The group fell silent. Two of her friends offered to stay with her.
Then Clare admitted she wasn’t being completely truthful. She didn’t feel unwell so much as she wanted to be private, to think about her baby’s name, to idle alone in the hot springs. Now the other women looked relieved. They could understand that. Besides, they would go faster and gather more plants without her.
They all agreed that Jon was too protective. “He’s like a mother ground sloth,” Clare’s best friend joked. “A heavy blanket,” another said. “You want the warmth but then, suddenly, you’re hot.” “He’s always been stubborn,” an older woman spoke. “Remember all those damn-muck-a-luck birds? Besides, he’s still angry …” She stopped, not liking where this would lead. “He loves you so much. He’s so happy about the baby,” she finished, and Clare nodded.
They watched her backtrack and slip over to the woods by the stream. They waved good-bye. Clare waved good-bye. Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!
She stood for an extra minute, waving. Then she turned and walked downstream, fast but careful not to stumble over cobble or tree roots. She didn’t want to think too much about what she was doing. Instead she focused on birdsong, recognizing the call of black-headed phoebe and yellow-breasted chat. There was the flash of a hummingbird, which always meant good luck. There were coyote tracks, and fox, a black bear and a badger, a mountain lion and direwolf. Clare stopped at the print, but this direwolf was normal-toed and unaccompanied by human footprints, probably a male running without a pack. She smelled something rotting in a hackberry—the odor enough to make her gag. She mentally marked a patch of sweet-root to gather later. She tried to be alert and present in the moment, despite what she was doing and whom she was meeting.
Scrambling up the rocks to the cave, Clare scraped her palm and sent small showers of pebbles below. A noise above told her he was there, and then a dark hand and arm were pulling her to the top, his glasses askew, the smile shy. She could only imagine what she looked like to Brad: misshapen and unbalanced. A stranger with a stranger in her womb. Suddenly Clare felt angry. She carried his son or daughter, something that belonged to him more profoundly than anything else in the world, and yet something that didn’t belong to him at all—the child already claimed by another man. What did Brad know of this new heart beating, the umbilical cord pulsing with blood, new thoughts forming—the brain developed enough to think! The baby already responded to music! What did he know of vomiting and back pain and a clutching in her chest?
“Where have you been?” she asked, shaking off the lab rat’s help once they were on flatter ground. The cave entrance was as she remembered, a clutter of boulders hiding a black hole that led into a deep low-ceilinged rock shelter. She looked around for Luke.
“She’s here,” Brad called at the same time.
And Clare had to stop herself from crying out as the old man and the direwolf emerged from the cave. Luke squinted as if just up from a nap. The sun was already hot and high, but Clare understood: You slept when you could, especially if you had been traveling through the night. Dog yawned ostentatiously, his pink tongue lolling.
Clare fought down her panic. Yes, this was Dog, the same brown and yellow coloring, the same extra toe. She remembered the stench of the rotting head. Had she imagined that scene in Brad’s office? Out of habit, she put a hand on her stomach and spoke to the baby: It’s all right. Don’t worry. We’re okay.
“You can touch him,” Brad said.
Carefully, the direwolf came forward, and she put down her other hand and touched the top of his head. The fur felt gritty from the dust in the cave. She smelled that Dog smell, wet fur and meaty breath. Dog whined, as if wanting a real pet. Brad watched her. Luke grunted and went back into the cave to retrieve a pack, which he put on the ground against the trunk of a pine. Then he sat down himself.
Clare stepped back and looked at Dog more closely. She turned her head to see him from another angle, from the corner of her eye, to catch him by surprise. “Just tell me the truth,” she said wearily to Brad. “Start at the beginning and tell me what you’ve done.”
Before Brad would begin, he insisted she eat some jerky from Luke’s pack and gave her water from a leather bottle. Then he explained methodically, step by step, everything Clare had missed. He didn’t seem to hold anything back. He and Luke had scavenged for edutoys in Los Alamos. He had experimented on the head of a direwolf. And a sunflower. On twelve sunflowers. The Council had become suspicious. He had to flee in the night with his radios and solarcomp. He had experimented on a mouse. The next thing he knew he was surrounded by golden animals, surrounded by light.
The details were so shocking they had to be true. And then Brad was saying that he could bring back Elise. He could bring back Clare’s daughter just as he had brought back Dog, just as he had brought back a camel, a saber-toothed cat, two horses, two deer, two black bears, a small cat, and five mice. Elise could be sitting here, bright and funny, four-year-old Elise chattering about her pretend-games and pretend-dramas, her little families of sticks and pebbles, laughing at her mother’s jokes, asking to be tickled, asking for something good to eat. All Brad needed was a bit of Elise’s hair.
Clare stared at Brad. She stared at Luke, who nodded. She touched the leather bag at her neck. That’s how he had brought back the others. A bit of hair or bone. Dog would help. Dog knew what to do. Elise would be here again—her unique consciousness, a glowing Elise just like Dog. Brad would do this for her. Because he loved her. Because he wanted her to be happy and because he knew—he had always known—about the longing and the hunger. The hole in her life. Clare put her hands on her stomach. It’s okay, she told the new baby. It’s okay. We’re okay.
She waited for the outrage to rise up and fill her chest and open her throat. She waited for the self she knew to say no. This was impossible. This was wrong. This was against The Return and the Council and the elders.
She remembered the moment Elise died. She remembered rocking back and forth in front of her dying daughter. Because Elise couldn’t die. Because that was impossible. Your child couldn’t die, couldn’t leave you like this. Because you loved her so much. Because your love was so powerful. Your love protected her, would always protect her. Your love made everything possible. And then Elise gasped. Then Elise was still. They put her in a tree for the black birds to eat and buried her bones in a leather pouch near a white-barked sycamore. Elise was gone forever.
Had Clare ever believed that?
The new baby kicked. Don’t worry, Clare said to her stomach. I’ll protect you.
But she hadn’t. She couldn’t. She didn’t. Had any of that really happened? Had her daughter really died? Would the new baby die? Would Jon kill the new baby? Of course, yes, Jon would kill the baby if the baby were damaged like Elise had been damaged. But that wouldn’t happen. Clare wouldn’t let that happen. Her love made everything possible.
And Clare felt a wind rush through her body, a wind so strong that all certainties swayed before it and blew away. Flux and change. Only one thing remained, one thing at the center. The baby in her womb, the baby she had lost. She wouldn’t let them die. She wouldn’t let them go. Brad had returned, and Dog had returned, and they were offering her something she couldn’t refuse. She only needed to hold out her hand. Nothing else mattered. She only needed to take this gift.
Brad was explaining that Elise would not be like Dog right away. Elise would have to adjust to her new form, and so Clare had to expect some confusion and dissonance. Dog should be the first to go to Elise. Clare would have to be patient.
Clare felt the new baby turn over in her stomach. The baby was saying: I’m alive. The pine trees were saying: We’re alive. The rocks, the buzzing insects: alive, alive. The world was so present, so real. Elise could be here, too. Elise was saying: I’m alive. I’m alive!
“Clare?” Brad asked. “Do you want me to bring Elise back?”
Luke broke in as if irritated. “What do you expect her to
say to that?”
Clare remembered thinking: Freedom has limits. But this wasn’t about that. She had never felt less free.
“Clare,” Brad asked, “do you understand?” His voice was deep, serious.
And Clare thought of how smart her daughter was, how Elise would adjust much more quickly than Dog. Brad didn’t know. Elise was a fast learner. Clare thought that they should have something ready for the little girl to eat, and then she remembered that Elise wouldn’t need food. She wouldn’t need water. She wouldn’t need to breathe.
“I understand,” Clare said. There was nothing to understand, nothing to think about. She watched as Brad went to the pack and got out his solarcomp and two radios. Luke closed his eyes. Dog panted like a dog on a hot day.
Brad looked nervous when he asked for the leather bag, when Clare took it off for the first time in six years and he took out the curl of Elise’s dark hair. Gently, he put the hair on the ground near the radios. Clare watched and at the last moment thought quite clearly: This is probably a dream. This probably isn’t happening.
“Okay?” Brad asked again.
Yes, she agreed. She agreed. She understood.
It’s okay, she told the new baby.
Dog came up closer, near the hair. He and Brad fell silent. Brad typed on his computer. Luke kept his eyes closed.
Oh, Clare laughed, a barking noise. Elise shimmered in the air. That was Elise’s face screwed up in protest and distaste, newly awake. That was Elise’s hair messy and uncombed. That was Elise’s naked body, the slightly distended stomach, the thin arms and legs.
The body, however, seemed uncertain, drifting off into space, partly dissolving. There was some sparking, some radiance. An electromagnetic shiver. Clare was standing now, walking toward her daughter. Brad stood, too, and blocked her way. Dog hovered near the child.
“Mommy!” Elise screamed. “Mommy!”
Clare didn’t know if this were a real sound or a sound inside her head, but Elise was talking to her. Elise wanted her. Brad seemed surprised when Clare pushed him aside and kept moving forward. Elise flickered. More sparking, more radiance. Clare couldn’t touch her yet. She couldn’t embrace her.
“Wait,” Dog cautioned. “Give her a little time.”
Clare almost jumped to hear the direwolf in her thoughts, speaking clearly in a complete sentence. Brad had said that Dog would know what to do. Dog would help.
“Yes, I can help,” Dog answered. “And this is wonderful. She can already talk to us! She knows you already. She wants you.”
Of course, she wants me, Clare thought. Of course, she wants her mother.
A few hours later, as the shadows lengthened and the afternoon air began to cool, they all realized that this was a problem. Elise wouldn’t leave Clare’s side and that meant Clare couldn’t return to the winter camp.
Clare said out loud what she had known as soon as Brad took the leather bag. Perhaps she had known earlier, the moment she saw Dog. She wondered how her body could contain these contradictions, this joy and this grief. She wondered why she wasn’t herself sparking and dissolving. “I can never go back to camp,” she told Brad. No one in the tribe would understand what had just happened. No one would approve. What would they do to Elise when they saw her? What would they do to Clare and Brad?
Now Clare had to go with Brad and Luke and Dog. Now she and the new baby and Elise had to flee, for they no longer had a place with the Rio Chama people. How lucky that Jon thought she was with her girlfriends and her girlfriends thought she was at the hot springs. It was important to go back to the stream now and erase the sign of her footprints. Luke could do that while she soothed Elise and got her ready for the journey. Dog could help with Elise while Brad packed and cleaned the area around the cave. Jon mustn’t guess they had ever been here. They must make it hard for Jon to track them.
But they had to hurry. Clare gave her orders. It was late afternoon, and they should be on their way. How lucky that her people (her mother, her father, her grandmother) would be leaving soon for the summer camp. This would also make it hard for them to find her. How lucky that she would have a full moon tonight, the moon that looked after pregnant women, the moon like a gourd full of seeds.
Assignment Six: What I Would Like to Do This Summer, submitted by María Escobar
What I would like to do this summer is go on my long quest. All the smaller quests I have been on have just made me more ready for this one. I’ll be fifteen years old, turning sixteen, and in my tribe we think of this long quest as my quinceañera, a celebration of who I am as a woman and tribal member. I want to be gone with my guide for at least a month. My friend Carlos had his long quest three years ago and he said it was wonderful. I know I will learn a lot on this quest and it will become a defining moment in my life! I am so excited to do this! My elders are waiting now for your final evaluation of my work during these last few years. As soon as you send them that evaluation they can choose a guide and start the preparations. I hope you think that I have done well. I have really tried and I have also learned a lot from you! I hope you send them my evaluation soon.
PART THREE
Clare gave her death-shriek. Rabbits shrieked like this when they were being torn apart by hyenas. Clare remembered that sound. For a moment, she looked down from a branch in the juniper tree and saw herself, her mouth hanging open, her sweaty naked belly, and the top of Lucia’s gray head. Lucia’s shoulders twisted as she put her hand into Clare and tore her apart. It was such a shame. Clare had wanted to say good-bye to Elise. To Brad. To the new baby. She was so sorry to leave them.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
DOG
Dog was watching the humans dream. He had promised Brad to stay out of people’s minds, but he felt this did not include the periods when they were sleeping, their thoughts so chaotic and relatively unconscious. Dog suspected his own reasoning on this subject could be called specious. He was rationalizing his behavior, a kind of lying to himself. That was interesting.
He just really liked watching humans dream. He liked to think, too, that he was helping Luke/Lucia by manipulating his/her dreams so that they were calmer and more knitted together. In his present form, Dog himself could not affect the physical world. But that part of him still in Luke’s brain had become an actual part of Luke’s brain wired into neurons, and Dog could use the Dog-in-Luke to nudge along a thought or connection. Yes, Dog-in-Luke could give Luke a little push. A little encouragement.
Dog only did this to make Luke feel better. Luke was a chameleon. Luke was a kaleidoscope. Luke was fractured. Luke was Lucia was the lover of Brad’s mother was the father to Dog was the wise man to Brad was the lonely old woman was the lost soul was the childless womb was the hunter was the midwife was the voice of humanity was regret was guilt was love for Dog. In his lifetime, Dog had known Luke as the person Lucia usually wanted to be. But Lucia had been dominant before and might be again in response to Clare’s pregnancy. It didn’t matter. Lucia was Luke was the lover of Brad’s mother was the lonely little girl was the protector of mice was the researcher of mutations was the scavenger was the elder was regret was guilt was love for Dog. They all came together in dreams, and sometimes they fought like two children wrestling each other, like mighty Titans, and then Dog gave a little push—urging peace.
Dog understood that all humans were made up of such multiple parts, many things united under one thing they called “myself,” fractured bits of consciousness assembling and disassembling. Luke was only more so. He contained more parts than usual, more hormones than usual, and that seemed to throw off the balance. Dog understood that he himself had once been made of many parts, his mutated heritage, the leakage from Luke and Brad and the giant shortfaced bear. All the stories he had heard, all the games he had played.
Dog saw an opportunity and gave a little nudge, retrieving an old memory: Luke throwing a stick and Dog bringing it back. Back and forth. A pleasing motion. Back and forth. Nothing at stake. Nothing that would cha
nge the world. This was a healing dream. Dog saw how it made Luke relax. The muscles in the man’s neck loosened. The easy movement. Back and forth. Dog was still half-grown, almost a puppy. Luke was younger, and Dog made him laugh. The clumsy eager puppy. Back and forth.
Dog left Luke and moved over to Brad sleeping nearby, the humans in an arranged pile. Dog was always on night watch now, and no one else needed to take a turn. Dog would alert them to the first sign of danger.
Most of the time, Brad’s dreams were practical. He worked on equations or some other problem he had encountered during the day. Tonight he was reliving the last few days, going over their actions, looking for mistakes. They had started off strong. Leaving the stream, Clare felt certain that any signs of her and the others had been erased, making it difficult for Jon to follow them. Elise was adjusting well to her new condition, already talking after only a few minutes, already able to float beside them in a coherent shape. Luke said he knew of a place to hide, a canyon not near any human trail. There would be water and game and a large cave for protection from the summer storms. The old man led the way, and they walked all that moonlit night.
Then Luke grew doubtful. He didn’t recognize these mountains. It had been years ago, before Dog. The old man muttered to himself and began to move his hands secretly. Brad was not completely surprised. Luke still refused to look at Elise. Perhaps he was nearing a kind of breakdown. Things were happening too fast. The future rushing toward them.
On another level, Brad worried they were going too fast for Clare. She was huge! Surely this kind of speed was bad for her and the baby? In Brad’s dream now, Elise began to scream, “Mommy! Mommy!” although she hadn’t done this in real life except for that once when her unique consciousness was newly reassembled. Even so, throughout the day and night, she had demanded attention, trying to catch butterflies (her hands passed right through them) or asking about her father (not really understanding that he was gone, now and forever) or wandering away from her mother—so that Clare called frantically and Dog went to herd the girl back. Clare had looked increasingly dazed. They were traveling with a four-year-old who could float and keep an adult pace, who didn’t eat or drink or need rest, but who in other ways was nearly uncontrollable.
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