“Fine,” said Caw, shrugging. “In the meantime, I’m going to be really fun and do some laundry with the aunties. You may as well give me yours, too.”

Basket in hand, Caw arrived at the oasis. It was the central hub of the Anquan, the primary source of water, and food for its inhabitants. It was a small lake surrounded by palm, date and fig trees - planted long ago by whoever lived there before the Pachon - and kept full by ancient aquifers deep underground. If one pressed their ear to the ground and concentrated, they could hear the water rushing in the rocks below. People brought their baskets of laundry to the water’s edge to wash. The elders performed their rituals there, and children played in its shallows, in the same place that most of them had been born. Their mothers would have laboured in the warm waters to ease their pain, with the elders on standby to give help. Few births took place now. Too many of the women and girls had been stolen. And all who remained felt their absence.

Fewer and fewer women even dared to leave the city in fear of being next, with only the men going out to hunt and gather. Oak’s decision; an attempt to protect the few left. The elder women had offered to venture out, no longer fertile but still strong of body and mind, but Oak wouldn’t have it. The only women in the tribe who Oak allowed to leave the city were the herders, as they stayed close to the walls, and Caw. If Caw ever needed proof that Oak didn’t like her very much, it was that she was allowed to come and go from the city, mostly as she pleased. Mostly. Perhaps that was too harsh an assumption, but Caw couldn’t imagine any other reason she would be allowed to venture so far out, let alone spend time near the Huan villages.

Caw waded into the shallows towards the aunties and the hanging lines, lowering the woven basket and letting it fill up. She took the clothing out, swaying them in the water to release the dirt and sweat from days of wearing, then slung them over the line to air out. Her thoughts swayed with the water, coming and going like a steady tide. The old man in the little wonky book shop. The piles of books and scrolls. Rock.

They had played in the oasis as children, splashing and chasing each other, sparring, showing off their burgeoning powers as they neared puberty. Then he underwent the change, and everything was different. Her chest ached at the thought of them now, splashing and laughing in the water in the way they used to.

The aunties and grannies, knee deep in soiled water and gossip, chatted amongst each other as they washed and hung up their clothes. One of them glanced over.

“Poor dear,” she said under her breath, “washing his clothes like a wife.”

The others hummed and nodded in agreement.

“I have ears, you know,” said Caw without looking up.

“Well, Caw, dear, don’t you think it’s time?” replied the first: Aunty Wren, plump and round, with leathery skin, and a warm, sing-song demeanor.

“We’re just worried about you,” said the other. That was aunt Rain, younger than Wren, with dark, amber eyes and high cheekbones.

Aunty Wren continued. “I don’t know why you hold out for someone who’s just not for pairing. You’ll never be able to have children with him.”

“You’re young and strong,” said another, an ancient woman with a wizened face and pronounced hump. Granny Orchid. “You could have your pick of any at the pairing festival, especially what with all the other girls your age either paired or gone now...”

They all glanced sadly at each other.

“That’s true,” said aunt Rain. “Not many young women left now. All the more reason to get you paired, Caw.”

“Aunties,” Caw answered, annoyed. “Is pairing up and having babies all you gossips ever think about?”

They laughed and turned back to their laundry baskets.

Caw finished up and returned to her hut, her thoughts still on the bookshop. What position was the sun in now? Had it peaked yet? The orange sat on a table by her bed. She peeled and ate half, savouring its refreshing flavour.

Instead of waiting and twiddling her thumbs, she spent the next hour studying, and note taking, trying to decipher the strange symbols on the scrolls she had collected from the previous year. They were old and brittle, painstaking to unravel. One wrong move and they would crumble to dust. The writing was Senlin; she was sure of it, but it was so old and unfamiliar. Like a memory buried deep in her subconscious. During her training as a historian, Elder Jade had spoken of the ancestors and the legend of Vasilisa, the first Senlin to discover the magic of a name and how to wield it. Jade was the only other in the tribe with the Chameleon’s gift, and taught her much, but not enough before she passed over to the endless summer.

Caw checked her reference scroll. She had managed to write up an alphabet of sorts, at least, all the symbols she thought to be unique characters. Whenever she noted a new one, it was a step further to solving the code. The practice often felt more like translation than history.

The light had lowered from outside the window. Caw checked the notches on the wall opposite. The sun had peaked, and Oak would be free to talk now. Finally.

Caw jumped out of her set and headed for the door of her hut. She paused as her hand reached for the handle. Outside was a commotion. Confused, she opened the door to see a small crowd of people shouting and calling as they made their way up the slope towards the spire. A group of men were in the centre of the group, carrying something heavy and limp. It took Caw a moment to recognise that it was a body.

“Caw!” It was Rock, his cheeks flushed and his eyes full of concern. “Ash is injured,” he said. “Come on.”

“Run ahead,” Caw replied, yanking on her boots. “Warn your mother.”

“Already done it,” said Rock, “she’s on her way. Everyone else is heading to the oasis for the healing.”