Blueberry Shroomy's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

By morning the clay jar was almost empty. Blueberry Shroomy tipped it against her palm and watched the last of the gray dust settle in a thin crescent. One threshold's worth. Maybe two if she was careful. The creature had tested the line last night and pulled back. It would come again. She needed more salt-ash before dark. She walked the field path north back to her house at the low end of the slope. The blue cap was still beaded with damp. She opened the door. Her partner, Blueberry Shroom was just coming down the stairs, in his cloak, and looked at the jar in her hand. "Empty," he said. "Almost." He stepped back and went to the shelf where the clay jar had come from. He lifted a second jar, smaller, and set it on the table. He turned it upside down. A spoonful of gray dust fell out. "That's what I have," he said. She looked at the little pile. It was not enough for one threshold, let alone three. "Where does it come from?" "The root pit behind the far rows. I burn the trimmings and sift the ash through salt. It takes a week." "I don't have a week." "I know." He did not soften it. "You have tonight." She sat down. She put her hands flat on the table. She thought about the dragging at the edge of the garden path. She thought about the berry on her step. "Then I burn some today," she said. "Show me." He took her to the pit behind the house. He showed her the trimmings stacked under an oilcloth. He showed her the sieve and the coarse salt. He lit the pile and stepped back. The smoke went up straight in the still air. "It has to burn down to white," he said. "Not gray. White. Then sift it hot." She stayed by the fire. He brought her water and left her to it. The wood took hours to burn. She fed it and watched it and turned it with a stick. By late afternoon the ash was pale but not white. She sifted what she could. She scraped it into her jar. She held the jar up. It was a quarter full. Enough for the door and one window. Not the back step. Blueberry Shroom came out and looked at it. "Choose the door," he said. "Leave one window shuttered from inside. Nail it if you have to." "And the back step?" "Sit near it. Keep the lamp lit. If it comes, you'll hear it." She carried the jar through the rows. She poured a thin line, thinner than before. She shuttered the back window and drove two nails into the frame. She set the lamp by the back step and sat down beside it. The field went dark. She listened. The jar was empty in her lap.