The Gate to Women's Country Read Free

hurrying,” ten-year-old Stavia had said.
    â€œStand still,” Myra commanded the little boy she was brushing. “Stop fidgeting.” She sounded as though she were about to cry, and this took Stavia’s attention away from her boots.
    â€œMyra?” she said. “Myra?”
    â€œMother said hurry up,” Myra commanded in an unpleasant voice, fixing her cold eye on Stavia’s left foot. “We’re all waiting on you.”
    Stavia stood up. The arrangement she had made wasn’t going to work. She could tell. Not if Myra was almost crying, because Myra almost never cried except for effect. If something was bad enough to make Myra cry for no discernible advantage, then Stavia couldn’t stop it, no matter what she did. If she were older, then she could have tried a bigger promise, and maybe Great Mother would have paid attention. At age ten one didn’t have much bargaining power. Of course, Morgot and Myra would tell her there wasn’t any reason to make promises or seek changes because the Great Mother didn’t bargain. The deity didn’t change her mind for women’s convenience. Her way was immutable. As the temple servers said, “No sentimentality, no romance, no false hopes, no self-petting lies, merely that which is!” Which left very little room, Stavia thought, for womanly initiative.
    This depressing fatalism swelled into a mood of general sadness as they went down the stairs and into the street. Her mother’s friend Sylvia was there with her daughter Beneda, both of them very serious-looking and pink-cheeked from the cold. Sylvia’s servitor Minsning stood to one side, chewing his braid and wringing his hands. Minsning always wrung his hands, and sometimes he cried so that his bulbous nose turned red as an apple. There were other neighbors, too, gathered outside their houses, including several serving men. Joshua, Morgot’s servitor, had gone away on business, so he wasn’t able to tell Jerby good-bye. That was sad, too, because Joshua and Jerby had been best friends, almost like Stavia and Beneda were.
    â€œOur condolences go with you,” a neighbor called, dabbing at the inside corners of her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief.
    Morgot bowed, receiving the words with dignity.
    Sylvia said, “Morgot, are you going to be all right?”
    Stavia’s mother nodded, then whispered, “As long as I don’t try to talk.”
    â€œWell don’t. Just bow and keep your veil straight. Here, let me carry Jerby.”
    â€œNo!” Morgot stepped away, hugging the little boy through his quilted coat. “Sorry, Syl. I just… want to hold on to him as long as I can.”
    â€œStupid of me,” Sylvia dithered, turning red. “Of course.”
    The six of them went down the hill in a quiet procession: Morgot carrying Jerby, with Sylvia alongside, then Myra by herself, then Beneda and Stavia—who was trying not to cry and to look dignified at the same time, and failing at both. Beneda giggled, and Myra cast them an angry red-eyed glare over one shoulder.
    â€œYou little girls behave yourselves.”
    â€œI am behaving myself,” Stavia said, then more softly, “Beneda, you stop getting me
in
trouble.” Beneda often said things or did things suddenly that got them both in trouble, though she never meant to. Stavia was more self-conscious. When Stavia got into trouble, it was generally over something she had thought about for a very long time.
    â€œI wasn’t getting you in trouble. I was just laughing.”
    â€œWell, it’s not funny.”
    â€œYou look funny. Your face is all twisted up.” Beneda mimicked Stavia, screwing up her eyes and mouth.
    â€œYour face would get twisted up, too, if you had to
give
your little brother away.”
    â€œI don’t have a little brother. Besides, everybody has to. It isn’t just you.”
    â€œJerby’s not everybody.