How I Met Hena Chakelithp

Chapter 13. Hena's New Room

Two weeks later, I insisted it was time we built Hena a house. Well, not a house, but a space she could have all to herself. She said she was okay with sharing a room with me, because she had to share a room with both Dalley and Lorica back home.
I insisted. "Someday there will be something you want to keep from me, like a diary or a private carving or something," I warned. "When that happens, you'll want to have your own room to keep your secrets in. Trust me, I know how bad it is when someone finds something you don't want them to see. My sister, Kaliana, used to dig through my things all the time."
Hena shrugged. "All right. I guess I did a fair amount of snooping through my sisters' things too. Where do we start?"
I called upon my building knowledge. Papa had taught me quite a bit about architecture.
"We start by deciding what kind of room you want."
Hena thought for a moment. "It would be nice to have a loft. But I'd be fine with an extension or an existing room."
"Well, " I thought, thinking about which ones were possible, "This house only has three rooms counting the basement. The attic and the basement are both crowded, and they both get really cold at night. A loft would be difficult to build, and we don't have a high ceiling on any of the rooms. But an extension would be relatively easy to build, as long as it's small. It takes a lot of materials, but we have the means. An extension would be okay."
"Where do we get the materials?"
"Utiiq Forest," I said. "We need to pay to chop down trees, but we have enough. It's only five crajas a tree."
"Do we have that much? If we chop down four trees, that's twenty crajas."
What? I realized that we'd only saved about FIVE crajas since we'd gotten the flax. Why had I thought we had enough? Well, there was only one option now.
"Then let's start saving," I told Hena.

***

So we saved. We worked with Arvern, who generously agreed to work double-time with us and even give us a larger portion of the money than normal. We sold maple sugar at the Mayfair. I constantly practiced tilbarn to get better at it, and Hena went to market almost every day to sell her carvings.
Once when Hena was playing her dernia and I was picking bay leaves to sell to Dev as seasoning for ribs and fish, Hena asked when she could go home.
An image of Papa, Hena, Kudika, and I standing on a dock watching Hena fly away on Lindune's back popped into my head. My heart inexplicably sank. I tried to push the sadness away. Hena should be with her family! Why did I want her to stay so badly? If I got attached to her, I'd be all the more sad when she did leave, so I tried to ignore the thought. Even so, I couldn't stop myself from feeling melancholy.
"Srarori?"
Oh. I'd forgotten Hena asked me a question.
"You can go home as soon as the explorers find Pastrona."
"Explorers?"
"Oh, you didn't know? The parliament sent out explorers to find Pastrona. We don't know where it is yet, but when the explorers find it, then you can go."
"Oh," Hena said. "That makes sense."
I didn't know why I felt uneasy. It could have been anything. Was I keeping her away from her family? Was I not being considerate? Was it just that I didn't want her to leave?