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Everyone in the family has their own tea. We live on it to the point that we end up smelling like it after a while. Because, yeah, it’s true that we get by well enough on food—the venison and tack from the outpost keep us healthier than most who live out this far in the wilds—but it’s the herbs that make this place what it is.
Andy—Andelaya, my sister, I mean—always smells like dandelions.
Crys—that’s my aunt, Chrysanthemum—she smells of cloves.
Dan, Crys’s little boy (he’s nine now), has taken a liking to blueberries.
Mom smells of cinnamon.
Granddad, he smells like peppermint.
Dad always reeks of wild oak. He makes the tea from the bark, and trust me, you start to learn the musk of the tree when you’ve had it boiling on the kettle so long.
I tell ya, you can make tea out of anything if you try hard enough.
So when I come towards home and the entire place smells like chestnuts, I know they’re giving a nod to me. Me and my chestnut tea, cooked up for everyone to drink. And I’m excited, of course I am, for the whole lot of everything. The feast, the gifts, the dancing. Mostly the dancing, but that’s as much because I love to see my father try to dance, stodgy rugged bugger that he is. Though I like dancing, too. As far as I’m concerned, dancing around is part of what makes a person a person.
So, I’m excited for tonight. Scared out of my whits for what’s coming next? Light bless, of course I am. Can you blame me?
Walking through the grove right now, maybe thirty strides off from home, the chestnut smell is the thickest. But even up close to the house where we’ve picked all the branches and undergrowths clean, you can smell a hundred layers more. Lilac and lemongrass and berries, dew-dropped bark and lavender. Besides from being a death trap, this place could be the eighth kingdom.
I stop to just breathe it for a spell. It might be a while before I get another chance.
I find myself missing some smells. Like the mixture of vanilla and walnuts. You don’t get that unless you make it yourself, true enough. It was Crys’s man that smelled that way. And look, I’d say her husband, I would, but that wouldn’t be the light’s honest truth, would it? Some people say, sure, if there’s a promise to marry and then—like the old books say—they “take a bed together,” then that’s a marriage. But here, even out in the wild, a marriage is a real, proper thing. Getting dressed up and looking pretty, if you’re a girl. Looking all broad and protective and loving if you’re blessed with dangly parts between your legs.
And hells, I’ll say it as much as I want to. Blessed, even out in the wilds. Sure on, they don’t look down their noses at us women-folk the way they’re said to at the city. (Though sometimes, given the city gals I’ve had the sickening displeasure of being briefly acquainted with, I think that much of the problem lies in how they represent our kind.) Out here in the wild, we show the strength of our hands in gathering, even hunting at times. Hells, I’ve had a bow slung at points or another, though I reckon that I’ll never get one again after the last time. We won’t go into that one now. Let’s just say that certain mistakes were made and certain ass-cheeks were punctured. But it was an accident. Swear to light, it was.
I’m losing myself. The point is mostly that, as your nose gets more sensitive to choice smells, you learn to miss them too. Which makes me wonder what sort of way my heart’ll bleed once I’m real and gone away from here. There are just so many smells to miss. Not just the shit stink and the herbs, either, but other smells too. The dust, and the specific smell of the orange-dyed wool that makes for my winter blanket.
As I trudge closer I smell the must of our home’s overgrown, rain-soaked wood, the smell of chestnut leaking out hot and heavy from between the logs. The familiar scent should calm my nerves, but I can feel my veins thudding out even as I open the door to walk inside.
My family’s standing about the fireplace, table shoved against the left wall, my Grandpa, Mom, and little Dan standing just in front of it. On the other side of the fireplace is Daddy, Crys, and my Andy. All the chairs have been set about in a crescent curve, the fireplace there blazing at the back of the room and the family all clutching their gifts.
I grind my teeth. Did I mention that? When I’m nervous, I just can’t help it. Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m nervous until I catch my teeth making that awful noise, top row trying to chew through the bottom one. Anyway, that’s the noise that’s coming from my mouth as I walk toward the center of them. Tradition dictates certain things, including the curtsy I give to my father (and yes, as a night of dancing, all the lady folk are wearing out dresses; it’s only mom has a dress that isn’t dirt brown, and hers is like pale bluebells). Tradition dictates that I stand here in the middle, and it dictates that I say real specific words. Which I’ve committed to memory. I hope.
“I am the eldest child of the eldest child.” Yep, so far so good. “It is now ti—my time to journey far from home. I will brave the world and return with the strength to carry the family name.” I turn to my father and this time I don’t curtsy, I bow proper. That’s part of the ceremony, though maybe just because it was made at a time when girl-folk weren’t allowed. And of course I’m bowing at him because he’s the eldest child I was born from. “I seek your blessing,” I say.
Of course, what this is really about is nothing to do with having the strength to carry the family name. It’s about going to the heart of the empire and having our names written on the scrolls, so the angels know what to call us when they carry us out. And to pay our tribute to the Velrans who prevent any worse sort of marauders from hacking us to bits (though what marauders would venture into our wilds, I’ve no idea). Tradition is a bit tricky on who exactly is responsible for all that, but it boils down to “eldest child of the eldest child,” in a straight line from whatever man it was first became a citizen here. Grandpa will have prepared the scroll-work, so I don’t need to worry about the nit-pickies.
My daddy steps toward me and says, “My child, you have my blessing.” He says it like the words belong to him. When I say these memorized things, I sound like … well, not like me, and that’s my whole point. “To guide you on your way, I present to you this gift. That you may always be safe and never be hungry.”
My daddy isn’t the sort to wrap up presents real nice—not on the Feast of Ventius, not even on Braid’s Day—so it’s something of a surprise to me when he hands me a polished leather casing wrapped up all fancy with a rope. He’s knotted it on top in a way that I figure was meant to be some kind of bow, but mostly he’s managed to forge the toughest knot in history. I tug and pull at it, then throw proper to the wind and lift the rope to my mouth to gnaw at it until it comes loose. My mom’s off there rolling her eyes, a skill she’s mastered over the years of raising me.
When I slide the long case open, my jaw drops so wide you could’ve fit a little world inside it. I mentioned that I’ve had hands on a bow, right? Well, sure and true enough, I ain’t gonna pick one up in the close time. But knives … I’m a slick and quick hunter with knives. I can spike a rabbit from twenty feet off—if the day’s clear and I’ve got just a finger of luck. What Daddy’s given me is, not just one, but two knives. Two of his best—ones I’ve seen on his belt over and over through the years. They’ve the long sorts of handles, leather-wrapped of course, but enough that you can get a real solid grip on ‘em. The knives themselves have thick blades, as big as my three (truthfully thin) fingers across at the base. He’s cleaned and polished them just for tonight.
It’s a gift as grand as gold, and he must know it. Now, I’ve mentioned that I didn’t get the lucky dangling parts between my legs. I think my daddy would have liked a boy plenty more. Sure and true enough, even here in the wilds, it’s better to have a male heir. But a girl like me will do in a pinch, if pinching’s called for. He’s treated me well enough like a boy through the years, bringing me out to hunt and gather, though maybe just because he knew I’d take on the responsibilities of the eldest. But he looks at me as I handle the knives, feeling their weight, and he looks damn proud. His pride in me makes me want to melt down and throw my arms around him, but I think that would ruin the moment and his maybe imagining that I’m kind of the son he didn’t have, so instead I belt the two knives on the left of my waist. Daddy just nods at me.
Trying to hold the water back from my eyes, I turn toward my mother. “I seek your blessing,” I say.
My mother’s got water-run eyes already. This gets to me, but not because I think any less of her for it. Just that I normally don’t cry, but there’s something about the way my mom gets going that gets me going too. She’s got a large parcel, a brown thing that was probably once a wheat sack, all wrapped up in string now. She’s done a more elegant job than daddy, sure as true, but you’d expect that from a lady like my mom.
“My child, you have my blessing.” She’s having trouble getting through the words, sniffeling up her snot and tears. “To guide you on your way, I present to you this gift. That you may always be—be comfortable and warm.” I slip it open, expecting a nice wool blanket for my trip or maybe a warm new cloak. Instead, I find something else entirely.
I lift it out of the package, and already the fabric glows in the firelight. It’s white, but the color changes in the light of the room, picking up all the shades. I grip the soft, cool fabric in my hands, shifting it from side to side. I’m left absolutely without words. I know exactly what it is she’s given me.
It’s white silk.
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