Human (62 page)

The hunter grabbed Filhia by her hair and dragged her over the river edge.

Ivy pulled herself up, curling her fingers around Rinap’s spear, fallen to the grass beside her. There was suddenly no thought, no time, no hesitation. Ivy’s body and everything around her slowed as she drew her arm back with all the force she could muster. Then the moment broke.

Ivy rammed the spear through his chest.

Shock muted her senses.
Take them home. They need to go home.
Ivy acted on reflex, heaving Rinap’s broken body over her shoulder. Filhia lay by the river, unconscious but breathing. The woman with the turquoise feathers picked the little girl up. With quick, soft movements, she lay Filhia across Ivy’s arms. She stepped behind Ivy, cradling Rinap’s face between her hands for a brief moment, and then with tears spilling down her face, the woman with turquoise feathers pushed Ivy away.

Ivy ran.

She ran as fast as she could manage, desperate to flee with her beloved sisters, not allowing her mind to venture any further than escape. All around her, bodies were falling and fighting. Shouts and screams battled each other in a confusion of noise beyond the thrumming of her mind.

Stumbling over hidden bodies in the grass.

Ivy balanced Rinap between her neck and shoulder as she ran with Filhia draped across her arms. She was nearly at the tree line when it happened. She
felt
it first; a rumbling in the earth beneath her bare feet, followed by ear-splitting bellows that tore the air apart.

From the forest to the fray charged the three male stegodon they had passed upriver. They were massive and rippling with the power of instinctive defence. Their sensitive feet and trunks had received the desperate call of the matriarch’s thumping feet, sent through the earth’s sub-sonic waves. They had come to the aid of the female herd as fast as they could.

Too late it seemed - the smell of blood and predators now suffocated the air. The three bachelors barrelled through the fighters, spilling men and reigning chaos. Trumpeting drowned out the screams as long, sharp tusks smashed and skewered indiscriminately. With the natural camouflage afforded them by natural selection, the hobbits collectively sank into the long grass and disappeared.

Scrambling up the desolate ridges.

The next two hours passed as a dream. A nightmare hazed by shock and punctuated by pain until only a dull ache in her heart and thigh remained. From somewhere, Kari appeared, pulling Rinap’s limp body from Ivy’s shoulder and bearing it himself. Ivy kept tiny Filhia, clutching the girl’s unconscious form to her own chest, unable to give her up. The girl’s shallow breath became Ivy’s rhythm - walking, stumbling, walking, stumbling. Stubbornly she kept on, growing weaker as the blood drained from her thigh, leaving one leg scarlet and the other as white as a ghost.
They needed me. They still need me.

Descending into the hallowed darkness of the rainforest.

Deep inside Ivy’s thigh, bacteria from the stone knife festered. The edges of the cut lay open and raw, an infection just beginning. Blood loss weakened and dulled her senses. Her body fought back too hard, inflaming her blood and impairing its flow. Sepsis began.
No. Can’t fall. Have to fight.

Following the serpent river, her leg washing clean in its depths.

Ivy followed the hunters as they carried the injured and those dead that they had been able to recover in their escape. Only twenty-five of the hunting party remained and eight of the bodies had been lost by the river.
Not humanity. Not humane. Too cruel.
The world tilted dangerously, and Ivy stumbled.

Climbing the lonely hillside.

Despite her desperate condition, Ivy would not ease her burden, nor give in to the void that threatened to break her.
For her.
Just one more step. For her.

Her breath and heartbeat came faster and chills whispered over her skin. The words Ivy sought in her head wouldn’t come. It was confusing, all of this walking. Someone held her up. She heard his voice, not in the thudding of white noise outside her ears, but inside.
Orrin?
She stumbled again and her vision swam.
Orrin? I couldn’t save them.
In the distance, she heard a woman speak.
Home? Is this my home?
His voice faded inside her head.
Not my home. He’s my home….

Entering the damp, hidden cave.

The band of hunters laid their fallen loved ones by the central hearth. Downcast eyes betrayed the loss when others did not return to be counted among the mourners. The wailing began.

Rinap lay dead, tiny and perfect in her new womanhood. Ivy watched through bleary eyes as Kari fell across her body with heaving sobs. He had left that morning as a young man on his first hunt, full of pride. That afternoon, he had borne Rinap’s body stoically and led what was left of them safely home. But now, Kari was a boy again, shattered into a million pieces of darkness in his mind. He held her and stared, seeing nothing but his broken love.

The silence in Ivy’s head cocooned her from the chaos outside. A figure, blurry and small appeared in front of her and Ivy recognized the face.
Phren.
She delivered Filhia’s sleeping body into the old woman’s arms. Like a baby.
I’m so sorry. I failed.

The fever and loss of blood finally took her. Ivy collapsed. The dull clamour faded from around her as Kyah’s soft hand appeared to gently stroke her hair from her forehead. Everything went black.

Nobody noticed that her hide skirt was in tatters.

That her journal was missing.

And so, in a cold cave, fifty thousand years before her time, Ivy lay dying.

“Can’t keep away from me hey, Jayne?” Phil stretched back in his chair with his arms behind his head.

Jayne rolled her eyes and bypassed his desk.

“Sure Phil, clearly you’re my highest priority.”

She stopped in front of Orrin, who was waiting with a tired smile.

“It’s another cave painting,” she said.

Orrin studied the coloured printout she had brought as Jayne dropped her keys and bag onto his desk. Unlike the previous paintings, the images on this one were easy to make out.

“Handprints?”

“Yup. It doesn’t look much out of context, but these hobbit prints are one of the few artworks from Flores attributed to the correct human species. Because of the size of the hands, of course.”

“Hi, Jayne.” Dale looked up from his screen, straightening his shoulders.

“Hey, Dale.” Jayne nodded briefly, flicking her eyes to him but clearly disinterested in pleasantries.

“How old?” Orrin adjusted the black frames of his glasses.

“About the same – fifty thousand years. Give or take a few. This one’s important, too.”

Phil wandered to Orrin’s desk and raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“Brilliant.” Jayne turned her back on him as she continued. “Anyway, there’s an anomaly here. I didn’t notice it at first, I doubt anyone ever has. Look really closely, can you see it?”

Although unsure what he was looking for, Orrin studied the photograph. The mottled grey wall of a limestone shelter had been almost entirely covered with painted hand prints. There were hundreds of them overlaid, representing innumerable generations of shared tradition. Shades from dark brown through to red, orange and yellow created a slightly chaotic feel. All of the handprints were faded to dull echoes of their former glory. The effect was pretty but melancholy, like the remnants of childhood once grown.

“I see it,” Phil said.

Orrin looked up surprised. “Really?” He looked again. “What am I not seeing here?”

Phil pointed to the top left corner of the image, looking smug.

“This handprint is bigger than the rest. It’s human.”

“Sapien,” Jayne corrected.

“Whatever,” Phil said.

Orrin looked more closely. Phil was right. A single large handprint was barely visible under layers of smaller ones. They were all so faint that some were barely there at all.

“Holy Jesus.” Orrin traced his fingertips over the image. This was Ivy’s handprint, he was certain. He suddenly felt her presence on the mottled stone so vividly that his skin tingled against the paper.
Her hand was right here.
He swallowed the lump in his throat, remembering her touch.

“Would you like a moment alone with the photo, Orrin?”

Orrin scowled at Phil’s grin as he pulled his hand away, clearing his throat and muttering “gobshite” under his breath. Jayne’s mouth twisted in amusement.

Phil turned to Jayne. “Seriously, you think this was actually Ivy? There were humans on Flores at the same time as these hobbits. Who’s to say this isn’t one of them?”

“Hobbits
are
humans, Phil and I’ll tell you why it has to be Ivy,” said Jayne. “Because for the last - gee, let me think –
fifty-five thousand years
, sapiens have treated hobbits as second class citizens. We’ve enslaved them, culled them, used them for whatever sacrifice or experiment was in vogue at the time and most unpleasantly,
eaten them
. So, you tell me, do you think it’s likely they invited one of their friendly neighbours over as a permanent house guest?”

“I guess not, when you put it that way,” said Phil.

“Thank you.” Jayne allowed herself a smile. “So it could only be someone they trusted implicitly. Now, traditionally, indigenous hand paintings usually represent a family group or tribe. This collection represents kin – so if this really is Ivy’s print,” she looked to Orrin, “then she was accepted as family. That’s quite an honour. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

There were a few moments of silence as they considered the implications. If Ivy
was
family at a time of cultural upheaval for the hobbit species, she could certainly have influenced their actions, for better or worse. And if those actions were relived in oral history throughout generations of storytelling, it was no wonder that the Hiranah reference had been mistaken for a deity by ethnographers.

Humans often had a way of embedding influential people and their stories into history, or pre-history as it were, and elevating them to divine status. It was human nature to seek comfort in something bigger than mere mortality. And so Ivy had become, in effect, a false God.

“If anyone could have been accepted by them, it would be her,” said Orrin. “I remember what she was like with Kyah. Ivy saw past the differences between them; Kyah wasn’t a chimp, I mean
bonobo
to her, she was more like a friend. I’ve never really thought about it before, but, I don’t think Ivy would define family the same way we would. I think Kyah
was
her family, and so, maybe these hobbits were too.”

Jayne looked at Orrin with more than a hint of sympathy. She took a deep breath and let her eyes rove the room. She seemed to be steeling her resolve. Orrin watched her, with rising concern.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?”

Jayne hesitated. “I’m afraid it’s not the best news.”

Orrin leant forward in his chair.
How much more can I take?
He drew his hand over his mouth and looked up at Jayne, waiting for her to continue.

She pushed the photograph to him again, pointing. “Okay. Look closely, here. One of the fingers on Ivy’s handprint has been removed. The ochre has been smudged, almost rubbed away entirely.”

“From rain or wind or something? So what?” Orrin said.

“No, no, you don’t understand. The rest of the hand is consistently coloured. Weather would have affected the whole print. This finger, the index finger, must have been rubbed off intentionally, with some sort of oil. The rest of the handprints on here were overlaid later. The finger came off first, deliberately.”

“What does that mean?” Orrin slid his hand up to his eyes, pushing his glasses away and rubbing the ache that was forming underneath.

“This missing finger,” said Jayne, lowering her voice as if it might make what she had to say easier to hear, “It signifies death. There are conflicting theories on how it applies to the
Homo floresiensis
species, but essentially, in many indigenous cultures, a finger is removed from the handprint when a family member dies prematurely. It’s a reference to the loss of someone who was dearly loved when a family is grieving. It also represents a supplication to any evil spirits that might be responsible for the death; a request, if you will, to leave the dwelling of the family.” Jayne looked to Phil and he reflexively stepped closer.

“I can’t say for sure what it means,” Jayne continued, “But the missing finger
is
important. Either someone in Ivy’s hobbit family died, or -” she hesitated, biting her lip.

“Or what?” The lump in Orrin’s throat wouldn’t let him continue.

“Or, Ivy herself died, and her hobbit family removed her finger print as a sign of their own loss.”

“No. Not acceptable. You’re wrong.”

“I’m sorry Orrin, but it actually could be,” Jayne said. “At some point, soon after this cave painting was done, Ivy may have been killed.”

“No, lay off with it. This is shite! It’s not possible,” Orrin said again, gritting his teeth. If his resolve failed now, Ivy had no chance of ever returning. He had to believe there was hope. “You have to be wrong about this. If she died there, at any time in the past, that means I failed! I didn’t bring her home. No! No! No! She’s been gone a month, that’s all. Just one month. I need more time! I’ll bring her home, I swear it.”