Ivory and Bone(36)

“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 silence. 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.