Noni returns the pack of food she stole, but she offers no apology. I don’t ask for one either. I think of her mother, dead or maybe dying, when Noni dared sneak up on two sleeping strangers. I think of the fact that she took only food—she left knives, an ax, atlatls, and darts. I think of how long she may have gone without food while she tried to save her mother.
And I decide there’s nothing to discuss. She did what she had to do to survive and to help a person she loved. Isn’t that what we all do every day?
We don’t eat much, and what we do eat gets consumed in a hurry, sitting on the dunes facing the water, like we’re on a break during a long journey and don’t have time for a real meal. Noni gulps down pieces of dried fish and clover roots like she thinks I might change my mind and take it away from her. Even so, she shares what she has with Black Dog. I scoop out some extra fish for her, since she gave him almost half of what she had.
Noni eats with her head down, concentrating only on her food, but when she finishes she finally looks up at me and Lees. Something in her gaze says she’s trying to decide if we fit into her dreams or her nightmares.
“So, Noni,” I start, “are there other people from your clan here?”
“No,” she says.
I wait, giving her a chance to offer more of an explanation of her presence on the island. But that one word is all I get. “So you came here with only your mother?”
“We ran away,” she says.
“Were you running away from a betrothal?” Lees asks. Her voice is excited, as if she’s forgotten what it means to run away. The gravity of leaving your home behind.
“No. We were running from my father.”
Lees goes quiet. So does Noni. The only sound comes from the dog, as he sniffs the ground for dropped scraps.
“You paddled out to sea to escape your father?” I ask. “How did you know you would find land?”
“We didn’t.” Noni scoops the final bite of clover root into her mouth. “But my father’s reach has no boundaries but the sea. Everywhere else, he’s found us. So the sea was the only choice left.” She scrapes the last of her fish to the ground, and the dog snaps them up. “I was wondering the same thing about you. I wondered why two girls would be all the way out on the sea. And why they would arrive right when the ground stopped shaking—”
“Right when it stopped shaking? Did it shake for long?”
“All day,” she says. “The first tremor came at first light. They stopped and started, over and over, until you landed on the shore after dark.” She keeps the same reluctant tone—like I’m a child tugging on her pant leg, begging her to tell me a story.
“And when did you—”
“I don’t think I want to answer any more questions,” she says. “I think I want to ask questions now.”
She asks us where we came from, and we tell her the truth. She asks us how we knew about this island, and we tell her the truth.
“So why, then?” she asks. “Why did you come? You must have been running from something.”
“Our brother is the High Elder,” Lees says, “and he wants to make me marry a man I don’t love.”
“My father is the High Elder, too. The High Elder of the Tama.”
“Is that the clan camped at the river? Straight into shore from here?” I remember the man who pursued us out to sea when Lees and I paddled past, but I keep this thought to myself.
“Yes,” Noni says. She glances up at me, then just as quickly slides her gaze away.
“And you and your mother left when your father did something bad?”
Noni sighs. She is not eager to tell this story—no spark of anticipation lights her eyes. Instead, they darken with resolve.
“My father is a hard man. Hard and violent. All my life he’s been violent toward my mother. Sometimes he was worse than others. Sometimes . . . he was much worse.” Noni pauses. She takes a drink from her waterskin. “We’ve tried to run away before, but he has always found us. And every time he’s dragged us back, he’s punished her worse for leaving. Finally, she stopped trying. I think she would have never left again if he had never . . .” Noni stops. Some subtle change ripples across her, and I’m carried back to the canyon where Kol’s father died, to the moment right before the mammoths began to run. “The day before we left, she caught him with me, and she swore he would never touch me again.” Noni’s hands fly to her face, muffling her last words.
“Your father beat you too?” Lees asks, her eyes wide.
“He did. . . .” Noni’s voice drops so low, I almost can’t hear her. “Since last summer, my father has beaten me even worse than he’s beaten my mother,” she whispers. “It was as if he wanted to find a new way to hurt her.”
Lees touches her arm, but she flinches back.
“I’m all right,” she says. “I know it wasn’t my fault. He’s a selfish man. A man who does whatever he chooses, and hurts—even kills—people who try to stop him. He chose to beat me, and when my mother tried to stop him, he killed her.”
“He killed her?” I ask. “I thought she died from the quake—”
“No. She was so badly hurt. He meant to kill her. I’m sure that was what he wanted.”
The tide is coming in. As Noni speaks, the urgency of the waves seems to grow. A vague fear stirs in me. I look out over the sea, almost expecting to see a boat on the horizon, but the water is smooth and clear in every direction. I force myself to draw a deep breath.
“He let her go to the healer, but what can a healer do with a body so broken? Nothing but chant and pray. Her injuries—on her face and her arms—those were the ones you could see. But she had injuries you couldn’t see. Blood came up her throat. . . .” Her voice snags on the words. She climbs to her feet and the dog reacts, pacing a circle around her. She looks back toward the cave, and I know she is thinking of her mother’s body, lying in the open. She shuffles restlessly, and I’m about to get to my feet and suggest we return to the cave, when she sits back down. The dog lets out a low whine and settles down beside her again.
“She fell asleep in the healer’s hut that evening, so I slept in our hut with my father. But in the darkest part of the night, she woke me. She was taking me away.
“It wasn’t sensible—no one so hurt should try to travel—but she wouldn’t be deterred. Black Dog would not leave my side, so she let him come. We took a boat from the river. This time we had to go to a place where no one had ever gone before, so we headed for the horizon.
“The Tama never go far from shore. We had no idea what we would find, but we knew whatever it was, it couldn’t be worse. My mother prayed to the Divine that she would provide a camp for us. And she did.
“She led us to this island—a place full of game and freshwater. My mother was so happy, she thanked the Divine over and over. I think she knew she would die, and she wanted me to be safe.”
Noni is interrupted by a loud howl. Not Black Dog this time. This time, it’s a wolf. Then a second voice joins the first.
My mind turns to my own home—to my clan and family far away—and I can’t help but feel grateful that no matter how bad our problems with Chev might be, he cares for us. He is nothing like the evil High Elder Noni’s father is. I might question his decisions, but I know he would never willingly put us in danger.
Another howl cuts through my thoughts, and I realize the wolves can smell the scent of human remains. “Noni,” I say. “I think we need to move your mother’s body.”
“You’re right.”
We head back to the cave without talking. Even Lees stays quiet, despite her habit of speaking to fill up the silences.
When we reach the cave—when I see her mother’s body in need of burial—I realize there is one thing I must say to Noni, though I hate to. I don’t tell her about the man who pursued us from the shore of the Tama’s camp. But I do tell her something that may upset her just as much.
“Noni, we can’t burn your mother’s body.”
“But—”
“The column of smoke would be so thick, it would be visible from shore. From your father’s camp. He’d know you were here.”
Noni shakes her head. She kneels beside her mother’s shoulder and picks up her hand as if she were trying to comfort her. “We can’t bury her. She wouldn’t want that.”
“What if we moved her into the cave?” Lees asks. She kneels down beside Noni on the ground. “We don’t have to bury her, but maybe we could cover her. We could collect rocks—just a thin layer would deter predators, but she wouldn’t truly be buried.”
Noni stills, staring at her mother’s hand in hers. “Yes,” she finally says.
We work quickly, the three of us gathering all the small stones from the floor of the cave. Noni works as hard as Lees and I, despite the purpose of our task.
When it comes time to move her mother, though, Noni breaks. The face she kept frozen even as she told her story finally melts when she bends down and brushes back her mother’s hair. Tears stream from her eyes, but she doesn’t bother to wipe them away. She lets them drip from her chin, dropping onto her mother’s cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
“Noni,” I say, “it’s not your fault. You couldn’t have protected her from your father—”
“That’s not what I mean,” she says. “It’s my fault I couldn’t save her.”
My eyes trace over the dead woman’s face—the leaves are still draped across her cheekbones. My eyes flit to her wrist. The leaf wrapping still covers her wound there.
“The feverweed. I did my best. . . .”
“I’ve never seen this plant before.” I pick up a leaf that lies on the ground, one of many that fell or blew away as Noni struggled to treat her mother’s wounds. “What does it do? How does it help?”
Noni draws a deep breath and lifts up the bottom edge of her parka. On her abdomen, just below her navel, a long gash is packed with feverweed. I gasp.
“My father’s work,” she says. “When I tried to help my mother.” Dried blood stains her skin, but the wound is healing. “The plant stops the flow of blood. It takes away pain if you chew it, and it will bring down a fever. My mother always used it with me when I got hurt. She was always able to heal me.”
But I couldn’t heal her. She doesn’t say it. She doesn’t have to.
“Some injuries can’t be healed,” I say. It’s not much, but it’s the truth. Right now, I can’t think of anything I can give Noni but the truth.
Later, we make camp right on the beach. Lees finds three long branches to use as tent poles, and we wrap the mammoth hide around them to form the outer wall. We eat more of the dried meat and roots. Lees begins to talk about hunting together. Black Dog plays in the surf, but he looks around restlessly. He’s ready to hunt, too.
“Tomorrow,” I tell him when he jumps against my legs and splashes seawater over my boots. “Tomorrow we will be ready to hunt.”
Though I don’t say the words aloud, to myself I wonder if tomorrow we may even be on our way home. Kol and Chev would have certainly spoken by now. Could it be possible that Chev has already changed his mind and Kol will soon be on his way?
When we climb into the tent to sleep, the room falls quiet almost as soon as the hide drapes shut. But although fatigue tugs at my limbs and my eyes grow heavy, I don’t sleep. I lie awake and think of Noni’s father and the violence that drove his family from him. What would he do if he knew that his wife had died? If he knew that Noni was here, would he come for her?
Would I try to protect her? She is not of our clan, and clan must come first. Defending Noni could put Lees at risk. But how could I let Noni’s father take her, now that I know her story?
The sound of the girls’ rhythmic breathing soothes me, and my eyes grow heavy. I let my lids fall shut, and I think of Kol sleeping in his own hut—the hut where we shared that cup of honey I brought to him, hoping to make peace.
Soon we will have our own hut that we share. A bed that we share. And I’ll never have to sleep away from Kol again.
I fall asleep, warmed by the thought of my body stretched out in a bed beside his. I drift off, willing him to visit me in my dreams.
Until I wake with a start, as the ground beneath me shakes.