Reincarnation

For David Levithan. Thank you, thank you (thank you) for yet again taking a chance on me

and always "getting" what I'm trying to say. It means so much.

Special thanks to Diana Gonzalez, Colleen Salcius, and David M. Young for reading as I

wrote and giving me their valuable comments; to Pam Laskin, Bill Gonzalez, Rae Gonzalez,

and Nancy Krulik for their interest and encouragement; and to Karen Weise for letting me

research emeralds in her great home library.

Reincarnation

And the next thing I knew

I was a baby.

So I begin.

We begin ...

The flickering campfire played across the full belly, wide hips, and torso of the faceless

figure chiseled into the cave wall. May stood beside her fire, staring up at the goddess,

mesmerized by the vision.

The shadows moving over the uneven rock surface made the engravings left hand appear to

caress her swollen midsection. Her raised right hand shook the crescent-shaped bison horn

she clutched. For a fleeting moment, the formerly featureless head flashed with a face of

unspeakable beauty and power.

May wondered if this was truly a trick of light and shadow. Or was it a delirium produced by

sleeplessness or the trapped smoke of the fire?

No one knew any longer who had chiseled this image of The Great Mother into the cave

wall. Yona, May's mother, said it had been in the cave since the time long, long ago, when

the thundering slabs of frigid whiteness first began to thaw and allowed The Growing World

to return.

This conversation had come on the first night of her monthly blood. All the clan's young

females spent it alone with The Great Mother. It was also the night of Yona's big news:

"After the glowing sky creature devours itself

4

thirteen times, and thirteen bloods have passed, you will be ready to leave my fire and join

Lenar as his mate."

"Lenar has asked for me?" May had inquired eagerly. Yona nodded, causing May to shiver

with delighted excitement. Lenar was strong and pleasant to look at. The other young males

followed his lead. As Lenar's mate, May would be highly ranked among the females. A high

ranking meant a place in the cave closer to the big fire, a chance to partake of the kill right

after the males had finished, and all the best of clan life. May welcomed the chance to attain

this status. As the female child of a female without a mate -- Yona's mate had died hunting

-- May would only acquire status if she was well mated.

From that time onward, May had watched Lenar with acute interest, trying to hide her

glances, though not always succeeding. She could tell when he was aware of her eyes upon

him from the way he pulled his broad shoulders back and swiped his thick brown hair away

from his forehead. He postured for her benefit, she knew.

Lenar seldom spoke to her, for it was not customary for the young males to spend time with

young females. Yet May saw enough of him to slowly become disturbed by what she

observed. He repeatedly mocked and struck a young male who seemed to have stayed a

child though his body grew as the others did. Once, she saw him kick the hare

that old blind Asa kept as a pet, just because it had crossed his path as he was passing by.

5

Gradually, painfully, her delight at being the one selected by Lenar faded. She wished it had

not, for she desperately wanted the privilege he offered. Still, the idea of being mated to

him did not fill her with joy.

But when she told her mother of her misgivings regarding Lenar, Yona insisted that nothing

could be done. Her unbreakable pledge had been given.

Besides that, Lenar was the best match May could ever hope for. The Great Mother would

curse Yona and May both if May rejected such good fortune, which surely had come from

The Great Mother herself. Angering Her was something to be avoided at all costs. If they

enraged this powerful force on whom all their lives depended, who knew what disaster She

might bring down upon them in Her fury? Even worse, She might abandon them, plunging

the world back into The Time of Ice. Did May want to risk that?

May stopped questioning and gave herself over to the ecstasy of the vision she was now

seeing of The Great Mother on the cave wall. It had been sent to her. Done with doubt, she

lifted her arms to The Great Mother. The moment had come to ask for what she needed.

"Would you curse me, Mother, if I did not become the mate of Lenar?" she asked. "They say you would, but I do not think that is so."

This wondrous mother who cared for the whole of The Growing World surely saw how

wrong it was for her to be mated with Lenar. Surely May hadn't been born to spend

6

her life serving such a self-swollen, boastful mate, cringing at his touch.

"Mother, how do I escape this? Show me a sign that will tell me what to do!" May hung her head miserably. "I swear that I will serve you all the days of my life if you free me from this fate."

The smoky air stung her eyes and she shut them. Moments later, when she gazed up at the

sacred engraving again, The Great Mother stood as She had been, faceless and unmoving.

Her hand had returned to its resting place on Her large belly. The etched bison horn in Her

upraised hand was still.

Had the magic passed, the holy moment been lost, with no response to her plea?

Maybe not: May stepped closer to better see the spark of crystal green stone embedded in

the rock. It was flecked with gold and shone. And it sat directly in the center of The Great

Mother's belly!

It gleamed with the colors of The Growing World, rich with the many greens, both the deep

and the light, of the grasses and leaves, the mosses and ever-changing riverbeds.

It was the sign.

The Great Mother was answering her. But what was She saying?

Kye squatted on a flat stone outcropping above the gorge. The warming sun felt good on

his broad, sloping brow. It

7

made him linger a bit longer before returning home with his catch of three hares, which he

had bundled together with vine.

Many feet below, the white, crashing water raced along in a thunderous torrent of foam and

spray. Nearby, an insect's trill was high and steady. What interested him most was the

chattering birds coming from the forest behind him with their pattern of call and response.

They were talking to one another as surely as The New Ones spoke to one another.

It seemed to him that he was encountering The New Ones more than he ever had before.

When he was younger, his group hardly ever crossed paths with theirs. The exclusive

territories of the two clans were unofficially defined but mutually understood. Or at least

they had been. More and more, there was conflict when The Ancient People and The New

Ones endeavored to fish the same section of the river or hunt the same herd of bison.

The Ancient People would surely be run off their territory by these New Ones if they did not

find a way to possess The New One skill of meaningful sounds.

These things were in Kye's thoughts as he left the rock and lumbered home, the meager

results of his afternoon's hunting in his hands. On the steep rock path leading to the cluster

of three caves where his people lived and worked, he met his mother. Across her shoulder,

draped to her waist, she wore a rabbit-fur sling crammed full with the tall, bendable grasses

she used to sew fur skins and weave

8

basketry. Reaching out, she thumped her son on the back affectionately. He grunted good-

naturedly and rubbed her hand in reply.

When Kye and his mother arrived home, the area outside the three caves was alive with

unusual activity. Kye was glad that the meagerness of his contribution to the night's meal

would be overlooked in the excitement.

His younger brother, Ato, punched his arm excitedly and gestured for Kye to follow him into

the main cave. There he waved his arms under the drawings of the thundering bison that

roamed the valley. This was the time that every male in the clan anticipated with enthusiastic

exhilaration. The number of the giant beasts they could bring down now would determine if

they lived abundantly in the time to come or would have to survive on reindeer and hare

until the next migration.

Kye's mother joined her sons. Looking at Kye meaningfully, she placed her hand on the cave

drawing, and he knew what she was telling him. In the next light they would hunt and the

males would have their eyes on Kye. It was his first bison hunt. If he hoped to be leader

someday, as was his right as son of the leader, it was crucial that he hunt well.

With the first dawn, May emerged from the cave. Blinking against the gray morning light,

she stepped onto the rock ledge that jutted out just wide enough to allow passage around

to the side path that led back into the

9

forest. At its edge, the cliff plummeted nearly a mile before it reached a racing, white-foam

gorge at the bottom. Beside it, a forest thick with towering trees let out to a wide, open

valley of rolling fields.

Something scurried from the cave. May smiled down at the gray weasel that had been

drawn to her fire. He'd brought her a tiny dead rodent as a gift, and May had let him stay.

Now the weasel curled up a short distance away as May gazed out at the land stretching

before her. Sure-footed, she was unafraid of falling from her elevated perch and went out to

its very edge. Fog rolled through, obscuring the treetops and the curving hills beyond. The

glowing sky torch rose higher into the sky, sucking the earthbound cloud up with it. Faintly,

the rumble of rushing water reached her from the distant gorge. Gazing into the open fields

beyond the forest, she realized something was moving down below -- dark shapes, and

many of them.

May realized what she was seeing: These were the huge beasts whose immense, furry

carcasses provided so much to her people. Every cycle, they passed through at this time of

the season. Having been away these last two nights, she had missed the preparation and

had nearly forgotten.

Much smaller figures soon emerged from the forest. Hunters. Lenar would be among them.

It would be his first bison hunt since passing his initiation rites. She tried to pick him out

from among the figures, but it was impossible;

10

he was too far away. They advanced on the bison, fanning out along the edges of the herd.

From May's high vantage point, she spied something the hunters could not yet see. Other

figures ran out into the field from the forest some distance away. This group might be more

Clan People hunters coming in from a different direction, though this would have been

unusual -- the hunters usually stayed close to one another. But if they were
not
of The Clan People, were they from the other clan, the frightening Ice Beings who had roamed the world

since The Time of Ice?

Crouching, May leaned forward. The two groups moved toward the animals on diagonal

paths that would soon intersect. They did not see one another for a long while -- and then

suddenly, they became aware of one another's presence. It was clear from the way the two

groups suddenly ran toward one another.

The Ice Beings and The Clan People had both hunted the mighty creatures for many cycles,

living far enough apart that the beasts passed through their different hunting grounds at