Ratha and Thistle-Chaser (The Third Book of the Named) (27 page)

At last the old memories and pains could gradually be put to rest. The Dreambiter would fade away, for both Thistle-chaser and herself. A part of her life was passing behind now. She felt as though she had finished shedding an old coat and now wore clean, new fur. The weight of guilt from her past had slipped from her, making her feel airy and light.

The Named now had two homes: their old territory and this new place by the sea. And though their efforts to keep and tend the seamares had not turned out as well as they’d hoped, still the experience had enlarged their skills, allowing more choices. When the drought broke, some of the Named might return to clan ground, others might stay.

She thought about the future, what might happen with Thistle-chaser and Mishanti. Would the cub grow up as Fessran’s vision had foreseen, to carry a torch burning brightly in his jaws and be a leader of the Named? Or would it be Thistle-chaser, scarred, but strangely gifted, who took over leadership when Ratha grew too feeble to guide the clan’s way?

All this didn’t matter now. What mattered was that she had found both a daughter and a wiser, better part of herself. The times to come might not be certain, but neither would they be shadowed with pain and guilt. She lay on her side, listening to the promise in the pattering rain. It was enough.

Clare Bell says:

“Thistle-chaser. Stubborn, scrappy, mentally and physically crippled, sullen, prickly, can barely speak, not pretty, hot tempered, yet she rivals Ratha in the affections of readers. Thistle originated in
Ratha’s Creature
, as the cub Ratha rejected and injured. Her appearance came from a portrait of my mother’s calico cat, Jenny. Into crippled and abandoned Newt, I poured feelings from a time when despair tore my life. The cloud around her mind comes from the slowed thinking of clinical depression. Her rage at the Dreambiter is my rage at the “blaming the victim’ attitude before people recognized depression as a treatable illness.

“Throughout the series, Thistle’s limitations and suffering bring her unexpected gifts of insight and empathy. Her fits and visions of the Dreambiter prepare her to understand the strange mental ‘Song’ of the menacing face-tail (mammoth) hunting tribe in
Ratha’s Challenge.
Reconciling with Thistle may be the real ‘Challenge’ for Ratha, but in that book Thistle also becomes Ratha’s conscience, asking the Named to look beyond the harm done to them by others: to reach out in friendship rather than strike back in fear.”

About the Author

Clare Bell is a scientist, engineer, and author whose work has taken her to Norway to build electric cars, to Tahiti for research, to Marine World/Africa USA to meet a cheetah, and into the depths of prehistory to develop the Ratha series. She is the author of four other books about Ratha and the Named:
Ratha’s Creature
,
Clan Ground, Ratha’s Challenge
and
Ratha’s Courage,
as well as several standalone novels. Bell and her husband live in the hills west of Patterson, California, where they have their own solar and wind systems.

Visit her Web site at www.RathasCourage.com or Facebook page at facebook.com/rathaseries