The Shelters of Stone

After the rather formal introductions Ayla had had to all of Jondalar’s close kin, this offhand presentation to Marona’s cousin, with no welcome though it was her first time in this dwelling, struck Ayla as odd. It was not consistent with the behavior she had already come to expect from the Zelandonii.

  “Grrreetings, Wylopa,” Ayla said. “This dwelling, is it yourrrs?”

  Wylopa was surprised at Ayla’s unusual enunciation and was so unused to hearing any language other than her own, she had some trouble understanding the stranger.

  “No,” Marona interjected. “This is the home of my brother and his mate, and their three children. Wylopa and I live here with them. We share this room.”

  Ayla glanced quickly around at the space set off by panels, similar to the way Marthona’s dwelling was divided.

  “We were going to fix our hair and faces for the celebration tonight,” Portula said. She glanced at Marona with an ingratiating smile, which became a smirk when she looked back at Ayla. “We thought you might like to get ready with us.”

  “Thank you for asking me. I would like to see what you do,” Ayla said. “I don’t know Zelandonii ways. My friend Deegie used to fix my hair sometimes, but she is Mamutoi, and lives very far away. I know I will never see her again, and I miss her. It’s nice to have women friends.”

  Portula was surprised and touched by the newcomer’s honest and friendly response; her smirk warmed to a real smile.

  “Since it’s a feast to welcome you,” Marona said, “we thought we would give you something to wear, too. I asked my cousin to gather some clothes for you to try on, Ayla.” Marona looked at clothing that had been placed around. “You’ve found a good selection, Wylopa.” Lorava giggled. Portula looked away.

  Ayla noticed several outfits spread out on the bed and floor, primarily leggings and long-sleeved shirts or tunics. Then she looked at the clothing the four women were wearing.

  Wylopa, who seemed older than Marona, was wearing an outfit similar to the ones laid out, worn quite loose, Ayla noticed. Lorava, who was rather young, had on a short sleeveless leather tunic, belted around the hips, cut somewhat differently from the ones spread out. Portula, who was fairly plump, wore a full skirt made of some kind of fibrous material and a loose-fitting top with a long fringe that hung over the skirt. Marona, who was thin but shapely, had on a very short sleeveless top, open in front, profusely decorated with beads and feathers, with a reddish fringe around the bottom that stopped just below her waist, and a loincloth skirt, similar to the kind Ayla had worn on hot days on her Journey.

  Jondalar had shown her how to take a rectangular strip of soft leather, pull it up between her legs, and rie it on with a thong around her waist. Letting the long ends hang down both front and back, and pulling them together at the sides, made the loincloth resemble a short skirt. Marona’s, she noticed, was fringed on both front and back ends. She had left an open space on both sides, showing a long, bare, shapely leg, and tied the thong low, barely over her hips, causing the fringe in front and back to sway when she walked. Ayla thought Marona’s clothes—the very short top that did not meet in front and could never be closed, and the skimpy loincloth skirt—looked small for her, as though they had been made for a child, not a woman. Yet she was certain that the light-haired woman chose her clothing purposefully and with great care.

  “Go ahead, pick something out,” Marona said, “and then we’ll fix your hair. We want this to be a special night for you.”

  “All these things look so big, and heavy,” Ayla said. “Won’t they be too warm?”

  “It cools off at night,” Wylopa said, “and these clothes are supposed to be worn loose. Like this.” She lifted her arms and showed the loose blousy fit.

  “Here, try this on,” Marona said, picking up a tunic. “We’ll show you how it’s supposed to be worn.”

  Ayla removed her own tunic, then her amulet bag from around her neck and put it on a shelf, and let the women slip the other tunic over her head. Even though she was taller than any of the four women, it hung down to her knees and the long sleeves fell below her fingertips.

  “This is too big,” Ayla said. She didn’t see Lorava, but she thought she heard a muffled sound behind her.

  “No, it’s not,” Wylopa said, smiling broadly. “You just need a belt, and you’re supposed to roll up the sleeves. Like I did, see? Portula, bring that belt, so I can show her.”

  The plump woman brought a belt, but she wasn’t smiling anymore, unlike Marona and her cousin, who smiled excessively. Marona took the belt and wrapped it around Ayla. “You tie it low, like this, around your hips, and let it blouse out, and then the fringe hangs down. See?”

  Ayla still felt there was far too much material. “No, I don’t think this one fits right. It really is too big. And look at these leggings,” she said, taking the pair that was beside the tunic and holding them in front of herself. “The waist comes up much too high.” She pulled the tunic off over her head.

  “You’re right,” Marona said. “Try on another one.” They picked out another outfit, slightly smaller and very intricately decorated with ivory beads and shells.

  “This is very beautiful,” Ayla said, looking down at the front of the tunic. “Almost too beautiful…”

  Lorava snorted strangely, and Ayla turned to look at her, but she was facing away.

  “But it’s really very heavy, and still too big,” Ayla continued, taking off the second tunic.

  “I suppose you might think it’s too big if you’re not used to Zelandonii clothes,” Marona said, frowning, then she brightened with a self-satisfied smile. “But perhaps you are right. Wait here. I think I know something that would be just perfect, and it was just made.” She left the sleeping room and went into another part of the dwelling. After a while, she returned with another outfit.

  This one was much smaller and lighter in weight. Ayla tried it on. The tight leggings came halfway down her calf but fit correctly at the waist, where the front overlapped and tied with a sturdy flexible thong. The top was a sleeveless tunk, with a deep V cut down the front, laced together with thin leather thongs. It was a little small, and Ayla could not lace it together rightly, but with the thongs loosened, it wasn’t bad. Unlike the others, it was a simple, undecorated outfit, made of a soft leather that felt nice against her skin.

  “This is very comfortable,” Ayla said.

  “And I have just the thing to set it off,” Marona said, showing her a belt woven out of various colored fibers into an intricate pattern.

  “This is beautifully made and very interesting,” Ayla said as Marona tied it low around her waist. She felt satisfied with the outfit. “This one will do,” she said. “I thank you for your gift.” She put on her amulet and folded her other clothes.

  Lorava choked and coughed. “I need some water,” she said, and dashed from the room.

  “Now, you must let me fix your hair,” Wylopa said, still smiling broadly.

  “I promise to do your face after I do Portula’s,” Marona said.

  “And you said you’d fix my hair, Wylopa,” Portula said.

  “You promised to do me, too,” Lorava said from the entrance to the room.

  “If you are over your coughing spell,” Marona said, giving the young woman a hard look.

  While Wylopa combed and fussed with her hair, Ayla watched with interest as Marona decorated the faces of the two other women. She used solidified fats mixed with finely powdered red and yellow ochres to add color to mouths, cheeks, and forehead, and mixed with black charcoal to emphasize the eyes. Then she used more intense shades of the same colors to add carefully drawn designs of dots, curved lines, and various other shapes to their faces in a way that reminded Ayla of the tattoos she had seen on some people.

  “Let me do your face now, Ayla,” Marona said. “I think Wylopa is done with your hair.”

  “Oh, yes!” Wylopa said. “I’m finished. Let Marona do your face.”

  While the face decorations of the women were in
teresting, Ayla felt uncomfortable with the idea. In Marthona’s dwelling, there was a subtle use of color and design that was very pleasing, but Ayla wasn’t sure she liked the way the women looked. It seemed too much, somehow.

  “No … I don’t think so,” Ayla said.

  “But you have to!” Lorava said, looking dismayed.

  “Everyone does it,” Marona said. “You would be the only one without it.”

  “Yes! Go on. Let Marona do it. It’s what all the women do,” Wylopa said.

  “You really should,” Lorava urged. “Everyone always wants Marona to paint her face. You’re lucky she’s willing.”

  They were pressing her so hard, it made Ayla want to resist. Marthona had not said anything to her about having to get her face painted. She wanted to take the time to find her way and not be pushed into customs she was not familiar with.

  “No, not this time. Perhaps later,” Ayla said.

  “Oh, go ahead and do it. Don’t spoil everything,” Lorava said.

  “No! I don’t want to have my face painted,” Ayla said with such firm resolve, they finally stopped pressing her.

  She watched them dress each other’s hair in intricate plaits and coils, placing decorated combs and pins attractively. Finally, they added facial ornaments. Ayla hadn’t really noticed the holes at strategic locations in their faces until they put earrings into their earlobes and pluglike ornaments into their noses, cheeks, and under the lower lips, but she saw that Some of the painted decorations now accentuated the ornaments that had been added.

  “Don’t you have any piercings?” Lorava asked. “You’ll just have to get some. Too bad we can’t do them now.”

  Ayla wasn’t sure if she wanted to be pierced, except perhaps in the earlobes so she could wear the earrings she had brought with her all the way from the Summer Meeting of the Mammoth Hunters. She watched the women add beads and pendants around their necks and bracelets on their arms.

  She noticed that the women glanced from time to time at something behind a dividing panel. Finally, a little bored with all the combing and decorating, she got up and wandered over to see what they were looking at. She heard Lorava gasp when she saw the piece of blackened shiny wood, similar to the reflector in Marthona’s dwelling, and looked at herself.

  Ayla was not happy with the reflection she saw. Her hair had been dressed into braids and coils, but they seemed to be in odd unattractive placements, not in the pleasing symmetrical order of the other women. She saw Wylopa and Marona looking at each other, then look away. When she tried to catch the eye of one of the women, they avoided her. Something strange was going on, and she didn’t think she liked it. She certainly did not like what had been done to her hair.

  “I think I’ll wear my hair loose,” Ayla said as she began to take out the combs, pins, and bindings. “Jondalar likes it that way.” When she had removed all the paraphernalia, she picked up the comb and pulled it through her long, thick, dark blond hair, springy with a fresh-washed natural wave.

  She adjusted her amulet around her neck—she never liked to be without it, though she often wore it under her clothes—then looked at herself in the reflector. Maybe someday she’d learn to fix her own hair, but for now she liked it much better the way it fell naturally. She glanced at Wylopa and wondered why the woman hadn’t seen how peculiar her hair had looked.

  Ayla noticed her leather amulet bag in the reflector and tried to see it the way someone else might. It was lumpy with the objects it contained, and the color was much darker from sweat and wear than it had been. The small decorated bag had originally been intended as a sewing kit. Now, only dark quill-shafts remained of what had once been white feathers decorating the rounded bottom edge, but the ivory-beaded design was still intact and added an interesting look with the simple leather tunic. She decided to let it show.

  She remembered that it was her friend Deegie who had persuaded her to use it as her amulet when she saw the plain and grimy pouch Ayla had worn before. Now this one was old and worn. She thought she ought to make a new one soon to replace it, but she would not throw this one away. It held too many memories.

  She could hear activity outside and was getting very tired of watching the women adding insignificant little finishing touches to each other’s face or hair that had no visible effect that she could discern. Finally there was a scratch on the rawhide panel beside the opening of the living structure.

  “Everyone’s waiting for Ayla,” a voice called. It sounded like Folara.

  “Tell them she’ll be out soon,” Marona answered. “Are you sure you won’t let me paint your face a little, Ayla? After all, it is a celebration for you.”

  “No, I really don’t want to.”

  “Well, since they’re waiting for you, maybe you should go ahead. We’ll be along in a while,” Marona said. “We still have to change.”

  “I think I will,” Ayla said, glad to have an excuse to leave. They had been inside for a long time, it seemed to her. “Thank you for your gifts,” she remembered to say. “This is really a very comfortable outfit.” She picked up her worn tunic and short pants and went out.

  She saw no one under the overhanging shelter; Folara had gone ahead without waiting for her. Ayla quickly veered toward Marthona’s dwelling and left her old clothing inside the entrance. Then she walked rapidly toward the crowd of people she saw outside, beyond the shadow of the high stone shelf that protected the structures nestled beneath it.

  As she came out into the light of the late afternoon sun, a few people nearby noticed her and stopped talking to gape. Then a few more noticed her and stared, jostling their neighbors to look, too. Ayla slowed down and then stopped, looking back at the people who were looking at her. Soon all the talking stopped. Suddenly, into the stillness, someone let out a stifled guffaw. Then another person laughed, and another. Soon everyone was laughing.

  Why were they laughing? Were they laughing at her? Was something wrong? Her face reddened with embarrassment. Had she committed some terrible blunder? She looked around, wanting to run away but not knowing which way to turn.

  She saw Jondalar striding toward her, his face an angry scowl. Marthona was hurrying toward her, too, from another direction.

  “Jondalar!” Ayla called out as he approached. “Why is everyone laughing at me? What’s wrong? What have I done?” She was speaking in Mamutoi and didn’t realize it.

  “You are wearing a boy’s winter underwear. Your belt is one that is worn by a young man during his puberty initiation, to let people know he is ready for his donii-woman,” Jondalar said in the same language she had spoken. He was furious that Ayla had been made the butt of such a cruel joke on her first day with his people.

  “Where did you get those clothes?” Marthona asked as she approached.

  “Marona,” Jondalar answered for her. “When we were at The River, she came and told Ayla that she wanted to help her dress for the celebration tonight. I should have guessed she had some vicious plan in mind to get back at me.”

  They all turned around and looked back under the abri toward the dwelling of Marona’s brother. Standing just inside the shadows of the overhang were the four women. They were holding their sides, leaning against each other, laughing so hard at the woman they had tricked into wearing completely inappropriate boys’ clothing, that tears were streaming down their faces, smearing their careful makeup with red and black streaks. Ayla realized they were taking great pleasure in her discomfort and embarrassment.

  As she watched the women, she felt a flush of anger rise within her. This was the gift they wanted to give her? To welcome her? They wanted people to laugh at her like this? She understood then that everything they had laid out for her was inappropriate for a woman. It was obvious to her now that it all had been men’s clothing. But it wasn’t only the clothes, she realized. Was that why they had made her hair look so peculiar? So people would laugh at her? And had they planned to paint her face to make her look laughable, too?

  Ayla had
always rejoiced in laughter. When she lived with the Clan, she was the only one who laughed with pleasure, until her son was born. When people of the Clan made a grimace that resembled a smile, it was not a sign of happiness. It was an expression of nervousness, or fearfulness, or it signaled a threat of possible aggression. Her son was the only baby who smiled and laughed as she did, and though it made them uneasy, she had loved Durc’s happy giggles.

  When she had lived in the valley, she had laughed with delight at the antics of Whinney and Baby when they were young. Jondalar’s ready smile and rare uninhibited laughter had made her know she had met her own kind in him, had made her love him more. And it had been Talut’s welcoming smile and hearty bellow that encouraged her to visit the Lion Camp the first time they met. She had met many people in their travels, and had laughed with them many times, but she had never been laughed at before. She had never learned that laughter could be used to hurt. This was the first time laughter had caused her pain and not joy.

  Marthona, too, was not happy with the nasty trick that had been played on the visitor, the guest of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, whom her son had brought home to mate with him and become one of them.

  “Come with me, Ayla,” Marthona said. “Let me get you something more appropriate. I’m sure we can find something of mine that you can wear.”

  “Or something of mine,” Folara said. She had seen the whole incident and had come to help.

  Ayla started to go with them, then stopped. “No,” she said.

  Those women had given her the wrong clothes as “gifts of welcome” because they wanted to make her look outlandish, different, to show she didn’t belong. Well, she had thanked them for their “gifts” and she was going to wear them! It was not the first time she had been the object of stares. She had always been the odd one, the ugly one, the strange one, among the people of the Clan. They had never laughed at her—they didn’t know how to laugh like that—but they had all stared at her when she arrived at the Clan Gathering.

  If she had been able to stand being the only one who was different, who did not belong, the only one who was not Clan at the entire Clan Gathering, she could certainly stand up to the Zelandonii. At least they looked the same. Ayla straightened her back, clamped her jaw shut, jutted out her chin, and glared at the laughing throng.