Transcendence (33 page)

Beh’s eyes kept tearing earlier in the day, and I don’t know why she is sad. There had been several days after the snowstorm finally passed that she was upset—she had even gotten angry at one point and thrown the little stick into the fire. I recognized it as the one she had been marking with her flint knife. I am sure she has been marking it every day, but after she burned it, she didn’t mark a new stick. It has been many days since she had done that, and she hasn’t cried since.

Not until this evening.

My arms wrap around her, and I move my body up so I can pull her against my chest. She rolls easily, and even in her sleep, her arms find my shoulders. I reach down and pull the furs back over us—all the way up to the back of her neck. We had discarded our clothing into a pile and just used the furs in the sleeping area. It is more comfortable this way, especially since more time is spent in the furs than out of them.

I hug Beh to me once more, but then I remember how soft her breast is and reach between us to touch it again. It’s still warm, and her skin is smooth. Her breast is full and round, and she groans a little when I palm it, so I stop.

I really don’t want to disturb her even though I’m getting hard just lying beside her.

I look toward the cave’s entrance and wonder if the day will bring sunlight or just more clouds. If it is warm enough, I might try to find some fresh meat—it has been some time since we have had any. We haven’t gone hungry at all though, which makes me smile and hold Beh closer. Even on my own, I would not have been able to eat as much during the winter days and still expect to have anything left come spring.

Beh keeps taking our food and doing strange things with it. She smashes up the grain using a rock and one of her clay bowls, then mixes it with fat and nuts and leaves it in the coals for most of the day. She then cuts it with a flint knife into little squares and gives me some with a bowl full of stew.

It tastes good, but I’ve never seen anyone make so many different things to eat. No one in my tribe ever made such things. There are other foods I think she tries to make, but they don’t turn out as well. She made hard, flat things from the grain, but they burned in the fire. She wouldn’t let me try to eat them afterwards.

I hold Beh through the remainder of the night, thinking of how different winter is with her here. Just as light begins to be visible through the hide over the cave entrance, Beh stirs and looks at me. Her brilliant smile lights my day more than the sun lights the sky.

Beh reaches up and touches my cheek.

“
Love,” she whispers.

“
Luffs!” I respond, and her smile brightens even more.

Without a doubt, I will do anything for her.

The wind on the steppes bites at the exposed skin of my cheeks and neck. I tense my shoulders and try to bring my head down into my fur, but the wind seems determined to get up underneath my coverings and chill me as much as possible. I quicken my pace back to the cave and my mate.

Near the entrance to the cave, some of the wind is blocked by the cliff, and it isn’t quite as cold there. I tuck the two rabbits I caught in my traps under my arm and grab some of the wood out of the cache above the cave. Once I’m inside, my body gives forth an involuntary shudder as the temperature change hits my skin.

Beh looks up from the fire, smiles, and begins her noises. I drop the rabbits and go to her quickly.

“
Khizz luffs?”

Beh snickers and presses her warm lips to my cold ones. She makes more sounds –a little louder this time—and rubs at my frigid cheeks with her hands. My skin warms quickly with her touch, and I go to the side of the cave to skin the rabbits for our dinner.

Beh has a lot of the other food already cooked, so when I give her the thin pieces of meat, it doesn’t take very long before we can eat. Beh makes a lot of noise between bites, touching various things around her as she does. She used to do that a lot—holding up one of the clay dishes to me, or maybe a stick or a fur—but she would often get upset after a while, so she didn’t do it very much anymore. She switches to the rhythmic sounds, which I like better, until I finally cover her mouth with mine and take her to our furs.

Early the next morning, my eyes blink open, and I’m a little disoriented from waking so early. Winter is for deeper, longer sleep, but something has pulled me from slumber early.

It’s my mate.

Beh is next to me in the furs, positioned up on her hands and knees and completely motionless. I look up at her just in time for her to cover her mouth, jump up, and bolt toward the cave entrance. Rolling out of the furs, I run after her and find her leaning over the edge of the ravine, vomiting. She is trying to keep her hair away from her face at the same time, and I can see she is struggling.

I move to her side quickly and wrap her hair behind her neck—holding it with one hand and steadying her with the other. After a couple more times, she sits back on her heels and starts to shiver. I pick her up, and she turns her face away from me. Once we are back inside the cave, I bring her the water bag, some dried mint, and a fur to wrap around her shoulders. She chews the mint, rinses her mouth, spits into the coals of the fire, making them hiss, and leans against my chest as I hold her tightly. I rock her gently in my arms, but my mate is unusually quiet the entire day.

Beh makes very little noise all day and falls asleep as soon as she lies down on the furs at night. I hold her close to me, and when I fall asleep, I remember one of my brothers who vomited for days and days until he died. Two more of the children in our tribe died the same way during that winter.

The next morning, the same thing happens.

On the following day, I haven’t slept at all, and I am terrified. I hold Beh and rock her in my arms. She makes a few noises, but her eyes are dull, and she looks so tired. Later in the day, she drinks some of the meat broth I make for her over the fire and eats some of the leftover grains she cooked the previous night.

She seems fine, but then again, she seemed fine later yesterday as well. I refuse to let her go, even for a moment. When she goes outside to relieve herself, I stay right at her side. She yells and tries to push me away, but I won’t budge. She finally goes, and then I pick her up and carry her back inside despite her feeble struggles.

Beh growls at me but ends up putting her head against my chest as we sit back in front of the fire. I place my chin on the top of her head and close my eyes.

“
Ehd.” I perk up at the sound of my name-sound, realizing only then that I was starting to doze off. I look at Beh, and she looks up at me. She makes a lot more sounds and touches my cheek.

“
Luffs.” When I make that sound, Beh always smiles. She usually says it back, too, but this time her smile doesn’t touch her eyes, and she says nothing in return. Instead, she takes my hand and puts it on her stomach.

“
Ehd,” she says softly. I feel her hand press mine against her stomach, and memories flood through my brain. Women in my tribe who would be sick like Beh has been—often when they first woke up in the morning—would sometime later begin to show the child growing inside of them.

My fingers twitch, and understanding rises from the skin of my fingers, where they touch the warm belly of my mate, all the way up my arm and into my brain. My insides feel warm and gooey as my head is filled with thoughts of Beh’s stomach growing big and round. The pictures in my head continue, and I think of a tiny little person suckling at her breasts while I hold both mother and child to keep them safe.

“
Beh?” I look at her, and my cheeks begin to ache due to the size of my smile, but I can’t help it. I lift Beh from my lap and put her down gently on the grass mat by the fire. I then lean down and brush my nose against the center of her stomach, right below her navel.

Finally, I have put a baby inside my mate.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Taking a long, deep breath, I inhale the scent of spring. It’s not really here just yet, but it is close enough that the air feels and tastes different. I can hear the chirp of birds as they begin to fly around in the shrubs near the ravine, and I wonder if Beh would like to eat their eggs.

I wonder if the baby will like them, too.

Beh comes up behind me, her eyes still blurry from sleep with one of the bed-furs wrapped around her shoulders. I drop to my knees and press the side of my face to the little swell between her hips just like I do every morning. I haven’t felt the baby move inside of her yet, but I remember when my mother was carrying my little brothers and sisters how her stomach would move when they kicked and rolled.

I can’t wait to feel the baby I put inside of Beh move.

Beh uses the fingers of one hand to thread through my tangled hair as I look up into her face. The sun shines down and hits her hair from behind, making her look as if she is glowing. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I hold her tightly for a moment before I stand again. She holds my hand with hers and uses the other hand to keep the fur clasped at her neck. It is still quite chilly outside even with the sun shining and spring weather obviously on the way.

“
Khizz?”

Beh leans toward me and places her mouth against mine as I touch her cheek with the backs of my fingers. I take a long, deep breath again before leading her back into the cave where she can stay warm.

My mate’s stomach grows as the days grow longer and warmer. As winter ends, we have plenty of stored grain and dry meat to last us a while, but it’s good to find something fresh and green to eat.

There is clover blooming all over the steppes, and I alternate between just eating it where I sit and watching Beh as she walks around collecting the flowers. When she bends over to pick them, I feel myself grow hard as I think about the previous night and how much wider her hips seem to be as I thrust inside of her. Beh is growing along with our baby, and I am sure she has never been as beautiful as she is now.

I scratch at my chin and jaw. The beard I have grown over the winter is fuller than it has been in previous years, and it’s itchy now that the day has grown warm. I rub at the back of my neck, too, and realize how long my hair has gotten. Beh’s hair is really long, and I watch as she reaches behind her head and wraps her hair around itself, twisting and turning it into a long cord down her back.

Intrigued, I move over to her and run my fingers down it. It doesn’t hang down as low as it usually does, but I’m sure she didn’t cut it. Beh turns and looks at me over her shoulder, making sounds the whole time with her mouth. I look to her and then to her hair in my hand. I give it a little tug and Beh swats at my fingers.

“
No, Ehd!”

Worried she will continue to be mad, I drop down and nuzzle against her belly. I glance up at her and then quickly look down again. I run my nose over the fur wrap around her until I feel her hand on my head, and I know I am forgiven.

Beh picks more flowers, some mushrooms, and the buds and tender young leaves from many of the plants as we go by on our way to the lake. I grip my spear tighter as we approach, making Beh stay in the shadows of the evergreens as I scan the area first. I am not going to take any chances at all—not when Beh has a baby inside of her.

Every time we come to the lake, I’m reminded of the man who tried to take Beh from me.

Once I am certain there is no one else around, I pull the little round firestarter from a fold in my fur wrap and use it and a piece of flint to get a small blaze going. Beh goes to the water and fills one of the water bags. She lays it on the hide on a stick and then fills a clay pot with water. She takes my hand, and I don’t bother to fight about it. I quickly immerse myself and let Beh scrub at my hair and face. Once she has deemed me clean enough, I sit next to the fire and try to warm up a bit while I watch Beh bathe.

She drops her furs to the ground, and I see she is still wearing the little pink things even though they seem a little stretched over the top half of her, and the bottom half kind of folds and rolls over itself underneath the bulge of her stomach. I feel my smile broaden as she turns to one side, and I can see the silhouette of the bulge where the baby is growing.

I keep my eye on her as I go to the edge of the water where flint can usually be found. I find a good-sized piece and a stone to knock against it. I need some sharper knives as many of mine have become dull with use. I get a few long, sharp slivers and then go back to the water near Beh and sit down to wait for her.