CIRCLES OF STONE (THE MOTHER PEOPLE SERIES) (15 page)

The small group
sank to the ground in despair, too exhausted, too filled with hopelessness even
to raise their heads.  Then, as if on a prearranged signal, the others
looked up at Zena, and some of the anxiety left their faces.  Staring
morosely at the ground, she did not notice at first.  But then her skin
began to prickle as the force of their gaze pierced her absorption.

She raised her eyes
and saw their expectant faces, saw their hunger, their thirst, the fear lodged
deep in their hearts.  Anger possessed her suddenly.  She stared up
at the sky, at the black-edged clouds that refused to drop their burden of
rain, and she shook her fists at them harshly.  The rains should come
now.  For weeks, clouds had been converging.  They were swollen with
moisture, and they should send it here, to the earth, where it was
needed.  They would die; all of them would die, unless the rains
came.  These were her troop-mates, the ones she loved, and it was not
right that they should die.

Over and over,
Zena pounded her fists against the dry earth, then shook them violently at the
sky.  She screamed the word for rain, hurling it at the stubborn clouds
until her voice was hoarse.  But there was no response.

The anger
dissipated as suddenly as it had come.  In its place came a terrible
feeling of helplessness.  She felt as she had long ago, when her mother
had been killed, and the huge tiger had prowled overhead.  Without her
mother to guide her, she had not known what to do.  She did not know what
to do now, either.

Lowering her eyes
so the others would not see her uncertainty and fear, she handed the infant to
Tipp and went to sit by herself in a small glen near the clearing. It was a
peaceful place.  She had often rested here when times were better,
enjoying the sounds and scents.  Now birds no longer sang, and no aromatic
smells arose from the brittle grasses.

Questions raced
through her mind.  Should she leave the river again, take the others with
her, hoping they would come across a place where food and water still
existed?  Should she tell them to go off by themselves?  The thought
of separating was too terrible to consider.  She did not think she could
make the sounds, the gestures that would drive them apart.

Zena shook her
head hard in refusal, and the gesture dispelled some of her helplessness. 
Slowly, determination returned.  The group belonged together, and she
would keep it together.  Long ago, her mother had led her through the
horror of a drought, and she had survived.  Now it was her turn to find a
way to keep the ones she loved alive.

Zena sat and
pondered.  Slowly, her restlessness diminished, and a quietness she had
never felt before rose inside her.  Images drifted into her mind, of her
mother, of the grandmother she barely remembered, of Rune.  Over and over,
their faces floated past her.  It seemed to Zena that they were here with
her, comforting her with their presence.  Strangely, though, they were not
separate.  They were all in one, as if they had somehow merged into one
mother, a mother who was much bigger, much wiser and stronger than any of them
alone.  But even that was not enough to describe the mother they had
become.  She seemed to hold within her all the females who had ever
struggled to help those who depended on them, as Zena was doing now.  They
understood; they could guide her, as her mother and Rune had once guided her.

For a long time
Zena sat without moving, feeling the presence of these mothers who were
one.  Sleep did not come to her, but dreams did.  She closed her
eyes, to see the dream better.  There were stones in her dream, a circle
of stones.  She frowned, surprised.  But then she forgot to wonder at
them and just watched the dream unfold in her mind.  She saw herself
picking up a stone and placing it carefully on the ground.  It was round,
weathered, as if the storms of thousands of years had taken away its sharpness
and made it gentle.  She put another stone beside it, then another, until
there was a circle, a big circle, that would enclose many besides herself. 
Now she was standing inside the circle...

The dream
faded.  Zena looked around her.  There were stones like that nearby,
at the edge of the woods.  They were big and round, but not too heavy to
lift.  She picked one up and placed it firmly against the earth in the
middle of the glen.  It was cool to the touch, and her fingers lingered
against its smooth surface.  As if still in her dream, she went to get
another, and another, and placed them in a wide circle.

Dak came to look
for her, worried by her long absence.  He stared incredulously.  But
the look on Zena's face kept him silent.  She was there, but not there, as
if some other were looking from her eyes.  Frowning, he watched her pick
up a stone and place it carefully, then go back for another.  Her actions
lost their strangeness, and he began to help.  The others came behind
him.  Like Dak, they looked at Zena in amazement, but then the atmosphere
in the small glen infected them as it had infected Dak.  They began to
gather up the big stones, using only the ones that were smooth and rounded, as
if they, too, were part of the dream.  Soon, the circle was complete.

The trancelike
look on Zena's face deepened.  Slowly, as if she were being led, she
walked to the center of the circle of stones and held up her arms to the
sky.  She said the word for mother, the word that all the young ones used
to name the one who cared for them and kept them safe, the word they uttered
when they were frightened or hurt or needed help.  They used this word,
too, to describe the feelings of comfort and peace, the certainty of food and
shelter and warmth that came from their mothers' presence.  It was a
powerful word, one that contained both joy and fear.

Zena said the word
aloud, over and over again.  Her tone rose with every repetition, then
softened until she spoke almost in a whisper.  She raised her face to the
sky, then turned it toward the earth, while she stamped her feet in a rhythmic
pattern.  Now she was calling another word, the word for rain.  Again
and again, she shouted the word, stamping her feet hard against the dry
earth.         Mesmerized by her movements,
the others began to shout the word and stamp their feet.  One at a time,
they joined her in the circle and turned their faces toward the clouds, then
the earth, as they called and shouted and stamped.  Thunder cracked over
them, and they stamped harder, called louder, to match the deafening
sound.  Lightning followed, and with it came the smell of ozone.  The
pungent scent excited them still further.

Dak leaped from
the circle and grabbed a stick.  He brandished it in the air, scraped it
noisily against the ground.  Klep imitated him, the twins as well. 
Leaping wildly, they shouted the word for rain as they beat their sticks
against the earth, then pointed them toward the sky.   

The females stayed
in the circle, belonging there.  But now they were stamping in patterns,
moving slowly, then quickly, in a rhythmic movement.  Both words came from
their throats; first the word for rain, then the word for mother, in rhythm
with their movements.  The feet of the males outside the circle pounded in
rhythm with them, and their voices repeated the words.  The glen, the
woods, the earth itself, resounded with the incessant stamping, the powerful
words. 

The atmosphere was
heavy with the odor of an impending storm.  They smelled it, felt it in
their bodies, and they pulled at it, willing it to come down and drench them in
its welcome downpour.  Over and over, their heads lifted to the sky, to
the pregnant, moisture-filled clouds, then returned to the dry earth, as if
they were showing the way.

The tempo
increased.  Their pounding became frenzied, and their voices cracked with
the strain of shouting the words faster and faster, over and over again. 
They knew the rain was coming now; it could not resist.

When the first
drops hit, they stood perfectly still and bowed their heads in gratitude. 
Tears cascaded down their cheeks, tears that could not be stopped any more than
the rains could be stopped.  More drops came to fall delicately on the
backs of their dusty necks, then more, and then, suddenly, the heavens
opened.  Their heads snapped up again, to welcome the blessed
wetness.  The rain streamed across their thirsty skin and into their
parched throats; they felt it heal their cracked lips and cleanse their grimy
bodies, and they raised their arms in a gesture of pure ecstasy. 

Joy filled them, a
joy that came from the return of the rains, but from something deeper,
too.  It was as if another presence moved among them, a presence far
greater than any creature they had ever known.  It flooded their hearts
with its magnificence, as the rain was flooding the river. 

Zena slumped suddenly
to the ground, and they came back to themselves.  Dak ran to her,
frightened.  She lay motionless for a long moment.  Then she shook
her head hard, as if to clear it, and sat up.  She stared at Dak, at the
others.  Smiling, she held out her hands to the rain.  The others
stared back, relieved.  She was seeing with her own eyes, acting like
herself again.  They did not speak but only sat beside her for a long
time, cherishing the rain that pounded their parched bodies, smelling the wondrous
scents that came with wetness.  When darkness came, they rose slowly and
went to the shelter.

The next morning,
water rushed through the river's banks.  Insects and shrimp, even tiny
fish, emerged from the mud where they had lain dormant until the rains
came.  Tadpoles squirmed in the puddles; thin green shoots appeared like
magic in the clearing.  Zena ate and drank, then she walked slowly to the
glen and sat down in the circle of stones.  The peace she had felt the day
before was still with her.  There was a wondrous gratitude in her as well,
for the rains, for the mothers who were one who had helped her.  She
wanted to thank them, not just this day, but every day of her life.

The glen sparkled
as sunlight caught the drops of water that still clung to each stem of grass,
each twig and stone.  Zena watched them slowly evaporate and
disappear.  Tomorrow, the drops would be there again, of that she was
certain.  She was certain, too, that rain would fall later in the day and
each day thereafter, until the rainy season had ended.  The rains would
come every year as well.  The knowledge was as much a part of her as her
legs or her arms or belly.  She knew the rains would come, for each year
without fail she would return to the circle of stones to speak the words again,
to move in the special way the dream had shown her.  Never would she
forget this magic, the magic that had come from the mothers who were one. 

*************************

Zena kept her
promise.  Each time she returned to the river, she went first to the
circle of stones to thank the mothers who were one for their help all through
the year.  And when the rainy season approached and clouds began to loom
against the darkening sky, she gathered the others around her to re-enact the
ritual that brought the rains.  Every year, for all the years that
remained of her life, they came.  Whenever she spread her arms to the sky
and chanted the sacred words, the clouds loosened their hold and dropped their
precious burden.  Whether the ceremony was responsible, none could know. 
But Zena took no chances. 

The group expanded
during these years.  Klep disappeared one day, and they were afraid he had
been hurt, or killed.  But he soon returned, holding a round young female
by the hand.  Another female appeared soon after Myta had died, and a new
male joined them, one as gentle and cooperative as Lop had been.  A male
who tried to attack them, as the hungry one had before, was driven away. 
Zena would not allow such a male in her troop.  There were many births
too.  Tipp mated with the twins, and had twin boys herself, and both the
new females gave birth soon after.  And after that, Myta's daughter and
Zena's son, Hoot, were almost ready to mate as well.

Zena watched over
them happily.  She had never forgotten the solitude of her early life, and
her growing troop was a constant source of joy and satisfaction.  She
listened to their ever-increasing chatter, settled disputes, helped them to
make decisions, snapped at them occasionally, and loved them all.

The years sped by,
and Zena became old and frail.  She spent most of her time now sitting
peacefully on her boulder above the lake, or in the circle of stones,
remembering.  Sometimes Screech's face appeared in her mind, and she saw
his eyes grow round with delight, or wrinkle in merriment as they played
together.  Often, she thought of Dak.  He had died during their last
trip to the river, and she missed him badly.  Always, he had known her
thoughts, felt her pain and joy as if they were his own.  She thought of
Rune as well, with her wise, appraising eyes, her sharp voice and comforting
ways, and of all the mothers who had come to her when she needed them so
desperately.

One day, as she
sat in dreamy silence in the circle of stones, she slipped a little lower
against the warm earth.  When Tipp came in the evening to look for her,
she was no longer breathing.  Tipp smiled at her gently, but she did not
weep.  Her heart was too full for tears.  She sat beside her mother
for a time, then she went to get the others.  Hoot came first, holding his
own son by the hand, and after him came Zena's youngest daughter, clutching a
newborn infant against her chest.  The others came behind them, to touch
Zena once again, to see her face, so they could keep it in their hearts.

They were saddened
by her death, for she had been mother to them for almost twenty years, and they
had loved her dearly.  But in another way, they were glad, for it seemed
to them that Zena belonged in this special place.  Now she could stay here
always, safe within the circle of stones she had created.  And every time
they came here, she would be waiting, ready to offer help and guidance. 
They covered her with leafy branches and slowly turned away.  The rains
had come again, and it was time to leave for the lake.