There is a fleeting thought running through my head as I walk away. The thought that maybe he cares enough to come after me. To tell me that I was wrong, that I had always existed to him. My mind revels in these little stories that play. Little stories that I have imagined since before I left. They play in my mind over and over again like a sweet dream. The touch of his hands, how it feels for him to carry me and hold me. They are the fuel to the fire. The all-consuming fire that burns itself out. The kind of fire that leaves black marks in its wake. This is the one that burns through my chest, leaving nothing behind it.
He never comes.
I want nothing more than to avoid the work house the next day. I have an awful suspicion that Tarok is in there, making a spear from the stone I gave to him. But fate, who also goes by the name of Granny, has other plans for me.
“Akari, will you take these to your father?” she says holding a basket of leather strips out to me.
I hesitate. “Why?”
She frowns. “Is there a reason you do not want to go to the work house?”
“No, of course not,” I say too quickly. I grab the basket from her hands and leave the hut before she can say anything further.
Dread awaits for me as soon as I step off the platform. It twists my stomach and grips at my heart. What have I gotten myself into now? Sadly, I know what it is and it waits for me in the work house.
I try not to think about how each step takes me closer to the man I am determined not to come in contact with. I left him last night with both of us angry and hurt, although the hurt part applies more to me than to him. I was only good enough for him as long as I could give him something he wanted: the spirit damned rock to make his spirit damned spear. That is been it all along, has it not? I was too blind to see it. He did all but tell me that is what he wanted.
I groan in frustration. You probably will not even see him, I reason with myself. He has probably come and gone already. Made his spear and then gone off to do whatever warriors do. You are making a big deal from this and he is probably not even there.
Yes. That is it exactly. He has come and gone and I will not have to see him.
My stomach settles and my grip on the basket loosens as I get closer to the work house. Yes, he probably is not even… there. My heart drops nearly out of my chest.
Tarok stands outside the work house with the stone in his hand. He is facing the large wooden structure and does not notice my approach. I am seriously beginning to think that fate really does hate me at this point.
I step up next to him and look at the work house. “It is easier if you go inside.”
He flinches at the sudden sound of my voice. I hide a laugh by coughing and pretending to adjust the basket of leather strips in my hands. “Akari! I-I did not know you were here,” he stammers.
“I will be leaving as soon as I drop these off.” I step inside the wooden hut and set the basket beside the pile of uncut spear shafts.
My father looks at me with such relief I am left wondering what is going on. “Akari, thank the spirits. You are just in time.”
“For what?”
“Reven needs help and you are just the person to teach him.” What he is really saying is this: I cannot stand teaching this oaf any longer and you must now deal with your bumbling cousin.
“But I cannot stay,” I say through the panic rising in my body. Think of something… anything!
“Why not?” He is pleading with his eyes now. No self-respecting man in our tribe would openly do so, even with his own daughter.
“I have to…” Work brain work! “do something else.” Thanks a lot.
He folds his arms and I know he is not going to let me leave. “That something being?”
I hang my head. “I guess I can help for a while.”
“Good.” His satisfied smile is smug and I wish my Granny were here to smack it off. She is good like that sometimes.
“I was wondering when I would be seeing you,” my father says to someone behind me. I look over my shoulder, though I do not know why. I know it is him. I just told him to go into the hut.
Tarok stands there and holds out the hand holding the rock. “I found one.”
“Did Akari approve?”
Tarok meets my eyes before I turn back to facing my father. “Yes.” A simple lie that only two need to keep.
My father does not question the future Chief further. No doubt he can feel the tension in the hut has risen tenfold. “Akari will be joining you in making a spear. Reven, you will watch what they do.”
I would have laughed if I was not so mortified. Fate throws me against Tarok the one day that I do not want to see him. Any other day would have been perfectly fine. But no! Today I am forced to be in his presence.
My father hands me a stone I had approved the previous night and tells me to get to work. He is going to get his midday meal at home, where he can be as far away from Reven as possible. Though he did not say that last part. And he did not need to. I can see it in the way he bristles when Reven speaks.
“What about the meal for the rest of us?”
“You will eat when you are finished.” My father leaves the hut to discourage any further conversation.
“I think your father hates me, Akari,” Reven says dejectedly.
I take pity on the boy and put my hand onto his shoulder. “He just needs a break. Besides, you have a master spear maker and Tarok to show you what to do.”
The small slight at Tarok does nothing to lessen my anger with him, but it appeases me all the same.
I step up to the rock pile in the corner and pick one for Reven that will work for him. “The first step is to find the perfect stone. After that, we strike the stone until it is sharp and-”
“You actually know how to make a spear?” Tarok says.
I glare at him. “I have been making spears long before you even thought of it.”
His snide laughter receives a cold glare.
“When you are quite finished I have to teach,” I reply curtly.
He holds his hand out, giving me leave to continue. “By all means, Wise Woman, enlighten us.”
I breathe sharply out my nose and turn away from him. “As I was saying, when the stone is sharp you have to carve the spear out of the wood. Then you use the leather strips to latch the spear head to the shaft.”
“And if you listen to the Wise Woman,” Tarok says, “you will be here all night looking for the right stone or finding the right bit of wood.”
I turn on him seething. “You would know from personal experience, right, Tarok?”
“Of course I do. You had me running around for a quarter cycle trying to find the right spirit damned rock,” he snaps.
“I see your memory is already failing you. I made you find a rock that was spirit blessed.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“If you two would like to be left alone, please tell me.” Reven interjects.
I rock onto my heels and fold my arms. “All right, Sun Warrior. Go on then, show Reven how a warrior makes a spear.”
Tarok puffs up into his warrior’s reserve. “With pleasure.”
While they work, I make one of my own and a little while later there are three spears made. I move to inspect both of their spears, looking to Reven’s first. The spear is pathetic and would barely last in any hunt, let alone the Great Hunt. I tell him to start again. Next, I take Tarok’s spear from where he holds it proudly. I can already tell the leather wrapping is not tight enough. I run my fingers along the edge of the spear head and prick my finger on the tip to watch the blood bead on top of my skin. It is good, but the loose leather will not suffice.
“Come with me,” I tell him and walk outside the hut and toward the forest line. “Throw your spear into the bark of that tree.”
He gives me a smirk and does so with the precision of a trained warrior.
“Now do the same with mine,” I instruct. He takes the spear from my hand and throws it just above his. “Pull them out pleas
e.”
“I do not see what this has to do with anything.” He walks up to the tree and pulls on the shafts. My spear comes out fully intact while the leather wrapping comes undone on his and leaves the spearhead buried in the trunk.
He walks back up to me and allows me to take the dismantled shaft from his hand. “If you want to listen to me, then do so. If not, then stop wasting my time.”
I walk away with the spear shaft, leaving its head in the tree behind Tarok.
Inside the hut, Reven sits admiring the work he put into the spear. “Break it apart and do it again.”
“Why? You did not say anything about it,” he groans, sounding younger than his fifteen summers.
“I have no time for this. Your spear will get someone killed. Wash everything Tarok said from your mind. You listen to me now.”
He grumbles under his breath and begins working on a new spear.
When I am finally satisfied that his spear will suffice, I let him leave to go eat. I can see why my father grew impatient with the boy. He is only three summers younger than I, but he acts like a petulant child. I stay behind and turn the rocks into spear heads. It keeps my mind clear and I can relax.
That is, until I hear a clearing throat behind me.
Chapter Eight