CEDAR WALKS THE NARROW path that winds around towering trees. It will lead her to Lake Dolphin, the farthest of the three lakes from Grandma’s cabin. The path that goes through the village would be faster, but she has avoided the village for months.
The village has grown steadily since the Queen’s death and the King’s implementation of Koshluk’s demands five years prior. Cedar usually enjoys spending time with the southerners who uproot their lives to build new ones in the north. Visits carry greater risks now.
The cold from the winter months lingers in the early spring air. Cedar covers her short black hair with a wool toque she pulls from the coat that swallows her slight frame. Her hand-me-down boy’s jeans are from her neighbour, Rose, whose son outgrew them long ago.
She glances up, taking in the height of the trees. She feels small around most people. Trees are a great equalizer – everyone is small by comparison. She breathes in the scent of trees in the early stages of spring bloom. The woods provide a brief reprieve from the restlessness that plagues her.
A bird’s call sounds through the trees. Cedar mimics the call and takes three dance-like steps. She adjusts the satchel over her shoulder and resumes walking.
The lake dock has been haphazardly put together and added onto through dozens of years. Worn canoes and kayaks are tied to posts that are so rotted they look as though they could lose hold of the dock with a mid-sized storm. The boats bob in blissful ignorance in the spring swell of the lake. Some of the wood boards are soft beneath the handmade leather soles of her shoes.
She has kept her canoe tied to one of the studier posts of this weathered dock since the lake thawed. She plans to move it to the closer Lake Cobalt when she is finished at this last island.
The cold numbs her fingers. She warms them in her armpits before she unties the knots that secure her boat.
She hears footsteps and swings her gaze around. Star walks towards her.
“Did I startle you?” Star brushes thick black hair out of his youthful face.
“It’s okay. I thought you might be someone else.” She wraps the rope into a coil.
“Who?”
“Forget it,” she says.
He leans against a post. “Haven’t seen you around lately.”
Cedar fiddles with the coil of rope in her hands.
“Cedar.” His tone shifts from casual ease. “We had a good thing going. What’s up?”
This is unexpected. His reputation had never tied him down to any one girl for long. Their relationship had been in full swing when Grandma had begun pressuring her to marry Oak. Grandma would be grateful for Cedar to settle down with any northerner, and avoid the pitfalls of sharing her mother’s dreams, but she had been sure Star would never consider the possibility of a future together. It had never occurred to her to tell Grandma about Star, though it might have prevented the whole debacle.
She swallows.
“It’s nothing Star, I just don’t have time.” She tries to look him in the eye.
He sucks his cheek between his teeth. “You weren’t any busier in the winter than the rest of us, Cedar.”
Everyone in the northern mountains become hermits in the winter, but boredom reigns over all else, even the brutal cold.
“I’m sorry, I just haven’t felt much like being out and about,” she says.
“I’m not looking for an apology. It’s your life,” he says.
He shifts his weight between his feet. Cedar examines the rope in her hands as though it is of the utmost importance. Star clears his throat, but no words follow. He is usually the picture of casual nonchalance. Then it occurs to her. Does Star care for her?
She knows many girls who have had their hearts broken by Star. She had not given any thought to the possibility of breaking his heart.
It is a disquieting feeling.
“Look, Cedar…” Star struggles to find his next words.
Cedar seizes the opening. “Star, let’s leave it where it is, okay? I don’t think either of us wants to hash it out.”
He leans forward for a moment. Then he straightens his stance and shrugs. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you around then.”
“Yeah, see you,” she says. They will cross paths at the village marketplace, or elsewhere, soon enough. They have long stopped going to the village school, which had been useful for learning to read, write, and basic math. Grandma had taken care of most of Cedar’s education. Books, even those banned by the ordinances, were passed between neighbours – until recently.
Cedar tosses the rope coil into the canoe, and swings in. She pushes off from the dock and dips her paddle into the water. She takes several strokes before she looks behind her.
Star’s back is to her as he walks away. She puts the difficulties from her mind. Star, Grandma, Oak, along with everyone else, do not follow her here. Life on the water is on a different plane of existence.
Cedar’s paddle pulls rhythmically through the water, awakening her senses. There are three distinct bird calls, and even an insect’s hum in her ear has a certain quality of sound that she relishes. She listens to the sound of her boat moving through the water.
Even before Koshluk’s ordinances became law in Danbarrah, there had been little music in her life. Grandma resents music for provoking her daughter to go south in search of a music teacher. She blames music for Lavender’s death.
The sounds and vibrations Cedar hears on the water are the closest she comes to music. It creates a glow inside her, even if she has to keep it there. When she is on the lake, she wonders how she has ever convinced herself that she wants to go south. In the south, music would be even more out of reach, especially now.
When she reaches the tiny island, she can no longer see the weathered docks of Lake Dolphin behind her. The lake is named for its crescent shape resembling the ocean animals found off the southernmost coasts of Danbarrah. The gentle curve from the shore gives her privacy.
She pulls her worn canoe, plugged with sap, pine needles, and anything else useful, onto the sandy shore. One of the cracks glistens with water that has wicked through a patch. She is accustomed to cold water, and a strong swimmer. However, if her boat were to submerge, the maps she has brought with her would be ruined. She inspects the crack again but the patch looks reliable.
She rummages through her satchel for her sketchbook of maps. Maps have long fascinated her. Not in the same way music does, but maps are not forbidden. As a young girl, she had poured over the maps of Danbarrah. She would trace the river path from north to south, toward the Palace of Rubies, where their northern mountain river empties into the ocean. When those maps inexplicably disappeared one day, she had begun making her own maps. Grandma complains about her obsession with her map work, making them the only open defiance Cedar allows herself against her guardian.
She opens her sketchbook and walks the perimeter of this last remaining island. She long ago completed sketching maps of the islands of Lake Quarry and Lake Cobalt. She goes about it in much the same way she always has.
She makes an approximation of the size of the island. She references the same legend for plant and animal life she created when she first began the project.
She notes everything from the soil conditions to the plant life, including all animal signs she sees. Her exploration of the island is meandering and slow. She has no desire for efficiency. There is nowhere else she wants to be.
There is a Sassafras tree on the island. They rarely survive through the cold winters, though she can think of two others she has seen – one on Lake Cobalt, the other on Lake Quarry. Cedar takes her knife and removes the dirt away from a pronounced root. She carves thin layers from the root, careful not to scar the tree too deeply. She places the carvings in her satchel. Grandma will appreciate the drink it brews. She moves the dirt back into place around the root, and a jagged object cuts her hand.
With a gasp of pain, she compresses the wound with her sleeve before examining the cut. Content with its superficiality, she turns her attention to extracting the curious object in the dirt. The ground that surrounds the object is firm, reluctant to relinquish hold of its small treasure. She uses her knife blade to loosen the soil, and pries the blade underneath the object, popping it out of the ground.
The object she extracts is a brilliant blue. Its shape is jagged and has many faces. Its weight is heavy for its small size. It takes effort to hold it up, and when she raises it into the sky to catch rays of light, it glitters so bright that she looks away. Cedar knows little of the value of stones and gems, but this one is a stone whose description has practically become a myth in Danbarrah.