Читать книгу The Gathering Night - Margaret Elphinstone - Страница 5

Bakar’s disappearance was my first loss. It’s also where this story begins. If my brother Bakar hadn’t gone, we wouldn’t all be sitting here now. And you two boys – listen to me, both of you! If Bakar hadn’t been lost, you two would never have become brothers. You might never even have known each other. And the lives of all us – of all the Auk People – would have unfolded differently. But I can’t even begin to think about that. No one can undo the threads of a story once they’re tied together. Not even the spirits can do that.

I was still a child. But I remember very well that terrible winter my family spent alone at River Mouth Camp.

There were only six of us at River Mouth Camp before Baker went away in Yellow Leaf Moon. We became six again when my sister Alaia gave birth to Esti. After Esti was born we stayed on at River Mouth Camp, even though we’d been hunting there all winter. We were walking further every day to get enough dead wood for our fire. Alaia and I always managed to fill our baskets, but we couldn’t get enough meat. Only Amets could hunt, now that my brother was gone. Amets has never failed us, but you all know it takes more than one man to feed a family well all winter. Once we’d finished the hazelnuts and acorns and lily-seeds, we had to dig for roots more often. We got reed-root from the marshes. Alaia and I pulled lily-roots out of the freezing mud at the bottom of the hill-loch: it’s worst when you have to break the ice before you can wade in.

My mother kept going away. She didn’t seem to want to be with us any more. She wouldn’t tell us where she’d been.

In the Moon of Rushes the rest of us wanted to move on. Winter no longer held us; the wind from the High Sun Sky smelt of the coming spring. But now we were afraid my mother wouldn’t go with us. We still didn’t know what had happened to Bakar. That was the worst winter I ever spent. In the end we stayed at River Mouth Camp until just before Auk Moon. It seemed so long! I thought about running away. I knew how to find my cousins’ Camp. I’d only been there by boat, but I thought if I walked down the shores of the Long Strait I couldn’t possibly get lost. It would only have taken me two or three days … If Esti hadn’t come I think I would have run away. But that winter Esti gave us something to be happy about, in spite of everything.

I think I was angry with my mother for not being there – I don’t know. I certainly never thought of her going Go-Between.

I thought Go-Betweens were terrifying, distant men who spoke to the Animals about the Hunt. How could Go-Betweens be anything to do with my mother? I couldn’t understand what was happening. None of us did. At least – maybe Alaia and Amets guessed, but I never heard them speak about it. My father – I think my father … My father was the wisest man I ever knew. He understood everything. But he knew how to be silent too. He never spoke to me about it.