Page 14 of Fall

He stood over his bed, staring at her for a long time, almost like he waswaiting for something.

She had no idea what he might be waiting for, so eventually she just gavehim a little smile and lowered herself onto the ground to sleep.

Three

For the nextmonth, the days passed in a tedious haze of exhausting sameness.

Those on the fringes of the Kroo tribe like her and Desh were expected towork in order to keep their place. Her duties were to pick those berries, gutfish, and to clean up after meals—which was often quite a nauseating prospectsince meals usually involved dead animals.

None of these duties were particularly pleasant, and they kept her busyall day. Other than talking to Desh when she could, she was alone most of thetime. She always felt hungry, and she was so exhausted by the end of the daysthat she was asleep almost before she got into her position on the groundagainst the wall near Rone’s bed.

One day faded into the next, and she would have lost track of timecompletely if she hadn’t kept a running count in her head.

It was getting colder, though, and the berries were starting to die. Shewas beginning to get worried about how she would contribute to the tribe whenthere were no more berries to find.

She also hoped she wouldn’t catch pneumonia trying to sleep on the floorin tattered clothes and no blanket in the middle of winter. She was stillwearing the torn clothes she’d arrived in—clumsily mended the best she could.In order to have animal skins like everyone else wore, she would need to have aman to give them to her.

Early one morning, she was huddled in her position in the cave, tryingnot to shiver, as the tribe started to get up for the day.

She didn’t want to get up. She was cold and starving and sore from howfar she’d walked the day before to find the remaining berries. She looked atRone’s bed longingly, wanting to bury herself in his pile of furs.

He must have felt her watching because he glanced back toward her as hestood up. He was just as hairy and unkempt as he’d been when she’d first seenhim, and only his eyes looked intelligent.

He didn’t smile and didn’t acknowledge her. Just scratched his arms and adjustedhis clothes. He had a leather cord that he wore around his waist to keep hisgarment in place, but it had several tight knots in it.

He frowned at it as he tried to undo the knots with his big fingers.After a minute, he gave up and tossed the cord onto his bed, looking annoyed asif it was staying knotted on purpose just to irritate him.

In a few minutes, everyone had left the cave to eat breakfast and getstarted on the day.

Lenna was in no hurry to do either—since the idea of that bland bread anddisgusting turnip-root just made her feel even sicker than she already did.When the cave was completely empty, she went over to Rone’s bed and picked upthe knotted cord.

Those knots must have been in it for months. They were so tight shecouldn’t even get her fingernails in between to loosen them.

What the hell had the idiot done to this thing to get it so knotted?

For no good reason, she felt a swell of determination to unknot the cord.She sat down on the ground and focused more closely, working a knot until shefinally managed to loosen and then untie it. It took her more than a half-hourto get all of the knots out, but she smiled in satisfaction as she smoothed outthe leather cord and laid it back on Rone’s bed.

She had no idea why she’d done it. He certainly hadn’t done a lot for herover the last month—except stare at her, laugh at her, and make her feel safeby his presence.

Maybe that was enough.

She was leaving the cave, knowing she needed to get busy cleaning upafter breakfast or someone would get mad at her.

Rone was coming back in as she reached the cave entrance.

Desh had been teaching her the tribe’s language for the last month, butshe still could only understand a few words in each sentence.

It wasn’t a well-developed language like the ones she was used to. It wasprimarily made up of nouns and verbs, with no articles, few prepositions orabstract words, and very slippery usage of direct and indirect objects.

Rone frowned and grunted something like, “Meal…late.”

Evidently he was giving her a little lecture about missing breakfast whenshe’d been working on unknotting his damned cord.

“Sorry.” She’d learned that word early on. She felt like she used it allthe time—since she couldn’t risk anyone in this tribe getting mad at her.

She knew for sure she would have died without them.

Rone was still glaring, but he handed her a piece of flat bread. She’dwatched it being made and knew it was made out of some sort of grain, but itdidn’t taste nearly as good as wheat.

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