Crewel

mouth: my bandaged hands still proving a nuisance to fine motor skills – and forks.
    Jost nods, serious again. ‘I was interested in large game. The kind that feeds a lot of people and brings in money.’
    ‘What kinds of animals constitute large game?’ I keep my voice casual. No companel would detect anything unusual – or even interesting – this way.
    ‘Bears and cougars, mostly.’
    ‘You can eat bears and cougars?’ I screw up my face in mock disgust.
    ‘Ad, you can eat anything if you’re hungry enough.’ Jost grins over a chicken leg.
    The conversation falters, and we lapse into silence as we eat. Hunger is not an issue to discuss, even in code. It borders on treason, because the Guild claims there is no hunger. I lived on the borders of a large metro with my family and both my parents were assigned work, so although our meal rations were never exciting, we didn’t want. Jost, however, worked hard for his food and many in his small village went without, save for the kindness of the fishermen, but even that was limited to what was left after they had delivered their quotas to the Guild.
    But of course Jost never hunted a day in his life. He worked fifteen-hour days to feed his family and a handful of neighbours, but at sea. I know this because during the brief distractions we can call up, we’ve established a few code words. It’s been trial and error, with more than a few misunderstandings, but we’re getting better at the double talk. The bears are ministry officials and cougars are Spinsters. Jost is looking for who is responsible for the attacks on the women of Saxun. What he’s planning to do when he finds out, we haven’t figured out a code for, and I’m not sure I care to know.
    ‘Did you ever have a cougar attack a stag?’ I’m trying to ask about Erik, but no matter how many ways I ask, Jost has no clue what I’m saying.
    ‘I’m sure one did,’ he says, giving me a slight shrug to let me know he’s sorry he doesn’t understand. If only my questions were as easy to follow as his body language.
    And that’s when I realise the solution to our problem. It’s so simple, it never occurred to me. ‘Jost, is sight or sound more important when hunting?’ I ask excitedly.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘If you were hunting, would you want to see or hear your prey?’
    He understands and gives me a slight nod. ‘Sight is good, but most prefer being able to hear.’
    So there it is: the Coventry listens in private quarters but, unlike in the studios, doesn’t watch . At least, that’s what Jost thinks, and he knows a lot about how things work here. Now I know what to do if I can manage it, but it means breaking a promise.
    ‘Well, thank you for bringing me my lunch,’ I tell him, and lead him to the door. He follows, but it’s clear he doesn’t understand. Most of the food is finished, but he usually stays longer. When I open the door and then shut it noisily before he can leave, he stays silent, waiting for me to make my point. I gesture towards the rug in front of the fire. He walks to it, and I follow behind him, concentrating hard on the strands in the room until they glimmer around me, revealing the room’s weave. The time and matter are knitted closely together, and I have to focus on the golden bands of light until I’m sure I can pinpoint just the time threads. It’s so much easier to see on the loom, but at least time always moves across, so I can find it if I look closely enough. Slowly I reach out with my wounded fingers and pull the strands and twist. The fire in the hearth roars up and crackles in the room so loudly it fills my ears. A chill dampens the air around us despite the climate control being on. I weave the tangled time into a web of golden light, and it domes us in a shimmering glow, stopping at the rug under our feet. We can still see the fire and the room through the translucent web, but we no longer hear the crackle of the logs, and the licking flames seem to slow until they are frozen, like a picture, when I connect the last bits of twisted gold.
    ‘What did you do?’ he whispers.
    ‘I wove another moment.’ I’m as surprised as he is that it worked. ‘I wasn’t sure I could.’ This is what I’d done at testing. Slipped, and caught the weave of the actual room, not the one they’d given us on the loom, and messed it up a little. I’d smoothed it right back out, but that was all it took. I’d been studying the weave around me for