Gathering Blue

Chapter 2 begins with Kira’s decision to rebuild her cott as if she has no knowledge of Vandara’s plan to oust her from the community. She passes her uncle—her mother’s brother—and his children as they work in their yard, but they do not acknowledger her. She arrives home to find a woman stealing from her garden, chases her away, and sits down to eat what remains, reflecting on how essential the vegetables are to her survival, since there is no hunter in her family who could provide meat. 

Vandara arrives. She is “tall and muscular, with long, tangled hair pulled back roughly and tied with a thong at the back of her neck. Her eyes were dark” (17) and a “ragged scar […] marked her chin and continued down her neck to her broad shoulder” (17), supposedly the “remnant of a long-ago battle with one of the forest creatures” (17). Kira and Vandara face off, with Kira refusing to relinquish her land, which Vandara and her friends want to use to build a “pen for the tykes” (18). The moment is tense; it seems likely that the women will stone Kira. Kira reminds them that the conflict must be brought to the Council of Guardians, and that if she is killed, whoever killed her will also be put to death. One by one, the women back down, until finally Vandara agrees to take her case to the Council of Guardians. The women go home and Kira sits down to wait for night, thinking about how she might earn her living if the Council decides in her favor. She is eager to begin work in threading—sending a needle “through woven fabric […] to create designs rich and explosive with color” (22-23). Kira’s mother taught her how to thread, but her talent has grown beyond “simple cleverness” (22) and beyond even her mother’s skills.

Chapter 3 opens the next morning, when Kira is told to report to the Council of Guardians at the Council Edifice, a “surprisingly splendid” (24) building that “remained from before the Ruin, a time so far past that none of the people now living, none of their parents or grandparents, had been born. The people knew of the Ruin only from the Song that was presented at the yearly Gathering” (24). The Ruin Song was sung by the Singer, “whose only job in the village was the annual presentation of the song” (24), which was “lengthy and exhausting” (24) and described the history and the end of the civilization of the community’s ancestors. Everyone is required to listen to the song every year.

The Council Edifice is a remnant of the old civilization, “magnificent in comparison to the ordinary sheds and cottages of the village” (25). The room where Kira’s hearing is held includes “an altar table holding the Worship-object, the mysterious wooden construction of two sticks connected to form a cross” (27), suggesting that the Council Edifice was once a Christian church. The Council of Guardians consists of twelve men, and they allow Vandara to speak first. Vandara accuses Kira of being a burden on the community and claims that, according to their customs, she never should have been allowed to live in the first place.

Since Kira is still young, a “two-syllable” girl, she is provided with a defender, instead of having to defend herself. The Council appoints Jamison as her defender, a man with “calm, attentive eyes” (34).

Chapter 4 opens with Kira studying her newly-appointed defender, Jamison, who is “not familiar to her” (35). She notes his height and “longish dark hair neatly combed and clasped at the back of his neck with a carved wooden ornament” (35). She recognizes the carving as the work of a young carver named Thomas, who “had been singled out for his great gifts” (35), even though “[o]rdinary people did not ornament themselves” (35). Kira notices that Jamison is strong and confident, and guesses that he is about her mother’s age. He can also read, something Kira wishes she could do.

In his defense of Kira, Jamison restates each accusation against her and acknowledges its validity before providing an alternative viewpoint. In response to Vandara’s accusation that, according to custom, Kira should not have been allowed to live, Jamison refers the Council to the “third set of amendments” (37), which state that “exceptions can be made” (37-38) to custom. Addressing the issue of her fatherlessness, he reminds them what a “fine hunter” her father was, revealing that he himself was on the hunt with Christopher when he was “taken by beasts” (39).

In response to the accusation that Kira is useless—being slow and unable to garden effectively or tend to animals—and that she eats too much, Jamison has her walk in front of the Council and concedes she is slow and lame, but points to her thinness as evidence that she does not eat too much. The council breaks for lunch, and though she is very hungry, Kira feels compelled to leave much of the food she is brought—roasted chicken and crusty bread—on her plate, so that she doesn’t appear to eat too much.

During the lunch break, Kira goes outside and sees Matt running by. He stops to talk, expressing his willingness to help her rebuild her cott if the trial goes her way. They also talk about the rumor that Vandara killed her own child—making him eat poisonous oleander—although it was officially ruled an accident.

After the lunch break, Jamison resumes his defense of Kira, repeating Vandara’s remaining accusations and referring again to the third amendment’s provision that “exceptions can be made.” Kira daydreams about the robe worn by the Singer each year for the presentation of the Ruin Song, and which her mother repaired, year after year. She remembers her mother telling the guardian of the robe that, one day, Kira would be the one to repair it. She also recalls that her mother’s knowledge of how to dye thread was limited only by her inability to create blue dye.

As Kira listens absent-mindedly to the defense, there is a change in the tone of the proceedings that makes Vandara nervous, and she recalls the piece of cloth she’s been holding in her pocket as a kind of talisman. It is a threading she worked on during her mother’s illness. Threading the dyed threads through a small piece of cloth was a way to soothe and distract her from her mother’s illness, but the experience was different from her previous attempts at threading—this time, the “threads began to sing to her. […] For the first time, her fingers did not direct the threads, but followed where they led” (50). When she looks at what she created, she finds that it is “radiant” (50). It is one of the last things to make her mother smile, and holding it in her pocket during her trial “told her […] that she was to be saved” (51).

Chapter 5 opens with Kira noticing a large box that was not in the room before lunch. In it is the Singer’s robe, which Jamison lays out on the table. Jamison asks Kira about the skills her mother has taught her, and mentions that her stitching skill exceeds her mother’s, and that the woman from whom Katrina learned the art of dying, Annabella, is still alive and can teach Kira how to dye thread.

Vandara objects to the direction the hearing has taken and is dismissed. The hearing is over. The chief guardian tells announces that Kira will stay to repair the Singer’s robe. This work will be her new role in the society. Though Vandara is given Kira’s plot of land, she is still furious about the decision and stalks out of the room. Kira is then directed to gather her things and return to the Council Edifice “when the bell rings four times” (56), so that she can be escorted to her new living quarters.

When Kira emerges from the Council Edifice she sees a pig being slaughtered. She turns away from the crowd gathered to watch and hears Matt calling her. She remembers how he got his dog, Branch, who he had found badly injured as the result of being run over by a donkey cart. Instead of leaving the dog to die, Matt had hidden it in some bushes and fed it for days while it healed. As a result of the accident, Branch’s tail is “as crooked and useless as Kira’s leg” (58), and he and Matt are inseparable.

When Kira tells him that she has been saved and she is to find out where she will live later that day, Matt tells her that he was able to save some of her things from her cott and agrees to meet her on the Council Edifice steps later to deliver them. Kira then goes to the weaving shed and learns that in her absence, one woman, Camilla, has broken her arm very badly and will “probably go to the field” (61), since she is no longer able to weave, and that her five children will likely be given away. The chapter ends with Kira saying no to the offer of Camilla’s loom, saying goodbye to the women in the weaving shed, and heading back to where she and her mother used to live to say goodbye to it, as well.