The Stone and the Seed

Letter 12 of the Book of Forgetting

That morning I was at my bench, the rangefinder open before me, when Rivka Raz came in holding something in her cupped hands. She was the network technician, a lean woman of about thirty with glasses pushed up into her hair and a tangle of cables always in her bag.

"Fernando," she said. "Look at this."

She opened her hands. A seed lay in her palm, dark brown, ribbed like a small melon, about the size of my thumbnail.

"A bird dropped it," she said. "I was up on the north antenna, checking the relay. A grey bird came out of the fog, circled twice, and dropped this at my feet. Then it went back in."

I picked it up. It was heavier than it looked, smooth and dense, with a faint seam running around its middle.

"It's not in the reference list," she said. "I checked. Every plant in the town, every seed, every fruit. Nothing looks like this."

"You checked already?"

"I checked before I came here." She took it back, held it to the light. "It came out of the fog, Fernando. Nothing comes out of the fog."

"Birds do."

"Birds go in and come back. They don't drop things." She looked at me. "I want to plant it."

"In what?"

"A pot. By my window. See what comes up."

"That's a simple thing," I said.

"That's a simple thing." She put the seed in her pocket. "I'll tell you what grows."

She left, and I sat at my bench a moment, the rangefinder open, the tools laid out. Then I heard shouting from the direction of the mill.

I walked out. The plaza was busy, people stopping to look toward the water. Hadas Levin stood at the mill door, her white hair cut short, her grey coat neat, her face tight. Hannah Gefen faced her, a canvas sack of flour at her feet. Hannah was the farmer's sister, a broad woman in a work apron, her sleeves rolled up.

"You put it in the water," Hadas said. "I saw you."

"I put nothing in the water." Hannah's voice was flat. "I set the sack down to rest. The mill is not yours anymore."

"The mill was my husband's. I ran it for thirty years. I know what goes into that water."

"You know what went into it. You don't know what goes in now."

They stood there, both of them breathing hard. Ivo came across the plaza, heavy in his grey-green jacket. He stood between them, not touching either.

"Enough," he said. "Whatever it is, it can wait."

"It can't wait," Hadas said. "She's putting things in the water."

"I put a sack down," Hannah said. "That's all."

Ivo looked at them both. "Go home. Both of you. Come back when you can talk."

Hadas turned and walked off along the river. Hannah picked up her sack and carried it into the mill. Ivo watched them go, then looked at me.

"The babies are still talking," he said. "My own daughter said it this morning. Yarden. Three days old, and she opened her eyes and said 'the fog is just fog.'" He shook his head. "And now two women fighting over nothing at the mill."

"Over nothing?" I said.

"Over nothing." He looked at me. "I think there's something in the air, Fernando. Something in the water. Something in the fog. I don't know what."

Jethro Ronen came up the path from the Lethe. He was a quiet man of about fifty, a roofer by trade, his hands scarred from old work. He walked slowly, his eyes on the ground, and when he reached the square he stood a moment, blinking.

"Jethro," Ivo said. "You alright?"

Jethro looked at him. "I sat by the Lethe all morning. Did nothing. Just watched the water."

"And?"

"And I came back sure of something." He paused. "This place was made on purpose. By someone who is not against us."

Ivo stared at him. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know." Jethro walked on toward his house.

That night I wrote in the Book of Forgetting. A seed from the fog, not in the reference list. A fight at the mill over nothing. A roofer who sat by the river and came back sure. And three new babies who had spoken the sentence, Yarden among them.

Ivo's daughter. Elam's child. The words still clear, still the same voice.

I did not know what any of it meant. But the seed was heavy in Rivka's pocket, and the water still ran past the mill, and Jethro had come back from the Lethe with a kind of peace in his face I had not seen in him before.