\nBringing up the basket was arduous work, bringing calluses to the hands and aches to the back. The wheel was stiff, unyielding, and on her own Anne wouldn\u2019t have been able to turn it\u2013but she had her shadow to help her.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe held one handle, her shadow held the other, and together they turned, turned, turned. Slowly, slowly, out of the mist, its long thick chain creaking, came the basket.\n<\/p>\n
\nHopping down onto the outcropping, liking the way the mist swirled around her feet, Anne grasped the thick rim of the basket and hauled it onto land. There was raw wool in the basket for carding, and a clay pot of flour, and a still dancing fish, as well as the usuals. A good basket, Anne decided. Yesterday had been an acceptable basket. The day before had been good. Seven days ago the basket had been bad. Today it was good.\n<\/p>\n
\nTogether with her shadow she unpacked the basket before kicking and pushing it back over the edge. They turned the crank and the chain went chung chung chung chung and away it went, plunging down into the mist, out of sight. The chain wobbled, snapped, and was still.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe fish had stopped dancing. That was good. She hadn\u2019t relished the thought of killing it.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne put aside the flour and the wood in the old lean to they called the old fisherman\u2019s hut and carried the fish and other perishables down the slope to the village. Their valley was shaped like a shallow bowl; all paths led up to the cliffside, to the baskets, or down to the village, which was a light and easy walk.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe ran the last leg, bare feet slapping on the ground, ready to the show the others the fish. They all agreed it was an excellent fish, with enough meat on it to feed half the village for a night, and all agreed that Anne had the best basket of the day.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe next day, which was Tuesday, she had an ordinary basket; the day after that, which was Tuesday also, her basket contained nothing but raw wool and an empty pot; the day after that she found lots of vegetables, some of which were purple; and the day after that, she found a girl.\n<\/p>\n
\nWell, not really a girl. She was Anne\u2019s age. But looking at her Anne thought girl, not woman. Perhaps it was her slight figure, like Maeve and Judith, not like Anne with her big breasts and thick arms. Perhaps it was the way she was dressed, the lacy shawl draped around her. Perhaps it was the way she was curled up in the basket like a baby.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Well,” said Anne, hands on her formidable hips. “This is a pickle.”\n<\/p>\n
\nHer shadow nodded its dark head.\n<\/p>\n
\n“What am I to do with her?”\n<\/p>\n
\nThey brought up odd things in their baskets sometimes, still alive things and things no one had ever seen before but agreed were very interesting and useful. No one, to Anne\u2019s knowledge, had ever brought up a girl. But there she was, curled up quite happily on a bed of wool, oblivious to the creaking of the chain and the drop down into the mist below.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I can\u2019t leave her here.”\n<\/p>\n
\nHer shadow shook its head.\n<\/p>\n
\nTogether, they lifted the girl out of the basket and set her gently upon the springy grass. Her head lolled back. Her shadow was asleep too, tucked up beneath her like something had given it a fright.\n<\/p>\n
\nNow what? She gave the girl a shake. She could pour water on her, she supposed, but that seemed unkind. Maybe it was best to let the girl sleep.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe could go down to the village and announce to all the women there \u2018I found a girl in my basket this morning,\u2019 and see what they said, but the thought made her uneasy. She supposed she\u2019d always known \u2013 all of them had always known \u2013 that they couldn\u2019t be the only people in the world, but it was one thing to know something was true and another thing to be confronted with such tangible and compelling proof.\n<\/p>\n
\nWell, she certainly couldn\u2019t leave the girl lying by the edge, where she might roll over in her sleep and fall. Together they carried the girl to the lean-to and there laid her down.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne took the wool, all wadded up, down to the village, where all agreed that she\u2019d had a very bad basket that morning. Not to worry; she\u2019d have a better basket tomorrow. Maude, on the other hand, had had a stupendous basket and they all sat down for a happy breakfast of bread and fruit.\n<\/p>\n
\nStill wiping her hands on her apron she went back to the fisherman\u2019s hut and found the girl still asleep. And so she sat beside her, and waited.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt was almost the middle of the day when at last the girl\u2019s eyes opened. She looked around herself, gazing hazily at the ramshackle hut. She looked at Anne. She looked, and she looked, looking Anne up and down in bewilderment. “Who are you?”\n<\/p>\n
\nThe question took Anne wholly off guard. She\u2019d never in her life met anyone who didn\u2019t know who she was, just as she\u2019d never met another she didn\u2019t know. “I\u2019m Anne, of course!” she said. “Who are you?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“What is this place?” The girl squinted up at the rough ceiling, slitted here and there with sunlight.\n<\/p>\n
\n“This is the old fisherman\u2019s hut,” said Anne. “Do you have an old fisherman\u2019s hut, where you\u2019re from?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Do I \u2013 what?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I said, do you \u2013”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I heard what you said. I \u2013 I don\u2019t understand.” Shakily, the girl began to stand and as she stood Anne was sure there was something strange about her \u2013 something she couldn\u2019t put her finger on. “Who are you? How did I get here?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019m Anne,” said Anne. “You came in the basket.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“In the \u2013 basket?”\n<\/p>\n
\nPerhaps, Anne thought, the girl was just very stupid. “Yes. I found you in my basket.” She took a step towards the girl, meaning to say something comforting, and her shadow stepped with her, stepping into a shaft of sunlight. There it stood, clear as day, hand outstretched as Anne\u2019s was outstretched.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe girl looked at Anne\u2019s shadow. Her eyes went wide, like a fish. She screamed.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd she bolted.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne had half a mind to let her run, for where could she run to? There was only the village. But then she remembered that the girl might be stupid, perhaps stupid enough to run clean over the cliff. “Wait!” she cried, and ran after her.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe girl hadn\u2019t gone far. She was standing on the path, looking this way and that, at the way to the village, the way to the clifftop, each way screened by low trees.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Mind the cliffs!” cried Anne.\n<\/p>\n
\n“What?” said the girl.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd it was then that Anne realised what was so strange about her. The girl\u2019s shadow was lying flat on the ground, as if she was asleep even though she was wide awake. It was flat \u2013 limp \u2013 dead. The sight of it appalled her. She clapped both hands to her mouth and stared, though she knew it was rude to stare.\n<\/p>\n
\n“What is this place?” said the girl. “What is that?” She pointed a shaking finger at Anne\u2019s shadow.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne\u2019s shadow shrank back, stepping behind her, half out of sight. “That\u2019s my shadow.”\n<\/p>\n
\nThe girl was shaking her head. “That isn\u2019t right,” she said. “That \u2013 that\u2019s horrid.”\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne was beginning to understand, and behind her her shadow was quaking. The girl wasn\u2019t stupid \u2013 not at all. It was just that, wherever she had come from in the basket, things were profoundly different and profoundly strange. Wherever she came from, everyone\u2019s shadow was limp and flat and lay on the ground like it was dead.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019m so sorry,” she said, half to the girl, half to her poor shadow.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Where does that go?” said the girl, pointing down the hill.\n<\/p>\n
\n“To the village?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Are all the people there \u2013 like you?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“They all have shadows,” Anne said.\n<\/p>\n
\n“What\u2019s that way?” The girl pointed up the rise.\n<\/p>\n
\n“The clifftop,” said Anne. “There\u2019s no one up there.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Right,” said the girl, and ran up the hill.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne lifted her skirt and jogged up after her, just in case she did fall. She found the girl standing near the cliff edge, staring down, down at the mist. “I don\u2019t understand,” she said. “Is this a dream? Am I dreaming?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Oh, no!” said Anne. She thought about it. “Unless you usually dream when you\u2019re awake.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Of course I don\u2019t!” snapped the girl.\n<\/p>\n
\n“That\u2019s where I found you.” Anne pointed at the shifting chain.\n<\/p>\n
\n“All the way down there?” said the girl. “Underneath the clouds?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Clouds?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“The fog,” said the girl.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Well, me and my shadow hauled the basket up first,” said Ane. Her shadow nodded, proud of its contribution.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe girl was staring down at the fog-sea. It was curious; Anne had seen people gaze out like that, out at the distance peaks of other hills, but never down. Why look down, unless you were bringing up a basket? There was nothing to see.\n<\/p>\n
\n“But where is this? How did I get here?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“You don\u2019t have baskets where you come from,” said Anne, tentatively certain.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Well, of course we have baskets!” snapped the girl. “But we don\u2019t carry people in them.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Oh, neither do we!” said Anne. “This has never happened before.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“But where am I?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“This is our mountain,” said Anne.\n<\/p>\n
\n“And you brought me here,” said the girl, “you brought me here \u2013 in the basket.” She was gibbering like someone waking up from a nightmare.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Well, I didn\u2019t bring you here,” said Anne. “I just hauled you up. Don\u2019t know how.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Well, you can bloody well haul me back down!”\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen Anne said nothing, she went to the crank and began to push and pull on it.\n<\/p>\n
\n“You won\u2019t shift it on your own.” Anne bit her lip. If only the girl had a shadow that could help her \u2013 though perhaps it was just as well she didn\u2019t.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I \u2013 can \u2013 try,” said the girl through gritted teeth. “If this is how \u2013 I came here \u2013 then I can \u2013 go back.”\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne looked up at the clear blue sky, wondering what to do. Things didn\u2019t get put in baskets, only taken out again; but then, girls didn\u2019t usually come in baskets. Maybe this was all some mistake. Maybe she should send the girl back.\n<\/p>\n
\nResigned, she put her hands on the other side of the crank, and heaved.\n<\/p>\n
\nWith a long, sad rattle of chain, the basket rose, clunk, clunk, clunk, into view. It was odd, seeing it come up empty, empty, empty.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe girl wiped her brow and gave Anne a curious look. “Thank you.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“You\u2019re quite welcome.” Reaching out together with her shadow, Anne pulled the basket onto the grass. “I suppose you\u2019d better hop in.”\n<\/p>\n
\nThe girl hung back, hugging herself. “And then what happens?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019ve no idea!” said Anne, astonished that the girl thought she\u2019d know. “This has never happened before.” She looked at the wicker bottom of the basket. “I suppose you get in \u2013 and I lower you down \u2013 and then you disappear.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Disappear?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Well, back to where you came from,” said Anne.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Alright,” said the girl. “Alright.” Resting her hands on the edge of the basket, she clambered in, tumbling with an oof and a fumble onto the hard wicker weave.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Comfy?” said Anne.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe girl put her back to the wall of the basket. “As comfy as I\u2019m getting. Lower me.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Are you sure?” said Anne. What if the basket tipped \u2013 what if she fell?\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019ll take my chances,” said the girl. “Lower me!”\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne gave the basket an almighty shove \u2013 and went to the crank \u2013 and turned. It was hard work and all the while she thought, wistfully, of that funny girl with her dead shadow, descending steadily away from the mountaintop, out of her life.\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\nShe didn\u2019t tell anyone about the girl. She didn\u2019t want to upset them, when nothing had come of it. She sort of wanted to keep it a secret; something just for her. She ran back to the village and did her chores and talked about normal things to Judith and Ambrosia and put the girl out of her mind altogether.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne was good at putting things out of her mind. When, the next morning \u2013 which was Tuesday \u2013 she went out to the cliff edge to bring in the basket, she\u2019d almost forgotten there\u2019d ever been a girl; and so when the basket rocked into view with the girl crouched sulkily on the bottom she was quite stunned.\n<\/p>\n
\n“You!”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Oh, it\u2019s you,” said the girl. “I was hoping I might at least come up somewhere else.”\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne dragged the basket in to land, peering inside to see if there was anything in there but the girl. It was empty.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I just want to go home.” The girl was soaked to her skin and shaking besides. “Tom\u2019s waiting for me,” she said, her teeth chattering. “I was sitting in this damn basket all n-night.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“You\u2019re frozen.” Anne rubbed the girl\u2019s shoulders.\n<\/p>\n
\n“It\u2019s c-cold down there.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Here,” said Anne, offering her a hand out of the basket. Meekly the girl accepted. “I suppose this means you are meant to be here after all.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“What do you mean, meant to be here?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“The baskets bring us things we need,” said Anne. “I suppose we must need a \u2013 well, a whatever you are.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019m a woman of the Grand Plain and this is absurd.” The girl was hugging herself, shaking in the springlike sunlight. Her shadow lay flat on the ground. “Everything about this place is absurd.”\n<\/p>\n
\nIt was best, Anne thought, to let her vent. She took off her cloak and draped it around the girl\u2019s shoulders. “There, there. I\u2019m Anne. What\u2019s your name?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019m Mona Joy,” said the girl. “And when Tom finds out you\u2019ve abducted me, he\u2019ll come and get me. You\u2019ll see.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019m sure he will.” Anne put an arm around the girl and guided her down the path. “Let\u2019s get you some dry clothes.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“He\u2019ll scale the cliff if he has to,” said the girl. “You\u2019ll see.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“There, there,” said Anne, patting her shoulder.\n<\/p>\n
\nThey followed the path down the gentle slope, the girl babbling all the way, down to the boundary stone. The village was hunched in the shelter of the woods. They came to the stream, where little Bess was making mud pies with her shadow. Mona Joy looked at her curiously, but said nothing. She said nothing at all as they approached the village, growing meeker and meeker at the promise of strangers.\n<\/p>\n
\nThere were twenty or some women in the village and a dozen girls. Judith was collecting water. Maeve and Ambrosia were gossiping in the shade of the green trees. Magda came out of her house, dusting flour off her hands. One by one they all came out, wide eyed, their shadows hiding behind them, to look at Mona Joy.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I found her in my basket,” Anne explained.\n<\/p>\n
\nMo, the smallest of the girls, came up beside Mona Joy and tugged on her skirt. Mona Joy plucked her hand away, aghast. “What do I do?” she said, softly, to Anne.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne wasn\u2019t altogether sure. They\u2019d not had a visitor, not since \u2013 she didn\u2019t remember. “Introduce yourself.”\n<\/p>\n
\nMona Joy straightened her shoulders and said, “I\u2019m Mona Joy. I\u2019m a woman of the Grand Plain. Who are you?”\n<\/p>\n
\nStill dusting her hands, Magda said, “I\u2019m Magda. We\u2019re the women of this Mountain. You\u2019re \u2013 you are welcome here.”\n<\/p>\n
\nThere was a murmuring of agreement, a certainty that yes, yes Magda had said the right words; a hazy recollection that yes, yes strangers were to be welcomed, strangers were to be treated as friends.\n<\/p>\n
\nStrangers were to be treated as friends, Anne remembered, and strangers were to be fed. Mona Joy would be hungry, sitting in that basket all night and most of yesterday. “Here,” she said, putting a hand on Mona Joy\u2019s shoulder. “I\u2019ll get you something to eat.”\n<\/p>\n
\nThe assembled women relaxed, again remembering that this was right and proper. Anne took Mona Joy to her little house on the edge of the village and gave her a clean dry dress. Together they hung Mona Joy\u2019s dress up to dry on upon a branch of the tree that stood over Anne\u2019s house and sat down to eat breakfast.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne made porridge outside, the way she did most mornings. Mona Joy watched, eyes wide, as Anne\u2019s shadow held the pot still over the cooking fire while Anne stirred.\n<\/p>\n
\n“This is porridge,” she said. “Do you have porridge at the bottom of the mountain?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Of course we\u2019ve got porridge,” Mona Joy all but spat.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Well, I\u2019m sorry,” said Anne. “I only thought I ought to ask, since you don\u2019t have a shadow \u2013 not the way we have shadows.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Are you witches?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Of course we\u2019re not witches!”\n<\/p>\n
\nMona Joy looked about herself. Seeing that no other women were nearby, she said, softly, as if she was asking a personal question, “Where are your men?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Our men?” Anne rested the spoon against the side of the pot, not sure what to make of the question. She never really thought about it.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Yes, your men,” said Mona Joy. “Where are they?”\n<\/p>\n
\nStirring the porridge, Anne considered. “They went away.” As she said it she felt sure it was the right answer, dredged up from some distant, distant memory.\n<\/p>\n
\n“When are they coming back?” said Mona Joy.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne\u2019s brow creased. She rubbed it smooth. “I don\u2019t think they are,” she said. “I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re ever coming back.” Glop. She spooned porridge into a bowl for Mona Joy and a bowl for her. “We\u2019re happy enough by ourselves.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“You don\u2019t have husbands?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Not anymore,” said Anne. “No. I don\u2019t think so.”\n<\/p>\n
\nMona Joy hunched over, wrapping herself around the bowl, wriggling her toes against the sandy ground. “I don\u2019t like this.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“This is a good place,” said Anne. “You\u2019re safe here. We\u2019re all safe here. Do you like your porridge?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Hm?” Mona Joy looked up, porridge dripping down her chin. Turning her face to the side she wiped it away. “I\u2019m sorry.”\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne slopped more porridge into her bowl. “Eat up.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019ll tell my Tom you were good to me,” said Mona Joy, spooning porridge into her mouth. “Then he\u2019ll go easy on you.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Is Tom your husband?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Not yet. No.” Mona Joy wiped her mouth. “Did you have a husband? Before?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I don\u2019t think so.” Anne didn\u2019t think she\u2019d ever been the sort for husbands, nor would she ever be. “No. I don\u2019t think I had a brother.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“You don\u2019t know? How can you not know?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“It\u2019s been such a long time.” Anne ate her porridge. She didn\u2019t like this talk of husbands and brothers. There was nothing wrong with it, no, it was decent enough talk, but she had an uneasy memory that they didn\u2019t like to talk about it on the mountaintop and for good reason. “Eat up, and I\u2019ll introduce you to Old Ness.”\n<\/p>\n
\nOld Ness was very old. She liked to joke that she was older than the mountain and Anne thought some of the girls believed her. She never left her house anymore, not even to bring in her basket. Her legs were too weak and her hands too shaky and the light outside hurt her eyes. She sat indoors, perched in her chair like a broody chicken on its nest, and the girls and women went to her.\n<\/p>\n
\n“A stranger?” she said at the sight of Mona Joy in her high clear voice. “My. Long time since we\u2019ve had a stranger on this mountain.”\n<\/p>\n
\nMona Joy was looking over and over Old Ness, which Anne thought rude, till she realised Mona Joy was looking for Ness\u2019s shadow. It was there, but tucked away under the chair and half hidden. It was old, timid as a stranger, weak as Old Ness\u2019s fingers.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019m Mona Joy, of the Grand Plain,” said Mona Joy. “Who are you?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019m Old Ness, as old as the mountain,” said Old Ness, and laughed. “How did you come here?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“In a basket,” said Mona Joy.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I hauled her up,” chipped in Anne.\n<\/p>\n
\n“How can I get away from this place?” said Mona Joy. “You said there\u2019s been other strangers? How did they get away?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Hard to say,” said Old Ness. “It\u2019s been a long while.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Well, how did the last stranger to come here get away?”\n<\/p>\n
\nOld Ness smacked her lips. “You know, I don\u2019t think she ever did.” Lifting her stick, she poked at the fire. “Let me tell you a story, Mona Joy.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I don\u2019t want to hear a story,” said Mona Joy. “I want to go home to my Tom.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Sit down, child,” said Old Ness, “and I\u2019ll tell you a story.”\n<\/p>\n
\nObediently, Mona Joy sat, and Anne sat beside her. She pulled her skirt neatly over her knees.\n<\/p>\n
\n“There were two peoples in these mountains,” said Old Ness. “On these two flat topped mountains–and they had a long bridge joining one t\u2019other.” She drew a line through the air with the scorched end of her stick. “And the cliffs were so sheer they never went up nor down. They were so happy up on their mountains! Why would they need to go up or down? They were at the middle of the world.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Two mountains?” said Mona Joy.\n<\/p>\n
\n“But the king, you see, the king on his high throne, he didn\u2019t like how happy the mountain people were. So he sent his men with a big knife and \u2013 snap! They cut the bridge in twain.” She sat back in her seat. “And that was that.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“There\u2019s no king on the throne,” said Mona Joy, slowly. “Not for a long time.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“It\u2019s only a story,” said Anne. “It\u2019s a story.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I shall tell you another story.” Old Ness crossed her arms, hooking her stick over her elbow. “One day the goddess sent her shadow down to the mountains and the shadow said \u2013 with its hands, you see, for shadows don\u2019t have mouths \u2013 the goddess\u2019s shadow said, the goddess will provide you with all you need and no more. That is the meaning of baskets.”\n<\/p>\n
\nMona Joy was chewing her lip. “What does that mean?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“It means,” said Anne, “it means, if you came in the basket, we must need you.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Need me for what?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Who knows?” said Old Ness. “You see that pot?” She pointed to a rough moulded bowl sitting in her one patch of sunlight, packed with dirt and trailing plants. “Now, when I found that pot in my basket, I didn\u2019t know what to do with it. I didn\u2019t need a pot! But not two days later, well, little Ursa dropped my good pot in the rocky place and whoops! I needed a pot after all.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I don\u2019t understand,” said Mona Joy.\n<\/p>\n
\n“What I mean to say,” said Old Ness, “is no matter how it may look now, we might need you \u2013 by and by.”\n<\/p>\n
\n
\n“You know what I think?” said Mona Joy.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Hmm?” said Anne.\n<\/p>\n
\nThey were washing clothes in the stream and had been for almost an hour. It was slow work and Anne found it soothing, though Mona Joy cursed and grumbled a bit.\n<\/p>\n
\nMona Joy had been atop the mountain a month and she was making herself useful, even if she wasn\u2019t needed; even though she ached for home.\n<\/p>\n
\n“What do you think?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I think you\u2019re hiding,” said Mona Joy.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Hiding?” said Anne. “No. I don\u2019t think so.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“It makes sense.” Mona Joy scrubbed her good petticoat against a rock. “You\u2019ve been hiding up here for so long, you\u2019ve forgotten why you were hiding \u2013 and you\u2019ve hidden so well you can\u2019t get in or out.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“What would we be hiding from?” said Anne, playing along. Mind you, she could see why Mona Joy grumbled. It must be difficult work, without your shadow to hold the rock steady for you and dip its shadow hands into the icy water.\n<\/p>\n
\n“A war,” said Mona Joy confidently. “There was a war \u2013 and your men all went away to fight \u2013 and you hid so well they couldn\u2019t come back.”\n<\/p>\n
\nA war, yes. Something prickled at the back of Anne\u2019s mind. What Mona Joy was saying made a kind of sense. And yet it was all wrong. The men? The men had gone to fight? Was that how it had been?\n<\/p>\n
\n“What I can\u2019t fathom is where all the little boys are,” said Mona Joy. “They wouldn\u2019t have gone to fight.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Maybe it was an especially nasty war,” Anne suggested.\n<\/p>\n
\n“And that\u2019s another thing,” said Mona Joy. “There haven\u2019t been any wars \u2013 not for a long time \u2013 not since the King\u2019s War. You can\u2019t have been up here since then.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Why not? The Goddess provides,” said Anne.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019d say you must have the fountain of youth,” said Mona Joy. “But this \u2013” She pulled her petticoat out of the stream, drenched. “This can\u2019t be it. It\u2019s too cold \u2013 and too wet.” She splashed Anne and Anne squeaked and splashed her back, and back again, and before they both knew it \u2013\n<\/p>\n
\n\u2013 They were wet to the skin and lying on the warm grass to dry, giggling, laundry forgotten.\n<\/p>\n
\n“You don\u2019t have clouds! It\u2019s all blue!” Mona Joy spread her arms in an arc over the sky. “All that blue! And at night you can see all the stars \u2013 every night.”\n<\/p>\n
\nDimly, Anne remembered clouds.\n<\/p>\n
\n“You live in the sky,” said Mona Joy. “Up amongst the stars! When my Tom comes and finds me, I\u2019ll make him a night and see it.”\n<\/p>\n
\nIt had been a month, now, and not a glimpse of Mona Joy\u2019s Tom. Anne had long since concluded that he wasn\u2019t coming, whether or not he wanted to, but she was hardly going to say so.\n<\/p>\n
\n“The Goddess raised us into the stars,” she said absently.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Hmm?” said Mona Joy.\n<\/p>\n
\n“It\u2019s a song my mother used to sing to me.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Where\u2019s your mother?” Mona Joy propped herself up on an elbow to look at Anne properly. “Is she in the village?”\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne shook her head against the grass. “No. She went away \u2013 down the mountain. A long time ago, when there was a path.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Before this goddess raised you?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I suppose it must have been, yes.”\n<\/p>\n
\nMona Joy lay back down. “What about your father?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I don\u2019t know that I had one. I had a brother. He was very small. He\u2019s gone now.”\n<\/p>\n
\nFor a time, they lay in silence.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I think you must be witches,” said Mona Joy. “Even if you don\u2019t know it.” She rolled onto her side. “It\u2019s alright \u2013 I don\u2019t mind. I can tell that you\u2019re good witches.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“How can you tell?” said Anne, though they weren\u2019t any kind of witch.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Well, for one thing,” said Mona Joy. “Bad witches are ugly. Everyone knows that.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Do they, now?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Oh, yes,” said Mona Joy, and so speaking she reached out, her fingertips touching Anne\u2019s jaw. Anne breathed in. “Pretty girls can\u2019t be bad witches.”\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne wanted to say, who says? But she wasn\u2019t about to ruin this. “Well, it\u2019s a pity I\u2019m not a pretty girl.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Oh, but you are!” cried Mona Joy. “Not \u2013 not pretty like a painting, or like a princess \u2013 pretty like you.” Her fingers traced the line of Anne\u2019s jaw more firmly. She raised herself up, looking down upon her. Her face replaced the sky and Anne was more than content.\n<\/p>\n
\n“You have beautiful brown eyes,” Mona Joy went on. “And your face is a lovely shape \u2013 such strong bones! Half the girls in my village would kill you for them.”\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne laughed.\n<\/p>\n
\n“And your nose.” Mona Joy touched it gently. “You nose is all you. You look at it and think, yes, that\u2019s Anne. That\u2019s her nose.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Your nose is a little button,” said Anne, touching Mona Joy\u2019s nose, which she duly wrinkled. Her hair was hanging down about her face like a curtain of willow, screening them from the world, long and smooth and straight, quite unlike Anne\u2019s curls. You\u2019re so beautiful, Anne wanted to say.\n<\/p>\n
\nMona Joy\u2019s hand ran down the side of her face, touching her cheek, her neck. Dipping her head she touched their foreheads together, and they were so close, Anne could feel Mona Joy\u2019s breath on her face, they were so close, so close. She shut her eyes.\n<\/p>\n
\nTheir lips touched, the barest breath of a kiss, so quick and feather-light that had every nerve in Anne\u2019s body not been primed and waiting, she might even have missed it.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd just as quickly as the kiss, Mona Joy was gone, on her feet and racing away, leaving her clothes soaking in the stream.\n<\/p>\n
\nSitting up on her elbows Anne watched her go, a cry fading on her lips.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nNight fell and there was no sign of Mona Joy. Anne ate alone, and said good night to her neighbours, and lay down to sleep beside the tangled blankets and dipped pillow where Mona Joy had slept those past weeks.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe was dozing when there was a hiss of a curtain and Mona Joy was there, in the room. She knew her before she opened her eyes, knew her footsteps and the sound of her breathing. With a cli-clink of flint Mona joy lit a candle and began, slowly, to take off her dress.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne\u2019s heart was under her tongue, her breath shallow. Mona Joy\u2019s dress fell to the floor. She stepped out of it and stood in her white slip, her arms bare. She eased the slip from her shoulders, exposing the sharp plains of her shoulder blades, the long fine dip of her spine. It slid to her waist, clutching at her thighs; slid down the length of her legs, pale and dusted with downy hairs.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe slip was a pool of white on the floor and Mona Joy stood naked. She didn\u2019t look over her shoulder, didn\u2019t so much as acknowledge Anne\u2019s presence, but she knew, she knew Anne was watching. There was a feel in the air, a heat, a quality to Mona Joy\u2019s movements; fine strings of want connecting the two of them.\n<\/p>\n
\nMona Joy\u2019s small hands cupped her breasts, pale with dark nipples standing on end in the night air. Anne glimpsed her eyelashes, before her hair fell about her face like a curtain.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe turned away, rooting in Anne\u2019s basket for her borrowed nightdress. With a swish of cloth she pulled it over her head, covering all her soft pale skin. It fell to her thighs and she was covered, and yet \u2013 and yet.\n<\/p>\n
\nMona Joy lay beside her, fitting her head into the dip upon the pillow. She lay, and she breathed, her eyes closed, but not sleeping. She shifted, her hair mussing against the pillow.\n<\/p>\n
\nHeart under her tongue, scarcely able to breathe, Anne rested a hand on her upper arm. Mona Joy\u2019s fingers touched hers, cool and rough from years of work. Mona Joy\u2019s fingers touched hers, and lifted them, and brought them down, down to her breast, where Anne could feel her nipple through the thin cloth of her nightgown.\n<\/p>\n
\nA sigh; a shift of cloth on wool blankets. “Will you kiss me again?” said Mona Joy, not opening her eyes.\n<\/p>\n
\n“That I will,” said Anne, touching Mona Joy\u2019s face, her chin. At her touch Mona Joy\u2019s head turned, her eyes opening, narrow and bright; and before Anne could kiss Mona Joy, Mona Joy kissed her.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd Anne kissed her, and kissed her, and her mouth was soft and easy to kiss. Mona Joy rolled over and for a scant moment their mouths were parted, but Anne reached for her, touched her face, her hair, and kissed her again.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhen at last they slipped apart, the candle burning low, the light orange-gold, Mona Joy said softly, “I shouldn\u2019t want this.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“The heart wants what it wants,” said Anne. “So the Goddess says.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“My heart,” said Mona Joy, “my heart doesn\u2019t know what she wants.”\n<\/p>\n
\nBut she kissed Anne, and oh, it was so sweet; and when she ran her hands down Anne\u2019s body, touched her hips, her thighs, when she let Anne touch her in return, it grew sweeter still.\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nAnne woke, the morning air milky and soft, Mona Joy playing with her tousled hair; and she couldn\u2019t help but laugh.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Why are you laughing?” said Mona Joy, hurt, but too sleepy to be truly hurt.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019m not laughing,” said Anne. “I\u2019m happy.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I\u2019m not,” said Mona Joy, in dour, silky tones.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne rolled over, unable to summon words.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I mean, I am,” said Mona Joy. “But \u2013 I don\u2019t think we should have done that, last night.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Why not?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“I have a husband,” said Mona Joy. “Or I will soon.”\n<\/p>\n
\nBut Mona Joy\u2019s husband was at the bottom of the mountain, and he might as well have been on a different earth, a different plane of existence, for there was no way up or down except through the will of the Goddess.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut Anne couldn\u2019t say that.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe ought to say that Mona Joy wasn\u2019t to worry, that her Tom was sure to come any day now, and that she and Anne shouldn\u2019t be together, of course they shouldn\u2019t, for Mona Joy belonged to someone else.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut Anne didn\u2019t say that.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhat she said, in the end, was, “I only want to love you.”\n<\/p>\n
\nHer cheek pressed to the pillow, her fingers in Anne\u2019s hair, Mona Joy said, “I\u2019d like that.”\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne would have kissed her, then, kissed her and maybe never stopped; but from outside there came a cry.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe sun was up, up in the sky, and the grass was vibrant green. Anne pattered over it, Mona Joy behind her, other women and girls poking their heads out of their houses, here and there.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn the doorway of Old Ness\u2019s house stood a tiny shivering figure. It was little Bess, her shadow scampering about on the grass behind her, its limbs stretched to thin frenetic lines. “Bessie?” said Anne. “Bessie, now, what\u2019s wrong?”\n<\/p>\n
\nLittle Bess looked up at her, her face streaked with tears. Wordless, she pointed through the doorway.\n<\/p>\n
\nAs Anne stepped forward, into Old Ness\u2019s house, Mona Joy knelt beside Bess and put an arm around her shoulders, comforting her. All the while her eyes were trained on Anne.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe inside of the house was draped in shadows, a few shafts of light here and there where the roof wanted patching. Slumped in her chair lay Old Ness, her mouth and eyes open, her shadow flat and all but invisible on the ground. There was a smell in the air, a bad smell.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnne took a deep breath; and another; and a third. Her shadow stood close beside her. She felt cold inside, if she\u2019d been struck beneath the breastbone; but this wasn\u2019t new. In the hazy depths of her memory, she had seen death before and she knew what to do.\n<\/p>\n
\nGoing to Old Ness\u2019s side she said a word for the Goddess and covered her face with a cloth. What they would do with her, Anne didn\u2019t know. Lower her down, perhaps, down in her basket, so that the Goddess might take her back.\n<\/p>\n
\nOutside on the sunlit grass, little Bess\u2019s mother had come and taken her away from Mona Joy, was holding her in her arms, no longer crying but face still wet. And there was Magda and Maeve and Judith and Ambrosia and all the other girls and women of the village, in their night things and shawls, blinking, staring, not comprehending.\n<\/p>\n
\n“Old Ness is dead.” There was a shocked gasp. Someone began to cry. Mostly there were grim nods. Death wasn\u2019t new \u2013 rare, but not new. “We\u2019ll give her back to the Goddess.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Yes,” said Magda. “Yes, that\u2019s right.” Stepping forward she went into the house, to say her last goodbye to Old Ness, and in trickles the other women followed.\n<\/p>\n
\nMona Joy stood alone on the grass, alone and hugging herself, her expression horror struck. “She was right,” she said to Anne. “Wasn\u2019t she?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“Right?”\n<\/p>\n
\n“About the pot.” Mona Joy shrank still more into herself.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd before Anne\u2019s eyes, Mona Joy\u2019s shadow, sprawled flat on the grass like a dead thing, twitched, and twitched, and rose up like smoke to stand beside her. Mona Joy didn\u2019t look at it; perhaps she didn\u2019t notice. But Anne, Anne saw, and she walked all but tripping over her own feet to Mona Joy.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe stopped a few steps away, not daring to go any closer, for Mona Joy was close to tears and trembling, her shadow stark in the bright air. “I\u2019m sorry,” said Mona Joy. “About Ness.”\n<\/p>\n
\n“It\u2019s not your fault,” said Anne, though she knew that wasn\u2019t what Mona Joy meant; or she thought she knew.\n<\/p>\n
\n“I want to go home,” said Mona Joy.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd Anne said nothing, but her shadow moved forward, silent as a ghost, to stand by Mona Joy\u2019s. Reaching out, it took Mona Joy\u2019s shadow hand in its own, and held on tight.\n<\/p>\n
\nMona Joy started and turned to look, her hair falling in a thick curtain over her face. And what she saw, in their shadows, Anne couldn\u2019t say.\n<\/p>\n
Katie Gray is an author of science fiction and fantasy based in Scotland. She has a masters in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh. Her work has appeared in MYTHIC, Corvid Queen, Microtext 3, an anthology from Medusa\u2019s Laugh Press, and in Shoreline of Infinity, Scotland\u2019s dedicated sci-fi magazine. Her short story 3.8 Missions was reprinted in Best of British Science Fiction 2017. When she\u2019s not writing, she works as an office admin for a social care provider.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bringing up the basket was arduous work, bringing calluses to the hands and aches to the back. The wheel was stiff, unyielding, and on her own Anne wouldn\u2019t have been able to turn it\u2013but she had her shadow to help her. She held one handle, her shadow held the other, and together they turned, turned, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20140],"tags":[20141],"class_list":["post-140390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-53-autumn-2024","tag-the-colored-lens-53-autumn-2024","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107979"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140391,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140390\/revisions\/140391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}