Free A Single Stone by Meg McKinlay Page B

was something special about standing beside a girl, watching her take it all in. But right now she could not imagine being in the same room with Berta. She could not look at her and think the things she was thinking.
    She cast her eyes to the ground. To the rough stones dotted at regular intervals, marking out each small mound, one from the other. There was no stone for Mama though – not any more. Would she even be able to find her after all these years?
    People had been so angry back then. Angry enough to steal a stone from a grave. Angry enough to come to the Centre, demanding that the Mothers unwrap Jena, send her to the fields where she could do no harm.
    She’s her papa’s daughter. Such a girl cannot possibly be fit for the line!
    The words rang in Jena’s mind, as shrill and clear as they had been all those years ago. It felt like she was unravelling. Things she had thought long forgotten were all of a sudden right
there
, bright fibres of memory unspooling. And she had seen how this worked, how it began with one frayed corner, a single loose thread. It seemed harmless at first, because it was just this one small strand, so you tugged it a little and before long you were pulling and pulling, unstitching the very fabric of things.
    She closed her eyes, gathered herself in. Then took a deep breath and opened them again, intent only on the ground before her. It was easier, sometimes, not to let your gaze stray to the left or right.
    She need not have doubted, for when her eyes lit upon the grassy mound by which she and Papa had spent so many hours, there was no mistaking it. There was no longer even a depression where the stone had been, nothing to say it was ever there. But she knew and that was enough.
    She knelt upon the ground, feeling the dry undergrowth crackle beneath her.
    Mama.
She rubbed the surface of the glass in her pocket. Something to make the pains start … was there really such a thing? Min was young. She had been younger then. It was so easy for a child to misunderstand, to get things twisted around.
    Jena considered the haphazard rows of grassy mounds. Would there be a stone for a child born still? Would there even be a grave? If there was, it would be so tiny that …
oh
. The realisation hit her with a clarity so fine it almost hurt.
    A baby had died and Min’s first thought had been for how small it was. Jena’s had been for whether it was a daughter. Neither of those things mattered and yet they were all that seemed to. How much
more
would they matter to the Mothers? More than the life of a mama? More than the life of a child?
    She pressed her finger onto the sharp edge of the glass. Gently at first, and then more firmly. As it pierced her skin, it was not pain she felt, but something like release.
    Her hand closed around a piece of the bottle and she withdrew it from her pocket. The side which had struck the rock had shattered and most of the base had sheared away. But the top remained intact, the cork wedged in place. She laid the chunk of glass on the ground, faint droplets of blood welling from her finger.
    That blooming flower.
    She scooped the other pieces out of her pocket and set them down alongside it. Perhaps she might leave them here for Mama. Not a stone, but something all the same.
    There would never be a stone for Papa, but there was nothing she could do about that. Nor could she bear to think of it – the way he had stumbled and fallen, the wall of rock lowering itself upon him. Her hand rubbed absently at the knot between her shoulderblades. Beneath her fingers, the scar was cool and smooth.
    A noise behind her made her start – a stick, snapping. Perhaps there was a rabbit in the underbrush.
    But as she turned, the sound came again, and with it another, louder and steady. Footfalls.
    Her instinct was to hide – even after all these years she could not afford to have people thinking this was where her heart lay – but there was nothing but clearing around her. Along the