Ivory and Bone(53)
Shava’s mother smiles, but tears fill her eyes. “I will leave that up to Shava. You will have to ask her.”
A rush of wind whistles in the vent like a sigh as Kesh turns back to Shava. “If you are willing,” he says, “I would like to marry you.”
The room falls silent when Kesh makes this unassuming statement. At first, Shava doesn’t respond. She stands studying him, her lips pursed, but she doesn’t speak. Then a quiet sob rolls out of her, and my brother Kesh—my sweet, quiet, awkward brother Kesh—steps toward her and takes her by the hand. Her shoulders shake with sobs until he is close enough for her to set her head on his shoulder. She tips her head up toward his ear and murmurs something, but her voice is muffled against his neck.
Finally, Kesh lifts his head and looks at all of us. He smiles, and in his smile I see the brother I know—not the brother who loses his temper and scolds me and Pek on our attitudes toward girls, not the brother who runs out of the hut to stop a betrothal, but the brother who plays the flute and finds it hard to talk in front of anyone not in our immediate family.
“She said yes,” he says, and the kitchen erupts in cheers.
And just that fast, my brother Kesh, only fifteen years old, becomes betrothed to be married.
TWENTY-ONE
The morning meal this day is sparsely attended. Feasts and celebrations at this time of year, with daylight stretching long into night and no cold crash of dark to drive people back into the safety of their huts, often run long toward morning. People sleep late to overcome the effects of the revelry and the mead. But my family and Shava’s family are seated around the hearth in the gathering place, and a meal of mammoth meat is served. Urar sets to lighting a flame in his oil lamp to draw good fortune to the couple, and my father goes from hut to hut to call the musicians and to personally announce the match.
The musicians, of course, collect quickly, as Kesh is one of their own. They play traditional songs reserved for weddings and betrothals, and more people emerge from their huts. Even an aching head can’t stop most people from celebrating the announcement of an impending marriage, especially in a clan that hasn’t heard such news in so many years.
By the time the meal is over most of the camp is awake, but neither you nor anyone from your family has appeared. Members of both the Manu and the Olen have offered up gifts to the couple—the old man who prepared the food last night gives them a scraper made from red jasper, and my aunt Ama’s family presents them with a fishing net of knotted kelp. All the gifts they receive are personal and painstakingly crafted—an ivory sewing needle, a generous length of twine, a large bison pelt—things that will turn a new hut into a household.
Something hard forms in my throat. I can only suspect that I am jealous. Kesh and Shava, Pek and Seeri. Even Roon clearly has a prospect in your sister Lees.
But today is not about me. Today is about Kesh. I watch him as he sits cross-legged on the ground in the center of the meeting place playing his flute with a force of joy that bends the notes and turns them skyward, as if they belong to the birds or even to the Divine.
My sister-to-be, Shava, sits close beside Kesh. Funny, I think, how a girl can annoy two brothers and enthrall the third. Yet at this moment, Shava’s usual anxiety replaced by contentment, I can imagine the sweetness Kesh sees in her. Memories flash, images lighting quickly in my mind’s eye, of Kesh and Shava, eight or nine years old, playing on the beach. Before Lil gave him the flute, Shava was his partner in digging up worms. And after, as he learned to play, she was always his first audience when he learned a new song.
Was Kesh in love with Shava even then? Did it break his heart when she fell for Pek? When her family left our clan?
The meal is over but the music plays on. A few of my cousins, too young to remember the last time our clan had a wedding, get up and dance. I move toward the center of the crowd and the sound and movement swirl around me. The world outside this tight circle of family blurs and loses meaning. My mother’s sister grabs my hands and spins me around. I close my eyes and try to block out any thoughts beyond this ring of happiness and hope.
For a moment—a brief fleeting moment—it works. But then I open my eyes to right myself as I turn in place, and I notice something move outside the circle of dancers.
A hand pushes back the hide that covers the door to your hut, and a figure steps out into the light.
You.
Chev emerges from the hut behind you and you turn your attention to him, as if the two of you are completely unaware of the celebration going on just feet away. Do you hope to get away to the boats without having to speak to me again—without being noticed?
If this is your hope, it fades a moment later when Shava calls out Chev’s name.
Chev stops, his eyes scanning the faces of the people crowding the gathering place. He appears surprised, and well he should. It’s almost unheard of for a young girl to so forcefully demand the attention of a High Elder, especially one from another clan. But Shava doesn’t seem to care much for the expectations of society.
My mother, who was carrying a skin of water around to thirsty dancers, hurries to the edge of the ring and intercepts your brother. “I’m sorry,” she begins. “The girl has just become engaged to our son—”
“Which son?”
“One of the younger ones—Kesh. I believe you met him when we visited your camp. He is only fifteen, so there won’t be a wedding until his older brothers are betrothed, of course.”