They stayed at Glassroot the next morning.
This was not decided in a council. Suth slept late, Chaska had hung the washed blankets where they could not dry before noon, and nobody put the pots away. Ashaun spent an hour repairing the strap which held her sheath beneath her coat. Ysabet cleaned Pip’s split seam with water that had cooled enough to stop it snapping at the cloth.
By midmorning the clearing looked occupied.
A family with baskets of mushrooms passed through. The older man asked whether the north run was open. Suth, awake now and cross about the taste of her infusion, told him it would be by evening if he could wait for a tree to finish leaning.
“How long will that take?”
“As long as leaning.”
He accepted this with the resignation of a forest resident and sat at the abandoned hearth. His daughter offered them a handful of wrinkled pears. Chaska traded a repaired basket handle for two more.
Ysabet washed one and cut it for Suth. The old woman ate the whole thing.
