it’s the only time everyone’s in one room and nobody’s flying anywhere.

Inga was on her mother’s lap.

She’s small. Not one of mine. Not one of the quick ones. She grows the ordinary way, a year at a time, the way Harriet does, the way children grew on Earth. She has her mother’s small fierce face and her father’s habit of going very still when she’s thinking. And she does one thing that nobody else in the house does.

She reaches.

Jessa does it too. It’s Jessa’s. It has been since I finished her, years ago, a door a morning. She reaches for things. A cup on a high shelf. A child about to fall. A hand in the dark. And when she’s got hold of something, she doesn’t let go.

Inga does it smaller. Her hands go out, and things come to them. A spoon. A ribbon. Pebble’s ear, which Pebble doesn’t mind.

And once she has hold of something, she holds on.

She was holding a crust of Maura’s bread. On her mother’s lap. At breakfast. Very seriously, the way she does.

And then she put it down.

On the table. Very carefully. And turned round. On Jessa’s lap. To face her.

And put both hands out.

Not to anything. Not to a cup or a spoon or a ribbon. To her mother. Flat. On Jessa’s middle. Under the table, where nobody could see, except the people at that end.

And held on.

Jessa went very still.

I was across the table. With Corin in my lap and Vessa asleep on Andraste’s chest beside me. I saw Jessa’s face change.

Not all at once. Slowly. The way the sky changes before rain.

She looked down at her daughter’s hands.

Inga didn’t look up. She was holding on very hard. Her small fierce face screwed up. The way it goes when she’s got hold of something that’s trying to get away.

Only this wasn’t trying to get away.

”Oh,” said Inga.

Very clearly. To her mother’s middle.

”Oh. There.”

Everyone at the table stopped.

Not because of the word. Inga says lots of words. Because of the voice. Because it was Dory’s word, and Dory’s voice, the one she uses for checking. There you are. Inga’s heard it every day of her life, from her cousin, on the porch, at the garden wall, every time anyone new comes through any door.

She’d never said it before.

Dory, at the far end, by Mother, put her cup down.

She looked at Inga for a long time. Then at Jessa. Then at Inga’s hands.

And her silver net came up. Very faint. Up both arms. Round her neck.

She didn’t check. She didn’t reach. She didn’t need to.

She just smiled. The small careful one. And said nothing at all.

Sigmund was at the stove.

Helping Maura. Which means standing next to Maura and being handed things. He had a pan in one hand and a spoon in the other and he’d turned round when Inga spoke, and he was looking at his wife.

He didn’t move.

I watched him not move. I watched his hands shut, on the pan and the spoon. I watched the spark round his ear go faster and faster. I watched every bit of him wanting to look, to feel, to reach across the kitchen with the thing the queens gave him and find out.

And not.

Because she’d asked.

Jessa looked up.

Not at me. Not at Halloway, who wasn’t there. Not at Dory, who’d stopped smiling and was watching very carefully.

At Sigmund.

”Siggy,” she said.

Very quietly. Risa calls him that, when she wants to annoy him; she has since they were small. Jessa never has. Not once. Not in front of anyone.

”Siggy. Look.”

He put the pan down.

He didn’t drop it. I want to write that down, because Maura said afterward it was the most self-control she’d ever seen in her kitchen. He put the pan down very carefully on the side of the stove, and the spoon beside it, and wiped his hands on Maura’s cloth.

Then he crossed the kitchen.

And knelt down beside Jessa’s chair.

And put his hands out. Over Inga’s. Not touching. Just there.

And looked.

I didn’t look. I want to write that down too. I could have. I can feel every heart in a room the way Sigmund can, and more. I could have known before he did.

I shut it out.

It wasn’t mine.

Sigmund didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then his fence came up.

Not round the room. Not round the house, the way it went the night Inga was born, so tight it didn’t spark at all. Round them. Just them. Jessa and Inga and his own hands. Very small. Very close. A fence of the thing he is, a hum you could feel in your teeth, and inside it, nothing else.

And it sparked.

All of it. All at once. Very bright. Every colour. The way it did the first time Sigmund ever held a heart, in Halloway’s class, with a model blown in half, and found out what too much feels like.

It was too much.

He didn’t care.

”Two,” he said.

Jessa stared at him.

”Two,” said Sigmund again. He was crying. I don’t think he knew. ”Jess. Two. There’s two. Two little ones. Side by side. Very small.” He laughed. Or sobbed. I couldn’t tell. ”Two hearts.”

The kitchen didn’t say anything.

Then Mother, at the end of the table, with her tea, said, very calmly:

”Well. Twins run in the Friese family too, then.”

”No they don’t,” said Ingrid. From beside her. Very white.

”They do now,” said Mother.

Jessa put her hands over her face.

Inga didn’t let go. She held on to her mother’s middle, very hard, with her small fierce face screwed up, as if the two of them in there might get away if she didn’t. And Sigmund put his arms round both of them, inside his fence, and his fence sparked and sparked, and Maura put a damp cloth over the toast before it caught.

And Jessa laughed.

Through her hands. Through the crying. Very loudly. The way she laughed on the top step of the quiet room, years ago, the night Dory’s storm went out.

”On its own,” she said. ”It happened on its own.”

Halloway came up from the long ward an hour later.

She’d been sent for. By Ingrid, who doesn’t send for anyone, ever. Halloway came in the kitchen door with her bag and her spectacles and looked at Jessa, at the table, with Sigmund on his knees beside her and Inga still holding on.

She didn’t say anything.

She sat down on the bench. Put her bag on the table. And took Jessa’s wrist. Two fingers. Counting.

Then she put her hand flat on Jessa’s middle. Next to Inga’s. Very gently.

And her face did something I’ve seen it do maybe three times.

”Well,” she said.

”Is it—”

”It’s very ordinary,” said Halloway. Very dry. With her hand still there. ”Two of them. Side by side. Exactly where they should be, exactly as big as they should be, which is not very.” She took her hand away. ”Ten weeks, near enough. Slow. The ordinary way. Like Inga.” She looked at Jessa over her spectacles. ”Like you wanted.”

Jessa didn’t say anything.

”You didn’t let anyone look,” said Halloway. ”For months. Not even him.” She nodded at Sigmund, still on his knees. ”You could have known weeks ago.”

”I know,” said Jessa.

”Why?”

Jessa looked at her daughter. At Inga’s hands. At the small fierce face.

”Because I wanted to find out the way you do on Earth,” she said. ”On my own. One morning. When I wasn’t expecting it.” She put her hand on Inga’s head. ”I didn’t know it would be her who told me.”

Halloway looked at Inga for a long time.

”I don’t know what she’s going to be,” she said. ”That one. When she’s grown.” She closed her bag. ”But I’d like to be there.”

Dory took Inga out to the garden wall in the afternoon.

I watched them from the porch. Dory very tall, now, looking fourteen and not that, with Pebble at her heels. Inga very small, holding her hand, in her ordinary way, a year at a time.

They sat down on the grass. With their backs against the wall. Where the queen comes up at dusk.

”You said my word,” said Dory.

Inga looked at her.

”At breakfast,” said Dory. ”There. That’s mine.” She wasn’t cross. She said it the way you’d tell someone they were wearing your coat. ”I say it when I check. When I find someone.” She looked at her cousin. ”Did you find them?”

Inga thought about it. Very seriously.

Then she nodded.

”Two,” she said.

”How did you know to look?”

Inga thought about that too. For a long time. With her small fierce face screwed up.

Then she put both her hands out. Flat. Toward Dory. Not touching. The way she’d put them on her mother.

”Held on,” she said. ”They held back.”

Dory looked at her cousin’s hands for a long time.

Then she put hers out too. Flat. Palm to palm with Inga’s. Not quite touching.

And her silver net came up. Bright. Up both arms. Round her neck. And I felt it go, from the porch, very gently, the way it goes when she checks someone new. Into Inga. Through her. Looking.

And Inga, very small, the ordinary way, reached back.

Dory’s eyes went wide.

”Oh,” she said.

She didn’t say anything else. She sat there with her palms against her cousin’s for a long time, very still, with Pebble’s head on her knee.

When she came back to the porch at supper, I asked her.

”She holds on,” said Dory. ”That’s all. She holds on to things.” She sat down on the step. ”Only it’s not just things.” She looked at the garden wall, where Inga was still sitting, with her hands in her lap. ”When I check, I find people. There you are. And then I let go and go to the next one.” She was quiet. ”Inga doesn’t let go. She finds you and she holds on and she doesn’t let go. Ever.” She swallowed. ”She’s been holding on to her mother the whole time. Since she was born. Every day. And this morning her mother held something too. And Inga felt it hold on back.”

She looked at me.

”I’m the net,” said Dory. ”She’s the knot.”

Jessa came to find me before Lotte arrived.

On the porch. With Inga on her hip, asleep at last, worn out from holding on. She stood at the top of the steps and looked at me for a long time.

”You didn’t look,” she said.

”No.”

”You could have. This morning. Before Siggy. You can feel every heart in a room. More than he can.” She shifted Inga on her hip. ”You could have known before anyone.”

”It wasn’t mine.”

Jessa didn’t say anything for a long time.

”When you finished me,” she said. ”In the chair. A door a morning. Out from the heart.” She looked at her free hand. ”I asked you every morning, before you started, if it was going to hurt. And you said: I don’t know. I’ll stop if it does. Every morning.” She closed her hand. ”You never once told me it would be all right. You said you didn’t know.”

”I didn’t.”

”I know,” said Jessa. ”That’s why I let you.” She looked at me. ”Everyone else on Earth told me it would be all right. The Program. The doctors. My father, before the pod. Everyone.” She put her hand on her middle. ”You were the first person who ever told me you didn’t know, and asked.”

She sat down on the step beside me.

”So thank you,” she said. ”For not looking. For letting it be mine.” She leaned her head against the porch post. ”For letting me find out the way you do on Earth.”

Lotte Quint came up the hill at noon.

Jessa’s mother. Very small, very straight. With Marlo beside her, with his arm through hers, standing very slightly sideways so the light could get round him, the way the light-benders do.

She stood in the kitchen doorway for a long time.

She didn’t say anything. She’d kept Jessa’s room the same for two years on Earth. Two beds. Made up every morning. After the Quints went down in their pod on Drop Day and didn’t come back. She’d held my mother’s hands in the Quint house and said thank you for coming and nothing else.

She came across the kitchen now. And sat down beside her daughter. And took her hand.

”Two,” said Lotte Quint.

”Two,” said Jessa.

Lotte looked at her for a long time.

”Your father had a brother,” she said. ”Who was a twin. On Earth. Before the domes. Nobody remembers him now but me.” She was quiet. ”I used to think it would skip you. Because it skipped Marlo.” She put her other hand on Jessa’s middle, very lightly. ”It didn’t skip you.”

Marlo stood in the doorway.

He was looking at Konrad.

Konrad had been at the end of the table since breakfast. He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t said anything. He’d taken his hat off when Sigmund said two, and he was still holding it in both hands against his chest.

Marlo looked at him for a long time.

Then he came across the kitchen. Not to Jessa. To Konrad.

And stood in front of him.

”Two,” said Marlo.

Konrad looked up at him.

”Two,” he said. Very quietly.

”Your grandchildren,” said Marlo. ”And my niece and nephew. Or nieces. Or nephews.” He was standing very slightly sideways. ”We’ll be at the same table. For the rest of our lives. Every birthday. Every supper on Sigmund’s night.”

”Yes,” said Konrad.

”I said I wasn’t going to forgive you,” said Marlo. ”The night Inga was born. Not that night.”

”I remember.”

Marlo didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then he pulled out the chair beside Konrad. And sat down in it.

”It’s not that night,” he said.

Konrad put his hat on the table.

He didn’t say anything else. He couldn’t. Ingrid put her hand on his back.

And Marlo, without looking at him, reached over and poured him a cup of Mother’s tea.

Risa came in at the end of it.

From the long ward, where she’d been planning the next world with Okafor. With both clouds over her head. The big one grey. The little one white, flickering.

She stopped in the doorway.

And looked at Jessa. At Sigmund on his knees. At Inga holding on.

And the little cloud left her.

Not all of it. It can’t go far yet. A thread of it. Thin and white and flickering. Off Risa’s head and across the kitchen, over the long table, over the toast under Maura’s damp cloth. To Jessa.

And stopped. Over Jessa’s middle. Over Inga’s hands.

And glowed. Silver. The way it glowed over Inga on the porch, the evening after the wheel came out, when it drifted over and stopped and none of us knew why.

Jessa looked at it.

Then at Risa, in the doorway.

”You knew,” she said.

”No,” said Risa. Very quietly. ”I didn’t.” She was looking at the little cloud. ”She did.”

I think about that.

The evening on the porch. Jessa tired of being happy for people. Inga asleep on her hip. And the little cloud drifting across, for the first time, the only time it had ever moved, and stopping, and glowing. Over Inga, we thought.

It wasn’t over Inga.

It was over Jessa. Over her middle. Where Inga was resting against her.

And she didn’t know yet. Nobody did. Nobody had looked.

Except something very small and very new, inside Risa, that listens to the weather. That felt something else very small and very new, two of them, side by side, making the very faintest weather of their own.

And went to say hello.

”She picked them,” said Risa. In the doorway. Very quietly. ”That night. On the porch.” She put her hand on her own middle. ”I thought she liked Inga.”

Jessa started laughing again.

”Your brother,” she said. Through it. To Risa. ”Is going to be impossible.”

”I know,” said Risa.

Sigmund, on his knees, with his fence sparking, didn’t say anything at all.

He was already impossible.

Ingrid and Konrad sat on the bench at the end of the porch at dusk.

Mother had given the bench to them years ago. She said it was for people who’d waited a long time to sit next to each other.

They didn’t say anything for a long time. Ingrid with her thin hands in her lap. Konrad with his hat on his knee.

”Twins don’t run in the Friese family,” said Ingrid. Eventually.

”No,” said Konrad.

”I was very clear about it.”

”You were,” said Konrad.

”And then your granddaughter put her hands on her mother,” said Ingrid, ”and your son said two in front of everyone, and Dot Dask said they do now, and I couldn’t say anything at all.”

Konrad was quiet.

”Lotte says the Quints have them,” he said. ”Her husband’s brother.”

”I heard.”

”So it isn’t us,” said Konrad. ”It’s them.”

Ingrid turned her head and looked at him.

”Konrad,” she said. ”We’re going to have six grandchildren in this house by the summer. Dory and small Sigmund and the little cloud and Inga and two.” She put her hand on his knee. On his hat. ”I don’t care whose they are. I care that they’re.”

Konrad looked down at her hand.

”That’s not a sentence,” he said.

”It is now,” said Ingrid.

He laughed. Very quietly. The first time I’d heard Konrad Friese laugh on that bench in all the years since Earth.

Ingrid didn’t take her hand away.

Sigmund found me on the steps after supper.

He sat down beside me. Where he’d sat four nights before, with his hands shut. His hands weren’t shut now. They were open, on his knees, palm up, and every so often a small spark went from one to the other and back.

He didn’t say anything for a long time.

”My father had two children,” he said eventually. ”Risa and me. And he signed things and never looked up.” He looked at his hands. ”I used to lie in bed in the Friese house on Earth and listen to him not come up the stairs. Every night. I could hear his heart, even then. Before I knew what I was hearing. In his study, two floors down. Very steady. Never once going faster for anything.”

I didn’t say anything.

”I’m going to have three,” said Sigmund. ”Inga and two.” He turned his hands over. ”And every night, for the rest of my life, I’m going to go up the stairs.”

”I know you are.”

”I’m going to hold every one of their hearts,” he said. ”Every night. Before they go to sleep. Not to fix anything. Not to steady anything.” His voice went. ”Just so they know someone’s listening.”

He put his face in his hands. And his fence came up round him, very small, very bright, and sparked.

Konrad was in the doorway behind us. I don’t think Sigmund knew.

He didn’t come out. He stood in the doorway in his coat that Nan Vey irons with his hat in his hands for a long time, listening to his son.

Then he went in. And up the stairs. And I heard him stop at the door of the room where Inga sleeps. And stay there.

Wren came up the hill at dusk.

Slowly. Very slowly, now. She’s further along than anyone, and she does it the ordinary way, the way Harriet came, the way Inga did, with no silver in it, and Toby walks beside her everywhere with one hand under her elbow and his face very carefully calm.

She stopped at the bottom of the porch steps. Where Jessa was sitting with Inga asleep on her lap.

”Two,” said Wren.

Jessa looked up.

”I know,” said Wren. ”Everybody knows. Maura told the bakery and the bakery told the town.” She put her hand on her own middle. ”But I wanted to tell you something.”

Jessa waited.

”I’ve been counting wrong,” said Wren. ”On the porch. At night. When Lucas says it.” She looked at me. ”For about a month. I kept getting two more than there should be.” She almost smiled. ”I thought it was me. I thought it was this one, and Anja’s, and the little cloud, and I’d counted one of them twice.” She shook her head. ”I counted again every night. Every night. Two over.”

”You didn’t say,” said Jessa.

”No,” said Wren. ”Halloway told me you didn’t want anyone to look.” She was quiet. ”So I didn’t look. I just counted. And kept getting two too many.” She put her other hand on Toby’s arm. ”And I wrote it down. Every night. In the margin. In case.”

She took a small folded paper out of her coat. And gave it to Jessa.

Jessa unfolded it.

It was a column. Thirty-one nights. Very neat, in Wren’s small hand. The number she’d counted on the porch each night, when I said it. And beside each one, in the margin, very small: +2.

And at the bottom, written that afternoon, after Maura told the bakery:

Found.

Jessa didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then she folded the paper. And put it in Inga’s small fist, where Inga was asleep. And Inga, asleep, held on.

”For her book,” said Jessa. ”When she’s old enough to have one.”

Wren nodded.

Then Toby helped her back down the hill, very slowly, with his hand under her elbow, humming. A note I didn’t know. Very low. For two hearts on the porch behind him, and one in front.

Mother found me on the porch that night.

In Father’s chair. Again. I’ve been sitting in it more. She says she doesn’t mind. She sat on the step below me. The way I sit below her.

”Two,” she said.

”Two.”

”And Risa’s one. And Andraste’s just had Vessa. And Wren and Anja.” She counted on her fingers. ”That’s six, love. In one year. In one family.” She looked out at the plain. At Thera, in the distance, with all its crooked windows lit. ”Plus everyone in the town under the garden wall. Plus Thera. Halloway says nineteen a week, out there.”

”It’s a good year for babies.”

”It’s a very good year for babies,” said Mother.

She didn’t say anything for a long time.

”Do you know what Trevor used to say?” she said. ”On the northern front. Every winter, when it was very bad. When the line was thin and the snow was in and nobody knew if we’d see the spring.”

”What?”

”Count the babies,” said Mother. ”When it’s very bad. Don’t count the dead. Don’t count the Hands. Count the babies.” She put her hand on my knee. ”Because people don’t have babies when they’ve given up. Not on purpose. Not this many.” She looked at Thera. ”The houses can count their ledger. We’ll count ours.”

I went to the long ward before bed.

I don’t know why. I just went. Down the road in the dark, past the double doors, to the floor in the middle of the nine trays. Where Tally sleeps. Where the double handful of the Merrow queen hums on her shelf of warm stone. Where the notebook is.

Tally was awake.

She was always awake.

”I have a new page,” she said. Before I could say anything.

She showed me.

Not EATEN, still empty. Not MERROW, with its one mark. Not PAST, with nothing under it.

A new one. At the very back. After HIS, where she’d made six marks once, years ago, and then eleven, and then twelve.

At the top, very small: THIS YEAR.

And under it, a mark for every one.

Vessa. Risa’s little one. Wren’s. Anja’s. And two, side by side, very small, that she’d drawn very close together, so they were almost touching.

”Jessa’s,” said Tally. ”Two. I heard them. On the floor. Through the voice. This morning.” She looked at the page. ”Before anyone said.”

”You didn’t tell anyone.”

”No,” said Tally. ”She did not want anyone to look. So I did not say I had heard.” She closed the notebook. ”Some things should be found out the way you find them out on Earth.”

I looked at her.

”Mrs. Dask told me that,” said Tally. ”Your mother. When I asked why people wrap presents.”

She opened the notebook again. To THIS YEAR. And looked at the marks for a long time. Seven of them now. Two drawn so close they were almost touching.

”It is a good page,” she said. ”It is the first page I have ever kept that only gets longer.”

She put the pen in the fold. And lay down on the floor of the long ward, in the middle of the nine trays, with the notebook on her chest.

And went to sleep.

Days 4490–4501. On Its Own.

Jessa wouldn’t let anyone look; Sigmund lay with his hands shut for months. On the fifth morning after Cassel, Inga turned round on her mother’s lap and put both hands flat on her middle and held on, and said Dory’s word: oh, there. Jessa: Siggy, look. His fence sparked: two. Mother: twins run in the Friese family now. Halloway: very ordinary; ten weeks, the ordinary way. Lotte: your father had a twin brother. Marlo sat down beside Konrad: it’s not that night. Inga to Dory: they held back. I’m the net; she’s the knot. Tiran: all four hundred hearts held; Konrad wrote All. Risa’s little cloud went to Jessa and glowed: it was never over Inga. Count the babies. Wren had counted two too many for a month and written +2 in the margin. Tally had a new page: THIS YEAR. She’d heard them first and didn’t say.