[Issue 2025.73]

‘Treading Invisible Threads’, Juliet Kemp

Art © 2025 Sebastian Timpe

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Raven’s new apprentice, Elliot, is watching from the cottage as I swing my battered canvas pack up onto my back. New is hardly fair; he only has a year of apprenticeship to go. But I was Raven’s old apprentice, and, well.

I raise a polite hand to him. As he waves back, I see his relief that I’m taking the message round this time. He’ll have to step up soon; I’m only doing this once. Until I heard the news about Raven, I would still have said never, like I did when I left nearly ten years ago. What Elliot asked, when he wrote, was whether I would take on the last year of his apprenticeship, as the only one who knows the route, even if I am badly out of date. I refused. This isn’t my route, and he isn’t my apprentice. Raven’s responsibilities aren’t mine. Not even now they’re dead.

Yet, somehow, at the same time as saying no, I said but I’ll do one round for you. And here I am. Why, I’m not quite sure; but for a moment I’d swear I see Raven beside me.

Ready then, Senna?

Unexpected grief swells, and I push it away hard. I grieved for Raven long ago, thanks. That’s all done. I shove my knuckles into my eyes, reach up for a twig from the birch tree by the start of the track, and start walking.

It’ll be hot today. The grass underfoot has that late-summer, hasn’t-rained-for-a-while crunch, and the morning sun’s already blazing bright, rising over the distant trees. I’ll be grateful soon for my hat. The brim’s tattered, straw-ends sticking down into my vision. I’ve tried to fix it, but I’m not great with my hands. Maybe I’ll ask Hanna-the-weaver when I come back to Avebury, before I go north towards home.

I remember, suddenly and vividly, being out in the woods with Raven, sitting by an evening fire while Raven mended a rip in their trousers and told me that back before the Crash, hardly anyone bothered to mend anything. Just threw it away and bought new. Still can’t quite wrap my head around that. I was seven when the Crash happened. I barely remember the before times.

My bag’s light on my shoulder; not many messages for this trip. Though I don’t know how many people I’ll be carrying the news to about Raven, and how many already know given that it’s been the best part of a month. Justiciars carry messages, written and otherwise; we listen to people and pass on what we hear as we see fit; but we’re hardly the only way information travels. Without a justiciar, though, doing a proper, regular round, there’s no one who knows the whole area, end to end, no one who knows people, who can smooth their path or help resolve their problems or pass on what everyone’s feeling to the area councils. That’s what Raven told me, back when I was a grouchy seventeen-year-old, way too young for the job.

My first stop, Daryl, isn’t far. The letter’s from his sister who lives out on one of the flotillas. I can tell from the dozen or so delivery notes scrawled across the envelope, charting its journey from the coast to here. The system’s slow, but it works. Raven was part of making that happen, right from the start. Even on my own route, I’ve remembered that every time I start out, despite my best efforts. I could hardly avoid thinking of it today.

---

Somewhere in the Celtic Sea

Close to the Isles of Scilly

June 30 (or possibly 29?)

Dear Daryl,

How’re the trees? I’m not sure when this will reach you—Erin’s heading for shore tomorrow, but even after that it’s a long way from Cornwall to Wiltshire. Anyway, here and now it’s a week past midsummer, and we’re all appreciating the long days. Nearly time to sail south again!

The flotilla’s expanded again, just when we thought we were stable. This time it was a couple of small boats from Northern Europe with some kids who fancied the migrating marine life. From a fishing village, so at least they have some idea what they’re in for, and they’re settling in fine so far. Nice to have new faces.

We’re having a celebration tonight—forty years since the first sailing, can you believe it? Which makes it getting on for twenty that I’ve been out here. Not sure I’d know what to do with dry land any more if I found it. But I’m thinking, maybe I should come visit next time we’re in the Channel. Your niece is keen to see land, that’s for certain. We sailed past Old Manhattan in the spring—not too close, don’t worry. Weird seeing all the tips of buildings, but Mandy loved it and was furious we couldn’t stop. So, yeah, maybe she needs some time off the water, odd though that seems to me. We did run into a research boat back from the north while we were there—they reckon the polar ice is extending a little, which is wonderful news.

Erin’s off for land now—I can see the tip of Cornwall on the horizon, but once she’s back we’ll be going down the French coast, not coming in to Britain—so I’ll close here.

All my love,

Emily

---

Even after ten years, and a fair few changes, I still know this route as well as I know the one that’s mine now, up by Chester. I’m nearing Daryl’s patch, and I can both recognise the forest I knew so well and see the impact of ten more years. He’s on the edge of one of the big wild areas, managing a few acres for timber and various other things. Raven, who remembered the monoculture it used to be, called this stretch rewilded. They were always so thrilled when they saw some new plant or insect or animal.

Daryl isn’t there when I reach his clearing—outhouse on one side, cabin on the other, vegetables between them with his solar panels in the middle—but I can hear his axe close by, and it’s getting on for noon. I settle down on a chair on the cabin porch to wait for him to return for lunch.

The soybeans in their raised bed are nearly ready. Raven loved edamame. I do too, but not with Raven’s eating-three-bowls fervour. They said climate change was shit but hey, at least you could grow soy over here by the time it became impossible to import it. My eyes blur and I bite my lip and look away from the beans, up at the firecrest singing for its territory in the tree-branches that criss-cross above my head.

Eventually the axe goes quiet and Daryl appears from the trees.

He doesn’t look surprised to see me, even after this long. “Senna. Good to see you. Been a while.” He cracks a rare smile as I hand him the letter. He doesn’t hear from his sister often; our mail routes are robust now but reaching the flotillas is still tricky.

He shares his lunch with me—veg and barley soup he’s had cooking in a haybox.

“Elliot said to remind you that the folks from London will be coming for that survey next week.” Daryl isn’t great at keeping track of time, or remembering that sort of thing. “You’ll put them up in the barn again?”

“Counting butterflies ’n all that.” Daryl snorts. “Butterflies’re there, aren’t they? Don’t see why they need counted.” An old, familiar grumble, though he was always kind enough to the survey people when they got here. “All right. I’ll look out for ’em.”

We eat in silence for a while. Daryl’s never been chatty.

“That Elliot,” he says after a bit. “Not quite done his apprenticeship, has he.”

“No.” I look out at the trees. “He’ll be fine. I suggested he get someone up from London to sign him off.”

I wait for Daryl to say, not you then, or you’re not back for long, and marshal my arguments. Why I’m here (as if I can answer that one); why I won’t stay to help Elliot (because I live somewhere else now; because Raven told me to get out, and I went). It’s wasted energy; he just keeps eating his soup. “Guess the apprenticeship fair’s coming up,” he says eventually. “Need to put a notice up.”

“You’re taking an apprentice?” My eyebrows go up. I have trouble seeing Daryl with an apprentice—with anyone sharing his space at all—but then, he lived with his mentor, back when he was training. And someone else needs to know what he does, against the future.

“If I c’n find one.” He shrugs. “Could use a younger pair of hands. Room for another shelter here, get ’em to put that up first thing. And, turns out, ain’t no one lives forever, eh?” He looks over at me, suddenly sharp. “Sometimes, you think, should’ve got on and done a thing sooner.”

Of course Daryl knows what happened between me and Raven—everyone does—but I’m not about to sit here and have a discussion about regrets. I don’t regret leaving.

Daryl stands to go over to the soybeans.

“There you go,” he says, turning to me with a single pod. “First ripe one. Raven always liked ’em.”

I press my lips together, tuck the fuzzy green pod into my little leather bag with the birch twig, and shoulder my pack. Time to go.

“Stop on your way back?” Daryl asks, picking up his axe. “F’r the apprentice notice, ’n my reply to Emily.”

“Of course.” I nod at him and head back to the track.

---

FAO: PRITI and HENRY / LETCOMBE PLANT PHARMACY

The results of your soil survey:

…

Lead 34mg/kg

…

The land this sample was taken from is therefore cleared SAFE for farming, subject to local agreement re land use and clearance.

Your experimental wheat seeds are enclosed. See planting notes overleaf.

Soil Remediation & Health Group, Bristol

---

“My seeds!” Henry grins happily at me and nearly snatches the package from my hands. “Levels must finally be all right, Priti!”

“We’ve been waiting for those for months,” Priti says, grin almost as wide as Henry’s. “Come on in, Senna. It’s lovely to see you after so long.”

The early morning sun glints off the glasshouses to my right. Neat gardens surround them and all four sides of the house. I got an early start this morning: slept in the woods two hills back rather than staying at my last stop yesterday evening. I’m keen to get on with the route. Get back north. This isn’t home any more, however familiar it feels.

We go around the house, past the barn where Priti and Henry print compounds they can’t grow. It took them a while to get the right feedstock growing for the printer. Raven and I arrived here once, maybe fifteen years back, just after they’d had to declare their latest experiment failed. We helped drown their sorrows, and I learnt a whole lot of things I’d never known about Raven’s history; and the next morning Henry provided us with a herbal concoction that took away most of the sorrows we’d thereby woken up with.

I’d enjoyed working with Raven back then. I’d thought this would be my route once they retired.

Priti and Henry got the printer working eventually. He’s the pharmacist, she’s the doctor, with a travelling clinic to supplement the main one at Avebury; they’re both gardeners.

“I’m so sorry about Raven,” Priti says, as we enter the kitchen.

She turns to look sympathetically at me. I can tell she’s about to offer a hug, and I don’t know how I’ll react if she does. I don’t expect to cry for Raven—don’t want to—and I’m terrified it might suddenly come upon me. “Thanks,” I say, turning away to look at the stove. The medicinal kitchen is out in the barn with the printer, but there’s something medical-smelling bubbling here anyway, which is most likely one of their frequent experiments.

“Antiseptic gel,” Henry says, following us in, still clutching his packet of seeds. “Maybe. We hope.”

I can feel Priti’s gaze on the back of my neck—she’s sharp, is Priti—but all she says is, “Still in the testing stages. You remember all that struggle with the tea tree? The plants are doing well now. We’re mixing it now with comfrey, lavender, and honey, to see what happens.”

They spent so long trying to get tea tree established. It’s hardy here, so you’d have thought someone would have had one kicking around on a patio, but no, or at least no one the seed people could find. Henry finally managed to make contact with someone out in Australia (Australia!) and get seeds. Took years for Henry’s letter to get there and the seeds to get back. We’d sent it via Daryl’s sister Emily on the flotilla, the only option at the time, but they’re slow and not always predictable, going with the currents and the seasons. A cutting would have been better than seeds, but no way would one have survived the journey. Priti and Henry nursemaided those seeds like you wouldn’t believe, and it still took three years before they first got a couple of seedlings through the winter. I left before the plants were anything like big enough to harvest.

“Can you take Benjy’s prescription with you?” Priti asks me, as she starts heating samosas from a pile at the back of the stove. “I’ll be out to Tring in a week or two, but Benjy likes to have stock in hand. And I’ve got to go over to Hennings Farm to see Alice sometime this week—she’s pregnant. I wondered, could I come along with you today?”

Hennings is about a three hour walk, and I’ve a message for their kid, Toby, who must be a teenager by now. I only hesitate for a moment. “Of course.”

Henry comes back just as Priti’s dishing out samosas. “Here,” he says, and hands me a sprig of tea tree. “You were here when the seeds came. I gave Raven some of the first extract, a couple of years back now. Seems—right.”

My stomach clenches, and I can’t say anything. I just put it into my pouch and nod.

Once we’ve eaten our fill of the late breakfast / early lunch samosas, Henry waves us off, as Priti promises she’ll be back by evening. It’s not even noon yet, plenty of time for there and back in a day, especially this time of year when the days are still long. We idly trade gossip as we walk, her catching me up on the last years here, and me telling her about Chester, then continue in companionable silence.

“Grief’s hard, sometimes,” Priti says, out of the blue. She’s not looking at me; she’s speaking quietly, as if she’s talking to herself. “Especially with a complicated relationship.”

I can’t help myself; I snort. “That’s an understatement.”

She glances over at me. “I know Raven could be difficult.” That’s an understatement, too. “But you knew them for a long time. That always leaves something.”

I haven’t got anything to say to any of that. My face feels hot and my throat aches. Priti stays quiet.

I like to think, sometimes, of all the people who have walked this way before me. The Ridgeway’s been here for thousands of years, a footway old long before the Romans came. Prehistoric gathering sites lurk beside it; we still use one of them as a midsummer market and fair. Perhaps more as a nod to our ancestors than for real practicality; but it’s fun, and fun is important too.

I feel sometimes that if I turned around quickly enough—too quickly?—I’d see a shadow behind me. Raven maybe first—as if I’d want that—but then a whole series of shadows, walking as they fade back into the past, connecting people and place and people. Like I am, here and now.

When I look back there’s only Priti, stopped to thoughtfully finger a plant, and the shadows are only the trees that flank the path.

---

Dear Tobias,

You are invited to attend one of the apprenticeship advisory weekends on the dates below, at AVEBURY. Please return an attendance slip as soon as possible, or a deferral note or existing apprenticeship note signed by one of your responsible adults. We look forward to seeing you!

The enclosed booklet has notes on some of the apprenticeships so far known to be available this year (more may yet be added), what to expect at the weekend, and shows the various apprenticeship routes available to you.

Apprenticeship Centre, Avebury

---

“I don’t know what I want to do,” Toby says with a shrug. He was a toddler when I last saw him. He’s taller than his mum Cathy now, and in the awkward lanky stage.

“That’s what the taster route is for,” I point out, picking up the booklet and flipping to the graphic. Avebury has a printing press; they’ve been looking for an apprentice there for a year or two.

I remember when Toby was a baby, and Toby’s mum Cathy and her now-partner Alice had a visitor who’d outstayed his welcome. Raven dealt with it, of course, smooth as you like. They could manage people well enough when they had a mind to.

“Bakery, medicinal gardening, printing…” Cathy reads out. “Or you can defer and stay here another year.”

“Daryl’s looking for an apprentice,” I put in.

Toby looks horrified. “Out there all on my own? No thanks. What I want is to go to London…”

“Well, apprentice here first to something that’s in demand, and maybe you can when you’re older,” Cathy says with brisk practicality.

“Or be a justiciar…” He looks at me almost with hero-worship. Did I used to look at Raven that way? I don’t think so. I was never the hero-worship sort.

“We don’t take apprentices your age,” I say firmly. “Only folk with a bit more life experience.” Toby, thankfully, doesn’t know how old I was when I started tagging after Raven. We agreed, a few years later, after Raven had sent me away, and I’d come back for a proper apprenticeship, that I’d been far too young. There were extenuating circumstances, and we’d made it work, but still. I wouldn’t take on another seventeen-year-old me, thanks all the same, never mind thirteen-year-old Toby. If you ask me, Elliot, in his late twenties, is barely old enough. From this run, you wouldn’t think it matters. My job this time is passing on messages and having a chat and something to eat. But sometimes there are squabbles, and sometimes worse than squabbles, and sometimes I’m going to represent people to the big area meetings and I need to listen well enough to understand what they want, and to represent them even if I don’t agree. Even now, a couple of decades in, sometimes I think I’m only beginning to learn.

Did Raven still think they were learning? Did they look back and think that they’d do things differently another time, between the two of us?

Do I think that?

“That Elliot.” Cathy pushes the plate of cakes towards me. “You think he’s ready? He’s young, still.”

“He’s twenty-seven,” I say, despite that I’ve just been wondering the same. I crumble a piece of cake off, my fingers jerky. “He’s sensible.”

“Not done apprenticing,” Cathy says. “Raven left it late.” I can’t tell if I’m hearing a touch of judgement. Of Raven? Of me? Was Raven waiting for me to come back? It wasn’t like they ever asked. Or got in touch at all.

“He’s close enough.” I’m trying not to hunch my shoulders. “He’ll manage. He can get someone up from London, maybe, to help. It’s his route now, right?”

“Saw you coming up the path today, I thought you might be back to help him.” Cathy looks dead at me. Fuck me, she doesn’t pull her punches.

“Yeah, well. I’ve my own round, haven’t I?”

I do; and also, I could get other people to cover it. Chester’s home now, and I’d miss my route and my people, but a year or so and Elliot would be fine to take over here.

But this isn’t my responsibility. I walked away.

“And an apprentice of your own?” Cathy asks.

I shrug. “Not yet.” She’s not the first person to ask about that—people on my round did, last year before our apprenticeship fair. And I likely should think about it. I’ve a few years yet, but my hips are beginning to complain when I sleep out in the winter. I’ve put it off, so far.

Because I don’t want to end up like it was with Raven and me. Because I look back, now, and wish I’d done things differently.

It’s the first time I’ve let myself think that out loud, and it makes me physically flinch. Cathy looks at me curiously, and, thank fuck, decides to give over. Instead she stands and goes to the back door; comes back with a sprig of rosemary. “For remembrance, they say, don’t they?” She hands it to me as Priti and Alice clatter back downstairs. Alice is smiling; Priti goes straight to the sink to wash her hands.

“All looking good,” Alice reports.

“I’ll be back in a couple of months,” Priti says. “But send someone if you’ve any worries; it’s only half a day, not even, and I can come out any time.”

“There’s always the horses if we need you faster,” Cathy agrees, and squeezes Alice’s hand, smiling at her, forgetting about me.

---

Back when this was mine and Raven’s route, I rarely bothered with going up to Ivinghoe Beacon, the end of the Ridgeway. Not like there’s anywhere nearby you can’t get to easier by going around.

I drop off my last couple of letters, and Benjy the stationmaster’s prescription, at the train station at Tring, then go through to the platform. Today’s northbound train is due in twenty minutes. I could get on it and be home in, oh, maybe two or three changes.

I wait, occupying myself by reading the old pre-Crash timetable, kept as some kind of memento, which shows dozens of daily trains in both directions. A handful more people arrive on the platform before the train pulls in, only five minutes late. People get off; people get on; Benjy loads up the goods van.

“Senna?” He gestures towards the train, eyebrows up in question.

I sigh, and shake my head. I promised Daryl I’d pick his letter up, but that’s not the real reason, is it. I watch the train pull out, watch it all the way out of sight, before I leave the station and start up towards Ivinghoe.

It’s lonely out here. The sky’s grey, not quite threatening rain, and the wind pushes at me. The first couple of fields I walk along the edge of, close to Tring, are full of crops; after that it’s wilder, scrub giving way to a small woodland. I’m getting out of breath, but contrary to my expectation, when I come out of the last band of trees and start up the final pull, the wind has died down and the clouds have begun to part. By the time I reach the trig point right at the top of the Beacon, the sun is shining.

This is the highest point for miles around. The train line glints off to my left, with the southbound train rolling along it, a tiny child’s toy. Beyond that I can see the dots of Hennings farmhouse, and further still to where I crossed under the big road, crumbling around the edges and full of holes, but still usable for e-bikes. I can’t quite see all the way back home to Avebury.

I was seventeen the first time Raven brought me here. The very first time I’d come along with them, long before they let me properly apprentice. Not every time, they said, but sometimes, it’s good to come up here and look around, before you go on. Their dark hair had been tangling in the breeze. We’re just part of the landscape, making connections across it. It helps to see more of it at once. You get perspective. Keeping people connected. That’s what matters.

I squat down in front of the trig point, take out my knife, and cut up enough turf to make a little fireplace. Raven taught me how to do that. I tend the fire patiently until it’s properly going, then I sit back on the ground and remember Raven.

Their sideways smile; their irritability; their ability to listen, attent and patient, until they reached the truth of something. Their incisive clarity, and how they knew when to say, I don’t know. How they’d looked after me when I needed it.

Them setting their teeth and forging onwards, time and again, determined they knew what was best—for better, and for worse.

That fight, the last time I saw them. Raven, silent and expressionless, watching me leave. Both of us refusing to back down; refusing to open our hearts and work to fix things. We both knew how to do that for others, but we couldn’t do it for ourselves, and we were too fucking stubborn to ask for help.

I let myself feel, finally, my own regret for walking away and never looking back. Did Raven regret that, in the end? Did they too wish they’d reached out? I’ll never know. I’ll never, now, be able to try to bridge that gap; I’ll never be able to succeed, or to fail. I said we’d broken the connection, but we hadn’t, had we? Raven was always still part of me, for better or for worse.

The sobs wrench their way up my throat, and I let them come. I miss Raven, and I resent their pig-headedness, and I love them; and I let them go.

Eventually, the tears are done and I can breathe steadily again. I gather together the birch twig I’ve carried from Avebury and the tokens from the path. Soybeans; tea-tree; rosemary. An early blackberry I found on the way up the Beacon. I cut a length of my own hair, and wind it around the tokens together with a piece of the leather bracelet Raven once gave me and I wore until I didn’t but could never bear to throw away. I feed the fire again until it’s blazing bright and hot, and I cast the whole parcel into the fire and watch it burn away.

Raven’s gone. I’m still here.

While I’m waiting for the ashes to cool, I take the rest of the bracelet and a piece of string from my pocket and tie them around my wrist. I’m still here, and Raven is part of that. Perhaps Hanna-the-weaver can make a better job of this, back in Avebury, when I get her to fix my hat.

I put the turf back over the cold fire the way Raven taught me and tip water over it. I take a last look at the land falling away around me, turn, and start back down the hill.

I don’t owe anything to Raven, and Raven didn’t owe anything to me. That wasn’t what our relationship was ever about. But one thing I learnt from them is how the many threads of our lives connect us one to the other. None of us exist alone. Elliot needs support; and I can stand to be here another year. I can pick up some of the pieces that fell when I walked away, and when Elliot’s ready, I’ll go back home and find my own apprentice to pass my own knowledge onto.

The decision feels unexpectedly light. Like it was easy, in the end, once I had the perspective, to know what to do.

Connection, Raven’s memory whispers. That’s what matters.

I can let Raven be right, now; because I know when we were both wrong. And how we were connected, all the way through.

© 2025 Juliet Kemp

[Issue 2025.73]

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