crispina kemp

Chapter Thirteen of my current wip. As before, all and any comments very much appreciated

Please note: This is now a weekly post

Cela-Kuci grabbed Li-Kerbi’s wrist and, heeding no protest, pulled her from the platform. “Until Kija tells us what he wants, you must remain with me.”

Li-Kerbi tensed up her face, a glance at her mother and her mother’s house. Sacrifice, said spirit-mother-deer, and Li-Kerbi gasped. She hadn’t thought of that possibility – wasn’t Tammi-Tiki’s life enough? A life is not a sacrifice; it is an honour to dwell with the star-spirits.

She tried to straighten her face. After all, she ought to be happy that she’d never be given to her father’s hill-man now. But things were in motion that couldn’t be undone, and she couldn’t see beyond the day and—

“Take off your wraps, your hat and shoes,” Cela-Kuci said, which command brought Li-Kerbi back to the moment.

She couldn’t remember leaving the dow-centre, walking with Cela-Kuci to the back of Byi-house, to the dragon’s star-seat. Yet here they were at its gate with its pole wrapped around with all manner of carved dragons. A thought held and softened her fear, that Anji-Tiki-ta and Cela-Kuci might want her to seek out the star-spirit Kija but maybe the spirits had other ideas? And Cela-Kuci might want her to abide with her as a spirit-woman, but would the ancestors agree? Those spirits must know she wasn’t the most obedient of daughters.

“Byi is waiting,” Cela-Kuci said, arms crossed over her chest, her left-hand fingers tapping the right arm.

“But…?”

“A child is not born fully wrapped. Now strip off those clothes.”

“Born…?”

“But of course born.” Cela-Kuci’s tone displayed a notable lack of patience. “You are no longer Li-Kerbi, taken from the bull father by the deer mother. You are Cela-Byi – taken from the dragon father by the dragon mother.”

“And I’ll reside here?”

Cela-Kuci rolled her eyes and hefted a heavy sigh. “Have I not said, did I not say? You abide with me. Cela, Cela, spirit-woman.”

Li-Kerbi, hereafter to be known as Cela-Byi, removed the wrappings gained from Kija-house with hands and lips unsteady. She had asked not to be given to the hill-man. But might she want some other man, someone she’d not yet met? But as Cela-Byi she’d not be any man’s woman, not one from any dow.

The hanging bones above the gate clattered as Cela-Kuci led the newly-born spirit-woman into the fenced enclosure. Shaded in the wide overhang of the roof-thatch was the tree-stump that might or mightn’t be the Byi star-seat.

Inside the thatched cubby were none of the usual trappings found in a woman’s quarters. No pots and baskets and the makings of food; the dow provided everything. No bedding either. Did Cela-Kuci sleep on the hard earth? Without a cover even in the coldest nights? The spirit-woman didn’t sleep in the adjoining house. Since she moved house every thirty days, once a year she would have slept in Kija-house, and she never had.

The newly-named Cela Byi took a deep breath and braved the question, “Where am I to sleep?”

“With the dragons, of course. While you’re here.”

Cela-Byi’s jaw dropped. “In their burrows?”

Cela-Kuci’s leathery face briefly creased with soft-voiced laughter. Then, “Ah, our new spirit-woman ought to have wrappings.”

“New wrappings?” But she couldn’t see the makings anywhere in that cubby.

“Later,” Cela-Kuci said. “Too soon yet for the dow to provide. Best now to borrow Li-Kerbi’s clothes – but mind you take care of them. They belong to Kija-house.”

Cela-Byi scampered back through the gate and quickly donned the clothes she’d not long shed. She breathed out a happy sigh. That felt better. She felt like Li-Kerbi again. Although she knew she was not. Maybe she never would be again. How did that feel?

On Cela-Byi’s return, Cela-Kuci held out a skin tanned to earthen-red. By its folded size massive, and so heavy she needed both hands. She nodded to a stack of sturdy sticks. “With those we tent it. And see, the dragons make our bed.”

“Did…? How…?” Had the men of Toki-dow killed that dragon? That was big bravery.

“The ancestors,” the old spirit-woman answered her. “And that’s where I go now. I leave you safely tucked in the care of spirit-Byi.”

*

The dragon skin wasn’t quite as massive as Cela-Byi had imagined although, tented, it did provide shelter for two women, tucked in tight. The folded skin had been bulked by what was within it – numerous smaller skins that would wrap a body against the chills of the night and protect against the bites of invasive scuttling creatures.

Though those skins looked thin, they felt thick. But they were old and worn almost to holes in places where the scales had flaked off. Wearing these, she’d be protected by Byi. Cela-Byi chuckled at that notion – until she remembered what had brought her here. The star-man who Cela-Kuci said was a vision of star-spirit Kija. Spirit-Kija was no longer her star-spirit mother. Was she to take Cela-Kuci as her birth mother, Cela-Kuci who now was visiting the ancestors? Exactly where and how she visited, the newly-born Cela-Byi didn’t know.

Being newly-born, of course Cela-Byi was ignorant. Confused. Bewildered. Vulnerable. Vulnerable? She shuddered. So much to learn if she were to be a spirit-woman. And she was to be one, wasn’t she.

Cela-Byi, a spirit-woman? She nodded, vigorously. But not a spirit-woman in the mould of Cela-Kuci. Not a spirit-woman at the beckon of every woman of the dow, not at the call of every man. Yet it’s for that beckon and call that the dow will feed and clothe me.

“I shall be above that,” she declared, her voice muffled beneath the dragon skin.

Above, what did she mean by that? As the headman was above the other men of the dow? Above he was – in that the men listened to his words, and they willingly helped him in the hunt. Yet everything brought back from the hunt was always shared with the dow. It was as if he were their father. And the spirit-woman, she was like the dow’s mother, advising, seeking answers, just as any mother would for her own close family.

“Neither dow-father nor dow-mother shall I be. I’ll be higher even than that.” She would be that – if only she could sleep.

She still hadn’t slept when Cela-Kuci returned, arms laden with food given by the women of Byi-house.

“I have an answer,” the old spirit-woman said. “The ancestors say you must climb a god-hill, to be nearer the star-spirits. And there you’ll abide for three nights and three days and the star-spirit Kija will speak with you there. You’ll need strength, courage and endurance to do as you must, so have your fill of food now. There’ll be no more once you leave here.”

To be continued next Monday

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