Ivory and Bone

by Julie Eshbaugh

  “I hardly think you need to be taken care of,” I say.

  A murmured laugh rises in your chest. Maybe it’s because of your supine posture, or maybe because a thickened breath of bitterness mixes with the exhale of levity, but the laugh breaks in your throat.

  A stretch of leg, an arch of neck that rolls down your spine to your hips, and all at once you sit up. Your shoulders lift from the bed and your face floats toward me, your hair stirring a scent of smoke into the sweetness rising from the open honey. My heart gallops, but there’s something else—a heavy ache, a hole behind my racing heart—a clutching hunger that claws at me, calling to my attention the soft curve of your throat, the warm glow of the skin just below your ear, the tension in your lips as they curl into a cryptic grin. “Another question?” I ask, focusing my attention on the echo of your words repeating in my head—Chev needs to find a mate for me. “Why wasn’t your brother’s friend, your sister Seeri’s betrothed—why wasn’t he promised to you, since you’re the oldest?”

  The grin vanishes. Your teeth press into the corner of your bottom lip.

  “By the time of Seeri’s betrothal, I was already betrothed. I was betrothed so long ago I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t. The match was forged when I was a little girl and still lived with the Bosha clan.”

  This answer, so calm and measured from your lips, sends my heart sputtering again.

  “Another boy? Did he stay behind when the clans split?” It occurs to me that maybe the boy is still in the Bosha clan. Maybe you hope that you will be reunited.

  “No,” you say. “He came with us when we left for the south, but he never saw it. Before we reached the southern shores, he died.”

  The next few moments seem to stretch out and pass slowly. I feel your words hang in the air like a ghost. He died. Of all the things I’d expected you might say—all the reasons I’d thought you might give for not being promised—this was not one of them.

  “As for the possibility of being promised to Seeri’s betrothed, you met him, right? He isn’t the most subtle or humble of men. Not that I’m particularly strong in those traits, myself. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t like me—”

  “Seeri’s betrothed doesn’t like you?”

  You slide back, the presence of the ghost grows heavy like a weight, and I wish I hadn’t asked so many questions. Your attention is on the space behind my shoulder, and your expression has turned dark. “I won’t lie to you—the possibility of marrying me instead of Seeri was offered to him, but he had no interest in the idea.” You drop your eyes to the floor and then quickly raise them to meet mine. If you are harboring any feelings of self-pity, they don’t show. “I imagine he had the same reasons you laid out yourself that night in my camp. Your thoughts on the traits that make a woman a good wife? I believe my sister’s betrothed would list the same characteristics—patience, a lack of arrogance—and Seeri has those things. And that, I assume, explains why he chose her.”

  I search my memory, trying to recall exactly what I said that night. I know I deliberately chose things I believed you lacked. Why was I so confrontational? Was I hoping to humiliate you, to punish you for rejecting me?

  But then I remember—it was you who wanted confrontation. As soon as things began to settle down, you had to ask a question that would ramp things up again. What traits in a woman make her a good wife? you asked me. I had tried to smother the confrontation, but you fanned the smoldering embers. You wanted the flames.

  It’s my turn to slide back, drawing my damp palms across the coarse coat of a giant bearskin, a pelt I considered luxurious before I saw the riches of furs and hides in your own camp. I’m far enough from you now that perspective returns, and as I take you in, I realize the extent to which you have misled me.

  For these few moments, sitting here in this close, dim space with you, my senses confused by unfamiliar scents and flavors and the curl of your lips, I almost forgot all that I learned about you today from Lo. I almost forgot the mistreatment she suffered at the hands of your family, at your own hands.

  Hands that at this moment rest, palms up, in your lap, feigning innocence.

  I glance at the ivory pendant around your neck and think of its bone twin around Lo’s.

  Bone isn’t good enough for you anymore. If Lo can have bone, you must have ivory.

  “How did he die?” I’m not sure when I decided to ask, but the question has been turning in my head since you first mentioned him. I know it might hurt you to talk about it. Maybe that’s why I ask.

  “How did who—”

  “Your betrothed. How did he die?”

  “I’m not sure that’s a story you want to hear or one I want to tell. At least not right now.”

  What’s wrong with right now? I don’t ask you; I don’t have to. You sit just as before: leaning slightly forward, your hair falling over the front of your shoulders. Your gaze flits all around the room, only occasionally sliding to my face and hovering there, your lips parted slightly as if you are anticipating something.

  None of this is by chance, I realize. Everything about this moment—the lingering sweetness on my lips, the glistening expectation on yours—it’s all been set in place by you. I lean toward you, taking a tentative step into the center of your elaborate snare, then step back just before the trap can spring. “It is a story I want to hear,” I say. “We’re here. . . . Why not tell me now?”

  “Fine.” Your voice is clipped and sharp. I’ve finally pushed you hard enough that you’re ready to push back. I knew you would. It’s in your nature.

  You lean away, your hands balled into small tight fists at your sides, each knuckle a bright white spike. You let out an abrupt sigh, bite back an almost-spoken word, and those angry fists push into the bearskin as you jump to your feet.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Some people can see things with their hearts. Others need to see them with their eyes.”

  I scramble to my feet. “It would be helpful if you didn’t speak in riddles,” I say.

  “Bring a spear.” You step to the door and draw back the drape enough to reveal a piece of the western sky, tinged blood red. The sun hangs so low, it’s hidden beyond the distant hills, but this is the time of year when the Divine treads slowly across the sky, and the sun refuses to set. “You are aware that something happened five years ago, and our two clans almost went to war. To you, the events of that day are insubstantial—”

  “That’s not true—”

  “Maybe someone you knew died—”

  “Yes,” I say, remembering Tram’s father dressed for the hunt, lying in his grave.

  “But that day does not follow you. For you, it stays in the past. But not for me. That day five years ago never leaves me. Its ghosts are always here.” As you speak, your cheeks flush the same intense red as the setting sun. Your eyes widen with excitement. “There’s so much you don’t understand. In a way, I suppose I envied you your ignorance. But you should know the whole story about that day. Ignorance never protected anyone for long.”

  What could your betrothed’s death have to do with the death of Tram’s father, or any of the events of that day? Somehow I fear that once I learn the whole story of what happened between our clans five years ago, nothing will ever be the same.

  You duck out through the door and I follow. “Some people need to see things to understand them. So let’s go.”

  NINETEEN

  The world outside is dim and muted—the sky a muted blue, the voices floating from the center of camp a muted hum. We manage to slide around to the trail that winds up and away from camp toward the meadow without catching anyone’s attention. For a fleeting moment, I think of our families—my father, your sister, my mother—how could they not notice our absence? But then I realize that they probably do. Perhaps they have all noted that we are both absent. Perhaps they assume we are together.

  I let you lead me up the trail, climbing the long, gradual rise that rolls from the sea toward the vast
expanse of treeless fields and meadows that stretch north, all the way to the foot of the Great Ice. The northern sky is cloaked in thick gray clouds and I wonder if ahead it might be raining. The scent of a storm swirls in the breeze—a surprisingly warm breeze that alternates with the chilly northern wind I would expect, and I know that rain is out there somewhere.

  You stoop to pick a rock from the path, a smooth round stone like an egg the size of your fist. Crouching, you dig out another, and then a third. I stop, watching your fingers claw at the dry, dusty ground, thinking of the coming rain and how it will bring new life to the wildflowers and support to the bees. The spring was wet but this summer has been dry, and we are due for relief. I glance up at the gray sky, darkening as the sun lowers, and I know the Divine will not make us wait much longer.

  Our feet move almost silently across the grass as you turn off the path and head into an open space at the edge of an outcropping of rocks, large jagged boulders that push up out of the ground like the back of a stalking cat. Insects keep a thrumming rhythm all around us, but otherwise, the night is still. You sit on the grass about fifty paces from the line of rocks and look up at me. I guess this is our destination.

  Folding my legs beneath me, I kneel on the sparse grass and watch as you arrange the stones you carry in front of you.

  “Five years ago . . .” You place the three stones in a line. “Five years ago, my clan was on the verge of breaking. There were arguments, disagreements about what path was best for our people. My father, with the breath of his final days, was advocating for a move south. Because of him, the clan constructed fifteen two-person kayaks. In those days, our clan was not familiar with the sea. We relied almost exclusively on the mammoth herds for food. Our use of kayaks was limited, and only two members of the clan were adept at boat-making. The task was slow, but eventually, fifteen boats were complete.

  My father had intended to move the clan—over sixty of us in all—in two groups. But when he died . . .” You fall silent, drawing a line in the dirt between clumps of grass with your finger. “In the end, we took thirteen kayaks and moved twenty-five people. The others—my extended family I’d known all my life—we never saw again.

  “But the trip was slow; we didn’t know the way, and we were not strong paddlers. At the end of every day on the sea, exhausted and hungry, we had to find a safe place to camp. We had to find food to eat. That was why, when we landed on your shore, we were so relieved. That was why my people were so anxious to go on a combined hunt. We needed safety, shelter, and food, and you offered us all these things.”

  As I listen to your story, a gust of sharp, cool wind flattens the grass and prompts me to tighten the laces at my throat.

  “The first night, we all slept under the stars in the center of your camp. In the morning, before first light, the hunting party gathered. They wanted to head out early, knowing the mammoths were gathered here, in this very place. My brother never forgot it—a place where rocks rose up from the ground like the inverted hull of a boat. He recognized the spot as we passed through here with your parents the day we first arrived, hiking out to the meadow to find you.

  “He leaned close to me and whispered in my ear. ‘The rocks. There.’ He didn’t say any more. He didn’t have to. I’d heard the story so many times. I knew that this was where she fell.”

  Before I can tell you that you are again speaking in riddles, you lift the stone at the head of the line in your hand.

  “This is Chev,” you say, leaning forward on your hands and knees and positioning the stone as if it were on a trek toward the rocks. “He was near the front of the group. The mammoths were huddled against those rocks in the morning mist, and he and the others were following your father.”

  You lift the second stone. “This is a man of your clan. A man known to be an excellent hunter. A man known for excellent senses.” You set the stone back in its place, along a straight line leading toward the outcropping. “This is my mother,” you say, lifting the last stone in the line. “She had dropped back after the man from your clan had heard something following behind. Dire wolves, he thought. My mother . . .” You trail off, setting the stone at the back of the line. “She hung back, watching, alert for movement stirring in the watery mist that shrouded the tall grass.

  “No one knows exactly what happened as the hunters progressed, but this is what Chev remembers: there was a cry—my mother’s voice. A flash of movement, a sudden lunge forward. The man from your clan . . .” You lift the middle stone and let it drop. It falls hard against the stone at the back, the one representing your mother.

  Your mother . . .

  You reach forward and grab the stone that represents your brother. “Chev reacted to violence with violence.” You stand, and with a flick of your wrist, you slam this strange, rigid symbol of your brother to the ground. It crashes against the middle stone and a loud crack shatters the air, sending tremors along my spine.

  I shake with the shock of a sleeper suddenly woken from a dream. All at once, each character in the tale has a name. Each stone at your feet has a face. The truth of what happened that day—I see it all, as if the haze of that day has finally burned away.

  I look out toward the ridge of protruding rocks, darkening to blue-gray silhouettes against a fading blue-gray sky, and my mother’s words echo in my ears: One of our men . . . I see him there, just twenty paces ahead of me—Tram’s father—his spear flying from his hand at the dire wolf he imagines he sees stirring in the mist . . . killed one of their women . . . And there, ten paces behind—your mother. An older version of you, crouching low, black hair falling over her shoulders, stirring the morning fog.

  One of their hunters responded by killing the man who threw the spear. The hunter who responded, who killed Tram’s father—Chev. My mind conjures the image of him—younger, slighter, but already possessing a heavy, measured gaze—as he turns to the sound of his mother’s voice, sees the empty-handed hunter, his pierced mother, and reacts, pulling the obsidian blade from his belt and cutting down the hunter where he stands.

  “It was your mother,” I say. “I never knew. . . .” Absently, I lift the stone at the back of the line from the ground, enclosing it in my fingers. “You never told me—”

  “Well, I’ve told you now.”

  You kneel down beside me, taking the mother stone from my hand. Your fingertips brush my palm. Your hair swirls in a circle in front of me, a momentary storm of darkness. “The hunters were spread out. There was confusion as to what had happened. Before your clan could organize, Chev scooped up our mother’s body and rushed to camp. He roused us, shouting a hurried confusion of words. I remember that I understood nothing except that I had to get up, had to run for the boats.

  “We were almost there—we had almost escaped—but the wife of the man Chev killed was close behind. She had been on the hunt; her spear was in her hand. She caught up to us on the beach and took her shot. She missed my brother but struck the boy beside him, my betrothed. Chev managed to pull him into the kayak before we pushed off, but his wound was bad. I remember the trail of red as his blood ran into the sea. We landed later that day in the place we now camp, but he had already died. Like my mother, he never saw the land where he would be buried.

  “He was seventeen.”

  Without speaking, we both get to our feet and start down the trail. I think of the girl you were, twelve-year-old Mya, and how much you lost that day. Your mother, your betrothed. How different a person you would be if that day had never happened.

  Did you love him? I think not, since you never say his name, but then, maybe his name is too precious to say out loud.

  Chev’s face comes to my mind—his willful brow and unyieldingly stubborn gaze. He led half your clan into the unknown—his own mother, led to her death.

  You walk slightly in front of me, the mother stone still in your grasp. We reach the ring of huts and you follow me back to my door.

  “He never made it to the south,” I say, though I’m
not really addressing you. I’m just thinking out loud, letting it all take form and meaning in my mind. We duck into the hut. The space is wrapped in a sheen of amber light as if warmth itself were visible. “He’d sided with Chev—with you and your family. And yet he never made it to see the bountiful south. He could never have known he was going to his death. That if by some chance he’d chosen to stay with the Bosha, if he’d chosen to stay under the leadership of Lo’s father—”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” The harshness of your voice tears me from my thoughts. I turn to see the same glare of contempt in your eyes that I’d seen on the day of our hunt. “Are you saying that to stay with Lo and her wretched father would have been a better choice—”

  “I’m only saying he would have lived. He couldn’t have known it then, of course, but his decision to leave with your brother was his undoing—”

  “The decision to come ashore at your camp was his undoing! It wasn’t Chev who killed him. It wasn’t Chev who killed our mother—”

  Something burns in your eyes, something fierce and frightening, and though it terrifies me, I cannot resist it. I cannot stay safely away.

  A quick uptake of breath fills my lungs.

  “I’m not making a judgment,” I say. “I’m only pointing out the senselessness of it all. None of those deaths—your mother’s, Tram’s father’s, your betrothed’s—none of them would have happened, if only your brother and Lo’s father—”

  “Stop!” You turn in place as if to leave, only to whirl back to face me again. A scent stirs in the air, musky and dark. “I don’t know what kind of story Lo’s imagination produced for you, but I can assure you that nothing she told you was the truth—”

  A flash of heat burns through my chest as the sound of Lo’s name rings in my ears. Her name, spat with such venom from your lips, as if it were a common curse.