Page 23 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

“It means, ‘hello, papa’.”

The man’s face crumples, tears filling his eyes, and he drops to his knees to hug the boy. The boy hugs him back, then taps me, his heart, and the bone in quick succession. I nod in understanding, ask the bone, and show the movement. Caleb takes his father’s face in one hand and signs directly in front of with the other. His father looks to me, and I whisper, “It means, ‘I love you’.” At that, the man becomes completely undone, holding his son and rocking him back and forth, before turning to me with tears thick in his voice.

“Can you teach him and me, Keeper? Even if it takes all of our bone time, could you teach us? So he can speak to us?”

I open my mouth to agree, when, surprisingly, the Old One on thestump speaks up in his reedy voice. “You don’t need the BoneKeeper for that, son. My hands won’t form the words perfectly, but everyone my age knew how to sign. Sure, don’t we have three or four in the Elder homes that are mute? I can teach you, if you’d like.”

There is a heavy silence. How could in two or three generations things like this be forgotten as if they never existed? But when your life is hardship, and there is no time for leisure, your world becomes small, it narrows to the daily activities that move you from moment to moment. The Council makes choices about what is taught in schools, what is important to our people, of our culture and practices. And it strikes me how they have been slowly, without provocation, changing certain linchpins of what makes us who we are as a society. A cold fear enters my heart as I realize thatI am surrounded by bones, who only remember, and people, who are being encouraged to forget.

“We, we would be honored if you have that time to spare, Old One.” The man stutters his reply, and the elder laughs.

“Spare time? All I have is spare time. What good are these otherwise?” He lifts his shaking, age spotted hands before him, staring at them as though he’d never seen them. “In my youth, I could mine to the Everfire with these hands. Age sneaks up on you, like the coming Storms. One day you wake up and you don’t recognize who you’ve become, don’t know how you got there….” He stares into the distance, then comes back to himself, addressing the father in front of him. “You come to me in the Elders’ home, and I’ll teach you everything I remember.” Reaching out, he ruffles the child’s hair affectionately. “It will be nice to be around youngsters again.”

Again? Do the children no longer visit the Elders’ Home at the end of week?My brow creases. I have been kept from the people of this village for too long. Come to think of it, I rarely see any of the Elders for their time with the bones. I do not recognize the old man before me, and address him.

“When did I last speak for you, Old One?” I ask solicitously, and he looks at me through knowing eyes, choosing his words carefully.

“Why, BoneKeeper. We know your Decree of the Ages. And weunderstand of course. You are pressed for time and exhausted. All those in the Elders’ Homes understand.”

“What decree?” I whisper, pressing my hand to my mouth in dawning horror.

“Why, that you can’t speak for the bones anymore for those in the twilight years, or those in the milk teeth years.” He smiles gently, his words carrying a purposeful weight. “We’d never hold you responsible. When the Council came to tell those in the Elder House, we obviously heard their reasoning and would not go against it.”

My heart skips, stutters, and beats again, a cold anger fueling it with chaotic purpose. “Didthey,” I reply, a statement more than a question, and everyone in the crowd is silent now. “Have there been anyotherdecrees fromThe BoneKeeper?” I ask, my voice snapping like fire, and here and there hands lift tentatively in the crowd.

“You forfeit time with the bones if you have not harvested the required allotment.”

“Only one family member may visit the bones per moon cycle.”

“The oldest bones are fading and must be conserved, so visits must be limited.”

“Do not speak to the Keeper outside of the bones, as she is a sacred vessel of the Gods.”

“Do not approach the Keeper outside of the bones, as it will weaken her focus and purpose…”

As more and more voices speak up, the fire within me grows to a full blown inferno, sparking on my skin with storm bright electricity. And as my fury builds, so too builds the fury in the bones around me, the rage looping from them to me and back again in a tornado of emotion, news of the Council’s decrees running along the bone walls of the village. I put the child from my lap gently to the ground and stand, trembling. As I stand, the wind around us rises, nothing unusual for this time of year, but it picks up my hair and whips it around my head like a storm cloud, and the people draw back in fear. I imagine what I must look like to them — a creature of death, white with righteous anger, burning in cold rage.

“I must speak to the Council,” I say. “I apologize for not finishingPeter and Anthony’s story, but I promise that I will. All decrees fromthe BoneKeeperare hereby stricken from record, and we shall return immediately to as it was previously.”

There is a sort of confusion in the audience, and I wonder how slowly, how meticulously carefully, these “decrees” have been put in place to not alarm the people.It is how you boil a frog, I think.Cold water, slowly slowly heated, this careful erosion of our society.“There are no allotments or restrictions. I welcome your questions. The bones love having entire families all at once, so they may share stories. And the oldest bones are fueled by visits from the living. Without them, they lose their purpose, and their soul spark fades. The Council was wrong.”

The crowd is angry now, but cautiously so. To go against the Council as such is a death warrant. The lottery for Rending and Reaping is supposed to be random, but no one misses when dissidents are chosen, seemingly out of the blue, so close to when they question the leaders of our city. Yes, the bones call for the Offering, but in the months where I am sick or stricken, the Council will pull names if I am unable. And in the times of no BoneKeeper, the Council is responsible for naminganyOffering. It is a sacred task and duty, but better men than our current Council have done darker things for purpose and power. There is no telling how deep the Void goes when the light is snuffed out.

Shaking my head, I turn to storm toward the Council House, but am stopped by the frail hand of the Old One. He beckons me, and I lean down to hear him speak. “Careful, BoneKeeper,” he cautions. “There is poison running through the leaders of our village. I fear for you. Use caution. Take a moment to consider your path before you tear down the mountain.”

Placing my hand over his own, I squeeze his gently, and take a deep breath. He is right. I need to think. To plan. “Thank you for your wisdom, Old One. Would you grant me your blessing?”

He looks startled, then perilously close to tears as he nods, and lays a trembling hand on my forehead. “The blessings of my family over you, of protection and peace, of blood and bone, of flesh and form.The blessings of water and wind, of Sun God and Earth, of Maiden, of Mother, of Crone.” My eyes widen. This is an older version than what I have known, and it is not a generalized blessing, but a gift a father would give his child, or a grandfather a grandchild. There is power in the words that is not contained in a casual benediction. “The blessing of my name to yours, my heart to yours, my bones to yours, until the Vengeance is paid in full and beyond. And if your soul calls to mine in peril, I shall offer mine in your stead.” He completes the words, shaking, and pulls me down to kiss my forehead. It is the first time in many, many years that I have felt another’s lips on my skin, and tears spring unbidden to my eyes. “Now go, Keeper. Remind them of who you are.”

THE CROWN AND THE BLADE

WREN

The next day, I wake with a purpose. It has been too long that I’ve let myself be moved around the board, complacent being a piece instead of a player, from fear, from tiredness, from self-pity. But the faces of the people yesterday convince me to step from the shadows where I am most comfortable. Today is the Council’s day for readings — a perfect time to start. I give myself extra time to prepare, lacing up my bone cuffs tightly, adding extra bones in my hair, on my fingers, the laces of my boots — anywhere I can cover myself in their cold, stark protection. And then, pausing, I stare at my face in the small, cracked mirror on the wall.

I have not painted my skin in the Keeper’s sigils since the first time bones called for a child to be Reaped and I denied their request; have rejected all symbols of the BoneKeeper since that moment, other than my armor. But symbols hold power, and I need to reclaim mine if I am to go against the Council. So, reaching out with a hand that only slightly trembles, the clicking of my bracers betraying me, I grab my small pot of tallow mixed with bone ash, and begin. Down the center of my forehead I carefully draw a white design — the sigils for protection and strength. Under each eye, a curving line, like a flower petal, out to the corners, where I carefully inscribe the trimoon, and then,on each cheek, across the bridge of my nose, and under my lips on my chin, the lines of the four elements that rule us — earth, air, fire, and water. Earth and air on either cheek, fire across the center, and water nearest my mouth, as every word spoken in our village is a prayer for water.

A quiet nudge of awareness from the bones in the corner has me sigh, and smile begrudgingly. “Alright, alright,” I whisper to them, and grab my kohl stick from beside the white pot, darkening the lines around my eyes, and retracing the symbols in the black, making the white stand out in glowing patterns on my skin. The kohl lining is an old practice, much before my time, but some of the bones in my room remember. They have pushed me for years to wear the full mask of the Keeper, and I have resisted, every Reaping and Rendering twisting my stomach until I wanted to tear my skin from bone to avoid my role. Perhaps,perhaps, I have done more harm than good avoiding my place in the hierarchy of our city. And if I am to reclaim my place, to fight the poison that has grown while I have visited with death, then I need all the advice I can get.

---