Scarecrow

Aune took me to Ister before she’d let anyone set a date.

“There’s someone you should meet first,” she said. On the porch. The morning after. “It’s only right.”

We went through the arch. Just the two of us, and Tiri, who’d asked to come. Through the deepest city, past the squares and the engine room, down a long stair I’d never been down, into a hall under the oldest part of Ister.

It was a wall. Long, curved, going on round a bend into the dark. Pale stone. And on it, names. Thousands. Each one cut very small and very neat, in the Aldri way, with a little line of light running under it.

Pilots, Aune said. Every pilot who’d ever died defending Ister. Eleven thousand years of them.

She walked along it without looking. She knew where.

She stopped.

“Ceren,” said Aune.

I’ll write what she told me. Because she asked me to, and because Tiri asked me to, and because it belongs in the notebook with everyone else.

Ceren was a pilot. Like her. They’d flown in the same squadron since they were young; Aune says he was the worst pilot she’d ever met in training and the best she’d ever seen by the end. He laughed at everything. He couldn’t sit still. Tiri has his hands, she says. Long, never quiet.

They never married. The Aldri don’t always; they’re very old, and they take their time, and they thought they had time.

Twelve years ago, the Hungry found Ister. The fifth time. A swarm, coming in from the dark, faster than the ears had heard it coming. The engine needed nine hours to make the jump. Somebody had to hold the swarm off for nine hours.

Ceren held the north side.

He held it for eight hours and fifty minutes.

The engine jumped ten minutes later. With Ister on it. And Aune, and Tiri, who was three, and everyone else.

Not Ceren.

“I didn’t date again,” said Aune. Standing in front of his name with her long grey hair down her back, the same grey as Tiri’s, in her flight robe. “I didn’t want to. I had Tiri. I had the squadron. I had my grandfather, and Ilas.” She put her long fingers on the stone, under the name, where the little line of light ran. “And then we came to Avalon. And a man asked a bird to fly again in my daughter’s hands. And I came down through an arch to fetch her, and he didn’t look up.”

She laughed. Very quietly.

“Ceren would have liked you,” said Aune. “He’d have teased you about that for years.”

Tiri was standing a little way off. Holding her message-bird. She’d brought it. She came and stood beside her mother and looked up at the name.

“I don’t remember him,” said Tiri. “I was three.”

“I know, love.”

“But I remember his hands,” said Tiri. “On my head. Like Gran Dot does.” She looked at me. “Is that silly?”

“No,” I said. “That’s how I remember my father too.”

Tiri put her bird on the floor in front of the wall. And asked it to fly. The way Corin taught her.

It went up. All the way up the wall. Past Ceren’s name, past all of them, to the top, where the stone curved over into the dark. And hung there for a moment, beating its small brass wings.

Then it came back down and landed on her wrist. Beside the ribbon.

“There,” said Tiri. “Now he’s seen it.”

Mother taught her the names first.

The week before. Every evening, in the kitchen, at the long table, after everyone else had gone up. Aune asked. She said she’d heard Mother say them every morning since she came to Avalon and she didn’t know half of them, and if she was going to be family, she wanted to know who everyone was.

So Mother taught her. All of them. Not the way you teach a list. The way you tell someone about people. Who they were. What they did. What they’d have said if they were at the table.

It took six nights.

On the sixth, Aune said them back. All of them. From the beginning. Sitting at the long table with her long grey hair tied up and a cup gone cold in her hands, very slowly, the way the Aldri say anything that matters.

Mother didn’t correct her once.

When Aune got to the end, she stopped. And then she said one more.

“Ceren.”

Mother nodded.

“He’s in now,” said Mother. “You put him in. That’s how it works.”

I told the children at breakfast.

All of them. At the long table, which isn’t long enough any more, which Rory says he’ll do something about and hasn’t. I told them plainly. The way Mother tells things.

Nobody said anything for a moment.

Then Kesh, who’s eleven and wears a cloud for a hat when she’s thinking, said: “Does Aune know about the roof?”

“She’s going to,” said Sera.

“Good,” said Kesh. “She’ll like it.” And went back to her toast.

Thessaly asked if Aune could make doors. She can’t. Thessaly said that was all right, she’d teach her.

Vessa didn’t say anything. She got up from the table, and went round it to where Aune was sitting at the end with Tiri, and stood beside her chair. And put her hand on Aune’s arm.

Then she turned. Very slowly. The way she used to turn toward the grey ones, years ago, before she stopped.

Toward Aune.

And stayed there.

Andraste put her cup down very carefully.

“She’s never turned toward anyone,” said Andraste. Very quietly. “Not like that. Only toward things that were coming.”

“Maybe that’s what I am,” said Aune. Just as quietly. She put her long hand over Vessa’s. “Something that was coming.”

We were married on the red glass. At the count.

Aune asked for that. She said the Aldri marry at dawn, in the first light, because the first light is the one you can’t get back. And she said on Avalon the first light belonged to Mother and the names, and she wouldn’t take it from her, so we’d be married right after. When the names were done.

So we were.

I’ll write it short. Mother says the good bits should be short so people want more. Mother’s wrong. But I’ll do it anyway.

Everyone came. Of course they did. The red glass was full from the arch to the bottom of the hill, the way it was the morning the queens went to Root, only everyone was facing the other way.

Mother said the names. All of them. Ithre, and the six on Tiamat’s wall, and the forty-one stars. Ceren, at the end. Aune asked her to. Mother had never said his name before, and she said it like she’d known him all her life.

Oona said: “Goodnight, love.”

Then Halvane came forward. In his robe. Very tall. With Ilas on his arm, walking without her stick, the way she’s walked since the spring. And Aune between them.

She’d let her hair down. All of it. Long and grey, to her waist, the way the Aldri wear it for a wedding. She wasn’t in her flight robe. She was in something Ilas had kept in a box for a hundred and fifty years, very pale, that shimmered when she moved, the way Aldri skin shimmers.

Half the red glass forgot what it was doing.

So did I.

My wives were at the front. All five. Not behind me. Beside me. Luna, very still. Sera, warm. Risa with her hair on end. Hana, breathing for half the glass. Andraste with Holdfast on her back and the ribbon on her wrist and the one white ribbon on the hilt.

They’d asked for that. Aune had asked for it too.

“I’m not marrying you,” Aune said to me. The night before. On the porch. “I’m marrying all of you. Into all of you. That’s how it should be said.”

So that’s how Okafor said it.

Okafor did the words. She’s done every wedding on the hill since the first one; nobody’s ever thought to ask anyone else. She stood on the step of the arch with her slate under her arm, and said them, the plain ones, the ones she always says.

And then she said one more thing. Not usual. She’d asked Aune first.

“Aune of Ister,” said Okafor. “Of Ceren’s house, and Ilas’s, and Halvane’s. Of the north squadron. Who held a reef on Root with one arm. Who’d have walked into a white room to save the rest of us.” She looked at all six of us. “Into this house. If it will have her.”

“It will,” said Luna. Before anyone else.

“It will,” said Sera.

“It will,” said Risa. “It’s been waiting.”

“It will,” said Hana.

Andraste took the third ribbon off her own wrist. The one from the park. White. And tied it round Aune’s.

“It will,” said Andraste.

Kyria was at the front too. On Hyrran’s side. With the grey ribbon and its knots in her hand, though it was on Tiri’s wrist now and not hers; she’d brought a new one. Plain. Grey. With no knots in it at all.

She tied one. The first.

And gave it to Aune.

“For the new count,” said Kyria. “Hyrran keeps them.”

Then Mother poured.

The first cup out on the glass. For the eldest. For Ceren. For everyone who should have been there.

The second cup, she gave to Aune.

Aune drank it. All of it. Then held it out.

“Again?” said Mother.

“Every morning,” said Aune. “If that’s allowed.”

“It’s allowed,” said Mother. “Welcome home, love.”

Tiri cried. She’d said she wouldn’t. Corin held her hand and hummed, very loudly, two notes, until she laughed.

Ilas cried. She said it was the first time in a hundred and ninety-four years.

Halvane didn’t. He stood at the edge of the arch with his long hands folded and his face very calm, the way Aurelius stands, and Mother says that was how you could tell.

Dory came to Aune last. After everyone. After the cups. She stood in front of her on the red glass with Dusk in her hand and her black eyes open, and looked at her. All the way down. The way only Dory and I can look.

Aune let her. Didn’t move. Didn’t shimmer.

“You were going to walk into a white room for us,” said Dory. In the end. Very quietly.

“Yes,” said Aune.

“I saw him,” said Dory. “All the way down. There’s nothing in him that would ever have let you walk out again.” She put Dusk in her pocket. “So thank you. And don’t. Ever.”

Aune looked at her for a long time. Then she bent down, all the long way down, the way the Aldri bend, and kissed Dory on the forehead.

“All right,” said Aune. “I promise.”

I won’t write about the wing that night. Or the roof. Some things go in the notebook and some things don’t.

I’ll write that there were seven of us on the roof the next evening, under the stars, for the first time. Risa called a storm out at sea. Sera warmed the slates. Luna cooled the drinks. Hana breathed. Andraste sharpened Holdfast.

And Aune lay back on the warm slates between Risa and Hana with her long grey hair spread out round her, and looked up at the stars, and said:

“Oh. So this is where you all go.”

“Every night,” said Sera.

“It’s a rule,” said Risa. “In this house.”

Aune laughed. And didn’t say anything else for a long time. She didn’t need to.

The first star was eleven days after the wedding.

Halvane’s list. The first one with a mark beside it. A small red star, very old, very dim, with three worlds round it. One of them had people.

Nine hundred thousand. On a world of long grey grass and slow wide rivers. They call themselves the Lenn. They’re tall and thin and covered all over in very fine grey fur, and they’d never once in all their history built anything that went up off the ground. They’d never heard of the Hungry. They’d never heard of the Collective. They’d never heard of anyone.

They didn’t know their sun was going to go out.

Halvane said a month either way. Then he said three weeks. Then, the morning after the wedding, with Tiamat and Bell and every ear turned on the dark between, he said nine days.

“It’s moving faster,” said Halvane. At the long table. Very quietly. “Not much. But faster.” He turned his cup round. “It’s grown since you took the pieces out of it. Bigger things eat faster.”

“How long do we have?”

“Nine days,” said Halvane. “Maybe eight. After that, there won’t be a sun to warm the grass.”

Okafor went to the slate. Under Before the light goes out, she wrote:

The Lenn. 900,000. 9 days.

Then she put the chalk down and looked at it.

“We’ve never moved that many that fast,” she said. “Not from somewhere that’s never heard of us. Not from people who don’t know anything’s wrong.”

“Then we tell them,” said Mother.

“How?”

Mother didn’t answer straight away. She was looking at the slate.

“The way we always do,” said Mother. “Somebody old walks out first.”

Merrit went.

She asked. Nobody else would have let her; she’s a hundred and thirteen. She came up the hill on the morning of the first day, in her good coat, without her stick, and stood at the bottom of the porch steps and said:

“I’ve been walking out first for longer than any of you have been alive. Let me do it again.”

Mother looked at her for a long time.

“They’ve never seen anyone,” said Mother. “They don’t know what a ship is. They don’t know what a queen is. They’ll be very frightened.”

“So was I,” said Merrit. “On the Hill. When your son came down out of the sky and told us to let go of everything we had.” She smiled. “And I let go.”

So Merrit went first.

Dory took her. Up the thread. To the long grey grass. Just the two of them, at dawn, in the Lenn’s sky, which was red, the way it always is round a small old star. They came down in the middle of the biggest of their towns. A town of low round houses woven out of grass, very neat, with smoke coming up out of the middle of each one.

The Lenn came out of their houses.

They’d never seen anyone. Not anyone that didn’t have fur. They stood in the doorways and looked at Merrit, and at Dory with her black eyes, and nobody moved.

Merrit sat down.

On the grass. In the middle of the town. In her good coat. With her knees up. She took a cup out of her pocket, and a flask out of the other pocket, and poured herself a cup of Mother’s tea, and drank it.

Then she poured another one. And put it on the grass in front of her. And waited.

It took an hour.

Then one of them came out. A very old one. Very thin, very grey, with her fur gone white at the edges. She came very slowly across the grass to Merrit, and stopped, and looked at the cup.

Then she knelt down. And picked it up. And smelled it.

And poured it out on the grass.

Dory says she cried. Right there. In the middle of the Lenn’s town.

“They always do,” said Dory. When she told me. “Dad, they always know. Every one. Nobody ever tells them.”

“I know.”

“How do they know?”

I didn’t know. I still don’t. I’ve asked the queens, and the eldest, and Mother. The queens say it’s older than people. The eldest says she doesn’t know either. Mother says: because it’s the right thing to do with the first one, love. Everybody knows that, deep down. Somebody just has to remind them.

The old Lenn’s name is Ollin. She’s the oldest in the town. She talked to Merrit all morning, through Dot, who’d come up the thread after them and stood very still at the edge of the grass so as not to frighten anyone, her five colours turned down very low.

Merrit told her.

All of it. The star. The thing that eats them. The worlds going round nothing. The cold.

Ollin listened. The whole time. Without saying anything.

When Merrit had finished, Ollin looked up at the sun. Red. Old. Very dim, the way it had always been. The way it had been for her mother and her mother’s mother.

“We’ll go,” said Ollin.

That was all.

I’ll write the nine days short. Because there’s too much of them to write long.

Every arch on Avalon. Every one Kyria’s cutters had ever cut. Every one Dory had ever made the thread way. All of them, open, to the Lenn’s long grass, for nine days.

Every grandmother on every arch. Abbe. Eska. Ouse. Tey. Sefa. Ilas. Nan Vey, with her iron, who pressed every Lenn child’s smock as they came through, very carefully, because she said fur takes a crease badly. Oss, with her great white ears, standing at the arch from Ithre’s forest city, because she said her people knew what it was to have the light go and nobody come, and she’d be there for the Lenn when it went.

On the second night a Lenn child came through Oss’s arch on her own. Very small. Separated from her town in the press at the other end. She stood on the forest floor under the big trees with her fine grey fur on end and didn’t make a sound, the way the Lenn don’t when they’re frightened.

Oss knelt down. Very slowly. And folded her great white ears all the way back, flat, the way her people do when they want to look small.

The child looked at her ears for a long time.

Then she folded her own back. Flat. The same.

Oss held out her hand. The child took it. And Oss walked her the whole length of the forest city, under the trees, in the dark, to where the child’s town was weaving its first house on the new grass, without saying a single word, because neither of them had any words the other knew.

She came back to her arch at dawn. Nan Vey said her ears were still flat.

Every smith on the walking engines, carrying what the Lenn couldn’t. Every one of the Standing who wasn’t on a wall. Every Aldri fighter flying the Lenn’s sky in case something came early. Aune’s squadron at the front. Aune at the front of it. Eleven days married.

Wren counted.

Konrad wrote it down.

On the third day, one of the towns wouldn’t come.

The furthest one. On the far side of the Lenn’s world, past the widest river, where the grass grows so tall it closes over your head. They’d heard. Ollin had sent word down the river, the way the Lenn send word, by boats with grass sails. But they’d never seen anyone. And the people who’d come to tell them were strange, and frightening, and had no fur, and one of them had black eyes.

They shut their doors.

Dory came back and told me. She was very upset. She said she couldn’t make them; she wouldn’t. She said you can’t make people come home.

“No,” said Aune. Who’d come in off her fighter for the night and was sitting on the long bench in the kitchen with her flight robe open at the neck and a cup. “But you can show them something.”

She went the next morning.

Not through the arch. In her fighter. The long silver one, very thin, that decides where it’s going to be next and goes there. She flew it across the Lenn’s red sky, very slowly, so they could see it coming. And landed it in the middle of their town. On the grass. Between the round houses.

Risa says Aune lands a fighter like she’s putting down a cup. She did that.

Then she got out. And sat on the wing. With her long grey hair down her back and her robe open at the neck. And waited.

The children came first. They always do. Small ones, with very fine grey fur, peering out of the doors. Then out of the doors. Then across the grass, one at a time, to the silver thing that had come down out of the sky without hurting anything.

One of them put its hand on the fighter’s side.

The fighter hummed. Aune had asked it to.

By noon the whole town was standing round it.

By evening they were rolling up their houses.

“It’s not frightening,” Aune said. When she came back. “Something coming down out of the sky. Not if it lands gently. Not if it waits.” She looked at me. “Ceren used to say that. He landed in a field of children once on a training flight, by mistake, and they climbed all over him. He said it was the best landing he ever made.”

Ingrid, on the fourth sheet, Warned, beside the first star, wrote the number every night. Bigger every night.

The Lenn brought their houses.

That’s the thing I’ll remember. Not the numbers. They took their houses apart, every one, the grass woven round and round, and rolled them up into long bundles, and carried them. Through the arches. Nine hundred thousand people, every one carrying a piece of a house.

Dory built them a plain. On the eastern side of Avalon, past the walkers, where there was nothing. Long grass. Slow wide rivers. She asked the ground for it and the old one gave it to her, the way she gives everything, glad to.

And the Lenn wove their houses again. On the new grass. In nine days. The same towns. The same round houses. The same smoke coming up out of the middle of each one.

Only under a yellow sun.

Mother walked the new plain on the fifth evening. With Oona. Between the round houses, with the smoke going up out of the middle of each one and the Lenn sitting in their doorways watching their first yellow sunset.

They didn’t know what she was. She didn’t tell them. She just walked, slowly, the way she walks down to market, and nodded at everyone in every doorway, and stopped to look at a child’s weaving, and said it was very good.

Ollin found her at the end of the town. By the river.

“Merrit says you’re the one,” said Ollin. Through Dot, who’d come along very quietly behind. “Who started the cups.”

“Oh,” said Mother. “No. I don’t think anyone started them. I just kept going.”

Ollin looked at her for a long time.

“That’s the same thing,” said Ollin.

On the eighth day, the sun went out.

Not all at once. Halvane said it wouldn’t. He said the star-eater comes at a small star very slowly, the way a grazer comes at a patch of grass, and starts at the edge.

The red sun over the long grey grass got dimmer. All day. Hour by hour. The Lenn still coming through the arches. The last towns. The last houses rolled up on their backs.

By the afternoon you could look straight at it.

By dusk it was a coal.

Ollin came through last.

She’d said she would. She’d stood in the middle of her town, the first one, where Merrit sat down with the cup, all eight days, sending everyone through. Every house. Every child. Every old one.

On the eighth evening, there was nobody left but her.

And Merrit. Who hadn’t left once. Who’d sat on the grass in her good coat for eight days, pouring tea for anyone who stopped. A hundred and thirteen. Dancing on Saturdays.

The two of them stood up together. On the empty grass. Under a sun you could look straight at.

And walked to the arch.

I was there. I’d come to see the last of them through. Dory was there. Mother was on the red glass on the other side, with the pot.

Ollin stopped at the arch. And turned round.

And looked at her sun.

It was nearly gone. A dull red ring, very small, very dim, in a sky that was going dark from the edges in. You could see it, if you knew where to look. Past the sun. At the edge of the dark. Something moving.

Very big. Very slow.

Eating.

Ollin didn’t say anything. She just looked. For a long time. At the sun her mother had looked at. And her mother’s mother.

Then she turned back. And took Merrit’s hand.

And walked through.

Dory closed the arch behind them.

I stayed. On the other side. On the empty grass. Just for a moment. I don’t know why.

The sun went out.

It was very quiet.

The way it was quiet on the dead world. The four worlds going round nothing. Only this time there was nothing on the grass to freeze. No houses. No people. Just grass, and the slow rivers, and the cold coming in.

The star-eater moved on. Past where the sun had been. Toward the next small red star on Halvane’s list.

It didn’t notice me.

I went home.

Ingrid wrote the number on Warned that night. In the space beside the first star.

900,412.

Then, under it, smaller, in her own hand:

Everyone.

Mother poured the first cup out the next morning for the Lenn’s sun.

Ollin was there. On the red glass, at the count, with her people behind her. Nine hundred thousand, standing on the glass and down the hill and through the town and out onto the plain, with their fine grey fur moving in the wind.

Under a yellow sun.

Ollin watched Mother pour. Then she took a cup from the tray. And poured it out too.

“For my mother,” she said. Through Dot. “Who never saw this one.”

Mother didn’t say anything. She just put her hand on Ollin’s arm. On the grey fur. Very flat.

The Collective sent someone to Caddoc that week.

Not the white ship. Something smaller. Very polite. It came to the edge of Caddoc’s sky, past the salt, and called down to the Caddi on the old band, in their own tongue, very clear.

It said Caddoc was invited to join the Collective. As a member. With a seat in the far hall. With the protection of the Assize. With everything a family gives.

It said the Collective had noticed that Caddoc was very exposed. On the far edge of the Hedge. Close to where the stars were going out. It said the Collective would hate for anything to happen to Caddoc.

It said Caddoc would, of course, need to cut its arches. To Avalon. To Root. To the eldest. The Collective didn’t share its members.

The Caddi grandmothers came through the arch the next morning. At the count. With their lamps. All of them.

The oldest went to Mother.

“We told them no,” she said.

Mother looked at her.

“They’ll ask the others,” said the Caddi grandmother. “Tiel. Ostry. Sedge. Everyone on the far edge.” She held her lamp up. “They’ll ask everyone, Dot. One at a time. Very politely.”

“I know,” said Mother.

“And some of them,” said the Caddi grandmother, “will be frightened enough to say yes.”

Okafor heard. From the long table. Through the open door.

She got up and went to the slate. And under The Lenn. 900,000. 9 days., which she’d crossed out with one line and written 900,412 beside, she wrote one more line.

Not big. Not small.

They’re asking one at a time.

She looked at it for a long time.

“That’s how you do it,” said Okafor. To nobody. “If you’re the Collective. You don’t come and break the house.” She put the chalk down. “You make sure there’s nobody left on the street to help.”

Halvane came up the hill that night. To the porch. He stood at the bottom of the steps with his long hands folded, the way he does when he’s thinking something he doesn’t like.

“The Aldri tried that,” he said. “Once. Long ago. With the Sorn.” He looked down at the town. “They asked our neighbours one at a time to stop helping us. One at a time, they did. By the end, there was nobody. That’s when we learned to run.”

“We’re not building an engine,” said Mother.

“No,” said Halvane. “I didn’t think you would.”

“We’re going to go and see them,” said Mother. “All of them. Caddoc and Tiel and Ostry and Sedge and every one on the edge. Before the Collective asks.” She poured him a cup. “Grandmothers fetch grandmothers. And grandmothers visit grandmothers. That’s how you keep a street.”

Halvane took the cup. He looked at it for a long time.

“Eleven thousand years,” he said. “And none of us ever thought of just going to visit.”

Days 8792–8851. Before the Light Goes Out.

Mother taught Aune the names over six nights; she added Ceren; he’s in now. Kesh: does Aune know about the roof? Vessa turned toward Aune: maybe I’m something that was coming. Aune took me to the wall of pilots under the oldest part of Ister. Ceren: the worst in training, the best by the end, laughed at everything; Tiri has his hands. They never married; they thought they had time. Twelve years ago he held the north side for eight hours and fifty minutes; the engine jumped ten minutes later without him. Ceren would have liked you; he’d have teased you for years. Tiri: I remember his hands on my head; is that silly? No. Her bird flew to the top of the wall: now he’s seen it. Married on the red glass after the names; Mother said Ceren’s. Aune’s hair down to her waist, grey like Tiri’s, in a dress Ilas kept a hundred and fifty years. I’m marrying all of you, into all of you. Okafor: into this house, if it will have her. It will, five times; Andraste tied the third ribbon on her wrist. Kyria: a new grey ribbon, one knot, for the new count. Mother: welcome home, love. Dory looked all the way down: thank you; and don’t, ever. I promise. Oss walked a lost Lenn child through the forest with both their ears flat. Seven on the roof: so this is where you all go. Every night; it’s a rule. Eleven days later, the Lenn: 900,000 in grey fur on long grey grass under a small red sun, who’d never heard of anyone. Nine days; it’s grown; bigger things eat faster. Merrit, a hundred and thirteen: let me walk out first again. She sat in the middle of their town and poured a cup and waited an hour; Ollin knelt and poured it out. They always know. We’ll go. Every arch for nine days; the far town shut its doors till Aune landed her fighter in the middle of it like a cup and waited, and the children came first; Ceren’s best landing was in a field of children; Nan Vey pressing fur; Oss at the forest arch; Aune’s squadron overhead. They rolled up their houses and carried them through and wove them again under a yellow sun. Mother walked the new plain: I didn’t start them, I just kept going; Ollin: that’s the same thing. The sun went down to a coal. Ollin and Merrit walked through last, hand in hand. The sun went out and the star-eater didn’t notice me. Ingrid: 900,412. Everyone. Ollin poured for her mother, who never saw this one. Then the Collective’s polite ship at Caddoc: join, be protected, cut your arches; we don’t share. The Caddi said no. They’ll ask everyone, one at a time, and some will be frightened enough to say yes. Okafor: you don’t come and break the house; you make sure there’s nobody left on the street to help. Halvane: the Sorn did that to us, and we learned to run. Mother: grandmothers visit grandmothers; that’s how you keep a street.