Moon-Flash

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  She dreamed a hundred young girls, dressed as she was, came out of the shadows of the cave to touch her face with hands soft as moth wings. She dreamed a boy’s face, dark, unfamiliar, with a deer-sign on his forehead, and she said apologetically to the ghosts, No, sorry, that’s someone else’s dream. A dream already dreamed. She saw the moon and the Moon-Flash. Then she saw the strange Hunter, gazing up at the moon. 0 point 0 point 0…the Face. Her dream went dark, then, evening-dark, silent, breathless. A star exploded in the darkness. She stirred, murmuring. Everything was white. There were no familiar faces. A star was carrying her to the moon. The moon was huge, full, rising toward the Flash. In another moment it would come, in another… She looked back down to the Face where a betrothal ceremony was to be held, and she called to the upturned faces: Farewell. But wait, she thought in her sleep, whose dream is this? I’m Kyreol. Then she saw a hundred rainbows… And then only dream fragments.

  She woke up. Her arm was cramped against the stone. Her head felt stuffed with feathers, and she was thirsty. She pushed herself up to a sitting position and blinked a moment. The light had shifted away from the falls in front of her, and she knew she had slept for hours. But what a strange dream. Neither happy nor sad. A puzzle. She stood up slowly, straightening her clothes, wishing she could see if the paint had smeared on her face. She frowned at the flame, thinking of the dream, until she remembered the girls’ faces, painted, smiling, their soft touches, and she smiled, the first excitement quivering in her. I am one of you. She reached for the red skin, poured its contents into a little shallow in the rock that was colored and flecked from the contents of many other skins. She placed her left hand flat in the cold dye. Then, choosing her spot carefully, she put her handprint among the hundreds of gold handprints that rose like butterflies on the black wall above the flame.

  I, Kyreol.

  She walked out of the cave, caught water in her hands. She washed, then drank deeply, clearing her head. A mixture of excitement and hunger welled through her as she made her way back down the trail. Now the night can come, she thought, walking out of the shadow of the Face into the tender, late afternoon light. The night, the Moon-Flash, the feast, the handclasp, the eyes meeting hers out of another mask of paint, a hood of feathers… And then the hundred wild red birds freed…Kyreol of Turtle-Crossing. I will live with Korre among the turtles.

  There was feasting when she returned, pregnant with her secret betrothal dream. The falls turned grey, then a feathery silver as the moon rose. It was full, blazing white, its light swallowing the stars around it. A perfect moon, ripe for the fire-flash that would bring good hunting, good harvest, good fortune in marriage. Two great fires were lit: one for her, one for her betrothed, who sat, a bird-child with a turtle on his forehead, on a skin decorated with feathers. She glanced across at him occasionally, wondering what he had dreamed. They would tell each other later. She was surrounded by women, but Terje came among them briefly, bringing her a leaf full of honey-berries. They shared them in silence, while the moon crept upward in the night toward the flash-point. Kyreol, watching the fire, saw in her mind the arrow of fire that caressed so swiftly, so brightly, the curve of the moon and disappeared. “What is it?” she whispered. “The Moon-Flash?”

  “It’s fire,” Terje said softly. “It’s a tree, an animal, the River. It’s the way the world is.”

  “But—”

  “You can divide water into its smallest piece, and it will still be water. You don’t ask what it is. The world is like water. It is just itself.”

  But, she thought, not even knowing what she was trying to argue about. They finished the berries in silence, close to each other as they had always been. Terje tossed the leaf into the fire. They watched it turn into flame and smoke.

  “You see? Everything is one thing: there are only different shapes of it.”

  Then he kissed her on the cheek, something he had never done before, and rose. The women laughed at him; he went away scowling. Kyreol’s thoughts returned to the boy beside the other fire.

  As the moon neared the center of a square of stars, a silence fell. Kyreol and Korre were led from their fires to a carpet of skins and feathers, with all the River-signs, and the River itself woven into it. It was very old; newer River-signs had been added on since it was first made. Kyreol’s father joined their hands. Korre’s hand was sweaty; he glanced at her once, nervously, and smiled. She felt odd, suddenly, restless: she wanted to be climbing a tree or fishing. Then she remembered her new face, the mask of womanhood, and the thought passed. The moon floated into its position.

  A chant started, led by her father. A prayer for good fortune. Her name and Korre’s name were repeated many times, until it seemed that even the constant roar of the Falls echoed their names. The whole world was chanting. And the flash, the spark of life, entered the moon.

  The chanting turned to cheers. Wood pipes and drum sounded out of the night. A hundred birds wove into the firelight, soared upward, singing. Korre let go of Kyreol’s hand. His feet shifted. He was still smiling, but he couldn’t seem to speak. Oh well, Kyreol thought after a moment. I can talk enough for two. She looked around vaguely at all the laughing people who seemed to have forgotten about them. At the edge of her fire she saw the hooded Hunter.

  She gazed at him, puzzled without knowing why. Then the carpet rose under her as many hands lifted it. She grabbed at Korre and lost her balance. They tumbled against one another, as the carpet shook, and fell, tangled together and laughing.

  2

  BEING BETROTHED, Kyreol discovered, was not quite as interesting as she had imagined it. For one thing, her face hadn’t changed. When she stepped out the door of the house at Turtle-Crossing and knelt at the riverbank to see her reflection, it was still the same face under the paint as the one she had worn at her father’s house. For another thing, betrothed women didn’t fish. And for another, she and Korre seemed to speak two entirely different languages.

  Since she wasn’t married yet, she slept with Korre’s younger sisters, in the huge, rambling stone house. She liked the house. There was always a stray noise in it—a pot banging, a child laughing or crying, Korre’s mother singing or calling to her children. Kyreol helped her with the cooking and took care of the younger children. She had never done either thing in her life, so for a while she was intrigued. She learned how to make fish soup and grind nuts into flour and to save all the feathers she plucked from birds for the many betrothal skirts the family would need. She showed the children how to crack seed pods in two to make tiny boats, and she told them stories. She told about the First Man and the First Woman, and about the First Days of the World, when the fish could talk. She made them tell her what the birds were saying. Korre’s mother listened with an indulgent smile, but Korre didn’t understand.

  “Fish never had voices,” he said one evening, when they were sitting on the bank cleaning fish he had caught.

  “But why not? Everything else does. Everything in the world makes a noise but fishes. Why?”

  “They don’t have tongues.”

  “But—”

  He sighed. “You always say ‘but.’ The world is the world. It’s silly to think about fish speaking. You shouldn’t say that to the children.”

  “But why—”

  “There you go again.”

  “I had a thought,” she said, prickling with frustration, “and you made it vanish out of my head. Listen. Everything—”

  “Kyreol—”

  “You never listen to me!”

  “Well, you never make any sense!”

  Kyreol swallowed her words, sat smoldering. Korre watched her, his chin on his fist. He was shorter than she was, and she was still growing. They had to sit down to look straight into each other’s eyes. He was night-dark, muscular but small-boned. He made her feel gawky. He was even-tempered but very stubborn. When she got angry, he only waited calmly, silently, until she gave up her anger, and then he would talk about something entirely different. She
waited for him to speak. The River made soft, soothing noises, cooling her. He reached out finally, touched her.

  “Do you like me?” he asked. She forgot her anger, surprised that he had said something she could understand.

  “Of course I do,” she said. “But—”

  He threw up his hands, and she swallowed the rest of her thought.

  She tried to see the world the way he saw it. A fish was to be eaten. A bird feather was to be used for rituals. People were to worship the River and the Moon-Flash, and rear other people to do the same. It was very simple. Maybe part of becoming a woman was to see the world through simpler eyes. But her brain was always humming like a beehive with questions and possibilities, and there seemed no way to quiet it.

  She never thought about Terje, except to wish he was beside her, sometimes, when she saw a stone flecked with tiny stars of light, or a green beetle that looked like a leaf. Or did the leaf look like the beetle? Which came first, the beetle or the leaf? The entire world was full of puzzles. Or maybe it wasn’t. Korre never saw anything to be puzzled by. Terje accepted the world the way it was, but he saw the things that Kyreol saw, and he had loved her stories. They only bored Korre. Oh well, she thought, this is the way the world is. But one morning, as she and Korre’s oldest sister, who was on the verge of becoming a woman, took the younger ones down to the river to bathe, Kyreol thought up one question too many.

  “Who will you be betrothed to?” she asked Korre’s sister. The girl, who was small and quiet like Korre, and very pretty, glanced at Kyreol shyly.

  “Terje.”

  Kyreol dropped the two small hands she was holding and went back to Turtle-Crossing and climbed the highest tree she could find. She sat there all morning, throwing seed pods in the River, while first Korre’s sister and the children, then Korre himself called to her.

  “Kyreol! Come down!”

  She shook her head mutely. Their voices meant no more to her than bird voices. Something is wrong, she kept thinking. I’m supposed to be happy. This is the way the world is. Korre wouldn’t go fishing until she came down; she wouldn’t come down. Korre’s mother finally came out and scolded them both. Kyreol climbed down resignedly, and Korre went off in his boat. But he wouldn’t take her with him. The deep green River flowed past her feet, freely and slowly, and she, with the little ones tugging at her skirt, could only watch it.

  One morning not long afterward, she woke up with tears on her face. She couldn’t remember what she had dreamed, so Korre’s mother sent her upriver to visit her father. He would sleep for her, dream her dream, understand the message of her sorrow. Then he would tell her dream to the River, and the River would bear it away. Her mind would be peaceful again, as all things in the Riverworld were meant to be.

  The sight of the small dark house with its inverted bowls of rooms seemed strange to her. She no longer belonged in it; it was a piece of her past. But she was happy to see her father.

  “I saw you coming,” he said simply, as he hugged her.

  “On the River?”

  “In a dream.”

  He made her sit down in his Healing room, brought her smoked fish and fruit and herb tea. She felt peaceful there, surrounded by River-signs woven of reeds, animal skins, feather-charms, jars of herbs. The River water lapped against the stones under the window; she heard birds singing, not children wailing. Her father touched her cheek.

  “You’re growing tall.”

  “Too tall. Korre will have trouble catching up to me.”

  “He will.” He paused. “Are you happy there?”

  “Oh, yes.” She sighed. “But—” She caught herself and laughed. “Korre doesn’t like me to say ‘but.’” She was silent, then, for a long while. She said softly, “Will you dream for me?”

  His face darkened a little, but not with anger. “Why?”

  “I want—I want to be happy. I’m trying to be happy. I want to know that I will be.”

  He gazed at her, his eyes like birds’ eyes, steady and unwinking. Looking back at him, she sensed suddenly the long, changeless past of the Riverworld, its names, its rituals, its Healers. One year was like any year; one Moon-Flash was every Moon-Flash. A man would die on one part of the River, but someone else would be born on another part to take his place. She herself was every woman; her growing, her betrothal no different than a woman’s in the past or a woman to be born. She was part of the River, flowing into her place as the fish and the trees flowed into theirs. There was no need for her to think about being happy, any more than a bird thought about it. The moon never questioned the moon-fire; the fish never questioned their voicelessness.

  But.

  She stirred restively, pulling away from her father’s eyes. He looked down. She put her hands to her mouth, for his face had become open, vulnerable, confused, as if somehow she had hurt him.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “What did I do?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. There is a strangeness in you…”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to be strange! Is it because I tell stories? Korre says that’s what’s wrong with me.”

  “No, no…” He put his hand on her knee, his face easing again, smiling a little. “I like your stories. And Korre tells himself stories every night in his dreams.”

  “He dreams about fishing. Will you dream for me?”

  “No.”

  “But why? You would for anyone else.”

  He brushed her cheek again. “It’s a simple reason. I could dream for you, but I think I would not understand the dream.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he held up his hand. “No. You are a Healer’s daughter, and you will see into your own dreaming better than I could.”

  “But—”

  He laughed and poured her more tea.

  She went back home to Turtle-Crossing the next day. The children gathered around her; she picked up two of them in her strong arms and realized she enjoyed the feel of them. Korre was happy to see her.

  “Did you dream?” he asked eagerly, for maybe now she would be content and not argue so much. Kyreol, looking at him, lied for the first time in her life.

  “Yes,” she said gruffly.

  “What was the dream?”

  “I dreamed of the River-tree. I was homesick.” It was on the tip of her tongue to invent a more interesting dream, but Korre liked simple things, so she didn’t. He smiled, pleased, then lifted his face unexpectedly to kiss her cheek. Then he began to talk about his catch, not noticing how she had drawn back from him, startled, sensing dimly how many lies she might have to tell for the rest of her life to keep him happy.

  A few days later, she saw Terje. He was poling their boat down the lazy, sandy section at Turtle-Crossing. She was on the bank a ways from the house, digging for turtle eggs. He had the prow of the boat resting on the sand before she noticed him.

  She straightened. He seemed a piece of her past, too, like her father’s house, only half-familiar. He dug his pole into the sand and jumped out, narrowly missing her egg basket. He had to look up at her a little more than before. That made her want to laugh suddenly, and her smile made him real, not a memory. He didn’t smile; he was scowling, at her or the hot sun, she couldn’t tell. Then she remembered who he was betrothed to, and she stopped smiling. She bent down, dug in the sand, not looking at him.

  “Kyreol.”

  “What?”

  He didn’t say what, just stood there. She glanced at him finally. The rich, tawny gold of his skin made her blink, and she thought, We’re different colors, like the birds. I wonder… But she stifled the question, since there were no answers, and uncovered a nest in the sand. He squatted down, helped her put the eggs in the basket.

  She said again, “What?”

  He sighed. “Nothing.” Then he added, “I wish you could go fishing with me.”

  “I don’t fish anymore,” she said with dignity. “I cook, I make clothes, I take care of the children—Why,” she asked irritably, meeting his
eyes finally, “didn’t you tell me you were betrothed to Korre’s sister?”

  He shrugged, surprised. “I forgot. She was never in my mind.”

  “Well, she’s going to be at the next Moon-Flash. She became a woman last month.” He made a non-commital grunt; she added severely, “That seems like a long time to you. Forever until Moon-Flash. But it’s not, it’s—”

  “I know. But why are you angry? That’s the way things are.”

  She resisted an impulse to dump the turtle eggs on his head. She turned away instead, searched for another nest. He watched her silently awhile. Then he said softly, “Do you miss me?”

  “No. I have Korre, I have a new family. That’s the way the world is.”

  “Do you tell him stories?”

  “No. The stories are for children.”

  He was silent again, gazing down at the empty nest. He said finally, “You used to laugh more. If I were betrothed to you, I’d make you come fishing. I’d make you sit beside me in a tree and talk to me about the world, because no one else sees it the way you do. Sometimes—sometimes I think if you looked enough and talked enough, you’d turn the world into a different shape, a shape I’ve never seen before. But…” He scooped sand up in his hand, let it trickle out between his fingers. “There was not enough time. I think about you. Sometimes I dream about you, trying to tell me something.” He brushed his hand clean on his thigh and stood up. She stared at his back as he went to the boat, her hands frozen in the sand. His name filled her throat, like a story that ached to be told. The ghost of a younger Kyreol tugged at her, yearning to be free to follow him. But there was no place in the world for such freedom. She stayed still, her bones heavy, too heavy to move. He shoved the boat out, poled away without looking back. Her hands moved finally; she looked down dully and found more eggs.