Once we have all boarded the boats—Anki’s body lying in a canoe paddled by Morsk and Thern, and Chev’s body lying in another paddled by Pek, Pada, and Kol—I begin watching the sea for signs of the Tama. If they’ve been waiting for a moment to attack and take Noni back, now would be the time.
Noni shares a double kayak with Seeri, but we are all vigilant. Lees and I stay to one side of them and the canoes stay to the other. Even once we are far enough south that we feel safe enough to row closer to shore, I still throw frequent looks over my shoulder. I notice Lees does, too. But the water is always empty. Seabirds dive for their meals, but otherwise, the sea rolls unbroken to the horizon.
Nothing to be afraid of, I tell myself. But fear hovers over me, like a shag that won’t fly far from its young.
And so I row. All day, as the sun rises and crosses over into the western sky, I row, and I try not to think.
We are in sight of the Manu’s bay when Lees calls out to me. “You look at him so often,” she says.
“Who?” I call back, though I know. As we’ve traveled south, I’ve stayed aware of Kol’s canoe, whether they were ahead of us or behind. I’ve tried to gauge how well he was by watching the movement of his oar. At times he seemed strong; at others I thought he might drop the oar into the sea.
“Your betrothed, of course,” Lees shrieks. “I can’t blame you. I would be the same way. I can’t wait until Roon and I are betrothed.” Her voice scatters on the wind, breaking on the waves. Of course she assumes she will soon be betrothed to Roon, and why shouldn’t she be? Chev was ready to agree to it, too. So Lees will become betrothed, but my betrothal will be broken. I should have just accepted Morsk’s proposition and never gone away.
If I had stayed—if I’d taken Lees’s place and agreed to marry Morsk—would Chev still be alive? This question has haunted my thoughts since I found him on the ground, his throat slashed with his own knife. If we’d never gone to the island I feel he would be alive, but I can’t forget who’s really to blame for his death. I can’t let my guilt confuse me.
Still, I feel the loss of my brother covering me like a shadow. The sun hits my face, but it has no warmth.
When I first glimpse the bay that opens beside the Manu’s camp, my heart begins to thrash inside my chest as if it is trying to escape. I imagine the questions we will face from both clans camped on that bay—the Bosha on the western shore and the Manu on the east.
We do not linger at the Bosha camp. I climb from the kayak to speak briefly with the elders, but I say little. I will let Thern and Pada explain to their own clan the events that led to Dora and Anki’s deaths. The events that led to Chev’s death. As the elders learn that Chev was killed, I see their reactions—grief and fear. I hear the questions they murmur to Thern and Pada as I go—will the Olen still accept them back? Will Chev’s sister honor his promise?
I climb back into the boat, my heart pounding with hope. Hope that I was right to trust in Pada and Thern’s word. Hope that my brother was right to take the Bosha back.
My heart has finally calmed by the time we reach the shore of the Manu camp, but then it grows heavy like a stone in my chest when I see the clan come to meet us on the beach. I imagine someone must have spotted our boats on the opposite shore and word must have spread that Kol and Pek, gone two days, have returned.
If there’s a buzz in the crowd, it quiets as soon as Kol climbs out of the canoe and throws his arms around his mother. He speaks into her ear, just a few words, and as Lees and I approach the shore, I watch her run into the water. She stands at the edge of the canoe and looks down at the body of my brother, and she lets out a cry that breaks my stone heart in two.
Mala’s cry is like an echo—the twin sound to the cry I hold inside, the cry I’ve yet to let out. Hearing it feels dangerous, like the pain inside me might take flight and leap from my throat, answering the call of its own. So I push the pain down. I’m the Olen High Elder now. I can’t let my weakness show.
Once the boat I share with Lees is close to shore I scramble out, anxious to climb the steep bank and escape the cold sea. Someone reaches for me and I look up to see Mala. She has hurried onto shore ahead of me and is ready to haul me up.
I think back to the last time I stood on this bank—just days ago when I came for my betrothal—and Mala pulled me into her arms. I was protective of my emotions that day. Like today. Like every day. I didn’t want my weakness to show.
And I regretted it.
I put both my hands in Mala’s and let her pull me to her, tugging me up the slope and into her embrace. I know how much I need this comfort, how much I need a mother’s embrace. I surrender to it. I let the cry I’ve been holding inside finally escape, muffled and muted against Mala’s shoulder.
Once Kol’s whole clan has joined us and we are all huddled together around the hearth in the Manu’s meeting place, the long story is told. About Noni and her mother. About Chev and how he died. About our trek across the island, Kol’s illness, and our battles with the Bosha and the Tama. When the whole story has been told and there’s nothing more to say, Mala brings out food. She fusses over Noni, who stays very quiet and very close to Lees. The children squeal over Black Dog. Mala feeds us until we are all full, and I can tell by the foods she shares, especially the honeyed roots, that she is trying to comfort us—to comfort me—without words.
After the meal, no one from Kol’s clan leaves the meeting place. Instead, everyone stays—everyone crowds around me and my sisters—and they all share their memories of Chev. I know they have the best intentions, and yet with each story the pain inside me grows, like it’s nourished by words. I sit as long as I can, though I ache to retreat into our family’s hut and hide.
You can’t do that ever again, a voice inside me says. Chev’s voice. You’re the High Elder now, and a High Elder does not hide.
But I do hide. I hide inside myself, even when I’m in plain sight.
The sun slides west against a pale blue sky, but it seems to stay fixed in one place—the evening goes on and on. Finally, the sun hovers above the treetops on the western hills, and the crowd begins to thin. Urar, the Manu healer, comes and sits by me. He tells me he has been to the shore. He has chanted over the body of my brother, which still lies along the bottom of the canoe. He asked the Divine to watch over Chev until he can be buried when we finally reach our home.
“The Spirits in the sea are caring for him now,” Urar says. “He is cradled by the sea. The Spirits will keep the body cold and well until he can be buried.”
And then Urar reminds me of a thought I have been hiding from. “I could rub the body with red ocher,” he offers, “unless you think the Olen healer would like to prepare the body himself.”
The Olen healer—Yano—the man my brother loves. Loved. The man he loved until he died.
All at once I feel as if the ground has slid out from beneath me. As if I’ve been standing on the edge of a cliff of shifting rocks and now they are tumbling to the sea. A wave crashes up, pulling me under. I feel it, feel myself drowning, even as I sit here and calmly stare into Urar’s face. “I think it would be best if you did it,” I say. But my voice is wet and choked, like I am speaking underwater. “I would appreciate it so much if I could take him home already prepared.”
“Of course,” Urar says. His eyes reach out to Kol, calling to him from across the meeting space. I can see what his expression says. She needs you. He can’t know that I have hurt Kol too much for him to want to come and comfort me.
To my surprise, Kol does come to my side. “My mother wishes to speak to me, but it shouldn’t take long,” he says. “After, would you walk with me?”
A light behind Kol’s eyes flickers for just a moment, like a flame flaring up in a breeze, then just as quickly dies down again. But the brief moment it was there is enough. “Yes,” I say. “I would.”
While Kol is gone, a woman of his clan approaches me. She is maybe a little older than Mala, her hair a mix of black and gray. She stretches out her cupped hand, and in it she holds an obsidian spear point. I can tell instantly that it was carved by Chev.
“This was given to me by your brother,” the woman says. “I had admired the workmanship of the one on his own spear, and the blade on his knife. He thanked me, and we talked about other things. But the next time he came to our camp, he brought this one as a gift for me.”
This story surprises me. It doesn’t sound like something Chev would do. But then, as I turn the spear point in my hand it catches the light, and for an instant, I see my brother’s eye reflected back at me. I see him in every careful cut made to the stone, and I realize I am being too hard on my brother’s memory.
He enjoyed attention, yes. He liked to be admired for his craftsmanship, and he liked his work to be acknowledged. But he also was frequently generous. He insisted we bring a feast for Kol to this camp when he realized he’d been rude. And he’d painstakingly worked this spear point for a member of another clan, simply because she’d admired one of his own.
My throat goes dry, even as tears fill my eyes. I lay the point in the palm of the woman’s hand, and she folds her fingers over it carefully. She pats my hand and walks away, straight into her hut, presumably to tuck away this gift my brother made for her.
With no one else hovering to speak to me, I decide to take advantage of the chance to duck out of sight for just a moment. But as I pass the door to Kol’s hut, I hear his voice and then his mother’s, and my steps slow.
If I hadn’t meant to listen, that changes when I hear my own name.
“This isn’t about Mya.”
“You’re right,” his mother answers. “It’s about you. And your father. And every other Manu—every Manu who’s ever lived, and every one who’s yet to live. It matters that much.”
I stand still a moment longer, but when Kol replies he’s too quiet to hear, and Pek and Seeri are coming close. I can hear their voices. They are heading to the door of Kol’s family’s hut, and I try to appear to be going there, too.
“Are you all right?” Pek asks. I remember the tears in my eyes.
“Yes. Just taking a moment—”
“There you are.” It’s Kol’s voice. He’s just pushed back the hide that hangs in the doorway of his hut. His mother steps out behind him. Her face glows in the sun that still hangs in the west. Still, her expression stays cool. “I have a few items of clothing I think will fit Noni,” she says. “She can change out of those torn pants.”
“She’ll like that,” I say. We all turn to see Noni and Lees in the center of the meeting place. Black Dog is putting on a show, retrieving sticks. Mala walks toward her as Pek and Seeri duck inside the hut.
Kol and I are alone.
“Are you still willing to walk with me?” He smiles, and my blood crackles and sparks. My heart jumps as if it’s startled by his voice.
Without a word about where we would go, we both head up the trail to the meadow.
As we walk, I’m reminded of the tunic I still wear—my betrothal tunic. A strip of trim has loosened at the hem, but the pattern on the front is unchanged. “Do you recognize it?” I ask, just as we reach the field of grasses and flowers that inspired the tunic’s design. “Did you know—”
“I knew. Of course I knew. I recognized the colors, and the shapes of the blades moving in the wind.” His finger alights on the tunic just below my chest and traces a seam where a section of caribou is stitched to a piece of otter. His hand stops just below my navel and his fingers fan across my stomach. “It’s beautiful.”
We both stand motionless, as all around us the sun sets the whole meadow ablaze in light. The north wind gusts loud in our ears, every stalk of grass flattens under its weight, and yet the stillness of Kol’s eyes staring unflinchingly into mine is all I know. A tumultuous silence. An unruly stillness.
Then Kol drops his hand to his side, I slide my eyes to the sky, and everything comes back into motion.
“My mother and I talked,” Kol says, leading me farther up the path, walking into the wind. I think of his father. The last time either of us passed through here was the day he died. “I told her you and I had discussed a merger of our clans.”
I stop. The words I heard through the walls of the hut come back to me. It’s about every Manu who’s ever lived. Every one who’s yet to live. “She’s against it,” I say.
“She is.” His hand swings at his side and he hooks a few of my fingers in his. “And I listened to her. But nothing she said could convince me. Nothing made me sure that a future together was impossible.” He stops. Tilts his head at the lowering sun. “It’s too late in the day for bees, but . . .”
We both stretch out on the tall grass. Purple and white flowers—so small from above—stretch past the corners of my eyes, reaching for the broad blue expanse of the sky. I feel like we are floating side by side in water, like the grass is a wave upon the sea.
“I can’t say yes to a merger of our clans,” I say. I have to say it. It’s the truth.
“Not now, or not ever?”
I lie still, let my eyes fall shut. “I feel like it’s not my decision to make,” I say. “It’s like trying to decide if the sun should rise. Or if the sea should freeze, or melt again in the spring. It’s not my decision to make. It was decided by the Divine, a long time ago.”
“Well, then that’s a shame,” Kol says. “Because I brought you here to tell you that I’ve made the decision to do whatever you choose. If you choose a merger, we will merge. If you choose not to, then we won’t . . . and I suppose then our betrothal will end.”
We lie there and listen, as if listening for bees, but Kol is right—it’s too late in the day. The sky hardens from blue to gray. Kol stands and holds out his hand. “It’s late. We need to go back.”
I climb to my feet, resisting the urge to wrap my arms around his neck. “I decide that the sun will not set,” I say.
“Be careful. Even things that the Divine decided long ago can change. A winter storm can come in the spring. A cavern can be torn open to become a stream. Even the Divine can change her mind.” Kol’s face is momentarily striped with black and gold, as slanting streaks of sun mix with shadows. Something shimmers there—a meaningful twist of his lips—but by the time I really see him his hair falls across his eyes and his face is lost in darkness.
He takes a few strides and I watch him go, letting his words repeat in my head. A cavern can be torn open to become a stream. . . . Even the Divine can change her mind.
I stand still so long, I have to hurry to catch him. We walk the rest of the way back to camp in silence.