Ivory and Bone(35)

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 even 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.