Pela packed for her brother as well as herself. Iv unpacked his bag on her doorstep and handed back the socks.
“I have socks.”
“Those are warmer.”
“They don’t fit.”
She had forgotten how large his feet had become. He was thirty-four. She still pictured him losing a shoe in the stream on their first journey to the singing hollow, and herself carrying him across. He had been six. She had enjoyed telling that story for longer than he had enjoyed hearing it.
He had accepted work on the coast. On Friday he would leave the town where they had both lived all their lives. Pela had proposed a last trip to the hollow. The stars would sing for three nights, as they did each autumn when the long constellation fitted within the gap in the stone roof. She had taken Thursday off work. She meant to be back by Friday morning to help him load the cart.
Iv had not asked her to help load the cart. He had agreed to the walk.
They left before noon. Pela carried bread, apples, and the little iron stove they had used as children. Their mother had bought a new one, but Pela liked knowing how this one behaved. It smoked until it was warm, then burned beautifully.
Iv carried his own blanket and a book about the coast. The book irritated her. There would be no time to read it.
By afternoon the old path had brought them to a rockfall.
The stream was still below them. The ledge above it was gone. Two young trees stood sideways in the fallen earth, their roots facing the valley.
“We can climb round,” Pela said.
Iv looked at the loose stones. “We can take the ridge.”
“It goes the wrong way.”
“At first. Then it goes behind the hollow.”
She asked how he knew.
“I’ve been here since we were children.”
She had known that. Hearing it as an answer to her was different.
The ridge path was longer. They had to climb toward the sun instead of walking beneath the trees. Pela’s old stove knocked against her hip. When they stopped, she took it out and gave it to Iv to carry.
“This is heavy,” he said.
“It works.”
He put it in his bag without arguing. She wanted him to argue a little, to give her some familiar ground. He drank water and watched a bird descend into the valley.
They reached the hollow at dusk. It was a deep bowl in the rock, roofed by a broad natural arch. Through a long opening above them, the sky showed as a narrow strip. The singing could be heard only beneath that arch. Outside it, people saw the same stars and heard ordinary night sounds.
Three strangers had already made beds along the wall. One had walked for six days. Another had brought a folded chair that she was having difficulty opening on the uneven ground. Iv helped her. Pela laid their blankets beside each other and began setting up the stove.
The smoke took a long time to clear. At the far wall someone coughed.
“We can have the bread cold,” Iv said.
She put the stove out. For years it had been part of this trip; here it was making things worse. She left it on the stone beside their blankets.
They ate apples while the strip of sky darkened. Iv offered slices to the strangers. He had cut them unevenly, leaving the core in two. The woman with the chair ate hers without examining it.
Pela waited for a moment when she could ask whether he was certain about leaving.
The first note came before she found one.
It was low, almost below hearing. She felt it in the stone beneath her hands. A second tone rose through it, clear and thin, until her own breath seemed too loud. Above them one bright star entered the roof opening. Another followed.
Nobody spoke. Iv lay back. Pela looked at him, then did the same.
As children they had given the singing a tune. They had made up words about lost shoes and beans for supper. Now she could not find that tune. The notes kept dividing into smaller notes, and beneath them ran a sound like water passing over a very smooth edge.
She could hear nothing from the stream.
The stars moved slowly across the opening. Sometimes the song thinned until she thought it had ended, then a low vibration returned through her back. Beside her, Iv raised a hand into the dark. She did not know why. She resisted asking.
When the last bright star crossed out of the gap, the song stopped.
The woman folded her chair. A little stone fell from a hinge. Its tap on the ground was startlingly loud.
Pela sat up.
“Was it how you remembered?”
“No,” Iv said.
“Me neither.”
They slept. Near dawn she woke to find him reading by a shaded lamp. She had intended to talk in the morning. Now the book seemed less like an insult. He had brought something to do while waiting for another night.
“Are you staying?” she asked.
“Two more nights. If I leave at dawn on Sunday, I can still reach the coast for Monday.”
“Your cart—”
“Os has it. He’s taking my boxes today. I told you.”
He had. She remembered nodding while deciding which food to bring.
She lay still. From the roof opening came the pale grey of a sky without its singers. She had arranged a final trip, but he had arranged a first one of his own.
“I have work this afternoon,” she said.
“I know.”
He did not ask her to stay or offer to leave with her. After a while he asked whether she wanted him to come as far as the ridge.
She said yes.
They shared the remaining bread. She left him the apples because they would not keep well in her bag. At the ridge he showed her where the path divided and waited while she pointed out the right fork, checking that she had understood.
“Tell me about the other nights,” she said.
“I’ll try.”
She hugged him. The stove was between them until she moved it to her other hand.
He went back toward the hollow. She walked toward the town. For the first few minutes she kept turning to look, although the path had already taken him out of sight.
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