He’s not always watching, though. He can’t be. He’s just a man.
So I couldn’t ask any questions. Not questions that mattered anyway. Still, I figured it would be rude to pass up a rare invitation to get to know Alvilda better. She wasn’t one for musings. “A waste of time, effort, and the brain our foremothers blessed you with,” she often said.
“Why did you choose woodworking?” I asked. Maybe she’d mistake my intentions and tell me about the beauty of the craft; I could let it wash over me and retreat back to the emptiness in my heart.
“Well,” said Alvilda softly. “Women have the right to choose what their hearts tell them. It’s a gift from the first goddess.”
My eyes welled again. “That’s a lie! It’s not a gift—and it’s not even true!”
So much for sidestepping the issue.
Alvilda coughed. “It’s not an easy gift, I know.” She tapped her fingers over the table and looked thoughtful, a rarity on her features. “I know.”
She let me cry a bit without saying anything more. I almost grabbed a rag with which to wipe my face, but I remembered the sawdust and spread my tears all over my sleeve instead. I no longer could stand to wear aprons.
Finally, I managed to compose myself. “Whatever it is, it’s different for me.” I can’t send the lord to the commune. I just can’t. No one would let me.
“I know, dear. I’m sorry.”
What else was there to say?
Alvilda broke into the silence. “You know, I tried to love Jaron.” So that was his name. Mother’s first love. “I really did. I certainly didn’t dislike him.”
I scoffed. I hadn’t intended to be rude to Alvilda, especially as she opened herself up to me. But even though I felt Alvilda was the closest person I had to someone who might understand, it wasn’t the same.
Alvilda didn’t notice or at least didn’t comment. “Whenever I let my thoughts wander, I feel so ill at the idea of what my choice has done to him I want to retch.”
I met Alvilda’s eyes. They were strong, dark brown like mine, but I detected a glisten in them. Unlike me, though, she held it in, her throat making a gurgling noise as she steeled herself to speak further.
“I thought about marrying him even without the Returning. So many had done it before.” She looked upward at the art carvings behind me. “But I couldn’t decide if his muted happiness at being near me would be worth the torment of my own soul in his stead.”
I nodded. “And people didn’t urge you to marry him anyway? Tell you how sometimes the Returning is delayed years and that there could be a chance you would both one day be happy?” The words were not my own, but the echoes of voice after voice and lecture after lecture.
Alvilda bit her lip and didn’t look away from the wall behind me. “Yes, they did. But no, I would never, ever be happy.”
My gaze followed Alvilda’s. She saw me looking and tore away, but I saw the carving in which she had been engrossed. Her family. Luuk as a toddler in his bunny rabbit mask, his mother holding him in her arms with a sour look carved deep and permanently into her features. Master Tailor stood next to Mistress Tailor, one hand on Jurij the puppy dog who stood in front of him, his other arm tightly around Mistress Tailor’s shoulder, his demeanor projecting a sense of joviality that his face could not. Because Master Tailor still wore a mask, his face obscured by that of an owl’s.
Of course. Alvilda had witnessed her brother marry without the Returning. As his blood relation, she knew his face, but she chose to carve him with his missing features. Perhaps to guard his secret from the wandering female eye. Or perhaps to remind herself of what could have been, had she chosen to marry Jaron against her heart’s desire.
“In any case,” Alvilda said, her tone calm but still trembling, “I’m sorry for my foolish ramblings. I know that your circumstances simply don’t compare to mine. The lord is—well, in any case, you don’t want to go through what I did.” Alvilda walked across the room, rummaged through her toolbox, and came back to the eating table.
“Here,” she said, tossing a small chunk of wood and a chisel on the table. “It’s the most I can do for you. You’re going to learn woodcarving.”