As soon as we have left the village, Honrick puts on a pair of shoes, making him taller and surer of himself.

  I worry about my own feet. Once we had left the softness of the Clabby earth, would the jags of the sticks and stones be too much for me? Would I have to give up before reaching the destination and return home to the mountain?

  Mere minutes after setting out on our journey – I still hear the whistling of Jerren, the current pot-carrier, going about his duties – Honrick pulls a pair of brown shoes from his bag, asking me if I want to wear them over my own feet. For protection, he says.

  I almost turn and walk back to the village, whatever about the future of our way of living.

  ‘Shoes are an oppression,’ I say. ‘Didn’t the Mister tell you that?’

  He immediately retreats.

  ‘I apologise,’ he says, pushing them back into the bag. ‘Only I didn’t want you to hurt your feet. We have a long journey ahead, and the path will not always be so soft.’

  He walks away and I watch the shoe bulges in his bag. Lumpen, stiff things that must take half his baggage space. I had no baggage, save for my mala, the sack where I put my foot scrapings.

  ‘Our feet are our direct contact with our ancestors,’ I say, calmer now. ‘You ask me to give that up?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says again. ‘I wanted to help.’

  Our walk continues in silence. I regret asking him to put the shoes away so fast without getting the chance to have a feel of the material and see how they were made.

  I think of my mother. When she became ill, it hadn’t seemed to affect me much. People had praised me for my strength, and I maintained it, even when they had dragged her lifeless body to the chamber, and I had felt the urge to spring into the hole after her. I remember her showing me how to work the potter’s wheel when my legs were barely long enough to depress the pedal. I remember her comforting me as a child with papped bread and milk. I had barely thought of her in the months since her death but, since the discussions about leaving, I worry that I am abandoning her, that we will no longer be able to connect. I blink back the odd hot tear, as I step delicately around the sticks and rocks.

  The path becomes difficult, as Honrick had promised. The land is now sharper and drier, and more stones begin to appear beneath my feet. Honrick strolls comfortably along the path, the sturdy big shoes protecting him. He is soon well ahead of me, and he has to stop from time to time, to allow me to catch up.

  ‘You know,’ he says, when I find my way to his side again, ‘this land you’re walking on, it isn’t mud. It can’t go through your feet and make a connection.’

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  ‘Still you ask me this?’ I say, my impatience increasing.

  ‘You need to make it to the city,’ he says. ‘It’s you who will talk to the doctors about the seeing sickness. I want to make it easier.’

  I don’t answer. I walk past him through the stony earth, its corners cutting into my soft soles, making a show of how I do not need his help.

  ‘There isn’t any connection to your ancestors here,’ he confirms, as I push past him on the edges of my feet.

  ‘I know this,’ I say, clenching my teeth. ‘But this is not why I go with naked feet.’

  ‘No? Why then?’ he asks.

  ‘It is because I am a Mudder and Mudders don’t wear shoes!’

  We make another start, me dithering with cautious steps, and him striding lazily onwards. I sense his mouth opening as if he has something to say. When he finally speaks, his eyes stay fixed to the floor in front of him, as if he addresses himself.

  ‘The bare feet are still important although they no longer serve any purpose,’ he says. ‘Interesting. Not only do they not serve any purpose, but they actively hurt and hinder you. Yet still you go on.’

  ‘I’m sure you have your beliefs also,’ I say, the discomfort singeing my nerves. ‘I’ll be sure to ask you to abandon them once I find out what they are.’

  He laughs at this.

  ‘Yes. That is fair. I have learned a lot about you, but you know very little about me. I won’t ask about the shoes any more.’

  The laugh stops quickly, but he can’t stop the smile from pulling at his cheeks. I have never seen such straight, white teeth.

  He walks ahead and I watch the shoes bouncing in their bag on his hip with every step.

  ‘What is your way of living, anyway?’ I ask.

  His smile quickly disappears.

  ‘It is probably not a good idea to tell you too much about my way of living,’ he says.

  ‘So you get to know all about us,’ I say, ‘but we get to know nothing about you?’

  ‘I showed you my writing,’ he says.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. It is his writing that points to greater wealth of knowledge in further areas. It is because they have a fully worked out writing system, that I have such faith in their medical knowledge. But does this knowledge entail a system of belief?

  ‘You have lots of things. I know. I will see more of these things when I get to the city, I expect.’ I say. ‘But what do you believe?’

  ‘I don’t know what I believe,’ he says. ‘I try to be a good person and do no harm to others.’

  ‘Everyone does that,’ I said. ‘But is that your purpose in life? What do you live for?’

  He is quiet for a moment.

  ‘Some people in Severas believe in the Munlore,’ he says, ‘but I don’t want to talk about it too much.’

  ‘Why not?’ I ask.

  ‘Because I do not wish to infect your community with my city beliefs, any more than I already have done. I want to leave Clabby as I found it.’

  I think about all that has happened since Honrick’s arrival in the village. I have now left the mud of my forefolk and I would soon be in the city. Would things ever be the same?

  ‘The Munlore,’ I say. ‘Was that on the sheets you were showing to the Mister?’

  ‘Who told you that?’ he asks.

  ‘Clabby is a small place and we have nothing to do except talk,’ I answer.

  He shakes his head, frustrated.

  ‘I wasn’t showing her the sheets,’ he explains, ‘she took them out of my bag when I was ill. I didn’t tell her anything about it.’

  ‘Tell me something of it,’ I say, lowering my voice. ‘Just the core of it.’

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ he says.

  ‘I’m already going into the city,’ I say, ‘and that will infect me more than anything you have to say. Learning about your Munlore will not make any difference. I have left the village to save it – it can be another part of my sacrifice.’

  He looks at me now, his watery eyes boring into mine. I feel the sweat gathering on my shoulders beneath my garment. Slowly, he begins to walk again.

  ‘The Munlore created our earth,’ he says, brushing past me, ‘and nine others like it.’