The Shelters of Stone (Earth's Children 5)

“Can I help, too?” Folara added. “Mother’s ideas about clothes are not always what younger women like.”

“I’d love to have help from both of you, but this will have to do for now,” Ayla said, holding up her worn outfit.

“It will certainly be fine for tonight,” Marthona said. Then she nodded to herself, as though making a decision. “I have something I would like to give you, Ayla. It’s in my sleeping room.”

Ayla followed Marthona into her room. “I have been saving this for you for a long time,” the woman said as she opened a covered wooden box.

“But you just met me!” Ayla exclaimed.

“For the woman Jondalar would someday choose for a mate. It belonged to Dalanar’s mother.” She held out a necklace.

Ayla caught her breath with surprise, and with some hesitation took the proffered neckl

ace. She examined it cautiously. It was made of matched shells, perfect deer teeth, and finely carved heads of female deer made from ivory. A lustrous yellowish orange pendant hung at the center.

“It is beautiful,” Ayla breathed. She felt particularly drawn to the pendant, and she looked at it carefully. It was shiny, polished from being worn and handled. “This is amber, isn’t it?”

“Yes. That stone has been in the family for many generations. Dalanar’s mother made it into this necklace. She gave it to me when Jondalar was born and told me to give it to the woman he chose.”

“Amber is not cold like other stones,” Ayla said, holding the pendant in her hand. “It feels warm, as though it has a living spirit.”

“How interesting that you should say that. Dalanar’s mother always said this piece had life,” Marthona said. “Try it on. See how it looks on you.”

Marthona guided Ayla toward the limestone wall of her sleeping room. A hole had been dug out of it, and wedged into the hole was the round end that grew out of the horn core of a megaceros, then extended and flattened out into the typical palmate antler. The tines of the projecting antler had been broken off, leaving a slightly uneven shelf with a concave scalloped edge. Resting on top and leaning against the somewhat forward sloping wall, but nearly perpendicular to the floor, was a small plank of wood with a very smooth surface.

As Ayla approached, she noticed that it reflected with surprising clarity the wooden and wickerware containers across the room, and the flame burning in a stone oil lamp near them. Then she stopped in amazement.

“I can see myself!” Ayla said. She reached out to touch the surface. The wood had been rubbed smooth with sandstone, dyed a deep black with oxides of manganese, and polished with fat to a high sheen.

“Haven’t you ever seen a reflector?” Folara asked. She was standing just inside the room, near the panel at the entrance, dying of curiosity to see the gift her mother was giving to Ayla.

“Not like this. I’ve looked in a still pool of water on a sunny day,” Ayla said, “but this is right here, in your sleeping room!”

“Don’t the Mamutoi have reflectors? To see how they look when they dress for some important occasion?” Folara asked. “How do they know if everything is right?”

Ayla frowned in thought for a moment. “They look at each other. Nezzie always made sure Talut had everything on right before ceremonies, and when Deegie—she was my friend—arranged my hair, everyone made nice comments,” Ayla explained.

“Well, let’s see how the necklace looks on you, Ayla,” Marthona said, putting it around her neck and holding the back closed.

Ayla admired the necklace, noting how well it lay on her chest, and then she found herself studying the reflection of her face. She seldom saw herself, and her own features were more unfamiliar than those of the people around her whom she had met only recently. Though the reflecting surface was reasonably good, the lighting inside the room was dim, and her image was somewhat dark. She appeared rather drab, colorless, and flat-faced to herself.

Ayla had grown up among the Clan thinking of herself as big and ugly because, although she was thinner-boned than the women of the Clan, she was taller than the men, and she looked different, both in their eyes and her own. She was more accustomed to judging beauty in terms of the stronger features of the Clan, with their long broad faces and sloped-back foreheads, heavy overhanging browridges, sharp prominent noses, and large, richly colored brown eyes. Her own blue-gray eyes seemed faded in comparison.

After she had lived among the Others for a while, she didn’t feel that she looked so strange anymore, but she still could not see herself as beautiful, though Jondalar had told her often enough that she was. She knew what was considered attractive to the Clan; she didn’t quite know how to define beauty in terms of the Others. To her, Jondalar, with his masculine and therefore stronger features and vivid blue eyes was far more beautiful than she.

“I think it suits her,” Willamar said. He had strolled over to add his opinion. Even he hadn’t known Marthona had the necklace. It was her dwelling that he had moved into; she had made room for him and his possessions, and she made him comfortable. He liked the way she ordered and arranged things, and he had no desire to poke into every nook and cranny or bother her belongings.

Jondalar was standing behind him, looking over his shoulder, grinning. “You never told me grandam gave that to you when I was born, mother.”

“She didn’t give it to me for you. It was meant for the woman you would mate. The one with whom you would make a hearth, to which she could bring her children—with the blessing of the Mother,” she replied, taking the necklace from around Ayla’s neck and putting it into her hands.

“Well, you’ve given it to the right person,” he said. “Are you going to wear it tonight, Ayla?”

She looked at it, frowning slightly. “No. All I have is that old outfit and this is too beautiful to wear with that. I think I’ll wait until I have something appropriate to wear with it.”

Marthona smiled and nodded slightly in approval.

As they were leaving the sleeping room, Ayla could see another hole cut into the limestone wall above the sleeping platform. It was somewhat larger and seemed to go into the wall rather deeply. A small stone lamp burned in front, and in the light behind it she could make out from her view a part of the full rounded figurine of an amply endowed woman. It was a donii, Ayla knew, a representation of Doni, the Great Earth Mother, and, when She chose, a receptacle for Her Spirit.