The Ghosts of Heaven (2 page)

 

 

QUARTER ONE

WHISPERS IN THE DARK

 

I

She is the one who goes on,

when others remain behind.

The one who walks into darkness,

when others cling to the light.

She is the one who will step alone into the cave,

with fire in her hand,

and with fire in her head.

She walks with the people,

climbs up beside the waterfall.

Up, as the water thunders down.

Up, through the cool green leaves,

the summer's light lilting

through the leaves and the air.

They have come so far,

and ache with the pain

of their feet and their backs,

but they cannot stop,

because the beasts do not stop.

From where they climb,

they cannot see the beasts with their eyes,

but they know they are there.

In their mind, they see the deer:

their hooves, their hair, their hearts.

The antlers on the harts,

among the hinds who have the young.

They take the long path into the valley,

moving slowly, day by day,

while the people climb the waterfall

to meet them

with arrows and spears.

 

II

Just once, she slips,

her cold foot wet on green moss rock,

and close to the spray,

the water wets her neck.

Her face close to the drop,

her gaze falls on the frond of a fern.

A young plant, pushing its way out from rocks,

the tip curled tight.

Curled in,

in close-coiled secrecy

round and round, tighter and tighter,

smaller and smaller,

forever, it seems.

She stares, forever, it seems,

then a hand holds hers,

and pulls her to her feet.

The waterfall thunders;

and they are deaf.

Muted by its power,

they climb in silence

to the year's final camp,

in the trees, under the cliff,

under the high caves,

the high hanging dark

where magic will be made.

Where magic must be made.

 

III

Her thoughts are deep in the caves,

though her body is with the people,

at the leaf-fall camp.

Through the trees; the great lake.

The lake that spills itself down the waterfall.

The great lake: that will be crossed

to meet the beasts at dawn.

They are silent, for the most part.

They speak with their hands

as much as with their tongues.

A gesture;
do this
.

Do that, go there;
the pointing hand.

Come. Sit.
Faces talk as much as mouths.

Besides. They know what to do.

All of them. The old and the young,

each works hard.

Man and woman, boy and girl.

Only the very young do nothing;

and there are no very old.

She, who has been bleeding for two summers,

will soon give more young to the people.

It has not happened yet,

though she has been with some of the men,

and some of the boys have tried,

it has not happened yet.

She knows it will,

just as the deer they hunt have come to mate,

out there on the plains beyond the lake,

so the people too make new.

The one who will go to the caves walks,

and speaks

to the one who will lead the hunt.

The one who will lead the hunt approaches her.

He looks at her and tells her
food,

and food it is she goes to find,

while others make fire, and others

fetch wood and others sharpen spears,

and others put huts together from the skeletons of old ones

and others find the boats they left before.

A few of the people set out from camp, foraging.

She leaves them to go their way,

while she goes hers. Leaf-fall is here,

yet the evening is warm.

She leaves her furs behind

and walks naked with the moist green air on her skin.

Through the trees of the wood, which stretches along the whole lake shore,

beneath the cliffs, beneath the caves,

beneath the high, hanging caves.

She has a basket, folded from reeds,

and she fills it with what she can find.

There are nuts, which will be good on the fire.

Berries. She finds a root she knows,

and then she lifts

the spiraling fronds of ferns, and finds snails.

Large snails. Good eating.

She places them in her basket,

one by one.

One hovers in the air on her fingertips,

as she traces its shell with her eyes,

round and round, tighter and tighter,

smaller and smaller.

Forever.

Or so it seems.

The snail tries to slip up her fingers, to escape her grasp,

and she puts it in the basket.

Time to eat.

At the camp, the fire is fierce,

And they have returned.

Some have left their furs,

others stay in theirs.

She feels the cold as the sun dips from the trees,

and slips her fur over her back.

They eat.

There is dried meat.

Fish from the great lake.

There are berries and the nuts she found,

which toast on the rocks by the fire.

When the eating is done,

the telling begins, and the one who does the telling

tells of the hunt that will come.

And then he tells

the old tells of the beasts,

and the tell of the fight between the Sun and the Moon.

He tells the tell of the journey to the caves,

and the one who will make the journey stares into the flames,

and
he
sees darkness.

But she doesn't listen to the stories.

She holds the shell of one of her snails,

its body in her belly, its back in her hands.

And by firelight she stares at it.

There is something about the shell,

the shape of the shell.

Like the shape of the uncurling,

unfurling ferns.

It is speaking to her,

she's sure, but she doesn't know what it says,

because it speaks in a language she doesn't know.

She picks up a stick,

a small dry stick, and puts its end in the dust at her feet.

She moves the end of the stick, and a mark is made in the dust.

A short, curved line.

Her eyes are fixed on the shell;

on its colors, on its curving line,

the slight white line in the center of the curving body, wrapping in,

wrapping in.

Tighter and tighter, round and round, smaller and smaller.

Or, looked at another way;

out and out, larger and larger.

A shape like that could go on forever,

or so it seems,

and still it speaks to her,

and still she doesn't know what it says.

But she knows she has seen it,

when her eyes were shut.

She shifts her foot and the line in the dust is gone.

 

IV

As the firelight dies, they make ready.

There will be no sleep.

Spears are resharpened, hardened in the fire ash.

Spear throwers checked; here, a new one is made.

Pitch and cord bind stone to shafts,

a splinter of flint with fresh-cut edge:

an arrow.

Gut is pulled across a new bow's back,

it takes strong shoulders to bend it,

but then, the people are strong.

And the strongest will cross the water,

the night-dark water, with half-moon

light to light their way, across the great lake

to the plains. Where, at dawn, the deer will be

waiting, unaware that they are waiting to die.

And then there he is: the one who will go to the caves.

He is old. Almost the oldest of them all.

So it will be his last time in the caves,

and he must take another,

who will become

what he has been.

It is his choice. The one who goes to the cave.

It is his choice to choose the new, and she,

She wants it to be her.

She thinks she knows what he does.

She knows why he does it,

that is something they all know;

the magic made as the hunt begins.

From the high cave mouth,

the plains are across the great lake,

From the high cave mouth,

the beasts can be seen.

And as the hunt begins,

the one who goes to the cave

must enter the dark, and make the magic on the walls.

The magic that makes the arrow fly farther,

the spear thrust deeper.

and the beasts die, quicker.

And she wants it to be her,

she knows it should be her, so she waits

while she should be working, and

watching him, watching him,

hoping he will turn to her.

Come to her and say,

You! Girl!

Come!

Come with me to the high, dark cave,

and I will show you how to make the magic.

She waits, the stick in her hand,

the small dry stick, and now she makes another mark in the dust.

A hump, a long curve, a flick at the front for antlers.

A beast, a deer: a stag.

In three lines.

She has seen what he does,

how he draws the shapes in the sand,

when no one is looking, how he does it

again and again, till the line is good and the beast is real.

There is a sound behind her and the one who will lead the hunt is there.

He sees what she's done, and kicks at the sand.

He lifts his fist and she hides her head,

but he does not strike.

He does not need to, for she knows it is wrong.

The marks are not for the sand,

the marks are for the dark,

and only he who goes to the cave should make magic.

The one who will lead the hunt is angry,

but he has more to do than punish girls

who are not yet giving children.

He leaves, and in his place comes the one who does the telling.

The one who does the telling points at the dust,

where her lines lay.

He nods.

She smiles.

He sits beside her.

He tells her a tell,

a strong old tell,

about the making of magic and how it is done,

and must be done well, up there, high up there in the hanging dark.

How the magic is made to make them fall when the arrow strikes.

For now it's the time for hunting.

At dawn, on the plain.

She listens.

She listens and she understands.

She understands the tell, but she knows

why the one who does the telling has that name,

and that his name means
weaver of words;

weaver of words,

sentinel of speech,

retreating in awe at the world,

speaking with the divine.

Speaking with the blinding saving light-divine-magic in the dark
.

That is what his name means.

He puts the stick back in her hands,

pushes the end onto the dust by the firelight.

Make
, he says.

So, with one eye on he who leads the hunt,

she makes.

 

V

It is time to go.

The leaf-fall night is nearly done,

and the lake must be crossed,

and the cliffs must be climbed, before the dawn of the sun.

He who leads the hunt points at he who goes to the cave.

Choose
, he says.

So she stands with the others

as the one who goes to the cave looks

from face to face, trying to see, trying to find something.

He walks slowly round the fire, almost gone now,

and he stops by a boy, then moves on.

He stops and looks hard into the eyes of a girl,

a girl who is not her …

moves on and he
is
in front of her.

He looks into her eyes.

Her heart beats hard.

She opens her mouth.

She wants to say,

“Take me with you …

take me to the high, dark caves

and I will make magic like you.”

He takes one last look,

then turns away, and goes back to the boy.

His hand touches his shoulder,

and the one who goes to the cave has made his choice.

Her head hangs, and her heart is angry, and then,

the one who goes to the cave comes back,

shoves her shoulder so she stoops before him.

He reaches to the fire's edge and takes burned wood.

Puts it in her hand.

Carry
, he says, and she knows she has been chosen.

Chosen, not to make magic, not to go into the caves,

not to go into the dark and make magic.

She has been chosen to carry.

There will be paint. And reeds.

And torches for fire. And a bow for protection from beasts.

And she will carry, while they climb free.

 

VI

Those who will cross the water have left,

leaving her, the boy, and the one who goes to the cave.

They don't seem to notice her.

They have forgotten she exists,

now that she is ready, with a basket.

And in the basket:

reeds, hollow,

the rock that burns to red,

charcoal from the fire ash,

the things to make fire.

He who leads the hunt

has given her a bow,

with more than one arrow,