Phoenix: The Rising Read Online Free PDF Page A

several pages until she came upon the legend she was looking for, attached her book light, turned off her bedside lamp, and began reading:
    The ripping.
    At first Laylah thought she imagined it, but within three steps the pain engulfed her, forcing her to her knees as warm blood and water trickled down her inner thigh. Mustering a ragged breath, she called out for her sisters, but this deep in the woods her cry was met by silence, punctuated only by the croak of the tree frog and the caw of the Ada . She had wandered too far alone.
    “Walk, Laylah. Gather acorns for flour. It will speed along the pains, and you will be a mother in no time.” She had done as her mother-in-law said, but the naïve sixteen year old separated herself from the chatter of her sisters as she searched deeper in the woods. Now, they would not be able to hear her or help her. She would have to do this on her own. Not that this wasn’t expected of her—this had been the way of the Numa woman for generations. But knowing this didn’t make it any less frightening.
    Laylah took a sharp, flat rock and scooped out a depression in the floor of the woods, lining it with fresh grass to cushion the oha’a as she pushed it from her womb. Until that time came, Laylah walked, never wandering far from the spot she had dug. Each time the pains diminished, Laylah used her digging stick to root out fallen acorns, filling the basket she now had sitting at the base of an oak tree.
    Finally, as dusk fell, Laylah had no time in between pains to search for acorns. Her time had come. Beads of perspiration covered Laylah’s face as she removed her buckskin dress and squatted naked over the depression. Beside her lay the sinew lace and sharpened obsidian blade she had carried with her since the last full moon, sitting atop a softened piece of doeskin she would use for swaddling the baby.
    As the final pain hit, Laylah clutched a nearby sapling and cried out as she pushed, using her other hand to guide the baby into the soft, grass-lined cradle. The stark emptiness of her womb shocked her, and she leaned back, exhaling in relief as she heard the faint mewling of her newborn. After taking in a few gulps of fresh air, she tied the lace around the cord and used the obsidian blade to separate it from the afterbirth, remembering to cut the sacred six inch piece to put in the pouch around her neck. Laylah wrapped the child in the doeskin, buried the afterbirth as she had been taught, put her dress back on, and began walking in the direction of her camp.
    Seven days later, Laylah's mother-in-law uttered the words the young mother had been dreading, “The child is not going to survive.” She handed her only grandchild back to Laylah, nodded, and walked away.
    Laylah looked down at the emaciated face of her baby. Although she had plenty of milk for the child, for some reason, it wasn’t thriving. Now half the size it had been at birth, its cry had become weak and its breathing irregular. Laylah knew what she had to do. The elders and her husband expected her to take the child to its place of birth and let it die naturally. But Laylah had other plans. Her mother-in-law told her that other women had taken their sickly babies to Paoha, a volcanic island in the middle of Mono Lake . There, they prayed to the Great Spirit for two days. If their prayers were strong enough, the child would survive. Laylah had to try.
    That evening as she lay in the arms of her young husband, Laylah decided she would leave with the child before dawn of the next day. As far as her husband knew, she was taking the child to its final resting place. He would not expect her back for a few days. It should give her enough time.
    When the Great Moon was highest in the night sky, Laylah set off. Blazed by desperate mothers who had gone before her, the trail to Mono Lake was simple enough to follow by moonlight, and Laylah made good time. Just before dawn, she reached the edge of the lake and carefully waded