The Song of the Hundred Evenings
He always faced west. She had never thought to wonder why — until the evening she understood, in the most immediate possible way, that the west rim of the mesa has no railing.
The Hundred Evenings are 26 styles of long boho water drop and feather dangle earrings, each one made in the dusk light above the Becoming Places on the Sunrise Steppes mesa. Every style is blue — the deep sapphire of the Steppes sky in the last hour, the pale ice-blue of the canyon air going still, the particular blue-violet that lives in the shadows of the valley wall when the sun has gone below the rim but the light has not yet decided to leave. Crystal rhinestone drops. Blue feather drops. Long dangles in every shade of blue the evening knows how to make.
This is the companion collection to the Hundred Mornings — the pieces made in the first light, by the old woman who faces east. He faces west. She faces east. The stone country holds both of them without preference, without explanation, without asking either of them to be anything other than what they already are.
The Story — The Edge of the West Rim
She had been looking at the earrings too long.
That was the only explanation she could give herself afterward, in the quiet of the Attic with Midnight rumbling low on the rooftop and the candlelight doing what candlelight does when you are trying not to think about something. She had been looking at the earrings — the blue ones, specifically, the ones that caught the last light above the valley in a way that made the color look like it was coming from inside the stone rather than reflecting off it — and she had leaned forward, just slightly, to see the one at the far edge of the flat stone where he laid his wares out, and the ground at the mesa's western rim is not flat. It slopes. Slightly. Toward the valley. Toward the Becoming Places far below. Toward the long drop that the Soraveen do not discuss because everyone who has grown up on the mesa already knows it is there.
She did not fall.
She did not fall because he was suddenly there — and suddenly is the only word for it, because there was no warning, no sound of movement, no sense of him crossing the distance between where he had been sitting and where she was tipping forward into the evening air. One moment she was leaning. The next, arms came around her from behind, fast and certain and with a strength that had nothing shy about it, and she was pulled back from the rim with a force that left no room for argument.
She noticed two things in the same instant.
The first was his hands. His fingers had spread across her chest to pull her back, and what she felt against her sternum were not the blunt edges of a craftsman's fingertips. They were sharp. Needle-sharp. The particular sharpness of something that is not quite a fingernail and not quite a claw but exists in the precise space between the two — the kind of sharp that does not cut because it has chosen not to, not because it cannot. She felt them through the fabric of her shirt. She would think about that later, in the Attic, with the candles. She would think about it for a long time.
The second thing she noticed was his face, when he released his grip on her breasts, and stepped back.
She had seen that particular shade of red before. Not on him — she had never seen anything on him before, he was the most unreadable face on the mesa, possibly in the stone country, possibly in any country she had ever walked through. But she had seen that exact color, that exact quality of mortified heat rising from the collar upward, once before. Down by the stream. The morning she had stood up from bathing in the shallows without knowing something was there on the bank above, watching the water, not watching her — until she stood up and it was there, and she was not dressed, and the canyon went very quiet for a moment before he turned away so fast he nearly went into the water himself.
She had written that off as startled wildlife. A coincidence of timing. An exploring animal in the wrong place.
She looked at him now, at the red climbing his face, at the way he had turned slightly away from her and was looking at the valley below with the focused attention of a man who has decided that the Becoming Places are the most interesting thing he has ever seen in his life and intends to keep looking at them indefinitely.
She picked up the blue earring she had been reaching for. The one at the far edge of the stone.
She bought thirteen. She wanted them all — badly — but she knew how hasty an action that would be in the Soraveen village. It seemed right for the other half to find where they belonged on their own.
He nodded once when she paid. He did not look at her. He was watching the valley. The blue of the sky above the west rim was the exact color of the earring in her hand, and his face was still red, and the Becoming Places were doing what they always do — releasing what the earth had finished making, letting it go downstream, patient and unhurried and entirely indifferent to the particular embarrassment of shy men on mesa edges at dusk.
Midnight rumbled once when she came through the portal. Low. Warm. The sound he makes when something arrives that was worth the journey — and when something else has been noted, filed, and will not be forgotten.
She had sensed that kind of blush before. Down by the stream. The morning the canyon kept its secret badly.
The 26 Styles — Every Shade of Blue the Evening Knows
Twenty-six styles. Every one of them blue — deep sapphire, pale ice, blue-violet shadow, crystal-clear sky-blue, the particular blue that only exists above the Sunrise Steppes in the last hour of the day. Water drop crystals. Rhinestone drops. Blue feather dangles. Long and light and made in the last light above the Becoming Places by a man who faces west and works in silence and has, it turns out, very sharp fingernails.
→ See all 26 styles of the Hundred Evenings
About This Piece
- What it is: Long boho water drop and feather dangle earrings — 26 styles, all in shades of blue
- Materials: Alloy, feather, acrylic, blue rhinestone crystals
- Weight: 10–18g per pair
- Length: 7–15cm, varies by style
- Series: Earthsong Enchantress | Earrings: Whispering Adornments
- Location: The Sunrise Steppes mesa, west rim, above the Becoming Places
- Character lead: Chelle. The man who faces west. The claws that caught her.
The Hundred Mornings & The Hundred Evenings — The Full Canon
- The Hundred Mornings and the Hundred Evenings — An Origin Story of the Mesa
- The Stalker of the Sunrise Steppes — What the Canyon Keeps — the stream, the blush, the first time
- The Oldest Classroom — Chelle and the Patience of Stone
- The Weaver of Dawn — The Arrival of the Hundred Mornings Collection
- The Dawn-Lit Relics of the Soraveen
- The Dawn-Song of the Earth Healer
- The Dawn-Light of Oora-Veen
The Hundred Evenings — All 26 Styles, $15.99 | Earthsong Enchantress | Earrings: Whispering Adornments
Frequently Asked Questions
What colors are the Hundred Evenings earrings?
All blue — deep sapphire, pale ice-blue, blue-violet shadow, crystal sky-blue, and every shade the Steppes sky makes in the last hour above the west rim. No amber. No copper. Just blue, in 26 different ways of saying it.
How many styles are available?
26 styles, all $15.99. Select your style at checkout.
What is the Hundred Evenings companion to?
The Hundred Mornings — the pieces made in the first light by the old woman who faces east on the same mesa. Two makers, two directions, one stone country that holds them both without preference.
Who is the man on the west rim?
The maker of the Hundred Evenings. Quiet. Shy. Faces west. Works in the last light. Has, it turns out, very fast reflexes and very sharp fingernails. His full story begins at The Stalker of the Sunrise Steppes and continues here, on the west rim, at dusk, with a blue earring and a long drop and a blush that Chelle recognized immediately.
What are the Becoming Places?
The river valleys below the Sunrise Steppes mesa, where round polished stones are found in the shallows — released by the earth after geological time, patient and unhurried. The Soraveen wait for the earth to offer rather than taking from it. Read the full Soraveen canon.