Before long, the stew is bubbling and filling the cave with delicious scents. Pashov sniffs the air appreciatively and gives me an impressed look. “It smells good.”
“Of course it does,” I say, a teasing note in my voice as I pat little circles of ‘dough’ together. “I know what you like.”
He looks thoughtful as Pacy crawls into his lap and begins to tug on his long black braids. “Of course you do.” He pauses, then continues. “Will you tell me more…about us? About what happened after we resonated?”
For some reason, I feel like blushing. I roll one of the dough circles into a ball and paint it with a bit of rendered fat before flattening it. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
I look up, and our eyes meet, and it’s strangely intense and erotic. My cootie responds to him, and I feel a little flutter of excitement. Slow it down, Stacy, I remind myself. You’re not good at moving slow, but try to do it right this time. Even if I’m feeling aroused and happy right now, I can’t sleep with him again until I know for sure I’m not going to weep through it. That’s not fair to him. “Well,” I say, thinking as I work. “First, we had to have a cave of our own. You were still living with all the hunters, and I couldn’t exactly squeeze in there…”
It’s a lovely day.One of the best I’ve had in a long, long time. We stay in the little cave, happy around the fire, and just talk. We talk endlessly. I do most of the talking, telling him all about the early days after we resonated, and how strange everything was, and how he’d tried to teach me how to hunt without realizing that I was perfectly happy being a homemaker. I tell him of the first time I tried raw meat, of accidentally insulting his mother’s efforts to have a resonance feast for us, of how our little cave was set up before we lost it in the earthquake. I tell him of everything I can think of, and I make food as we talk.
The soup turns out lovely—thick and meaty and full of broth. Pashov eats two bowls of it and looks hungrily at the leftovers, and I feel a sweet ache of happiness as he steals a bite from my cup when I’m not looking. This is like how it was before, I think. My mate dearly loves to eat, and I love to feed him. The meat pies are less successful—I don’t have some of the seed meal I normally use, and I don’t have my frying pan. I use the smallest of the little plates and end up scorching the heck out of the underside. I can’t get them hot enough to crisp the outsides, but Pashov doesn’t seem to care. He devours each one the moment it’s off the fire, his eyes shining with pleasure. He declares them his second-favorite thing he has ever tasted, but won’t tell me what the first one is.
I suspect it’s dirty.
It kind of makes me want to jump him.
But I can’t. I need to slow it down. I have to be sure that I’m totally fine with Pashov 2.0 before I jump in with him again.
It’s still a wonderful day, though, and it gives me hope for the future.
PASHOV
“Do you have more of those little pies?” I ask, licking my fingers as I finish the last of the soup. “I think they would go very well with the weather today.”
Stay-see gives me an exasperated, affectionate look. “You ate all of them before they cooled yesterday. There is not a single one left.”
“Could you make more today?”
Her laugh is sweet and happy and fills me with warmth. “I can if you take over my sewing.” She holds out the small tunic she is making for Pacy. “I have to do what I can while he’s asleep. Time is precious, you know.”
Stay-see’s words are stern, but her voice is all teasing and light. “I will get you a not-potato and sew, and you can make more of the delicious pies for me.” I rub my belly and give her my most pleading look. “And then you can tell me more stories about us.”
“All right,” she says, her expression shy. “What would you like to hear about today?”
I glance over at my small son, sleeping in a basket in the next room. His eyes are closed and he sucks on his fist, fat and happy and content. “Tell me about Pacy,” I decide.
“And how you wanted to name him Shovy?” Her brows go up. “Which makes me think of anchovy?”
I frown, because I do not see what is wrong with that name. A memory stirs of her making the same sour face, standing near a fire, her belly big and rounded with kit. In my memory, she turns and I am fascinated by the round curves of her tailless bottom. It is bigger now that she is with child, and I like it very much.
But then the thought is gone as quickly as it came, and I am hit with a stab of disappointment. “I will return soon,” I tell her, and throw on my cape, heading out of the cave.
Once outside, I breathe deeply of the crisp air. It is cool today, but there is no snow. The landscape is white and undisturbed, nothing but rolling hills of fresh snow covering the scrubby trees that struggle toward the sunlight. I should be pleased that I have had a memory of Stay-see. I am pleased, but I am alsoworried at how quickly it disappeared from my mind again. Even now, I try to recall what it was, but my mind is blank. What if I do not remember it ever again?
Worse…what if I continue to forget things? What if the memories that Stay-see is telling me about do not stick? What if I do not remember this day, either? What if my mind is permanently like a woven container with a hole at the bottom? The thought makes me sick at heart. Stay-see deserves a mate with a whole mind, not one with a leaky basket.
Troubled, I jog out to the distant trees. I will get Stay-see a new not-potato, and she will make me more tasty treats and smile and tell me stories. I will not think about my mind or baskets. Not today. I am going to enjoy today.
As I head to the trees, I see tracks in the snow, and my steps slow. I pull out my hunting knife and carry it at the ready, but there is no movement; whatever was here before is long gone. I examine the tracks left behind; the snow is so deep that they are little more than drag marks, so it is impossible to tell what creature made them. Dvisti, perhaps. Or a large snow cat. When I get to the trees, though, I see even more tracks. They circle around the copse of trees and then head off over a ridge.
I rub my jaw, frowning at the sight.
This is where the cache of frozen meat is kept. The cache is at the base of one of the thin, pink trees, and several notches are in the slick, spongy bark. The notches tell the hunters how many kills are left inside the cache, and a notch is marked through again if something is taken from the cache. It is so a starving hunter does not waste his time digging for meat that is not there. I run my hand over the tree, ignoring the sticky feel of it. Notches run down the length of the bark, but most of them are double-notched, indicating that the cache is nearlyempty. I count the notches at the top that indicate meat—four of them. A good cache has twenty or more.
But the snow here is thickly churned.
