Marghe was glad Kenisi had already told her they would heaclass="underline" they reminded her of half-flayed baby seals, an unhealthy mix of purplish black skin and red raw flesh.
She turned away, glad, suddenly, that she had not been able to look into a mirror since she had woken.
Later that day, Leifin brought in a young girl with long, unbraided hair. They were both carrying food. Stewed fish, fruit, water: soft stuff. Marghe’s teeth still rocked in her gums. It would be a while before she was up to chewing meat or fibrous vegetables. Leifin introduced the girl. “Gerrel, daughter of my blood sister, Kristen.”
Gerrel, Marghe saw, was trying hard not to stare at her. Her face. She touched it gently. “What does it look like?”
“Like you ran into a tree,” Gerrel said. She appraised Marghe frankly, shook her head. “Like you ran into a tree twice.”
“Well, it could be worse.”
Gerrel’s expression said she doubted it. Marghe concentrated on eating the food while Leifin and Gerrel took out her pot and brought it back freshly scrubbed with snow and smelling of some aromatic.
After that, Gerrel often brought Marghe’s food by herself, and helped wash her down, or moved her to the fur-draped trunk against one wall while Kenisi and a woman called Ette laid fresh covers on the bed. When Marghe asked, Gerrel went to get lukewarm water and a cake of hard soap. While Gerrel washed her hair, Marghe tried to fill in some of the gaps in her knowledge.
“Who is Ette related to?”
“She’s from Kristen’s family.”
Marghe frowned, remembering. “Your mother and Leifin’s blood sister?”
Gerrel carefully teased out a tangle. “Kristen’s my blood mother.”
“But you don’t live with her?”
“No. Her family lives in the house with the two chimneys: her and Namri, Ellyr, Rathell, young Hamner, and baby Gin.”
Marghe shook her head; still uncertain about who belonged in what house.
“Careful. You’ll get water all over the place.”
“So who do you call your family?”
“There’s Wenn, she’s the oldest, and Kenisi, of course.”
“The healer.”
“She’s really a cook. She’s the one that makes most of what you eat. Bakes bread for other families, too. And during harvest, it’s always our family’s cookpot that everyone lines up at. You should see her festival cake!” She scooped Marghe’s soapy hair up in one hand, pulled the bowl of water closer. “Lean forward so I can rinse this off.”
Marghe did.
“Leifin and Huellis have baby soestre, Otter and Moss. Then there’s Thenike, who’s here right now but not often, because she’s always off viajering in that boat of hers, and her blood sister Hilt. This is the first time they’ve both been home together for ages. And then there’s me.”
“So why do you live here?”
“Thenike’s my choose-mother. Wenn said I should come and live here with Thenike’s family because she said I’d end up clashing with Kristen. Something like that, anyway. I’ve been here since I was an infant.”
Adoption, or fostering. “And who’s Thenike related to? Apart from Hilt.”
“I don’t know. But she’s been part of the family since before I have.”
Gerrel was a mine of information. Huellis, she said, was Leifin’s partner, but everyone knew that it hadn’t started because of love: Leifin had wooed her because of the bad trata agreement between their family and Huellis’s, years ago. Now that they were part of the same family, the trata agreement had to be renegotiated, and their family was richer than it had been. Huellis and Leifin seemed to like each other well enough now; at least, Huellis had stayed.
Gerrel was not afraid to ask her own questions. Marghe did not always answer them, but the girl seemed to accept that there were some things Marghe was not prepared to talk about.
Gerrel asked one question Marghe knew she would have to find an answer for, eventually: “Leifin rescued you and brought you here. The family’s caring for you. How will you repay us?”
Two days later, on a morning when sunlight slid now and again through the window slits set up near the roof and made her want to be outside, Marghe was sitting up in bed and pondering that question. Across her knees lay several objects: the vial of FN-17, her fur mittens, her knife, her palo. All gifts from women she had barely known. All she had in the world.
She touched them one by one.
The vial was almost empty, and there was one less softgel than there had been.
She hoped that somehow, during her delirium, her subconscious body clock had told her when to take it. She was unsure how long she had been here, but it felt as though it was almost time to take another.
The mittens that had been tawny brown when Cassil first gave them to her were dark, crusty with blood and slime. They stank. Unless they could be cleaned along with the rest of her furs, wherever they were, she did not even have any clothes.
The knife, too, was stained; the hide wrappings around the haft looked splotched and diseased. The stone blade had a new chip she did not remember. That should be possible to grind out. She touched it gently with her fingertip. Cold. Rough. Like Shill and Holle, who had given it to her.
She picked up the palo last, hefting it in her right hand. In the light, a long way from the harsh Tehuantepec snow, the carving seemed cruder than it had amongst the tents of the Echraidhe. Aoife had made this, for her.
She put it down next to the knife.
All the gifts had been made for her; not bought in a bright hive of commerce in one quick afternoon, but crafted on cold winter nights by the light of tallow, or cut from the steaming bodies of animals while the sky rushed overhead. The wood had been seasoned, whittled, carved, polished, stained. The knife had been old when she received it: a comfortable, familiar friend to someone, given with love. Even the FN-17 was the product of personal sweat and effort by Sara Hiam.
These things were all she had. These things had kept her alive. She would never be able to repay the givers in full.
When Gerrel came in with soup and a dish of the rough gray-brown Ollfoss bread, Marghe was still staring at the things on her lap. Gerrel put the tray on the floor and cleared them away. “They smell,” she said, and tugged the coverlet, smoothing it. She laid the tray on Marghe’s lap. “Neat’s-foot and onion soup.”
It smelled like asparagus, and was almost clear, with a hint of brown that could have been the wooden bowl, or caramelized onion. Cheese, just beginning to melt, floated on top, It looked too hot to eat right away. Marghe picked up one of the small loaves.
“It’s best if you soak the bread, then scoop some cheese on,” Gerrel said.
Marghe tore off a piece of bread. “What’s neat’s-foot?”
“I knew you’d ask that.” Gerrel pulled two leaves from her pocket. They were the size of bay leaves, milky with pale green veins. “When you first pick them, they’re clear, like olla, and these bits”—she pointed to the veins—“are dark green. But if you don’t use them right away they go cloudy. Like this.”
Marghe was having a hard time with the stringy cheese.
“No, like this.” Gerrel broke off her own piece of bread, dipped it in the soup, twirled it expertly until it was wrapped in cheese, and popped it in her mouth.
“Ah. Like spaghetti.”
“What?”
Marghe explained about spaghetti. Gerrel listened carefully. “Gerrel, do you believe anything I tell you?” she asked suddenly.
Gerrel looked confused. “Why? Isn’t it true?”
Marghe suddenly wanted to cry. “Yes, it’s true. It’s all true.”