Chapter Twenty-Four - Rain Watching

  -Summer-

  Her nap helped her push through, so she decided to make it a regular thing. For the next few days of foraging, farming, and collecting, the midday naps became a requirement, along with quite a bit more lounging than she’d been allowing for before.

  Belbet had forgotten the biggest rule of all. Human beings, like all large predatory species, need to lounge after large meals. They need rest, relaxation, the ability to sit still and do nothing for a while. She’d pushed herself for two weeks, feeling the yawning stretch of time between what Victoria knew and how Belbet survived. She’d panicked, not realizing that this was a marathon run, not a sprint.

  Thinking this over, she cast her eyes to the skies and realized something interesting, as the moon rose. The moon was half-full. Or rather, it was waning, and at half-full righT this moment. Since she’d done her daily tally earlier, she’d realized it had taken 8 days for it to wane halfway. She wondered if that meant in another 8 days, it’d be the new moon. 16 days… Ah, would this be a fantastical 30 day moon cycle? That’s a bit different from Victoria’s 28 day moon cycle, but… It would make making a calendar much easier.

  Pushing thoughts of calendars and moon phases out of her head, she focused on what she’d been doing. Over the course of the next five days, she slowed down, quite a bit. The tiles were still piling up, and they didn’t have enough to cover the roof of the storage house yet, so she only worried about it when they needed to be changed out of the kiln. The charcoal store they were building up was sufficient currently for their summer days, so one run of the reusable charcoal kiln a day was enough for them to be able to store up for winter.

  They were still taking turns curing and smoking the snake meat, as well as curing fish they were pulling in regularly from the river now. And, she was slowly but surely boiling down the salty mud to create actual salt. It was difficult, and the salt was adding a gritty texture to their food she didn’t like, but it was salt nonetheless. On the bright side, she was starting to get hungrier, so it was hard to notice the grit. She found herself eating more than anyone at their meals, and had to check often that the children were getting their fill.

  Without pushing so hard, she discovered more time to spend with the children, too. Teaching them numbers and counting, how to tie knots and keep track of things properly. She sang songs with them, and taught them games like hide and seek, tag, tic-tac-toe and other things Victoria remembered from her childhood.

  The increased downtime also let her weave together some hats out of the wood-string she’d been spinning. Nothing too extravagant, just some hats similar to what she’d seen on asian historical dramas as Victoria. Coned things that they can tie under their chin, that would keep the sun off their necks and faces. The actual weaving process of them only took a few hours, and once she showed Dahnei and Eefim, they took to the project quickly. This allowed her to show them how to weave sandals for them all too.

  This helped quite a bit with the need to wash and clean their feet at night before bed. Instilling basic hygiene in her family was taking up a ridiculous amount of energy, honestly. Was it so hard to ask them to wash their hands before they eat, after they use the small latrine they’d dug up, and before they go to sleep? She hadn’t seen any sign of the children sickening yet, but it was the summer. Another thing she worried over was the idea of summer insects, like mosquitos, carrying illnesses.

  She really wished she knew which plants to burn to provide the smoke that would keep them away from the camp. But sadly it wasn’t something Victoria had memorized. Instead, they had to start experiments on what would keep the most bugs away. It was mostly entertaining for the children, who would scream out if they saw a bug, or if they got bit.

  It turned out, thanks to the experiments, that pretty much any smoke will work to keep insects away. For the most part anyway.

  Time passed, and Kaion’s hoof healed enough that Belbet was no longer concerned he was going to get it infected if he walked on it. He took to that with aplomb, striding around the camp so much that it honestly wore him out. By the end of the day, he was looking rough. Belbet banished him to his little lean-to to take a nap and rest before he depleted his body’s stamina entirely.

  The next day dawned cloudy and oddly cool. Belbet took one look at the huge pile of tiles they’d been working on for 11 days now, and decided that now was the best time to see how their progress was going. So, she rallied everyone to start putting together the tile ceiling of the storagehouse.

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  It was difficult work, and Kaion, who was the tallest of them, spent most of his time stretching up. By noon, everyone was sore and annoyed. Tempers flared, and this led, once more, to the children fighting. Belbet managed to bribe them into peace by offering sweet berry drinks.

  Sacrificing a little honey into the drink, she had some herself, and honestly, she was quite happy with the result. After their cooling bath and nap, the afternoon held less tempers and more sweetness, teaching the children how to check if the eggs were growing well inside their shells. This earned her surprised and happy gasps, which melted her heart with sweetness.

  When she announced that she thought some of the eggs might hatch as soon as the end of the week, she was met with wiggly excitement, and a question from her little girl that made her laugh. “Mama, can’t we tell them to hurry up!”

  “No, sweetness, no. Not any more than we can tell your baby sibling to hurry up.” She reminded, rubbing her belly to draw the girl’s attention there. Sure enough, grubby little hands pressed against her belly and the little girl grinned.

  “Can we candle mama’s belly too?” She asked.

  “No, no. But someday, far in the future…. There might be tools that let doctors look into a woman’s belly and see the baby.” She said, making the truthful statement sound like a fairy tale.

  “Silly mommy!” Dahnei laughed, dismissing her mother’s strange words. Her eyes sparkled, as she turned back to the eggs on the hearth. Belbet had added feathers from the various fowl Eefim had brought back to the ‘nest’ around the eggs. This helped retain the heat of the day and coals, so that the eggs were always warm. Not that they needed much help at the moment, with how hot it was even in their dark little house.

  The blast of cool that came when she opened the door told her exactly how well they’d done insulating their little hut. After all, if it was still baking hot in there, that meant the heat would stay in winter too. That helped her feel a tiny bit better, even when she came across several of the tiles that had shattered, unsecured before their nap and knocked down by the wind.

  She sighed, before blinking as a thought occurred to her. Wasn’t shattered pottery a really pretty look? She considered it, as she picked up her weaving, and went back to it, her fingers twisting and tying the rough bark string into a wider hat than she’d made for herself. This one she intended for her youngest to wear. Mohniit had black hair, and like herself, tended to overheat really badly. So, she was going to give him as much shade as she could.

  It was only when the first rumble of thunder in the heavens sounded that she remembered rain at all. She bolted up onto her feet, setting side the weaving and darting towards the pumpkin cisterns they still hadn’t filled. Turning one on its side she rolled it out away from the cliff and out into the open. She took the lid they’d cut into it off, and set it to the side. Then, she did that with the second and then third as well.

  “What are you doing?” Deenat asked, looking up from where she sat next to the fire. Her legs were stretched out in front of her, and she looked for all the world like she was trying to touch her toes.

  “I’m getting ready to collect rainwater!” Belbet explained, smiling with an almost rabid joy.

  “In the gourds?!” Eefim asked, his alarm turning into a similar excitement to his aunts halfway through the sentence. He stood too and ran to get the gourds settled out, open and waiting as the first raindrops fell.

  “Water! Water!” Mohniit shrieked, caught up in the excitement and stamping his little feet about it. Belbet laughed at the sight, only to turn and notice her other baby frowning.

  “What’s the matter, Dahnei?”

  “Won’t the water put out our fires?” Dahnei looked to the smoker. Then, she turned and looked at all the snake meat. “Won’t the water make the meat bad too?”

  Belbet paused, surprised at this deduction. “What makes you think that, honey?”

  “Whenever it rained, the elders complained… and then for the next several days, we’d have to throw out food because it got covered in fuzzy stuff.” Dahnei wrinkled her nose at the memory, “It smelled bad.”

  “Ah, that’d be mold.” Belbet chuckled, nodding. “Yes, we’ll have to be very careful not to let the meat mold before we smoke it. That’s why we’re going to cover it up. Why don’t you go grab every skin you can, and throw them over the snake meat, hm? That way it won’t get as wet.” This wasn’t a perfect solution, and Belbet knew it, as the water would be running along the ground too if it rained hard enough and the meat was on the ground. But it was a start.

  Soon after, the sky opened in a light rainfall that honestly didn’t even put out their camping fire. It was a little disappointing, but also very relaxing. With everyone piled into the little hut, it was very crowded, but cozy. Watching the rain out the front door was spellbinding. With Mohniit pressed up against her side, and Dahnei sticking her hand out into the water, Belbet was reminded of the days when Victoria would sit on her eldest brother’s front porch, all the little nieces around her, watching the rainfall just like this. Perhaps it was a universal thing, this ancient activity of rain watching.

  Mini Character List

  Victoria/Belbet - Our Main Character, 21 yr old pregnant Mom. - Soap. Ah, I finally feel CLEAN. this is heaven.

  Dahnei - 5 year old paleolithic child. Daughter of Belbet. Jerboa Mouse-Spirited. - I am the sole source of fish for this family. Time to get industrious!

  Mohniit - 2 year old paleolithic child. Son of Belbet. Rabbit Spirited. - Let me NAP, Mama. Jeeze.

  Unborn Baby - I'm fine, just tired.

  Deenat - 25 year old paleolithic gatherer - Ermine Spirited. - My sister made plants grow. She thinks these are going to feed us. ...Well, I must admit we've been eating better. But still.

  Eefim - 11 year old paleolithic hunter-in-training - Wow, auntie really did manage to make plants grow. ...Maybe she's magic.

  Kaion - 26 year old man. Ram Spirited. - Okay so, when is rest time, because jesus, this woman pushes herself too hard. And the rest of us. I've never seen a camp so busy.

  Wolf - ...my food is late.