Scarecrow

On the twenty-second day, Okafor stopped writing on the slate.

She’d written on it every morning since ROOT. ISTER. AVALON. Lists. Names. Numbers of stations and walls and walking engines and ships. Rubbed out at night and written again in the morning, longer, in smaller and smaller chalk.

On the twenty-second morning she came into the kitchen, and picked up the chalk, and stood in front of the slate for a long time.

Then she put the chalk down.

”It’s done,” said Okafor.

Mother looked at her from the stove.

”All of it?”

”All of it that can be,” said Okafor. ”The rest is just waiting.”

She sat down at the long table. Mother put a cup in front of her. Okafor drank it.

Then she slept, in the chair, at the head of the long table, with her chin on her chest, for nine hours. Nobody woke her. Holt sat on the bench by the door the whole time with his cap on his knee, in case anyone tried.

I’ll write where everyone is. Because that’s what this chapter’s for, and because when it’s over, someone should know where everyone stood.

Root’s in the middle. Between us and Ister, in the same path round the sun. Very big, very green, low in the east before dawn, with its three moons and the threads in its sky that run from the ground to the moons and shine in the daylight if you know how to look.

Nine Aldri stations round Root. Nine round Avalon. Nine round Ister. Twenty-seven. Each one a city, silver, turning, with guns that can break a swarm in one shot. Halvane’s people built nine more over the winter, without being asked, and brought them into our sky one at a time, very slowly, through Ister’s engine. Halvane says they’re the last thing his people know how to build that matters.

Hearth’s nine stations, in their ring, round Avalon, as they’ve always been. With Tiamat in the ninth.

The Meridian. Ruan on her bridge. The spine-queen laid along her middle. Ilka in her room with the map and the Aldri ears, listening. She sits over Root now, high, where she can hear in every direction.

Every ship we have. The Ground, with the heavy queen. The Harness, the Long Legs, the Steady, the Open Hand. Every Aldri ship. Every Hearth ship. Aune at the front of four thousand fighters, with Risa’s wing beside them.

The ground.

That’s the Standing. Nine hundred thousand, in the suits. Okafor split them in three, the way the worlds are. A third on Avalon, on every plain where the cities are, with the wall planted round each one and the hollows underneath. A third on Ister, under its gold sky, in the squares. A third on Root.

On Root, on the green plains below the eldest’s plateau, where the threads come down out of the sky and go into the ground. Varra in front. The Kasrai first, of course. And behind them, in borrowed suits, three hundred of the unfinished ones from our north field. Nobody in them but themselves. Standing in the line with everyone else.

The walking engines on Root too. Every one Odra’s people could bring from Hyrran’s ridges, and the forty new ones, struck three short and one long. They stand on Root’s plains like hills that breathe. Odra came through the arch to see them in place. She walked down the line of them, very slowly, with her hammer on her shoulder, and struck each one on the leg as she passed. Three short. One long.

The Hyrrani. Every one who can hold iron. Kyria with her first blade. Teshka. On Root, at the foot of the plateau. Andraste would be with them. She isn’t. She’s with us.

And the queens.

Every queen on Avalon is still on Avalon. Under the cities. Under the hollows. Under the hall below the house on the rise, where the long stair goes down and the red stone glows and the grove grows under the shaft of light. The heavy queen. The coral queen in her water. The ash queen. Every one of them, and every brood on every ledge.

That surprised me. I’d thought Okafor would send them to Root, where their mother is. I asked.

”They asked to stay,” said Okafor. ”For now.”

”Why?”

Okafor looked at the slate. At the line she drew round the three.

”Ask them,” she said.

I asked the Scarecrow queen.

At the garden wall. On the twenty-fourth evening. With her head on the stones and her young round her and the light going.

We are waiting, she said.

For what?

For it to come, said the queen. We will not leave our worlds empty before it does. The children sleep over us. The old sit on our steps. She lifted her head, very slightly, toward the east, where Root was rising. When it comes, we will know where it is going. All of it. Every arm.

A pause.

And then we will go to her, said the queen. Every one of us who can move. And every one of our young.

I didn’t say anything for a long time.

”All of you,” I said. ”Leaving Avalon.”

Avalon will have you, said the queen. All of you. The Standing and the walls and the old women at every arch. She put her head back down on the stones. Our mother will have us.

She was quiet.

She has been alone at the edge of everything for longer than there have been days, said the queen. Holding false roads. Singing to all of us, every one, when none of us could hear. The ground under the garden wall trembled, very slightly. She will not be alone when it comes. Not this time.

I told Okafor. She nodded. As if she’d known. She probably had.

She went to the slate and, under ROOT, very small, wrote: Queens: when it comes.

That’s the only thing she wrote on it after the twenty-second day.

The arches.

Every one, on every world in the Hedge, and every one cut between the three. Kyria’s cutters have been cutting for twenty days. There are arches now from every city on Avalon to Root’s plains, and from Root’s plains to every square on Ister, and from the red glass to all of it. So that anyone can be anywhere in a breath.

A smith at every one. With a hammer. Odra’s people and Ossel’s people and Teel’s family, three short and one long.

And a grandmother.

Mother placed them. All of them. From the long table, with Abena and Ingrid and Maura and a list.

Abbe on the arch from the rain valley to Root, with a cup, because she’s poured the first cup for every one who went through that arch since Sedge, and isn’t stopping. Eska on the forest city’s. Ouse on the coast. Tey on the Marrah city’s. Merrit on the Hill’s. Ilas, who’s a hundred and ninety, on the one in the courtyard of the house on the rise, through Rory’s door, because she said it was the only one she could walk to and she’d like to be of use.

Nan Vey on the red glass. With an iron. She says if anyone’s going to go out and fight the thing that eats worlds, they’re going to do it in a pressed shirt.

Sefa on the arch by the garden wall. Twisting her hair.

Three hundred grandmothers on three hundred arches. And more. Every Hedge world sent its own. The Caddi grandmothers came up out of the salt with their lamps. The washing grandmothers of Tiel came, with their baskets, and stood at their arches with their washing folded beside them, in case.

And the rest of us.

Holt first. Of course.

On Root. At the very edge of the green, on the far side of the plains, where the body will come over the edge of the sky first if it comes at Root. With his cap off. Standing very straight, with his hands behind his back, the way he stood on the wall at Scarecrow a long time ago.

Crane put him on the board. The new board, the biggest he’s made, in his room at the end of the line, with a marker for every station and ship and company and engine and queen.

Holt, at the very front, very small.

Crane hasn’t slept in three days. He says he’ll sleep when the marker comes back.

My wives. Dinraal and Isolde. Me. On Root. On the eldest’s plateau, where the green ground goes up very high over the plains and the threads come down thickest.

Not on the walls. Not at the front. Okafor put us in the middle. At the eldest’s side. Because, she said, the body’s going to come at her from everywhere at once, and she wants the one thing on any world that can go anywhere, fast, standing next to the thing it’s coming for.

”You’re not a wall,” said Okafor. ”You’re what goes where the wall breaks.”

Dory on the plateau too. Beside the eldest. With the net.

She asked for her. The eldest did. Stand beside me, child, and hold the rest. So Dory will. Every ship. Every station. Every company of the Standing and every walking engine and every queen and every grandmother on every arch. All of them, at once, on the net, so that each one knows where the others are.

So nobody is alone in it.

Risa at her back. That’s the rule.

And Mother.

I’ll write about Mother properly, because she’d want it right.

She isn’t on an arch.

She placed three hundred grandmothers on three hundred arches, and she didn’t put herself on any of them.

”I lift,” said Mother. At the long table. When Ingrid asked where she’d be. ”Lifting’s no good at an arch. Lifting’s good where things fall.”

She’s on the plateau. With Dory. With the Mom Squad round her: Maura, Kyria for the first hour before she goes down to the Hyrrani, Teshka, Rhiannon, Tiamat when she isn’t in the ninth station, Cleopatra with her field, Asha, Eve. Isolde, who’s in the Mom Squad now and won’t hear otherwise.

With her teapot.

Dory asked her to bring it. Because the eldest asked Dory to bring it. Nobody’s said why.

Ingrid isn’t on the plateau. She asked to be in the air. Over Avalon. Over the cities. Where the hollows are, and the children in them.

”I’ve never once been in time,” said Ingrid. To Mother. ”Not at the ford. Not for my own children. Not on the turf-roof world.” She turned the silver-grey ribbon on her wrist. ”This time I’m going to be there before it’s needed. Over the hollows. Over the children. Before anything comes.”

Mother looked at her for a long time.

”Yes,” said Mother.

Konrad will be on the step. With the sheet. Counting. He told Ingrid so on the boat.

Who stays.

The children. All of them who aren’t grown.

In the hollows. Under the house on the rise, in the hall where the queens are, the deepest one Kwame Osei ever dug. Kwame Osei went down with them. Abena Osei too. And old Efua, who says if anything comes down that stair it’s going to get shouted at.

And the General. On the bottom step of the long stair, in his old uniform with every medal, very straight, with his hands behind his back. Trevor sat with him the first night. Very straight, with his hands behind his back.

Small Sigmund wanted to go to Root. He’s thirteen and lifts anything. Risa said no. He went to Dory. Dory said no. He went to the General. The General looked at him for a long time and said: somebody has to stand at the bottom of the stair with me, son. Small Sigmund stands at the bottom of the stair with him now.

Lio. Kesh. Oona.

In the courtyard. Every morning. Making the warm rain, the way Dory asked. So everyone who comes home has somewhere warm to stand.

Oona didn’t want Mother to go.

I’ll write it the way it happened. On the porch. On the twenty-ninth evening. At the turn.

Mother lifted the porch, the way she does at dusk. A finger’s width. And Oona, beside her, in her coat, lifted the step.

Then Mother put it down. And knelt in front of Oona. Which she doesn’t, much; her knees.

”Tomorrow I’m going to Root,” said Mother. ”To the plateau. With Dory and your brother and everyone.”

Oona held her coat hem.

”I want to come,” said Oona. ”I lift. Like you.”

”I know you do, love.”

”You said lifting’s good where things fall,” said Oona. Very fiercely. ”Things are going to fall.”

Mother didn’t say anything for a long time.

”Yes,” she said. ”They are.” She put her hand on Oona’s hair. Standing up, under her palm, like a storm coming. ”So I need someone here who lifts. Who can hold the porch up at the turn every evening, so when I look down from Root at dusk, I’ll know where home is.”

Oona looked at her.

”Every evening,” said Mother. ”At the turn. Till I’m back. Will you?”

Oona’s lip went.

Then she held out her hand. Flat. Palm down. Over the step.

And lifted it. On her own. A finger’s width.

”Yes,” said Oona.

Corin and Tiri.

Aune’s at the front. Four thousand fighters, with Risa’s wing on her left. She came up the hill on the last evening in her long grey flight robe to say goodbye to Tiri, and Ilas, and to sit for a while on the porch.

Tiri didn’t cry. She held her mother for a long time on the top step. Then she went and sat in the courtyard beside Corin, who was doing his forms in the dusk, very carefully, without stopping, and didn’t say anything.

When Aune had gone down the hill, Corin put his practice sword down. And sat beside Tiri on the step. And hummed.

He’s going to hum the whole time. He told me. Every hour. Until Aune comes back.

Kyria, at the courtyard wall, took the grey ribbon out of her pocket. And didn’t tie anything. She just held it.

Genny and Callum.

Genny’s very round. Halloway says days now, not weeks. She’ll be in the long ward with Halloway and the Aldri doctor, and Abena, Hana’s eldest girl, who breathes for people now the way her mother does, with Halloway’s hand on her wrist.

Callum will be in the sky over Avalon. Not at the front. Mother said. Over the long ward. In the first patrol, and the later ones, and every one after that, with Rowan calling the turns.

Garnet in the long ward beside Genny. With her board. She says she’s going to draw the baby the minute it comes, whatever’s happening in the sky, and nobody’s to stop her.

Halvane on Ister.

Alone. Not alone; with nine stations round it and a third of the Standing in its squares. But Halvane’s place is on Ister. He says so. He says the Aldri moved their world seven times to save it and he isn’t leaving it now that it’s somewhere worth staying.

He came to the red glass on the last evening, very tall, in his robe. And stood in front of Mother.

He took out the cup she gave him. And held it out.

Mother poured.

He poured it out on the red glass. Slowly. All of it. For his nine thousand. And the thirteen. And everyone who’s going.

Then she poured the second.

”From Ister,” said Halvane. When he’d drunk it. ”Good morning.”

”It’s evening,” said Mother.

”I know,” said Halvane. ”I wanted to say it while I could.”

Dinraal said goodbye to his sons at the top of the long stair.

I saw it. I was coming up. He knelt on the top step in his armour, with the First Weapon very small at his heel, and Ithel and Bahamut in front of him in their nightclothes. Bahamut’s silver hair sticking up the way his does.

He didn’t say much. Dinraal doesn’t.

He put his hand on Bahamut’s chest. Then on Ithel’s.

”Warm,” said Ithel. Before Dinraal could. The word he said the night his brother was born.

Dinraal looked at him for a long time.

Then he said the thing he says between their beds every night. The thing nobody ever said between his. Out loud. In Hearth’s language. Isolde was behind him; she heard. She still won’t tell me what it is.

Then he stood up, and his armour closed, and he went down the hill to the red glass without looking back. Isolde followed. She looked back. Once.

Okafor at the long table.

She’ll run it from there. The way she always has. With the slate and the chalk and the map room through the door with Tiamat’s wall and Halvane’s light and Ilka’s voice on the silver from the Meridian. She’s never once run a fight from anywhere but that table, and she isn’t starting.

Holt asked her if she wanted to be somewhere she could see it.

”I’ll see it,” said Okafor. ”Through Dory. Through all of them.” She put her hand flat on the long table. ”And this is where they’ll come home to. Someone should be sitting here when they do.”

Wren’s on the step beside Konrad. Counting. She’ll count everyone. All the way through. The way she counted the forty frames on One and the twelve hills on Ostry. She doesn’t stop for anything.

The final briefing was at the long table. On the twenty-eighth night. Everyone who’d lead anything.

I’ll put it short. It was long.

Okafor stood at the head of the table. Not with the chalk. With nothing in her hands.

”It’s coming at three worlds,” she said. ”It doesn’t know which it wants most. We do. It wants her.” She didn’t look east. She didn’t need to. ”So it’ll come at Avalon and Ister to get to Root. Or it’ll go round them. Or it’ll come at all three at once. I don’t know which. Nobody does.”

She looked down the table.

”It doesn’t matter,” said Okafor. ”Wherever it comes, Dory feels it. Dory tells all of you. And whoever’s nearest goes. Not whoever’s strongest. Whoever’s nearest.” She put her hands flat on the wood. ”Nobody stands on their own. Not one ship. Not one wall. Not one grandmother at one arch. If anything comes at anyone, everyone near them knows in the same breath, and comes.”

”And the Sorn,” said the General. Very stiffly. ”Behind it.”

”The Sorn want what’s left,” said Okafor. ”So we don’t leave anything.” She looked at Halvane. At Tiamat. At Kyria and Varra and Aune and Andraste. ”When the body’s done, if it’s ever done, they’ll come in. Finished grey ones, all the way down. I don’t know how many.” She was quiet. ”That’s tomorrow’s fight. Or the day after’s. We’ll have it when we have it.”

She looked at Mother. At the far end of the table, with the teapot.

”Anything, Dot?”

Mother poured. Into everyone’s cup. All the way round the long table. It took a long time. Nobody spoke.

Then she put the pot down.

”Come home,” said Mother. ”That’s all. Everyone. Come home.”

The Overseer went to the red glass on the last night.

With the dog. He stood at the arch to Root, beside Nan Vey and her iron, and looked through it at the green plains and the walking engines and the Standing in their lines.

Holt found him there.

”You don’t have to go,” said Holt.

”I know,” said the Overseer. He scratched the dog’s ear. ”I have nothing to fight with. I never did. I was only ever a man in a room who watched.” He looked through the arch. ”But I’m Sorn. And the Sorn are coming behind it. And when they come, someone should be there who knows how they think.”

Holt looked at him.

”Then stand with me,” said Holt. ”At the front. With your cap off.”

”I don’t have a cap,” said the Overseer.

Holt took his own off. And put it on the Overseer’s head.

The Overseer stood very still.

”There,” said Holt. ”Now you do. Take it off when it comes. That’s the whole of it.”

Tavvan went to Root with Ossel and Teel and the Kiln smiths. To the walking engines, where the smiths would be. Tavvan doesn’t fight. He said someone had to listen to the breathing, in case any of the grey ones that came behind the body were just under after all, and someone who’d swept a hall for forty years should be nearest.

Ferrin’s three went too. The walker, with his aunt. Wend, with Aske. Ouse’s grandson, without Ouse, who’s on the coast arch. Nobody asked them to. They came to the red glass on the last morning, the three of them, and stood in front of Okafor.

The walker said something through his nose. Long and low.

”He says,” said Dot, ”Ferrin walked out onto the spoke for them. They’re walking out for her.”

My wives and I went down to the hall on the last evening. To the heap.

We didn’t wake them. We stood at the edge of the blankets, the six of us, and looked. Dory isn’t in the heap now; she’s grown. But the rest of mine were, and Lio, and Oona, who’d come down from the porch after the turn and crawled in between Kesh and Lio without waking either.

Luna knelt and put her cold hand on Trevor’s forehead, and on Elin’s. Sera put hers on Ash’s, and on Goldie’s, very warm. Risa on Kesh’s, and on the blanket where small Sigmund usually sleeps, because he was on the stair. Hana on Kwame’s, Efua’s, Abena’s, and breathed, very gently, for all three.

Andraste on Corin’s, and Thessaly’s, and Vessa’s.

Vessa opened her eyes.

She doesn’t turn for the Ashen any more. She hasn’t for two years. She looked up at her mother kneeling over her in the red light of the hall.

And turned.

Not out. Not sideways. East.

Toward Root.

Andraste went very still.

”I know, little one,” said Andraste. Very quietly. ”I know.”

Vessa closed her eyes again.

Ione wanted to go with Ingrid.

She didn’t say so. She doesn’t say much. But on the last evening she stood beside Ingrid on the porch, very close, the way she stood on the train the first time, looking at the sky.

Ingrid knelt down.

”I’ll be up there,” said Ingrid. Pointing. Over the town. Over the hall. ”The whole time. Right over you.”

Ione looked up.

”Does the sky go on?” said Ione. Very quietly. ”Past where you’ll be?”

”Yes,” said Ingrid.

”Past where it’ll be?”

Ingrid didn’t answer straight away.

”Yes,” she said. ”Past everything. Past the end of every line there is.”

Ione thought about it.

”Good,” she said. And went down to the hall.

Konrad, on the step with the sheet, didn’t look up. But he wrote something in the margin. Very small. Ingrid showed me afterward.

Ione asked again. It still does.

That’s everyone.

Not everyone. A billion and a third people on Avalon. Ister’s millions. The Hedge. I can’t write them all.

But that’s where everyone I can write is standing.

Dory went to Root a day early.

The eldest asked her to. Come and stand here before it comes, she said, so the ground knows your feet. So Dory went through the arch on the twenty-ninth morning with Risa, and Mother’s teapot, which Mother sent ahead with her, full, wrapped in a cloth, and stood on the plateau over Root’s green plains, with the threads coming down out of the sky all round her and going into the ground.

She stood there all day. She didn’t do anything. Risa says she just stood, with Dusk off, looking at nothing with her black eyes. Feeling where everything was.

At dusk, the eldest spoke to her.

Risa heard it. Everyone on the plateau did. Mother heard it too, through the ground, on the porch on Avalon, and told me.

Do you know why I asked for the teapot, child?

”No,” said Dory.

Because when this is over, said the eldest, however it ends, the first thing anyone on this plateau will want is to sit down. And someone should pour.

Dory didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then she laughed. Very quietly. On the plateau of the first queen who ever lived, with the threads shining in the dusk and the Standing in their lines on the plains below.

Risa poured her a cup. From Mother’s teapot. Badly; Risa’s never poured anything in her life without spilling it.

Dory poured the first one out on the green ground. For everyone who’d ever stood where she was standing and been alone.

Thank you, said the eldest.

Risa went to the wing on the last evening. To the north field, where the interceptors were, and Aune’s fighters beside them, silver, a hand’s width off the grass.

Aune was there. In her flight robe. Checking every fighter, one at a time, with her long hand flat on each.

Risa stood beside her for a while. Not saying anything.

”I’ll be on your left,” said Risa. In the end.

”I know,” said Aune.

”Your fighters know where my lightning’s going,” said Risa. ”Before I do. You said.”

”Yes.”

”Then don’t let any of them be under it,” said Risa. ”I don’t want to have to tell your daughter.”

Aune looked at her for a long time. Her shimmer was very steady.

”And you,” said Aune, ”don’t go anywhere I can’t see you. Tiri says your husband’s not allowed to now. She says it’s a rule in your house.”

Risa laughed. Out loud. On the north field.

”It is,” she said.

The last night, Mother said the names.

On her step. For the last time before Root. With everyone who was still on the hill.

Father’s first. Then everyone’s. The whole of it. It took a long time. Nobody moved.

At the end, after the nine Marrah and Oona’s three and Lio’s mother and father and Tiel’s six hundred and forty and Crane’s thirteen, she didn’t say Root this time. She’d said it every night for thirty days.

She said: ”Everyone.”

And Oona, in her coat, said: ”Goodnight, love.”

I didn’t sleep.

I went down to the hall under the house, very late. Down the long stair, past the General on the bottom step, who nodded, and small Sigmund beside him, asleep sitting up.

The children were in the hall. Asleep. Hundreds of them, from every street on the hill, in Kwame’s deepest hollow, on blankets, with the red stone glowing and the queens on their ledges all round, humming very low. The heap, all of mine, in the middle. Lio with her pebble. Kesh with her cloud gone very small. Bahamut with his silver hair sticking up, and Ithel holding his hand. Ione. Tiri beside Corin.

Corin was humming in his sleep. Two notes.

I stood at the bottom of the stair and looked at them for a long time.

Then the heavy queen, on her ledge, lifted her great head. And looked at me.

When it comes, said the heavy queen. Very low. We go to her.

”I know.”

The young too, she said. All of ours. They will not stay here. They have never been apart from us. She looked at the sleeping children, the human ones, on the floor of her hall. These ones will be here. With the old man on the stair and the boy who lifts.

”Yes.”

Then we will see you on Root, said the heavy queen. World-breaker.

She’s never called me that. Nobody but the houses ever has.

She said it like a name.

Dawn. The thirtieth day.

Everyone was through the arches by then but me and Mother. She’d said the names, and slept two hours in the porch chair, and woken before the light and made tea, and we were standing at the top of the steps with our cups, the way we have every morning of my life, about to walk down the hill to the red glass.

Oona was on her step. Awake. In her coat. With her hand on Mother’s hem.

I was on the porch with the cup when Tiamat’s voice came through the silver. From the ninth station. Very level. The way it always is.

”It’s here,” said Tiamat.

I looked up.

In the dark at the edge of the sky, past everything, past where any of our stations were, there was a place where the stars were going out.

Not all at once. One at a time. Slowly. Across a part of the sky as wide as my hand at arm’s length. Then two hands. Then more. The way stars go out behind a cloud.

Only it wasn’t a cloud.

Mother put her cup down on the rail.

She bent down. And kissed Oona on the top of the head, where her hair stands up. And took Oona’s hand off her hem, very gently, and closed it, and put it on the step.

”At the turn,” said Mother. ”Every evening.”

”Every evening,” said Oona.

Mother picked up the teapot. Not hers; that’s on Root. The small iron one Ash made for Oona, with no chip in it. Oona held it out to her without being asked.

Then Mother took my arm.

”Well,” she said. ”Walk me down, then.”

So I walked her down. Down the steps, and through the garden, past the wall where the Scarecrow queen’s head was already up, and down the hill to the red glass, the way I’ve walked her down to market a thousand times. Not fast. She doesn’t like to be hurried and I’ve never once managed it.

Nan Vey was at the arch with her iron. She looked at Mother’s coat, and at the teapot, and nodded the way grandmothers nod at each other, which is a whole conversation I’m not let in on.

Behind us, at the top of the hill, a small girl in a coat was sitting on the porch step with her hands flat on the boards. Not lifting yet. Just ready.

Under the garden wall, the Scarecrow queen lifted her head.

Under the house, in the hall, every queen on every ledge lifted hers.

Under every city on Avalon, under the plains and the mountains and the sea, I felt them all, every one, at the same moment, stand up.

Days 7013–7042. In Place.

On the twenty-second day Okafor put the chalk down: it’s done; the rest is waiting; she slept nine hours in the chair and Holt guarded her. Root between us and Ister; twenty-seven Aldri stations; Hearth’s nine; the Meridian over Root; Aune and four thousand fighters; the Standing in thirds; Varra on Root’s plains with three hundred of the unfinished in borrowed suits; Odra struck every walking engine on the leg. The queens stay till it comes, and then every one who can move goes to her with every one of her young. Three hundred grandmothers on three hundred arches; Nan Vey with an iron; the Tiel grandmothers with their washing folded. Holt at the edge of Root’s green with his cap off. Us on the plateau: you’re what goes where the wall breaks. Dory with the net, Risa at her back, Mother with the teapot: lifting’s good where things fall. Ingrid over the hollows: this time I’ll be there before it’s needed. The children in the hall; the General and small Sigmund at the bottom of the stair. Oona: things are going to fall; Mother: hold the porch at the turn so I know where home is. Corin will hum. Halvane: good morning, while I could. Okafor at the long table: someone should be sitting here when they come home. The briefing: whoever’s nearest goes; nobody stands on their own. Mother: come home. Holt put his cap on the Overseer’s head. Ferrin’s three walked out for her. Vessa turned east. Ione: does the sky go on, past where it’ll be? Yes. Dory went to Root a day early, so the ground would know her feet; the eldest asked for the teapot, because someone should pour; Risa poured, badly. Risa and Aune on the north field: don’t let any of them be under it; don’t go anywhere I can’t see you, it’s a rule in your house. Mother said: everyone. The heavy queen: we will see you on Root, world-breaker, like a name. Dawn: it’s here. The stars going out. Every queen on Avalon stood up.