“I have not forgotten!” Chev’s outburst throws a hush over the room, a hush so complete I feel as if the whole world has gone silent. The rattle in the vent stops; the birds outside quiet their songs. “But Mya, you know I could never wish them harm. So how could I ever accept the thought of them forgotten, abandoned by the Divine? How could I accept the thought that the person they trusted to lead them has led them to ruin?”
“But she has indeed led us to ruin,” Shava says, her voice calm, as if a gentle manner of telling will lessen the pain the words inflict. “The two years we have lived with the Bosha have been marked by hunger and cold. Some nights were so cold. . . .” Shava holds out her hand. The skin of each fingertip and each knuckle is darker and thicker than the unscarred skin around it—the lingering record of frostbite. “Hunger, cold, and hate. Hate for Chev for abandoning us—”
“You hear?” you ask. Like your brother, you can no longer sit still. As he paces, you follow behind him. “Do you see now that she continues to steal the honor you deserve? That she persists at turning the hearts of your people against you?”
Shava, too, rises from the floor slowly, and with her the tension in the room rises. Suddenly I remember the reason we all came in here. . . .
So Shava could share a warning.
“She does persist in turning the Bosha against you, and she has succeeded. She has sent scouts to spy on you, and these scouts have brought back stories of your prosperity in the south. They have told of the ornate canoes you use to travel to a land of plentiful game. And Lo has convinced many of the Bosha that it should all belong to them—the boats and the game and the land. Lo has told them that what the Olen possess rightly belongs to them.
“Lo says Chev is a false leader. And she says she will kill him and take his place.”
These words of Shava’s still hang in the air as you push through the kitchen door and out into the gathering place. Without thinking, I follow right behind you.
“So you believe her?” I call.
Your hasty steps come to a sudden stop. You turn slowly, your eyes wide, your head jutting forward from your shoulders. You take a single step in my direction.
“Don’t you?”
In the bright sunlight I study the way the sun glows hot like a burning coal in your black-as-night hair and try to answer this question, for myself as well as for you. Do I believe that Lo—a person I found to be so honest and uncontrived—is plotting to murder your brother? Or do I think that Shava is a girl with a vivid imagination and a hunger for attention?
“I don’t know,” I finally say.
“Then I suggest you go to your dear Lo,” you say. “Go and ask her yourself. By the time you return with her answer, my family will be gone from this camp, on our way to protect our own.”
I don’t know what I had expected. Would a man linger in a place where he believes he is being hunted? Of course not. But if I leave now to go speak to Lo, what will you think of me? Will you see me as a peacemaker, or as a traitor to your brother?
I remember the gift you brought me last night—the cup of folded leaves and the golden honey inside it. I want to say something, to apologize for the things I said before. I want to tell you that I never meant to offend you, and to say how sorry I am that I never knew the whole story of the death of your mother and how it was caused by a man of my own clan. I think of the pain you must feel every time you are made to come to this camp, the place she died. Even right now, standing across from me in this empty gathering place, your body practically twitches with the desire to get away. I see this, and I want to tell you that I understand it now. I understand why you hate the north so much, why you’ve never seemed at ease here.
But I hesitate too long, and the chance is gone. You pivot on your heel and turn away.
My formless words dissolve on my lips as I watch you cross the gathering place and disappear into your family’s hut.
I don’t wait around for you to leave our camp. Instead, I head straight to the water. It isn’t long before I’m halfway across the bay on my way to Lo’s camp.
When I reach the western shore, the beach is deserted except for a few seabirds that stand like sentries, watching the water from large rocks that frame the bay like massive shoulders. The sea breeze is cold in my face—colder than it’s been all summer. Though the sky is cloudless, the wind reveals that a change is on the way. I gather my collar around my neck after dragging my kayak onto the strip of dark gray sand.
I climb the trail to the ring of huts, but I find no one. The entire camp is deserted. From a clearing that overlooks the camp, voices float down, mixed with the structured, deliberate sound of activity. The whole clan must be together, maybe preparing a kill or readying for a celebration.
I remember the scouting trip Shava talked about. If the story is true, perhaps the Bosha’s healer is leading a ceremony to bring good fortune to the trip.
I’ve just found the path up to the clearing when I hear hurried footsteps heading toward me. A moment later a figure appears—Lo.