Ivory and Bone(46)

Getting to my feet slowly, I ease into the shadows on the far side of the kitchen and disappear behind it. Moving along the outside of the ring of huts, I make my way to the door of my family’s home fairly confident that no one has seen me.

I exhale a deep breath, the kind of breath that burns my lungs like I’ve been holding it all day, and duck under the mammoth hide that drapes over the doorway, only to step back quickly when someone inside the hut moves.

I’d expected to find the hut empty. Instead I find you standing next to my bed.

“I’m sorry.” That’s all you say. You don’t move, but stand frozen in an awkward posture, caught between coming and going. In your hand is a small cup made of intricately folded dark green leaves that are unfamiliar to me. “I wanted you to have this,” you say. You glance around, looking for a place to set the cup, and I become intensely aware of how cluttered my family’s hut is. A set of harpoons Pek and I are carving from a core of ivory lies jumbled at your feet.

You set the cup on one of the pelts that serves as a rug. “It’s a gift.” From where I stand, I can see the golden color of the thick liquid inside.

You’ve snuck into my hut to leave me a cup of honey.

“Honey from your home? From the south?”

Your eyes are on the tiny vessel at your feet as if you hope that it will spontaneously answer my question on your behalf. I feel somehow embarrassed for you, though I’m not sure why. “Well, I’m anxious to try it,” I say, hoping to set you at ease a bit by acting—inexplicably—like this gesture of yours is completely normal. “Would you like to share it with me?”

Of course you’ll decline. It’s obvious you can’t wait to escape from my company. You’re practically twitching with embarrassment.

Just as I’m shifting to the side of the door to let you pass, you answer, “Yes.” Clearly, I can’t read you at all.

“Oh, all right.”

Faint light bleeds in through just a few open vents in the walls, but I’d almost believe your cheeks color pink as your feet shuffle beneath you.

I offer you a place to sit on the haphazard pile of pelts that collectively form my bed. I seat myself on the bed opposite—Pek’s bed.

Suddenly I can’t quite think how to share the cup. If I were alone, or even with my family, I would simply dip my fingers in it. But the thought of eating honey with my fingertips in front of you seems far too intimate.

Then you surprise me. You pick up the cup and tilt your head back, tipping it above your mouth until the honey runs down onto your tongue. It drizzles onto your lips but you run a finger across them to catch it before any drips onto your chin. All your self-consciousness melts away as you move your finger from your glistening lips and smile. “Your turn,” you say.

I take the cup. Before I can second-guess myself, I follow your example. Honey, warm and sweet, trickles onto my tongue. My eyes find yours, and I catch you staring.

“It’s excellent. Different from the honey I gather here. It’s a bit lighter in taste. Different flowers . . .” I realize that I am talking quite fast. I replace the cup of honey on the floor between us for fear I might lose my grip and let it spill. “Different flowers give honey a different flavor. There’s something smooth and mellow in this honey. It’s good. Really very good.” I wish I could stop babbling. “Did you gather this yourself?”

Even before the question is out I regret asking it. The answer will be no, of course. And somehow asking the question feels like I’m passing judgment on the answer.

“No, I wouldn’t know how. I’d like to learn—”

“I’d be happy to teach you—”

You fall silent. Are you remembering the encounter earlier today, when I found you here in camp after hive hunting with Lo and Shava? “Maybe. I think I’d be interested in learning where honeybees hide this far north—”

Something in the way you pronounce the word north makes me flinch. You possess the most confounding ability to say things that are insulting or critical without showing any awareness of how your words might sound.

“You really hate it here in the north, don’t you?”

“Hate is a strong word.”

“A strong word, but no less the right word.”

“Perhaps.”

Should I offer you a taste of the honey I’ve collected here? Is there any hope that you might see, as I’d hoped on the night I’d first offered it to you, that not everything in my clan’s camp is bitter and cold? It’s so tempting to offer it again—to have a second chance at the exchange that set us on the wrong path. But I decide against it. I don’t want to bring up that evening right now.

“Can I ask you,” I start, my voice low. But then I stop myself. Why do I insist on asking you questions? Part of me suspects the less I know of you, the better.

“Ask me anything,” you say, which, I must admit, seems a bit bold coming from a girl who, when I first entered this hut, appeared painfully embarrassed. But that was a Mya I’ve never seen before, and she has vanished.

She has been replaced by the girl across from me—a girl who sits with a casual ease that is clearly calculated. You sit with your feet tucked up beneath you, forcing your posture just slightly forward, leaning into the space between us. Your hair drapes over each shoulder, framing your face and neck in just the right balance of shadow and light. I can see your eyes but I cannot read them, which only makes me want to see them more.