Village Name Generator

The story

On her first morning in Thimblewell, Nera opened every window of the house she had inherited. There were six, more than she had ever been responsible for. The smallest looked over the public well court, where someone had left a blue cup upside down on a post. She put her own cup beside it, right way up. She wanted the neighbors to know she had arrived. For years she had rented rooms in which a visitor's knock was treated as an intrusion on the owner. Here, she thought, she could invite people without explaining herself.

Her aunt's house came with the work of opening the outer gate at noon. An old written agreement gave neighboring households access to the well through the court. The previous caretaker had left that gate locked during the empty weeks after her aunt died. Nera had agreed to resume opening it. The well supplied a small reserve, replenished by its spring and measured each morning against a marked rod. The daily allowance was posted beside the winding handle. People recorded what they drew on the slate below it. Owning the surrounding rooms did not mean owning everybody's water.

At noon she unlocked the gate. Dall arrived with a bucket and a question about her journey; then came two sisters who made pottery at the lower end of the village. They took their allotted water, marked the slate and argued cheerfully about a kiln shelf. Nera offered tea. Dall had bread in the oven. The sisters wanted to invite her to their firing supper on Friday. She said yes before they had finished explaining where it was. After they left, she imagined the sound of several conversations in her kitchen. She had inherited enough chairs.

The other woman appeared at dusk. Nera saw her from the court, in the little window above the well. At first she took the face for her own reflection. Then she noticed that her own hands were hanging at her sides, while the woman’s elbows were propped on a table. The woman was inside, with her elbows resting on a table Nera had not moved there. She wore Nera's green dress, but its loose cuff had been mended. Her hair lay exactly as Nera had tried to arrange it that morning. She looked rested. Behind her a kettle was giving off steam.

Nera went indoors. The little room contained an empty table and the boxes she had not unpacked. Her dress hung on its hook with the cuff still loose. She went back to the court. The woman was there again. This time she smiled and said, through the open window, 'You needn't keep rushing out.' Her voice was Nera's voice when she spoke softly to a tired visitor. Nera did not answer. She closed the outer gate at the usual hour, went to the kitchen and found herself checking whether the kettle was warm.

The next evening the woman had unpacked the boxes. Nera could see the yellow bowl, the cloth her mother had stitched and a lamp with a shade she had wanted but never bought. The room looked lived in without looking used up. Nera asked where the lamp had come from. 'There is time for things here,' the woman said. Nera was due at Dall's after supper to borrow a pan. She stayed in the court until his light went out. When she finally entered the house, the bowl remained in its box. Nothing had moved for her.

By Thursday she was hurrying through the noon opening. She still checked the morning water mark, put up the allowance and unlocked the gate; she did not falsify a draw or refuse anybody their share. But she stood just inside the kitchen instead of coming out. The sisters called that they would expect her the following night. She called back that she remembered. When Dall asked whether she had found another pan, she said she was busy. She had spent the morning looking for the yellow bowl's proper place. Every position seemed slightly wrong after the room she had seen through the window.

On Friday the woman had guests. Two people sat just outside the window's narrow view, their sleeves and hands visible at the table. One laughed at something Nera could not hear. The woman turned her face toward the sound with an ease Nera recognized as the expression she hoped she wore in company. Nera had put on her good shoes for the pottery supper. She asked who was visiting. The woman said, 'You could stay and find out.' From the lane came the sisters' younger brother, carrying a dish toward the kiln. Nera stepped back into the shadow beside the gate so he would not stop.

She missed the supper. No calamity came to justify the decision. The village windows shone, people ate, and somebody sang badly on the way home. Nera remained in the court until the woman's lamp went dark. Inside, her kitchen smelled of the single egg she had cooked too early and left cooling. She sat at her own table in her good shoes. She was angry with the sisters for not coming to fetch her, although she had carefully hidden when their brother passed. That was the thought which kept her awake. She could hear it in her own voice without needing the window.

On Saturday Dall asked whether she was well. She said she had been tired. He said the pan was still available if she wanted it. He did not accuse her of anything, and the absence of an accusation made her answer feel even smaller. After he left, she carried a chair from the little room into the court. The chair by the window had looked so comfortable. This one had a split in its seat which pinched her skirt. She sat on it until evening, as if the house might be persuaded to show how the better one had been made.

The woman appeared seated in that chair, though Nera was still sitting in it outside. There were no guests now. The table held two cups. 'Come in before it gets cold,' she said. Nera asked whether the sisters would be there. The woman moved her hand over the unused cup and said, 'You won't need to go looking for anyone.' Nera watched the hand. It passed twice across the same little patch of table, straightening nothing. She had made that movement herself while waiting for a visitor in an old rented room. The woman did it again. Nera stood up so abruptly that the chair caught her skirt.

In the morning she went to Dall's before she could spend another hour arranging the house. She told him she could not sleep there. He offered a bed in his spare room while she decided what to do. She did not tell him what he ought to see in her window. She asked him to come back with her and carry the chest. He agreed after taking his loaves out. They were ordinary heavy loaves. Waiting for them was difficult. She stayed in his kitchen and watched him work instead of going ahead to inspect the little room.

She kept the house, but made a written caretaker arrangement with the two sisters, who agreed to check the reserve, open the outer gate and keep the draw slate. She paid for that work. The outer lock had its own key, separate from the house door; both sisters received one, and they performed the noon opening while she packed. The original water agreement remained in the kitchen drawer; they kept a copy in the covered slate box beside the gate. There was no need for someone to sleep in the rooms for the neighbors to reach their well.

At dusk Dall carried the last chest down the lane. Nera followed with the yellow bowl under her arm. She looked back once. The woman was at the small window in the green dress. The loose cuff had returned. She stood behind the table with both cups in front of her, watching the court rather than Nera. A sister crossed below with a bucket, checked her recorded draw and left by the gate. The woman did not turn toward her. Nera went after the chest. At Dall's, his cousins were arguing over whose turn it was to sleep beside the chimney. Her temporary room was the narrow one between them. She put the bowl on its crooked shelf and heard somebody knock to ask whether she wanted supper.