Sect Year 5 · eleventh month · night of day 29 · the fifty-third life: Lowmere County, his seventy-second year
The voice came through the back doorway before anyone showed themselves. “She’s behind the loom. She always is.”
Hadley sat on the step with the satchel at his feet and the county roll open against his knee. He had been calling a name into that room since before the bell. The room had answered him with its wet silence, the way the flood had answered everything since spring, and he had begun to think he would have to go in and fetch the girl himself.
“Ilsa Marrin,” he called again.
“I’m coming.” She came out at a pace that did not hurry. Dust was caught in her hair, and a thread of grey wool hung from one sleeve. She was twelve, perhaps, thin as the reed the village roofed its houses with, and she stopped in the doorway and looked first at the satchel and then at the stamp in his hand. “Am I on it?”
“Not until I write you.”
“Mam said the list washed out.”
“It did.” He took the pen from behind his ear, shook a drop of ink onto the floor, and turned the roll so the page faced her. “Say your name for me, slowly.”
