The Gate to Women's Country Read Free Page A

Joshua will really miss him.”
    â€œJoshua’s nice.” Beneda thought about this for half a block. “Joshua’s nicer than Minsning. I wish our family had a servitor like Joshua. Joshua can find things when you lose them. He found my bracelet that Mother gave me. He found Jerby that time he was lost, too.”
    Stavia remembered hysteria and weeping and Joshua calmly concentrating then going to the empty cistern and finding Jerby curled up in it asleep. “Maybe we can do something to make it up to him.”
    â€œMaybe Mother will have another baby boy,” said Myra, not looking back.
    â€œShe’s had three already,” said Stavia. “She says that’s enough.”
    â€œI didn’t know that,” Beneda said, looking curiously at the women. “My mom only had one. And then there’s me and Susan and Liza.”
    â€œMother had Myra first, then Habby, then Byram, then me, then Jerby,” Stavia confided. “Myra’s seventeen, andthat means Habby and Byram are thirteen and twelve, because they’re four years and five years younger than Myra, and that’s how we keep track. How old is your brother? What’s his name?”
    Beneda shook her head. “About the same age as your brothers, I think. His name is Chernon. He’s the oldest. He went to the warriors when I was real little, but I don’t think he’s fifteen yet. Something happened and he doesn’t visit us anymore. He goes to Aunt Erica’s house. Mom doesn’t talk about him.”
    â€œSome families don’t,” Myra offered. “Some families just try to forget about them unless they come home.”
    â€œI won’t forget Jerby,” Stavia announced. “I won’t.” Despite all her good resolutions, she heard the tears in her voice and knew her eyes would spill over.
    Myra came back to them abruptly. “I didn’t say you would,” she said angrily. “Jerby will be home twice every year, for visits, during the carnival holidays. Nobody’s going to forget him. I just said some families do, that’s all. I didn’t mean us.” She turned and stamped back to her place ahead of them.
    â€œBesides, maybe he’ll return when he’s fifteen,” comforted Beneda. “Then you can visit him, whatever house he’s assigned to. You can even travel to visit him if he goes to some other town. Lots of boys do come back.”
    â€œSome,” amended Myra, turning to glare at them with a peculiar twist to her mouth. “Some do.”
    They had walked all the way past the Market District to the Well of Surcease. Sylvia and Morgot each took a cup from the attendant and filled it, spilling some toward the Lady’s Chapel for the Lady, then sipping at it, drawing the time out. Myra took their offering to the poor box outside the chapel door, then sat on the well moping, looking sulky. Stavia knew that Myra just wanted to get it over with. There was no necessity for stopping at the well. The water was purely symbolic—at least when drunk directly from the well like this—and offered no real consolation except a reminder that surcease would come if one didn’t fight it. “Accept grief,” the priestess said at services for the lost ones. “Accept grief, but do not nurse it. In time it will go.” At the moment, that was hard to remember, much less understand.
    â€œWe all have to do things we don’t want to do,” Morgothad said. “All of us here in Women’s Country. Sometimes they are things that hurt us to do. We accept the hurt because the alternative would be worse. We have many reminders to keep us aware of that. The Council ceremonies. The play before summer carnival. The desolations are there to remind us of pain, and the well is there to remind us that the pain will pass….”
    Stavia wasn’t sure she could ever learn to find comfort in the thought, though