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Willow watched as Joss tinkered with yet another modification to the odd machine he’d been building, readjusting a metal spoon she recognized from the Motherhouse dining hall. Controlling the whole mess was a knob whittled from a piece of firewood. “Did I tell you we built crystal radios in school?” he asked her. “I must have been about eight. Good thing, or I wouldn’t have known where to start.”
Among the oddities in the radio were two of her treasures, a clear pointed crystal the length of her palm, and a seashell that swirled around on itself. Some said you could hear things if you listened at the opening of the shell. Joss used it as an amplifier. He’d scrounged a rare piece of metal wire to connect the pieces. The device took up most of the table. Good thing it’s summer, she thought. We can eat outside.
Joss hunched over the machine, tying one connection, fiddling the dial, tying again.
Later they would go down to Hallan to share in the celebration. She had spent the morning in her garden, staking the tomatoes, harvesting a few early herbs. Their spicy aroma already filled the room. Willow refused to regret being indoors. Joss loved being out in nature even more than she did, and she loved him. He believed this contraption was important enough to sacrifice part of the gorgeous day to it.
But on Summer Solstice?
“Here we go again,” he said. As he had done a hundred times that spring, he connected two wires, held the shell up to his ear, and waited, slowly moving a knob She, for her part, watched him.
The winter had transformed Joss. He had matured from the voyager through space who had survived untold hardships, as well as the wounds to his body from the crash landing. Training at the Motherhouse with Arwen, Dal, and Quinn, he had become – been restored to – a man confident of his place in his world. He relished life in Hallan and spent his days in the fields and barns, learning from her and others about care and treatments for the animals.
Willow smiled. According to him, the animals themselves told him as much as any person could. An animal whisperer understood the minds of the beasts he worked with. Even the goats that hung around the cabin adored him.
Joss jerked and sat up straighter. He paused, then watched his hand turning the knob slowly back and forth, although his focus was far away. It was hard to tell in the sharply contrasting light, all dark shadows except where the midsummer sun poured in through the door and window, but she thought he paled.
After a minute he said, “Come over here.”
He scooted off his chair to allow her to sit and pressed the shell to her ear. Again he moved the knob. After a brief pause, the shell filled with an odd, indeterminate noise, much like waves on the shore, as she remembered from her childhood when the entire hamlet made the one-day trek to the ocean.
She lowered the shell to the table. “What is it?” she whispered.
“Them.”
Joss disconnected his contraption and led them both outside, where they settled on the little hillock across from the cabin, a goat lying contentedly beside him. “That thing’s not powerful enough to pick up words. But it’s the first time we’ve heard any disruption. Until now, there’s been nothing. I’d hoped it would stay that way.”
She watched him, concerned, as he rubbed the goat between her stubby horns. “They’re aiming transmissions in our direction, probably trying to contact the pod. They’re coming, Willow.”
She gazed down the long slope toward Hallan. From this distance, she could barely see the festivities as people milled about the square. Every once in a while the bass vibration of a drum resounded through the valley.
“Makes me wonder why I’ve bothered.” Joss’s spare hand, the one he hadn’t dedicated to driving the goat into a state of bliss, plucked at the grass. “We’re on the verge of a calamity, and I have no way of telling you the scale, what to prepare for. Not much use, is it?”
Willow followed his gaze; he glared at the instrument hidden by the cabin walls. “I’d say it’s a help. At least we won’t be caught unaware. And it may not even impact us. Suppose they crash, like you did? Or they might settle somewhere else, in Borgonne or... everyone’s wondered if there’s another land, across the ocean. All my life the rumors have floated around. Maybe they’ll end up there.”
“You don’t know my people.” He took her hand in his free one. The goat rested her chin on his thigh; she’d swear the animal almost purred. “If there are lands to explore, they will. If they can conquer them, they’ll do it.”
“None of this is your fault.” She scooted closer and leaned against him. Joss’s bulk, his solidity, gave her a blissful sense of being protected, even though he couldn’t protect her from this. “You didn’t plan it, and you couldn’t have stopped it.”
He grinned. “What are you doing, pointing out facts?” He abandoned the goat and used both his giant hands to roll her down onto the grass. “I’m the logical one.”
“Give it up,” she retorted, a smile spreading across her face. “We’re both earth clan. And it’s Solstice.”
“A perfectly logical celestial event.”
He loomed above her, the sun catching glints in his dark brown hair, one muscular leg pinning hers. He no longer kept every bit of himself covered, as he had when he’d arrived a year ago. The patterns of life here had taken root. “And the events it spawns are logical, too. Or at least irresistible.”
It’s challenging to smile and kiss at the same time, she reflected as she guided his mouth down to hers. But she did her best.
~~
LATER, AFTER RACING him across the lake – he almost won – they walked hand in hand to Hallan. Joss asked, “What do we do now?”
She wanted to joke about teaching him to dance – a lost cause, she already knew – and perhaps soaking in one of Hallan’s hot pools, but sensed his thoughts had turned far away from the immediate delights of the day. “We must notify the Motherhouse.”
“Go there?”
She nodded. “Something’s going on there as well. I’m not strong enough in message transmission to tell what. And I want to see Quinn and Mari. Bryar, too, if he’s there.”
“You miss them.”
“I do.” She squeezed his hand. “It’s the reality of being a Weaver. We begin training when we’re young and it’s all a great adventure. And it is, always, but the cost is making friends throughout the Midland you may never meet again. Our teachers identify the ones who have sufficient Entrée to become Weavers but would be miserable with the traveling life. For them, life in a town or hamlet is enough.”
“Is it enough for you?”
He’d picked up on her restlessness. She should have expected it.
“Usually. I could strike out west, visit a few hamlets on that route, and be back before winter.”
“Or spend more time at the Motherhouse. Have you ever considered teaching there? They say you did a fine job with Romarin.”
The whole idea of leaving made her sad, solely because Joss was here. “I think of many things.”
“And stay here with me, while the need to travel festers in you.” He pulled her closer. “Willow, if you must go, then go. We’ve survived separation before.”
Not yet. She wasn’t ready to leave Joss yet. “I suppose the Motherhouse takes priority, whatever else the summer brings.”
They’d reached the outskirts of Hallan. Music filled the square, as did strangers in town for the hot springs. A Bard had arrived promising special entertainment, not to mention the extravaganza of meats, fresh vegetables, pastries, and beer awaiting them. The day was perfect, clear and hot. Last Solstice she had been with Bryar, on the banks of the river that flowed by Stanstead. This Solstice felt more real, as if she had come home to her true life.
Because of the man beside her? She smiled.
They plunged into the mix of locals and visitors, ready to celebrate another season.