Ivory and Bone (10 page)

Lees doesn’t reply. Instead, she just stares at Roon as if she’s just noticed him for the first time. But if she overlooked him before, she makes up for it now. In all the ways she resembles her sister Seeri, she looks at Roon in the same way Seeri looks at Pek—with a look of sudden recognition. It’s as if she’s always known him and is somehow
surprised to find him here—right here, in front of her—right where she left him before time began. “I’m sorry, what was your name?” she asks. A miniature version of Seeri’s smile blooms across her lips, and the trancelike expression I’ve seen on Pek falls over Roon’s young face.

My eyes sweep from Roon to my mother, who sits beside him. Her lips press into a thin line, and her usually bright
eyes are dim with hurt.

That’s all I can stand. My mother’s pained expression pushes me to speak.

“These are all strong traits to find in a man—familiarity, friendship, family ties, and as the children pointed out—talents and skills in craftsmanship are valuable, too. We are fortunate to have not just one man, but several like this in our midst.”

“This is true,” says Chev. “Several men seated
here would make very worthy husbands.”

These words of Chev’s are ambiguous, of course. He
could mean Morsk and Pek, or he could mean only men of his own clan. But it is a bit of a concession, and my father seizes it.

“I agree,” he says.

“Yes, several indeed,” adds my mother.

I draw in a deep breath as the tension eases, if only a bit. Voices fall quiet as everyone eats.

But it doesn’t last
long. My second bite of bison is still in my mouth when you speak.

“What about women?” you ask. No one replies at first, and I wonder if maybe I imagined your voice. But then you continue. “We’ve talked about the traits that make a man a good choice for a mate. But I wonder what might the necessary female traits be?”

“Well,” I say, without looking up. I shoot a quick glance at my brother Pek,
hoping for help, but his eyes are averted.

Of course they are. Why should he help me? He probably blames me for all this—for coming here and killing the cat before he could.

Beside me, my father clears his throat. Could he possibly know about the friction between you and me?

I wedge my hands, palms down, under my legs, digging my fingers into the fur of the bearskin that covers the ground.
The fur is coarse on the surface, but underneath, closer to the hide, it’s soft. My mouth has gone dry, but I force myself to swallow before I speak again. “The traits
that make a woman a good choice for a mate . . . That list could include many things: even-temperedness. Cooperation. Patience.” I try to look at you—it would be rude to reply to your question while staring at my food—but I can’t
force my eyes to meet yours. Instead I study a pendant you wear, a carved white disk of bone or maybe ivory that lies against the base of your throat. It hangs on a simple cord strung with a few bright white beads. “Above all, a lack of a certain kind of arrogance that might cause her to assume that every offered word or gift—whether a simple pouch of honey or the pelt of a cat—is meant as a bribe.”

I wonder if I’ve gone too far. My gaze finally flits up to meet yours. No discreetly dropped eyes—instead, you are watching me with a piercing stare. You are game for this exchange.

“That’s truly a shame,” you answer. Your eyes darken, but a fleeting twitch tugs at the corners of your mouth before you purse your lips, banishing any hint of a smile. “If those are the standards by which a woman
is to be judged, then I will certainly never find a mate.”

“I wouldn’t say that. After all, every man is unique. Every man would have his own answer to your question.”

“I can only hope to find that to be true,” you say. The curl returns to the corners of your mouth—the most cryptic smile I’ve ever seen. Are you mocking me? Baiting me? My eyes drop back down to your necklace, lingering on the
curved lines of your throat. My heart jumps around in my chest like a startled bird, its wings hammering against my rib cage.

Everyone continues eating, and I do the best I can to finish my food. Lees scrambles up from the ground and begins to collect empty mats. Roon and Kesh get to their feet to stretch, and Chev excuses himself to fetch another skin of mead. If his conversation during the meal
was a bit inhospitable, he clearly intends to make up for it in the sharing of drink.

“I’d like to go down to the shore and take a look at the boats,” says Roon.

My father weighs this request as he climbs to his feet, and I wonder if he thinks acknowledging their craftsmanship might give Morsk too much credit.

“Take Kesh with you,” he says finally. “Even with that cat dead, we don’t know this
land. I don’t want you wandering off alone.”

As the meal ends and people get to their feet, several of your clan’s elders greet me with the customary nod. They congratulate me and introduce themselves. Though I try to learn their names, my head buzzes like a hive. I return their nods and smile, hoping my distraction doesn’t show.

Chev comes back from the kitchen, a bulging skin full of mead
slung over his shoulder. You stand and announce you will bring cups from the kitchen for us to drink from.

Watching you stride away, I wonder what side you fall on in the matter of Pek and Seeri. Do you want to see them together and happy, or do you believe Seeri should follow through on her betrothal?

“I think you’ll be impressed by this mead,” Chev says, interrupting my thoughts of you. Had
he seen me watch you walk away? “It’s unlike any I’ve ever had in the north—it will fill you with the warmth of the Divine from the inside out. There is a berry here in the south that grows on a climbing vine—a bright red berry with a strong flavor. It makes all the difference.”

You return with the cups. Like my mother’s bison skull bowl, these cups are carved from the skulls of some smaller
prey—small enough to fit perfectly in the palm of a hand, but large enough to hold a generous portion of drink. Your brother circulates, dispensing the mead, releasing the heady scent of honey. A cup is poured for my mother, my father, Pek, Morsk, and Seeri. Kesh pushes into the circle, a cup in his extended hand.

“Wait,” I say, glancing around when I don’t see Roon. “Where’s your little brother?”

“Calm down. I didn’t leave him alone. He went off with that girl. She followed us down to the beach with a waterskin of mead she snuck from the kitchen. Anyway, they seemed more interested in each other than in the boats, so I came back. They kept talking about going exploring.”

Sometimes, I am jolted out of a sound sleep by the sensation that I am falling. It always happens the same—one moment
I am on solid ground, and the next, everything beneath me disappears.

This is the feeling I have as I process what Kesh is saying.

He’s left Roon and Lees alone in the murky twilight of a summer night, when the ghostly pale sky conceals the stars and the unbroken shadows make it impossible to judge direction. Roon—a boy whose favorite activity is to explore the coast alone. Home he would be
safe, but here? And what do we know of Lees? By now she could be back in her hut, and Roon could be just realizing he’s lost.

I glance from face to face. My father, my mother, Chev—everyone is distracted, chatting about the craftsmanship of the cups, the quality of the mead. Only you have a look of alarm on your face that matches the feeling in my gut.

“Let’s go,” you say.

You stride off, turning
back only briefly to glare at me and Kesh and our empty hands. “Neither of you has a spear?”

“Who brings a spear to a meal—” Kesh starts.

“Who are
you
to speak to me like that? You—stupid enough to leave two children alone in the dark—”

“It’s hardly dark—”

“Who knows what kind of predators are out there—”

“I left them on a
beach
. When was the last time you saw
a saber-toothed cat attack from
the sea?”

“Do you think that cats are the only hunters out at night? Or that the only dangers are predators? They could climb the cliffs and fall from a ledge. They could take a boat out and get pulled away by the current—”

“All right,
all right
,” Kesh says. “You talk like they’re little babies. They’re only a few years younger than I am—”

“See this?” You shove the left sleeve of your tunic
up to your elbow, revealing a jagged scar on the underside of your arm. “I was Lees’s age. My best friend became lost at night. It was late summer—the days were long like they are now—there was the same half-light sky. But half-light is also half-dark, and climbing over rocks searching for her, I fell.

“I was
the same age
as my sister—
the same age
as your brother. Do you think only babies can
get hurt?”

“I never said—”

“Both of you,
stop
,” I say. “Look . . .”

While the two of you argued, we had hiked all the way to the beach. And just as you predicted, a boat is out on the water. A long canoe, its silhouette standing out against the pale blue sky.

“Lees!” You call to her at the top of your voice, and a head pivots in our direction. While we stand on the sand and watch, powerless
to stop her, she gets to her feet and waves her arms. The canoe rocks violently.

“What’s happening? What’s she doing?” Kesh gasps.

“She has no experience with canoes,” you spit. “Only kayaks. She’s only ever been in a kayak before. The canoes are only used for traveling great distances—long scouting trips or when we came to visit your clan. That trip was the only time I have ever been in a canoe,
and I was amazed by how different it was from a kayak—how much more volatile on the water . . . how much more easily it could tip. She has no idea what she’s doing.”

Of course she doesn’t. And neither does Roon.

The boat pitches hard and Roon reaches up, maybe to grab the hem of her parka. A short burst of sound flies from her—something between a squeal and a scream.

She wobbles, shudders,
and for one long, hope-filled moment, she stretches her back, arching over the side, her arm extending toward Roon, her hand almost touching his.

Then she twists in the air, tumbles, and falls, splashing into the sea.

Living on the water, taking out kayaks to fish and gather kelp, I know the dangers. When the water is its coldest—in winter when ice thickens in the bay and eventually blocks the
harbor—the cold of the water could end your life before you could swim into shore.

But this is early summer. Most of the big sheets of sea ice have melted. She should have a bit longer than that to save herself. Twice as long before her limbs begin to go numb,
maybe? The bigger threat—that the sudden shock of the cold could knock her out and cause her to drown—is just as real a danger in the
summer as in the winter.

I have to do something. I can’t stand on the beach watching while the life is chilled out of your twelve-year-old sister. Two kayaks are stacked against the rocks about thirty paces away. Before I can think, I am pushing one out into the shallow waves and climbing in.

I hear splashing behind me. I don’t need to look back to know that you have followed me with the other
boat.

Everything seems to slow down as I paddle out—the strength of the current seems to push me back to shore and the water feels as thick as mud. The sky grows ever darker, but what I lack in sight, I make up for in hearing—Lees splashing, Roon yelling, you shouting.

Then I am almost next to them, just a few boat lengths away. The final, fading gold of the sky reflects off the surface, and
everything glows.

Where’s their paddle?
Either they’ve lost it, or they left shore without it. The canoe is simply drifting, and the two of them are at the mercy of the waves.

Without a paddle to extend to her, Roon takes off his parka and holds it by the hood, leaning over the edge of the boat and casting it out to your sister like a net. I paddle closer, closer, closer as Lees grasps it by
the hem and pulls herself alongside the canoe.

With Lees pulling down, Roon’s weight suddenly shifts, and the side of the canoe tilts sharply toward the surface.

“Hold on!” Roon calls. “I’ve got you!”

But he doesn’t have her.

A dark wave crashes over her head, pushing her down and hiding her from sight. Roon’s arm reaches over the side. For a moment, his open hand dangles above the empty sea.

Then, all at once, Lees’s hand reaches up, her head and shoulders reemerge from the wave, and their arms clasp. He pulls hard, braced against the side of the canoe. The boat tips, rocking wildly. I am certain that Roon will fall forward into the water.

But the canoe rocks back, and Roon rights himself. The breathless moments of struggle come to an end as a dripping, shivering child swings her
legs up and climbs back into the canoe.

By the time I pull my kayak alongside their boat, Roon and Lees are huddling together in the hull, shivering and laughing like it’s all a wonderful joke.

I take off my parka and toss it into the boat. It falls across a waterskin I assume contains the stolen mead. “Wrap yourselves in this,” I say. “That ought to keep you warm.”

I throw a quick look toward
shore. You’ve already turned your kayak and have made it nearly halfway back to the beach.

Tying the tow rope around my waist, I dig hard with
the blades of my paddle, dragging the two most impulsive twelve-year-olds back to land.

You do not speak to me when they climb out of the canoe. You don’t speak to Roon or to Kesh. Instead, you yank your little sister by the arm and whisper something
into her ear. Then, without another word, you drag Lees up the path and out of sight.

My new parka lies discarded in the bottom of the canoe. It’s wet and dirty, but still, I shrug it on and lead my brothers back to camp.

“I understand now,” Kesh says, as we trudge up the path, out of the dunes and back into the eerie darkness under the trees.

I look at him, wondering what great mystery this
dreadful evening has clarified for him.

“I couldn’t make sense of why you were against Mya. I noticed that you didn’t like her, but I couldn’t understand why.”