“Sixteen?” Tall Andras repeated when he heard of it. The boy, Sindri, had told everyone, and most had shrugged. But Tall Andras rubbed his hand across his thick blond beard, looked across the marketplace to where Water Claire stood fingering ribbons at a stall, and said to his mates, “She could be wed.”
It was true that in this place there were often girls given as brides at that age. Even now the village was preparing for a wedding; Glenys, shy and sparkle-eyed, would soon wed horse tender Martyn, she not yet seventeen and he barely twenty. But Old Benedikt and Alys both said no. Not this girl. Not Water Claire. She must not wed, they said firmly, until the sea gave her back what it had stolen, until she knew what her life had once been.
Tall Andras, frowning with disappointment, asked brusquely, “What if it never do?”
“It will,” Old Benedikt replied.
“Bits and pieces, they’ll come,” Alys said, “over time.”
Tall Andras glowered. He had a fierce want for the girl. “The sea pukes up dead fish,” he said. “It won’t give her back anything. What the sea coughs up smells of rot.”
“You smell of sweat yourself, Andras,” Alys told him, laughing at his misery, “and should bathe if you want the girl to come close. Wash your hair and chew some mint. Maybe then she’ll give you a smile some morning.”
Tall Andras stalked away, but she could see that he was headed to the freshwater pond beyond the thick trees at the edge of the village. Old Benedikt, watching, shook his head and smiled. “I told him she’ll come back to herself, but truly I don’t know,” he told Alys. “It’s as if the sea sucked away her past and left her empty. What does she say to you?”
“She remembers only waking in my hut. Nothing before. Not even being in the sea.”
They walked together along the rocky path bordering a wide meadow, each of them with a stick to lean on. Old Benedikt was strong still, but bent. Alys, too, walked with her back hunched. They had been friends for more than sixty years.
Alys carried the basket she used for gathering herbs; she was in need of raspberry leaf on this morning, to steep for tea to give Bryn. Since birthing Bethan six years before, Bryn had lost three babies and had fallen into despair. Now she was again with child, and Alys would prepare the raspberry leaf infusion for her to drink three times a day. Sometimes it tightened and held a pregnancy.
“Is there no herb for memory?” Old Benedikt asked her as she leaned to strip the raspberry leaves from the thick thorned bushes where they grew.
Alys chuckled. “Aye,” she told him. “Try this.” She reached to a nearby tree, peeled a tiny shred of bark, and placed it in his hand. “Chew, and think back.”
Frowning, puzzled, Old Benedikt placed the shred on his own tongue. “Think back on what?”
“On a time you choose. Far back.” She watched him.
He closed his eyes and chewed. “Bitter,” he said, making a face.
She laughed.
After a moment he opened his eyes and spat the chewed bark from his tongue. “I thought back to the day we danced,” he told her with a wry smile.
“I was thirteen,” she said. “You were the same. A long way back. Was the memory clear?”
He nodded. “You had pink flowers in your hair,” he said.
She nodded. “Beach roses. It was midsummer.”
“And bare feet.”
“Yours were bare too. It was a warm day.”
“Aye. The grass was warm and damp.”
“Dew,” he said. “It was early morning.” He looked at her for a moment. “Why were we dancing?” he asked, his brow furrowed.
“Mayhap you need to chew the bark again.” She chuckled. “To remember why.”
“You tell me,” he said.
Alys added the last of the raspberry leaves to her basket, straightened, took up her stick, and turned on the path. “Back to the hut,” she said. “My kettle’s aboil, and I must steep the leaves.” She began to walk away from him.
“Shall you take some of the bark for the girl? For Water Claire?” he asked.
She turned back to him and crinkled a smile at him. “The bark does naught,” she said. “It’s only the turning your mind to it. Making your mind go back.
“She’ll do that when she’s ready,” she added. “I must go now. Bryn is in need of the tea.”
He called after her as she walked away on the path. “Alys? Why were we dancing?”
“Take your mind there again,” she called back. “You’ll remember!”
To herself, she murmured, shaking her head with amusement as her eyes twinkled at her own memory. “Only thirteen. But we was barefoot and flower-strewn and foolish with first love.”
Three
Claire was there, at the hut. With her coppery hair tied back by a ribbon, and a cloth tied around her waist to protect her simple homemade skirt, she was chopping the long pale green stems of early onions fresh from the garden. Newly picked greens lay heaped on the table with a thick mutton bone near them, ready to add to the pot of water that was already simmering over the fire. When Alys entered, she smiled.
“I’m starting soup,” the girl said.
“Aye. I see that.” Alys emptied her basket of raspberry leaves into a bowl. “I’ll just take some of the water first, for my brew.” With a ladle she slowly poured hot water from the pot over the leaves. Steam rose as the leaves began to steep and tint the liquid.
“For Bryn?” The girl looked at the darkening tea.
“Aye. To lose another will surely make her heartsick.”
Claire leaned toward the bowl. As Alys watched, she closed her eyes and breathed the steam. At her forehead, tendrils of hair curled from the moisture, framing her pale face. For a moment she stood there, motionless, breathing. Then she gasped, drew her head back, opened her eyes, and looked around with a puzzled gaze.
“I cannot—” she began, then fell silent.
Alys went to her and smoothed the damp hair. “What is it, child?” she asked.
“I thought—” But the girl couldn’t continue. Moving tentatively, she sat down in the nearby rocker and stared into the fire.
Alys watched her for a moment. Then she went to the trunk against the wall. Unopened for years, it bore an iron clasp that was rusty and worn. But Alys’s strong fingers pried it loose, and she raised the heavy, carved lid. Her father had made this trunk for her mother almost a century before, a bride-gift when they were wed. It had come to Alys when her mother died. Her mother had stored things in it: linens and baby dresses, sprinkled with dried lavender blossoms. None of those things remained, though the scent of the lavender lingered. Alice used the trunk only for treasures, and there were few enough of those in her life.