Ysra's Account

Ysra wrote her statement three times.

The first version described the technical history of the underlayers. It was accurate and almost entirely without people. Ren read it, set it down and asked where the three hamlets on the old causeway had gone.

Ysra took the page back.

The second version named the hamlets and described the emergency orders. It explained the war, the shortages, the pressure to keep the capital supplied. Ada read it and found herself searching for the point where her aunt had chosen rather than merely been required.

Ysra saw her expression.

“Say it.”

“You sound as though you were weather.”

Her aunt went very still.

Ada wished she could make the sentence gentler without making it less true.

“You prepared the pages,” she said. “You knew some of the descriptions were wrong. You told me that at home.”

Ysra looked at the paper for a long time.

Then she began again.

The third account named the work she had done, the objections she had failed to pursue and the point at which temporary measures had become a system she no longer believed could be repaired from inside. It did not claim that leaving had undone her part in it. It listed the records that could confirm or contradict her memory.

Her hand cramped before she finished. Ada offered to copy the final version from dictation.

“No,” Ysra said at first.

Then she looked at her fingers and changed her answer.

“Yes. But don't improve me.”

Ada copied exactly.

When it was done, Ysra signed with a broad-handled pen strapped loosely across her fingers. The name was less elegant than the one Ada had grown up admiring. It was more difficult to write.

Ren read the statement without speaking. At the end, she nodded once.

“That can stand beside the ground records.”

“Can you?” Ysra asked.

Ren looked up.

“Stand beside me,” Ysra said.

The room held its breath.

“I can stand beside what is true,” Ren replied. “The rest will take longer.”

Ysra accepted the answer. Ada saw the effort it cost her not to ask for a kinder one.

That afternoon, Perrin prepared to leave with Nessa and Toll. Noma had found reliable adults travelling towards their home districts, and a copy of the corrected release accounts would go with each group. Mara and Jon had received word that Perrin was free. Their reply, carried through the river network, was short enough to make Ada's throat close.

Bring him where someone knows his name.

Ada packed food into Perrin's bag. He watched her work.

“You're not coming.”

“Not yet.”

He picked at a loose thread on his sleeve.

“I knew.”

“Ren's sending copies to the fen. Mum and Dad will know what we're trying to do.”

“Will the road let me get there?”

The question was so practical that Ada almost missed the fear inside it.

“The carriers have checked the unbound parts. They'll avoid the trial markers. It will take longer, but they know the ground.”

He nodded.

Then he took a folded page from his pocket. On it, he had drawn the long-legged marsh bird again, this time wearing boots much too large for its feet.

“For your book.”

Ada stared at it.

“Perrin.”

“The old one got torn.”

“How did you know?”

“You left it open. Also, you draw birds badly.”

She laughed and held him tightly.

Before he climbed onto the carrier's cart, he looked at Cal.

“Don't let her decide being hurt is the same as being useful.”

Cal glanced at Ada, then back at her brother.

“I'll remind her. I can't make her sensible.”

“Neither can we.”

The cart left in the early afternoon. Ada watched until it passed beyond the bend. Her brother did not look back every few steps. He was talking to Toll, showing him how to hold the wooden boat so the mast wouldn't break.

She was glad. It hurt anyway.

That evening, she put the new bird drawing beside Ysra's statement in her notebook.

One page recorded a harm. The other gave her a reason not to let harm become the only thing she knew how to see.