Ivory and Bone (5 page)

“It’s a gift,” I say. I feel my face flush, but I’m not sure if it’s from embarrassment or anger.

So much labor went into collecting this small pouch of
honey. Every day last summer I got out of bed early, chanted prayers to the Divine and the Spirit
of bees, and went in search of hives. The first I found easily—it was closest to the meadow—but the process of extracting the honey can be difficult and dangerous. Once the hive is found, the bees need to be sedated with smoke. That first hive was in a cluster of half-dead dwarf birch, surrounded by dry brush. I had to haul green kindling from young growth closer to camp. It took hours of effort,
and yielded only small amounts of honey. That process had to be repeated over and over again.

“We have honey at home. Here in the north, honey must be extremely scarce. You should keep what you have for yourselves.”

I swallow and take a deep breath before I reply, striving to keep the anger from my voice. “I know our ways may be unfamiliar to you,” I say, thinking of the way you’d withdrawn
at the start of the singing before the meal. “But I assure you, we don’t live in a barren wasteland. This may not be the lush south, but there’s plenty of honey on this side of the mountains. Finding it just demands a bit more patience.”

Behind me I hear laughter. I turn to find your brother, sister, and Pek just a few paces away. I take the honey from your hand and hold it behind my back, hoping
that the others won’t notice it.

I’ve suffered enough humiliation for one day.

I know I should stand in the doorway and exchange pleasantries with your brother and sister, but in this instant, my sense of social custom is no match for my pride. I nod and say a hasty good night.

Still, I can’t quite drag myself away, and I duck into the shadows between two huts as your brother and Pek wish each
other a restful night. I hear your sister offer a brief but sweet word of thanks to Pek for a lovely day. Then Pek walks right past me, under such a spell he doesn’t even notice I am here.

Once Pek is gone, I can’t help but notice the voice of your brother, Chev. His words are muffled, but if I didn’t know better I would think he was scolding Seeri, but that can’t be right. I assume he must be
chastising you for staying away from the meal. After a murmured response, I hear a question quite clearly. It’s your sister’s voice, and she asks what you and I were talking about just now.

I know better than to listen in on other people’s conversations, and the answer you give your sister is the punishment I deserve for doing something I know is wrong.

“He came to offer me a gift—a pouch of
honey he’d collected.”

“That’s so generous—” Seeri starts, her voice lilting and light. I can tell she’s happy for you. But you cut her off.

“I refused it. At home I can gather my own honey. I won’t let some stranger think he can buy me with his.”

I stalk back to our hut, each breath laboring against a heavy knot of anger that presses down on my chest, your mocking words thrumming in my head.
To push the sound of your voice from my mind, I hum the tune to the love song I just heard my brother Pek sing.

I know my parents are hoping this visit leads to a new friendship between our two clans. Silently, I thank the Divine for Pek and Seeri.

I
wake in the dark to Pek shaking my shoulders. I had been dreaming, and though the dream fades quickly, a haze of dread colors my thoughts—it must have been a nightmare.

“Come on,” Pek says, clearly irritated. With Pek, a bad mood is unusual, but after yesterday, it’s all but impossible. What could have happened? Behind Pek I notice Kesh is already dressed and pulling on his boots. A
gust of wind rattles in the vent overhead, and the shrill sound, like the laugh of an angry Spirit, chills me. “This is the second time I’ve tried to wake you. Mother wants us all down in the kitchen to help this morning.”

“She needs all of us to help with the morning meal?” I sit up and notice the pouch of honey where I’d dropped it on the floor last night. I push it out of sight, not wanting
to be reminded of what I’d heard you say.

The last thing I feel like doing right now is getting up
and preparing food for you.

“They’re leaving. Chev got up early and went down to put their things into their boat. Aunt Ama was at the shore checking her nets and spoke with him. Mother was already in the kitchen and she came straight to the hut and woke Father and me.”

I let this story sink in.
No one had ever told me how long you and your siblings were staying, but there was a definite sense you would be with us for a while, certainly more than a night. We’d put up a hut. We’d butchered a mammoth. This couldn’t have been part of your plans yesterday. Something changed.

Could this all be your doing? Could it be that you’ve convinced your brother that there is nothing here worth staying
for?

“Mother wants us all in the kitchen. She’s determined to send them home with at least half of the mammoth meat, so it needs to be divided and wrapped.”

“Fine.”

Good riddance to you and your haughty disdain, I think, but any satisfaction I get from your early departure dissolves once I see my mother’s face. The light that glowed in her eyes as she handed out mats piled high with her cooking
last night is all but gone today. She sits on the floor in the center of the kitchen, a circle of tools and ingredients spread around her. She reaches for a sharp stone blade made from
obsidian brought back from an expedition to the far north—her favorite cutting tool by far—but then sets it down again distractedly. Her hand moves to a bowl made of woven stalks of slough sedge, filled to the brim
with bits of crab meat mixed with lupine roots gathered from the meadow. On a flat stone she’s been cutting wild carrots dug from a tidal marsh a half day’s walk from here. This was meant to be a meal that would rival the one she’d served last night.

Instead, she slides all these things aside and calls on Roon to help her move a large flat stone—a slab of rock split from an outcropping that broke
into smooth, even layers when it was dug out from the hill. I remember my father presenting this stone to her—he had carried it on his own shoulders from the hill where it was quarried, knowing that she would find it perfect for cooking and cutting. An arm’s length wide and two arm’s lengths long, it holds most of the mammoth meat that was butchered last night. It’s not all of it, of course—only
about a third of the mammoth has been cut from the bone—but my mother is determined to send half of what we have with you.

She gets to her feet and hands out large, supple sheets of tightly stitched walrus gut. “I’ll divide the meat into evenly sized portions. Each of you take a piece, wrap it tight, and tie it with a length of cord. I don’t want it to dry out before they get it home.”

Father’s
voice comes from outside the door, followed by
Chev’s. If my father feels insulted by your sudden departure, he’s much better at disguising it than my mother is. “Of course; we insist,” he says.

Chev ducks his head to step through the doorway into the dim tent. His eyes sweep over the scene, stopping on the piles of mammoth meat on the cutting stone. “You are being far too generous. There’s no
need to send us with any provisions. By boat, it won’t take much more than half the day to reach our own shores.”

“The three of you helped bring in this food; you will take your fair portion. I will not risk angering the Spirit of the mammoth that died so that we could all eat.” This comes out as a proclamation rather than a comment. My mother’s tone has the definitive note she usually reserves
for my brothers and me.

I drop my head and try to appear too caught up in my task of wrapping meat to notice what is being said. But then the door flips open and shut, light from outside splashing momentarily across the kitchen floor. Before I look up I know it’s you—I already recognize the unique cadence of your steps.

You stand with your sister, just inside the doorway. Seeri’s hair is tied
up in a braid that wraps around her head, a style my mother and most of the women of my clan wear almost every day. I notice that your hair, as it was yesterday, is loose, falling over your shoulders and down your back.
You are both dressed in the clothes you wore on the hunt.

“We know you do not need our help to successfully bring down game.” These words come from Seeri. “Thank you for the privilege
of accompanying you yesterday. We all learned so much.” Her eyes are fixed on Pek, and for the first time, her clear intentions toward him ruffle my nerves. Suddenly, I can’t stomach the sight of the tender expression on her face. My eyes move to yours. You stare at the ground, falsely occupied in making a mental inventory of my mother’s kitchen supplies. I guess it’s what I should expect
of you. You wouldn’t accept my gift last night. Why should you even look me in the eye to say a proper good-bye?

“We can all learn from a hunt with Pek, that’s certain,” my father says. “He’s one of the best with a spear that I have ever seen.”

I’m stunned. I wouldn’t expect my father to make such a blatant play to impress the three of you. Then again, I’m not intimately involved in managing
and governing the clan, as he is. My parents are both elders of this clan, and there have been frequent meetings of the council lately. They would have a far better understanding of our situation—of the need to move south and the ways cooperation with your clan could reduce the risks involved with such a move. The ways a betrothal could encourage such a friendship.

I would rather our clan face
extinction than reduce
myself to playing for your affections, but my father, I see now, is feeling the pressure.

“There used to be a girl in this clan called Shava,” my father says. “She was so impressed by Pek’s hunting that she wanted to marry him. She cooked every kill he brought in for the entire clan. She tried to make herself the ideal partner for him, I suppose.”

Father’s eyes cloud over
and I can see in his smile that he is thinking back on Shava and perhaps wondering why we were ever so careless as to let her slip away.

“Pek wasn’t interested in that girl, though, no matter how many mats she piled high with grilled bison or mammoth,” I interject. The eyes of every person in the room snap to my face. It’s quite bold to interrupt your own father as he relates a tale, especially
if your father is Arem the High Elder, but I feel I need to put a stop to this one. “Apparently, being a great cook for a great hunter doesn’t necessarily win his heart. Her cooking wasn’t enough to buy his affection,” I say, turning to look directly into your face.

You swallow. “Where is she now? I notice there are no young women in this clan.”

Pek jumps in to answer. “We met up with another
clan about two years ago—it turned out to be the clan of her mother’s family. Her mother had left them years before to marry into our clan, but her husband had died, and when we crossed paths with them again, she was reunited with
her family. Shava and her mother returned to the west with her mother’s native people, to their territory beyond the northwest hills.”

This simple story by my brother
touches some nerve in you. Your head whips around in his direction. “What clan? A clan to the northwest? What clan is that?”

“Mya.” The voice of your brother interrupts you sharply. I notice a very small shake of his head, a message to you. “Do not pester our hosts with such questions.”

There are secrets here, I realize. Clearly, there is something your brother does not wish to discuss. But
whatever secrets your brother wishes to keep, they do not interest me. “Excuse me. I’ll carry the first load to your boat,” I say, filling up my arms with packages of meat. I move toward the door, careful to keep my eyes on the floor as I pass by you.

To my surprise, you follow me out into the cold morning light.

“Kol.” I stop, acutely aware that this is the first time you’ve ever addressed
me by name. I’m not sure how I feel about the sound of it. Your voice is halting, less confident than usual. “If cooking isn’t the best way to attract the interest of a hunter, what would you say is better?”

I turn to study you. This is a trick question, I’m sure, but I can’t imagine what the trick is meant to accomplish. It doesn’t matter. Last night you were quite direct with me. I won’t hesitate
to be just as direct. “Perhaps something more
personal,” I say, “like accepting small gifts that are offered without assuming they are meant to buy you. Even if you
could
gather all that you wanted at home.”

Your lips part and your focus slides from my face; for a moment, you stare into the air, trying to piece together how I came to know the words you used last night. The softness of confusion
fades and your features sharpen as you arrive at the only plausible explanation—that I heard you through the walls. As your eyes return to mine they narrow and draw together until a crease appears between your eyebrows.

“You shouldn’t listen at doors.”

“I couldn’t help but hear,” I lie. Still, what difference does it make now? After I raised my spear at you, your opinion of me is clearly unsalvageable.

“You misunderstood my refusal of that gift,” you say. “Maybe my words were too strong, but what I meant was, you can’t purchase a person’s affections. They have to be won naturally.”

Behind me, I hear the clan waking up. People stir inside their huts. I feel the need to end this awkward conversation before there are witnesses to it.

“Well, we have Pek and Seeri as an example, don’t we? They
have certainly come to share a mutual affection naturally. Clearly ties between our clans will be forged by those two.”

You drop your eyes and take a step backward toward the kitchen. “I don’t think that will happen.” Your voice, like your eyes, has dropped. You speak so low I can hardly hear you. “They are an impossibility—Pek and Seeri—she is promised to a boy in our clan—one of Chev’s closest
friends.”

Your words confuse me, though their plain meaning is clear. Still, it can’t be true. If Seeri is betrothed to a boy in your clan, why would she lead my brother on the way she has?

And why would Seeri be betrothed before you, since she is younger? Certainly your family wouldn’t have looked for a match for Seeri before you were betrothed.

Or could it be that you are already promised,
too?

I’m sure it’s obvious how your words have stunned me. I shift the packages in my arms and steady myself on my feet when, without warning, someone knocks into me from behind.

I spin around to find my brother Roon, his face flushed. Though he’s younger and smaller than me, he’s strong and sturdy, and when he grabs hold of my shoulders he upsets my balance and sends three packs of meat tumbling
from my arms to the ground.

“Roon! Watch what you’re doing!”

I bend to pick up the dropped packages, which, thankfully, did not unwrap and spill into the dirt. You retrieve
one that landed at your feet, and my brother takes it from you and hands it back to me.

“I’m sorry; I just ran all the way from shore. I got up early this morning—very early. I’m not sure that I ever really went to sleep
last night. It was as if I could hear someone creeping outside the huts, wandering through the dark. Anyway, when I got up I found nothing, but I could
feel
something there; you know? It was like the Divine was calling to me. I found myself all the way down on the western shore before the sun came up, and I kept walking until well after it rose. And
what
do you think I found?”

“Don’t make me
guess, Roon. Just tell—”

“Another clan! There is another clan, Kol, camping on the western shore of the bay. Two of them—a brother and sister—were out gathering kelp and they spoke to me. They said they come from land to the north and west.”

“A brother and sister?” Your voice is urgent and unexpected, like a crack of thunder out of a clear sky.

“Yes—”

“From what clan? What name are they known
by?”

“I don’t know—I didn’t ask them.”

The color drains from your face, but I can’t begin to guess why news of this clan should affect you so.

“Girls . . . ,” Roon whispers. I know he’s excited to talk to me, but I find myself watching you as your attention turns inward. You gaze into the air as if looking at something,
but your eyes stay unfocused. “The brother and sister who spoke to me told
me there are several girls in their clan. . . .”

Dragging my eyes from your face to Roon’s is difficult, but when I finally turn my attention to my brother I see the triumph in his expression. He has explored over the grassland and along the coast, searching for some indication of another clan—any clan—but especially a clan with girls of marrying age.

I want to tell Roon how proud I am that
he finally accomplished the goal that’s been driving him for so long, but I’m interrupted by the sight of your brother coming through the door of the kitchen, followed closely by Pek and Seeri. Pek carries another three packs, identical to the ones in my arms. Chev sweeps his eyes over me, and I become acutely aware that I left the kitchen quite a while ago, claiming to be heading to your boat. His
eyes move from me to you. “I’m sorry to take you away, Mya,” he says, “but it’s time for us to leave.”

“We’ll walk you down to the shore,” my mother says. “Pek, why don’t you carry Seeri’s pack—”

“That’s quite all right.” Chev’s voice is stern and his tone fills in some answers to questions that have been swirling in my mind. Now I understand this unexpected early departure. Chev is anxious
to separate Seeri and Pek, to return her to his friend at home.