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Her brothers ought to marry. A strong young woman could let the old ones rest. But then, she herself was the strongest woman she knew. If she could not release her father from toil, he would never rest. Could she do it? She sighed. Not now. When she was caught and these meetings stopped, then she could work day and night to be a good daughter.

She heard the leaves whirling down onto the roof and closed her eyes, remembering an old nightmare. Once in the evening when she was small and afraid of the autumnal wind, her mother had sat by her and told stories about the trees that were really mothers bewailing their lost children and again, alternatively or at the same time, she being too young to know, they were souls of those who had died weeping, turned to trees and forever howling with their arms upraised. They wept for the Lost God, Verloring, ever and ever sorrowing, and so if this child did not stop crying she might be transformed...the ploy had failed when Berthe decided the tiny saplings that sprung up in the field were babies and she hid the weeding hoes, imagining herself the mother of a race. Had she really done that? She remembered being beaten for it.

Her mother had woven cloth for the city people as a young wife, before her eyes began to fail, and often Berthe had heard the twang of the loom in her sleep as her mother wove by firelight, torchlight or moonlight because the orders were always so big, nearly impossible, and she was given so little time. At dawn her children would find her asleep at work and drag her to her pallet before their father woke, because if he knew she wove all night someone would suffer.

About the time Berthe became aware of what it meant to be a witch, her younger brother was born. This baby somehow took his mother's sight. She could not weave by the light of hissing torches any more and for a while she wove all day while Berthe struggled with the housework, and then when Berthe was called to work the crops she wove in the day and cooked and mended at night.

One day when she lay sick from a childhood illness, Berthe twisted basketsful of cord for her mother to weave for some hopeless order. The woman sat rigid, slightly curved around the baby, fingers scrabbling in the warp as she raced against the sun. Now and then she glanced outside or cast a fearful look at the heavens and then she worked even faster. Sometimes she sprang up to relieve her aching back, at others she examined the roll of finished cloth or looked to see how much warp remained. All day she worked as though someone were lashing her.

At sunset she muttered, "There's a little time yet," and they dragged the heavy loom outside to use the last bit of twilight. She paused occasionally to yank strands of her hair and bits of her tunic free and Berthe heard her weeping while the strings were quiet. The sky turned deep red as the sun fell, the layers of thick and fine cloud making a lattice of darker and lighter color that faded slowly until they were a delicate grey and it was truly night.

"There must be more!" Berthe's mother yelled, shaking her fist at the sun. She stood and railed.

My mother is turning into a tree, Berthe thought. She tottered out and stood beside her mother, trying to become a sapling, until the others came home and put them both to bed.

Berthe looked at her own dirt-ingrained fingers, too big from work to do any weaving for the city, and at Akiva's. His were thin and dexterous but not strong enough. Our mothers, she thought, we have squandered all you gave us. The trees shifted violently in a gust of wind, branches touching. Their fingers are strong and graceful, she thought. They weave...they weave moonlight. Some day I will be married to you, Akiva, in a veil of moonlight as we dream together at the burial ground.

What if they sent her away? She looked outside again. The wind blew strong now, the leaves fell rapidly. If they sent her away, they would die. No, her brothers would bestir themselves and marry before the old folks starved. But what if they didn't?

She got up. Maybe she could go to the temple and talk with Fea.

The moonlight struck her face. She blinked.

"Berthe, come out," someone whispered.

She stepped into the shadow. It was her younger brother, standing outside the window. So this is the way it happens, she thought. Should I be so calm?

"Berthe, come out. Mother is laboring. She told me you were here--she's crying for you, Berthe. Come home. I won't say a word, I promise. Come on!" He gripped the windowsill.

A low, nasty laugh interrupted. It came from her next elder brother, who stood a little beyond the house, near the forest. "Here you are. Want to be laboring yourself. Women love pain, I swear it."

Behind her, Akiva had drawn his knife.

"Put it away. I will not let you harm my brother," she said. The polished blade must shine in the moonlight. She could almost hear it shining; wicked, powerful and safe. For a moment she longed to take it and cut herself free from these hands at the windowsill, piercing the night if need be until she stood alone in the dead light that shone always beyond the mantle of darkness. She heard the knife slide back into its sheath and the longing vanished.

"Come on," the younger brother pleaded.

"Don't move," the elder contradicted. "Pa's already gone to raise the priests."

Berthe lay down. Her father had chosen the difficult path. Had he kept quiet, the evil priest would have had to reward him with strong blessings. He had spoken because to remain silent would be to betray his people.

"Tell him when I am gone that I do not repent but am proud to be such a man's daughter," she said.

Her brother sobbed in distraction, pressing his head against the wall so a few bits of clay and straw stuck in his hair. Though he had lived all his life among cruelty and desperation, his look when he raised his head was that of one meeting evil for the first time. She came to the window and embraced him, holding his head against her shoulder so she would not have to see his eyes.

Men were entering the house now. A kick sent her forward, knocking her brother off balance. She fell on him. Hands came toward her, palms and fingernails flashing white. They clenched in to fists and struck blind, as though she were not a human being with head and limbs but a featureless mas to which all blows were the same. Their shouts echoed cries of malice in the house, where a group of priests were fighting with Akiva. Hands pushed at one another in the uneven torchlight and once she saw Akiva's arm swing up and then down. Their rage is the measure of our victory, she told herself. A strip of her dress had been torn from the collar to the girdle at her waist and now it hung down like bark peeled from a tree. A club cracked against her shoulders and she fell, groaning.

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CONTINUE..................... SHOTGUN BRIDE......... SHE REMEMBERS HIM...... HE WANDERS.........

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INDEX