Transcendence (40 page)

It has been more than an entire set of seasons since the stranger took Lah away, but she looks exactly the same. She’s the same size, and she makes the same cry. I know it’s her—I can feel it in my heart. I don’t think Lah is still sick either. She had been so weak when he took her, and now her cry is much stronger. I look at the man holding my daughter, and I narrow my eyes at him.

He took her. She was sick, and he took her away from us.

A low growl comes from my chest as I grip the spear a little tighter. If I step away from the cave, Beh will get out from behind me, and he might take her, like he did Lah. He could take Lee, too. My stomach roils again. I can’t move away without putting the rest of my family in danger, but the man isn’t close enough to use the spear on him. I glance around at the ground near the cave, looking for rocks to hurl at him instead.

I feel Beh’s breath on the side of my neck, and she grips the top of my arm tightly as her chest presses against my back. The man in front of me makes sounds, and Beh makes sounds at him in return. His eyes stay on mine, and I do not look away from him. His sounds get louder as do my growls.

Beh grips my shoulders, and she yells out more sounds. The man’s eyes narrow and his head bobs up and down once. He takes a few steps toward us, and I crouch lower, readying my spear. His arms reach forward, and he lays Lah down just a short distance from my feet before backing away entirely.

I look to Beh, then to the man, and then down to Lah. The bundled child squirms on the ground and cries out again. Her sounds compel me forward, but I’m scared for Beh and Lee. As Lah’s cries increase, I hold my spear behind me to block Beh and watch the man closely as I take a step forward. Both the man and Beh stand motionless as I take another step. When I am close enough to bend down and touch Lah, the tightness in my stomach and chest disappears.

It
is
her.

My daughter.

My Lah.

My fingers grace over her tiny cheek, no longer burning with fever. She looks exactly the same as she had, only her lips are a little fuller, no longer chapped and dry. When I pull back on the covering swaddling her, I can see her arms are chubby, and her skin is soft. I reach out and pull her from the ground, holding her tightly to my chest.

I close my eyes, and I can feel the burning behind them as her warm skin meets mine. With my cheek pressed to hers, our warm tears mingle, and I revel in the sound of her loud, angry, healthy cry. I can feel the beat of her heart against my skin, and I take a deep breath to inhale her scent—like her mother’s but slightly sweeter.

Another loud sound invades the moment.

“
No!”

Beh’s
no
sound startles me, and I glance over my right shoulder to look at her. Her eyes are wide and full of fear, and her hands reach out toward me. I hear the thump of rapid footsteps to my left, but I cannot react in time without dropping Lah.

Suddenly, there is a sharp pain in my arm, and everything goes black.

I awake with my head pounding.

I’m surrounded by the familiar scents of the cave, the furs in which we sleep, and Beh’s body near mine. I reach for her warmth automatically and feel another smaller body curled between us. My ears pick up the rhythmic sounds of a suckling baby, but at the same time, I can hear the cries of another.

The sun still shines into the crack from the outside of the cave, and the fire burns brightly, but the light inside the cave is dim. Even so, my head throbs more, and my eyes ache as I open them.

Between us, wrapped in strange, soft cloth and suckling at her mother’s breast is Lah. For a moment, I think I have awakened from a bizarre dream—that maybe she was never taken from us and was never even sick—but the sounds of another remind me that is not so.

Lee pounds his little fists on the fur wrapped around his mother’s lower half as he tries to crawl between us to determine just what this other child is doing with his milk. Through my hazy vision, I watch him try to push his sister away. Beh picks him up with her free hand, smiles, and makes soft noises. She places him against her other breast, which he immediately grabs and shoves into his mouth. His green eyes narrow and glare at the little girl who feeds beside him, and he sucks harder.

I try to move my head a little closer to them, but I become dizzy immediately. I close my eyes again, but it only makes it worse, and I groan. I feel Beh’s hand against my jaw and hear her soft sounds.

“
Shh, Ehd.”

I look at her face, and I can see her eyes are red and swollen, but she is smiling. I drop my eyes back to Lah. Her eyes have closed and her mouth has stilled. Lee is still scowling at her but seems content enough with milk in his mouth. Looking back and forth between them, it is obvious Lee is a whole season older than Lah in size. Lah was born late in the summer and became sick at the beginning of the previous winter. She looks to be the same size as she was then, just fatter and healthier than when I last saw her. Lee had been born in the winter, and it is now midsummer again.

Lah should be much larger than Lee, but she isn’t.

My head swims again.

I hear more sounds coming from the other side of the cave. The sounds are deeper in tenor than the ones Beh and Lee make, but I remember hearing the same tone before. The sound was coming from the man.

I raise my head, ignoring the throbbing in my temples and the nausea in my stomach. Across from the fire on the ledge where Beh had lined up her various collection baskets, sits the man—Beh’s father. He wears the same strange, white wrap that hangs down to his thighs, and his legs are covered in leggings like the ones Beh used to wear. They are a lighter color blue, though, and don’t seem to be as form-fitting or thick. The material looks thin as it flows with his legs when he moves around.

He sits with his back curved and his elbows down at his knees. There is something on the ground near his feet, but I can’t tell what it is. My eyes are still having trouble focusing through the pounding ache in my head.

His mouth opens, and sounds similar to the ones Beh makes flow rapidly from between his lips. Beh’s noises follow, and Lee’s eyes open wide as he looks between them both, distracted enough to release Beh’s nipple for a moment.

“
Da-da-da-da!” Lee turns back to the nipple after making his noise and closes his eyes as he latches on and returns to eating.

Still dizzy, I try to push myself up, but Beh’s hand against my chest sends me back into the furs. When I try to move my legs, they do not want to cooperate. I feel as if I have been running for an entire morning or that I haven’t slept all night. I might be able to push Beh away and make myself stand, but her soft hands on my skin and whispers of my name-sound calm me, and I lay back down.

I glance at Beh’s father and watch him warily as Beh takes both sleeping children from her breast and lays them together in a pile of furs next to me. I grab for her hand as she moves to stand, and she grips my fingers briefly before moving to the side of the cave where her father is seated, pulling her leather wrap up around her shoulders as she goes.

For a moment, I want to follow and take her farther away from him, but I realize I may have been asleep for some time, and if he had wanted to take them all away, he would have already done so. Also, as her father, he wouldn’t want to harm her, I believe.

So I do not move when she goes to his side, but I watch closely as she curls her legs underneath her body to sit near his feet. I try harder to focus on the object there and realize it is much like the thing he was carrying in his hand when he first appeared, but it looks different now. He reaches inside of the thing—the
container
—and pulls out a small, cylindrical object. It makes a strange noise when he shakes it, and he makes sounds with his mouth. Beh’s head bobs up and down, and he places the object back in the container.

Beh’s father repeats his actions with many strange-looking things, but my mind is still fuzzy, and I am having trouble keeping my eyes open. I roll slightly to look at the forms of my two sleeping children. Lee’s hand has reached out and grasped his sister’s arm, pulling her fingers to his mouth where he sucks at them in slumber. I reach over and lay my arm across them both protectively.

Finally, my entire family is together, and I smile.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Beh and her father sit at the fire and make constant noise. It hurts my head, but it makes Beh smile and laugh.

Leaning down, I scoop up a rapidly crawling Lee under one arm and bring him near the fire. Beh has finished preparing our breakfast, and Lah seems to have finished hers already. Beh lays her down on the strange, soft material Lah was wrapped in when Beh’s father brought her back and gently checks the other, smaller cloth that is wrapped around Lah’s bottom to see if it is wet. Lee has one as well, attached in the front with a small, shiny stick that is so sharp at the end it goes right through the covering. Beh’s deft fingers are able to attach and remove the little shiny stick quickly, but I end up with a bleeding finger when I try it.

There are many strange things Beh’s father has in his bizarre container.

I sit next to Lah and hand Lee over to Beh. He has already eaten but seems more demanding of Beh’s time now that Lah is with us again. Even though it is only the second morning his sister has been back with us, he notices that his time is now shared.

Beh and her father continue to make noise while I eat and rub Lah’s feet until she falls asleep.

“
Ehd?”

I look up to Beh when I hear her call my name-sound. She reaches over Lah and places her hand on my chest.

“
Ehd.” Beh taps my chest with her fingers.

“
Lah.” She touches the top of Lah’s head.

I narrow my eyes a little as her hand moves to her father’s white-clad torso.

“
Dad.”

My eyes meet his, and I scowl.

I don’t really know how I feel about the man. He took Lah from us in a way I can’t really fathom, and even though he has returned her, the method of return is too odd, and I don’t understand what has happened to my little girl. Part of me is grateful she is back and seems healthy again, but another part of me is mistrusting; I don’t know why he has returned or what he will do next. I have been ignoring his presence for the most part, hoping he will just disappear again.

Beh repeats the sound she made again and again, and I realize she must be saying his name-sound. I look from her to him again, and his blue, Beh-like eyes flicker between mine. I don’t want to acknowledge him because all I really want is for him to leave quickly and never return.

Lee chooses that moment to begin to make his own noises.

“
Da da da da da!”

Beh beams at him as she repeats the sounds he makes. Lah’s feet kick out in her sleep, and I turn my attention back to her, rubbing her toes until she slumbers more deeply. Beh reaches over and she places her hand on top of mine.

“
Dad,” she says again.

I meet her eyes before briefly glancing back at her father. My eyes drop to my meal, but I am no longer hungry. Instead of eating more, I reach over and take Lee from Beh, pick Lah up in my other arm, and walk outside of the cave with both of them.

The sunshine is warm, and I know summer will be upon us soon. I take both of the babies near the ravine and not near the field where Beh’s father keeps appearing and disappearing. I don’t want them too close to the area at all. Lee is squirmy and wants to move about on his own. I place him on the ground, watching him carefully as I rock Lah in my arms.

I’m tired and confused, and I hope a little time away from
Dad
will clear my head. At least I am provided with a distraction in the form of my son, who tries to put most everything he can grab off the ground into his mouth. While balancing Lah on my knee, I take things away from his little hands despite his protests.

I hear my mate’s sounds behind me and look over my shoulder at her and Dad coming out of the cave. He holds a small black rectangle in his hand—one I have seen him carry before. My heart begins to pound, and I quickly grab Lee and pull him back into my arms. Beh and Dad walk toward me, and I walk a few steps backwards.