Chapter 10 - Two Prayers

Jorle did not say anything to his father as they made their way home along Whitechild Road. He knew the job that his father was taking him home for. The only job in the world that mattered to either of them right now, the only job in the world that neither of them could talk about.

Jorle glanced at his Da. Wyland was hiding behind a face of stone, but Jorle knew him too well. The emotions, the rage battling tears, both tightly reined in by resolve, were plain for Jorle to read like a book. He looked straight ahead, not wanting to force conversation. Not wanting to accidentally see his father cry. They trudged on like that through the rest of the daylight.

Dusk was paving the way for true night when the Ibara men arrived back at the farm. Jorle and Wyland stopped in the road. Together, they stared at the cottage that was more nightmare than home now. Finally, Wyland turned away from the house and headed for the barn.

"We'll sleep in the barn tonight. Tomorrow, we make places in the orchard for your Ma and sisters." No matter what battle was playing on his father's face, his voice was cold and hard. He followed his father into the barn, quietly. They both made pallets on the floor from loose hay, and lay down without supper, or fire, or talk. Though he wished for nothing else, sleep was a long time coming. And when it finally did come, his sleep was fitful.

No sign of sunlight came in through the barn doors when his Da shook him awake. An occasional note or two of birdsong cut through the darkness as he stood and brushed off the remnants of his bed, but the songs were short and cautious things; birds tempting the dying night to find their voice.

"You've got a better hand at woodcarving than I do, son. I am going to start digging, I want you to make the markers. On your mother's there should be a singing mimicker; she loved the way they could sing any bird's song. Your mom sang a fair song herself." His Da's voice never trembled, but he could see a tear starting down the corner of his eye, "Avilene's should—"

"Avilene! But Da, she—"

"WAS MY DAUGHTER AND YOUR SISTER!" The ferocity made Jorle take a step back. Wyland paused and took a deep breath, tendons that had sprung forth from his neck slowly settled into the background, "Today, that is what matters, son. She is gone, that is payment enough for what she may be responsible for, that and the payment I make now with every breath. Sometimes we take responsibility for our children's debts, or our parent's. Trust me, if I live even just the year, I'll pay her debt tenfold."

"Yes, Da."

"On Avilene's, carve a rose. And on Shaundi's…do you think you can carve that rock beside the river? The one she would beg you and Avilene to take her to. The one she liked to dive from."

Jorle remembered the rock. He could carve it in his sleep; it was the place he and his sisters spent every free moment, it seemed, for years. "Yeah, I can do that."

"Good then, and take a care to match the lettering to that on the older markers. You have until sunset, I'll have all the rest ready."

"Yes, Da." Jorle stood watching as his father grabbed a shovel and a pick then turned and walked out of the barn in the direction of the orchard. The younger Ibara began gathering his carving tools next to the workbench. He found a wide plank of seasoned oak that Wyland planned to begin a new bookshelf with. Jorle measured the plank into three sections and began to saw.

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Wyland Ibara worked silently in the shade cast by the branches of the apple trees. Steadily, unflaggingly, the shovel bit down into the earth and came back up depositing soil in growing mounds next to growing holes. He never stopped his shovel, but to climb out of one hole and begin the next. As the sweat poured out of every inch of him, so too the tears he had been holding back came.

There, in the orchard that he had always looked on with pride and respect, the final resting place of the Ibaras, Wyland worked, and wept, alone.

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Once the sun was well risen, Jorle moved out of the barn to work in the sunlight. Later, as the sun began to dip toward the mountains in the west, he sat on a rough bench with two grave markers beside him leaning against the barn. The third, still under the knife, sat in his lap.

His mother's, done first, had a pretty good singing mimicker surrounded by intricate vines and floral work. His mother loved anything decorated with vines and flowers. He thought she would have liked the mimicker amidst the small flowers. Shaundi's was done too. It showed the large rock next to a pool in the river that he and his sisters had jumped off of so many times. He had carved a background of trees and two children swimming in the pool with a third, the smallest, in the air between rock and pool.

He could not forgive Avilene, or even begin to remember her as his sister: all he could see was her standing behind Shaundi raising that awful, ugly knife, all he could hear was 'Sorry brother, I really am. This is the price He set.' He worked diligently, though, making the single rose in a vase as beautiful as he could. Not because she deserved such, but because his father did. When he finished Avilene's marker he looked up to see Wyland emerging from the orchard.

His Da didn't look at him, but walked directly to the back door of the farmhouse; moments later he came back through the door cradling a body in his arms. Jorle began to rise to help carry them out to their graves, but stopped halfway up and sat down again. "Da will want to do this part himself," he said quietly to himself.

Twice more Wyland walked out of the orchard and into the house, twice more he entered the orchard with a body. Jorle gave it a few moments after his father reentered the orchard the third time, then stood, collected the markers, grabbed a shovel from the barn, and headed after him.

Wyland was standing at the foot of the smallest of the three graves, staring down at Shaundi, when Jorle walked up behind him. Wyland broke his stare and turned to meet his son.

"Well, let us see the markers, son."

Jorle walked around to the top of the graves and laid each marker out at the head of the girl it memorialized. A singing mimicker for his mother, a rose for Avilene, and a playful scene for his baby sister. He had spent all day working on the images that would mark the resting places of his family, spent all day to make them good enough for his mom and Shaundi, good enough for his dad. Laying there next to the graves, they seemed like awful mockeries.

"You've done a fine job. These are good work, Jorle." His father paused then, seeming to struggle with getting anything else out. "Thank you."

"No thanks, Da. Not for this."

Wyland nodded without looking at him.

"Detra Ibara, Avilene Ibara, and Shaundi Ibara. Our wife and mother, our daughters and sisters. We lay them down and give them back into your embrace, oh Creator, shelter them in the Light and keep the dark at bay." Wyland stopped and looked over at Jorle, "Would you add anything?"

Jorle nodded, taking a moment to staighten his thoughts, then taking another to find his voice. "Oh Creator, shelter the innocent, give forgiveness if it is right, and leave the rest to their rewards."

His father stared at him for a long time, jaw clenched. Jorle deferred to his father in most everything, but not in his prayers, not in his farewells. He stared back at Wyland, bracing for what he might do or say. Finally, Wyland gave him a short, quick nod, then walked back to the apple tree where his shovel rested.

"Jorle, go get us some game for dinner. I will stay and finish this. If you get back to the barn before I do, start a fire."

"Yes, Da."

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The sun had set by the time Jorle returned with a rabbit and a pheasant nestled in his game pouch. His father hadn't finished in the orchard yet, so Jorle went about starting a fire and cleaning their dinner. He spitted both kills and was placing them over the fire when Wyland walked into the barn out of the darkness. Instead of the shovel he had carried earlier, he clenched a hammer in his right hand, the muscles in his big forearm bulging. The hammer was foreign to Jorle. The head was bigger than the hammers they used for building and repairs, but the handle was much shorter than the large one they used for driving posts. One side of the large head was honed to a wicked point.

"What is that, Da?" Wyland didn't hear him, shoving the handle of the strange hammer through his belt and walking past the fire into the dim, shadowed reaches of the barn. Jorle heard him shifting bales of hay and rustling other things about. He reemerged into the firelight with a bottle of brandy in each hand.

"My special supply. I keep aside the first and last bottle of every year." He held the bottles out in front of his chest as he lowered himself to sit on the log next to Jorle. "These two are the oldest. I made this batch the year I married your mother."

Wyland pulled the cork from one bottle with is teeth and spat it into the fire, then he bit the cork on the other bottle and yanked it out as well. Without looking Wyland held the second bottle out to Jorle.

Jorle hesitated for a moment before taking the brandy from his father. He took it slowly. The bottle was heavier than he had expected.