The Serpent Dreamer

by Cecelia Holland

  Ehia said, “Have you heard anything from the men?”

  Sheanoy chuckled. “Someone particular, girl?” Gaunt as she was, she was strong and lively; her boys were good foragers. “They’ll come back when the moon’s full.”

  Ehia sighed. She had her eyes on Lopi, the leader of the older boys, who would be taken into a lodge in the spring, and so be able to marry. Unfortunately most of the other girls had their eyes on Lopi also. Epashti chewed on her sliver of meat, grinding the taste out of it, the delicious hint of blood. Then Ehia was looking at her.

  “I heard they may have seen—him.”

  Sheanoy leaned back, her eyes sharp. “How can you have heard this? A bird told you? The wind? Why say something like that to her?”

  Epashti lowered her eyes. She wondered what had happened to Corban, if he had gone back to the sky. She did not believe that the men would catch him. She did not believe she would ever see him again.

  “Now, look,” her sister said. “You’ve made her sad again?

  Epashti did not remember being happy. Her belly was huge, but the rest of her was disappearing. Her arms were sticks and her hair was falling out and she had lost some of her teeth. The baby hardly kicked at all now, only sometimes she felt something rolling in there, as if it struggled sluggishly around.

  What use, she thought. What use—if it died—

  The door to the lodge burst open, letting in a cold blast of wind, and the slanted pale winter sunlight. Ahanton came panting in, Kalu and Finn just behind her.

  “Shhh,” Epashti said, her hands lifting, her heart rising in relief; Ahanton always brought her food.

  Everybody knew this. From the other compartments, from Eonta’s room, the other people came quickly out and gathered around the hearth. After a moment Eonta herself, leaning on a stick, tottered down the corridor on her crooked feet and sat down next to Epashti. Ahanton had laid the sack down by the fire; now the child spread out the mouth, exposing a mass of nuts.

  Leaning forward, her thin gray braids dropping over her shoulders, Eonta peered into the sack. “What did you do, girl, rob the squirrels?”

  Ahanton said, “I left some for them.” She glanced at Epashti, her face worried. “I never take all.”

  Eonta laughed. Her hand went forward, and then every other hand went forward, the long work-knobby hands of the women, the little claws of the children. Ahanton sat by Epashti and cracked nuts for her. Epashti saw the child did not eat. Saw also that Ahanton, always skinny, was no skinnier than usual.

  The others, eating, began to talk, as if the talk grew from the nuts. Eonta made some joke and they all laughed. Ehia teased her sister about a lascivious dream she had had, about a man she would not name, but everybody quickly understood was Miska. The pile of nuts was disappearing. Epashti chewed the delicious meats and drank water—Kalu, bustling with importance, brought her the water. He and Finn ate, taking one nut at a time, which was proper. Epashti saw Sheanoy pick up a nut between thumb and forefinger and deftly sneak another into her palm with her other fingers; that was how she stayed so strong and lively. Sheanoy was still nursing Aengus, but the baby in her belly was still small, did not sap everything out of her; she would bear it in the summer, in the bounty of the year.

  Epashti swallowed sourness in her mouth. She thought of what was to come and her heart shrank into a little curling worm, all fear.

  Ahanton fed her a hazelnut, sweet as summer. The nuts were clean and whole, not musty, worm-eaten, mixed half with broken and empty shells, like all the squirrel hoards Epashti had ever seen. Feeling stronger, warmer, happier, she glanced at Ahanton again and wondered.

  Now the nuts were gone, though. Eonta leaned around Epashti, put her hands on Ahanton’s head and drew her close, and spoke into her ear. Ahanton laughed. The other people were moving away, off to sleep again, or to work. Ahanton curled one arm around Epashti, and leaned her head on her, and then went out, to go to Miska’s lodge.

  Epashti turned to Kalu, still squatting beside her, Finn at his side. “Go find me some wood.”

  “I will,” Kalu said. He touched the birchbark cup. “I brought you water, Mother.”

  “Yes, I know.” She smiled at him, tired. Behind them, Sheanoy picked up Aengus, who had climbed into her lap, and hauled him off to her compartment. Epashti said, “Get wood.”

  He went off down the shadowy corridor. Finn came over and snuggled against her, his arms around her arm. She patted his head and he curled up comfortably. She could feel his ribs through his shirt, but he was clever and fed himself and she had no fear for him.

  All her children were strong. Aengus would live too, with Sheanoy’s help. Epashti put her hand on her belly and the black thoughts sailed down around her again like bats. The baby would be born within the month—in the full Hunger Moon. She wondered if it would still be alive then. If she would have milk. If she could keep it alive on squirrel hoardings and water until the spring came and the wealth of the year began. Without Ahanton she would have been dead already. The baby would kill her and then die.

  Eonta remained beside her, solid, her hands out to the fire. Now she said, “Ahanton blesses us all. Where do you think she finds this food?”

  Epashti leaned her head against the compartment wall. “She said it was a squirrel nest.”

  The old woman smiled. Her cheeks, always round in the summer, were pleated into creases, but her eyes sparkled bright as ever. “Maybe they look like squirrel’s nests to her. I will not ask questions. She should have her green bough ceremony. Have you thought about that?”

  Epashti said, “I have. But her lineage, her other emblems— how can we know these?” Miska, her father, gave Ahanton nothing but a name; all her proper connections came from her mother.

  Eonta shrugged. “Ask her. Her mother will guide us.”

  “Her mother,” Epashti said. Tears burst from her eyes. She ground them away with her hands. “We lost her mother. We lost them both, Corban and her.”

  Eonta took hold of her hand and drew it down. The old woman’s smile deepened. “Then where does her daughter find us all these nuts? Take heart, child.” She squeezed Epashti’s hand, and turned it up. “Here.” She put some nuts into Epashti’s palm. “Save these for later.” Patiently the old woman planted her horn-toed feet. took hold of the compartment door, and pulled herself upright. “Talk to Ahanton about the green bough time. She knows more than you think she does.” She waddled slowly off toward her room; her clothes hung around her like old withered wings. Epashti watched her go, and opened her palm and fed the nuts to her baby, one by one.

  Epashti bore the baby in the middle of the night. None of the others would come to her, except Ehia, who brought the moss and the water and herbs, and Ahanton, who sat with her as she groaned. The terrific pains grew stronger, wringing her body, squeezing the baby down.

  In the cold and the dark, her body flagged, too tired to do the work. The baby struggled to come out but she could not summon herself to the task. Sagging in Ehia’s arms, her head too heavy to lift, she said, “Push it out for me.”

  Ehia had her belly against Epashti’s back, her arms around Epashti under her breasts, Epashti’s knees cocked up wide apart. “Push,” Epashti said, again, as the next powerful clenching began, and Ahanton leaned over her and with her hands flat on the top of Epashti’s belly she pushed down.

  The pain wound her around like a vine, drew her thin and limp as a vine; dazed, she felt it squeeze her to nothing. Slowly the terrific hurt subsided. She could not see anymore. Too tired to see. Here was another one already, oh—

  This pain pried her jaws apart and she gave out a groan deep as her belly, as if yielding up something out that end would help getting something out the other. Her head wobbled on Ehia’s shoulder. Her body hung useless. She felt Ahanton’s hands on her belly. Ehia’s arms around her below her breasts. The pain like something driven down between her legs.

  Bursting. She sobbed. Some great warmth rushed over her, like a dark sunr
ise. Ehia held her, whispering in her ear. Down between her feet, there was a whimper.

  Alive, she thought, but she had no strength to speak. Her eyes shut. Alive. She began to fall, long, quiet, soft, deep, forever, falling.

  Ehia got the moon-baby out, and tried to feed Epashti a potion of herbs, but she had no strength to swallow. They had been sitting in the dark compartment all night; now the light was seeping in, the day coming. The baby was a girl, tiny, every bone visible. It had stopped its tiny cry and lay limp in Ahanton’s arms; she wanted to take it somewhere warm and stroke it alive again.

  Under her eyes Epashti was going away. Ahanton began to cry. She could not leave, yet she could do nothing. They would both die.

  She clutched the baby tight, leaning toward Ehia, pleading. “Do something. Hasn’t she told you what to do?”

  “I don’t know how—I’m not sure—” Ehia wiped her face. “She said something once . . .”

  “Do it,” Ahanton said. “Please. Do it.”

  So Ehia took the herbs she had soaked for the drink and made a ball, and she put the wet ball of herbs up into Epashti’s body. They wrapped Epashti up in blankets and put emblems of life around her—what they could find; there were no new leaves or new twigs, but even in the dead of winter Ahanton had collected fat buds of lilac and willow shoots, and these they laid by her. Ehia took the water from the herbs and dampened Epashti’s lips. Epashti never moved, her eyes sunken, her skin clammy.

  Ahanton wrapped the baby in her old white deerskin blanket. It came into her mind that Epashti had gathered all these herbs, talked to them, loved them: they would know her, they would save her. She and Ehia cleaned up the mess of the birth and then lay down, one on either side of Epashti, to keep her warm. She held the baby in her arms, against her skin.

  She did not think she would sleep, with all that had happened, but then she was somewhere far away, and a thin little cry was calling her back. She woke in the full light of day. Ehia was gone. Epashti lay beside her, asleep, still alive, and the baby was crying in her arms.

  Ahanton leaned over Epashti, thinking to put the baby to her breast, but Epashti would not waken. Her skin was cool. She breathed hard. Ahanton took the baby down the corridor to Sheanoy’s compartment.

  She had to bang and pluck at the willowwork door a long while before Sheanoy would open it. When she saw the baby, the woman’s mouth fell open, and her eyes shone. “She’s had it. Maybe now she can get better, the poor thing. Are you taking it out to the snow?”

  Ahanton said, “I’m bringing her to you, because you have milk.” She held the baby up toward Sheanoy. “Feed her.”

  Sheanoy shrank back, her face pale with shock. “Oh, no. You must take it out. Take it to the midden heap. It’s a hunger baby, it’s not even a real baby, it won’t live.”

  Ahanton held the baby out, and said, “I fed you.”

  Epashti’s sister licked her lips, and her eyes darted from side to side, up and down the lodge. Nobody was out in the open, but surely they were listening and watching from behind their doors. The baby let out her tiny peeping cry. It was so small Ahanton could not feel its weight in her hands. She said nothing, but her eyes held Sheanoy’s.

  Sheanoy pressed her lips together, and her eyelids drooped. She took the baby and put it to her breast, and let it nurse, but she plucked it away after only a few moments.

  “I’m dry,” she said, and pulled back into her compartment like a clam into its shell and shut the door.

  Then Ahanton went on through the lodge, to the other women with babies at the breast, and she went to Anapatha’s lodge also, and to Merada’s, and she got all the women who were nursing children to take Epashti’s winter baby to their breasts. Gallara’s lodge was only old women, and she did not go there. Day by day she took the baby around from one woman to another, and Epashti lived and got stronger, as the sun grew stronger, day by day. Then the men came back.

  This was an up and down thing. The men had brought back fresh meat, but they had been in a fight to get it, and one of them was dead, Yoto, Hasei and Epashti’s brother. They had scalps, which they flourished with the usual bravery, but no prisoners, so there was no one to suffer for Yoto’s sake. The women gathered under the oak tree, and sang for Yoto, and his wife cut her hair off and gashed her cheeks, but they all felt the heavy loss, and there was nothing to fill the hole, and the strength of the Wolves was pouring away down that hole, into nothing.

  With the meat to make her blood stronger Epashti sat up, and she put the baby to her breast; there was no milk but the baby sucked anyway, a good strong hurting suck. Wrapped tight in her blanket, the baby opened her eyes, startlingly blue. Epashti started, wondering: Is she blind?

  “Another woman,” Sheanoy said. She was stripping out long strings of hemp to make a basket, the stem across her lap. They were sitting outside, in the first warm sunshine; there were still cold nights and hungry days to come but the sun was brighter, for now their bellies were comfortable, and in a few days the full Worm Moon would rise. “I don’t see what use that was, frankly, Epashti.”

  Epashti was remembering what Ahanton told her, that Sheanoy had nursed the newborn baby, and when the child pulled fretfully away from the nipple, and wailed, she said, “Well, she’s hungry now, here.” She held the baby out.

  Sheanoy dropped her jaw. “I have nursed your son! How can you ask me another?”

  Epashti lifted her eyebrows. “Am I less than Ahanton?”

  Her sister gathered up her face again into a frown of annoyance. She did not look at Epashti, but stared stonily off over her shoulder, took the baby, and clapped her to her breast.

  “I am too good,” she said. “I do not look out enough for myself.”

  Epashti said, “I think you do well enough, Sheanoy.” She took the sticks of hemp and began to shred where her sister had left off.

  “And another girl. Who will she marry?” Sheanoy said, crossly. “If all our men die, who will any of us marry?”

  Epashti said, “There are other men.” Yoto’s dying unnerved her; she wanted to cry again, thinking of him. Now there were only three men left, besides Miska, three men in two lodges, which was not enough, as her sister said. The Wolves were disappearing, like Michabo’s hunters running into the flood.

  Eonta had been down to the river, and now she came walking up toward them; she was gaunt as any of them but her summer bulk seemed to hang around her like a shadow. She had gone barefoot, in spite of the snow still lingering on the ground; her feet were lumpy, her toes tipped in curving yellow claws. Seeing her come, old Merada came over from her lodge, with her two daughters, and they all sat together in the sun.

  Ehia trailed after Eonta with a bark bucket of water. The younger woman helped the older settle herself in the women’s circle and set the water down.

  Eonta saw the baby, and leaned over to peer at her. “So she’s still alive. Her father’s power is in her.”

  Epashti said nothing, her eyes on the little bundle in Sheanoy’s arms. Eonta made herself comfortable, and with a flick of her hand sent Ehia off for something else.

  Sheanoy turned toward her, sharp-eyed. “Ama-ki, we were just talking about the fact that there are no more men.”

  Eonta grunted at her. Merada, between her two daughters, lifted her head, listening. Ehia came back with a shawl and some handwork and gave them to Eonta. Above Eonta’s head she glanced at Epashti, and gave her a broad smile.

  Eonta said, “There are no such men anywhere else as our Wolf men. We have the best men.”

  “Ama,” said Sheanoy. “We did have them. There are only four of them now. Are we all to line up in front of Miska’s lodge?”

  Ehia twitched, and Eonta’s head lashed around like a snake. “Keep your tongue clean, woman. You can lie down in Miska’s lodge all you want, since you already do.”

  The women watching all laughed, and Sheanoy flushed, her brows lowering, angry. Eonta sat back, smoothing the shawl over her knees. “There are other men,
in other villages, who will come here and make husbands for you, and their sons will be Wolves. Miska will see to it.”

  Sheanoy said, “Yes, Bear men. Or even Muskrats and Beaver men, from the Long Lakes.”

  Merada said, “Or we could do what Epashti did, and get one from the sky.”

  Epashti lifted her eyes for the first time from the baby. “Don’t do that,” she said, “because the sky will call him back, and your heart will turn to mud.”

  Then she gasped, looking down, feeling her breast draw, and she burst out laughing. The other women goggled at her, their faces full of wonder. Epashti reached out for her baby.

  “Give her to me. I have milk. Give it to me.”

  Sheanoy gave her the baby, and she pulled open the front of her dress and laid the child to her breast. The child began to suckle in long deep swallows.

  Eonta said, “Such a muddy heart as this I wish for all of us.” Her eyebrows were raised up like lodge poles. “What will you name her? Since her father is not here to name her.”

  “Blessing,” Epashti said, smiling down at the tiny child. “My blessing.”

  Before this, men from other villages had come to Miska asking to dwell among the Wolves, but Miska had sent them away, because they would fight for him anyway, and it made no difference to him where they lived. But Eonta talked to him one day, and this spring, when some young men from the Bear village appeared at the gate, he let them come in to the village.

  He knew these men, who had gone with him on the long raid against the Sun people. He sat with them in his lodge and shared smoke. When the leader of them asked if they could live in the Wolf village, he said, “This goes well with me. You must make your own lodge, and we shall see how it goes from there.”

  “We have Bear ways of making lodges,” the young man said. His name was Ako; he wore his hair up in a sideknot, like all Ekkatsay’s people. He looked like Ekkatsay, big and strong and solid.