Yet once the boats have landed—once I’m climbing out of the canoe, stretching the cramps out of my legs—I notice something feels off. At this time of day I would expect to find Aunt Ama’s family fishing or gathering shellfish, but no one is out on the water or on the shore. It’s still, far more still than it should be. Gulls circle overhead, their squawks calling attention to the otherwise complete quiet. I drag my heavy feet up the steep bank to dry land, following close behind Pek. I think he and I both spot it at the same time—something out of place on our familiar strip of rocks and sand—a kayak.
Of course, there’s nothing strange about a kayak, but this boat is not one that I recognize. It lies on its side, displaying a hull that is longer and more narrow than the hulls of the boats my aunt’s family constructs. The sides are deeper, the bottom flatter.
This boat was not built by anyone I know.
This boat brought strangers to our shore.
THIRTEEN
My mother does not appear to notice anything out of place—she’s too distracted by her social obligations to the oarsmen.
“The midday meal has already been eaten, I’m sure,” she says, stumbling out of the canoe, not willing to wait for someone to help her. She must be as anxious as I am to feel our own land under her feet again. “But come with me. I’ll make sure that you are well fed and rested before you return home.” My brothers and I drag the boats up and ground them on the rocks not far from the strange kayak. As we do, Roon lets out a yelp.
“This boat! I’ve seen this boat before!” Standing on our beach now, with the sun high in its arc overhead, Roon points to a thin wisp of smoke rising from the far western edge of our bay. Before I can ask him what he’s thinking, he dashes up the trail and disappears from my view.
Pek throws me a glance full of caution and questions before hurrying after Roon.
Kesh shrugs. “And I thought the adventure was over.”
As we climb the trail behind Roon and Pek, music reaches my ears. A drumbeat and a voice. “The song of friendship,” says Kesh. I recognize the voice of the singer—my father’s brother, Reeth, one of the elders of the clan.
We reach the circle of huts and there she is—the person who brought the boat. Sitting on the ground in the center of the gathering place, directly beside my uncle and his wife, is a girl with a long braid on either side of her face, her dark, deep-set eyes presiding over round cheeks and a wide smile. Hers is a face I know well—a face I grew up with.
This is Shava, the very same girl who once cooked every kill my brother Pek brought in.
She had wanted to be betrothed to my brother, but he had convinced our parents to decline. “There’s nothing wrong with her,” Pek had said when my parents had pressed him. “Can’t I like her for a friend, but not for a wife?”
Two years ago, my parents agreed not to force the matter. I think they would have changed their minds by now, if she and her mother hadn’t left the Manu. But when her mother’s native clan—the Bosha—passed through our land two years ago, they rejoined them.
So the Bosha must be the clan camping on our western shore.
My eyes scan the group. Kesh and Roon stand at the edge of the meeting place with my parents and the oarsmen, listening to the song, but Pek is nowhere to be seen.
Though it was just a little over two years ago that I last saw Shava, it feels like a different lifetime. Back before fear about the lack of females in our clan really took root, when we still had intermittent contact with other clans. Back before the sight of smoke rising from camps to the west or north disappeared completely.
But even then, panic over the lack of prospective wives for me and my three younger brothers didn’t develop overnight. Two years ago I was fifteen—old enough to marry but certainly not old enough to worry. The clans that crossed our path were more transient than we were, and my father and mother frequently mentioned that they suspected they had followed herds to the west or even inland, far to the east, along the southern edge of the Great Ice. Still, everyone spoke with confidence about the coming day when another clan—one with many young women—would camp nearby.
A clan would arrive in the summer, when the days got longer. That was my mother’s constant refrain. When summer was half over without a sign of anyone, my father said that the fall would bring a wandering clan to our bay, where the fishing was easy. Fish helped feed a clan into the winter when hunting got more difficult and the game harder to find. Even once the harbor froze over, fishing was still possible, especially from a bay like ours, bordered by points that extended beyond the ice to the open sea. Of course a clan would come—maybe more than one.
Then fall came, then winter, then spring, then summer again. When a year had passed since we’d seen signs of another clan, worry began to grow. Like a vine, it sprang up and sent out shoots into every part of my clan. It sprouted in the thoughts of my mother and father, its tendrils binding all of us so that the more the worry grew the more it restricted us. We stopped talking about the other clans. We stopped planning for one to arrive. Only Roon, when he was just eleven years old, was bold enough to face down the fear. He would take off and search, wandering the shoreline, looking for any sign. After two years of no contact from outside, my clan hadn’t given up all hope, but it was close.
As hope faded and fear grew, the prospect of a move south became the focus of our elders’ plans. And then you arrived, and everyone believed we were saved. All our fears were banished when Chev came to shore with a beautiful boat and two beautiful sisters.
Your arrival was so captivating to all of us—so amazing and wonderful—that when another clan finally camped nearby, no one except Roon even cared.
But this afternoon, finding the strange kayak on the beach and Shava sitting in the center of my camp, knowing everything I’ve come to know about you and your clan and the impossibility that betrothals could ever take place—the arrival of another clan is very welcome indeed.
The friendship song comes to a halt as our clanspeople rush over to welcome us home. Shava springs to her feet as my extended family peppers me with questions about what I’ve been through. It seems the oarsmen who came to camp two days ago to bring my family south told the tale of the cat I had killed and—outside my family’s hearing—shared a gruesome description of my injuries. Everyone wants me to take off my parka and show my wounds.
My mother asks for volunteers to help her prepare a midday meal for my family and the oarsmen, and Shava is quick to offer help. My mother thanks her and gives her a warm embrace.
Of course she does. Now that she knows of Seeri’s betrothal, she could only believe the Divine herself sent Shava back to our shores.
As soon as Shava disappears through the door to the kitchen, Pek emerges from my family’s hut. He must have been staying out of sight.
I turn to him and smirk. “Shava’s helping in the kitchen. It’s like she never left.”
“That’s not funny,” he says.
“Maybe you should give her another chance. She likes you and she’s available. Don’t take that for granted. At least she isn’t betrothed to her brother’s best friend—”
I barely get the words out when Pek shoves me with both hands, sending me staggering backward.
“Calm down. I only meant that you shouldn’t rule her out—”
“Shut up.” Pek doesn’t even bother to pick up the two packs he carried up from the boats. He leaves them at my feet, right where he must have dropped them the moment he saw Shava. He strides away, retreating back into our family’s hut.
I consider following him, but decide against it. Instead, I head into the kitchen to help with the meal, hoping that keeping busy will make it easier to clear my head.
The atmosphere of the kitchen is calming, and I slowly get my thoughts ordered again. I feel less of the sting of Chev’s rude behavior in your camp yesterday, and I begin to let go of the fury I’ve felt ever since you marched your little sister into your camp without a good night or ev
en a glance in my direction. Focusing helps me let go, and as I chop fireweed stems and combine them with nettle leaves, even the chatter of Shava as she asks my mother an endless stream of questions about Pek doesn’t bother me.
The only threat to my sense of peace is the constant interruption by my younger brothers. First they come in to tell me that Shava came to our camp in the strange kayak with another girl—apparently the same girl who Roon met while she gathered kelp in the bay with her brother. Then they come back to tell me a second kayak has landed on our beach, carrying the brother and another girl. They come back a third time to tell me this new girl, who introduced herself as the daughter of the Bosha’s High Elder, is the prettiest girl they have ever seen.
“Next to Mya,” Kesh says.
I glance up, to see if this comment was made only to provoke me. After all, Kesh expressed his dislike for you just last night. But I can see he’s being sincere. Apparently, a bad temper and ungracious behavior have no impact on Kesh’s assessment of a girl’s beauty.
“Well, I’ve never seen a girl prettier than Mya’s sister. Lees is the prettiest girl out of all of them.”
I smile at the affection in Roon’s words, remembering the kiss Lees gave me this morning . . . the last time I saw you, standing in the shadows farther up the trail . . .
“Kol, run and fetch me your honey,” my mother says from the place where she sits behind me, spreading the steamed and chopped roots of clover on a mat. “I’m going to mix a bit in with this to add a little sweetness to the meal.”
“Is Pek in your hut? Can I come with you?” Clearly, Shava hasn’t gained any subtlety since she left our clan.
“No, thanks,” I say, but she gets up anyway. “I can get it myself. My mother could surely use you more in here. . . .” These last words I let trail over my shoulder in Shava’s direction as I push my way through the partly opened door out into the daylight.
As I do, my eyes fall on the face of a beautiful girl. The second most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my life.
It turns out Kesh was right.
FOURTEEN
I have to stop suddenly to keep myself from charging right into this girl. Her eyes widen and her hands fly up to protect herself, but then a broad smile breaks across her face. “Sorry for being in the way,” she says.
“My fault,” I answer. I try to think of something to say next, but I’m distracted by a landslide of small details—the windless warmth of the day, the sudden heat in my cheeks, the brightness of the sun reflecting off the girl’s hair, so bright I need to squint. I become swept up in all the pieces of this girl—not necessarily all the things about her that make her attractive, but rather all the ways in which she is both similar and different from you.
I would guess you are the same age, though she might be slightly younger. Like you, she wears her hair down, but she’s smaller and more narrow-shouldered than you are. She’s almost birdlike—there’s a tension, an energy, about her. As she stands blinking at me, I notice that her face is more rounded than yours—her eyes, her cheeks, even her chin has a roundness to it.
The image I hold in my mind of your face dissolves when this stranger speaks to me again. “I’m Lo,” she says. “I’m from the Bosha clan, camping on the far shore of the bay. My father is the High Elder. I hope we’re not disturbing you.”
We . . . It’s only this word that alerts me to the fact that this girl is standing with two other people—a boy and a girl.
“These are my friends Orn and Anki.”
I nod to each of them while insisting that no one is intruding or disturbing us. “Your father is High Elder?” I ask. “Is he with you?” All at once I realize that perhaps my father should be called.
“No, we came on our own. Just a friendly visit, since Shava already knows you all.” Lo smiles and gives a small shrug, as if she’s embarrassed to have come uninvited and without official sanction. “Sorry if we’re—”
“No, not at all. Don’t say you’re sorry. You’re welcome to visit. We’re glad you’re here.”
I excuse myself, and as I hurry off to retrieve the honey I make note of another difference between you and Lo. Her manners are much better than yours.
With the pouch of honey in hand, I head back to the kitchen. As I pass through the gathering place again, I see that Lo and her friends have sat down with a group of elders and children who are working flint into points. I nod and Lo smiles, and I tell myself how lucky I am that you wouldn’t accept this honey when I offered it to you.
At my mother’s insistence, Pek finally emerges when we gather to eat, though he hardly acknowledges Shava at all. Still, she won’t be deterred, and she seats herself beside him. Kesh manages to claim a place beside Lo, but she slides over to make room for me on her other side.
My mother presents the honeyed roots last, after all the other parts of the meal have been consumed. Lo runs her tongue over her lips after the very first taste.
“I haven’t had honey in so long,” she says. “We’ve been traveling too frequently over the last two summers. We were never in one place long enough to hunt for a hive.”
“Do you like to hunt for beehives?” my mother asks.
“I do,” says Shava.
“Do you? Well, Shava, I’m sure you remember that my son Kol is an excellent bee hunter. The best.” Her eyes stay on Lo. “Maybe he could take you and Lo—”
“I’d love to go,” says Shava.
I cannot bring myself to raise my eyes. Waiting for Lo’s answer, I feel the muscles in my jaw tighten, so that I can no longer chew. My mouth goes dry, and I consider offering to fetch water from the kitchen, but then Lo finally answers my mother’s question.
“Of course, I’d love to go, as long as he doesn’t mind taking us.” She turns in my direction, and I notice the woven mat that lies in Lo’s lap, piled high with a generous portion of honeyed roots. Her fingertips lift another taste to her lips, and I realize that my mother is the most cunning matchmaker in the land.
The next day I am standing on the beach just after first light, which is remarkably early. This is the time without darkness, the time of year when the sun comes up almost as soon as it’s down. Pek stands reluctantly beside me. Our mother insisted he come along. It appears she is hoping to match me with Lo and Pek with Shava, despite his resistance.
“I’d rather you go home than ruin the day.” His posture alone—all his weight on one foot, his shoulders slumped to one side as if he were leaning on a pillar built of his troubles—is enough to make anyone miserable. “Why don’t you take this outing as an opportunity to test if your feelings for Shava could change?”
The breeze coming off the water makes me squint, but my eyes don’t tear. We are in the short window of the season when the breeze is without its bite.
“I can’t.” Pek squats down on the rocky ground and runs his hand through the stones. He picks one out and holds it up to the light. I notice it’s not a stone at all, but a broken shell worn down by the constant waves. “I can’t give Shava a chance when I love another girl.”
His words startle me. “Do you really think you love Seeri?” I ask.
“I don’t think I do; I know I do.”
You can’t know that. You haven’t known her long enough to know something like that. These are the things I want to say, but just at that moment, Pek straightens.
“There,” he says, looking out toward a kayak only just becoming distinct from the foam on the waves. Lo and Shava, our guests for a day of hive hunting, are not far out from shore.
I grab our spears from where we propped them against the dune grass. I can only hope two will be enough since the girls climb out of the boat empty-handed—they haven’t brought spears of their own.
Trusting, I think, noting another difference between you and Lo.
I lead the group out to the meadow by the path that skirts around the back of the camp. It’s a fairly short hike, but it seems much longer when you have to walk it in awkward sile
nce. I assume Lo is politely waiting for one of her hosts to start up a conversation. That doesn’t really surprise me. Shava, however, confounds me with her silence. Last night she spoke almost ceaselessly, either to Pek directly, or—if he managed to separate himself from her for even a moment—she would speak to someone else about Pek. “Is Pek still the best hunter in the clan?” was definitely the rudest thing she managed to say to me over the course of the evening.
Still, as irritating as it could be to suffer through a conversation with her, it was somewhat sad to think how futile her efforts were and how even after having been away for almost two and a half years she still wasn’t over him.
When we make it to the other side of camp and start up the section of the trail that rises through the last scrubby, twisted shrubs and slowly evens out as it opens on the plain, I begin to think that Lo has tutored Shava about how to handle herself on this outing. I would never have believed Shava was capable of going so long without speaking.
Though it’s a nice change not to have to struggle to slide a word into the conversation, the quiet becomes more uncomfortable the longer we walk. I know Pek would probably gladly spend the morning without hearing her voice, but I can’t take it much longer, and as we crest the hill and the wide meadow rolls out in front of us, I finally ask a question to break the silence.
“Are you experienced in hunting for honey?” I ask to no one in particular.
At first, neither girl replies, but I see Shava throw a glance at Lo that seems to be begging for permission to answer. Something about this strikes me as pitiable. It’s touching, actually, the lengths Shava will go to try to attract my brother. It may annoy him, but he really shouldn’t complain when two girls are showing such strong interest in him. Ten days ago, we didn’t know where or when any of us would find potential wives. He may not want Shava and he may have a difficult battle ahead to win Seeri, but he has girls interested in him, and for that he should be grateful.
Ivory and Bone Page 11
