Ceremonies

'You go on,' she said. 'Your Aunt Lise is in there washing up.'

'I know she is,' he said, puzzled. 'So are all the rest. Aren't you coming?'

She shook her head. 'I've got to be getting along. It's later than I thought.' Poroth heard a certain weariness in her voice. He was about to return to her side, but she stepped away from him and held up her hand. 'No, don't worry about me. Ain't nothing more I can do to help around here. You'd best be getting back to the field. The others'll be out there by now.'

'I don't plan to keep them waiting,' he said. 'But first I'd like to hear just how you think you're going to get home.'

She shrugged. 'The Lord gave me two good legs, and I'm not too old to use them.'

Somehow he had known that that was what she'd say. There was really no arguing with her, once her mind was made up, though he felt it his duty to try. 'Mother, with all its turns that road's a good six miles long, and it's at least another mile to your house. That's quite a ways to walk.'

'You don't have to tell me how long it is,' she said. 'I've been down that road before.'

'That was during the day. This time you'll be walking in the dark.'

'You know what they say. Tis only dark for them that will not see.' She began moving away.

'I don't understand,' he said. 'What's all this hurry for? You came with Aunt Lise, and now she'll be expecting to take you home. Or if you don't mind waiting a spell, you can go with Amos Reid. He and Rachel brought their car tonight. So did lots of others.'

She shook her head again, looking vaguely troubled. No, not troubled, exactly. It was something about her eyes, a kind of resignation. 'I haven't time to wait,' she said almost mournfully. 'The night's got me thinking, somehow, thinking about what's coming and what's past, and how there's something I should be doing that I'm not. I just can't seem to shake it, the thought of what's ahead… ' She muttered something under her breath.

The young man strained to hear what she had whispered; it had sounded like 'the Voolas.' He had never seen her quite so bad before. 'Now just hold on a minute,' he said. 'You've gone and got yourself in a state. And there's no cause to, not tonight. Tonight's a time for rejoicing. After all, just look at me!' He threw wide his arms. 'Here I am, all set up now, back where I belong. On our own land.'

'Don't go talking foolishness, son. The land ain't ours. You know very well that Andy Baber owned this place, and so did Andy's father, and his father before him.'

He scowled. 'Well, it was ours a hundred years ago – which means that we came first. That's the whole reason I bought this farm. I figured you'd be pleased, seeing as how your people were the ones who built it.'

'They weren't my people. It's a big family, you know that. They were just another branch.'

'They were Troets.'

She nodded bitterly. 'And you remember what happened to them?'

He felt a chill pass over his shoulders. Why had she brought that up? Was she trying to spoil this night for him?

But she had already begun to apologize. 'Don't pay me no mind,' she was saying. 'I'm just a useless old woman. Fact is, it's done me good, seeing you here in this house of your own, the seeds in the earth, the bread on the table. The night's been blessed, so far, and

I'm sure the crops'll do just fine. I just wish there was something I could do for you and Deborah, but… ' She paused, as if remembering. 'But now it seems it's later than I thought.'

With a brief dismissive wave she turned and moved off across the lawn, passing between the outbuildings and the farmhouse, heading toward the road. For a moment, walking through the squares of light spread on the grass beneath the kitchen windows, her figure seemed to grow larger and, somehow, almost fierce; then she'd passed beyond them, becoming once again as dim and insubstantial as a wraith on some forlorn moonlit errand. Circling around the side of the house, she slipped into its shadow and was gone.

He remained standing there, watching for her to reappear among the trees that lined the road, but after a minute or two he turned away. Setting the jug back near the foot of the table, he stooped to retrieve his staff and walked bemusedly toward the fields to join the other men. The night was indeed turning out to be a blessed one; his mother's private sorrows were already forgotten. At long last she had mentioned Deborah by name – surely that meant something! – and the crops, she'd said, would do just fine.

He felt like singing.

Behind him, past the fire, the younger women had replenished the sacks they'd carried at their sides, leaving the huge burlap seed bag only a quarter full. Huddled nearby, their features drawn and fatigued, the children sat watching intently for every kernel spilled-but no more intently than the four remaining cats, who crouched unseen in the shadows beyond the ring of stones, eyes aglow like coals.

As the women shouldered their now-heavy sacks and trudged slowly back to the fields, the smallest of the children dipped his hand into the bag and brought up a streaming fistful of seeds. Wagging a finger in solemn imitation of his elders, he admonished the corn in a grave whisper:

'Mark thee, mind thee,

Gillycorn Hill… '

Stooping amid the plowed furrows, the women took up the chant and repeated the same traditional warning:

If Crow don't find thee,

Mouse he will.'

As they straightened up, one of them groaned and rubbed her stomach. The woman beside her smiled. 'What ails you, sister? Too much cottonbread?'

The other nodded. 'That star was big as a barn door, and I think I ate half of it! Don't know why they call it cottonbread – it's heavy as a stone.'

Deborah paused to push back a lock of hair. 'My husband knows all about that sort of thing,' she said, 'but he seems to want to keep it to himself.'

The moon was settling into the treetops. They peered ahead into the gloom, where the seven men were a row of moving shadows. 'That was stone-ground white flint cornmeal' Poroth was saying. 'I had to send all the way to Tipton for it. The man who sold it to me – a blackhat from the Barrens – said it'd been milled by waterpower.'

One of the others shook his head. 'Probably charged you double for it!'

A few of them laughed, but the younger man pretended not to hear. 'It was made of the same seeds we're planting tonight,' he went on, 'the same white flint corn that the Indians grew. Just the thing for a start as late as this. They say it has the shortest season.'

'Let's hope it's not too short,' came a stern voice from the down the row. 'Short the life of man, and soon the harvest.'

'Now let's be fair, Joram,' said another. 'You said yourself it made a real nice cottonbread.'

His wife, walking several paces behind them, had been waiting for this moment. 'Amos,' she called, 'will you ask Brother Sarr something for me?'

The chanting died. In the sudden silence her words rang across the field.

'Ask him why they call it cottonbread?'

The young man didn't wait for the question to be repeated. 'I thought everybody knew that,' he said quickly, without looking back over his shoulder. 'It's because they used to cook it over the cottonwood fire. Tasted real good, I'll bet!' As if to put an end to the subject, he slammed his staff with special vehemence into the earth. The crown of corn leaves rustled fiercely.

The question had come as a surprise; he hoped he'd sounded convincing. Obviously Deborah had been talking again. Would she never learn? Back there by the fire Brother Joram had practically told him to take a stick to her, and he, for all his college education, had found himself agreeing. She was getting to him, that woman, in more ways than one…

He paused a moment and turned to watch her slip three seeds into the hole he'd just made. Her hair swept loosely past her face, the way it did as she climbed into bed beside him each night. Standing, she covered the hole with a careless scrape of her bare foot, and as she looked up their eyes met. She smiled. It was a loving smile, and a knowing one.