Eye of the Ocean Book 3 Ji'jin Station

Eye of the Ocean – Book 3: Ji’Jin Station
Ulanda nodded again and found the strength to go and start picking the thick
fleshed center leaves of each plant while the other woman pulled the container of
eggs from the cool of the well, still talking away, the sound of her gasps hollow as
she bent over the high stone lip. The brown birds hidden in the pin berry bush
trilled their sharp notes over and over, with a hoarse sound, as though protesting.
“Not your eggs,” she said to them. Theirs were too small to bother with,
smaller than her thumbnail. These were from the large awkward gulls that nested
along the broken cliffs overlooking the Endicastrom. Ulanda had gathered the new
eggs over the last few days, marking the nests that had been empty the day
before, candling the eggs to check again, then boiling them. A long walk in the
heat, and technically Temple land - along the ridge were Alisim Temple banners -
but no one had ever bothered her and while she was there, she liked the stark
isolation with only the wind and the birds, the river and a salt smell that didn't
often come this far inland. She'd get more eggs today, the breeding season was
too short to waste even though they didn't bring in much money for all the rough
scrambling and climbing over the rocks and having to duck the birds, their clumsy
waddle on land turned to a soaring grace when they flew.
“Girl, you don't have any meat on you at all!” Mother Pasbal stood with her
fists on her own ample hips, the basket at her feet. “You just don't bother with
what you should, it's not right...”
The usual, Ulanda thought. Start with how Master Gina would take her on to
wait tables or as a chambermaid if she promised to show up on time, then she
would get to the part about her eldest son being a widower now and how the
gossip didn't matter beans. That crazy is as crazy does and there was none of
that - the doing - then she'd pause as though waiting for Ulanda to confirm her
opinion and then on to the next bit, and then insist she come to dinner that very
night, and that no wasn't an answer she'd settle for.
Half listening as she finished picking the lettuce, Ulanda found herself suddenly
standing, the leaves still in the skirt of her bunched up nightdress, listening to a
different sound, a whine that stopped the woman's monologue and the bird song
both. A large ship, a Zimmer freighter from the pitch. Coming in low, following
the Endicastom, the noise blocked until it mounted the cliff that separated the
river from Intil Capital and the town that sprawled around the stone walls,
extending to the flank of the hills. The sound bloomed in an echo against Dog
Mountain behind her and was gone without fading.
Intil Port then, not the Temple grounds or the Holding at Endica. There would
be work in the High market for a few days at least and a chance to meet someone
with more to spend than promises.
Deep in their pockets of flesh, Mother Pascal's eyes narrowed. “Don't you be
going off to the Port,” she said then snorted loudly, her face showing that she
knew how useless any warning would be. Then persisted, saying, “Someday,
Laurel Hickey www.2morrow.bc.ca