Marta filed their names. Hermine ate at the tool corner and only once looked at the barred east door as if a miller might, someday, want a latch of her own, then looked away before anyone could offer her a future she had not asked for.
Tuva and I took bowls into the private room when the hall's talk turned to whether the next scrub-flat family would bring wheat or only more roots. The door barred. The shelf held what it held. The room was no longer a project; it was where we sat when the common noise had done enough.
"Post's working," Tuva said.
"Post's working indeed."
"Ella Larsen will tell the three mothers. Then you'll need a second day of grind or a longer line."
"Then Hermine dresses the face and we grind longer." I set my bowl on the chest. "We're not closing the race because people walked farther than we expected."
Tuva pulled her boots off and left them on the left. "Good. I didn't dig that channel to watch it sit pretty."
