Stone Age Mama

Chapter Seventeen - From the Chest

-Summer-

The girl’s eyes sparkled in awe as she looked up at her mother. Belbet felt a flutter of movement in her belly, and paused, pressing a hand to the growing bump there. The flutter happened again.

“Ohhh.” She breathed out, the wind knocked out of her not because of the movement, but instead because of what it meant. She pressed a little harder, and sure enough, the little fluttering movement happened again and then stilled. “The baby moved.”

Deenat turned sharp eyes to her sister. “Oh?”

Belbet nodded, feeling her face heat with the urge to cry for some reason. “The baby moved when Dahnei asked about the almonds.”

“...Well, you have been getting bigger. So it’s clearly healthy. And by now, it would definitely move.” Deenat acknowledged.

Dahnei bounced against her mother’s side, “I want to feel! I wanna feel!”

“The baby’s too small for you to feel it right now. Your mother can feel it because it’s in her belly.” Deenat explained. “It will be several full moons before you can feel its movement.”

“Oooohhhh.” Mohniit breathed, reaching out to pat his mother’s slightly bulging stomach. “Baby.”

“Yep. There’s another baby, like you, in there.” Belbet crooned, running her fingers over his ears. “Mama’s gonna have a third baby to look after soon. Will you help?”

The little boy nodded furiously, and so did Dahnei at her side, prompting a laugh from Belbet that echoed against the cliffside behind their home. “Such good children I have.” She murmured, kissing each on the forehead.

Her gaze swept out over the crowd around the fire, and sighed, “We should look for other nuts too. And apples. If we can get some more apples, we can make vinegar, and start making pickles to store for the winter too. Ah, we’ll need more containers. We should probably get some more of the gourds from the pumpkin patch.”

Her thoughts were interrupted by the growling of her belly, and she found herself laughing. “But first, let’s eat something.” She got up and started gathering ingredients together. She snagged a bit of fat off the beaver corpse and started by heating that in their little pot. Then, she cut up some of their dried peppers and herbs, tossing them in the oil to get the fragrance releasing into the air. While that cooked, she began chopping up bits of teal pumpkin meat and snake meat. She added some wild green onion they found to a mixture of ground-up amaranth. To this, she added some water to make a sort of pancake-like mix.

She cooked the meat and pumpkin in the oil until it was nice and crispy, and then set that aside. In the oil now flavored of meat and pumpkin and spices, she poured the slurry in, cooking small cakes and pulling them out when they were crispy and brown as well. She ladled the meat and pumpkin on top of each cake and began handing them out to the family.

They ate with greasy fingers and chattering mouths, and something in Belbet eased. Her family was here, they were safe, and they were eating well. She was happy. They were happy. She could do this. They could do this. This little home she was making would work.

Even in the cold light of morning, after waking up to a chicken sitting on her chest, this feeling didn’t pass. She gently shoved the clucking beast off of her and sat up to look around. Her sister, who had agreed to take watch last night, hadn’t woken her, and this was a thorn in Belbet’s side, but she had to admit, she felt much better now. Getting her sleep was clearly important.

She stood up, only for the world to blur lightly. She stopped, leaning against the wall so as to not lose her balance. Low blood pressure, Victoria thought, maybe from the pregnancy? She let herself even out and then strode out into the early morning warmth. Still in the middle of dawn, the world was lit up in reds and oranges. Beautiful lights lit up the sky, the sharp points of stars still shining through despite the lightening of blue.

Belbet sighed softly, spying the sleeping form of Kaion in his lean-to, defenselessly sprawled on his back, injured hoof out. Deenat sat across from him, carving tiny lines into the bone beads she’d started making a while ago. Belbet nodded a greeting to her, before beginning the morning chores. Boiling water to fill the cisterns, building the smoker fire back up, and storing the smoked meat in large leaves tied with twine. These packages were put on the floor of the half-finished storage room. The smoker was then re-filled, and the process began again for another five hours. Checking the charcoal kiln, making sure it was done, and opening it up, which took time and made her black with charcoal dust and ash.

She went to the river to wash off the charcoal, only to pause. She crept closer and noticed the tiny little green shoots on the beach. Right where her children had planted willow seeds surrounded by haphazard stone rings, small green sprouts reached for the sun. She couldn’t help a gentle laugh, hope filling her at the sight. She reached out, and caressed the little things, feeling a soft pull at the energy swirling in her core. So she happily let the energy swirl between herself and these little things, only for a few moments.

Then, she headed back to camp, calling her children with unfeigned excitement in her voice. A sleepy Dahnei stumbled out of the hut and towards her mother, chickens spilling into the camp area too. She picked the girl up, twirling her around, only to have to pause and get her bearings back, because wow did that make her dizzy.

“Mama, why are you so happy?" Dahnei giggled, even as she tried to hold her mother up.

“You did it! You and Mohniit! You made trees grow!” Belbet cooed, squishing her daughter’s cheeks playfully. “Is your brother still asleep?”

“Uh-huh!” Dahnei laughed, pushing her mother’s hands away and heading for the hut, “Should I wake him?”

“No, no. Babies need their sleep.” She tugged on Dahnei’s hand and pulled her down to the shoreside. “Come look.”

She took her daughter to the side of the little row of trees, each with about a person’s length between them. She rubbed her finger over the leaves gently and then watched as Dahnei did the same. Then, an idea struck her. “Dahnei, do me a favor. Close your eyes, and imagine there is a light glowing in your body, okay?”

Her daughter’s eyes closed, trusting, and Belbet had no idea if it was working or not. “Now, pretend that light moves around your body, starting here-” She poked the top of her daughter’s head and then moved to poke the forehead, “To here-” and throughout the chakras that had been so prevalent in all those ‘homeopathic journals’ Victoria read while researching how to heal at home without pharmacology. “Now, imagine it swirling through those points, one giant circle, going round and round. Does it feel warm?”

Dahnei breathed out and nodded, her brow drawn tight. Belbet continued. “Now, imagine the same sort of energy, swirling around in the earth and through these little sprouts. Imagine that when you touch the leaves,” Here, she helped Dahnei to gently connect the pad of her finger with the green of the willow bud, “you are connecting the circles, and your light moves into the plant, and from the plant into the ground, and then the ground moves light up through the plant into you. Can you see it?”

Dahnei nodded, a grin forming on her face. “Yes! I can feel it!”

Belbet laughed, nodding at how brilliant her daughter’s imagination was. “I want you to come every day and do that, okay? With each of the willows. It’ll help them grow.” Plus, it’ll help Dahnei have a little bit of… well, the closest to meditation they could get in this time. “Let me or your aunt know when you’re doing it, right, and keep this-” She handed Dahnei one of the whistles, now finished, “With you. If you see anyone not already part of our family, you blow in here as hard as you can for as long as you can, okay?”

The five-year-old nodded and took the whistle as if it were a sacred treasure. Belbet helped her loop the string around her neck, and it settled on her chest easily. “And if you want, you can do the same thing in the garden, too. I do.”

“Mama does?” Dahnei asked, “Is that why Mama glows sometimes?”

That caught Belbet off guard. “Huh?” She asked, turning to look at her baby.

“Yeah. When Mama’s picking the weeds or planting things. You glow!” Dahnei reached up and pressed a hand right over where Belbet imagined the little gold swirl sat in her child-swollen belly. “Right here!”

“I-I see.” Belbet accepted, although on the inside she was panicking. Glowed?! What the hell?! “Maybe, baby. Who knows.”

Dahnei accepted this answer with the sort of aplomb that only children could when faced with answers from their parents. Belbet felt twitchy and sweaty as they walked back into camp, and resolved to ask Deenat if she’d seen such a thing.

The conversation managed to happen while breakfast (a pumpkin and beaver meat slurry that was similar to oatmeal.) was cooking, with Deenat raising a pure white brow.

“Yes, you glow. It is similar to the shine that chieftains give off when they are fighting for their lives but gentler. I assumed you were doing it on purpose, so I didn’t say anything.” Deenat shrugged. “It just means you are concentrating hard, and it will help your survival, right?”

Belbet spluttered, “I-I mean, maybe? I don’t know? I didn’t even know I was doing it!”

Deenat paused in her work (putting mud on the kiln, which she’d received instructions on how to do last night.) to look at her sister. “It means you are on your way to becoming a very, very strong warrior.”

This made Belbet snort out a laugh. “Me? A warrior? Please.”

“Or, perhaps it means something completely different. You are quite strange.” Deenat conceded, “Perhaps it means only what you make it to mean, the same way all of this does.” She gestured wide, to their growing homestead.

Belbet looked around what she’d managed to make, and sighed, “Maybe.” She’d have to keep an eye on it. Did it have to do with the golden orb she’d dreamed about? Or perhaps it was something else entirely.

“I simply hope that when it comes time for Eefim to glow, you’ll be able to guide him. I do not want him to be eaten up by the shine.”

With that ominous declaration, Deenat turned back to forming the large kiln they were going to fire more tiles in, and Belbet made a sound akin to a dying balloon. “What do you *mean* eaten up by the shine?!”

Deenat spoke, her hands rubbing the clay smooth. “Some warriors, after eating a beast core, are consumed by the shine, unable to control it. You controlled it, so you should know how to do so. Teach Eefim, so that he doesn’t die.”

Another metaphorical pile of bricks thrown on Belbet’s head, “wha- how-I… I don’t know how?!”

Deenat stopped, turning to her sister with her eyes narrowed and her mouth pinched. “Then figure it out. You fed my son a beast core. YOU have to save him if it hurts him.”

Belbet’s breath stuttered, and she found herself light-headed. She sat down, the pot bubbling in front of her. Dahnei settled a hand on her mama’s shoulders, squeezing and massaging the way she’d done for the old ladies and men of their old tribe. Belbet could feel her panic rising.

As if summoned, Eefim left the hut, looking worse for wear, rubbing at his face. Belbet felt a frisson of alarm start up. “Eefim, come sit by your aunt.” She called, and sure enough, the boy made a beeline for her and leaned against her side, which interfered with Dahnei rubbing her shoulders. Belbet sighed and wrapped an arm around Eefim’s shoulder, squeezing him.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” She asked, stirring the pot.

“...strange,” Eefim answered, honesty dripping from him. “My chest is warm… and it hurts sometimes.”

Belbet frowned, and asked, “Did you have a dream? About swallowing a golden orb?”

Eefim’s nose wrinkled, and he shook his head. Belbet believed him, asking instead, “Does anything else hurt?”

“No. It only hurts when I’m not actively concentrating on it.” Eefim explained. “Only when I let my guard down. Then it starts spreading to the rest of my body.”

Belbet blinked, and something odd felt like it slid into place. “Okay, do me a favor, close your eyes.” The second child today she’d told that to, and Belbet was starting to wonder if she’d gone insane.

Eefim didn’t hesitate either and closed his eyes. Belbet felt a squeeze of her heart at the trust these children had for her. Then, she focused and pressed a finger to Eefim’s lower belly. “Imagine all of that pain, all of that warmth, all of it swirling and condensing right here, into a gold ball. Make the ball as small as you can make it. Imagine the ball like a whirlpool that will suck in all that pain and warmth. Okay?”

Eefim’s face twisted again with effort as if he were actually physically drawing all the energy he felt and pressing it where she’d pointed. He seemed to be focusing so hard, that Belbet didn’t want to interrupt him. Eventually, however, the food was done and even little Mohniit had come out of the hut. Kaion asked what Eefim was doing, and Belbet could only explain it as, ‘trying to control the beast core’s energy in his body’. It was a guess, but it felt right, and with this, Belbet was pretty sure her instincts would help her more than anything else.

Pulling Eefim from his meditation, she gave him his breakfast, as she served everyone else. Then she took her own bowl and began to eat the slightly-spiced mush. She wished she could get ahold of salt. She really did.

The family breakfast went well, if quiet, until Eefim spoke up. “I… I don’t think I’m going to be much use until I get this energy under control. Is… is it okay, if I take time to do that?”

Belbet blinked, raising an eyebrow. She turned then, taking into consideration who they had and what needed to be done. “...Yeah, that should be fine. Just keep us up on how much time you think it’s going to need, okay? And if you feel like anything is wrong, don’t hesitate to call me. Okay?”

Eefim nodded, a steely look in his eyes, determination in his thin lips.