edited by Ziv Wities
Suvin couldn’t make the year’s gods, but she could wedge the clay that made them, slamming it into the table over and over again to get the air pockets out. Her village was a good one for god clay, sturdy and functional, and even without Auntie Deri, who had died in the winter, they had three old people and seven children, a solid number of people for making gods.
Two of the children were new to it this year, their gods clumsy and half-formed but powerful with their toddler enthusiasm. The other children varied from Zora, eleven and dreamy, to Jemmy, a stolid seven and absolutely intent on building as many animal gods as he could manage before the gods had to go in the kiln for Midsummer.
The elders were more considered in their approach to the divine, finding and filling in gaps in the children’s work, each according to their own life experience. Seeing that Jemmy managed a chicken god, a sheep god, and a spider god (likely to be friendly to spinners and weavers), Uncle Orn quietly filled in the rest of the village’s life with a god of the fields and a god of the forests. Auntie Larig made a god of childbirth and a god of death, both, so that the god of childbirth didn’t have to take over both functions. She had seen that once, when she was young, and was determined that it would never happen again.
Bei was too old this year, grown gawky and half-responsible. She skulked around the door of Suvin’s pottery, tossing criticism and complaints at those within, particularly her younger sibling Clar, who ignored her. Zora gazed after her for a moment, but then went back to making a god of rainbows. Suvin stepped out to speak with her.
“Aren’t you needed in the dairy?”
Bei shrugged, her whole body jerking.
Suvin tried again. “You’re not making it any easier on yourself watching. Go distract yourself; you’ll mind less if you’re thinking of something else.”
Bei scowled but stalked off, leaving Suvin feeling she’d made things worse rather than better for the girl.
Not everyone minded leaving the rituals of childhood behind them, nor showed their minding in the same way. Suvin herself had found that she missed the feel of the clay but not the spark of the divine, and by Midwinter of that first year she had found herself apprenticed to the previous potter. Neither of her brothers had thought a thing of it, shedding their childhood as thoughtlessly as an old jacket. But neither was Bei unprecedented. Auncle Phee had spent their adult years yearning for the creation of the Midsummer gods, and had settled into old age with a contented sigh.
Suvin wondered if Auncle Phee might be persuaded to have a quiet word with Bei when they were done making gods for the day, or whether that would feel to a prickly adolescent like piling on. In any case, Bei couldn’t lurk around the pottery all day distracting the god makers; that wasn’t good for anyone. Suvin went back in to find Auntie Larig a spare scribing tool.
By the time Suvin shooed them off to wash the clay from their hands (arms, noses, eyebrows), the ten of them had made two dozen gods, small and sure in their rows, ready to be fired. Suvin regarded them with satisfaction and no small amount of worry: this year’s gods would shape the days of the village, not just in their own year, but in their implications in the years beyond.
She could neither stop nor change them—her days of that were gone, or not yet come again. Every year the old gods had to be shattered, and the new made. Everyone knew from harsh experience that keeping old gods, or letting adults in their prime direct the new ones, led to cult and catastrophe. The old gods had been smashed to dust on the green to release their essence, and these were ready to dry, fire, and cool in time to catch the divine spark at Midsummer. Suvin arranged them carefully and slid the trays in, closing the door of the kiln.
She returned a few days later to take them out, ready to pull out gods, whole and cooled. Instead, there was a mass of clay shards and dust, nothing but rubble in the bottom of the kiln. The entire tray was ruined. Worst of all, Jemmy’s sheep god had shattered in the kiln like a hastily thrown pot, taking the god of childbirth, the god of hunting, and the god of the river with it. Not only was this catastrophic, it was unprecedented. Gods were not supposed to shatter. Gods shouldn’t have been able to shatter.
Something was badly wrong, and if they couldn’t hurry to make more, it was going to be a very hard year indeed. Gods of song or war were optional. A god of sheep was essential. Sheep were the lifeblood of the village. There were other keystones—the river, childbirth, hunting—but the sheep god was the worst of the lot to lose in a shepherding village. Suvin ran to find Jemmy, who was still at breakfast with his parents, Wurran and Arev.
“My sheep god?” he whispered.
“It’s not your fault,” said Wurran and Arev in unison.
“It really isn’t,” said Suvin, “but I was hoping you could see if you could make another one while we try to figure out what went wrong.” Jemmy was on his feet before she’d finished speaking, out the door like a flash, and Suvin had to hurry after him to get him clay that was properly prepared. She had just gotten him set up when she found Wurran had followed them both.
“The way I see it,” he said slowly, filling the door of the pottery with his broad shoulders, “the only reason making the gods would go wrong is if some part of the preparations weren’t done properly.”
Suvin cast around the pottery in a panic, trying to figure out how she had failed them. “I got the same clay we always get, but that’s not supposed to matter. I kept it moist and wedged it for them and placed it in the kiln myself; I just don’t see what I could have done to prepare it differently.”
“There’s the other half of the preparations,” said Wurran. He raised a significant eyebrow at her, but she was still not following. “The smashing of last year’s gods.”
Suvin’s stomach sank. “But— we all sang and watched—” But she knew whose name had come into her head at his words.
Wurran’s expression grew intense, as though he’d recognized the awful thought that crossed her mind. “How closely did you watch everyone? A lot of people had more than one god. There was all the smashing and the singing—it’s hard to keep track of everything. And you’re thinking you know whose god it is, aren’t you? Suvin, I’ve known you since we were young enough to make the gods ourselves.”
“I just have a theory. I’ll— I’ll tell you as soon as I have it confirmed. I don’t want to make trouble unless I have to.”
“We already have trouble, and we don’t have much time,” Wurran warned.
“I know. But— we have to get this right. Are you okay watching him here?” Suvin gestured at the workspace, at the ready clay, and Wurran nodded. Jemmy, intent on his second try at a sheep god, ignored them both, focused on the curls and rounds that whispered “fleece” into his heart.
Suvin walked more slowly than she should to the house where Bei lived with her parents, aunt, and sibling. An unsmashed god—oh, how she wanted to be wrong. But when she saw Bei sitting outside on a bench, shelling peas, she knew from the girl’s sullen startle that she was right.
“You know why I’m here, don’t you,” she said, sitting on the other side of the pea basket so she could help shell while she talked.
Bei glared at her.
“It’s already going wrong. The sheep god shattered in the kiln because the power isn’t out of all of last year’s gods yet.” She snuck a glance at Bei’s face. The girl was shaken, ashen. That was a good sign: it had not been deliberate sabotage of the other gods. But Suvin knew she couldn’t stop there, as upset as they both were–and as much as Suvin would have liked to just get back to her silent, malleable clay. “Who knows how much worse it will get from here. You have to give it up, Bei. You have to smash the god. I haven’t told anyone it’s you, you can just— do it now, it’s not too late.”
Bei’s eyes filled with defiant tears. “It’s my last one, my last god until I’m old or maybe ever, not everybody lives to be old!”
Suvin shook her head in disbelief. “We all have a last god; that’s just the way of things. You don’t get to keep it. It sucks power from the new gods, tries to form a cult.”
“Mine wouldn’t.”
“They all do.”
Bei leapt to her feet, upsetting the pea basket. “You don’t know my god of beauty! You haven’t been paying attention to it all year—nobody has but me, you all thought it was stupid! Well, I’m not giving it up, and you can’t make me!” She dashed down the path into the bog before Suvin was halfway off the bench.
Suvin sank back, numb. She had expected Bei to be concerned for the village at large, contrite. Biddable. She had expected Bei to behave like a chastened child. Or maybe a thoughtful adult. This cusp stage had caught her completely off-guard. She made her way back to the pottery in a daze. Jemmy was still hard at work. Wurran raised an eyebrow at her.
“It’s Bei,” she managed. “She… didn’t want to stop making gods. Feels like no one understands her, from the sounds of it. Becoming an adult is difficult, but—”
“But no one else threatens our safety because of it. Bei can’t be permitted to either. We’ll have to track her down.”
Suvin blinked up at Wurran. He was so gentle with Jemmy, she had not expected this reaction. “She’s run into the bog.”
“I’ll go drag her out by her hair, she’s small enough,” said Wurran grimly.
Suvin shook her head. “Would you do that to me?”
“I couldn’t, you’re scrappy.”
“But if you could.”
Wurran thought about it. “No, I’d talk to you first.”
“We have to talk to her first. We’re telling her she’s an adult, we have to treat her like an adult. We can’t just take away all the best parts of being a child without anything in recompense.”
“You’ve earned being talked to first. You behave like a reasonable person.”
“I think sometimes we have to be the first ones to be reasonable.”
Wurran didn’t like it, but he didn’t have a counterargument. The problem, Suvin thought, was that he was the wrong person to do the talking, and she certainly was. In Bei’s mind, she was the cruel person who had chased Bei out of the pottery and denigrated her god of beauty. They would have to find someone else. Someone Bei didn’t find threatening. Someone she loved.
Someone who understood how hard it could be to let go of making the gods.
Auncle Phee was upset to hear the news of the sheep god, and then bewildered by Suvin’s request. “But what can I do for little Bei?”
“Not so little any more. She’s angry with me. I hoped you could talk sense to her. You… reacted like this, but not really.”
They laughed wearily. “I did run off to the bog and weep. I just skipped straight to that part, I suppose. Oh, there was a lot of weeping down there when I was young. I was a little waterfall, you wouldn’t believe.”
Suvin smiled sadly. “We all… grow in our own way. I guess I hoped you might try to speak to her. I could ask her parents, but I think she’s at an age—”
“No, no, not her parents,” said Auncle Phee hastily. “All right, I’ll come. Let me get another shawl and a walking stick.”
The two of them walked together, squelching along companionably on the damp soil. There was neither sight nor sound of Bei until they got nearer the river. Then a thread of her hem showed them where to turn. They found her sitting in the mouth of one of the river caves, throwing rocks angrily into the river.
“Go away!” she shouted.
“We’re just here to talk!” Suvin shouted back. “You don’t even have to talk to me; just talk to Auncle Phee.”
No response. Phee edged closer, though Suvin kept at their heels to provide assistance if necessary. “I know this is hard, Bei,” Auncle Phee started, “but you have to be brave.”
“I don’t! I don’t have to be brave. I can just keep my god with me and it can handle being brave!”
“She’s got us there,” Auncle Phee muttered out of the corner of their mouth.
“But that’s a really bad idea for the rest of us,” said Suvin, equally quietly.
“It is. Bei, that’s a really bad idea for everyone else,” Phee said more audibly. “Like your Dad, or like Clar. I know they must annoy you sometimes—my brother annoyed me—but that doesn’t mean you want them to have to struggle along without any gods.”
“They could share mine!”
“She’s got all the answers,” Auncle Phee whispered.
Suvin sucked breath in through her nose, wishing there were still gods she could ask for patience—especially as that did not look like a blessing that the god of beauty, still clutched in Bei’s pocket, provided. Auncle Phee crept closer. Suvin followed.
“Seeing your god smashed is terrible,” Auncle Phee tried. “Don’t I know it. The whole thing was terrible. It’s the kind of terrible that’s like getting over an ague, though, you just have to grit your teeth and endure it. No one’s come up with another way.”
“Why don’t you, then.”
Auncle Phee wheezed out a laugh. “We’re not that good yet. Maybe that’ll be on you to figure out; maybe that will be your adult work. To quest for some better way, so that people can grow up without pain. I don’t know of one, but maybe you will. But first you have to get there. And a village that depends on one god… isn’t going to raise you or Clar or Jemmy or any of the others to be strong adults who can go on quests. Too many bad harvests and passing fevers for that.”
There was quiet. Suvin wondered if Bei had thought about how little help her god of beauty would be in the face of the barley harvest failing, or spotted fever coming down the river in the wet season. Instead Bei said, “What if you made me another one? A god of beauty? So that mine could just… come back. We have a sheep god every year. If you’d just make me another god of beauty…”
“I can’t, little one,” said Auncle Phee.
“Why does no one understand how important beautiful things are?” Bei cried, and Suvin was moved despite her annoyance. “There are so many, and everyone ignores it! They just go on like lumps, turn the cheeses, milk the sheep, nobody says, oh, look, Bei, look how glorious the lupines are in bloom, look at how perfect this apple is. No one. It’s just me.”
“I don’t mean that I won’t make your god for you, child. I mean that I can’t.”
Bei finally looked at them, sullen but paying attention for the first time.
“My god of beauty wouldn’t be yours. It couldn’t. We don’t find the same things beautiful; we aren’t excited by the same beauty. It wouldn’t catch the same spark. Your god was yours—nobody could have made it for you. I could promise to make you one, but I can’t lie to you and tell you it’ll be yours.”
Suvin thought that Auncle Phee most certainly could have lied. But Bei was listening, at least. Thinking. Suvin had brought Auncle for a reason; it was theirs to try. Even if Suvin hated to see an easy solution rejected out of hand.
“So what do I do?”
Suvin wanted to answer: you just go on. You just do. There will be things in life that hurt, things that you grieve for with your whole self, and you… go on, you turn the cheese, you milk the sheep, you admire the field of lupines, you ache, but you go on. But that was an answer Bei might not be ready to hear. Even in the darkest hours, adults were supposed to be there to help children persevere, to show the way through to light again.
“What if Auncle makes you a different god?” she said aloud.
Both of them jumped. They’d forgotten she was there. “What other god did you have in mind?” said Auncle Phee. “I can’t do everything. I can’t do most things; ask Jemmy what use I’d be at a god of cats or beetles.”
“But the abstract ones, you’re good at those. Something else that could help Bei with the journey she’s on now.” Suvin didn’t toss out suggestions. Auncle Phee, of all people, didn’t make gods to order. If they were to accomplish this, they’d need to do it their own way. Phee’s wrinkled face creased further as they thought it over.
“Two gods,” said Auncle Phee finally. “If I have the time—and I will try very hard to have the time. A god of roads, for this new road you’re on. And a god of childhood. For you to say goodbye to. You’ll have a year to pray to it, be with it, let it bless your ways. A lot can happen in a year. And then we’ll see, after.”
Bei burst into tears, and Suvin was afraid they’d failed beyond redemption. Wurran wasn’t right, couldn’t be right, about forcing the god away from her. Yet if she wouldn’t give in of her own free will, what else was there to do?
But she had misinterpreted the girl’s reaction. Bei stepped out of the cave. Suvin could see her shoulders shaking even from her distance, but Bei held out the little clay figure and deliberately threw it to the ground.
It didn’t shatter on impact. Bei took a hiccupping deep breath, and then Auncle Phee was with her, one arm around her as they handed her the hammer from Suvin’s belt and let her strike the first cracking blow. A rosy light flew out of the god with that blow, but Bei continued, crying and smashing, until it was dust on the stones of the cave. Only then did Auncle Phee stop her.
“Well done,” said Auncle Phee, and Suvin said, “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you had to.”
Bei was crying too hard to answer.
“I’ll get started on those gods right away. There’s still time, isn’t there, Suvin?”
“Of course there’s time,” said Suvin firmly. “Auncle will make you a beautiful god of childhood, light and new, and a wonderful god of roads, strong and broad. And you’ll dance with the other adults at the pole, you’ll take hands and dance. You won’t be alone.”
Bei looked up miserably. “I don’t believe that yet. But I’ll try.”
© 2025 by Marissa Lingen
3280 words
Author’s Note: As often happens with my short stories, I was messing with two ideas that collided. One is that my godchildren are growing up. I am generally pro-growing-up! In favor of adulthood! But it is not at all easy sometimes, in ways that those of us who have already gone through it tend to minimize. The other is that I wanted a fantasy story whose gods are tangibly not just parts of an Earth pantheon in funny hats. “Oh, I’m Bodin, and this is my son Bthor”: no. So I started to think about more seasonal, cyclical ideas of the divine, and this came out.
Marissa Lingen writes fantasy, science fiction, poetry, and essays. She lives in the Minnesota River Valley near its confluence with the Mississippi and is cheerfully obsessed with its geology and limnology. She is also inordinately fond of trees, tisanes, dark chocolate, and Moomins.
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