Flowers By Melissa Rea
Teeth, as long as her head, ripped through the green underbrush where Flowers and her mother crouched, hiding. “This big brute does not eat flesh,” Mother whispered. “It might still bite off your head if you got in the way.” She clutched Flowers tight against her. The two held completely still and waited for the beast to finish its favorite meal, juicy green leaves. Flowers knew the enormous, gray-skinned water-pig could waddle over her if she were not careful, but it did not want to eat her. Mother had told her of all the dangerous animals and how to protect herself. When to run, when to hide and how to kill quickly to stay alive.
“I did not name you after this world’s greatest beauty to have you killed by an empty headed water-pig.” her mother told her, as she had so many times. It always made her smile and feel special. Her tribe thought her odd, but Mother called her Flowers.
When the huge creature had lumbered off, Flowers and her mother returned to gathering the feathery grayish leaves of the plant that could stop bleeding.
How precious to Flowers, the time spent in the forest with Mother gathering healing plants and those to dye cloth. “Pick only the largest leaves and save the smaller ones for later,” said Mother. They quickly stashed the day’s collection in the folds of the cloth they wore. Light in the forest grew dim and Flowers and her mother knew they must hurry back to their home. Soon it would be too dangerous in the forest, the night creatures would stir. The most dangerous and the most hungry beasts stalked their prey beneath the trees when the sun slept.
On the walk back to the cave, Mother held onto Flowers as she often did, but today, Flowers thought her grip seemed tighter. As if she drew strength from the touch of her daughter’s hand.
At the mouth of their cave home, they saw the women had begun to prepare the day’s kill for all of the tribe to eat. Mother nodded at Lana and her three red haired daughters who arranged the wood for the evening’s fire. Mada, the oldest of Lana’s daughters smiled at them. Did Flowers imagine a wave of warmth from the girl?
“Good forest, Doda?” Lana asked Mother, calling her by the name the tribe had given her.
Mother nodded and gave no answer. Though mother understood the thought Lana sent too, she chose not to respond. She turned to Mada and asked, “What do you cook tonight?” The girl looked puzzled at the words. Flowers knew Mother had sent thoughts to the girl too. All the members of the tribe could hear each other’s thoughts, only Flowers could not. After a few breaths, the girl’s face lit up with understanding.
“Fat boar. Much good.” Mada’s smile was wide and bright as morning sunshine even as the last rays of evening sun shone through the mouth of the cave. Flowers envied the girl’s lovely red hair and her wide easy smile. Lana turned toward her daughter. Flowers knew she was speaking to her daughter with thoughts. The members of the tribe usually looked directly at each other to share thoughts. All members of the tribe could use words. They spoke to get each other’s attention, to talk at a distance or to many people at once. Their spoken words seemed simple and few to Flowers who could talk no other way. Mother had tried to teach the tribe members new words as she had taught her daughter, for Flowers’s sake. She wondered at the many words her mother knew and she was grateful. Without her mother to listen and share what others thought, she would have deserved the name the tribe called her, Dummy.
From the boar, now brown and bubbling in the cooking shell, came the irresistible aroma that quickly brought the tribe together around the fire. Samon, the tribe’s largest man, cut the boar with a stone knife and passed the pieces, making sure each woman had enough for her and her family. Next to him sat Tita, the woman who had chosen him. She sat with her arm wrapped around his as if letting go of him would wound her. These days, far fewer men than women sat on the sandy ground, the fire splashing its red light upon foreheads, cheeks and noses. It made Flowers sad to think, for many snows, no boy child had lived to grow up.
Flowers watched the women with small children, make sure each child got enough of the rich delicious meat. Several of the women had no man of their own. Some by choice, like Mother and others because there were not enough men they wanted to choose. Flowers remembered a time when the men had wanted to change the tribe’s ways and have more than one woman for each man. The women of the tribe could not agree. She remembered the hair pulling, slaps and angry faced, though silent, arguments. Flowers had been small and hid behind a rock with some of the other children. They all laughed to see their mothers look like crows fighting over a fat beetle, shoving and shaking each other. It was decided, things would not change.
Flowers was glad that Mother was hers alone. She never liked sharing Mother with the little boys mother gave birth to, who always pulled on her, wanting, needing, and demanding...but only for a little while. Flowers took no comfort from the fact that the boys always died. A few grew old enough to walk. Most died in Mother’s sweet arms days after their births. She would rock them as they grew still and cold, tears streaming down her beautiful cheeks. Mother had wanted boys so desperately, Flowers remembered as she chewed a piece of tender boar. Boys can grow big and strong to protect her and hunt food, her mother had told her. Boys could even help them get away to form a new tribe. Though Mother had never chosen any man for her own, she lay with those who had no woman, when she wanted a child, always hoping for a boy.
Samon raised his chin and smiled at Mother as she sat enjoying her meal, until Tita gave him a dark look that needed no words. The woman then turned her head to stare at Flowers with tight lips and narrow eyes. Mother smiled toward Tita. Flowers was certain Mother sent the woman reassuring thoughts as kind as the sweet expression on her face. Flowers could guess her mother told Tita that her daughter was a good and helpful girl. The hardness of Tita’s lips softened a little, but her gray eyes were still more like flint than flesh. Flowers had seen as many snows as all her fingers and some of one foot’s toes, well old enough to choose a man. But none of those few without women appealed to her. She sat considering the men now seated around the fire. Those close to her mother’s age all talked silently with their women and some of their children. The few younger men, not yet chosen, looked eagerly around at the women their age, often smiling and nodding. Mada’s three brothers, all large, red haired lumps that smelled of mammoth hides, days too long in the sun, grinned at her. They did not take their eyes from her as she sucked the marrow from a rib bone. She raised her chin, curled her lip a bit and scowled at them. This only made them laugh.
Mother laughed. “You are lucky there are so few men. Those three might follow you day and night to convince you to choose them if there were not so many other girls.”
Mada threw a stern look toward her brothers who lowered their heads and concentrated on their food. Flowers smiled at the girl whose simple sweetness touched her.
With their meal finished, the tribe sat sharing thoughts Flowers could not hear. She saw the looks, the smiles, the laughs and even sudden cries of surprise, pass between people. Sometimes they would all fall silent and it seemed one person spoke to all; turning their head often toward each member. Flowers watched in silence until her mother took her hand and they crept to their place in the cave.
Above the furs they slept upon were two colored hand prints. The larger red one of Mother’s hand made by dipping in a powder of crushed red rock and the little yellow one of Flowers’ hand, made when she was small. She remembered dipping her hand in the yellow powder they found near a hot springs and reaching up to mark the small crevice where they slept. Mother used the yellow powder on wounds that were not healing, but its bright yellow color made a pretty shape above their sleeping spot. They slept, as always, curled together on the soft furs spread over fragrant ferns. The hands told all, this little crevice in a cave full of people was Flower’s and Doda’s alone.
On a fine warm day perfect for gathering berries and roots to dye cloth, Flowers and her mother walked far into the woods to keep their skills secret from the tribe. No one in the cave knew exactly what plants Flowers and Doda took from the forest, but the whole tribe enjoyed the soft pretty cloth and the healing, made from them. No one knew they steeped the grass in potions both before and after they were woven. Her mother had told her, they must keep the secret or give up their valued place in the tribe. “The secrets we keep make us special in a cave with too many women.” Mother said as they knelt on the moss deep in the forest carefully gathering the perfect plants. Flowers hoped there would be time enough to make cloth, white as a winter moon after the first cooking. Then, they would choose a color for the cloth. Mother loved colors and they could make the cloth as bright as the flowers of green time and the birds in the trees, yellow, red and many shades of blue. Doda loved blue; the blue of her own eyes, of the sky, of the little morning birds and of the sea in all its moods. The deep gray-blue of the angry sea before a storm, her favorite. Today they hunted deep blue berries for dying. These were hard to find so early in the green time, but Mother knew exactly where to look for the best berries and she had taught her daughter.
“We will leave cooking for another day,” Mother put her hand on Flowers shoulder. “I have something I must tell you.” She stopped and took a slow deep breath. Flowers put aside the berries she had gathered and looked up at her mother’s face that gleamed pale and lovely in the scant light through the thick leaves. She knelt on soft green ferns and took Flower’s hands.
Flowers remembered another time when Mother had come to the forest with a small boy strapped to her back to keep him warm and try to save the life rapidly draining from the little body. That long ago time, Mother had told her that she would never learn to hear the thoughts of others. Flowers remembered how she had cried at those words. The look on her mother’s face was the same that day. She inhaled deeply, this time to prepare herself for Mother’s words.
“I fear my time is growing short” Another deep breath and Doda’s eyes searched Flowers’ own. “I have something to tell you. You must know your own truth.” She took another breath, “Your father was a Flat Face.”
Flowers heard the blood pounding in her ears at the words and felt a tightness in her chest. Like the huge black snake that could strangle a deer, it squeezed. Flat Faces were vicious killers, she had heard people say. She knew Flat Faces had nearly destroyed all the tribes of people near the sea. They were a people who spoke only with their mouths and lived beyond the forest, people said. These most terrifying creatures were the reason most of the tribe would not venture far into the woods.
Mother’s large blue eyes suddenly held a softness Flowers had rarely seen in them. “On a day much like today, in the green time when the blooms had just begun to open, I heard the leaves crunch and feared some creature stalked me. It smelled like a man but its hair was short and its face clean of hair. Strange skins covered most of its body. It stopped and looked at me and I saw it was a man.” Mother closed her eyes and the corners of her lips turned up at the telling. “This odd flat faced man smiled at me. He was tall with hair like yours, my daughter, dark and each strand twisted around my fingers like vines around a sapling. His eyes, deep and dark as a deer’s, had shone when he spoke words to me.” Mother dropped Flowers’ hands and wrapped her arms around herself, hugging tight, eyes now closed.
. “He came back the next day and many days after, bringing gifts of dried meat and the most beautiful animal skins I had ever seen. We lay together on the forest moss and we made you out of soft words and tender touches. Then one day, he came no more.” A tear ran down her cheek. “He told me his name was Harrel and he lived beyond the end of the forest. He taught me words, so many words. He told me I was beautiful and he told me of the wonderful thing he called love. Love is not of this world,” she patted the ground, “not of forest or rocks or even the sky. It is the warm that fills your chest when you want what is best for someone else as much as for yourself.” Mother opened her blue eyes and there were no more tears.
“This love, my Flowers,” Mother said, her hand lifting Flowers’ chin, “is what I feel for you. It is the smile on my face when I see you in the morning. It is what fills my chest when you smile at me. It is the feeling I had for Harrel, his gift to me and I give that gift to you.”
She did not know whether to be shocked or afraid of this truth about her father? She inhaled slowly as Mother had taught her to slow her blood’s pounding. She now knew that a strange flat faced man was the reason her own tribe called her Dummy.
Chapter 2
“So you see, my precious girl, the truth of your birth makes you different from the others in the tribe.”
The look of anguish on Flowers’ face wiped the smile from her mother’s lips. “I know this is hard to hear, but,” she stopped talking to catch her breath. “It was time for you to know.”
“Do the others in the tribe know, that I am…?
“No! They do not. They must not know or…”
“Or what?”
“They might treat you differently. They might fear you and.…” She stopped again to catch her breath. “Most in our home are good and kind, but there are some…and the others listen to these cruel voices.” Another deep breath and her face relaxed again. “Come. We must go home.”
Flowers said little and barely noticed that her mother had stopped twice to rest as the darkness gathered around them. The second time she stopped, Mother grabbed at the cloth Flowers wore and said, “I grow tired and ….”
“When we get home, I will get the potion dust to give you strength,” Flowers told her and wrapped her arm around her mother holding her up by her waist. There were rustlings in the bushes as the animals of the dark began to stir. Flowers knew a tall-bear made its den nearby. She walked a little faster. “You will feel better, and eat well tonight like the other times.” Flowers hoped her words would come true with every part of her. The rustling grew louder. Her mother’s breaths seemed to come harder with each step and Flowers nearly dragged her mother as fast as she could.
As they reached the mouth of their cave, Mother clutched her chest and crumpled to her knees. Flowers, tall and strong could catch her and lower her mother gently to the sandy ground at the mouth of the cave, but she could not carry her into the cave alone. “Help me.” Flowers frantically shouted at Toron who knelt skinning a deer.
He looked at her for a few breaths as if he forgot she could not hear his thoughts. “Help me carry her to our skins.” Toron picked Mother up and carried her into the cave to lay her gently on the thick pile of furs. He again aimed a look at Flowers that she knew must hold something he meant her to know. But she could not hear his thoughts. He shook his head, grunted, and went back to his skinning.
Searching frantically through the bags tied inside the fur cape next to their furs, she could not find the potion that she knew would turn Mother’s cheeks pink again. Finally, in the very last pocket she checked, she found it.
