Chapter Eight: Songs of the Watering Eye

In which water keeps a face without stealing it.

The well keeps every face; the tavern keeps every round. Between them, all debts are known.

A window. You may only look in. Its motion is ground: what stays where it is put. It is kept by the well. room 1 of 5
The water shows an older face first, and under it every face it has kept, folded like linen.

berry memory

The Watering Eye was a well before it was a witness, and a witness long before anyone built a tavern leaning over it like a drinker over a confession. Boof came in under the sagging floorboards, nose first through spilled lager and wet rope, and set her front paws on the mossy coping. The water below was black and perfectly still, and it did not show her own face first.

It showed her an older one — a woman mid-wish, mouth open on a want she had never said aloud — and under that face, folded like pressed linen going down into the dark, every other face the well had ever held. From the barrel-head behind her came the Genie's quoting voice, brisk as a market morning: "I can make you famous by Tuesday, or respected by November. Fame is cheap — reality already leans that way for loud people. Respect requires corrections. Choose."

A face said into deep water is not stolen; it is folded, and it stays the property of whoever wore it. The well kept the faces the way good ground keeps rain: patiently, and without letting anyone else spend them.

Something down there smelled of a tin cup left in a stream. Then Boof saw them: chalk-pale fish no longer than a spoon, swimming between the faces. Remembrancers, the tavern called them. They went through the faces the way a laundress goes through a basket, tucking a loose chin under, smoothing a brow flat, folding each face gently so it would fit beside the others. One rose to look at Boof and turned politely away, as if she were a face it had not been asked to keep.

Overhead the well-winch creaked. The tavern bucket came down past her nose on its wet hemp rope, sank, and was wound up again to the winch song, honey-slow, four beats a turn, so it would not knock anyone on the way. It was a still night. On still nights the bucket comes up holding a face instead of water. The potboy looked in, said "Evening," to whoever it was, and let it back down. The kitchen drew from the rain-butt instead, and the soup tasted faintly of roof.

Step into the scene

vantage front paws propped on the mossy granite well-coping under the tavern's leaning floorboards, nose a breath from still black water

light tavern lamplight spilling through gaps in the floor above; the water reflects not tonight's lamps but earlier lamps, and under them, layered faces from other years

scent wet granite, spilled lager, damp hemp rope, cold mineral water — and the hot-iron scent of the egg in its sling, a tin-cup coldness where the pale fish turn

  • the tavern leans over the well like a drinker leaning over a confession
  • the water surface is motionless, holding a face mid-wish, mouth open on a want never spoken aloud
  • folds of older faces stack beneath the surface like pressed linen going down into the dark
  • the Genie's brass instruments are set up on a barrel-head like a card game
  • chalk-pale remembrancers no longer than a spoon, folding the kept faces so they fit
  • the well-winch's bucket coming down on wet hemp rope, and on a still night coming up with a face in it
A gathering. Everything in it has to arrive together. Its motion is measure: a weighing. It is kept by the Genie. room 2 of 5
Name a want and hear what it costs. An empire is easy. Supper everyone agrees on is not.

All night the Genie dealt in wants. Name one, hear the price, pay or fold. An empire? Quite manageable; the world was forever tipping toward a throne. Supper everyone agreed on? His needle swung so wide it rang against its case; he counted the company twice and quoted three coincidences and a fortnight of Thursdays. At the bar, the regular raised his glass. “Six violations of the natural order,” the Genie told him. “Lager,” said the regular. The Genie wrote it down. After a moment, he underlined it.

The locals queued with their wants the way they queued at the winch: a roof mended before the rains, a cousin forgiven, a goat talked back over a wall. They held pewter tankards while they waited and drank them while they thought. A crock of pickled walnuts went round. Every want was smaller than a throne, and every one cost more.

A line of torch-ants had come up through a knot-hole at dusk, a long walk from the field, and left a crumb on the barrel-head; the well-damp had put their torch out on the stair. He quoted them nothing, struck a match for their torch-bearer, and wrote nothing down. Old customers.

Two beavers, smelling of willow bark and creek mud, took the whole evening over a dam. They wanted the wording exact: the bend, the height, the arrangement of the sticks. By the time they had it right they had drawn it on the table in spilled lager, argued the drawing into a better one, and gone out to build it before the Genie could quote a price. He watched them go with something like professional respect. Beavers, he told Boof, always wished slowly enough to finish the job themselves.

Boof had smelled their work all the way up the creek: the water held back in steps, pond over pond, so that it came down to the well slow and clear and never all at once. That was why the Watering Eye had never run dry, and why its faces lay so still. The beavers had never asked the tavern for anything. The tavern left the bark off its firewood on the back step for them, and nobody wrote that down either. Slow work, Boof thought, like the ants: nobody in a hurry, and the whole valley drinking from it.

Later the taproom sang: a reel about a miller's daughter, too quick, with clapping, and a carter from over the pass clapped quickest of all. Down the shaft the bucket began to swing. The regular put one hand flat on the bar. Table by table the clapping stopped, the carter's last, and Boof felt it through the boards before anyone heard it: four slow beats a turn, under the reel like a floor under dancers. “The winch song underneath,” said the potboy, winding. “They all are.” The bucket came up even, and knocked nobody.

Step into the scene

vantage the tavern floor above the well, looking down the long table where the Genie sits pricing wishes like a card dealer

light amber lamplight, brass instruments glinting, a needle on a karmic gauge that will not settle

scent lager, candle tallow, old oak table, the mineral breath of the well rising through the floor

  • the Genie's instruments were built for emperors and hum with boredom
  • a regular at the bar raises one finger for another lager
  • locals queue with wants: a roof mended, a cousin forgiven, supper agreed upon
  • every small want makes the pricing needle swing wider than a kingdom would
  • a file of torch-ants on the barrel-head, their torch relit from the Genie's match
  • a crock of pickled walnuts going down the queue of pewter tankards
A passage. You may go through it, never stay. Its motion is lean: a lean, a way chosen. It is kept by the fool. room 3 of 5
Boots over the shaft, a tap on the iron ring, and the tavern song handed back on-key.

tavern game

Eighth honk: the tavern game, sampled and returned — small wants priced dear, because they are the ones the world was not already planning to grant.

He sat the trapdoor's edge with his boots over the dark, tapping the game's rhythm on the iron ring, taking the tavern's off-key song — a winch song underneath, like every song in the Watering Eye — and handing it back on-key, with interest.

Chamber 08 · Songs of the Watering Eye
Step into the scene

vantage looking across the taproom at the Fool perched on the trapdoor's edge, boots swinging over the open well-shaft

light lamplight on his silver rings; well-water reflecting gold up into his face from below

scent river mint, spilled lager, cold night air rising through the floor

  • the Fool taps the rhythm of the pricing game on the trapdoor's iron ring
  • his reflection in the water below wears an expression of deep, ancient solemnity
  • the taproom sings off-key behind him and he samples it anyway
A tavern leaning over a stone well at night; faces folded under black water, a genie pricing wishes above, the cracked egg warming the rim.
The Watering Eye: the tavern names the wants; the water names the debts.

The Unpriceable Want

A room. You may stand in it for a minute. Its motion is annotation: something written down. It is kept by the well. room 4 of 5
The needle comes back blank, the glass finds only the potboy, and the water names what nobody can read.

small want

Step into the scene

vantage rim of the well below the emptying tavern, egg on the wet coping, faces turning in the water

light last lamplight above; gold folds under black water; shell-warmth on the stones

scent wet stone, cooling lager, warm iron

  • the pricing needle blank on Boof's want
  • folded faces turning toward the egg's heat
  • every spent wish owing a coincidence to a stranger
  • the account named and left open
  • the resolution glass showing only the potboy's want for the last loaf
  • a pale remembrancer nosing the egg's reflection for an edge it cannot find

Near closing, he tried Boof again. “Anything. Name it.” She thought of the furrow, the warmth, a trail with something real at its end. His want-needle swung past the numbers and came back blank. He reset it with a thumbnail. She tried again. Same small click, same empty dial. He had the baize case half open to mend the needle when he remembered the clerks at the Rift: listen before you mend. He held it to his ear instead. It ticked as sweetly as the day he bought it.

He tried the resolution glass, which cannot see a want smaller than a loaf. It found one at once, in the potboy, who had been eyeing the heel of the last loaf all night. Of Boof it showed only wet stones and an egg. The Genie folded the glass shut with the face of a man whose tools have all, politely, declined.

Boof lowered the egg onto the wet stone around the well. Heat spread under her paws, through the coping, down. The folded faces stirred. One by one they turned toward the warmth the way the berries once had.

The remembrancers went quick among them, re-folding every face that turned, and for once they fell behind. One rose to the egg's reflection and nosed along it for an edge to fold. It found none. It hung there a moment, pale as a fingernail, then sank back to its work.

Then the water said, in the plain way water says things, what every face down there had in common: each one owed a coincidence to a stranger. The egg — an unspent wish — was the debt still standing warm above the fold. The well could not price it either.

It only named it, and kept the account open. Boof leaned over the rim without touching the water. Some faces were clear enough to count the lines around a mouth; others drifted beneath reflections of the tavern windows. A laugh came through the floorboards overhead, and for a moment she could not tell whether one of the faces had laughed too.

She moved the egg closer. Ripples reached the far wall and came back through the reflected light. The Genie stood beside her with his instruments shut in their baize case. She was glad he had stopped asking her to name it.

A passage. You may go through it, never stay. Its motion is potential: something not yet happened. It is Boof’s. room 5 of 5
Up the ridge with the well’s answer warm against her ribs, listening for the ninth note.

ninth honkninth honk

"What did I win?" Boof wondered, taking the egg back into her sling. The Genie had priced fame, thrones, and six lagers, and had folded on her — the only player at the table whose want his game could not hold. Behind her the regular raised one finger at the dark, on principle.

She climbed toward the roofs with the well's answer warming her ribs. Behind her, slow, four beats a turn, the potboy was singing up the last bucket of the night. The egg was a debt. The faces below had turned toward it together, though no voice had called them. Above the ridge, eight old notes hung in the dark. She listened for the missing one and felt it humming against her chest.

Step into the scene

vantage trotting up a steep rocky ridge away from the tavern's last lamp, toward high slate roofs above the pass road

light cold starlight; behind her, eight faint golden streaks hang in the clouds above the town like held notes

scent mountain slate, dry grass, cold high wind, the fading lager-warmth of the tavern

  • the glen of the well lies behind in deep purple mist
  • the ridge rises ahead like the spine of a great slumbering beast
  • the egg against her chest pulses in rhythm with a distant horn-call
The chapter in SpwWhat it is made of, and what you have found of it0 of 18 found
^chapter[8]{ .rooms[ .[folded_faces]@the_well %(taproom)@genie =<trapdoor>@the_fool #{well_rim}@the_well ~<rocky_ridge>@boof ] @told_by[boof game fool narrator] $steam $ink $glass *wonders{ ?room_1 ?room_1 ?room_2 } =palette[watering_eye] ~berries{ $boneberry[mushroom_broth] } &harmonies[ <beavers well> <beavers torch_ants> <egg boof> ] }
.rooms
Five rooms: two < > passages, a [ ] window, a { } room and a ( ) gathering; two kept by the well, the rest by the Genie, the Fool and Boof.
@told_by
Told by Boof, the fold, the Fool and the narrator.
$
Made most of steam and warmth, then ink and line, then Bonk glass.
*wonders
Three wonders are first met here; look in rooms 1 and 2.
=palette
Its palette is the watering eye, earned a layer at a time: a pale pink field, a brown iris that reflects a window, one teal tear.
~berries
A boneberry in this chapter tastes of mushroom broth.
&harmonies
The beavers keep the water slow. Slow work, like the ants. The egg rides against her ribs.

Every expression the chapter holds, by its sigil. What you have found is lit, and takes you to where it lives; the rest say where to look.

potentialwhat lasts, or might0 of 2

perspectivewhose eyes0 of 2

confluencewhat meets and stays itself0 of 1

annotationwhat is said, or marked0 of 6

groundwhat stays where it is put0 of 2

  • .[folded_faces]@the_wellRoom 1 of 5: read it to its end.Look in room 1
  • . ?A winch that sometimes brings up the wrong thing.Look in room 1

configa lean, a way chosen0 of 2

  • =<trapdoor>@the_foolRoom 3 of 5: read it to its end.Look in room 3
  • = ?Read the chapter to its end, and its first colour is yours.

measurehow much0 of 1

substratewhat it is made of0 of 2

At the tablePlay in this chapter

The Watering Eye: a tavern built leaning over an ancient well like a drinker over a confession. Down under the sagging floorboards, mossy coping rings black water that shows not your face but older ones, folded like pressed linen into the dark, with chalk-pale fish moving among them. Up in the taproom: pewter tankards, a crock of pickled walnuts going round, a long table where an out-of-season genie prices wants, and a well-winch whose slow four-beat song is under every tune anyone sings.

Light Amber lamplight leaking down through gaps in the floor onto still water that reflects earlier lamps than tonight's. Toward closing the lamps go out one by one, until the folded faces in the well are the brightest thing in the building.

People

  • the potboy wants the heel of the last loaf, and the last bucket wound up without knocking anybody — Says “Evening” to whatever the bucket brings up; sings four beats a turn without noticing he is doing it.
  • the regular wants another lager, and nobody clapping over the winch — One raised finger, one word, and — when the room forgets the song underneath — one hand laid flat on the bar.
  • the Genie wants a want he can price properly; thrones bore him, suppers fascinate him — Brisk as a market morning; qualifies everything, counts the company twice, writes it down and, after a moment, underlines it.
  • the elder beaver wants the exact wording of a dam: the bend, the height, the arrangement of the sticks — Smells of willow bark and creek mud; argues the younger one's drawings into better ones in spilled lager, slowly, and leaves to build before anyone can quote a price.

Hooks

  1. A face that won't fold. On a still night the bucket came up with a face the remembrancers cannot fold flat; it keeps turning toward the stair. A face said into deep water stays its owner's — it can't be kept or spent — and somebody in the taproom tonight wore this one once and has forgotten the want they said into the well. Find them, and let them decide whether to remember.
  2. The Genie's game. Name a want, hear the price, pay or fold. Thrones are cheap; a supper everyone agrees on costs three coincidences and a fortnight of Thursdays. Each player names something they want, the table decides what they will pay and what they will fold, and somebody out in the valley catches the correction.
  3. The rope is going. The well-winch's hemp is fraying and the cooper wants to splice it tonight, before market. The potboy says listen before you mend: the winch sings a beat flat a turn before it fails, and a splice in the wrong place will knock a face on the way up. Someone has to listen through a whole night of songs to find the flat beat.

Roll a d6

  1. A line of torch-ants comes up through a knot-hole with a crumb for the barrel-head; their torch went out on the damp stair. Somebody has to strike a match. The Genie never charges them.
  2. A reel starts, too quick, with clapping, and down the shaft the bucket begins to swing. Somebody has to get the room to stop clapping and find the winch song underneath.
  3. The bucket comes up holding a face instead of water, and the face looks at one of the party as if it knows them. The potboy says “Evening” and waits to see whether they will let it back down.
  4. A local in the Genie's queue wants a sulking stove taught to draw. The Genie quotes three coincidences. Anyone with a chimney-brush could fix it by supper, for a bowl of soup that tastes faintly of roof.
  5. A remembrancer rises through the faces, looks one of the party over, and turns politely away, as if they were a face it had not been asked to keep. Yet.
  6. The Genie's resolution glass, swinging idly across the room, finds a want larger than a loaf. It is not the one anybody said out loud.

Worth carrying out

  • The well-winch — Wound to the four-beat song on a still night, the bucket may come up holding a face instead of water: someone who once said a want into the well. The catch: the face stays its owner's. You may look, greet it and let it back down, never keep it — and the kitchen drinks rain-water till morning.
  • The want-needle — Held near someone, the brass needle circles toward their want, slows, and tries again. The catch: it finds big wants fast and small ones never, and a blank dial does not mean nobody wants anything — only that the want is too small and too true for brass.

A bracework move

{reel & winch}

Does A room where the quick song and the slow one run together without either giving way: for a minute everything inside moves at four beats a turn under whatever is being sung. Thrown tankards arrive gently, a fist lands as a handshake, the bucket comes up without knocking.

Costs Warmth borrowed from the hearth, which drops a notch and sulks; and a debt of tempo — whoever wrote it cannot hurry at anything until the next still night.

The page’s own dice

Every phrase in this chapter that breathes, as a table to roll on. The first face is the book’s own words.

d5 · turns by the hour

  1. wet rope
  2. sawdust
  3. pipe-ash
  4. damp straw
  5. onion skins

d5 · turns by the day

  1. the soup
  2. the leek broth
  3. the barley stew
  4. the pea soup
  5. the dumplings

d5 · turns by the hour

  1. a goat talked back over a wall
  2. a hen coaxed down from the rafters
  3. a lost ewe walked home
  4. a sulking stove taught to draw
  5. a mule argued out of a ditch

d5 · turns by the hour

  1. willow bark
  2. alder sap
  3. birch shavings
  4. wet hazel
  5. chewed aspen

d5 · turns by the minute

  1. the tavern windows
  2. the stair candles
  3. the copper pots
  4. the hanging lamps
  5. the hearth-glow

Ask the table If the bucket came up tonight holding your face, what want would it still be keeping — and would you say “Evening” and let it back down?

A slip for the scribes

What stayed with you in Songs of the Watering Eye?

A line that hummed, a place where the path went dark, a theory about what Boof digs up next. Write it on a slip, and Boof carries it to the Scriptorium.

Write a slip for Chapter 8

Opens autonomous.feedback, the Scriptorium's post. You keep a card either way.