The subalpine gale shrieked through the hairline gap beneath the Needlehouse shutter, its high, icy whistle blending with the permanent flat hum in Kezra Venn’s left ear until the dark stone room seemed to spin slowly around her head. Wrapped in her thick wool travel cloak with her boots laced to the ankle, she drifted into an uneasy, fever-sharp sleep on the swept flat stone slabs beneath the empty drafting table.
In the dream, the dark pale limestone walls of the mountain vanished, replaced by the pale, familiar autumn sky of Kilnstep.
She was standing in the dry, weed-grown lane beside her mother’s pottery workshop. The air smelled of sweet woodsmoke, dried meadow grass, and the rich, damp iron scent of raw red clay drying on the racks. Across the yard, the long, low timber roof of the communal drying shed sat squarely on its foundation of field limestone, its wide double doors propped open with two flat river stones so the dry valley breeze could circulate between the shelves.
Inside the shed, hundreds of Maud Venn’s unbaked clay pot pots—slender water jugs, wide milk bowls, and deep storage crocks—rested in spotless rows across the seasoned larch planks.
“Kezra!” her mother’s voice called from the doorway of the potting shed, sharp and practical as a dropped trowel. “Look to the lower under-road drain! The dust is rising off the limeworks road!”
