Ivory and Bone (15 page)

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.”

T
he 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.

“Are you saying it’s not true that you mistreated her—”

“Mistreated her? Is that what she told you? That I mistreated her—”

“That you all mistreated her. That you, your brother, your father—”

“My father? She spoke against my father, did she?” Your cheeks flush red, whether with shame or anger I can’t be certain.

“Do you deny it? Do
you deny that her safety was neglected by your father on a gathering trip? Are you saying she lied when she told me that she was lost and spent a night alone, outside on the grassland, while she was supposed to be in the care of your father and mother—”

“I do not deny it. I do not deny those events. Yes, she became lost. Yes, she was with my family. But I am convinced that whatever sad tale of
mistreatment she told you is completely and utterly false—”

“Then here’s your chance. Free me from my misconceptions. Tell me the truth.”

You stare into my face unflinchingly. Without meaning
to, I take a step back. “I will not be made to answer to her lies. She is no longer of any consequence to me.” You pause to catch your breath, the words flying out of your mouth like angry bees pouring
from a hive. “Maybe Lo is the perfect girl for you. She certainly wouldn’t hesitate to accept a gift for fear it was an attempt to buy her affections.”

“I have never tried to purchase anyone’s affections. Not hers. Not yours.” I stoop to pick up the honey in its lovely cup made from a leaf of some distant, exotic tree. I had been so happy to see this gift. It had seemed such a fitting peace offering.

If only it could have been.

“You should take this with you,” I say, shoving it into your hand. “I wouldn’t want you to be accused of trying to purchase mine.”

I get only a glimpse of the western sky—the streaks of red having faded, yielding to the hard dull gray of water in winter—before the door drapes closed behind you.