Moon-Flash Read Free Page B

itself woven into it. It was very old; newer River-signs had been added on since it was first made. Kyreol’s father joined their hands. Korre’s hand was sweaty; he glanced at her once, nervously, and smiled. She felt odd, suddenly, restless: she wanted to be climbing a tree or fishing. Then she remembered her new face, the mask of womanhood, and the thought passed. The moon floated into its position.
    A chant started, led by her father. A prayer for good fortune. Her name and Korre’s name were repeated many times, until it seemed that even the constant roar of the Falls echoed their names. The wholeworld was chanting. And the flash, the spark of life, entered the moon.
    The chanting turned to cheers. Wood pipes and drum sounded out of the night. A hundred birds wove into the firelight, soared upward, singing. Korre let go of Kyreol’s hand. His feet shifted. He was still smiling, but he couldn’t seem to speak.
Oh well,
Kyreol thought after a moment.
I can talk enough for two.
She looked around vaguely at all the laughing people who seemed to have forgotten about them. At the edge of her fire she saw the hooded Hunter.
    She gazed at him, puzzled without knowing why. Then the carpet rose under her as many hands lifted it. She grabbed at Korre and lost her balance. They tumbled against one another, as the carpet shook, and fell, tangled together and laughing.

2

    BEING BETROTHED, Kyreol discovered, was not quite as interesting as she had imagined it. For one thing, her face hadn’t changed. When she stepped out the door of the house at Turtle-Crossing and knelt at the riverbank to see her reflection, it was still the same face under the paint as the one she had worn at her father’s house. For another thing, betrothed women didn’t fish. And for another, she and Korre seemed to speak two entirely different languages.
    Since she wasn’t married yet, she slept with Korre’s younger sisters, in the huge, rambling stone house. She liked the house. There was always a stray noise in it—a pot banging, a child laughing or crying, Korre’s mother singing or calling to her children. Kyreol helped her with the cooking and took care of the younger children. She had never done either thing in her life, so for a while she was intrigued. She learned how to make fish soup and grind nuts into flour and to save all the feathers she plucked from birds for the many betrothal skirts the family would need. She showed the children how to crack seed podsin two to make tiny boats, and she told them stories. She told about the First Man and the First Woman, and about the First Days of the World, when the fish could talk. She made them tell her what the birds were saying. Korre’s mother listened with an indulgent smile, but Korre didn’t understand.
    “Fish never had voices,” he said one evening, when they were sitting on the bank cleaning fish he had caught.
    “But why not? Everything else does. Everything in the world makes a noise but fishes. Why?”
    “They don’t have tongues.”
    “But—”
    He sighed. “You always say ‘but.’ The world is the world. It’s silly to think about fish speaking. You shouldn’t say that to the children.”
    “But why—”
    “There you go again.”
    “I had a thought,” she said, prickling with frustration, “and you made it vanish out of my head. Listen. Everything—”
    “Kyreol—”
    “You never listen to me!”
    “Well, you never make any sense!”
    Kyreol swallowed her words, sat smoldering. Korre watched her, his chin on his fist. He was shorter than she was, and she was still growing. They had to sit down to look straight into each other’s eyes. He was night-dark, muscular but small-boned. He made her feel gawky. He was even-tempered but very stubborn. When she got angry, he only waited calmly, silently, until she gave up her anger, and then he would talk about something entirely different. She waited for himto speak. The River made soft, soothing noises, cooling her.