“Yes, please, I am sorry . . .”
I shush her. “Then listen.”
“Don’t struggle.” The Stone elder’s voice was soothing. “Come out to the water and wind. No decisions have yet been made, but you must stand judgment, surrounded by the collective.”
They were already moving me by these bonds, pulling me out of the pool, to the stone ground of the cave among them, then outside, to the water and wind. Mist hung in the air. It was hard to know what isle this was. I could barely see in the fog—shapes, familiar and new, dense all around me. I sensed Old Song nearby, standing in stiffness, and I wondered if she, too, was bound.
The elder of Stone spoke. “We are all around ourselves here, living elders of the Shoal, and through us the ancestors, gathered for this difficulty.”
Then came a deep, resonant voice I did not recognize. “We are for the judgment of these two judged ones, bonded ones. My people of the Moss storyline, here for both the judged persons of Stone and Song. People of the Song storyline, here only for the judged person of Stone. People of Stone storyline, here for the judged person of Song. Thus we are gathered in justice, no one judging one’s own storyline.” This was the elder called Moss-deep, I learned later.
The third voice was ancient and lilting, more ancient by far than Old Song. I had met them before, briefly, when I visited Song Isle. This elder was called Song-mist. “The deep Shoal is disturbed,” they sang. “So gather round, and let us begin the judgment of the living rordan.”
The Stone people stepped closer, and I could make out their features through the mist, but I looked away. The Stone elder spoke now, toward Old Song.
“When you and the severed one from the Boater storyline strayed from the isles, we still kept you among us. We let you live and gave you an elder’s name, because you are weighty and wise, and the voice of your song was allowed to continue among us, as one of us. On one condition.”
“I did not stray away from the rordan,” wailed Old Song, and her voice was piercing, unsettling. “I bonded with this Stone to hold me, but this Stone strayed, and their weight—”
Elder Song-mist now spoke to me. “You went down centerward into the Shoal, disturbing the ancestors, and ourselves. Who incited you toward this disturbance? Was it your new Song bonded?”
“Did Old Song make you stray? You lived quietly before,” said Elder Moss-deep.
I did not much remember what came before Old Song. Days on end, days of labor, much of it helping the people of the Fish and Moss storylines; days wondering why I was a Stone, and what was the task of the Stones; nights floating in my pool, and trying to see with my eyes all the stars below and above the dividing line of the wave. I did not much share my body, and I did not produce any new bodies of my own. There was not much story before Old Song and her stories.
“I did not do anything to make this Stone stray,” screamed Old Song, and I wondered if she was ill. Why was her voice this loud, this desperate? “I bonded with them to anchor me, like you told me. I did nothing else.”
“Did you tell them about your crime?” said Moss-deep. There was a movement, and Old Song screamed again, a long, shrill, terrifying sound that did not make sense. Then the elder Moss-deep turned to me. “What stories did Old Song tell you to push you to do this, you who worked hard for the living collective and had stayed quiet before?”
All of the judging ones waited for me to betray Old Song, to say that her stories led me astray from the isles. I could feel it, palpable, in the air. They wanted me to cast Old Song away, just like she had cast me away when they pressed her.
But I did not want to.
I looked closer at that feeling of mine, stubborn and centered in me like a smooth gray pebble. I remembered how Old Song came to me for the first time. She said You are strong, a match to my pain, and this was, after all, the forgotten purpose of Stones.
Soon I found out why Old Song screamed, because they began to push and jostle me in the same way, to prod me with jagged rocks and with their hands. I could not defend myself; I was bound, but by now I knew I was strong. I wanted to be even stronger. I wanted to be like the stones in the sea, no matter what happens. Resolute. Silent.
I take a breath, but it is not enough. I tell Ulín, “I need a moment. Do you want to take over?”
She is silent and swaying, rocking back and forth. Not looking at me.
Understanding unfolds in me, slow. “My story reminded you of something painful.”
“It’s all right,” she says, but it isn’t. She is pale. “I can . . .”
“You do not want to remember.”
She mumbles, “I owe you . . .”
I speak fast, unthinking. “No. No! You owe me nothing. Please, I will not force you.” I have no idea why I feel protective of a stranger who has been sitting here all this time without saying the name of her target. But she—she listened to me, as if she wanted to know my story, and I wonder if anybody else had before.
Not Old Song, or even Ladder.
Only a single person before.
I rub my forehead and get up. Offer Ulín an earthenware cup of drinking water. “Here, take this—or would you rather have tea?”
She nods, still not looking at me. “Can we share? If it’s not too much bother . . .”
I nod with her. “We can. I have tea leaves from Lepaleh.”
“Please,” she says. I exhale. We can drink tea together. There is no rush.
Later, the tea cups comforting in our palms, she asks me what will happen if she won’t be able to trade stories with me anymore.
I shrug. “We could sit here together, until we figure this out.” There is a feeling of calm in me now, a warm feeling like the moss that blooms on the siltway isles in early autumn. It’s been years since I felt this.
