called gatherings, bringing everybody in Etxelur together to confront the unwilling one. Most people would rather just put in the work than face that. But Knuckle was right to guess that not everybody was happy.
One way or the other, however, the work was getting done.
‘We’ve been working on this since the spring,’ Jurgi said. ‘We started filling up the lower ponds even before we’d dug out the upper.’
The snailhead sat on the grass. ‘Just watching them work makes me feel tired. All right. Ponds, sleds - all very clever. Now the real question. Why? Why haul water all the way up a hill, only to let it run away again?’
The priest sat beside him. From here the expanse of the bay was opened up, with the bulk of Flint Island beyond. ‘Look at the bay. Look at the shore. Remember how it was last time you saw it.’
All around the shore the waterline was lower than it had been, exposing swathes of mud and sand, littered with drying weed, laced by human footprints and worked by wading birds. Children were playing on mud flats all the way to the water’s edge, picking shells and mussels from the sand. Their voices rose up to the watching men like the cries of distant gulls.
With their steady labour, the people had already removed a significant fraction of the water in the bay.
‘You see? With the dyke and the built-up causeway we turned the bay from an open stretch of the sea into a sealed bowl. And we’ve been emptying that bowl, one sled after another. Now those children are playing in mud that just months ago was at the bottom of the sea.’
The snailhead frowned. ‘It is hard to believe.’
‘And look in the centre of the bay,’ the priest said, pointing. ‘Can you see - it’s just breaking the water—’
‘Like an island.’
‘Yes. That is Etxelur’s flint lode. Once the finest flint anybody knew about, finer even than what we mine from the island. Lost to the rising sea for generations.’
‘But no more.’
‘But no more. Soon we will be able to walk out from the shore, all the way out, and mine it as our ancestors did.’
‘You are not just keeping the sea out. You are taking your land back.’
‘Yes.’
‘It is mad.’
‘Probably.’
‘It is magnificent.’
‘Certainly. And it’s all because of you snailheads, and your logs, and the work you contributed—’
There was a scream, from the other side of the hill, behind them.
Knuckle turned immediately. ‘Cheek?’ He ran back up the grassy slope.
The priest scrambled to his feet, and laboured to follow through the long grass. As he reached the summit, he stared in disbelief.
Zesi stood over the highest reservoir. She had an axe in her hand. She was breathing hard, and, turned away, was looking down the southern hillside.
The reservoir, which had been brimming, was drained.
Knuckle ran forward, past her, and on down the hill. ‘Eyelid! Cheek!’
Jurgi climbed the last few paces to stand beside Zesi, and he began to understand. She had taken her axe, a heavy thing with a flint blade, to the lip of the reservoir, where it drained into the rivulet. And when she had breached the reservoir all its water was released at once. A mass of water had surged down the rivulet and pooled at the hill’s base. He could see how the force of the water had displaced the rocks of the river bed.
And blood was splashed over those rocks.
‘I did it because of Ana,’ Zesi said, breathless, looking shocked at her own handiwork. ‘Because nobody would listen. I did it for everybody in Etxelur—’
Eyelid was in the river, soaked with water and blood, pulling at the rocks, calling Cheek’s name over and over. Knuckle ran on down the hillside to her.
The priest was appalled. ‘By the mothers’ tears, Zesi, what have you done?’
57
The next morning Ana sent word that she was calling a gathering.
By noon, all of Etxelur had come together on the beach before the Giving platform. The snailheads were here too.
Jurgi, slipping through the silent crowd, made sure he stood close to Knuckle. The snailhead was white with anger and hatred - just as he had been almost exactly a year ago, when he had lost his brother.
On the stage itself stood Ana and Zesi. Ana had her arms folded. Zesi, standing alone, wore the same skin tunic she had yesterday; she looked as if she hadn’t washed, hadn’t eaten, hadn’t slept.
Everybody was utterly silent. In the background was a wash of noise, from the