Beh makes quiet sounds as Lee stares at her face and sucks. His little hand rests possessively right above her nipple, and he grasps at it repeatedly as if he needs the reassurance that it is still there and still full of milk. I lay my head on Beh’s shoulder, and we both look out over the field toward the pine trees and watch the birds soar across the sky.
The day is not too hot, but sun is warm. I close my eyes to its warmth and tilt my head up a little. After a few minutes, Beh lifts Lee and turns him to her other breast so he can complete his meal.
It’s making me hungry, too.
Beh turns her head so she can see me better, and the smile on her face encompasses my heart. She reaches up and lays the palm of her hand against my cheek.
“Beh loves Ehd. Beh loves Lee.”
“Luffs Beh!” I make the sounds and watch her eyes light up and her smile grow. “Lee luffs!”
Beh’s smile turns into a laugh, which startles Lee enough that the nipple slips from his mouth. He begins to cry, and I reach up with one finger to stroke his cheek until he quiets down and goes back to suckling. Beh leans her back against my chest and sighs.
I think she is content, just as I am.
I close my eyes again and listen to the sounds around me. Beh’s quiet breathing, Lee’s noisy suckling, the birds in the trees, and the insects in the field all fill my ears. The bugs are particularly loud, and seem to be getting louder.
And louder.
Beh gasps, and I feel the tension move from her body into mine.
I know the sound is not insects, and my body begins to shake as the sound increases to the point where my ears are aching. Silver-blue streaks appear in the field in front of us, circling with increasing speed. The sense of dread I felt when Lah was taken from us returns with tight pressure in my chest. For several moments, I am frozen and unable to react to what I am seeing.
Again, as it was long ago when Lah disappeared, red and gold speckles flash inside the sphere, sparking like embers from the fire in the dark cave at night, and I remember what happened the last time those sparks appeared in the field. Without waiting another moment, I cry out and jump to my feet, carrying Beh and Lee with me. Beh’s feet hit the ground, and she starts to pull away from me—toward the sparking, spinning thing that is appearing in the field.
“Beh!” I scream at her and grab her arm. Glaring at the sparkling shape that is beginning to take form, I grab my spear from the ground and pull Beh and Lee behind me. I am completely resolved, and I will not allow Beh to stop me as I push at her side—forcing her back toward the cave despite her noises and struggles.
I will not let anyone take Lee from me!
Turning quickly, I use one arm to encircle Beh’s waist and the other to hold my spear out toward the spinning thing. It is beginning to slow, and I recognize the image of a person in the middle of the sphere. I pull sharply at Beh, whose loud sounds are increasing, and drag both my mate and my son to the safety of the cave.
Pushing them through the entrance of the cave, I turn and crouch with my spear ready. I block the opening with my body and ignore Beh’s hand pushing against my shoulder and her sharp noises. Lee is crying angry cries at being separated from his mother’s breast, but I refuse to acknowledge either of them.
I have to protect my family.
“Ehd…Ehd…” Beh’s hand strokes my shoulder, and her sounds become softer as the man’s form takes shape in the center of the whirling circles.
I will not let him take our son.
I won’t.
I won’t!
My chest heaves with labored breaths as I grip my spear. My hands are shaking, and I want to steady them, but it is as if the thoughts of Lah disappearing so long ago are dropping from my head and down into my chest, crushing me underneath their weight. I remember the man I hit to protect Beh all those seasons ago. I remember what happened to him, and I steady myself in case I have to fight. I have done it before, and I can do it again.
The whirring sound stops, and I can see the more distinct shape of the man as the circles fade away. The man and whatever is in his arms is all that is left. It is definitely the man from before. His dark eyes and furry upper lip are the same.
I tighten my grip on my spear and raise it with menace.
“Ehd, no!” Beh grabs hold of the top part of my arm and shakes me, yelling.
Standing firmly at the entrance, I growl and pull my arm from her grasp. I step forward, though I don’t allow enough room for her to slip around me. The man is walking slowly toward us, and I scream out a warning to him. I hold out my spear and stamp my foot as Beh pushes against my back, but my feet are planted firmly, and she can’t move me out of the way.
I don’t know why she is trying.
“Ehd!” she cries out again, and once more she grabs hold of my spear-arm. “Lah!”
I have to close my eyes for a moment, drenched in the memories of the little girl who was the first child I put inside of Beh. The crushing feeling I haven’t felt in a long time is back, holding me down and making my grip on the spear falter.
I will not let him have Lee!
Again I scream at the approaching figure of the man, who slows and stops. His eyes dart between my face and Beh’s. She keeps saying my name-sound and even reaches around to grab hold of my face. I glance at Beh, and the expression on her face is frightening.
She is obviously as scared as I am.
Her hand presses against the side of my face, and a single tear drops from her eye.
“Lah,” she says softly, and points toward the man.
I look back to him and focus on what is in his arms. I see a bundle, wrapped in strange material tucked into one arm while the other hand grips a big, black, square…thing. I don’t care about the thing, though. My attention is captured by the bundle that suddenly squirms and then cries out.
I recognize the cry.
It has haunted me since the day he took Lah.
The man takes another step closer, and I can see a tiny face encircled by the white cloth in his arm. The whole bundle moves, and the little mouth opens up again in a long cry. It’s not the weakened cry I remember from the last days she was with us, but the strong, healthy cry that filled my ears on many nights when Lah would wake hungry or cold.
The man is holding my daughter.
“Lah.” Her name-sound drops out of my mouth and falls into the air. My stomach feels like it does if I eat something that has been sitting in the back of the cave too long, and I can feel it rolling around inside of me, threatening to expel breakfast. Beh is pushing against my shoulder with warm, damp hands, trying to get around me. I don’t know what to think.
It has been more than an entire set of seasons since the stranger took Lah away, but she looks exactly the same. She’s the same size, and she makes the same cry. I know it’s her—I can feel it in my heart. I don’t think Lah is still sick either. She had been so weak when he took her, and now her cry is much stronger. I look at the man holding my daughter, and I narrow my eyes at him.
He took her. She was sick, and he took her away from us.
A low growl comes from my chest as I grip the spear a little tighter. If I step away from the cave, Beh will get out from behind me, and he might take her, like he did Lah. He could take Lee, too. My stomach roils again. I can’t move away without putting the rest of my family in danger, but the man isn’t close enough to use the spear on him. I glance around at the ground near the cave, looking for rocks to hurl at him instead.
I feel Beh’s breath on the side of my neck, and she grips the top of my arm tightly as her chest presses against my back. The man in front of me makes sounds, and Beh makes sounds at him in return. His eyes stay on mine, and I do not look away from him. His sounds get louder as do my growls.
Beh grips my shoulders, and she yells out more sounds. The man’s eyes narrow and his head bobs up and down once. He takes a few steps toward us, and I crouch lower, readying my spear. His arms reach forward, and he lays Lah down just a short distance from my feet before backing away entirely.
I look to Beh, then to the man, and then down to Lah. The bundled child squirms on the ground and cries out again. Her sounds compel me forward, but I’m scared for Beh and Lee. As Lah’s cries increase, I hold my spear behind me to block Beh and watch the man closely as I take a step forward. Both the man and Beh stand motionless as I take another step. When I am close enough to bend down and touch Lah, the tightness in my stomach and chest disappears.
It is her.
My daughter.
My Lah.
My fingers grace over her tiny cheek, no longer burning with fever. She looks exactly the same as she had, only her lips are a little fuller, no longer chapped and dry. When I pull back on the covering swaddling her, I can see her arms are chubby, and her skin is soft. I reach out and pull her from the ground, holding her tightly to my chest.
I close my eyes, and I can feel the burning behind them as her warm skin meets mine. With my cheek pressed to hers, our warm tears mingle, and I revel in the sound of her loud, angry, healthy cry. I can feel the beat of her heart against my skin, and I take a deep breath to inhale her scent—like her mother’s but slightly sweeter.
Another loud sound invades the moment.
“No!”
Beh’s no sound startles me, and I glance over my right shoulder to look at her. Her eyes are wide and full of fear, and her hands reach out toward me. I hear the thump of rapid footsteps to my left, but I cannot react in time without dropping Lah.
Suddenly, there is a sharp pain in my arm, and everything goes black.
I awake with my head pounding.
I’m surrounded by the familiar scents of the cave, the furs in which we sleep, and Beh’s body near mine. I reach for her warmth automatically and feel another smaller body curled between us. My ears pick up the rhythmic sounds of a suckling baby, but at the same time, I can hear the cries of another.
The sun still shines into the crack from the outside of the cave, and the fire burns brightly, but the light inside the cave is dim. Even so, my head throbs more, and my eyes ache as I open them.
Between us, wrapped in strange, soft cloth and suckling at her mother’s breast is Lah. For a moment, I think I have awakened from a bizarre dream—that maybe she was never taken from us and was never even sick—but the sounds of another remind me that is not so.
Lee pounds his little fists on the fur wrapped around his mother’s lower half as he tries to crawl between us to determine just what this other child is doing with his milk. Through my hazy vision, I watch him try to push his sister away. Beh picks him up with her free hand, smiles, and makes soft noises. She places him against her other breast, which he immediately grabs and shoves into his mouth. His green eyes narrow and glare at the little girl who feeds beside him, and he sucks harder.
I try to move my head a little closer to them, but I become dizzy immediately. I close my eyes again, but it only makes it worse, and I groan. I feel Beh’s hand against my jaw and hear her soft sounds.
“Shh, Ehd.”
I look at her face, and I can see her eyes are red and swollen, but she is smiling. I drop my eyes back to Lah. Her eyes have closed and her mouth has stilled. Lee is still scowling at her but seems content enough with milk in his mouth. Looking back and forth between them, it is obvious Lee is a whole season older than Lah in size. Lah was born late in the summer and became sick at the beginning of the previous winter. She looks to be the same size as she was then, just fatter and healthier than when I last saw her. Lee had been born in the winter, and it is now midsummer again.
Lah should be much larger than Lee, but she isn’t.
My head swims again.
I hear more sounds coming from the other side of the cave. The sounds are deeper in tenor than the ones Beh and Lee make, but I remember hearing the same tone before. The sound was coming from the man.
I raise my head, ignoring the throbbing in my temples and the nausea in my stomach. Across from the fire on the ledge where Beh had lined up her various collection baskets, sits the man—Beh’s father. He wears the same strange, white wrap that hangs down to his thighs, and his legs are covered in leggings like the ones Beh used to wear. They are a lighter color blue, though, and don’t seem to be as form-fitting or thick. The material looks thin as it flows with his legs when he moves around.
He sits with his back curved and his elbows down at his knees. There is something on the ground near his feet, but I can’t tell what it is. My eyes are still having trouble focusing through the pounding ache in my head.
His mouth opens, and sounds similar to the ones Beh makes flow rapidly from between his lips. Beh’s noises follow, and Lee’s eyes open wide as he looks between them both, distracted enough to release Beh’s nipple for a moment.
“Da-da-da-da!” Lee turns back to the nipple after making his noise and closes his eyes as he latches on and returns to eating.
Still dizzy, I try to push myself up, but Beh’s hand against my chest sends me back into the furs. When I try to move my legs, they do not want to cooperate. I feel as if I have been running for an entire morning or that I haven’t slept all night. I might be able to push Beh away and make myself stand, but her soft hands on my skin and whispers of my name-sound calm me, and I lay back down.
I glance at Beh’s father and watch him warily as Beh takes both sleeping children from her breast and lays them together in a pile of furs next to me. I grab for her hand as she moves to stand, and she grips my fingers briefly before moving to the side of the cave where her father is seated, pulling her leather wrap up around her shoulders as she goes.
For a moment, I want to follow and take her farther away from him, but I realize I may have been asleep for some time, and if he had wanted to take them all away, he would have already done so. Also, as her father, he wouldn’t want to harm her, I believe.