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THE TASTE OF WATER

RANNOCH

S he slumps over like an emptied bag of flour, like a bird that has been shot from the sky, wings pierced and broken, plummeting to earth, and looks pale grey instead of bone white.

The change is petrifying, and I don’t know what to do.

Silas sent me out to pull her back in, to have her answer questions about her accusations, but if I drag her back in now, I’d be throwing a carcass before wolves.

What to do? It’s too late to take her to her home, and I can’t leave her unattended in her chambers here.

She wouldn’t be safe. I know that truth in my heart, and it sickens me.

Her rooms in the Council House have no way of barring the door from the inside, not that she could wake to do it now anyway.

There is a creak of sound from behind me, and I spin around, cloak spread wide to try and hide the small, crumpled body behind me.

Thankfully it’s just Silas, eyes wide as he takes in the scene before him, and in a sudden wave of panic, I realize I haven’t even had time to check if she’s breathing yet.

Sun and earth, she could be…no. I can’t think it.

“ What …?” Horrified voice pitched low, he glances behind him furtively then shuts the door firmly .

“I don’t know! I just found her like this.”

“Check her! Quickly! We don’t have time…

.” His words are tight, strangled, and I can tell he’s fighting for control.

Whipping around, I drop to my knees and check her breathing, her pulse, and when I feel the pale flutter of motion on her throat, a wave of relief so intense washes over me I feel nauseous.

I can’t speak, but he must see something in my expression that releases some of the tension in his jaw.

“Hells, Rannoch.” Scrubbing a hand over his face, he looks as though the weight of the world is on his shoulders, and, in a way, I suppose it is.

“Is this ever going to get easier?” he murmurs quietly to himself, shaking his head.

“She can’t go to hers…where? Yours? That would be putting you at risk if they found out. Mine is impossible.”

There is a flurry of shouting so loud it pushes through the heavy door, and we exchange panicked glances. Silas exhales sharply, then straightens, flexing his shoulders and spine before deciding.

“Take her to the old mine entrance. Near enough no one knows about it, and I don’t think the older members would go there.”

He’s right…he’s almost always right, to be fair.

The old mine is perfect. There’s only one broken, stone blocked entrance left to the mountain’s heart from the Council House, and I’m not even sure anyone else knows it exists.

All the others were fully walled up decades ago, when the first miners cracked through the glossy black stone deep in the body of the mountain, and found a lake of molton rock, thick and shimmering an iridescent blue so captivating and mesmerizing that a full ten of them had walked into it willingly before they even knew what they were doing.

The rest tried to follow, but were yanked back by the few who hadn’t entered the chamber yet, who hadn’t seen the fire, just heard the moans of the men who were pulled into its depths, and a chilling sort of music echoing through the chamber, calling to them in a sweet voice.

Even with their fellow miners wrenching their arms and the melting bodies of their friends floating in front of them, another four or five miners had broken away and lept into the glowing pool, deep, bloody scrapes on their skin from their companions desperate attempts to keep them back.

None of the miners who made it back to the village lasted more than a week.

They were plagued by a voice only they could hear, singing to them from the lake in the mountain.

One by one, deep in the night, they left their families and friends, the safety of their homes, and walked on bare and bloody feet back to the fire.

The Council at the time voted to wall up the tunnels immediately, but it was already too late.

The miners would claw their fingers raw on stone and then wriggle through the small holes to get back through the tunnels, leaving behind streaks of crimson and bits of flesh in their desperation to get back.

Only one was able to fight it, largely because he was mostly deaf, and had been the furthest away from the cavern.

And even he would tremble in the darkest hours, face turned longingly toward the mountain, humming under his breath.

“Reap and Render, the Ender, the Ender…” he would mutter over and over, rocking back and forth. “Reap and Render, the Ender, the Ender…”

It’s a child’s game now, played in a circle.

They tap on each other’s heads, calling “Reap and Rend, the end, the end, the end, YOU!” and then chase each other in a violent burst of speed, the first trying to sit before the second calls him or her to Offering.

But at the time, it was a warning no one understood.

Not really. Not until the blood moths swarmed out of the mountain for the first time and pulled long strips of flesh from screaming villagers.

“Rannoch, now !” Silas snaps, yanking me from my thoughts, and I sweep her up into my arms, her body limp and pliant. “I’ll take care of this mess and meet you there.”

Nodding, I adjust her in my arms, then set off through the long, dark hallways to the secret, silent place where hopefully she would be safe.

It is hours until Silas is finally able to join me, and I spend the entire time watching the shallow movements of her chest, barely inhaling, barely exhaling.

I’ve been unconsciously mimicking her, not breathing until I see her breathe, and am exhausted with worry by the time he climbs past the wall of rock to the small room that is tucked, forgotten, just behind it.

“How is she?” are the first words out of his mouth, and I shrug.

“Breathing. Alive. Otherwise, no change.”

“What happened? ”

“I don’t know. I walked out and she was collapsed on the floor, eyes open, panicked, and then it was like a candle snuffed— she just went out.”

Groaning quietly, he slumps back into a chair, looking years older than his 31, gaze locked on the Keeper’s face. “Rannoch.” The single word is a book of meaning.

“I know.”

We exchange a long look; this is how we’ve always communicated.

We’d learned over time that actual conversations weren’t safe, so our strange friendship grew in laden words and heavy glances.

I remember the moment we realized we were on one side of history together, with the rest of the Council on the other.

The BoneKeeper was sick and unable to speak for the bones, so the Council voted in her stead.

It was an unusual reoccurrence after years of her falling ill; since the moment she clothed herself in bone she hadn’t missed the monthly naming for Reaping and Render.

Nor has she missed one since. On this occasion, though, while she was unwell, Nickolas and Raek, plus a few of their cohorts, pushed to call for a certain child.

And while we all abide by the First Lesson, something about the Council naming the girl felt… deliberate.

I wasn’t there yet, too young to have been called to the Council, so I wasn’t part of the decision.

A girl from a miller’s family, still with milk-teeth, was chosen, and Ceridwen, barely well enough to Guide, sobbed through the length of the Offering.

Even at 15, I noted the looks of satisfaction on Raek and Nickolas’ faces; it was clearly personal in some way, and the Offerings should never be personal.

Since that time, that last child, none have been called by bone, a thing which has never before happened in the entire history of our Rendings and Reapings.

It makes certain members of the Council furious, though their only explanation for their anger is that it seems like the Keeper is purposefully going against the First Lesson, somehow circumventing the will of the Gods — I is for Infant , after all.

It makes them suspicious of her, and they sow that suspicion like seeds for summer wheat.

There is too much fertile ground for doubt in our village these days; desperation seeks a cause, a place to lay blame when everything is crumbling around you.

And it is always easier to look at one than many , to have the comfort of thought that, if only a single thing were different, everything would be different.

It’s much harder to face the reality that there are no easy paths to the mountain peak, that it will be struggle after struggle, the work of many hands over many seasons, not a sole, sharp cut in a solitary, swift movement.

The day the miller’s daughter was thrown to the Reaping Pit, Silas caught my anger; I was young and hadn’t learned to cloak my emotion yet.

He remembered it though, kept it tucked away, and six years later, when the bones by way of Ceridwen commanded me to the Council, he reached out to me cautiously.

I was more than happy to join him in his plans to burn the poison from this village, but hadn’t anticipated how deep the roots of corruption and abuse went.