The Nothing Within Read online

  When I Was Seventeen: Honeynock

  1

  A Good-old Story

  Pewter Gates and the Thinking Box

  So very long ago, so I’m told, there lived a boy named Pewter Gates who made wonders with the cleverness of his quick and curious hands.

  Now, one day Pewter Gates was sore tired, yet the sheep needed watching. So with all the cleverness of his quick and curious hands he built hisself a wonder: a thinking box. A box that would talk to him, and remember for him, and watch the world when he wished it. A box all smooth and shiny and humming and whirring and flickering with blue light. He called it a Pewter, pridefully, after his own self. “Why, there’s a job well done if ever I saw one!” he cried. Then he laid hisself down in the shade of a hoary oak up on a hilltop, and he left his thinking box to watch the flock.

  But while Old Mother Wolf fears staff and sling, she cares not a whit for a thinking box. And so as Pewter Gates slept, and as his thinking box watched, Old Mother Wolf raided the flock, took a sweet, tender lamb, and drove the rest away.

  Just before the sun set, his thinking box woke Pewter Gates, as he’d asked it. It told him all that had passed while he slept. Pewter Gates looked down on a pasture empty of all but bloody grass, silence, and regret.

  Poor Pewter Gates!

  All his cleverness gained him nothing but the knowledge of his own folly—and that, he found, makes a poor dinner indeed!

  2

  Deborah

  I’ve wondered why they call it grubbing. Digging roots out of the ground, pulling and hacking and fighting for every inch. Maybe because you get so grubby doing it? Or maybe because of all the grubs you find? If I could name it, I’d call it “cursing yourself purple.” But when you’re an apprentice woodsmith and your mentor calls for grubbing, you grub. And you do it without complaining. At least to his face.

  Woodsmith Abram didn’t make me grub roots out of meanness, nor to make my body harder, nor just because his mentor made him grub long ago. Rootwood’s useful. One of the toughest, gnarliest woods there is, and can be put to great purpose. Though that’s not how Woodsmith Abram described it. He joked, “Roots are dense.” And when he said it, he always laughed. Not out loud, though. His laughs were so far inside only I could hear them.

  It was work that could break a strong man’s back, yet here I was, a scrawny girl of seventeen grubbing for every twig of this young hickory’s roots. “A woodsmith knows the tree high to low,” he’d said—so many times I wished he’d stop.

  Woodsmith Abram had let me use his small metal hatchet for the day, which made things go easier than they might, but even so my muscles burned, my hands were bruised, and my nails bled. There was probably more of my blood in mosquitoes than in me. Watcher Lijah tossed his club in the air and caught it over and over, the way he liked to do, slap, slap, slap, while Watcher Wayn practiced with his sling against undeserving trees over and over, the way he liked to do, crack, crack, crack. Slap, slap, slap, crack, crack, crack—a small vexation piled atop all the rest.

  But I didn’t mind. Not really.

  Here I was in the out of doors on a cold October afternoon, working with wood and dirt, guarded by Watcher Lijah and Watcher Wayn, far from Surecreek’s wall. So if it took the whole day to grub that tree to nothing? Well, that was a gift. What’s more, it kept my mind off Honeynock for a while.

  We’d started that morning with Lumberman Josiah chopping the trees that Woodsmith Abram had marked, swinging his big metal ax, chopping ‘til a tree went down then moving to the next one as his apprentices cleared branches and bark with their stone tools. Josiah turned five young trees to lumber without hardly panting. Then Lumberman Josiah left with Abram, Lumberman Josiah’s apprentices making trip after trip to tote the wood back inside Surecreek’s wall. “Grub the hard one,” Woodsmith Abram said over his shoulder as he walked away. And I could swear I heard that laugh deep inside him.

  I ran my fingers over the raw tops of the stumps, one by one. When I found the one he meant, I understood his laugh. Hickories are tough trees, and though this one was blessedly young, I could tell clear as clear it was ornery. Giving me ornery things to do pleased Woodsmith Abram something quite unholy.

  So grub I did. Grub, and grub, and grub ‘til my back moaned and my hands bled, using the hard work to push aside Honeynock ‘til finally, somehow, as the cool of night crept into the dell, I was done.

  “Well. That’s about it,” I said, piling the last of the bits onto the leather sled. Mert, Lumberman Josiah’s youngest apprentice, set to pulling the sled back home through the brush. Watcher Wayn tucked his sling in his belt and followed.

  “Alright then, Apprentice Woodsmith Deborah,” Watcher Lijah said with a scowl as subtle as broken glass.

  You maybe didn’t know you can hear a scowl. They’re easy to see, I guess, but no harder to hear. I’d heard enough of them in my life, and more than ever since I’d riled all of Surecreek by taking up as Abram’s apprentice. I didn’t grudge them for it any more than I’d grudge a dog its barking. No doubt I deserved it. Folks scowling at Apprentice Woodsmith Deborah was no more surprising than rocks getting wet in rain.

  Oh. Now I’ve lost some of you. You wonder why Watcher Lijah called me Deborah, and not Root.

  Imagine you’re Young Trudie, and your ma’s a tailor. One day, almost surely, you’ll be Tailor Trudie. But if you take another trade, as happens once in a hill of sand? Say you end up a bonesmith? Well, there’s no great Willim-what to that. You’ll be Bonesmith Trudie, clear as clear.

  Now. Imagine you’re Young Root. Your ma’s a weaver, yet you become a woodsmith. There can be no Woodsmith Root, as Root’s name is set aside for weavers, and weavers only.

  A village weaver takes her name from the very first weaver the village ever had. Weaver Henna of Ashland. Weaver Millie of Greencreek. Why, you folks in Humblewash have your very fine Weaver Patience. She was named for the Weaver Patience who started this village some generations back. If Grandmother Root smiles on your weaver Patience and blesses her with a daughter, that babe will be Young Patience. And so on, and so on.

  So when I chose to leave the weaver’s path, Ma said I couldn’t be Root no more.

  Being told to give up my name pained me something awful. Yet I couldn’t be Apprentice Woodsmith Nothing, that wouldn’t do at all. So, as is tradition, my mentor, Woodsmith Abram, picked me a new name.

  I’d never heard the name Deborah before it was mine. Neither had nobody else in Surecreek. Woodsmith Abram was an Alter, as I’ve said, and Alters take names from their holy story. Their holy story is so long you can hardly imagine. It begins at the beginning of the world, and ends at the end, and along the way it tells of their God, and his son pegged to die on a tree, and his People of so very long ago.

  Anyhow, Woodsmith Abram picked my name out of the Alters’ holy stories. He said Deborah was a woman of wisdom and courage who judged her People. That sounded like a weaver to me, so I appreciated his choice. He also said she was stubborn as stone. And while I didn’t appreciate that as much, I could see the sense in it.

  Oh! Turns out, Woodsmith Abram’s name wasn’t Abram at all. It was Abraham. Just like that. Abe-ruh-ham. Ham, like a pig’s butt. I know it. I know. When I learned it, made me laugh, too. I guess that’s how the Alters say “Abram,” but they always did speak peculiar. So Abraham told folks in Surecreek his name was Abram, just to make things a touch simpler for us. And maybe to keep us from laughing.

  As you might know, Alters like to share their holy stories with us normal folk at any opportunity. Back when my village took Abram in, my ma and the Elders invited him to please keep those holy stories to hisself, for however long he lived in Surecreek. Yet through the years, I think he told me most of them. It must have cost him dear to use so many words on me. I found it real interesting, and only in part because it was forbidden. Even though he seemed a sober old gentleman, I learned real quick that Woodsmith Abram didn’t care much for what was proper, so long it
didn’t draw notice from others, and so long as it didn’t hurt nobody. Maybe that’s why we got along like we did.

  So. My name was Apprentice Woodsmith Deborah by all the rules. But I still called myself Root. And that’s one of the reasons I got so familiar with the sound of folks scowling.

  There was another reason, though.

  Some trades are for anybody. Tanner, say, or drover. But only women are menders or weavers or butchers. There’s sense in that, since only a woman may draw or handle blood. And only men are lumbermen or runners. There’s sense in that too, since most often, men are bigger.

  Back at that time, only men were woodsmiths. It’s different now. Some say that’s on account of me. I don’t know about that. Back then, though? A girl apprenticing as a woodsmith wasn’t heard of, nor was it welcome. I knew that full well. In fact, it was part of the appeal. So one day I had spun up my courage and asked Woodsmith Abram whether he could ever imagine taking a girl to apprentice. To which he said, “Depends.”

  “Depends what?” I asked.

  “On the girl,” he answered, not turning from the shingle he was shaving.

  “Well,” I said, “I’m not saying the girl’s me. But what if it was?”

  He didn’t say a thing. Not one blessed thing for long enough that I thought he’d forgotten the question, or was too polite to say no. You’ve probably heard that Alters run quiet compared to us normal folk. Well in that way, Woodsmith Abram was a fine Alter indeed. But this quiet was a deep one even for him.

  Then, at last, when I’d decided to send my foolish fancy to the Goodafter Pit, and I turned to leave, he said, “Could be worse.”

  So that pretty well sealed it.

  Ma held no grudge for my choosing a trade other than weaver. She knew the weaver’s path was a hard one, and that it was not for everybody. She’d said as much years before, while we sat with poor Mender Vernie. But apprenticing as a woodsmith? Well, I do believe that put her off me. She was never quite so close with me again as she had been before. I was welcome to visit her in our old house when it suited me. But I can’t say the welcome was ’specially warm.

  To the rest of Surecreek, though? My gracious.

  I’d left the weaver’s path, which would be hard enough for them to stomach. But I was a sightless girl wearing an Alter name, who’d gone and taken up a man’s trade, and yet insisted on calling herself Root. I kept my head shaved as I’d grown accustomed to—which wasn’t forbidden, but which was a weaver practice. I swore now and again. I asked the most unwelcome question whenever I could think of one.

  Truth told, I was a bit of a sow’s ass. No wonder Surecreek couldn’t bear me. Only Leeleh and her family treated me more or less as they had before.

  But I didn’t mind. Wood spoke to me, and I like to think I spoke back to it in kind. If Woodsmith Abram was willing to teach me his craft, I was eager to learn it, even if that earned me the disapproval of the entire village of Surecreek.

  Which I’d more or less earned long ago, anyhow.

  So when I said it was time to go, and Watcher Lijah scowled my name, I didn’t mind that a whittle. He was just being reasonable. And I was just becoming Woodsmith Root.

  And a woman, too, I supposed, as we set off for home, my belly churning. Two days. Two days. Two days to Honeynock.

  3

  About Honeynock

  Now, for the young ones among you, let’s talk about the Needful Act.

  When I was your age, they kept it a great secret. Oh, you figured out a good bit of it by watching livestock at play, or being awake when your ma and pa didn’t expect you to be. Hardly ever, though sometimes, a couple of youngsters figured it out on their own. But mostly, young folks obeyed. They did what was proper. No fussing with others’ bodies.

  And mostly, grown-ups kept it secret. The Needful Act wasn’t spoken of. You didn’t learn about it, but by hush and whisper, ’til your Honeynock. Which is a poor time to learn it, right when you need to use it. What’s more, wondering about Honeynock left us all fretting something awful about it.

  That’s why, today, they teach it in Learning. Like to think I had some small part in that. Better to know before you need it.

  Honeynock is for the Needful Act. That’s all it’s for. That’s why you’ll go. Or rather, that’s what you’ll do when you go.

  But deep down? It’s not really why you’ll go.

  I’ll tell you something you probably don’t know: Honeynock is one of the most important things you’ll do in your entire life. Surely is. I’ve learned the truth of it, and I’ll tell you now.

  Let’s say you’ve got a little flock. Little as can be. One ram, one ewe. And let’s say they do as sheep will: The ram gets with the ewe, and they make them some lambs. Then their lambs grow up and do the same. And so on. And so on.

  Before long, some of their great, great, great-grand lambs will start coming out wrong. Sickly. Not shaped quite right. Maybe even dead. But if those ewes do the Needful Act with rams from another flock? Well then. The lambs come out a little better.

  You and me, we’re not so different from sheep. Less woolly, I guess, but a man gets with a woman, and the woman has a babe. And so on. And so on. And if we stay in our villages and keep making babes with one another, a little too close and too often? Our babes’ll start coming out wrong, same as with the sheep. That happens often enough on its own without us making it worse. If a village gets Needful with itself for too long, things are sure to go wrong. We know never to couple with close kin, of course. But after a while, everybody in a village is kin of one kind or another.

  And that’s why we have Honeynock. So Greencreek’s women can get with Ashland’s men, and Littleford’s women can get with Holyhock’s men. And so on. And so on. So our babes can come out a little better.

  And when you see it that way, Honeynock ain’t nothing to long for nor to dread. It’s just something that needs doing.

  4

  The Easy Road

  “You’ll look in on Leeleh?” I asked Woodsmith Abram the night before I left.

  As if Honeynock weren’t enough to twist me up.

  Woodsmith Abram didn’t say nothing, nor did I expect it. He had no need to waste words on this. I knew he’d look in on her for hisself, even if I didn’t ask.

  Since I’d become an apprentice Woodsmith, Leeleh dithered away most of her meager free time in his shop, chatting with us or just watching. Abram had grown fond of her, though he’d never say it. He’d even taught her a little woodsmithing, which might have scandalized folks if they’d known it. Leeleh helped him carve a basswood map of the World That Is for my seventeenth birth day. “So’s you can see the world,” she said, all shy like she was. “With your fingers. You know. Since you can’t go out and see it with your feet no more.”

  We didn’t dote on birth days back then like folks do now. No goings-on nor fiffery nor whatnot. Surely no gifts. Back then, the village weaver would mention your name as part of her Appreciation of Graces when Common supper started. That’s all the never-mind you got. So when Leeleh put her cool, thin hand in mine and squeezed it, leading me gentle to where she’d hid that basswood map at the back of Abram’s shop, why…why, that was something special. Real special.

  Leeleh would be looked after while I was away. Besides Abram, Midwife Anna would look in on her for sure. Probably Mender Syrah and Ma, too, I guessed. That sow’s butt Potter Aizik, who’d become less of a sow’s butt once he and Leeleh married, he’d be there too, setting aside his potting while he tended her.

  But even though Woodsmith Abram could do nothing more than those fine folks could, we’d both feel better if he was watching.

  With child, they figured. Leeleh missed two moons, though she often missed those. But the morning before, Aizik found her puking all over the floor, and she’d been feeling poorly since. She worried, as we all did, how she’d do with a little one in the belly, given her feeble constitution. It was worry enough for her to have one child, let alone the five that mo
st folks hope for in their lifetime. Midwife Anna didn’t know how it’d go. She just said, “We’ll see”.

  So Abram would check on her. He had no business doing it, a dry, old bachelor woodsmith looking in on a ripe, young wife. That wasn’t done. But ever since he’d taken on a girl to apprentice, and a lapsed weaver at that, I guess Woodsmith Abram had gotten even less interested in what just wasn’t done. Surecreek needed him. He could walk right up to the edge of Wrong, stick his toes across it, and wiggle.

  I left our house without saying no more to Woodsmith Abram. I took nothing but the little staff Abram gave me on my thirteenth birthday, the clothes on my back, and a squall in my guts.

  Surecreek was a good-sized village. Big enough that there might have been other girls at the first October ripeness of their seventeenth year. But as with most things, I was out of step with everybody else. Boys don’t have to wait their moon of course, so the village Elders could have sent Apprentice Beekeep Atlee with me if they’d cared to. But they didn’t care to. So I went to Honeynock alone.

  Well, not alone. Me, two runners, a drover, a ewe, a sow, and a nanny goat. Same as we do today. We’d trade the stock in Market for breeding, a sort of crittery Honeynock. I suppose the village Elders would have preferred to trade me, too.

  We all met just inside the gate so early it felt wrong to call it morning. Runner Zeekl said to me, “The cart’s right ’ere, Deborah.” Just like that. No Apprentice nor Woodsmith, and certainly no Root. If he’d been anybody else, he would have intended it as a slight. But Runner Zeekl was a gentle man, by which I mean he was a little soft in the head. No doubt my whole situation left him a real confused, a weaver’s daughter apprenticing at man’s trade. So, from Zeekl, just plain Deborah would do.