He stared blindly at the opposite canyon wall. Saluez couldn’t have taken a hitch. A mere girl? Not strong. Now wounded, though he did not know how badly. It was better not to know how badly. Better if loved ones never knew. Too many questions if they knew. Too many doubts. Saluez couldn’t have taken the gaufers. It was physically impossible.
But she had been tending the outlanders. Taking care of the Famber family. Who, so Shalumn said, nobody had seen for a while. Of course, they wouldn’t know about a hitch.
But Saluez might!
Halach found himself moving rapidly toward the hive, meantime praying fervently to Weaving Woman, to Lady Day, to all the other deities of the Dinadhi that he was merely woolgathering. Oh, let it be that he was merely making up stories, telling tales. Let him not have happened upon the truth!
The morning wore away in questioning and discussing, with this one, with that one. In time he found we had gone. Consternation in the hive. Much mumble among the elders. Then, finally, days later, what no one had thought to do until then, an inventory of wains and the discovery that one was missing, not from those upon the height but from those in the canyon itself. So, where had we gone?
What other place than the omphalos, for Tahs-uppi!
And the end of that episode was songfather standing at the edge of the canyon, swearing retribution on those aliens who had betrayed the hospitality of Dinadh and on that apostate who had aided them. He would follow them, so he howled to Lady Day as she departed. He would follow them and bring them to judgment. His voice quavered in its rage. His arms trembled. The people of the hive quaked behind the doorskins.
So I imagine the scene, at least. Later, while he was raging at me, he let me know some of it, including that he gave me credit for knowing about gaufers, about hitches, things I’d never even been curious about. He told me he had sworn judgment on me, a judgment that did, in time, come to pass. So, though I visualize the details for myself, in all important respects, that is what happened.
While songfather stuttered and swore, I was trying to sleep in the westerly elbow of Lost Canyon. The gaufers were quiet. Trompe snored, an abrupt, breathy sound, as though he were surprised over and over by something. Leelson slept like a child, radiantly, his lips curved into an angelic smile. Leely had the same expression, but Lutha burrowed, like some little animal, her face buried between her hands. And I lay on my back, urging my sinews to let go, let go, let me not think of my mother, let me merely be.
Eventually the struggle wore me out. The attempt to unthink it did no good. All right, I said to my disobedient mind, I will think of it. Let me remember it all. Let me wear out remembering, until it no longer hurts.
Mother went away when I was only a child. No one ever said how she departed. It wasn’t a thing we talked about in the hive. Not openly, at any rate. As a child, I overheard this and that. Putting it all together, I understood she had departed because something had gone wrong when she had a baby. The baby departed also. The circumstances were, as we on Dinadh say of things we should not talk about, “difficult.” If Lutha were translating, she might say blasphemous. Which does not mean anyone was at fault, but simply that something happened that was unpatternly and unpleasant. Whatever it may have been, this something happened and my mother … departed.
And I wept desperately in father Chahdzi’s lap, he petting me and murmuring over and over and over, “We’ll get her back, Saluez. That’s what we’ll do. She’s out there, just waiting for us to ask her. We’ll beg her to come back. And she will, you’ll see.” He actually smiled when he said it.
So we prayed her return. There is a chamber on the ground floor of the hive, a place where petitions are made to any of our deities, a quiet place, softened by hangings and lighted dimly by little wax lamps, even at night, for night is the time we most need such a place. Chahdzi and I went there with songfather—he was just Grandpa then—and we petitioned Weaving Woman to tell my mother we wanted her to return, to take habitation among us.
I echoed the words. “Take habitation among us …” What did the words mean to me? That she would come home, come back, be there as she had been before. But that wasn’t what Chahdzi meant, or songfather. For seven nights we uttered our petition. For seven nights we stood behind a window of the chamber, which, alone of all the windows in the hive, has no shutter. It is glazed with heavy glass so that petitioners may look out upon the beautiful people, the dancers, the Kachis.
Oh, beautiful upon wings, the Kachis. As I child I learned the hymns to the Kachis. Oh, beautiful upon wings, gift of glory, loveliest of beings, those for whom the night was made!
The seventh night my father’s hand tightened upon my shoulder as he pointed with the other, saying excitedly, “There, there, see, Saluez. See, there’s Mother, with the cleft in her chin, just like always. Here’s Mother come home again, Saluez!”
He pointed and pointed and I looked and looked, until eventually I saw what he was pointing at. A Kachis with a deep hollow in her chin like the one my mother had had. Though at the time I thought it was only rather like, as I remembered the event over the years it grew more and more like until I was sure it was utterly like. Of course. When the spirits of our loved ones return as Kachis, they always
