Page 64 of The BoneKeeper's Daughter

“Your...your mother?” I ask, surprise clear in my voice. I haveneverread for the Father in any personal capacity. Only for the purpose of the village. So his mother is singing, singing, singing, words tripping over themselves, excitement dancing along the femur like fireflies in the night. The Father looks wary, unsure, and surprisingly vulnerable.

“I thought…I thought perhaps you’d need someone loud enough to drown out the sounds of the Exiled. And my mother was many, many things. Loud being foremost amongst them.”

The vulnerability sits awkwardly on the usually forceful man, until I remember that, when he was first named as The Father by my father, after my anointing and when I was old enough to Guide souls, the first call to Rendering was his mother. Without a BoneKeeper, until the new one is born, or old enough to speak for the bones, the Council makes the rules and decisions. It is meant to be impartial, as it’s seen as a heavy task to call to Render or Reap, but there are entire fields that have been harvested while no others have been touched.

“I’m sorry I don’t remember her Guiding well.” I feel like I should apologize, though I’m not sure why, and he shrugs in response.

“You were very sick at the time. And very young.” He tilts his head, watching me. “I’m surprised you recall anything from that time. It seemed…difficult for you.”

Unsure how to respond, I smile down at the femur. “She’s very excited. Why isn’t she out with the other families? She’s been…not lonely exactly. She says you speak to her often. But she is missing the sunshine.”

He frowns, shaking his head. “She knows why,” he replies cryptically.

“It’s not safe for your family, she says. Nor for Rannoch’s? And others? What’s this?”

Rannoch and Silas exchange a long look before Silas turns back to me. “Bones have a tendency to go missing around here, Keeper. Especially those with stories to tell.”

Cold shivers through me.

“Do they.” It’s not a question though — surprising me in how unsurprising it is. Of course the bones I don’t see, the ones inside the Council House, or far up the mountain in their chambers, would be most vulnerable. And most valuable. It is a sad realization that, even with the reverence we’re supposed to have for our ancestors and the Gods, the grime and waste of petty power still has enough pull to overcome sense. “Were the old ways even real? Has it always been as such?”

Rannoch and Silas look at each other again before Rannoch sighs. “Memory is always seen through a golden light or a blackened shadow, Keeper. There is little that stands as it looked in the plain sun of day when you walk backwards through time.”

The femur sings beneath my fingers, pulling at the corners of my lips despite Rannoch’s words. “He ate as much as that?” I whisper, and Silas rolls his eyes, faux irritation in his voice, barely masking his curiosity.

“What awful and untrue stories is she telling you, Keeper?”

His entire body is leaning forward; I have never spoken for her, so it has been many, many years since he has heard her. “She says you were a tiny, untalented thief,” I reply, trying to keep the hint of laughter from my words. Her joy at finally being able to talk to her son is filling me with borrowed happiness.

“Untalented?” He is astonished. Rannoch laughs quietly beside him, the sound low and secret, flickering and thrilling.

“Alright, Keeper. I must know. It’s entirely inappropriate for this moment, but please.”

“She says he would go to their pantry and take the honey rolls in the night, moving them around so she would think there were none missing. But his face and hands would still be sticky in the morning, and he never noticed she kept the breads on the lowest shelf on purpose. A game from a mother to a son.”

“I was only five or six, I’ll have you know,” Silas mutters, a reluctant grin curling his lush mouth, softening his face in unexpected ways.

“Mmmm. And seven. And eight,” I reply, and he growls in the back of his throat. “Your quarrel is with her, not me. She says you…I don’t know these things?” Pausing, I wait for her to try to explain, brow furrowed, and Silas comes closer, hovering over me as though he could hear her through sheer proximity. He’s massive, like the mountain, making it difficult to concentrate on his mother’s words, though I try. My focus is skittering stones down a hillside, though; Silas smells like woodfire and cold dusk air, his skin close enough to mine that I can feel the heat from it. Only his mother’s laughter draws me back, but I am curiously breathless when I speak for her again.

“She says you ate…maybe little pockets of meat and a buttered sort of — I don’t know. Not bread, exactly. Lighter. With pieces flaking off?””

“Oh!” Longing fills his voice. “I haven’t thought of those in years! Miners’ pies. Or mountain pasties, they were called. Not many made them, even when I was a child. A waste of ingredients even then, maybe. Or they took too much effort. But they were my favorites. And my mother made the best of them.”

Frowning, I twist my lips, feeling unexpectedly disgruntled. “I’ve never had them. How is that?”

“By the time you were able to, Keeper, the miners had stopped going to the mountain heart. And without trades, things became a bit tighter in the village.”

His mother is still filling me with whispers, and I close my eyes to concentrate. “Their memory tastes like nothing I’ve had before. I wish I could try one…”

“You cantastetheir memory?” Silas asks, suddenly very serious, and my eyes fly open before I can help myself.

“No, I…I meant?—”

“Keeper. You said their memory tastes like nothing you’ve had before. I’ve never heard of a BoneKeeper who couldtastememories.”

“A turn of phrase. Nothing more.”Stupid, Wren! Have care letting your secrets slip!

He stares down at me, at the bone cradled in my hands, at my blank face, and waits. Rannoch is still beside him, like a deer frozen ina hunter’s sight. Even Lorcan shivers at my lapse, suddenly very awake around my throat, down my spine.

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