Great Sky Woman Read Free Page B

hunt, a son who might bring him meat in his old age, a new dancer for the men’s fire.
    “Let her mother take her,” he said, then turned his back and left.
     
    Night’s mantle settled about Water boma’s thorn walls, shrouding Great Earth’s misty peak. The family was settling into its nighttime routine: roasting meat around the hearths, singing, nursing sleepy children, laughing in a rapid succession of clicks. Throughout the day, each adult in the boma approached Water Chant with congratulations, many of them giving small gifts for the girl’s health.
    “A strong girl-child is good,” said Thorn, handing Chant a melon. “She will work hard. Her husband will be your son.”
    Chant grunted, respecting the Between, but not his opinion on such matters. Thorn had made an honorable choice: better for a man to admit he was no hunter than lie to himself and his brothers, only to fail in the tall grass. “For a few rains,” he said. “No. Sons are better. Three daughters she gives me. No sons.” He pushed past the well-wishers and entered his hut.
    There in the darkness he watched the infant as she nursed blindly. Zebra Moon smiled, still deeply drained.
    Chant’s thin, weathered face was impassive and observant. After a few breaths, he left again.

    As days passed the moon swelled, birthed stars, then swelled again.
    In the fashion of Ibandi women, Zebra kept her baby with her at all times, either held in her strong arms or suspended in a sling of brown eland skin. Most Ibandi mothers carried their children slung at back or hip, dangling low to the ground so that older children could entertain their younger siblings. These they stroked and taught and regaled with song, offering morsels of fruit and berries and urging them to speak.
    Today Zebra knelt by the streambed, pounding caked sweat and dirt from old hides on the smooth stones among the rushes, shoulder by shoulder with her sisters, singing as they hammered with rocks, softening the hides’ stiffness. She liked the work and had returned to it two days after her birthing, enjoying the sense of reclaiming her body after pregnancy.
    This was Zebra’s third child, and as with the others, the warmth of a sleeping infant, the sweet sensation of her nursing, even her occasional cries seemed to make the day and all about it a brighter, happier time.
    Then…Water Chant pushed his way through the reeds, and her belly soured. She glanced away, fearing to meet his eyes.
    “Give me the child,” he said.
    “She nurses,” Zebra protested.
    “Give me the child,” he said again.
    Zebra searched her sisters’ and cousins’ faces, seeking support and finding none. Reluctantly, she waved a swarm of little blue-black flies away from her daughter’s face and handed her up to her father.
    The baby’s eyes were dark brown with odd greenish tints. They stared sightlessly, lacking focus. Something like a spark of pale light swam within them, a glimmerance that tingled Water Chant’s skin.
    The child was staring
through
him, seeming to concentrate on Great Earth herself, instead of the fleshly father who held her.
    By this age, most children had begun to respond to light and shadow. True, their eyes followed only with difficulty, but follow they did, perhaps after a short lag. This girl saw nothing, reacted to nothing, save her mother’s nipple.
    Chant’s lips and tongue fluttered in a succession of pops and clicks. When she spoke, Zebra Moon responded in the same fashion. “Why can’t she see?” he asked.
    “Give her time,” the mother said. She continued rapidly, “Her inner eye will open. I thought to call her—”
    Water Chant threw up his hands in horror. “No!” he said. “No name. Not until she sees. No name.”
    Zebra continued in a coaxing voice. “Without a name, she has no totem. Great Mother will not know her. Father Mountain will not protect her.”
    He waved his hand in front of the girl’s face. No reaction at all.
    “If she cannot see the