Chapter Text
Whirr… Whirr… Whirr…
The setting sun’s rays stabbed Cora’s eyes and she brought the spinning wheel to a halt. Putting away the unspun wool, she lashed the wheel so it wouldn’t turn unattended. A spinning wheel turning on its own draws the dead. That was what Danika always said, anyway. Cora wouldn’t mind seeing her grandmother again, but not like that. Her mother, neither. She wasn’t sure if her father was actually dead, but that wouldn’t be the way she wanted to find out.
With the sun setting, Jon would be home soon. He got upset when dinner was late, and she’d lost track of time- spinning often did that to her, losing herself in the whirl and hum, the wool twisting into thread, so regular and soft…
Cora shook her head and crossed to the fireplace where this evening’s stew had been cooking all day. It had been a while since she’d stirred it, but it didn’t smell scorched. She tasted, and added a few dill leaves, and stirred vigorously. Then she sliced the rest of this morning’s loaf of bread and pulled a pair of small pots out of the coals where they’d been baking. Yams for Jon and squash for her.
She put both pots on the table, then set up the screen in front of her seat. Jon’s food issues had gotten worse over the years, and she was glad she’d finally thought of the screen. First, he’d refused to eat corn. Then any yellow food. Now, he’d refuse to eat at all if there was any yellow food anywhere on the table. Cora loved corn and squash and peppers, so she was grateful that Jon accepted the compromise of the screen- if he couldn’t see the yellow food, he didn’t get upset about it. Cora didn’t really understand why he loved orange yams and pumpkin, but hated anything yellow; but she’d just added it to the list of ‘Things She Didn’t Understand About Jon’. It was a long list.
Cora had been taking care of her brother alone since her Grandmother died three years ago. Their mother had died giving birth to Jon, when Cora was five. She remembered Katya, a little. Mostly little fragments of song or story. She remembered her mother’s hands, softened from working with wool, but strong. A lot like her own hands now, come to think of it. Grandma Danika said Jon looked like their mother, but Cora couldn’t really see it. Cora herself took after their father, Myr. And maybe Danika, a little. It was hard to tell under all the wrinkles and laugh lines.
It had been all right for the first year. The first few months had passed in a fog, Cora mourning her Grandmother, hoping for her father’s return after the war, and exhausting herself taking care of Jon. There hadn’t been much time to think. But the grieving passed, their father didn’t come home, and Jon… wasn’t quite right.
Cora couldn’t remember when she’d first realized that there was something wrong with Jon. She hadn’t really been around many kids his age, so it was a while before she realized that he should have started to talk. He never made eye contact, and didn’t like to be touched. He’d get upset over little things- even more than most kids.
Her father had never really known what to do about it, but then, he spent most of his time in the woods, trapping. Danika said that Jon was just different, and it would all work out fine. Cora just assumed he’d grow out of it, eventually. But he didn’t.
When Jon was ten, their father started to take him out when he checked his trap lines. Jon took to it immediately, and within a year, he was running his own line. That was just as well, because Myr went away to war soon after- and never came back.
Between Danika and Cora, they made things work. Danika was a potter, and supplied most of the village’s needs with a little left over to send out with traders. Cora spun the finest thread in the village, as well as doing ‘fancy’ embroidery. As fancy as the village got, anyway. That, along with their vegetable garden meant they could support themselves and Jon until Myr came home.
But Jon surprised them all by becoming an expert trapper. He might not bring home quite as many furs as his father had, but his were of finer quality because he never damaged them when he took pelts. Cora was proud of him, and wasn’t ashamed to admit that he’d exceeded their father’s teachings. So, the family still had income as well as always having meat on the table. Those were good times, and it was easy to overlook it when Jon cut the collars off all his shirts and stopped wearing socks with his boots.
Jon was like that- a study in contrasts. Cora never worried about him being in the woods alone, working with knives and wild animals. He could handle himself, and had never come home with anything more than a skinned knee. In the woods, he was perfectly normal. Maybe better than normal. But at home? He couldn’t be left alone for long. And he couldn’t (sometimes she thought he wouldn’t) take care of himself. Put food on the table, and he’d feed himself. But he wouldn’t make even the simplest meal for himself, no matter how hungry he was. And he wouldn’t eat anywhere but the table, even in winter when it was warmer by the fireplace. Lay out his clothes for him, and he’d dress himself. But he’d go naked before he went into the wardrobe and take out his own clothes. He clearly knew what to do- it just didn’t occur to him to do it. It frustrated Cora to no end, but Danika just smiled and said it would all work out.
Cora had asked Danika once what she meant by that. Had she seen Jon’s future in one of her visions? But Danika had just shaken her head and changed the subject. Her visions didn’t come often, but when they did, Cora paid attention. The rest of the village did too, after Danika predicted the flood that washed away part of the retaining wall near the river. She’d warned the village, but they’d ignored her- and lost a good wheat field. Alkirt, the Bard who came through the village every few months called what she had ‘ForeSight’ and said it was perfectly normal, if unusual. He’d said it was one of the Heraldic Gifts, but no Companion had ever come for Danika. She didn’t seem to mind.
But if Danika’s ForeSight showed her the illness that took her three years ago, she never told Cora. At least it had been quick. It had been a bad tine for Cora. Not only was she mourning her grandmother, but their family had gotten a lot of what it needed from the village by bartering for Danika’s pots and bowls. Jon’s behavior didn’t help, either. Grieving was one thing, but Jon’s grieving crossed over into inconsolable tantrums. He curled into a ball, shrieked (the most noise Cora had ever heard him make), and even slammed his head against the wall. Cora had been terrified as well as furious- he’d never paid Danika much attention while she was alive, and now he had to make everything that much harder? When Cora already had so much on her shoulders at only sixteen?
Even worse, Cora had started hearing things about the same time. At first, she thought she was hearing people talking as they passed by outside the house. But there was never anyone there. Then she started to think she was losing her mind. Eventually, she remembered that Bard Alkirt had talked about other Heraldic Gifts, besides Danika’s ForeSight. FarSight. Firestarting. MindSpeech. And once she’s realized she wasn’t going mad, Cora started to experiment. Over a few months, she learned a little basic control. She learned to focus on one set of thoughts so that all the other thoughts around her didn’t overwhelm her- like focusing on one voice in a crowd. That helped, a little. But she still avoided being around people as much as she could.
Jon was oddly helpful during that difficult time. Not that he did anything different- he didn’t. But Cora got the idea to try and read his thoughts, since he still didn’t talk. At least that way, maybe she could understand him better.
But when she tried to read his mind, nothing happened. He had a kind of mental wall around himself. A wall that she could perceive, but not get past. At first, she was frustrated. He couldn’t even make this easy for her? When she was only trying to help him? But gradually she got the idea to study that wall instead of resent it. And she learned to make one for herself. The voices intruding on her stopped. Unless she took her wall down, she was alone in her head for the first time in months. And for the first time in months- maybe for the first time since Danika died, she was able to really think clearly.
Danika had always said that Jon was fine and everything would work out. Cora decided to get a second opinion. The village of Bentley’s Field was less than half a day’s walk away, and they had a Healer there. So, Cora gathered up Jon, some of her best thread, and a stack of Jon’s better pelts; and off they went.
Healer Kosta was very kind, and didn’t even accept Cora’s offer to barter pelts and thread for her service. She examined Jon (not even touching him after he flinched away and made what Cora thought of as his ‘distress whine’). Instead, she just looked him over, very intently, running her hands over his head about six inches from making contact. Jon ignored all of this as soon as she wasn’t touching him anymore. The Healer had asked Cora a lot of questions about Jon’s behavior- had he always been like this? Had there been any childhood trauma? Any injuries? Illness? And once all the questions were over, Healer Kosta delivered the death knell to whatever hopes Cora might have had: There was nothing physically wrong with Jon. He was just… like that. And he probably would be like that for the rest of his life.
And that was that. Three years later, Cora was taking care of Jon. Cora would always be taking care of Jon. She loved her brother, and always would. But she was so tired of taking care of Jon. She didn’t have any help. The rest of the village was… distantly understanding, she supposed. No one was unkind. Parents stopped their kids from teasing Jon- when they saw it happen, anyway. And Cora suspected that when she bartered her thread and Jon’s pelts, the some of the villagers gave her a little more in trade than what they were worth. But they didn’t socialize. The village kids never played with Jon, even when he was younger. No one visited their cottage, or invited them to visit. No one offered to stay with Jon so Cora could have some time to herself. Be fair, though. You’ve never asked anyone to mind him for you. So much time without company made it hard for Cora to lie to herself.
The sound of Jon scraping his boots on the porch (just like their father always had) shook Cora out of her memories. A moment later, Jon came in, barefoot. He never wore socks at all, but he went completely barefoot anytime he wasn’t going into the forest.
“Hi, Jon. Everything go okay today?”
Affirmative grunt.
“That’s good. Hungry?”
Affirmative grunt.
“See anything interesting in the woods?”
Noncommittal noise.
“Dinner’s ready. Go wash your hands.”
Just like every other day. Jon liked the routine. She dished up stew, bread, and vegetables; making sure her own plate was hidden behind the screen so Jon couldn’t see the forbidden yellow food. After dinner, Cora noticed Jon running his hands over the set of reed pipes he’d made for himself.
“Do you want to go to the tavern? It’s been a while since Bard Alkirt’s come by. I’ll bet folks would welcome some music.” Like anything else Jon decided to do, he’d gotten remarkably good at playing the simple pipes. And once Alkirt noticed, he’d given Jon a few lessons the last time the Bard had visited the village, which had only helped. His playing probably wouldn’t have earned him a place in a big city inn, but it was fine for a small village like theirs. Plus, playing his pipes in the tavern was as close to ‘socializing’ as Jon ever came.
But Jon just shook his head and put the pipes away. He watched the fire while Cora cleaned up the dishes. Once they’d both settled down for the evening and Cora took up her spinning again, Jon made what Cora thought of as his ‘Attention, please’ noise. She looked up to find him staring at her, with a finger placed upright on either side of his head and a pleading look on his face.
“The rabbit story? Don’t you ever get tired of that?”
Determined head shake.
“All right. Where were we? Oh, I remember. So, Furhead and his friends had just escaped a hunting dog by crossing the river on a floating piece of bark. Some of them were very tired and wanted to rest right there in the open, but their leader insisted they needed to get under cover so they could rest safely. So, on they trudged, looking for a safe place…..”