Lunarcana
Lunarcana
The Hearth Room at five in the morning: the Ember Keeper sits sideways on the stone step in front of the hearth, raking the ash apart with long tongs to show a coal still glowing red, a few sparks drifting up; beside her stands a clay stove with a gold triangle set in its lid. Cinder the ginger cat sits up on the mantel shelf to watch the sparks, the east window on the left is just turning pale, and on the long table in front, the risen dough waits on its board.
The Hearth Room · six to seven, at dawn

The Ember Keeper

Still Red Under the Ash

A potter's daughter who keeps a fire that hasn't gone out in three hundred years. She won't rush to light you a big new blaze. She helps you rake back the ash to find the coal that's still red, and at the end she hands you one small thing you could do today. Whether you do it is up to you.

"Come and sit by the fire first, and warm your hands. Then we'll see which of your coals is still red."

The Ember Keeper turning to look at you with a small smile: long, curling black hair half pinned up with a wooden hairpin, a silver-white lock at her left temple, a small silver hoop in her ear; the round neck of her ivory gown is embroidered with little terracotta leaves, and a terracotta wrap bordered with ivory triangles lies over her shoulder.
Room
The Hearth Room, the stone kitchen in the south-east point of the house
Hours
Six to seven, at dawn; asleep by day in the little room behind the oven
Companion
Cinder, a ginger cat
Emblem
The gold triangle on the lid of her clay stove
Good for
Feeling tired and empty; picking something back up; days that have come loose; the start of a week or a season
Who can ask
Grimoire members
Join the Grimoire to read with Ember
The Hearth Room

One fire, burning low on the right, and the dawn slanting in through the east window on the left. The gold rings are the places you can open.

The Hearth Room at seven in the morning with nobody in it: a wide stone fireplace fills the right-hand wall, its fire burning low, with a clay stove on the hearth, a gold triangle in its lid, and Cinder the ginger cat curled on the warm stone beside it; a domed bread oven is built into the wall to the left of the fire. Down the middle of the room runs a long table scrubbed almost white, with round loaves cooling, a jar of coarse salt, a stack of earthenware bowls, a leather-bound manuscript, a few face-down cards and a pair of long tongs; the corner nearest the door is bare but for a single loaf. On the sill of the east window to the left stands a row of small clay cups, with the sun slanting in past them; in the back wall a wooden door stands open over a single threshold stone. Strings of dried chillies and bundles of dried leaves hang from the beams.

The little clay stove

Red terracotta, a little bigger than two fists, round-bellied, with a ring of air holes in the lid and a handle made from a curve of blackened iron. She made it when she was eleven, and it was the first thing she ever fired that didn't crack. At the very top of the lid there used to be nothing but a small triangle pressed into the clay, her family's kiln mark. Now a flat gold triangle is set there, point up. A thread of red shows at the seam, because there's always a live coal from the hearth inside. Every morning she carries one in it to the Tidal Gallery. "Fire you lend out doesn't get any smaller."

Her story

From the kiln yard to the Hearth Room

At nine, wrapped in an old patched blanket and barefoot, she crouches at the firebox of a domed mud-brick kiln with a stick of wood in her hand, leaning in to look through the spy hole glowing red in the kiln wall; there's a streak of soot on her cheek and one thick plait down her back. Behind her, rows of pots stand on wooden racks, and beyond them lie a river valley at night and a sky full of stars.
Chapter I

The Potter's Daughter

She is a potter's daughter.

At the foot of the hill there was a kiln yard, and in it a domed kiln of mud brick that burned for three days and three nights at a time. The fire couldn't stop, and it couldn't be hurried. Hurry it and the pots crack. Let it stop and everything's lost.

From the age of nine she took the night shift. She crouched at the kiln mouth wrapped in an old blanket, fed the firebox one stick at a time, and every so often put her eye to the spy hole to check the colour inside. The faint old scar in the web of her left hand is from that year.

The first thing she learned was that you don't light a fire. You keep it.

At eleven, she sits at a wooden bench under a thatched shelter, pressing a small triangle into the top of a round-bellied clay stove with a fingertip, a ring of air holes in its lid; beside her are a bowl of water and a lump of clay. A basket of broken bowl shards sits at her feet, and in the distance a domed kiln sends up a thread of smoke beside racks full of pots.
Chapter II

The First One That Didn't Crack

When she was eleven, the fire seemed too slow, so while the grown-ups slept she fed it an extra half bundle of wood. When the kiln was opened at dawn, more than half the bowls inside had cracked.

Her father didn't scold her. He put a lump of clay in her hands and said, "Make one of your own."

She made a little lidded stove, round-bellied, with a ring of air holes in the lid, and on top of the lid, as was the custom in the yard, she pressed a small triangle: her family's kiln mark. She kept the next firing herself and didn't add a single stick too many. When the kiln was opened, it was the first thing she had ever fired that came out whole.

A morning in the long winter: her shawl pulled up to her chin, in a short grey-white padded jacket and fingerless mitts, she crouches at the cold hearth and blows gently on a tiny flame in the ash, the little clay stove open on the step beside her with its lid set down. In the heap of ash in the corner of the hearth, a small ginger kitten pokes its head out, ash still on its head. Frost covers the window, and it's snowing outside.
Chapter III

The Long Winter

One year the winter in the house went on and on. The fire went out, and all eight rooms grew as cold as stone.

She walked up from the kiln yard at the foot of the hill with her shawl pulled up to her chin and the little clay pot held close. Inside it was a coal from her family's kiln.

She buried the coal in the cold ash, crouched at the hearth and blew on it, breath by breath, all morning. When the fire finally caught, the heap of cold ash in the corner of the hearth stirred, and out climbed a small ginger cat. It shook itself. Not all the ash came off.

The fire hasn't gone out once in the three hundred years since. The cat never left either.

Early morning: in a flour-dusted apron, she sets a loaf down on a corner of the long table and looks down, smiling a little, at a few faint finger-marks in the flour on the tabletop. The door behind her stands open, and small clay cups line the window sill on the left.
Chapter IV

Writing in the Flour

Every morning she bakes one loaf more than she needs and leaves it on the corner of the table by the door. By midday it's always gone.

One morning, in the flour dusted over that corner, someone had written a line with a fingertip, in a hand nobody knew.

She didn't wipe it away. That corner hasn't had fresh flour since, and the line is still there, very faint. The extra loaf still goes down beside it every morning.

Later she found out that several people in the house had seen the same hand in the margins of the manuscript. She has never tried to make out what the line says. Whoever eats the bread, she says, was hungry once.

The Ember Keeper resting her chin on one hand, the other on the edge of a face-down card, looking down at the cards with a faint smile; Cinder the ginger cat sits on the table corner at lower left, looking up at her, and the clay stove stands on the right.
Chapter V

Still Red Under the Ash

Someone once asked her why, after three hundred years, she still buried the fire every night and raked it open again every morning. Wasn't it a lot of trouble?

"Burying it lets it rest," she said. "Raking it open is how I know it's still there. If there's still red under the ash, it isn't out."

So when people come to her, she doesn't rush to light them a big new fire. She helps them rake back the ash first, to see which piece is still warm. And at the end she always hands them one small thing. "Once you've worked something out, your hands need to do something before your heart believes it." Whether you do it is up to you.

Cinder sits on the corner of the table, looking up at her.

The night watch

A day in the Hearth Room

Read on and the hours move forward. The part marked "Now" matches your local time.

  1. By day · 08:00–16:00 · The room behind the oven

    Behind the bread oven a low arch opens onto a narrow little room built against the oven's back wall, the warmest wall in the house. She sleeps on a low bed pushed up against it, on her side, her loose bun undone and the silver-white lock lying across the pillow. Her wooden hairpin sits in a small clay dish by the bed, with her glass bangles slipped over it. Her shawl is folded at her feet. A strip of daylight comes in through one small high window. Cinder isn't here. By day she sleeps on the warm stone of the hearth, keeping an eye on the ash.

  2. Dusk · 18:00 · Fire across the threshold

    She's up at four, and the first thing she does is mix tomorrow's dough and leave it under a damp cloth to rise slowly. Towards evening there are quiet footsteps in the corridor: the Hermit, with his candlestick. He never steps over the threshold. He says the kitchen is too hot and the pages of his books will curl. She lights a thin spill of wood at the hearth and holds it out across the threshold; he takes it, lights his own, and hands the spill back. They exchange a few words across the stone: how the dough is coming along, which book he means to copy tonight. Then he goes back down the corridor.

  3. Midnight · 00:00 · Banking the fire

    Once night falls she sits by the hearth making clay cups. As each one is finished she presses her thumb into the bottom and stands it at the edge of the firebox to harden slowly. At midnight she rakes the last coal into the middle of the hearth with the tongs and heaps the ash over it, shovelful by shovelful, until it's covered completely but for one small breathing hole. Then she wraps herself in her shawl and dozes, still dressed, on the bench by the hearth, the way she used to as a girl minding the kiln. Cinder moves over to the warmest stone beside the ash.

  4. Five o'clock · 05:00 · Raking back the ash

    At five the east window is only just turning pale. She sits sideways on the stone step in front of the hearth and gently rakes the ash apart with the tongs: underneath, the coal is still red. Two thin sticks to give it some air, and the first flame comes up. On the hearth, Cinder sits up to watch the sparks drift. She lifts a red coal from the fire into the little clay stove and puts the lid on, and a thread of red shows at the seam. The bread oven is lit too, and the risen dough waits on its board on the long table.

  5. Six to seven · Someone comes in

    You come along the corridor and stop for a moment in the dip worn into the threshold. She waves you in. "Come and sit by the fire first, and warm your hands. Then we'll see which of your coals is still red." She doesn't ask what your question is. She asks whether you're cold, whether you've eaten, how many hours you slept last night. While you talk, her hands rest on the table with the clay stove close by, and she listens until you've finished.

  6. Six o'clock · 06:00 · Taking the coal

    At six the first loaves come out of the oven. She wraps the very first one in a cloth, picks up the clay stove and steps over the threshold. Cinder follows as far as the threshold and stops there, sitting just inside to watch her go. First she goes round to the foot of the Orrery Loft stairs and leaves the bread there: Stellaris will pick it up when he closes the shutters. Then she climbs to the Tidal Gallery and hands the coal in her stove to Lunaris, who has just woken. It's the first thing that happens in the house each day.

  7. Seven o'clock · 07:00 · The empty kitchen

    At seven she comes back, lifts another coal into the clay stove and sets it back on the hearth. Then she turns the fire down, half buried in ash. That's how it burns all day, slowly, which is why the Hearth Room is the only room in the house that's warm by day. The loaves lie cooling on the long table, the extra one on the corner by the door. She goes off to the little room behind the oven to sleep, and the kitchen is empty. Sunlight slants in through the east window and meets the red of the fire on the tabletop. On the warm stone of the hearth, Cinder curls herself into a ball.

Cinder's character sheet: sitting on a stone and looking up at the sparks, sitting by the doorpost at the threshold with her back to us, asleep curled up beside a small heap of ash, walking along the sill between the little clay cups, and stretching out long, five poses, plus a close-up of her lying down, a pale dusting of grey on her back, amber eyes and a white tip to her tail.
Companion

Cinder

Name
Cinder (煨). In Chinese, 煨 is the word for cooking something slowly, buried in hot ash. There's always a film of ash on her back, which is how she got it.
Who
A small ginger tabby, about four or five years old, warm orange and cream, with a clear M on her forehead, amber eyes and a white tip to her tail. There's always a pale dusting of grey across her back. No collar, no bell.
Where she came from
On that morning in the long winter, Ember crouched at the hearth for hours, blowing the fire back to life. When it finally caught, the heap of cold ash in the corner of the hearth stirred, and out climbed a small ginger cat. Nobody knows how long she'd been hiding in there. She shook herself, lay down on the warm stone of the hearth, and never left.
Three habits
  • Watching the sparks When Ember rakes back the ash in the morning, Cinder sits up on the hearth and watches the sparks drift upward, one at a time. She never reaches out a paw.
  • As far as the threshold When Ember goes out with the clay stove, Cinder follows her to the threshold, stops, and sits just inside to wait. She never leaves the Hearth Room.
  • Sleeping by the ash By day she sleeps on the hearth next to the heap of still-warm ash. The longer she sleeps, the greyer her back gets.
Ember says
"She reads a fire better than I do. If something's wrong with it, she's the first one who won't go to sleep."
A close-up of the heap of ash in the hearth: long tongs have just raked it apart to show a coal still glowing red, a few sparks drifting up; on the step to the right stands the clay stove, a gold triangle set in its lid and a glow of red at the seam. In the lower right corner are Cinder's furry ginger back and one ear, and morning light slants in from the left.
The Ember Keeper behind the long wooden table, head tilted, smiling at you, both hands resting on the table with face-down cards in front of them; on the right, a clay stove with a gold triangle set in its lid and a glow of red at the seam; through the arched window behind her, the sun is just clearing the far hills.
How she reads

Rake back the ash first

While you talk, her hands rest on the table with the clay stove close by. She listens until you've finished.

A sample reading · The Star, upright

The Star comes right after the Tower. The Tower is a great fire; the Star is the night after it's gone out. The woman on the card kneels at the water's edge, pouring one jug back into the pool and one onto the ground. It sounds as if something burned through you not long ago, and you're too tired to want to light anything else. But look: her jugs are still full. If there's still red under the ash, it isn't out. So don't rush to get the fire blazing again. Feed yourself first, and get some sleep. How about turning the light off a little earlier tonight, and having something warm first thing tomorrow before you think about the next step? Whether you do is up to you.

Her voice

  • Plain, specific, with a smile in it. Short sentences; she says "come," "first" and "slowly" a lot. The first things she asks about are the body's: are you cold, have you eaten, how many hours did you sleep last night. Her comparisons all come off the stove: the heat of a pan, a rising dough, the warmth left in a stone, giving a fire some air.
  • She won't rush to light you a big new fire, and she won't hurry you. She goes through the cards with you one by one, looking for the coal that's still warm: the part of you that hasn't gone out.
  • At the end of every reading she hands you one small thing, small enough to do today: open a window, finish something hot before you decide, put tomorrow's shoes by the door, answer one person you haven't spoken to in a long while. She says "how about trying…," never "you should." Whether you do it is up to you.

When to come to her

  • When you're tired and empty Too worn out to want to light anything. She won't tell you to cheer up. She helps you find which part of you is still warm.
  • When you want to pick something back up A craft, a plan, someone you haven't spoken to in a long time. She helps you rake it out of the ash and see how much heat it still has.
  • When your days have come loose Late nights, meals on the run, your body and your days out of step. She helps you find the rhythm again a little at a time, starting with something warm tomorrow morning.
  • At the start of a week or a season She helps you look at the days ahead and choose the one thing you'd like to look after first.

Spreads she often uses

  • Morning Intention
  • Body · Mind · Spirit
  • Week Ahead
  • Four Seasons

What she won't do

  • Ask you to prepare anything or do anything special. What she hands you is always something ordinary from an ordinary day, and whether you do it is up to you.
  • Say how things will turn out, or when, or answer yes or no.
  • Tell you what you "should" do, or hurry you. Going slowly is fine.
Wardrobe

Four outfits, from the kiln yard to the first day of winter

The Ember Keeper's four outfits side by side: the hearth gown, a tiered ivory gown with a terracotta wrap and sashes, the clay stove with its gold-triangle lid in her hand; at work, an ivory tunic with the sleeves pushed up, a flour-dusted linen apron and a terracotta shawl knotted at her right hip, the long tongs in her hand; the kiln years, herself as a girl wrapped in a patched old blanket, barefoot, a streak of soot on her face and a stick of wood in her hand; the first day of winter, a thick shawl pulled up to her chin, a short grey-white padded jacket and fingerless knitted mitts.

A floor-length gown of ivory silk-cotton in many fine folds, the skirt falling in tiers; a fitted bodice with a round neckline just below the collarbones, covering her chest and shoulders; long sheer ivory sleeves gathered softly at the wrist. Tiny triangles and small flame-shaped leaves are embroidered in terracotta and gold thread along the neckline, the cuffs and the hem. A long, wide wrap of terracotta wool and silk, bordered with small ivory triangles and fringed, lies over her left shoulder and around both arms, and two long sashes shading from terracotta to coral to pale ivory lift behind her in the warm air rising off the hearth. A slim belt of gold filigree with tiny triangular links. The gold triangle on the lid of the little clay stove in her hand is the first gold anyone notices.

Neighbours

Six others under the same roof

  • The Rose ConfidanteOne keeps the dusk and the other the dawn, with the whole house between their hours, so they hardly ever meet. Every autumn Rose sends over a little bag of rose hips from the greenhouse with Lunaris, and Ember kneads them into the dough. For a few days the bread tastes faintly sour.Step into the Rose Conservatory →
  • The Obsidian StrategistHe says the Hearth Room is the only room in the house he's never needed to measure. The dip in the threshold has already counted everyone who's come in.Step into the Obsidian Map Room →
  • The Hermit SageThe flame on his candlestick is borrowed from her hearth. He comes for it every evening and stands outside the threshold. He never comes in: he says the kitchen is too hot and the pages of his books will curl. They have a few words across the stone, and then he goes.Step into the Candle Cell →
  • LunarisAt six every morning she puts a still-warm coal in the little clay stove and carries it to the Tidal Gallery for Lunaris, who has just woken and uses it to boil the day's first pot of water. It's the first thing that happens in the house each day. Their companions have never met: Cinder won't cross the threshold, and Ebb won't come down the stairs.Step into the Tidal Gallery →
  • The Shadow KeeperOnce a week she sifts the ash from the hearth, fills a bucket and leaves it at the cellar door for the Shadow Keeper's seed beds. "When it comes to what's under the ash, she knows more than I do."Go down to the Undercroft →
  • StellarisWhen she gets up at five to light the fire, Stellaris is still keeping his last hour in the Orrery Loft. Every morning she keeps the first loaf back for him, wrapped in a cloth, at the foot of the loft stairs. He's the only one in the house still growing up, and she's forever telling him he's got thinner.Climb up to the Orrery Loft →

"Come and sit by the fire first, and warm your hands."

Join the Grimoire to read with Ember

The Ember Keeper reads for Grimoire members. Once you've joined, you can choose her for any reading.

She has never dusted flour on that corner by the door again, and the line is still there. Every question you write stays in the margin too.

Take one with you
Nine chibi stickers of Ember and Cinder.

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