You.
You see me, and your arm drops to your side. You stumble back as if I’ve struck you, though I don’t dare move. Confusion swims in your wide eyes—a moment ago your thoughts were focused on nothing but the elk. Now, finding me standing here completely unexpected, you seem to have forgotten everything else.
Countless questions tangle my thoughts—Did Pek deliver the pelt of the cat you killed? Were you pleased with the quality of the hide? Are you haunted, as I am, by the Spirit of that cat? Have you seen it stalking you in your dreams?
I want to tell you what happened with this cat—It didn’t give chase, like the one you killed, but instead stalked me from under the cover of tall grass. I heard it just in time to react, but not in time to escape its attack without harm.
I thought of you when I feared the cat might kill me. I wondered if my body would be found, and if you would learn of how I’d died.
When the silence between us stretches to an unbearable tension, I’m forced to speak. “I came for Pek,” I say.
“Yes.”
And that’s all. We stand still, looking at each other in much the same way we did at that first meeting in the meadow. Just as bitterness joined that circle, it seemingly has followed us here.
A large shadow passes between us—a buzzard is circling. Another joins it. “They were quick to find your kill,” you say.
At last you acknowledge it. I was beginning to wonder how long you could ignore the dead cat strapped to a sled behind me.
Your gaze fixes on a spot just below my left eye. Taking one slow step toward me, you lift your hand to touch my cheek. “You have blood on your face,” you say. Your voice is soft, as soft as light falling on leaves. I think you touch my face, but if you do your touch is just as soft, so soft I can’t be sure.
“The cat’s blood, I think. Not mine. He got me across the back, mostly.”
You move another half step closer and peer around my side, gently lifting away the shredded pieces of my parka. You stifle a gasp. “You should thank the Divine you’re alive. Your back . . . ,” you say, but you don’t finish. “I’ll fetch the butchers.”
“Thank you, but Pek already went. . . .” My voice trails off; you aren’t listening.
Before I can get the words out you turn and run, disappearing into the shade that cloaks the path.
TEN
I’m brought to your camp, but I don’t see you again. Instead, I see no one but Pek, Chev, and your clan’s healers—Ela and her twin brother, Yano. They are young for healers—maybe just a few years older than I am. Both wear their hair pulled into a single long braid; both are dressed in plain tunics of black bearskin.
“You will stay in my sisters’ hut,” Chev says. “It is large, close to the healers, and close to me. You have done a great thing for this clan and I want to be sure you are comfortable while you heal.” Despite the gnawing ache in my back, something in my chest stirs. My senses sharpen as I enter the place where you sleep each night, the place where you dream.
The hut is cool and well lit—a flap has been opened in the side wall facing west, letting in a shaft of sunlight. I’m struck by the rich array of pelts—not just forming the beds but also elaborate rugs and banners—furs and skins cut and sewn into ornate patterns, spread across the floor and hung from the walls. One design suggests the stars in the sky, another the sea.
The healers help me undress and lie facedown on one of the beds, arranged on the floor in just the right spot so the light will fall directly onto my back. A rich, musky scent floats in the air; some of these pelts are new. Ela and Yano stand on each side of me, helping me ease my aching body onto the bed. My hands reach out to brace my weight and I notice a blanket of sealskin. Despite my pain, inwardly I smile, knowing that you and your sister accepted Pek’s gifts.
The healers begin their work of examining the gashes in my back. They clean each one with the edge of a sharp blade, picking out small flecks of dirt and debris. The process sends spikes of pain through me, but I force myself to stay alert. “Deep cuts,” Ela says, either to Yano or herself—I can’t be sure. She calls for a certain type of leaf, but the name of the plant is unknown to me.
The process drags on, each individual cut painstakingly opened, painstakingly cleaned. Sweat drips from my face and neck and pools in the small of my back. I struggle to stay silent and still, but I can’t suppress every flinch or hold in every gasp. Now and then, pressure is applied to my back with a soft pelt that’s been soaked in cold water, opening a brief window of relief. Chants are offered by Ela and Yano, sometimes in turns, sometimes in unison.
Pain thrums a drumbeat in my temples, mixing with a roar in my ears, drowning out voices. I know that Chev is speaking, but his words fade to a hiss and I cannot distinguish what he says. All I catch is the tone of his voice, but even that is enough to startle me. His voice is gentle and warm, a tone reserved for a beloved child, or, more likely, a spouse. Could he be speaking to Ela? Could it be that she is Chev’s wife?
I lose track of time. The light in the room grows dim as the healers methodically work at their task, until finally, I feel the even pressure of fingers smoothing cool strips of leaves across my skin. And then, at last, there is no pressure at all. The task is done.
Through the throbbing, through the roar, through the hiss and buzz that fill my ears, whispered words reach me. It’s the voice of my brother Pek; I feel his breath on my cheek. “Chev has sent for our family,” he says. “Rest well, knowing that our parents and brothers will be here soon.”
With the music of these words pushing back the din of pain, I fall into a deep sleep.
When I wake, my back feels tight—scabs have formed beneath the protective layer of leaves. I open my eyes to see you—just you—sitting on the bed across from me.
“Look who’s awake.”
“Have I been sleeping long?”
“Not really. Maybe half the night has passed. The healers wanted to be called when you woke.”
You stretch before you stand—your muscles are stiff. How long have you been sitting here? Have you been on watch the whole time I’ve slept? As you brush back the door, you call to me over your shoulder. “I’ll be right back. I’m just going to let Chev know to bring Ela and Yano—”
“Wait. Before you go, I want to ask you . . . Is Ela Chev’s wife?”
You stop and turn to face me. In the weak light thrown off by the sputtering flame of an oil lamp in the center of the floor, I think I see you smile. No—not smile . . . smirk.
“You’re correct in guessing that one of the healers is Chev’s mate, but Ela is not my brother’s wife. Yano is Chev’s spouse. He is the one my brother loves.”
You pause a moment in the doorway, watching my face, smiling as bewilderment is replaced by clarity.
It makes sense now. Of course, I know that love is sometimes like that—some men love men, some women love women. But I hadn’t put it together. Now I understand why I always perceived that Chev was a man with a mate, yet no one had mentioned his wife.
“I’ll be right back,” you say again. “I’ll bring your brother, too.”
And then you push back the door, and I feel a door in my chest pushed back at the same time. You step out, leaving darkness and quiet and emptiness behind you.
A void opens up in this room—opens up in my chest—from the lack of you.
A short time later, Ela and Yano stand over me. The large leaves that had been draped across my skin are removed, but I feel nothing more than a slight pull when one occasionally tugs at a scab.
“Very nice,” says Yano, admiring his own work with a smile and a nod. “You should sit up and drink now. And take some honey. Honey will give you strength.”
Chev hands me a heavy skin full of water. “Mya, run to the kitchen for honey,” he says.
As much as I enjoy the thought of you being sent to the kitchen to bring back the honey that you claimed was so plentiful here in the south—the honey that is apparently so su
perior to mine—I stop you before you can rise to your feet.
“I have some,” I say. Pek rummages around in my pack until the pouch—the very same pouch I’d tried to give you—is found.
My own honey never tasted as good as it does at this moment. I gulp down a greedy portion of the water Chev offers and stretch out again. I’m just wondering where you and Seeri are staying while my brother and I occupy your hut when I drift off to sleep.
The following day I sleep until the sun is glowing gold against the wall that faces west, waking well after the midday meal.
Pek and Chev bring me a mat full of elk and caribou meat and sit with me to keep me occupied. “If you would like, your brother can sleep in here.”
If I would like? “Where have you been sleeping, Pek?”
Chev answers before Pek has the chance. “We made room for him in the storage hut. We moved some firewood. But he can join you in here, if you wish.”
The storage hut. I had wondered how well Pek had been received. If he’s sleeping next to the supplies, I think I can guess the answer.
The healers stop in briefly to check my progress. They both seem pleased, but neither will relent when I request that I be allowed out of bed. “Not until the evening meal,” Yano says. He tries to remain stern, but at the door he looks back and gives me a brief, sympathetic smile. “It won’t be long,” he adds, before ducking out behind his sister.
I learn that boats left at first light, heading for my camp. They are to bring back my parents and my brothers, “to help celebrate our triumph over the cat,” Chev says. I had suspected my family had been sent for because my injuries were so grave, in case I had gotten worse instead of better. I have seen injured hunters fail quickly. I’m sure Chev has, too. But I don’t say anything about that. Instead, I simply smile. “A celebration will be wonderful, but I’m not sure what you mean by ‘our triumph over the cat.’”
Your brother sits forward. “This cat, it was a rebel,” he says. I study his face. Chev is older than you and Seeri by maybe as many as six or seven years. Like the other Olen men, his hair is always pulled back tight in a braid. This differs from the style of the men in my clan—we generally cut our hair with sharp blades to keep it short and out of the way. Something about this style gives Chev a stern look, his features exposed and his eyes intense, as if he is constantly forming a plan. There is a sadness, too, that shows in the set of his mouth and the lines at the edges of his lips.
“This cat no longer had a taste for bison or elk.” He raises his face and stares at the hides on the wall, but I know he is looking at something else—a memory. “It was not long after we returned from your camp. This cat killed a hunter who was stalking game. After that, this cat stalked all of us. No one could go outside of camp. I had to forbid it.
“But one did—a child. She tried to sneak off to the river in the valley beyond the hills. We found her that night. Her own mother could not recognize her face.”
Chev goes silent as his eyes darken.
“That’s the reason I stayed,” says Pek. “I’ve been helping patrol the camp and hunt for the cat. I promised to stay until he was no longer a threat.”
“The Spirit of this cat was a demon,” Chev says. “We offered prayers and chants to the Divine, and now the demon has been slain.” He gets to his feet and strides for the door. “My clanspeople are busy in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal for you and your family. This meal will allow us to express our thanks.”
With that, Chev ducks quickly through the door and is gone.
“So he’s happy?” I ask Pek, half joking. Chev is not a man who is open with his emotions.
“Maybe with you, but not with me.”
Pek sits cross-legged on a pile of pelts that make up the bed across from me. His head is bowed, but he raises his face slowly and gives me a smile completely devoid of joy.
“Seeri?” I don’t need to ask. Of course it’s Seeri.
“He’s quite serious about her betrothal to his friend. I believe that he sees me as unsuitable and unworthy.”
“And you know this how?”
“His words, carried across the space between huts as he shouted at Seeri.”
My brother—the one who was born with a spear in his hand, the one who could always out-throw me—seems beaten. The lowered head, the drooping shoulders—I’ve seen that only once before in him, on the first day we hunted seals so he could bring the pelts to your clan. Even that day, Pek had started out hopeful. It had taken defeat and a near drowning to weigh him down.
“I’d planned to win him over by killing the rogue cat, but you’ve solved that problem. I think there’s little left that I could do to change his mind.”
I lean forward and feel the scabs across my back tighten as I reach for Pek’s shoulder. “Sorry for killing the cat before you could, but it really left me no choice—”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” I say. “But don’t give up. After all, aren’t you the one who said there’s still hope? She isn’t married yet.”
I turn and lie down again, my body suddenly heavy. I press my chest against the sealskin blanket, my wounds open to the air. My eyes close. I catch myself just as I drift into a dream and I shake myself awake, but Pek is already by the door.
“Sleep,” he says. “Don’t fight it.”
“I’ve slept all day—”
“And you walked all of yesterday. And fought a cat. And dragged its body to camp. And now you’re healing. So sleep.”
I want to argue—my mind begins to form the words—but before my lips can give them shape I fade into a deep, dreamless sleep. I wake only when voices reach my ears, calling from shore.
I open my eyes. Light in the hut is fading, but judging by the sounds I hear, I woke just in time. The boats that were sent for my family must have finally returned.
I find myself alone for the first time, but the solitude of the hut has a texture all its own—rich and comforting. I climb to my feet and find a clean parka at the foot of the bed—one crafted from the pelt of a cat so soft it won’t irritate my wounds.
I pick it up and hold it in the light, confused by the mystery of it. But then I notice the details—the way the light brown fur fades to pale tan at the edges, the swirled pattern in the grain of the hide in one corner, the slight blemish where a drop of blood dried into a permanent stain of red.
This was made from the pelt of the cat you killed, the one I tanned and sent to you.
ELEVEN
I follow the mix of voices to the beach, drawn along by the singsong tones of my mother’s lilting laugh. Though I’ve rarely given any thought to the sound of my mother’s laugh, at this moment, its familiarity quenches a thirst inside me I didn’t even know was there.
I realize as I slow my steps that I haven’t heard anyone laugh in so long. My mother could be laughing at anything—perhaps the boat rocked as they stepped out and someone was splashed—her laugh comes easily most of the time. Here in your camp, my injuries have been treated with such seriousness, and I’m grateful for it, but there’s a warmth and affection in the music of my mother’s voice that heals me from the inside out.
Yet as I approach and catch my first glimpse of them—not just my mother but my father and brothers, too—I know they are being told about my injuries for the first time. Chev is speaking to them, gesturing as he tells the story. His back is to me, his words carried away by the sea breeze, but I can read the tension in my father’s shoulders, my mother’s sudden silence. She reaches out for Pek and holds on to him as if she might fall if she let go.
Thankfully, Yano and Ela are there, too, and as Chev quiets, Ela steps up. My parents’ eyes turn to her, and from my vantage point—close enough to see but far enough away that I haven’t yet been noticed—I can tell that her words reassure them. My father steps forward. My mother nods.
I take a tentative step in their direction and my mother’s attention shifts.
She spots me on the path
, and when she speaks my name—just my name—it’s as if an entire song has been sung.
She lets go of my brother and hurries to me. Her face glows red with windburn and her gait is uneven after a long trip on the sea. She falls against me and her arms encircle my back.
Over her shoulder my eyes are drawn to your face as you react to the pain you imagine I feel—your teeth dig deep into your bottom lip as she embraces me. But although her touch stings, it also brings relief to another kind of pain, and I won’t pull away. Instead, I clench my jaw and lean into my mother’s embrace. The pelt of the new parka presses against the cuts in my back, but the pain recedes to the edges of my mind as contentment crowds it out.
As we head back up the path together, I manage to get close enough to speak to you without others hearing. Standing so close, I notice a scent around you, the same scent I’d noticed in your hut—the warm fragrance of musk.
“Thank you for the parka,” I say.
“Of course,” you answer.
For the briefest of moments the world around me holds its breath—the breeze dies away; birds quiet their songs. The only sound is the crunch of gravel beneath our feet as we walk side by side.
But it doesn’t last. It’s only an illusion; one that fades as soon as you speak again. “I started it the day Pek gave me the pelt. I couldn’t accept it—the cat was killed on your land. It belongs to your clan. I figured the parka was an efficient means of returning it to you.”
Efficient?
“The pelt was meant as a gift—”
I stop myself mid-sentence. Hot, angry words rush to my lips but I bite them back. Why bother? What could I possibly say that might reach you? “Excuse me,” I say instead, and hurry to catch up to my family.
We join the rest of your clan in a large meeting area at the center of the circle of huts, strikingly similar to our meeting space at home, though there is one significant difference. Your clan has erected four large poles carved from the trunks of trees in the corners of the meeting place, and pulled tightly overhead is a roof of hides pieced together with cords of sinew. The sides are open to allow both the breeze and your clanspeople to easily pass in and out, but the covering overhead ensures that you will always be sheltered from sun or rain while gathered. At home, we simply huddle in the kitchen or eat our meals in our huts if the weather is foul. I remember a fleeting look that crossed your face when you first saw my clan gathered in the open air after the hunt. Now I suspect it was disappointment—or worse, disdain—at our lack of sophistication.
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