The Blessing Stone Read Online Free PDF

albeit covered in ash. There was security and survival in sameness. Change frightened the Family. The concept of change never even entered their minds.
    But now it was beginning to—at least in the mind of one young member.
    Tall One’s dark brown eyes scanned the night, watching for any suspicious movement. Ever alert, her guard never down, Tall One lived as the Family lived, by wit and instinct and a strong sense of survival. But tonight was different, as the past few nights had been, ever since the sense of a new danger had been born within her. A danger she could neither see nor name. One that left no spoor or prints, that did not growl or hiss, that possessed neither fang nor claw, yet which made the small hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
    She searched the stars and saw how they were being gobbled by smoke. She saw the ash raining down from the sky. She surveyed the soot-covered water and inhaled the stench of sulfur and magma from the distant volcano. She saw the way the grasses bent in the night wind, how the trees leaned, and which way dried leaves flew. And suddenly, with a leap of her heart, she understood.
    Tall One held her breath and froze as the nameless menace took shape in her mind and she grasped all in a staggering instant what no other family member had grasped: that tomorrow’s water hole—despite what generations of experience had shown them—was going to be covered with ash.
     
    A shriek tore the night
    Weasel, in the grip of birth pains. The females quickly helped her away from the camp and into the secrecy of the trees. The males didn’t follow but instead jumped nervously to the periphery of the camp, clutching their crude spears and collecting stones that might be thrown at predators. As soon as the big cats and hyenas heard the cry of a vulnerable human being, and smelled the blood of birth, they would come. The human females instinctively formed a circle around Weasel, facing outward, yelling and stamping their feet to cover up Weasel’s cries of pain and defenselessness.
    She had no help. Clutching the trunk of an acacia, Weasel squatted and pushed, laboring hard while in the grip of cold terror. Above the screams of her female companions, had she heard the triumphant roar of a lion? Were a pack of cats about to fly through the trees, fangs and claws and yellow eyes, to tear her to pieces?
    Finally the baby came and Weasel immediately brought it up to her breast, shaking and stroking it until it cried. Old Mother knelt beside her and massaged Weasel’s abdomen, as she had done to herself and her daughters over the years, coaxing the placenta to be delivered swiftly. And when that, too, was born and the females hastily buried the blood and the afterbirth, the Family gathered around the new mother to look in curiosity at the squirming creature at her breast.
    Suddenly, Barren pushed through and snatched the suckling infant from Weasel’s arms. The females ran after her, hurling rocks. Barren dropped the baby but the females kept after her until she was caught. They tore branches from trees and beat her with them, mercilessly, not stopping until the bloody form at their feet was unrecognizable. When they were certain Barren no longer breathed, they returned to the camp with the baby that was, miraculously, still alive.
    Lion decreed that the Family must move on, quickly. Barren’s corpse and the birthing blood would attract the dangerous scavengers, particularly the vultures who could be determined and fearless. So they broke camp even though it was still night and, armed with torches, made their way across the open plain. As they trekked beneath the full moon, they heard behind them the animals rush in and growl savagely as they tore Barren’s body to pieces.
     
    Another dawn, and light ash continued to sift down from the sky.
    The humans began to stir, waking to noisy birdsong and the chatter of monkeys in the trees. Watching for predators now that the periphery fires had burned