Chapter 6: Sooner Than Later

The chief’s words broke the spell, and the tribe returned to life, putting fresh wood on the fire and pulling out blankets to protect their children from the unusually cold gusts that swept the clearing. The festive mood was broken, and Tarek saw some of the older ones in the tribe give him sidelong, considering glances. Xochil, for his part, had wandered over to the food and was blithely helping himself to large quantities.

“I don’t like that old man,” muttered Yaretzi.

“I didn’t like his story,” whispered Tarek through numb lips.

Ryki and Locotl had come forward and were speaking low in the chief’s ears. He listened for a moment, then held up his hands. “I think they all need to hear this. Quiet, everyone! Shut your mouths. There is news.” He gestured to Locotl, and the tall, nervous numerator stepped forward.

“I have, ah, confff – conferred with Rr, Rrrryki, and it seems, ah… I found… mmm, ah.” He twisted his hands and shook his head with impatience. His stutter was far worse than usual. “G-Gu-Gurobo is, is…”

Tavi stepped to his side and laid a hand on his mentor’s arm, looking up with a questioning glance. Locotl nodded, relieved, and Tavi stepped forward to speak. His hair was still a mess.

“The Wandering Star, the ones the stories call Gurobo, is missing from the sky. It is supposed to pass between the moons this year, but it is not there. Ryki keeps the track of the calendar and agrees that this should be the year that it passes, and my – our calculations are in accord.” Tavi shook his head. As always, he sounded twenty years older than his age, and the adults gave him ear. They knew that if Locotl was letting the boy speak, he was not wrong.

“It seems a small thing,” he continued, “but Gurobo passes near Shaka, the lesser moon, and keeps it from falling too near the Land. With the Wandering Star gone, our weather will be… strange.”

“What kind of strange?” asked Shad gravely.

“The bad kind,” Tavi said. “The flood season looks to come too early… and stay too long.”

Tarek’s stomach dropped. Even in the midst of his own fear this was the worst kind of news. It was the work of an entire year to prepare for the Month of the Otter when the Ix River overflowed its banks in the rains and turned the entire Land into a waterscape of raised huts and lean living. The thought that the floods might last longer than a full turn of the larger moon was more than chilling. And if the flood waters ran higher than normal, their stilt-raised huts might not be tall enough to keep them all dry and safe. It meant some of the tribe might die.

Zuma stood. “This is dire, and we must face it. But first, let us end this feast as we ought.”

The mighty man held out both hands to the Catori beside him, and they stood and linked hands. Tarek sighed as he got to his feet, knowing what was coming and knowing he couldn’t avoid it. Within moments all seventy-two of the Catori had arranged themselves into a great circle around the fire. Xochil stood alone, munching on a roasted tuber, and made no move to join in. Tarek gladly joined hands with Yaretzi on his right and did the same with Kipa on his left. She was wife to one of the older hunters. She’d never had much to say to him but did not pull back from his touch. Even the Song-cripple had to be included in this circle. Tradition demanded it.

He couldn’t have said who started. He saw the change first in the closed eyes and relaxed postures of the other Catori as they attuned themselves to the sound of the Song. The looseness turned into a gentle sway, all of them moving together. Tarek did his best to mimic their movements and catch the rhythm they all felt, but he was always half a heartbeat behind, first bumping into Kipa on one side and then pulling too hard on Yaretzi’s hand on the other. It was while he was focused on this task that he first heard someone open their mouth and sing.

He hated it. Every time the tribe came together to share in the Song, he felt dead inside. The communal singing didn’t happen often – maybe once or twice a year, most often on year-end feast days, but sometimes on unusual occasions like this – but it never failed to send him into a fugue of self-doubt and loathing.

He even hated the sound of the Song as it came out of the mouths of the people he thought he knew. It was an eerie, thin sound totally at odds with the usual kinds of singing the Catori performed. The tune followed no recognizable melody, and the intervals and rhythms were alien and dissonant. The problem, Tavi had once told him, was that he could only hear the human voices. They were the counterpoint, he said, not the melody. It was, apparently, the most beautiful song ever created; being a part of it uplifted the soul and cleansed the heart. Tarek had to take his word for it – all he heard was a bunch of wordless, toneless wailing. He looked over at Yaretzi to see her eyes closed rapturously, her mouth open wider than he’d ever seen it. It looked almost like screaming. A shiver ran up his spine, putting him even further out of sync with the others’ swaying.

In years past he’d shut his eyes and faked the fervor, trying with all his might to hear the voice of the earth and its green things. All it had ever earned him was a headache and an empty spot in his heart, so now he kept his eyes open and just tried not to get in the way. None of the others noticed him one way or the other.

And then came the moment that dug its blade deepest. He was expecting it, waiting for it, and still it stole his breath with its cruelty. Yaretzi’s hand shook itself free of his, her raptured face furrowing its brow in momentary irritation. She groped blindly in front of his chest, the back of her hand pushing him out of the way as she sought mindlessly for the connection the Song desired. Kipa’s hand yanked free only a heartbeat later, and the women’s hands found each other like lodestones drawn together, shutting him out of the circle. They needed to feel the Song coming from the person next to them, and Tarek was nothing but an empty space as far as the Song was concerned.

He stood outside the circle and waited for it to end. This was the first time he’d ever been allowed to stand next to Yaretzi during the Song. He’d hoped that somehow she’d be different. In his heart he’d known she wouldn’t be… but still he’d hoped. Xochil stood opposite, unjoined to the others just like him, and watched, inscrutable.

I don’t belong here. I never will. He felt the sudden urge to turn around and walk out into the jungle and never come back. Yes, he loved Yaretzi, but wouldn’t she be better served by a husband who was whole? Who was like her? Tarek could figure out how to support himself in the wilds. He’d find some empty, undesired spot of land at the border of two tribes’ lands and make himself a home. He didn’t need a tribe. Old Xochil had done it – why couldn’t he?

The thoughts were nothing but moonbeams and fever dreams, and he knew it. He didn’t want to leave Yaretzi, or his brother, or his parents. He’d spent his whole life trying to belong; he’d even broken his own secret rule to achieve it. He wouldn’t give up just because his betrothed broke hands with him in a trance.

The Song slowly died away as usual, and the sidelong glances came back even stronger than before. He could almost hear them all thinking of Xochil’s story. Tarek gritted his teeth and ignored the looks.

Yaretzi pulled away from Kipa and took his hand again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, chagrined. “I meant to hold on to you. Really. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Her useless kindness made his eyes prickle, and he looked away. “I know,” he said lightly. “It’s fine.” She must have heard the lie, because she gripped his fingers harder and pulled him in close to her side, making him a part of the circle again. He took a deep breath, let it out, looked back to her and gave her the best smile he could. She deserved nothing less.

Zuma held up his hands. “Parents, put your little ones to bed and come back to the fire. The feast is over. There’s work to be done.”

* * *

It was past the middle of the night when Tarek left the fire and crept through the darkness toward his family hut. His head was spinning with plans and problems, but finally Zuma had agreed it was fruitless to continue without rest. The flood bulwark of earth and branches that surrounded the village needed shoring up in a dozen spots, there was not enough meat laid by, and the gatherers would have to work from sunup to sundown to bring in enough berries and nuts to see them all through. Guatemoc’s hut had sunk on its posts a little and needed repairs if it was to survive the coming season. He’d held Yaretzi’s hand the entire night right out in the open in front of everybody, but instead of feeling like a man, he just felt old and tired. I suppose at least everyone’s too worried to think about that awful story the old man told.

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As if the thought had summoned him, Xochil’s reedy voice broke the blackness. “There’s the hero of the day.”

Tarek spun around, barely able to make out the old man’s outline in the darkness. The communal fire had gone out, and he was making his way back to his family’s house by feel and familiarity. Xochil was the last person in the Land he wanted to talk to.

“Forgive me, elder, but I’m very tired, and there’s much to do tomorrow.”

“You never told me what you thought of my story.”

Tarek chewed his lip in the dark. “It was bleak.”

“Oh, I’m glad you thought so. I worried you were so randy for the girl that you missed it.”

“I didn’t miss it.”

“Mm, good. And?”

“And what?”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Tarek felt as if he were walking on broken duck eggs and trying not to make noise. “Why should I need to do anything about it?”

“Don’t be coy, Tarek. No one can hear us.”

Tarek gritted his teeth. “All right. I don’t appreciate you telling a story that makes the whole tribe suspicious of me on the very day when I’m supposed to be joining as a man. Now they’re all wondering how I really brought down that mist-hart, and you gave them the worst possible answer.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Did I do something to make you hate me, Xochil?”

“Hate you? Farthest thing from it. I wasn’t trying to warn them with that story, my boy, I was trying to warn you.”

“Why do I need a warning?”

“Because you’re a smart boy, but if you stay here much longer, you won’t be smart. You’ll be dead.”

Tarek flexed his fists and wondered if he could silence the man without anyone hearing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You can trust me, Tarek.”

“You just put poison in the ears of everyone who knows me. Why would I trust you?”

“Because I’m the only one who can help you.”

“If tonight was any indication of your help, I don’t think I want it. I’m going to bed.”

Xochil heaved a sigh. “Fine. When it all goes bad, come find me. Follow the Ix north until you see the Adder Star between two tall hills on your left. Then cross over to the Yura side and walk with the river squarely at your back. You’ll find my home within three handspans of time.”

Tarek opened his mouth to give an angry retort, but when he did, a raindrop splashed on his lips. Then another fell on his head. And a third on his hand.

Xochil’s hooded outline lifted its face to the sky. “Sooner might be better than later.”

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