Weight of Water

As Duara made her way back home, her father stood in front of the cabin, scratching his head.

In front of him lay a barrel, lightly filled with sandy loam, and beside it four buckets and two yokes. Behind him, a bowl filled with white ash from the last night’s fire.

When Duara approached, she asked, “Is everything alright?”

“Yes, everything is fine. I wanted to fix up the house and make it a home,” replied Gaul. He studied Duara’s face, her demeanor, and the upright stance she held, as if a string had pulled her by the chest and kept her freely suspended. “I figured that you’d be tired of walking.”

Duara nodded. “I’m tired, but I wanted to look around. Breathe Drethen air, perhaps.”

“And?”

“I met someone.”

“And?”

“And they were pleasant. They talked all morning about Drethen’s usual happenings. Which, I thought was trivial, but on the way back—it seems to be all I can think about,” said Duara. She hid a smile. A poor attempt, and after a moment, let it show.

Gaul in reply, smiled back. His jaw had ached when he woke earlier, but the muscles for smiling had not ached as much as the clenching he practiced during the march over to Drethen. “I took it upon myself to clean the cabin—even though that was the one responsibility I was told to uphold, never mind that, I’ve tumbled the water barrel with rocks and sandy soil, and I needed to take the water down by the nearest creek and fill it so we can—start having mundane mornings like before.”

“And you’ll have me take a yoke and some buckets to fill, won’t you?” asked Duara.

“I set out two, one for me and one for you.”

“I’ve found the nearest creek.”

Gaul picked up a yoke and passed it to Duara. “Then it should be quick.”

So off they went. Duara showed him the path. The rough road and then a turn into the rougher patches of ground. They filled all the buckets, slung the yoke on their backs and returned, the same way they came.

Gaul finished tumbling the barrel and turned it over, scrubbing the insides with ash, and washing it out.

“A clean water basin. Now we’re back to being a home,” said Gaul, filling the barrel with the three other buckets.

“Do you remember the home we had back in Haford?”

Gaul scratched his head and then his fingers stroked his chin, as it often did when he thought too much. “Not so much. It could be that I’m tired.”

“I don’t feel tired,” said Duara.

“Then do you remember it well?”

“I don’t, at least not as well as I thought I should.”

“Yes, then we must be more tired than we seem. But even then. I don’t remember anything beyond the kitchen floors I scrubbed, where you first walked. Not many memories remain beyond the room you slept, and the things that were kept there. As I think of it now. I don’t remember what my bed looked like. Only that it was there and only that there were four walls surrounding it.”

“That’s the way I remember it,” said Duara. “Our home in fragments. I don’t remember the odds and ends I kept in my room. But I remember coming through the door everyday. The water pail on the left, and—was it the chair you crafted to the right? Perhaps that was in the kitchen, or—or—did we sell it then?”

“I believe I kept it. Not that it matters now. We’ll have to make another trip out to fetch more water—” Gaul winced. He placed a hand on his lower back and it seemed as if he tried setting it back.

“I can fetch more.”

“No—we can do it tomorrow.”

“It’s fine, father. I’d like wash out all of the journey’s semblance tonight, and you need your rest.”

“Then I won’t argue.” A hurt, hunched over Gaul stumbled back into the cabin. “I think I’d like a peering hole. One facing the sunrise. It might be best to have it facing south, to get as much sunlight as I can.” He grabbed a pot and returned outside. “She’s already left.” In the distance traveled Duara. A yoke rested upon her shoulders, four buckets dangled from them.

As Gaul watched, he muttered to himself. “Foolish child she’ll pain herself into a fever.” And for a moment, he considered catching up to her with a yoke in hand, but mistakes—as he vehemently believed— were a luxury only the young could endure.

Gaul’s back ached more so once he saw the mistake he made. The barrel that was meant to be in the cabin, stood, filled with a bucket of water, outside the cabin.

He sighed and pulled the barrel to one side, and tilted, and turned, and rolled it in the cabin, settling it beside the door. The door that leaned, lopsided, nearly lowered to the loam. He could fix the door, and his mind meandered on any means to mend it, at least until, he traced his fingers around the hinge, where the wood rotted, where it was creased, and where it folded in with the hinge. The rusted iron hinge. No mind meandering could ever fix that hinge. He needed a tinkerer. A tinkerer who could make it move again, or at least separate the mended parts, so that it was a functional, and working part of what he meandered about—a brand new door. He then thought the bramphians would enjoy a brand new, working door.

Behind him clattered buckets and yokes. A groan, then a triumphant sigh. “Done,” Duara said gleefully. She then massaged the tops of her back and shoulders. “Why is there a pot here? Why are you staring at the door?”

“It’s upsetting,” said Gaul.

“The door… is upsetting?”

“Indeed. The door itself, I can rebuild, but for the hinges, I’d need a blacksmith. Or if we could find someone to fix it, like a—”

“A tinkerer? Why—why, I met an apprentice tinkerer.”

“Did you? Just now?”

“No, earlier when I discovered the stream. She came by to greet us, and that was why I came back later. Serendipitous, I believe,” said Duara.

“That’s wonderful. Although, I’d hate to burden your new acquaintance? Familiar? Friend?”

“Friend, I’d say.”

“Would you? I mean, of course, why wouldn’t you consider them a friend. I hope to assume, your* friend*, would be able to help us? Of course, I’d be willing to offer my tradesmanship with a rocking chair or—or a kitchen table.”

Duara nodded to Gaul’s reasoning. She then picked up a bucket and hauled it over her right shoulder. “Let’s hurry with this, and I can go to Drethen and ask if she’d be willing.” She picked up the other bucket by its handle and brought it with her to the cabin.

Her father agreed to the terms and decided to start on their meal. After rummaging around, he has found dried soup, an entire basket of onions, and a jar of animal fat. Perfect, he thought, for a soup or a stew to be continuously cooked above the hearth, and added to as the days continued.

While he prepared it, Duara made her way to Drethen, trodding down the road they first came, and through the fields they viewed on their journey here. The swine, still apathetic to her presence, rooted and sniffed the ground, and the sheep followed her—as far as they could, bleating, likely begging for the patch of grass that she walked on, for it seemed much faster than the grass inside their fence.

Now the road that she walked on, hardened into the same hardpan like ground in the cabin, where the dirt had been so packed down, it was indistinguishable from wood or cobble. Farther in and closer to the tinking of a hammer on anvil, murmured rumours passed by curious townsfolk, and the constant scrapes of the tanner on leather, and the woodwright preparing a surface, the road became cobble.

The buildings that marked their trade were spaced apart from each other, generally by a path that dilineated each building. Much of it was in stark contrast of what Duara was used to, where Hafordian trees could easily house two, maybe three trades. Wooden steps that circled around the Hafordian tree trunks, along with braided rope that held sturdy bridges between the trees and thus trades and homes.

Whereas before, the sounds of the scraping, tinkering and often carving were muted by the trees’ foliage that the trades worked within. And here, the sounds were sharp, and pierced Duara’s head a little.

Was Ashya’s home by the tanner? No, Duara thought she heard miller, perhaps baker? Certainly not the blacksmith, as it was her uncle. Where would the tinkerer be? Had she mentioned that?

The blacksmith was easy to find, in this case, as the tinkering could be heard throughout Drethen. The banging, the constant, the sharpness, and then the satisfaction of its conclusion with the hiss of metal sizzling in oil.

“Hello.” Duara figured the best time to interrupt the man between the banging. “I’m looking for Ashya.”

The man, coal-ridden in every crease of his arms, his neck, and behind his ear, pulled out the beginnings of a clamp, and clattered it on his anvil. He then inspected Duara, and with the quick conclusion he said, “O’ yew must be dah cabin dwellers Ash-dear mentioned.”

“That—that must be me.”

“Ya, she was hopin’ yewd come by after today. She den mentioned bout needin’ to go by Paene.”

“Paene?”

“The chandler, sorreh, she’s down dere.” He pointed his hammer down the cobble road, which led to a masoned building with black smoke puffing out the chimney and open windows.

“Thank you, uhm—”

“Name’s Vallen, yews?”

“Duara.”

“O’ dat’s right, Ash-dear did mention it.” He turned, then used forceps to bring the clamp into the forge until it heated red.

Down the cobbleroad, towards the smokey chimney walked Duara, now with demur. As she approached, the stench of burnt fat soaked the air.

A woman’s voice could be heard beyond the open windows. “O’ ay can’t imagine the journey over.”

Ashya responded to the voice. “Neither can I. I dunno if this will do anything, but thank you for standing by my request.”

Duara crossed the threshold, as the door was kept open. “Hello?”

The two townsfolk stiffened.

A woman who was visibly related to Ashya stepped forth. She had blotches of perpetually red and darkened skin across her forearms, and wool coverings underneath a leather apron, a rag rested on each shoulder, standing nearly a foot taller due to the patterns that were fastened to her boots. Wool covered her nose, which made nasaled her voice. “I’ve heard much about you. Although, Ash-dear doesn’t speak lightly on many things.”

“Aunty!”

“Yes, Ash-dear?”

Duara decided to speak up before a bickering picked up between the two. “I wanted to know if you could help me.”

Paele stepped closer. “Of course.”

“I was hoping for assistance on a hinge, and neither of us can’t fix it,” said Duara.

“I can do that! I can do that!” Ashya almost slipped on the lard and the tallow that covered the floors.

“In return, I can—or my dad can, build a new table for your suppers or any other activities you would do with a table.”

“There’s no need.” Ashya grabbed a pile of wicks, which were dipped in wax. “Why don’t we go see if I can help you?”

“Are you certain?”

“I don’t see the harm.” Ashya went ahead of Duara, then promply waited for her to follow. “I cannot wait to see the cabin again.”

Duara followed without much thought. “It’s the same as you first saw it, isn’t it?”

“Things change over time, I’d say, and even if it’s been the same cabin as I remembered, I’m still excited to see the inside.”

On the cobbleroad and onto the the hill, past the sheep and the pigs, the two walked. Duara balanced on portions of the cobbleroad—long sets of even and flattened stones that would sometimes lead to a large crack, where patches of grass would climb out. Many cracks like this crawled around the cobble until the two walked on packed dirt.

Duara spoke after a stretch of silence. “It’s pleasant here.”

“Do you really think so? It’d be fine if it’s not, and you’re only saying that for—for niceties.” Ashya turned to face Duara and she walked backwards, keeping her same confidence in each step. “I know Vallen can be a little… something else, and Paele too at some times of the day—but they mean well, I swear it.”

Duara didn’t hear much of what was said. She worried over a branch or a stick that could trip Ashya into a tumble. “No, I mean what I say. I don’t think they’re in any way unpleasant, or at least unpleasant in a way I’ve encountered.”

Ashya sighed. “That’s good.” She spun back around. After a few passing trees, Ashya said, “There’s not a lot here in Drethen, I’m afraid. It’s not like Niobeth, or really any Kington town that you’ve probably traveled through. Really all of Tavean is like this.”

“Is there anything wrong with this?’

“No, I—I didn’t mean it like that, or maybe I did, but really, I’m a little afraid that you’d get stir crazy or want to run and see me exciting sights.”

“I’ve had enough excitement for a while,” said Duara. The path inclined, which became Duara’s marker for the cabin. “Yes, I think this is the right amount of excitement for me.”

Before the cabin came into view, the scent of caramelizing, simmering onions surrounded them—a promise of a meal to come home to. The door was left open, and Duara knew that Gaul hid inside, watching Ashya.

Duara jogged up to the cabin and knocked on the dilapidated door. “You can come out now father.”

Gaul coughed and looked at Ashya. With an emphatic wheeze in his voice, he said,“Seems I’m ill from the traveling, might be best to come back another day.” He coughed some more.

“Don’t listen to him,” Duara said, “he’ll be fine.”

Ashya didn’t listen either way. She inspected the top and bottom hinge, tapping the rust with her fingertips, and attempted to swivel the door. Like before, it crumbled, then cracked, and the door drooped some more. “It’s definitely broken.”

“My father wanted to ask if you could fix it.”

“I won’t need to.”

“Sorry?” asked Gaul.

“That’s right.” Ashya stood up, wiped her nose with her arm, and timidly faced the two. “I’ve might’ve been too curious a over the past months, and whenever the Bramphians were gone. And I might’ve asked Vallen to forge a hinge for me a few weeks ago. And if I might’ve done so, I wouldn’t know how to tell the new inhabitants of the cabin—I so surely didn’t mean to be rude to—that I’ve done so.”

Gaul’s coughing fit turned into a gentle chuckling. “If that were the case, I’m sure the new inhabitants wouldn’t see that at as rude whatsoever. Certainly, they’d be forever indebted if you were to have done so.”

Ashya straightened. “Will they?”

“Yes,” Gaul said, “I’d be overwhelmingly grateful.”

Without another word, Ashya ran off at a brisk pace.

Gaul scratched at his head. “I’d say, we might’ve picked the wrong town.”

“Excuse me?” Duara’s brows furrowed, and the pain in her shoulders, back, and legs returned in full.

“I’m not certain how I’d be able to repay my debt to her and her fellows. It’s a burden that weighs more than any load I’ve carried.”

“You’ll be fine, father.”

“I think I will too.” He returned back into the cabin. “Hopefully with time.”