Kit #2
There were figures whittled out of wood, both human and animal, propping up the occasional book or two.
Several earthenware jugs and jars painted with farming scenes were scattered throughout as well, many holding dried flowers and herbs that spilled out over their spouts and rims. And on the centermost shelf on the right side at waist level were rolls of threadbare cloth tucked into a long, woven grass basket.
They looked well-loved, though I couldn’t tell what they were.
When Philippa stepped into the room, Penny glanced up at her.
“Are you here alone, or do you have family in town?” he asked.
She smiled softly and crossed to where he stood in front of the shelves on the right, stopping shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “My husband died almost twenty-five years ago, just after our son was born. I moved us here to Ashpoint not long after, when this place was still in its infancy.”
She fiddled with the chain around her left wrist, and I finally understood its significance in the context of her story. It was likely the last bit she had left of her husband after all this time.
“We were looking for a place to belong,” she went on.
“Or, I suppose, I was. And for a place where my skills as a mason could be useful. Considering the amount of rock around and the need for houses and other buildings here, it seemed as good a place as any.” Her smile turned somber.
“A whole collection of lost souls trying to find their ways, and find solace in the company of others who understood. It was a less… ominous place then.”
Her words struck me in their honesty, and Penny darted a glance over as if for confirmation that he’d heard her correctly. But before I could ask her what she meant, she carried on.
“Emil and I lived here together until he turned twenty and decided to undertake his Oaths.” She paused to run her fingers over the edge of one of the rolls of cloth in the basket.
As it shifted under her touch, I realized it was an old wool sweater.
“I’ve been here alone almost five years, now. He didn’t make it through the third.”
Penny’s swallow was audible in the ensuing quiet, and a spark of pain throbbed in me. “The Oaths are cruel,” she’d told me a few days prior. I assumed she’d meant her own Oaths as much as mine, but to know she’d lost her son in the same one that had almost taken Penny’s life, my life…
I didn’t often consider myself lucky. I did, now.
“Why did you stay after he was gone?” I asked softly.
“I had nowhere else to go.”
The answer didn’t surprise me; it was a common refrain here.
Being so isolated was a perk for the cult, but less so for the community.
Outside connections were rare. Ashpoint was all so many of these people knew, and without a soft place to land out in the greater province, there was no choice but to stay.
“And,” she continued, “I was needed here.” She straightened the sweater in its basket with the same level of reverence someone would handle a sacred object. “I think that’s what Emil would have wanted. For his sacrifice to mean something.”
I thought I understood, then, the way she spoke sometimes.
The hints she left like breadcrumbs to lead me to the right conclusions.
I’d delayed too long broaching these topics with complete honesty with Levitt, and I wouldn’t make that mistake again, especially not when it was clear she was trying to get my attention.
“There are other things you could do to make his sacrifice mean something,” I said.
Penny looked over at me with wide-eyed surprise, but I went on before he could say anything.
“You came here looking for a community, just like the rest of us. That’s all most of the people here want. The Vessel, the desire to bring Eeus down into physical form? It’s… unnecessary.”
Penny shifted back half a step to give Philippa a clearer view when she turned from the shelves to face me. Her expression was even, but not unreadable, her eyes bright and the faintest hint of a smile on her lips.
“Eeus has already brought us all together,” I went on. “What further need do we have other than what a few fanatics have decided we should? Because Eeus doesn’t bring suffering. What he brings is the people and the places we need to come out of it stronger.”
“You seem to have gotten what you came here for.” Philippa gestured to Penny, who blushed, but kept quiet.
“So why are you still here? I’ve seen your disdain for the work we’re doing, whether you think you’ve hidden it well or not.
I know you hate it. So, why stay? Why not take your prize and go live out your life somewhere else? ”
It was a question I asked myself often. It would have been easier to leave.
Safer. I’d tried, too, first to protect myself, and then in a desperate bid to preserve what was most important to me.
But Ashpoint and the Bone Men always found me in one way or another.
They always would for as long as the cult existed.
“Because my father fed this fanaticism until the day he died, and there are people here who still need to know the truth about Eeus. Someone has to undo the damage my father did, and I was too much a part of it myself to walk away without exhausting every chance I have to make it right.”
Philippa’s smile widened. All traces of sadness were gone, and instead she looked almost proud. Like a mother bird who just watched her chick take its first successful flight.
Some old ache flared up in my chest and momentarily took my breath away.
I hadn’t realized how much I needed someone to be proud of me for this, how long I’d been searching for validation from someone who wasn’t a lover or a friend.
From someone who treated me like a son instead of a disappointment.
It had been so long since anyone looked at me like that, and I soaked it in.
She closed the distance between us and cupped one of my hands between her own.
“And this is why I always hoped you’d succeed him.
You have a bit of him in you, you know. The good bits.
You’re a natural born leader, just as he was, but you care for others more than yourself.
It inspires the right people to follow you. ”
It was the first time anyone had compared me to my father that didn’t immediately make me bristle.
Because he had been a good man, once. The man my mother fell in love with wasn’t the monster he’d been when he died.
And if I could use the one thing I inherited from him to undo the damage he did, maybe that was something I could be proud of.
“So,” Philippa continued, something conspiratorial in her tone, “is it safe to assume that you had something to do with the cave-in last night?”
I nodded, and her eyes darted to Penny.
“You couldn’t have done that in one night alone. You had help, didn’t you?”
“I had help,” I confirmed.
“Excellent. But this will only delay us for a day or two. We’ll need to do more if we want to make a real difference.”
“What more can we do?” Penny asked. “Without putting everyone in danger.”
Philippa freed one of her hands to grab one of Penny’s, bringing it together with mine so she could hold them both between hers. Her grin was devious when she said, “I may have an idea.”