Free A Single Stone by Meg McKinlay Page A

forgotten to return it when she took the milk. When she withdrew her hand it held jagged shards of glass. And there was that smell again – faint but distinct. The cloying sweetness that had hung in the hallway yesterday, and on her mama’s breath all those years ago.
    Something twisted inside her. She was glad of the rock at her back, calm and still.
    Min wrinkled her nose. “What is that?”
    Jena forced a note of lightness into her voice. “Just a tonic Mama Dietz had.”
    “For the birthing? I think my mama had that.”
    A birthing tonic? Jena supposed it must be. Still, there was something odd about what Min had said. One daughter. A mama who had broken.
    It came to her suddenly. “How do you know?”
    “What do you mean?” Min looked puzzled.
    “You said your mama had it for a birthing … but I thought you were the youngest?”
    “Oh. No, it wasn’t me. It was when Mama …” Min’s voice faltered. “It was a few years ago. She and Papa thought to try for another daughter, like you said. But something went wrong. The baby stopped moving inside her. At first Mama said it was probably sleeping but then it kept on until Papa said no baby slept that long – not inside nor outside of a mama – and she must go and see the Mothers. They put their hands on her and then that funny thing they listen with. And they said it had died.” Tears welled in the corner of her eyes. “They gave Mama something to make the pains start so she could birth it. I saw them bring it out later, wrapped in a blanket.”
    “A daughter?”
    “They wouldn’t say. They said it wasn’t anything yet, that we shouldn’t think on it. But sometimes when I close my eyes I can see its face – so perfect and small.” Min lowered her voice to a whisper. “It wasn’t nothing. But anyway, it was dead. And all I could think about was how tiny it was, and how good it would have been to have a sister like that. And then Mama was so sick, after. The Mothers said she was badly broken and must never try again.”
    “I’m so sorry.” Their losses were not the same but Jena knew what it was like – to have that precious bundle in a blanket, to see it slip beyond your reach.
    She blinked hard. She would not let her thoughts trip back there again.
    “I …” she began, then stopped.
Should go and see Berta
, she meant to say. Even without the bottle to return, there was gear to be checked and maps to be charted. But here was that liquid, sticky on her fingers. And Min’s words ringing in her ears.
    Something to make the pains start.
    The morning seemed to slow and still. The birdsong from the forest was suddenly distant, the drumming of her heart impossibly loud. This bottle, that smell, the one which ten years ago had coloured Mama’s final breaths.
    A tonic. Strength for the birthing.
The Mothers’ excitement, hours before the pains had started. A six-moon baby. So early, too early. Unless it lived, and then …
    Thanks be.
    The rock has allowed it.
    The thought twisted in her mind. No. It couldn’t be.
    A birthing tonic because they knew a birthing was coming.
    Because they were making it come?

TEN
    Under the thick canopy of forest, the clearing was deep in shadow. Although trees had been felled here, those which ringed the space had grown out across it, seeming to reach for each other.
    Jena entered softly, her feet nimble across the leaf-strewn ground. She had not meant to come to this place, had scarcely known she was doing so until she found herself skirting its edges.
    There had been a point at which she veered from the path, telling Min to go on ahead of her to the Stores. Now Min was in the line, she must go and see Berta and claim her allocation. Under normal circumstances, Jena would have been eager to accompany her. Most in the village would never be permitted to visit the mica room and it was a memorable occasion when a new tunneller did so. Unless she went on to lead the line, it would happen only once; for Jena, there