Magda's Introduction

I found this draft unpublished, and it is interesting.  Just one more piece of the puzzle.

***

You are reading this now in a book.  It might be bound in leather, or simply clad in hard, stiff board.  The papers might be fresh and new, or slightly yellowed.  You are probably not thinking about the book itself as you read, but the smell and the touch of the papers are nevertheless as much a part of your reading as my voice, coming down to you from across the years.  Never take that for granted.

I am an old, old woman now, and I have seen many things done and undone.  So many changes.  So many heartaches. But once, I was the youngest sister.  And when I was younger, we did not have books.  Bren might have made the first of our books, bound with wood covers ornately carved. Writing had come to us within a few generations, and so the youngest among us were the most proficient writers, and were taught and tasked with the recording of our story--and our stories.  We were taught to carefully maintain our distance, and to declaim like our storytellers.  We were taught to have the same voice.  I am Magda, and I am telling this tale, but others will take it up when it is time, for there are things that I cannot know.

In the last years before the coming of the plague, we were isolated and peaceful.  We had homes on the outskirts of the forest, and foraged most of our food and medicines as we tended the wood.  Our homes were made of wood, but we did not build freely--each family had a family home, and we only branched off with care, and with permission.  Our professions were hereditary, though every child was trained in the basics of several trades as part of our education.  We enjoyed having the ability to change our jobs frequently--it was part of the adventure of youth for us.  But it was understood that when you settled down, you would remain in your family's trade--whether baking or sewing or gathering or healing.  Storytelling was different: there was only ever one storyteller and two or three  attendants.  Except in cases of great need, there would be no exceptions--what your family did would be your work.  If a girl married into a family that had a different trade, she might be trained to practice.  And the very young or the very proficient were gatherers, often full-time.

I was a very proficient gatherer.