Wizard of Jatte by Rowan Erlking (librera reader txt) 📕

Village Boy

Theissen Darol Mukumar, the Carpenter’s Son, was born midsummer when the flowers of spring had lost their petals and the summer wildflowers covered the shores near the small village of Lumen. His older brothers had been shooed outside to play while his mother labored for several hours to give birth to her fifth child. The eldest daughter stayed to help, mostly fetching the boiled water for the midwife. Their father paced outside the front door, unable to continue working on the new cradle he had fashioned for his child yet just as unable to bear hearing his wife’s screams and moans inside. The patch of dirt in front of their step stone at the door was already wearing a small trough where he walked. But then the cry of the child replaced hers. As if released, the father burst inside and rushed into the room where already the midwife was cleaning up the red and splotchy skin of his little boy.

“Another son.” The carpenter’s face split wide with pride.

The older sister ungraciously huffed as she threw up her eyes, tromping back off for another boiled tub of water. Her mother was too tired to chide her misbehavior. They all knew she had wanted a sister for once.

“I’ve named him for three holies,” the carpenter’s wife said, smiling weakly.

His father raised his eyebrows. “All three?”

She smiled. “Yes. An easy name to remember.”

The carpenter smiled. He turned, reaching out to the midwife for his child. The woman muttered something under her breath about unsanitary conditions, but she did as beckoned—a softhearted woman in the end of it all. Cradling the boy gentler than his hands showed him to be, the carpenter gazed down on his son’s dark hair and shining black eyes. The child cooed and squirmed, reaching up his tiny fingers at his father’s face. Wisps of his hair came undone from the braid tied behind his ears and drew forward towards the child’s fists, immediately grasped and pulled towards his mouth.

“My goodness!” the carpenter exclaimed, taking the hairs and drawing them back from the baby’s tight fingers then tucking them behind his ear. “What a strong grip!”

“He is special,” the mother said. Her smiled beamed up from her pillow. Her daughter was already back, helping wipe off her mother’s sweaty brow. The girl hid her contempt better this time around and merely went to work. The midwife directed the carpenter’s daughter towards the soiled blankets. Already they were gathering them for laundry.

The carpenter’s hair pulled forward again as if a wind was not blowing but sucking it to his newborn’s hands. He brushed it back again, this time feeling some resistance. Looking down at his child’s face, the carpenter gazed deeper into his eyes. Nothing was unusual about the face of his child. No tell tale signs of demonic influence or even the mark of the cursed, yet the boy seemed to smile, an impossibility all the nursemaids claimed unless it was gas. This time the carpenter felt the tugging. But instead of on his hair, it was on his face pulling his nose in. The baby latched on and began to suck on the tip, reaching out to feed.

The carpenter pulled himself back as he shook his head at his child just as the baby began to cry. “No, no. I think you want your mommy for that.”

Then gently he passed his child over to his wife, resting him in her arms. She cradled her baby boy to her chest and with the help of the midwife sat up.

“I think that is enough for today,” the midwife said, ushering the father from the bedside. “Both mother and child have to get their rest.”

With a reluctant sigh, he bowed his head to the midwife first and then to his wife who smiled at him.

“Don’t stay away long,” she said.

He was about to speak, but her daughter replied with a helpful hop, “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll be here for you.”

But then the midwife shoved her out too.

Both father and daughter stood outside the bedroom door regarding one another somewhat dejectedly.

“I guess I will finish that cradle,” he said, tossing his shoulders back after a shrug.

“And I guess I’ll go feed the chickens.” The daughter kicked the ground with a frown, going over to the wall for the basket of seed.

The carpenter looked at her then drew in a breath. “You know, another brother is not so bad. Think of all the practice you will have in caring for a husband.”

His daughter tossed back her braids with a slight glare, trying not to be disrespectful though he could tell she was upset. “If I have to baby-sit my husband too, I’d rather end up an old maid.”

And she stomped out of the house.

There was nothing to say to that. The carpenter tried a few times to think of something, but then just gave it up. Eventually his wife would have another child, and then another if her health permitted. Who knows? Maybe then his daughter would be pleased to have a sister.

In the days after the delivery, family came to visit. His mother-in-law arrived first from Brakirs Town several miles north of the Pepersin Peninsula where Lumen Village was situated, her carriage rumbling into the fenced yard and terrorizing the chickens more as she hopped out to see her daughter. She also terrorized the midwife with demands and threats to see her little girl—not at all talking about the baby whom she full well knew was another son. They set her up in the town inn for the night, unable to accommodate her in their already filled home.

Then came his wife’s brothers. Then the aunts. Then all the female cousins and their husbands and their children. All seemed to flock into town for the naming ceremony that was to take place at the end of the first month. Why they all arrived early demanding to see the rather exhausted woman who wanted to do nothing more than sleep seemed of little concern to the midwife. She barred the those bedroom doors with her body, declaring them too hallowed to pass through, and even the carpenter found himself often locked out.

So he finished the cradle and spent the rest of his time setting up the preparations for the naming ceremony.

He waved to the florist with his parcels, his two older sons trailing after him as they heaved up their armloads of wrapped flowers for the garland they had to make.

“Dad, these are heavy,” his second son complained loudly.

“So is my armload, Kinnerlin. We all must bear our share,” the carpenter said.

Kinnerlin was only five years old. He glanced at his older brother who silently hauled his bundle, and frowned. His older brother gave him a smug look, heaving up his load as if to prove he was the strongest of the boys.

“When we get home,” their father said as soon as they entered the lane that led them straight to their house, “I need you all to set these flowers on the wood horse in my shop. We’ll make the garlands there. Dalance, I want you to fetch water for the flowers so they won’t wilt, and take Tolbetan with you.”

The eldest son frowned now. Tolbetan was nearly three years old but had been whining since his mother had been enclosed for the delivery. His older sister was watching him while they were gone, but Tolbetan put up such a fuss with his yowls and demands that that even the visiting aunts who used to pinch his cheeks and coddle him said that he was noisy. All agreed that it was about time he was no longer treated as the baby of the family.

“Do I have to?” Dalance said, risking his father’s displeasure.

Pausing with another heave to shift the wrapped flowers he was carrying to a less slippery spot in his arms, the carpenter gave him the look he had been dreading. “Of course you do. Your sister has to help prepare the food for the ceremony. Besides, she has already been carrying more than her fair share of the work around the house. You are seven years old now. In half a year we will be making preparations for your childhood ceremony, so you really should not complain.”

Dalance frowned. He only looked over at Kinnerlin who suddenly raised his armload as if he was now the strongest boy in the family.

“Tolbetan will only get in the way,” Dalance said.

“He will be less out of the way with you than in the house with Alania. Now no more complaining, or I will have to think of really hard chore for you to do to keep you busy.” The carpenter often set his children to work believing that working children were children removed from mischief.

Clamping his mouth tightly closed, Dalance did not say another word.

They entered the front gate. As Dalance went indoors to claim his younger brother, Kinnerlin sat in the carpentry shop learning how to make a flower chain. His father unwrapped the paper from the flowers, choosing which ones would be used in the garlands and which ones would be draped over the awning in the yard where the village doctor would perform the rites. When Dalance returned with the first pail, dumping the water in the barrel his father set out, Tolbetan trailed after him with a whine, crying “I want mommy. I don’t want you!”

“Shut up and carry the pail.” Dalance shoved the watering can into Tolbetan’s hands. It was half his brother’s size but Dalance didn’t care. His father smirked at them, saying nothing since the whole purpose was to keep that particular son busy.

“Don’ wanna!” Tolbetan threw it down on the ground.

Crouching over, Dalance shoved it back into Tolbetan’s hands. “You have to. Dad says so.”

Tolbetan glanced over at his father, not quite dropping the pail. His father looked up at him with a fixed stare.

As Dalance marched back to the well Tolbetan tossed it down again, still checking to see what his father would do. The carpenter slowly rose from his seat.

Screeching, the three-year-old snatched up the pail and dragged it over to the well where Dalance was waiting. The carpenter rested himself back on his stool grinning quietly to himself. His elder sons glanced knowingly on their father. No one crossed him, ever.

Only after a few minutes of hauling water did all of the men of the carpenter household gather in the shop to make garlands. Their father and Dalance cut the stems, creating holes for Kinnerlin to slip each one through like a chain. Tolbetan played with the leaves, using them like boats among the sawdust piles that usually covered the floor like desert dust after a long day of work. This part took several hours, resting only for the lunch Alania brought out for them. She remained to eat in the carpenter shop also frowning at the heaps of flowers that had yet to be made into chains.

“Grandmother Potterswife said she is coming back tonight