The Blessing Stone by Barbara Wood Page A

keeper of the clan’s stories had to be free of selfishness.
    Alawa shook her head slowly because of the weight of the gazelle antlers. When she was younger the horns had been almost weightless. But with age, they had grown heavy so that her neck bent beneath them. “Tomorrow the boys must die,” she said in a croaking voice.
    He looked at her as if he had not heard correctly. “What did you say?”
    “The little boys must die. The ghosts of the hunters are jealous of them and that is why they haunt us and why the moon stays away. If the boys do not die, then the clan will die. Forever.”
    He drew in a sharp breath and traced a protective gesture in the air.
    “We will do it in the lake,” Alawa said resolutely. “The hunters drowned and so the boys must drown.” She turned sharp eyes to him. “Bellek, you too must die.”
    “Me?” He blanched. “But the clan needs me!”
    “The clan will still have me. And if the moon wishes us to have men, it will give us new ones.”
    “But what threat am I? The boys, yes, because they will grow up to be hunters. But I am an old man.”
    Her voice rose. “And you have made the hunters jealous by staying alive. Selfish man! Would you threaten the extinction of our people by not sacrificing yourself?”
    He began to tremble. “Can there be a mistake?”
    “You dare!” she cried. “You question my dreams! You question what the spirits have told me. You bring bad luck upon all of us with your doubt!” She waved her hands in front of her eyes as if to chase away an evil spirit. “Deny what you just said or we shall all suffer the consequences!”
    “I am sorry,” he said in a thin voice. “I did not mean to doubt. The spirits have spoken. The—” He could hardly bring himself to say it. “The boys will die.”

    While Alawa slept beneath soft animal skins, Laliari sat with her back to the hide wall. She had been surprised when the old woman had asked her to keep her company in the hut, and Laliari had not missed the looks of admiration and envy among the others. Keeka especially, as everyone knew what this must mean: that Alawa was considering choosing Laliari as her successor.
    But the old woman had gone right to sleep, and now it was warm and close in the hut. Laliari drew her knees to her chest and, folding her arms on her knees, rested her head on her forearms. She had not meant to fall asleep. But when she woke, the light from the misty dawn was creeping beneath the tent. And she knew without looking that Alawa was dead.
    The young woman flew out of the shelter, her hair standing out in terror. She had never been in close proximity to a person at the moment of death before. Where had Alawa’s spirit gone? Laliari remembered back at home on the river, a man and woman had been sleeping together and the man had awakened to find the woman dead. Bellek had done readings and proclaimed that the man was now possessed with the spirit of the dead woman. So the clan had driven him out of the settlement and wouldn’t allow him to come back. They never saw him again.
    In a panic, Laliari pinched her nostrils, belatedly trying to keep the old woman’s ghost from entering her. Her wails woke the others. At once they tore down Alawa’s hut and made preparations for the silent-sitting. Bellek examined Laliari with great scrutiny, looking into her ears, eyes, mouth, and vagina until he was satisfied. “No spirit there,” he said firmly, putting her at ease. Maybe Alawa had been too old for her spirit to leave her body quickly, as it did with younger people. That old ghost might even now still be struggling to escape its casing of flesh. Bellek informed the distressed women that they must do a good silent-sitting, to ensure that when they moved on, old Alawa would not follow and haunt them.
    It was a ritual as old as time, handed down through the generations from the first people to mourn the dead. Bellek traced a circle in the dirt around Alawa’s corpse and chanted magic