She had earned her name early, after a long stint beneath Mother Earth’s cross even before she had turned four. In truth she could not remember the episode, but the bog dwellers had supplied her with enough detail that it was almost as if she could: an egg, bluer than the sky, alone in the mud. The egg rescued, carried home in cupped hands, and then held in the valley where her thighs met as she knelt beneath the cross, asking for the egg to hatch. Finally, a crack appeared in the perfect shell and then a pink-yellow beak emerged, an orange-red throat, slick feathers, matted and black.
Afterward, hardly a moon passed without the girl spending an extended stretch beneath the cross. She asked for meat, and Old Smith appeared, arms heavy with a joint of salted pork for her household. She asked for the itchy pustules that had come up on her abdomen to vanish, and they dried to brown crusts. She asked for some gift to make her mother smile; and Arc, who knew the ways of bees even as a child, produced a dripping slab of honeycomb. She asked not to be afraid, and daybreak broke; for rain, and the heavens burst. She asked reverently, and exulted Mother Earth fervently in return for the gifts bestowed. It had been easy; easy to notice, too, the way Mother Earth heard her, the favor shown to so devoted a girl, the way she and her mother were spared the worst hardship when others were often not.
* * *
—
By the time the procession ended, Devout felt reassured, ready for the evening, as though her woolen dress were fresh, as though her hair reflected the gold and silver of the flames. Had she really considered abandoning the procession? For what? To perfume her arms? She would face Young Smith, ignore his flitting eyes as they leapt from dirt-lined fingernail to tangled lock of hair. She would say it plainly, that she had lost the amulet. And as he took in her tousled, unkempt state, he would feel relief that he was not beholden to her. No mother’s fury to bear. No perplexed looks from the other young tradesmen. It struck her that Arc would not appraise her now, wondering what had possessed him to unearth sweet violets and haul them to the summit of Edge so that he might plant a glorious bed for her. Day in, day out, he toiled alongside her in the fields belonging to Chieftain, ruler of their territory. They had tilled the earth together in cold, relentless drizzle, and he had seen her nose red and running, her face set and grim.
The maidens sat on the low benches circling the firepit, passing a goblet of wheaten beer, always sunwise, each solemnly swallowing a mouthful when it was her turn. They ate the tenderloin first, slowly, pondering the sweet juice in their mouths. Devout swallowed her share of the meat and barley but hardly tasted it. She had forgotten the filth under her fingernails, and the moment when she took off her cape to reveal a dress as filthy as it had ever been passed with little anxiety. Young Smith and his clan had left so that the maidens might feast in private, but he would return to see her throat bare. Never mind, though. Mother Earth resided within her now. What Devout felt was goodness, benevolence, peace. She wanted to clear away the new rushes, lie on the ground, and put her cheek, her heart, her hands against Mother Earth; but it seemed she should remain still, that if she were quiet, she might preserve the moment, that Mother Earth might stay.
Then the boys were pounding on the barred door, as the maidens knew they would. They smoothed their dresses, laughed, and called out, “We have more to eat,” for, according to tradition, the maidens must finish the feast before opening the door to the boys. The maidens began milling and speaking loudly enough to taunt the boys waiting outside. “You’ll have more loin?” Reddish called out. On such a night, Sullen answered back, “Can’t bear another bite.” Her usually slackened cheeks lifted. “I’m as full as a ewe’s ripe teat.”
Eventually the door was opened, and the boys came in with more flagons of mead and, carried in the arms of a hand called Singer, a large circular frame covered with a pulled-tight skin. It was a tool for tossing wheat into the air, for catching the grain that remained after the chaff was carried away by the breeze. But from the frame against Singer’s hips, the skin beneath his tapping, patting hands, the rhythm of a song would swell.
The boys’ voices boomed, and there was mead in their laughter—too easy, too loud, falsely low, mimicking the men they would become. As Devout turned toward the din, she caught Arc’s eyes. He smiled, and she tumbled back to the reality of an afternoon searching the underbrush.
She glanced away from Arc, who was good, who made her heart flutter, who would favor her still, who need never know she was given an amulet. Certainly, Young Smith would tell no one, would not admit he had once felt affection for a hand. With his smile unreturned, Arc would not approach but stand bewildered. With a bed of sweet violets, he had made his feelings clear. As he stood peering over the rim of the goblet passed to him, he would wonder whether he had declared a kinship stronger than what she felt, and it made her heart ache. By now, Young Smith would have looked, seen her naked neck and felt the insult of a lowly hand’s rejection. She would not go to Arc, not tonight, would not further offend Young Smith.
Her elbow was nudged, and she took the goblet Reddish held out to her. She drank a long swallow and watched Young Smith step around Young Hunter and then walk toward her in a straight line. Reddish nudged her a second time. “He comes.” She and Devout stood with three other maidens, and each stirred taller as he approached. Reddish took the mead from Devout and held it to her mouth, moistening her lips, though it broke the rule of passing sunwise. And then Young Smith was close, among the cluster of maidens, saying, almost too quietly to make out, “The amulet?”
Her fingers moved to the hollow at the base of her neck. She did not wear it, and he could not pretend it was hidden by her clothing or otherwise made invisible. He focused on the spot on her neck where the amulet should have hung, his brow a web of questions.
“Amulet?” Reddish said, her face as expectant and immaculate as Devout’s was unsure and unclean. “You gave her an amulet?”
Eyes leveled on Devout, he nodded.
Tiny gasps escaped the clustered maidens.
“To her?”
It was like a slap, Reddish’s disbelief. Devout willed her voice to steady and said, “An amulet such as you have never seen.”
Reddish turned to her. “Where is it, then?”
Devout opened her mouth to say she had lost the gift in the woodland, but under Reddish’s blistering gaze, she found her tongue, her lips, her teeth forming different words: “I made an offering of it to Mother Earth at the bog.”
Young Smith’s hand clapped his chest, and all eyes on him, he worked to keep his face still, but the firmness of his jaw, the tightness of his lips gave away an inner storm. He had spent days. Taken great care. He had suffered risks, perhaps, even lied to his mother, saying he had stayed late in the forge perfecting his barrel hoops.
Devout’s fingers went to her lips, the rushes. As she crouched there, inspecting his shoes—the laces crisscrossing his instep, the leather snugly drawn into place—it occurred to her that a hundred times over she had earned her name. Might he believe a maiden of such sure devotion would have taken what was most precious and cast it into Black Lake’s pool, as was the bog dwellers’ custom in honoring the gods?