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inlaid-bone handle. It was her father’s knife. She wiped the grit away from the blade and cradled the thing between her hands, swallowing around a hard lump in her throat.
    Sarel spit into the hinge and worked it back and forth until the knife folded cleanly. She tucked it into her pocket, pressing her hand against its solid weight as she trudged up to the top of the little hill.
    Sarel stripped lengths of bark from the sweet thorn trees and tucked them under her arm. She slid down the graveled hillside and crossed the dry riverbed, stepping into a narrow channel that had once diverted water to the garden and kennel, and following it back to the homestead. The pups raced ahead, then dashed back to nip at the bobbing tips of the bark strips.
    She paused for a moment to lean against the kennel. She still couldn’t take a full breath, not since the fire, not after all that smoke. When her heartbeat settled back into her chest and her breathing slowed, Sarel scaled the wall of the kennel fencing and threaded the bark through the chainlink roof.
    The pack watched from below, the pups tilting their heads this way and that, their brows furrowed. When she was done, the dogs circled, pawed the ground, and lay down in their new rectangle of shade.
    Sarel’s head throbbed, her mouth dry as a thistle. She climbed down, then stumbled into the grotto and knelt beside the pool of water. She drank, three sips only, holding the last in her mouth until it was as warm as the insides of her cheeks before swallowing.
    Finally, she lay down on the stones and clamped her hands against her ears to shut out the sound of Ubali’s licking.

13
Nandi
    Legs stretch long, pups grow into too-big feet.
    One impala comes back, leaves scent in dirt, crushes grass for sleeping. Two spring hares duck into burrows, black tails flashing.
    Yipping hyena, sharp-teeth jackal follow.
    They stay far under sun, come close under moon, sniff-sniff at pack scent. Sharp teeth flash. Yellow eyes blink-blink in dark.
    Pups learn scents. Learn to hunt. Learn to stay far from hyena, learn howl of jackal.
    Pups stay close under moon.
    Scuffle sound, snarl sound. Kennel door clang-clang.
    Time for Sarel-girl to come out under moon.

14
Sarel
    Sarel shaded her eyes with her hand. Something blurred the steady line of the sheltered plain ahead of her. It might only be wisps of heat, or a gust of wind that stirred up the dust. She pattered closer, the earth under her feet cracked and creased as a discarded snakeskin. Brown smudges separated into clumps, individual bushes, rosettes of serrated green spears.
    She’d done it. She’d found the bitter aloe.
    Sarel dashed forward, relief pulsing through her and prickling the tips of her fingers. The pups romped beside her, heads swinging this way and that to see what had finally lifted the sadness from her slight shoulders.
    Sarel sank to the ground beside a large plant with new seedlings spreading in whorls around it. Nandi came to stand beside her, and Sarel threw her arms around the dog’s chest, pulling her tight and kissing the backs of her ears.
    â€œWe found it!” Sarel whispered, a smile rippling across her lips.
    She moved from plant to plant, clipping a spear from each one. Sarel tucked them into her pocket, where the cut ends wept a clear gel that soaked through her thin cotton shorts.
    Three spears for Ubali, to draw out the infection. And three for the garden.
    When the sun went down, she would prop them upright in the soil. Maybe they would take root; maybe they would grow as large as her mother’s plants.
    Or maybe nothing would grow in that soil ever again.
    They followed a narrow game track homeward, the soles of Sarel’s feet lifting a swirl of dust with each step. All around her rippled a flood of tawny, black-mouthed dogs. Sarel held her arms out to her sides and a blunt head nosed under each palm. Her fingers skidded through the slicks of coarse hair running backwards on their