Scarecrow

The first person to congratulate me that morning was Nessa.

She waited outside our door with her crutch planted in the dry part of the path and a small cloth bundle tucked beneath her arm.

“For Risa,” she said.

“What is it?”

“A present.”

“I gathered that.”

“Then why did you ask?”

Behind me, Luna laughed into her cup.

I stepped aside.

Nessa came in, carefully avoiding the place where water had dripped from my coat. She put the bundle on the bed beside Risa and waited while she opened it.

Inside was a little wooden bird.

One wing was longer than the other. A dark knot in the wood had become its eye.

“Dov helped,” Nessa said. “But I did the rubbing.”

Risa turned it in her hands.

“It’s lovely.”

“It’s for the baby. But you can have it until then.”

“That’s very generous.”

Nessa nodded, satisfied.

Then she looked at me.

“You should make a shelf.”

“We have shelves.”

“A small one.”

“For the bird?”

“For the baby’s things.”

She said it as if she had discovered an obvious fault in the room and was disappointed that none of us had noticed.

Sera looked at the drawing on the table.

“We’ll put it on the list.”

“Near the bed,” Nessa said. “So nobody has to get up if it wants something.”

After she’d gone, Risa held the bird against her palm and smiled down at it.

I had been thinking about storms, roofs, food, and everything we might need to keep a child alive.

Nessa had thought it might need something to look at.

I was glad one of us had.

I finished Sera’s treatment before going outside.

She stayed sitting while I put things away, watching Risa decide where the bird should stand until it had a shelf of its own.

“I’m going to need a larger piece of paper,” Sera said.

“For the house?”

“For everyone’s advice.”

Luna leaned over and kissed the top of her head.

“You can use the back.”

“Of which sheet?”

“All of them.”

It was still raining.

There was no surprise in that now. Only the small adjustments we had begun making without discussion. Boots left where they could drain. Dry cloth kept in a closed box. A hand on the door so the wind didn’t take it.

My leg was stiff again when I stood.

I gave it time.

Risa noticed and gave me time too.

That was one of the things I loved about her. She could make waiting feel like something we were doing together.

The common shelter smelled of warm food and damp coats.

Edan sat beside Toby with his bandaged arm resting on a folded cloth. Cass was still asleep behind the new screen. Tali had woken early and begun helping Priya until Priya made her sit down and eat the food she was trying to serve.

Milo’s breathing was easier than it had been when we’d brought him in. Jace had slept for several hours without waking from the pain in his feet.

Neither was well enough to stop needing care.

Both were here.

I found Holt at the table with a bowl balanced beside his weather book.

He had drawn a line across the lower part of the canyon map.

“Water?” I asked.

“Where it was at first light.”

I looked at the line.

Then at the one beneath it.

“That’s a lot.”

“Yes.”

“Is it still rising?”

“Ilse is checking.”

He turned the book so I could read the notes beside yesterday’s marks.

The rain falling on Scarecrow was only part of the problem. Water was coming down from places we couldn’t see, gathering in the canyon, bringing whatever the slopes had lost along with it.

A drain could carry rain off a roof.

It could not argue with a river.

“Upper paths?” I asked.

“Still clear. Lower approach closed until someone gives me a reason to change that.”

I nodded.

He watched me for a moment.

“You’ve got the face.”

“What face?”

“The one your father used to get before asking whether anyone had checked something unpleasant.”

I looked towards the passage entrance.

“Has the queen seen this?”

“Dot’s asking now.”

Ilse came back while I was eating.

She left her wet coat at the edge of the shelter and put two pebbles on the map.

“The old lower stair is gone under it,” she said. “The water is moving through the fallen terrace. There are trees in it.”

“Whole trees?” Luna asked.

“Enough of them.”

Holt moved his line.

Nobody said anything for a little while.

The fallen terrace was not where we slept now. It was not where the food was stored or where the children walked to the water point.

But I knew the shape of the canyon beneath it.

I knew there were openings in that stone.

The guide arrived with Dot before I finished the thought.

“The queen is moving people,” Dot said.

“Her young?” Risa asked.

“Young and those tending them. Two lower chambers are being cleared. The route between the upper chambers may close if the water continues rising.”

“Can they come through ours?” I asked.

Dot turned back to the guide.

Its reply was quick.

“Yes. There is an upper exit beyond the old work area. Reaching it would put them on the exposed path below our stores.”

Holt set down his spoon.

“Then we need that path.”

We did not have a mile of tunnels to defend.

We had one wet stretch of open ground, a narrow turn beside the old work area, and a route up to the shelters that had never been intended for something as large as the queen.

I said that last part aloud.

The guide waited while Dot translated.

“The queen has another way to higher ground,” Dot said. “She is asking about the carriers. Some of the young cannot use her route.”

“Then yes,” Luna said. “Tell her yes. We’ll make room.”

There was no speech after it.

Sera pulled the list of sleeping places towards her. Holt asked Ilse where the runoff crossed the exposed path. Old Son moved closer to the map with an empty carrying frame.

Priya looked at the pot in front of her, then at Dot.

“What do they eat?”

It was such an ordinary question that it made my throat tighten.

“They will bring what they need,” Dot said. “For now, dry space is more useful.”

Priya nodded.

“Then I’ll keep ours out of their way.”

Some people were frightened.

Of course they were.

When Luna explained that the queen’s brood might come through the upper camp, Brin stood so quickly that her bench scraped the floor.

“How many?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Through here?”

“Along the outer path, if we can keep it open. They may need shelter above it.”

Brin looked towards the screens where the newest people were sleeping.

“We only just got away from them.”

The words landed badly.

She heard it herself.

“I know they helped,” she said. “I was there. I know.”

Luna waited.

Brin rubbed both hands over her face.

“I don’t know how to sleep next to them.”

“You won’t have to learn that today,” Luna said. “We’ll mark a separate space. People who need to stay away from the route can stay in the inner shelters. Nobody is being asked to stand beside a carrier if they can’t.”

“And if one comes in?”

“We’ll have people at the crossings. Dot will be with the guide.”

Brin looked at me.

I wanted to offer a certainty large enough to cover her fear.

I didn’t have one.

“We’ll make it clear where everyone can go,” I said. “And we’ll stay there with them.”

She sat down slowly.

After a moment she asked where the clean cloth was kept.

Sera showed her.

Risa took the outer crossing.

I began to object before she had finished saying it.

She looked at me.

I closed my mouth.

“The dry end,” she said. “Beside the signal post. I can manage lamps and people from a chair if I need one. I am not proposing to stand in the river.”

“I know.”

“You looked as though you were about to explain rivers.”

Luna turned away suspiciously quickly.

“I was going to ask about the chair,” I said.

“Of course.”

Risa touched my wrist.

“I’ll be careful. You can be frightened without making it my job to stop existing.”

That deserved a better answer than a joke.

“I’ll try.”

“I know.”

She kissed me, briefly, then took the route page from Holt.

Sera caught my eye after she had gone.

“She’s allowed to be useful.”

“Yes.”

“So are you. Neither of those means doing everything.”

Luna put my stick in my hand.

“Come on. Let’s look at our bit.”

We went as far as the upper viewing shelf.

From there I could see the exposed path, the bend beside the old work area, and most of the ground between it and the lower edge of our stores.

Water crossed the path in three places.

Two were shallow runoff. The third came down a broken face of rock and struck the outside of the bend hard enough to throw spray above it.

Beyond that, the canyon was a moving brown shape.

A piece of timber turned slowly in the current, vanished, and came up again farther along.

Luna watched it go.

“We don’t put anyone below that turn,” she said.

“No.”

Dot’s hand moved beside the lamp.

“The guide says the upper exit is still open. The first carriers are waiting inside.”

I studied the rock around the bend.

The path had a sound inner edge. The outer lip was worn and undercut in places. Above it, the broken face channelled water directly into the route we needed.

I could give the runoff a different direction.

I couldn’t make the canyon stop rising.

“First we take the water off the bend,” I said. “Then we give the path an edge they can follow without going near the drop.”

“Can you see enough?” Luna asked.

“From here, yes. Past the opening, no.”

“Then we only promise this part.”

I nodded.

I made a short deflector in the exposed face above the path.

Ordinary stone. A shallow curve, joined into the sound surface where I could see it. The descending water struck it and spread towards the empty side of the slope.

Spray still reached the bend.

The hard stream no longer did.

Luna watched for a moment, then sent Liam down to the first marked stopping place. He stayed on the upper side, well clear of the wet edge.

He raised an arm.

Clear.

I widened the inside of the bend by taking a little from the visible face and shaping it into a rough, level margin. No deep cut. No attempt to guess what lay behind the wall.

Then I made a low outer ridge.

Not a wall to hold back the canyon.

Something a foot could find before reaching the drop.

When it was finished, I sat on the shelf and let the ache behind my eyes settle.

Luna crouched beside me.

“That looked easier.”

“It was.”

“How much easier?”

“I don’t have a number.”

“You usually invent one.”

“I’m becoming respectable.”

“That would be inconvenient.”

She looked back at the path.

I had done the work in less time than I’d expected. The separate pieces rested against one another in my understanding instead of pulling in different directions.

I could feel the difference.

I could also feel my heart still beating too fast because I wanted it to mean more than it did.

Luna put a hand against my cheek.

“Enough for this part,” she said.

“Yes.”

The first carriers emerged slowly.

I had expected the young to be carried as they had been in the chamber yesterday, one bundle at a time.

Some were.

Others travelled beneath the bodies of the adults, held among folded limbs in a way that made the whole creature seem to move on too few legs.

A small pale shape lifted itself far enough to look out.

Then it withdrew.

The carrier stopped at the beginning of the bend.

Liam stepped back to give it room.

The guide went ahead, tested the new edge, and signalled.

Only then did the carrier follow.

Luna let out a breath.

Behind it came another.

Then three together, pausing at the turn until the ones ahead had cleared it.

From the upper crossing, Risa showed a steady lamp.

No flash. No pattern we’d invented and hoped they would understand.

Just light at the place Dot and the guide had agreed would remain open.

I went back up before the next group arrived.

The path beneath my boots was wet but firm. My leg disliked the climb and told me about it at each longer step.

I shortened them.

At the crossing, Risa sat with the lamp on a hook beside her and a blanket over her knees.

“You look annoyed,” she said.

“I had to take small steps.”

“How humiliating.”

“Deeply.”

She held out a cup.

I drank and looked past her.

Sera had marked the inner path with cloth strips. People carrying food or water stayed on that side. The outer route ran towards a vacant patch above the stores, where Old Son and Benedikt were putting up a spare covering against the wind.

It was not much of a shelter.

It was more than the carriers had on the path.

Near the medical screens, Wren stood beside Toby while he checked a bundle of dressings.

She said something I couldn’t hear.

He looked at her, then put half the bundle down and handed the rest to Juno.

Wren kissed his cheek before going back to the records box.

Risa followed my gaze.

“He’s learning.”

“So am I.”

“Yes,” she said. “Occasionally at a reasonable speed.”

By midday, the rain had become heavy enough to hide the lower part of the path from the crossing.

The carriers kept coming.

Dot stayed near the guide, passing messages between the queen below and the people holding the route above. We learned that this was only one nursery group. Other young were moving through passages within the queen’s own territory.

We were not seeing her whole brood.

What we saw was enough to fill the ground beneath the spare covering.

The carriers arranged themselves around the young with their bodies towards the weather. Workers brought material from the exit and laid it beneath the smaller shapes.

I didn’t know what all of it was.

I didn’t ask them to stop so I could find out.

One worker approached the edge of our store shelter and waited there with an empty space between its forelimbs.

Priya looked at Dot.

“What does it need?”

Dot asked.

“A place to set something above the water.”

Dov pointed towards the stack of low stands beside him.

“Those aren’t being used.”

Ade carried one out.

The worker tested it with a careful pressure, then took it away.

A few minutes later, a pale woven bundle rested on the stand beneath the covering.

Dov watched from his chair.

“It’s going to bring it back, isn’t it?”

“I can ask,” Dot said.

“No rush.”

He began smoothing another piece of wood.

The first failure came at the turn.

Not the part I’d changed.

Above it, beyond the shallow deflector, a section of loose ground slid from the slope and struck the path in a spray of mud and stones.

I heard the impact from the crossing.

Then Liam’s shout.

“Hold!”

Risa lifted the second lamp onto its hook, the signal we’d agreed meant no more people were to enter the route.

The guide stopped the carriers above us.

I was on my feet before I remembered my stick.

Risa put it in my hand.

“Tell me what you see,” she said.

I went only as far as the viewing shelf.

Luna was already there.

Below us, Liam stood on the safe side of the bend with both arms raised. A carrier waited beyond the fallen material, close to the exit. Another was partway through the turn.

It had tucked its young beneath it.

One of its rear limbs was caught.

I couldn’t see beneath the mud.

I couldn’t see what held it.

The old urge arrived whole and immediate.

Move everything.

Make it all different before anything worse could happen.

I gripped my stick until my hand hurt.

“Lamp,” I said.

Luna moved it.

The light caught the wet face of a stone beside the trapped limb.

“There,” I said. “I can take that away from it. I need to know which way it can move.”

Dot’s hand reached the shelf a moment later.

We waited for the guide to reach the carrier.

It felt too long.

It probably took less than a minute.

The guide put one forelimb on the stone, then moved it sideways towards the wall. The carrier shifted its body in the opposite direction.

I could see the line of the trapped limb now.

A smaller rock had wedged against it beneath the larger one.

I changed the exposed face of the larger stone first, drawing it back from the pressure point without pushing anything deeper into the mud.

The guide moved closer.

The carrier shuddered.

“Wait,” Dot said.

I stopped.

The guide lifted one of the young away from beneath the carrier and passed it to the one waiting behind.

Then another.

The trapped adult stayed still while they did it.

I knew that kind of stillness.

I had seen it in people who were afraid that moving would make everyone else hurry.

When the young were clear, the guide touched the smaller stone.

I could see enough of it to lift it out.

I did.

The carrier pulled its limb free and folded it beneath its body.

Luna’s hand tightened on my shoulder.

“Clear.”

I let the stone settle on the empty side of the path.

The carrier could not use the freed limb properly.

That became clear when it tried to stand.

Two others came back along the upper route. They supported it between them, moving slowly through the bend while Liam stayed close enough to help if they wanted him.

He didn’t touch them without asking.

The guide kept pace beside the injured one.

Above us, the young waited beneath the spare covering.

When their carrier reached them, one pale shape came out far enough to press against its side.

I looked away before I knew why.

Luna stayed beside me.

“We got it out,” she said.

“I know.”

“Say it as if you know.”

I drew a breath.

“We got it out.”

The words helped a little.

Below, mud continued dripping from the fresh break in the slope.

The path was open again.

I did not trust it.

We closed it long enough for the guide to carry that warning below.

The queen’s answer came through Dot.

The remaining carriers could wait briefly. Water was still rising behind them. There was another internal route, but the queen’s workers had not finished making it passable.

“How briefly?” Luna asked.

Dot’s hand remained still.

“She cannot give us a measure we can rely on. She is watching the water.”

So were we.

Liam came up from the turn with mud across one side of his face.

“We need a roof over that bit.”

I looked at the slope.

“Not a heavy one resting on the outer edge.”

“Then don’t put it there.”

It was exactly the sort of answer I would have given him.

I almost smiled.

We studied the exposed face together.

There were sound shoulders of rock on either side of the turn, both visible from the shelf. Between them, a shallow cover could deflect more falling material towards the empty slope, provided we didn’t mistake it for something that could hold the whole hillside.

Luna looked at me.

“Can you make it?”

“Yes.”

“And keep enough to get home?”

I checked the ache behind my eyes before answering.

“Yes. If that’s the last large piece.”

“Then it is.”

Dot asked the queen about the lower support before I began.

The answer changed the shape I had been considering.

One of the shoulders I could see joined a thinner section below. It would carry downward weight better if I spread the contact along the face rather than loading the narrow point.

I could not see that lower section.

I did not alter it.

I changed the part that was in front of me, making a longer seat for the cover to rest against.

Then I built the arch in three sections, each shallow enough to keep in sight as it formed.

The first section settled into place.

My breathing grew louder.

The second met it above the inside of the turn.

Luna put the cup beside my knee without speaking.

I drank before making the third.

That was new too.

Not needing someone to argue me into it.

When the last section joined, I smoothed the upper surface into a slope and roughened the underside where falling droplets might gather and run.

A small scatter of mud slid from above.

It struck the cover, spread, and fell beyond the outer ridge.

I let my hands rest.

Liam looked down at the turn.

“That’ll do.”

“For loose material,” I said. “Not a large collapse.”

“I heard you.”

“Tell everyone who uses it.”

He nodded.

Then he went to tell them.

The next group came through beneath the new cover.

I watched every carrier cross.

The queen had sent workers ahead of the young this time. They examined the bend, cleared what they could, and left two of their own beneath the inside shoulder to watch the slope.

Liam stood at the upper end.

Different bodies.

The same job.

I wanted my mother to see that.

The thought arrived so unexpectedly that for a moment I couldn’t speak.

She had seen so much of what people could do to one another. She had been made to do some of it herself.

I wanted to write that there was a place where her son had sat beside a Teeming guide and argued about the safest shape for a roof.

I wanted to know whether she would laugh.

Luna touched my wrist.

“What is it?”

“Something for the next letter.”

She looked at the path, then back at me.

“Remember it.”

“I will.”

Sera brought food to the crossing in the late afternoon.

Not because Priya had run out of people who could carry it.

Because Sera wanted to see us.

She set the bowls down and put a hand on Risa’s shoulder before sitting beside me.

“How much left?” she asked.

“In me or below?”

“Both.”

“Enough to eat. Dot’s asking about below.”

Sera studied my face, then accepted the answer.

Risa shifted her blanket so it covered Sera’s knees as well.

For a few minutes, we ate while carriers passed along the outer path.

One of them paused near the lamp.

A young one had pushed itself out from beneath the adult far enough to look towards us.

Its plates were pale and soft-looking, though I didn’t know whether they were soft at all. Small limbs folded and unfolded against the carrier’s side.

Risa raised her hand slowly.

The little shape withdrew.

Then it appeared again.

Sera smiled into her bowl.

“Very dignified.”

“I’ve frightened it.”

“I think it’s deciding whether you’re interesting.”

The carrier moved on.

Risa watched it go with her hand resting against her middle.

I didn’t say anything.

Sera leaned her shoulder against mine.

The rain kept falling beyond the covering.

The queen asked to speak to us before the last group came through.

Dot brought the message to the crossing rather than asking us to go below.

“She knows about the injured carrier,” Dot said. “She knows its young reached the upper shelter.”

“Can her people help the limb?” I asked.

“They are caring for it now.”

“Tell her I couldn’t see enough to do more.”

Dot paused.

Then passed the words.

The queen’s reply came back through the guide after a short wait.

“She did not ask why you had not done more. She is thanking you for what you did.”

Risa looked at me over her bowl.

I had no useful defence.

“Tell her we’re glad they’re here,” I said.

Dot’s lights shifted.

“She says the same.”

For a moment I thought she meant the young beneath the covering.

Then Dot looked towards the people moving behind us, carrying food and blankets through the inner shelter.

All of us.

I understood.

Holt came to the crossing before evening.

He came slowly, with Ade beside him and his own support planted firmly at each step. Nobody pretended the journey had been effortless.

When he reached us, he lowered himself onto the waiting chair and looked along the outer route.

“Well,” he said.

Risa handed him a cup.

“That is a remarkably short report for you.”

“I’m still gathering evidence.”

He watched the carriers for a while.

One worker approached the edge of the shelter and waited beside the spare stands. Dov wasn’t there now, but Priya saw it and called for Ade.

Another stand went out.

Holt’s mouth moved slightly.

“Your father once spent half a day fixing a gate for a man who’d threatened to shoot him the week before.”

“Why?” I asked.

“The man’s sheep kept getting out.”

“That can’t be the whole reason.”

“It was the reason he gave me.”

Holt took a drink.

“Sometimes you find out what someone means by watching what they mend.”

He said nothing more about my father.

I didn’t ask him to.

After a while, he unfolded the map on his knees and made me show him exactly which part of the path was still trustworthy.

The last carriers reached the upper shelter as the light began to fail.

Dot counted the groups with the guide, checked the count again, and told us that every young one assigned to this route had reached the waiting ground.

We did not invent a human number from a pattern she wasn’t certain she understood.

Complete was enough.

Liam came up last with Corr and the two workers who had watched the bend.

Luna closed the human route below the crossing.

A worker remained at the entrance long enough to pass the change back to the queen. Then it joined the others above.

The queen was on higher ground within her own chambers.

We had not needed to bring her through a doorway made for people.

I had never been so grateful for a problem we hadn’t had to solve.

By then, we were tired enough to become stupid if we didn’t stop.

Sera said it more politely.

Risa did not.

“You’re staring at a knot in that post,” she told me.

“It’s an interesting knot.”

“Come and be interested in a pillow.”

Luna had already arranged the next watch. Ilse took the crossing with Dot. The guide stayed near the young. Wren carried the day’s notes back to the dry records box.

Toby checked on the people who had spent the day outside and then let someone else bring him food.

Liam went to find Anja.

I saw her reach for his sleeve before he had finished explaining the mud.

She pulled him down far enough to kiss him.

He stopped explaining.

Holt made a pleased, irritated noise beside me.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. Help me with this map.”

We were almost back at our room when Dot called us.

Not loudly.

That made me turn faster.

One of her hands waited beneath the shelter edge. Water dripped from it onto the path.

“The queen has a new report,” she said.

Luna stopped beside me.

“The water?”

“Yes.”

I looked towards the dark canyon.

We could no longer see the current from here. We could hear it. A deeper sound beneath the rain, with occasional blows when something large struck stone below.

“A channel farther down has become obstructed,” Dot said. “Her workers cannot reach the whole obstruction. Water is backing into the lower approaches.”

“How far from the high chambers?” Risa asked.

“Not there yet. She is moving people again.”

The day’s work returned to me all at once.

The groove. The turn. The arch. Each small place we had made usable while the larger shape of the canyon kept changing around us.

“Can she bring them up?” Luna asked.

“Some. Not all by this route. She is asking neighbouring queens about other passages.”

“Tell her the upper shelter stays open,” Sera said.

Dot acknowledged it.

I looked at my hands.

They were steady.

That did not mean they were ready to do everything I was imagining.

Risa stepped closer.

“What can we do tonight?” she asked.

The question held me where I was.

Not what could I become.

Not what a planetary queen might once have done.

What could we do tonight?

“Move the last of the supplies away from the outer store,” I said. “Leave more ground clear above it. Have someone watch the water marks from the high shelf. No one goes down to the bend.”

Luna nodded.

“I’ll arrange it.”

“I’ll help with the stores,” Sera said. “Light things. Before you both start.”

Risa looked at Dot.

“And ask what kind of room they need. Height, width, wind cover. We can make the right space if we know.”

Dot turned towards the passage.

I stayed standing for a moment after the others moved.

Then I followed them.

There was work I could do without changing a mountain.

We cleared the store before sleeping.

I carried labels and small containers between chairs while other people moved the heavier loads. Old Son took the stacked frames. Tali and Brin sorted dry coverings. Jonas checked that nothing had been put directly against a wet wall.

Sera changed the plan twice after Dot brought the queen’s answers.

The carriers needed room to turn without lifting the young into the wind. A low screen along one edge would help more than another high roof.

We used the spare coverings for that.

By the time we finished, the new space was plain, awkward, and useful.

I had wanted to build something permanent.

Tonight, useful had to be enough.

Before we left, a worker came from the nursery shelter and placed a small object beside the empty stands.

A broken fastening from one of their loads.

It waited until Ade saw it, then touched the repaired lamp in the guide’s grasp.

Another thing to mend.

Ade picked it up.

“We’ll look in the morning,” he said.

Dot passed the answer.

The worker accepted it and went back to its young.

Risa put the wooden bird on the window ledge when we finally came inside.

Sera drew a small shelf on the house plan beneath it.

Luna watched, then moved one of the cups to keep the paper from curling.

I sat on the bed and eased my leg straight.

The pull in my thigh was familiar. The ache behind my eyes was fading. I was stronger than I had been, and the canyon was still larger than anything I could understand from one wet shelf.

Both things were true.

Risa sat beside me.

“Do you think she’ll be all right?” she asked.

“The queen?”

She nodded.

“I don’t know.”

Risa rested her head on my shoulder.

“Neither do I.”

Luna came to sit on my other side. Sera finished the line she was drawing and joined us.

We stayed together until the room warmed around us.

Below, our ally was finding higher ground for her people.

Above, we had left a place ready for them.

Day 546. The canyon front.

River rising through the lower terraces. Lower human approach closed. Queen evacuated a nursery group through the upper exit and our outer path. All young assigned to that route reached the waiting shelter. One carrier injured by falling material. Freed its limb where I could see; brood caring for it.

Diverted runoff at the bend. Widened the visible inner margin. Built a shallow protective arch between sound shoulders. Loose material only. Does not make the slope safe against a larger fall.

Power steadier. Better distribution. Still tired. Accepted the end of the work before someone had to make it an argument.

Risa held the crossing. Sera kept the camp moving. Luna and Liam held the path. Many others did the things that made those jobs possible.

Queen on higher ground. New obstruction downstream. Water backing into lower approaches. She is asking neighbours for passage. More shelter cleared above our stores. Watch from the high shelf only.

Sixty-four people at Scarecrow. No new human arrivals today. More of our neighbours sleeping beside us.

Nessa made the baby a bird.

Sera has drawn it a shelf.