I won’t!
My chest heaves with labored breaths as I grip my spear. My hands are shaking, and I want to steady them, but it is as if the thoughts of Lah disappearing so long ago are dropping from my head and down into my chest, crushing me underneath their weight. I remember the man I hit to protect Beh all those seasons ago. I remember what happened to him, and I steady myself in case I have to fight. I have done it before, and I can do it again.
The whirring sound stops, and I can see the more distinct shape of the man as the circles fade away. The man and whatever is in his arms is all that is left. It is definitely the man from before. His dark eyes and furry upper lip are the same.
I tighten my grip on my spear and raise it with menace.
“Ehd, no!” Beh grabs hold of the top part of my arm and shakes me, yelling.
Standing firmly at the entrance, I growl and pull my arm from her grasp. I step forward, though I don’t allow enough room for her to slip around me. The man is walking slowly toward us, and I scream out a warning to him. I hold out my spear and stamp my foot as Beh pushes against my back, but my feet are planted firmly, and she can’t move me out of the way.
I don’t know why she is trying.
“Ehd!” she cries out again, and once more she grabs hold of my spear-arm. “Lah!”
I have to close my eyes for a moment, drenched in the memories of the little girl who was the first child I put inside of Beh. The crushing feeling I haven’t felt in a long time is back, holding me down and making my grip on the spear falter.
I will not let him have Lee!
Again I scream at the approaching figure of the man, who slows and stops. His eyes dart between my face and Beh’s. She keeps saying my name-sound and even reaches around to grab hold of my face. I glance at Beh, and the expression on her face is frightening.
She is obviously as scared as I am.
Her hand presses against the side of my face, and a single tear drops from her eye.
“Lah,” she says softly, and points toward the man.
I look back to him and focus on what is in his arms. I see a bundle, wrapped in strange material tucked into one arm while the other hand grips a big, black, square…thing. I don’t care about the thing, though. My attention is captured by the bundle that suddenly squirms and then cries out.
I recognize the cry.
It has haunted me since the day he took Lah.
The man takes another step closer, and I can see a tiny face encircled by the white cloth in his arm. The whole bundle moves, and the little mouth opens up again in a long cry. It’s not the weakened cry I remember from the last days she was with us, but the strong, healthy cry that filled my ears on many nights when Lah would wake hungry or cold.
The man is holding my daughter.
“Lah.” Her name-sound drops out of my mouth and falls into the air. My stomach feels like it does if I eat something that has been sitting in the back of the cave too long, and I can feel it rolling around inside of me, threatening to expel breakfast. Beh is pushing against my shoulder with warm, damp hands, trying to get around me. I don’t know what to think.
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.