Read Online A Single Stone by Meg McKinlay - Free Book Online Page A

hear. There is something strange in his voice, something Jena has never heard before. It sounds like he is trying to whisper but he is shouting.
    A door flings wide and there are footsteps heavy in the room, stamping up and down the aisles between the beds.
    Arms reach out but they are not for Jena. A baby cries and then another. He is picking something up, a small bundle.
    No. He mustn’t. A new daughter needs to lie still, to learn to be only with herself.
    Then the Mothers are there. Different arms reaching now. Reaching and taking. Soothing and settling.
    She can’t hear his voice any more. But there are glimpses. An arm on his – wiry and thin against his own thick flesh. They are leading him away. But he is all right now – not shouting, not arguing. He is soothed and settled and Jena is glad. Because she knows this feeling. Sometimes something flares inside her – the wrappings feel impossibly tight; an arm wants to throw itself this way, a leg to kick out.
    But the Mothers are always there. They sit by your bedside, stroke your wayward limbs until the restlessness subsides.
I know,
they croon.
I know.
And you know they do, because they walked this path before you. So you become settled again. Calm.
    Papa is all right now. The Mothers will take care of him.
    When they unwrap her later, Jena goes to the baby’s crib. She is sleeping again, so quiet, so still.
    Seren.
    The name comes to her like a secret.
    But when she tells Papa at dinner, he shakes his head.
Later,
he says.
After.
    After what?
    Papa does not reply. He turns slowly and looks out towards the mountain. He ladles soup from the pot and says
, Eat, Jena. You will need your strength.

NINE
    “Min?”
    Jena had risen early, unable to sleep. She found herself eager to deliver the good news, to see the look on the younger girl’s face when she heard she was joining the line.
    But as early as Jena had been, Min was earlier. Jena smiled when Min’s mama said she would find her here.
    She peered into the slit in the mountain’s side. It was ages since she had visited this place they called the Source. The passage before her was dark, but she had tunnelled it hundreds of times before and knew every twist and turn. Though it had once extended deep into the mountain, a rockfall had blocked the path and it now formed a closed loop. Whether you went left or right, you would end up back at this point. It was safe but challenging to navigate and was often used in training.
    There was a faint scrabbling sound to the left. Jena peered down the tunnel. A finger appeared around the bend, a hand following. A shoulder edged sideways, rotating itself through and out. A slight frame, a tousled head.
    “Min?” Jena called. “It’s Jena. I …”
    The head ducked back around the bend in the rock. And now there was a noise to Jena’s right. She turned and saw Min emerging from the other end of the tunnel.
    “Oh,” Jena said. “I thought …” She gestured to her left. “Who else is here?” There must be another girl training, perhaps one who wasn’t quite old enough for the Source. “It’s all right,” she called. “You’re not in trouble.”
    But the head stayed lowered and the figure did not move. Jena turned back to Min. “Who is it?” she repeated. “Tell her she can come out. I won’t …”
    Min’s face was white. She scrambled to where Jena sat, her eyes wide. “I didn’t know,” she said. “He must have followed me.” She leaned past Jena, her strained voice echoing across the stone. “Come out of there!”
    Jena felt suddenly as if all the warmth had drained from her body.
He?
    The shape came slowly towards them, fearful eyes flicking up and down. It was one of Min’s brothers, a friend of Luka’s. Jena had seen them skylarking about in the Square. He was an odd-looking boy – slim and pale in a way that made him seem almost ghostly.
    But it didn’t matter which boy it was. Only that it was a boy – inside the mountain, where no