CIRCLES OF STONE (THE MOTHER PEOPLE SERIES)

by LAMBERT, JOAN DAHR

  "Love is in my heart, in my hands, as I do this, Mina. Go now to the Mother, for She takes you back to Her heart."

  Placing the stone reverently on Mina's chest, Kalar rose to her feet and stood, straight and tall. Arms outstretched, she spoke in a full, strong voice that all could hear.

  "Great Mother, Giver of Life, take Mina, my eldest daughter, to Your heart. I, Kalar, will keep the little one, as Your picture told me. Great Mother, give me strength to do as You have asked."

  For a long moment, she stood absolutely still, her face raised to the sky. Slowly, the brilliant red ball of the sun slid over the horizon and touched her eyelids with pink. It was the signal for which she had waited.

  Once again, she knelt and placed her palms against the stretched skin of her daughter's stomach. Her long fingers probed and pushed as she tried to feel what lay within so she would know how to accomplish the task the Mother had given her. The weight of her actions compressed her lips and furrowed her brow, but her hands did not falter. Taking a deep, calming breath, she grasped her cutting stone. Slowly, with great deliberation, she cut a long, shallow slit across Mina's belly. Blood welled up; one of the women knelt and sopped it up with fresh leaves. Again, Kalar cut, deeper this time. Then she shoved her hands into the wound and felt for the life within. Around and around her hands went, feeling, exploring, hoping.

  Cere's stomach heaved and bile rose in her throat. She thrust the sensations away. She must be strong, for her mother's sake, for Mina's sake.

  Kalar's hands leaped, as if she had been kicked. She withdrew them and made another careful slit, opposite to the first. Her eyes wrinkled as she struggled to see into the dark wound. Abruptly, she thrust both hands back into Mina's belly and pulled. Blood spurted up around her; Mina's blood, her daughter's blood. It showed darkly up to her elbows, stained her knees and chest as she leaned over to pull harder. Then the infant came, so suddenly she almost fell backward. It squirmed in her hands, bloodied, nearly unrecognizable. A thin wail rose from its tiny chest, but the cry seemed to strangle in its throat. Quickly, Kalar placed her lips over the infant's mouth and sucked hard. Hearing no further sounds, she held it upside down and slapped gently at its back. She sucked again, more strongly. Another wail emerged, then another.

  Kalar called for fresh leaves to wipe the squalling infant. Exhaustion marked her face, but there was exaltation in it, too. She had done the thing that had come to her in a picture, a picture that had come from the Life-Giver. Never before had an infant been plucked alive from the belly of its dead mother. Now it had been done, and it could be done again. She could not save the tiny babies, the ones born too early, but she could save some of the others, the ones too big to be born. Even if the Mother took the women who tried to bear them, she, Kalar, might keep the precious life within. Until this time of change was over, they did not need to lose them all. And perhaps, as her vision had told her, good would finally come from their ordeal.

  Sunlight bathed the birthing place now. Kalar could see the infant clearly. It was a girl child, and like its mother, it had a long, high forehead. Its head was very big; never before had she seen a head so large in a newborn infant. Perhaps, she thought, that was because it had lingered such a long time in the womb. What might such a thing portend?

  Kalar frowned. She must ask the Mother, seek Her wisdom. But now there were practical tasks, tasks associated with life, to attend to. She signaled to Pote, the most experienced of the women, to help her cut and tie the cord. The baby was quiet as they concentrated on making a knot close to its round belly, but this time Kalar was not alarmed. Its breathing was regular, its skin darkly pink and healthy, unlike the poor little male child Cere had borne, with its translucent skin and frail body. Kalar turned and approached her other daughter. It was good, after all, in this way.

  Tears sprang unbidden into Cere's eyes as Kalar placed the infant in her arms. Her mother honored her to trust her with this special child. She glanced up at Kalar, to express her knowledge of the honor, but her throat was too full for speaking words. Kalar grasped her message anyway, and inclined her head to let Cere know she understood.

  The infant began to wail lustily again. Cere held it close, to comfort it. Her own had never cried like that. It had never made a noise at all, except to gasp for breath it could not draw. This one was much bigger, and it wriggled energetically. She touched its round cheek gently, marveling at the perfection of its features. Its head jerked immediately in the direction of her hand, and its tiny lips pursed. Amused, Cere turned its face toward her nipple. The infant stretched its body taut and began to suckle eagerly. Its fingers scrabbled at her chest.

  A strong, sharp thrill shot through Cere as the sucking at her breast intensified. She had never felt such a sensation before. It was like fire, except much softer. It settled, glowing, in a place just below her belly. She stared at the baby, entranced by its tiny form, by the feelings it evoked in her. She hardly noticed the other women as they gathered around her to peer at the tiny one. Each of them touched it gently and murmured a blessing.

  Then, one at a time, they went to Mina's body. Chanting the word of caring, each woman placed fragrant leaves over her, until the terrible wound was covered, and kissed her forehead. Cere rose, to take her turn. She held the infant over Mina, so her spirit could see that the baby lived.

  "See your small one, Mina." She pointed to herself, then to her heart, then to the infant. "I will care for it now; it is in my heart, more precious even than my own."

  Emotion overcame her as she kissed Mina's forehead, and she began to sob. Kalar raised her gently, signaling to two of the women. With comforting hands, they steered Cere away from the birthing place toward the shelter in the clearing. There they prepared fresh bedding of rushes, and settled her on it. They brought cool water from the stream that flowed into the river, fruit and nuts for her to eat. Cere accepted them eagerly. All through the long night, she had taken neither food nor water. But even as she stretched out a hand for more, sleep claimed her, and she did not move again until the infant stirred in her arms.

  When she awoke, Kalar was standing beside her. She reached for the baby and juggled it expertly in her arms. Once again, her face was serene, as if the night had never happened. The infant turned its head toward her breast and made sucking noises with its tiny pink lips. When no food came, it screamed in protest. For a long moment, Kalar stared into its rapidly purpling face, then she handed it to Cere. Triggered by the baby's cry, milk was already leaking from her breasts. As soon as the infant touched a wet nipple, its squalling stopped. Cere and Kalar laughed at the suddenness of the silence.

  Kalar turned away, her laughter suppressed by the questions that had arisen as she stared at the baby. They had been with her for so long. Would she never understand? This infant was well grown, sucking strongly before it had been in the outer world for even a few hours. It was big enough to live, but too big to be born. After such a long time in the womb, its head, especially, was too large to fit through the narrow passage between its mother's legs. Cere's infant, and many others who had emerged at the normal time, were not developed enough to live. But they could be born, the others could not. What was the answer? For a moment, her brow furrowed. Then her habitual serenity returned. When the time was right, the Mother would provide an answer.

  *************************

  That is how Zena was born. The story was told over and over again, as the group sat around the fire in the long evenings. It was such an astonishing event, that Kalar had plucked a living infant from its dead mother's belly. Just as remarkable was Zena herself. Even as a small child, she was determined to make sense of everything she saw and heard and felt. She examined the world around her - animals and birds, plants and flowers, even tiny insects or seeds - with endless curiosity. Sometimes the others laughed at her for looking so serious and asking so many questions. Cere, though, never laughed. She listened carefully even when she was incapable of understanding what Zena meant or of answe
ring her, and she watched over the child with great care.

  Kalar, too, watched Zena carefully as she grew, seeking clues to the problem that confronted her. It was obvious that the child had abilities the others did not possess. Zena could make words easily, for her thoughts as well as for objects, could accomplish things with her hands and form ideas that never occurred to any other. Was it, perhaps, her unusually large head, that had made it impossible for Mina to bear her, that also made Zena so intelligent? If that was the case, Kalar could think of no solution. It was good to be intelligent, bad to be unable to be born, and she could not imagine how even the Mother could resolve such a cruel dilemma.

  Sighing, she went off to help still another woman struggling in childbirth. Again, the woman died; again, Kalar wielded her sharp stone and pulled the infant out. It, too, had an unusually big head, she noticed, not as big as Zena's, but still bigger and with a much higher brow than babies in the past.

  In the ensuing years, Kalar repeated her procedure many times, sometimes for the women of her own tribe or another tribe that lived nearby, sometimes for women in more distant tribes who sent for her in desperation when babies were unable to emerge. Some of the infants lived, but many were born dead when she was too late with the cutting. But always the mothers died. Kalar gave them her herbs, over and over again, to ease their suffering. And she waited, wondering if her tribe would survive the decimation. Six women had died already; now only five were left.

  Surely, she thought, the Mother would send her another message soon, so she could help her tribe. But all that came to her was a picture of a female with enormous buttocks and large, pendulous breasts.

  She looked down at her sturdy, wide-hipped body. Then she thought of Mina, with her boyish frame. Most of the women who had died had looked like Mina, with hips no wider than those of the men. But she, Kalar, had given birth to Mina, whose head had been big and high-browed, to other young ones as well, and she had lived. Perhaps, after all, the Mother was showing her a solution.

  Kalar knelt and scraped at the earth with her digging stick. After much effort, a sketch of the imagined female emerged. The figure had almost no head, for its features were not important, but it had wide, encompassing hips, and huge breasts that hung luxuriantly across its swollen belly.

  A woman like this could give birth with ease, Kalar thought with satisfaction, and feed the infant well.

  She went to find Lett. Handing him a chunk of wood, she showed him her picture and indicated with gestures and a few words that he should carve the figure from the wood.

  Lett stared at her, astonished. He made cutting and scraping stones of many sizes; he sharpened digging sticks for all of them, for his were the best. But never before had he made a carving in wood.

  He shook his head doubtfully, but he went off to try. All day, he sat by Kalar's drawing and stared at it while he chipped at the piece of wood, trying to make it conform to the picture on the ground. The wood broke, and he threw it down in disgust. But now, Kalar could see, he did not want to give up. He was the most skilled of all of them with cutting stones, and he did not want the others to see him fail. He went off to find more wood, stronger this time, and set to work again.

  Two days later, he approached Kalar with his handiwork, and she was pleased. The figure was clumsy, but it resembled the picture the Mother had given her. The hips were wonderfully wide and encompassing, the belly extended, the breasts full and drooping. She smiled gratefully at Lett, and showed the figure to the others in the tribe. Some of them leaped away from it in fear. Kalar said the word Mother, to reassure them. They did not touch it, but they looked at it curiously when they passed it at the birthing place. Kalar placed it there, certain that the Mother intended it to help those who would come next.

  The figure did seem to help, for in the years that followed, the women's birth problems slowly began to ease. The first sign came early one morning, when a live female infant was born to Nyta at the usual time, after ten cycles of the moon. Twice before, Nyta's infants born after ten moons had died. Like Cere's, they had been too small to breathe. But this time the infant lived despite its apparent frailty. It was much smaller than Zena had been, for more than thirteen moons had passed before she had tried to emerge. Unlike Zena, Nyta's infant could not support itself at all, but just flopped helplessly. Still, it had a lusty scream and seemed quite healthy.

  Feeling the baby's skull with her sensitive fingers, Kalar discovered a soft place near the top, where the bones did not meet. Consternation creased her forehead. Never before had she seen an infant with a soft skull! It would probably die. How could a child with a hole in its head manage to live?

  Disappointed, Kalar returned the baby to its mother. She showed her the soft place, and gestured that she should be careful not to let the baby drop. But she did not think her warning would do much good. Even if the infant grew stronger in its body, it would never be able to play normally. One blow to the head would kill it, if it even lived that long.

  In the years that followed, three more infants were born that resembled Nyta's. Like hers, they arrived after only ten or eleven moon cycles, and they had the strange soft places in their skulls. Two of them lived, but still Kalar shook her head in despair. It seemed impossible that they could survive for long. But to her surprise, they seemed to thrive, as did Nyta's infant. Even more surprising, the holes in their heads gradually closed. All three children were slow to develop; even after a year, they were unsteady on their feet. Zena had walked after only seven moons. But in spite of their slowness, it seemed to Kalar that they possessed some of the abilities Zena displayed. They spoke words very early and watched everything that happened around them with bright, inquiring eyes. Like Zena, they had heads that were disproportionately large for their bodies.

  They could never have been born had they stayed longer in the womb, Kalar realized. Perhaps that was the Mother's solution, to cause infants to emerge as soon as they were strong enough to live, but before the big, high-domed heads that promised such intelligence were too large to fit through the passage to the outer world. If that was true, good might come from their ordeal, as She had promised.

  Kalar was gratified to see, too, that as the years passed many of the women really did begin to look more like the figure Lett had carved. The Mother's sign, so incomprehensible at first, had been a good one. Almost every woman who survived a birth was wide hipped, and as they grew, their daughters' hips became even more rounded. Kalar had lived through almost three generations, and she was certain she could see the difference. She could not be absolutely sure that the picture the Mother had given her, and Lett's carving, had helped to make the changes, but she took no chances. She instructed Lett to make many of his figures, and each time the Mother caused an infant to form in a woman's belly, she gave her one to keep in the sleeping place.

  Soon the women became accustomed to the figures, and were reassured by them. They felt closer to the Mother when they had one in their hands. In the years when they had watched so many die in childbirth, all the members of the tribe, men as well as women, had become closer to the Mother. They came often to the blessed circle of stones to ask the Mother to let the women who labored there live. The first figure Lett had made still rested within the circle, and they stood before it or held it in their hands as they spoke. And as the years passed, She continued to hear their pleas. Women still struggled in childbirth, but they no longer died in such terrible numbers, and more infants lived, even when they were born very early.

  There were other changes. Some Kalar could see; others were invisible, or part of a process that would continue long after she had returned to the Mother. The widening of the women's bones beneath their newly rounded hips was hidden from her eyes, though she suspected it must be there. She would have been surprised to know, though, that beneath the big skulls she observed, brain tissue would become ever more convoluted, turning over and over on itself so it could grow without taking up more space. That skulls continued to
become thinner and less rigid, she did perceive. Zena's skull had been huge and thick, as hard as a rock. Now, almost all the infants that lived had thinner skulls, with the worrisome holes that closed up later. Kalar had realized, finally, after assisting at so many births, that the gaps allowed the skull to be compressed as the infant struggled to emerge.

  Truly, she thought, the Mother had wondrous solutions. Kalar thanked Her constantly, especially when she attended a birth and saw labor progressing as it should. The pain of watching women struggle uselessly all through the long nights had become almost too much to bear. But at the same time, she was aware that the welcome changes were causing unexpected problems. In the past, infants had always been able to hold on to their mothers, but now they could not even hold their heads up or keep their backs straight. Kalar was sure they would one day be very intelligent, but in the meantime they were completely helpless. Their mothers had to use both arms to keep them safe, and that made food gathering difficult. If a mother wanted to pick berries or dig tubers, or drink water, she had to put the infant down. Then it screamed and she was forced to pick it up again lest it attract predators.

  The difficulties did not disappear as the babies grew. They became stronger, but they also got heavier and heavier, and they had to be carried for almost two years. Nyta and the other women with little ones came back exhausted each night, without food for the group, for they could carry little besides their babies. Life was harder for the women now, Kalar mused. But almost before the thought came to her, she chastised herself for her complaint. After all, the problem was not so severe. Their women were no longer dying, and that was most important. The Mother would send a solution to this newest difficulty, just as She had for the last one, and all the others through the years. And just as they had before, the tribe would manage until the Mother spoke. Those without infants - the men and the older children - could bring back most of the food. Already, the men were helping more, and that, surely, was good.