Autumn comes,

a full year’s circle since the day –

the start of my Learning journey –

when the goddess belched

as we picked her flowers

and we danced like swallows at sunset

offering our saffron and ourselves.

The festival here

is for folk of all clans

to honour all types of harvest –

and though it is sparse

we’re the more grateful

for each grape and grain.

Teesha and I have made cup after cup –

six hundred and fifty-six

I marked on the tablet –

though we made many more

before Mirna passed them,

because these cups, used once and smashed,

dried but not fired,

still need to be perfect

in the great mother’s honour.

But there is no work today –

the wheel is quiet, the kiln cold,

the hundreds of cups stacked in the palace,

waiting for the feast –

but now that my busy hands are still

all that I’ve tried not to think of

swamps me like the great wave itself.

For this day, when I should become

a woman of our clan

ready to serve the goddess and our land,

there is no one left to teach me

or for me to serve.

This is not something to share with Teesha

so on this strange morning of rest

I walk into the hills

away from the sea and the purple –

to tell Pellie my grief.

‘Tonight,’ I tell her,

‘the Lady and her clan

will chant the story of their home,

remembering their folk

from the beginning of time –

all those who have died

but live on in their song.

‘But no hymn will be sung

for the land of the swallows

and it will be lost as if it never was,

as if its folk never lived at all;

as if you had never laughed with me

and swallows had never come to land –

because only a woman grown

can know that song and sing it.’

And my dead sister-friend,

silent for three moons,

comes to me at last.

‘There are many gifts that please the mother;

there are many rites that make a woman.

As the first woman

once sang the first story,

in this new land you must make your own.

Our land and Learning are gone

but will never die

if you give them life.’

So I sing for Pellie,

I sing for my land and all that I’ve lost,

the stories I know

of our swallow-blessed isle,

of Kora our Maiden,

her belching mother,

and the clans who served them,

from priest to purple.

I sing them all, best as I can

and though my voice breaks,

I sing what no one has told before:

of its terrible death

that it will not be lost.

In reply, the goddess guides me to a rock crevice. Green spikes poke through the ash – and there are the six purple petals of the great mother’s flower.

Picking it makes me weep harder than singing the land’s death.

I’ve brought my basket, hoping for mushrooms or berries, but this is better than food. I climb higher, rock to rock and crocus to crocus till when the sun is high, my basket is full of flowers and my heart emptied of tears.

Mama and Nunu greet me as if I’m carrying gold.

‘Leilei!’ Mama praises, helping me pluck orange threads – she remembers more than we know – and with Mirna’s permission, we lay them in the kiln with the smallest fire to dry them.

All afternoon, we listen to the chanting and beating of drums from the palace courtyard as the Lady and her priest-folk prepare for the sacrifices – but we stay home. ‘To watch the saffron,’ I tell Teesha, which is partly true.

The other truth is that Mama’s face twisted when the chanting started, and Nunu’s eyes filled with tears.

It’s not enough to sing our land’s story alone on the hills – it has to be shared to make it live. To Mama and Nunu now, Dada and Ibi when we find them, anyone from our land that we meet…and one day, to my own children and theirs.

The song isn’t perfect. I can tell my mistakes by the way Mama blinks in surprise – but they’re both weeping as I sing the new ending.

‘You’ve earned your Learning, child,’ says Nunu, and Mama kisses my forehead. ‘Don’t look so surprised; of course I don’t know the Swallow Clan rites you would have done this day, but I’ve heard the saga often enough to know it.’

‘But that’s not the end of the Learning.’

‘Do you think anyone ever finishes learning?’ demands the only grandmother I’ve ever known. ‘But if the great mother has any sense at all, she’ll know you’ve done more Learning this year than any woman has been asked before.’

My head is still swimming with this when Teesha runs back, breathless with excitement. ‘Come on! It’s the maidens’ procession!’

Just for an instant her voice blurs with Pellie’s in my mind. I say yes, though I’m not sure what she means.

The sun is setting, the sky red as the blood of the sacrificed goats, with the swallows dark against it, wheeling in their departure dance.

I stand in the courtyard with Teesha and the other maidens of all the different clans, in my brushed-clean potter’s kilt and my once-white shift, splashed with purple and now with the red of clay. A garland of crocus is around my neck, with more in my basket; in my other hand is my own small pot to place on the altar.

I’m the only one with saffron to offer, but every girl here has a basket for the procession. I thank Pellie, thank my Learning, for leading me out to the hills this morning to find what I need for this new rite, as well as the gift for my own goddess.

The road through the town, looping around the houses and craft quarter and back to the palace, is made of broad stones. Today, with the street swept clean, I realise that every third stone has an offering hollow.

Singing, twirling, we dance down the road, out from the palace towards the watch-hill, where Teesha and I met Andras once to see the sun rise between the hills. We take turns marking each offering spot with something from our baskets – tiny seashells, flowers, strands of seaweed – Teesha has made round clay beads, and I have my crocus petals, and though some of the offerings are the same, we each arrange them in a different pattern around the hollow. It seems strange that we don’t place our offering inside it, but I watch the others and do what they do.

The youths’ procession follows, close enough that they watch us arranging our offerings. They are carrying pitchers of olive oil and flaring torches, and at each spot one of them dribbles oil into the hollow and lights it. Sometimes there’s a bit of jostling and shoving to reach one spot first, even though there are so many to choose from. Our whirling dance lets us see them without seeming to watch. Teesha’s song is suddenly louder and her dance wilder, and I see that the tall stonemason apprentice is lighting the hollow surrounded by her beads. Mine is the next one – and Teesha’s poking me, laughing, as Andras lights it. We link arms and whirl until it’s our turn again.

We dance all the way back to the palace courtyard, where the rest of the town is waiting, clapping and chanting, for the feast to begin. Mama and Nunu are there with Mirna and her family, and though I don’t know if this is home, for the moment I’m happy. We dance and eat, laugh and dance, maidens in the middle and the youths stamping, leaping and clapping, stars above us and the lights of the offering lamps circling the town below.

Dancing our grief

for Maiden Kora gone

we honour the great mother’s tears

that come as winter rain;

dancing our mourning

till it turns to joy,

and in the midst

of the swirling dancers,

the chanting and clapping,

I dance for the swallows

as we did at home,

wishing them strong flights

to wherever they go,

‘But at winter’s end,’ I dance, I beg,

‘return with the Maiden,

bring us the spring,

and the wandering travellers

from across the sea.’

And the swallows,

roosting in great flocks

before they leave

murmur in reply,

promising that like the Maiden,

life will return.