Auri felt the room go bright and tip around her. Staggering, she took two steps and sat down on the bed before she fell. She felt the fear rise up in her. Her eyes darted round the room, all startlement. Was this . . . ?
No. This was a simpler thing, her stomach was an empty drum again. She had forgotten to tend herself.
So when her head stopped spinning, it was off to Tree. But on a whim, for company, she brought along brash Fulcrum. He had seen so little of the Underthing. And heavy as he was, it really was the least that she could do for all his help.
Pans were nearly all the fruit that Tree could offer up. But only nearly. She brought out a tin pot and filled it with fresh water. She lit the spirit lamp with her penultimate match. Then she climbed onto the counter and reached with both hands to fetch down her jar. The dried peas rolled inside, tinkling playfully against the glass.
She worked the baling top and poured peas into her tiny hand until they filled her cupped palm. Her hand was not that large. It was not so very many peas, but it was half of what she had. She tipped them into the pot where they plinked into the warming water. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, Auri shrugged and poured the other half into the pot as well.
She set the empty bottle on the countertop and looked around. The burner’s flickerlight and Foxen’s green-blue glow both showed the bareness of the shelves. She sighed and put it from her mind. Today there would be soup. Tomorrow he would visit. And after that . . .
Well, after that she would do her best. That was the only way. You did not want things for yourself. That made you small. That kept you safe. That meant you could move smoothly through the world without upsetting every applecart you came across. And if you were careful, if you were a proper part of things, then you could help. You mended what was cracked. You tended to the things you found askew. And you trusted that the world in turn would brush you up against the chance to eat. It was the only graceful way to move. All else was vanity and pride.
Could she bring honeycomb to share with him tomorrow? It was the loveliest of things. He had too little sweetness in his life. That was the truth.
She thought on this while boiling bubbles danced her peas about the pot. Auri idly stroked brash Fulcrum’s face, and after a long while of musing she decided, yes, the honeycomb might work if nothing else presented.
She stirred the soup a bit and added salt. She wished the butter wasn’t full of knives. A little fat in this would be a true delight. A little fat would suit it to a T.
After her lovely soup, Auri headed back to Mantle. With Fulcrum keeping company she could hardly make her way through Vaults or Veneret. So she took the long way round and went by way of Pickering instead.
Belly warm and with a guest besides, she took her time along the close-fit square stone tunnels. She was nearly back to Doubton, Fulcrum heavy in her arms, when she felt a gentle crickling underfoot and stopped.
Looking down, she saw a scattering of leaves upon the floor. It didn’t make a bit of sense to find them here. There was no wind in Pickering. No water here. She looked around, but couldn’t see a speckle of bird dropping. She sniffed the air but didn’t smell a bit of musk or piss.
But there was nothing threatening either. Nothing knotted up about the place. No skew or wrongness here. But not nothing neither. It was half a thing. A mystery.
Curious, Auri set Fulcrum gently down upon the floor and lifted up the leaf. It looked familiar. She hunted round and found a handful of them scattered near an open doorway. She picked these up and when they wrangled up together in her hand she understood.
Excited, she took Fulcrum back to Mantle. Before she left she kissed his face and set him comfortably to rights upon his stony ledge, gap down of course. Then she skipped to Port and lifted up the silver bowl. She held the crickling leaf she carried up against the twining leaves engraved around the edge. It was the same.
She shook her head, unsure of what they might portend. Still, there was only one way to tell. Taking up the silver bowl, Auri scurried back to Pickering, then through the doorway where she’d found the clustered leaves. Over a stone tumble. Around a fallen beam.
She did not know if she had ever been to this piece of Pickering before. But it was still simplicity itself to find her way. Here and there, a leaf or two would dot the floor like breadcrumbs.
Finally she came to the bottom of a narrow shaft that led straight up. An ancient chimney from the days before? A tunnel for escape? A well?
It was narrow and steep, but Auri was a tiny thing. And even carrying the silver bowl she climbed it quickly as a squirrel. At the top she found a plank of wood, already partially askew. She pushed it easily aside and clambered out into a basement room.
The room was dusty and disused, full of shelves. Barrels stacked in corners. Shelves jammed full with bundles, kegs, and crates. In among the smell of dust she caught a whiff of street and sweat and grass. Looking round she saw a window high up in the wall, and on the floor below some broken glass.
It was a tidy place, save for a scattering of leaves blown down in some forgotten storm. There were sacks of corn and barley flour. Winter apples. Waxed packages stuffed tight with figs and dates.
Auri walked around the room, her hands behind her back. She stepped lightly as a dancer on a drum. Kegs of molasses. Jars of strawberry preserve. Some squash had tumbled from their burlap bundle just beside the door. She shooed them back inside and pulled the drawstring tight.
Eventually she bent to look more closely at a lower shelf. A single leaf had come to rest atop a small clay crock. Moving carefully, she lifted up the leaf, removed the crock, and put the silver bowl down in its place. She lay the leaf back down inside the bowl.
She allowed herself a single longing look around the room, no more. Then Auri headed back the way she came. Only back in the familiar dark of Pickering did she draw an easy breath. Then eagerly she brushed the dust from her new treasure. If the picture was to be believed, the crock held olives. They were lovely.
The olives went to Tree. They looked a little lonely on their shelf. But lonely was a long sight better than naught but empty echo, salt, and butter full of knives. Better by a long road.
Next she checked on things in Port. The ice-blue bottle wasn’t entirely at home. It huddled on the lowest, leftest shelf upon the eastern wall. Auri touched it gently, doing her best to reassure. He liked bottles. Might this be a seemly gift?
She picked it up and turned it in her hands. But no. Not this bottle. Grave. Graven. Not named for someone else.
Maybe some other bottle? That felt nearly right. Not quite, but nearly.
She thought about the vanity in Tumbrel. Yesterday it had seemed squared and true. But she was more than slightly tattered then. Not at her best. Perhaps there was a bottle mixed among the rest. Something wrong or lost or out of place.
If nothing else it was a place to start. So Auri gathered up the warm, sweet weight of Fulcrum in her arms. And because he hadn’t seen them yet, she took the slightly longer way through Van and Forth and Lucient before she headed down to Wains.
She paused to rest in Annulet, her new and perfect circle of a sitting room. Fulcrum settled like a king upon the velvet chair while Auri lounged upon the fainting couch and let her arms recover from the oh sweet ache of holding him.
But she was too busy for long lounging. So Auri gathered up the heavy gear again and made her slow way up the unnamed stair, taking her time so Fulcrum could marvel at the odd and cunning coyness of the place. And, as the two of them were gentle folk, they both ignored the bashful door that sat upon the landing.
Then into Tumbrel. Climbing through the wall, Auri saw the room was just as she remembered. Not perfect true like Annulet. But nothing glaringly unskew. Nothing askant or lost or loudly wrong. Now that the vanity was squared away, Tumbrel seemed content to rumble down into a long warm winter’s sleep.
Even so, she’d come all this way. So she opened up the wardrobe and peered inside. She touched the chamberpot. She looked into the closet too, nodding politely to the broom and bucket there.
Auri eyed the vanity. There were a few fine bottles there. One especially caught her eye. It was small and pale. Coruscant, like opal. Perfect with a cunning clasp. She didn’t have to open it to see that there was breath inside. A precious thing.
She lifted Fulcrum higher and tried peering through the round hole in the very center of his oh so centeredness. She hoped to notice something she had missed before. Something loose or raveledy. Some thread that she could tug to jostle something free. But no. Whether she looked straight or slant, the vanity was well and truly set to rights.
A bottle coruscant with hidden breath would be a princely gift. But no. Taking it was every bit as stupid and unkind as wrenching out a tooth so she could carve a bead from it and thread it on a string.
She sighed and left. Out through the wall, then down the unnamed stair. Perhaps she could go hunting down in Lynne, it was a piping place, and mus—
It was then. Heading down, a sly stone turned beneath her foot. As Auri made her musing way from Tumb