CIRCLES OF STONE (THE MOTHER PEOPLE SERIES) Read Free Page B

out.  But the white ones were sweet, and when she dug beneath them
with a nearby stick, their bulbs were succulent and tender.
    The
sun burst unexpectedly through the clouds.  Bits of light were everywhere,
on each leaf, each rock, on the ripples in the water.  Zena dropped to her
knees to examine them, but when she touched them they disappeared.  She
blinked and looked again.  They reappeared, but then a huge shadow spread
across the ground and they vanished once more.  She looked up,
startled.  The clouds had suddenly darkened.  Thick and bulbous, they
loomed menacingly above her, blotting out the light.
    She
stood abruptly, mewing in fear.  The air had become almost as dark as
night, and she heard a strange noise, a subdued roar, different than any sound
she had heard before.  It seemed to come from the mountains, not from the
sky.  She stared toward the peaks, but clouds blocked her view.  The
rain began again, making it even harder to see through the gloom.  First,
a few large drops fell, then water began to come at her in torrents, battering
her upturned face.  She ran toward the entrance to the cave, but she did
not enter.  Even more than the security of the shelter, she wanted her mother. 
Darkness when the sun should be high in the sky and the ominous new roar
terrified her.
    Squinting
against the downpour, she spotted Tope still standing in the river bed. 
Water swirled around her ankles, and as Zena watched, she took a few steps
toward the hillside.  Then she stopped and turned a questioning face
upstream, toward the river's source in the mountains that loomed against the
southern horizon.
    Zena
listened to the sound that had attracted her mother's attention, and her terror
grew.  It was another new noise, a rushing, pounding racket.  The
sound grew louder and louder, more and more fierce, until it was a deafening
clamor.  There was wind now as well, furious, tearing wind.  She
clung desperately to the rocks, calling frantically.  Her cries were lost
in the howling around her. 
    Then,
as she watched, a massive wall of water rounded the curve of the river bed far
upstream, and came crashing toward her mother.  She saw Tope clutch the
baby under one arm and start to scramble up the steep bank.  But the wall
of water was almost upon her; it rose far above her head, filling the width and
depth of the river bed.  Tope raised a hand to her face, as if to fend off
the approaching onslaught. Then it hit her, knocking her backward, and she
disappeared beneath the roiling fury. 
    Zena uttered a howl of
absolute helplessness and despair.  Squeezing her body between two
boulders so the wind would not tear her away, she stared frantically at the
place where her mother had disappeared.  But she could see nothing beyond
the rain that slashed mercilessly into her eyes.  
    Mewing
piteously, she slithered into the protection of the cave and huddled in its
darkest corner.  Deep inside herself, she knew that her mother would not
return.  She was alone in this harsh new world where the sun did not rise,
where wetness and deafening crashes came from the mountains and the sky.
    CHAPTER
TWO
    Night
fell in total blackness.  Mountainous clouds scudded heavily across the
sky, obscuring the sliver of moon.  Only once did it escape, and its
appearance was so quick, so ghostly, that it seemed a mirage.
    Numb
with shock and grief, Zena barely moved as the hours passed.  Below her,
the raging current tore at the banks of the river, pulling bushes, animals,
even trees into its widening grasp.  Water crept relentlessly up the
hillside, erasing the life that had grown there since the rains came.  It
slapped at the boulders by her entrance, sending cold trickles toward her
feet.  She shivered and drew them closer to her body.
    Toward
dawn, the deluge lessened.  The lashing of heavy rain became a soft
patter, and wind no longer screamed through crevices in the rocks.  Now
Zena could hear other noises besides