20
MEGAN
T wo days later, it all falls apart. I knew it would. I’m sitting near the main fire, working on Cashol’s
belts again. I sit with Josie, talking about nothing in particular, and my seat is at the perfect angle
so I can watch the front of the cave for Cashol’s return. He promised to take me fishing today, and I’m looking forward to going out.
“Hmm.” Kemli tastes the stew over the fire and then shakes her head. “It needs something. There are spices in the storage cave, Jo-see. Go and get them for me.”
Farli jumps to her feet, scattering the strands of the net she was working on with Warrek and Eklan. “I’ll get them!”
“No, you stir this, if you must help,” Kemli says, handing her the ladle. “I need to cut some more meat.”
Farli takes the ladle with a pout.
“Be right back.” Josie smiles at me, bounces up, and then trots into the storage cave.
I go back to twisting my leather cords, trying to make an elongated loop in the rest of the pattern so Cashol can hook things to his belt. The leather isn’t playing nice—or it’s not quite working out how I had it in my head, and I’m so distracted with trying to get it to braid just right that I don’t notice how long it’s taking Josie to return.
“Um, can you come here, Kemli?” Josie asks a little while later.
“Can you not find it?” Kemli puts down her knife, a little frown on her face. “It should be in one of the baskets at the front.”
“That’s not the problem.” Josie gives me an uneasy look and I feel sick to my stomach. Why did she look at me specifically?
Farli stirs the stew with gusto, chattering. “Did you go and take bites out of everything while we were not looking, Meh-gan?” She giggles.
“Why would Meh-gan do that?” Eklan asks, his voice dry and raspy with age. He smiles at me, as if to say how silly Farli is being.
“Because pregnant females eat everything,” Farli declares. “She is carrying after resonance, yes? And Meh-gan said she likes to taste the roots first. She puts them back if she does not like them.”
Everyone turns to look at me.
“I-I was joking,” I stammer. “Seriously. I would never.”
I still might not feel as if I fit in a hundred percent, but I know there are certain things that the sa-khui take very seriously, and one of them is food. You eat everything that is handed to you, and it doesn’t matter if you don’t like the taste. Food isn’t meant to be wasted, because the gathering and preserving of it for so many people is a monumental task. Even when I’m not keen on what’s in the stew, I eat every bite, mindful of how much work went into it.
Kemli comes out of the storage cave a few moments later, with two not-potatoes in her arms, and Josie has one, too. “Where is the chief?” Her face is taut with…anger? Irritation? “Where is Vektal?”
My stomach clenches again.
Georgie comes out of the cave she shares with Vektal, her brows furrowed. “Vektal’s out hunting. He won’t be back until late. What is it?”
Kemli purses her lips and holds one of the not-potatoes out. Sure enough, it’s been gouged all over, as if someone took big, ugly bites out of it and put it back. The rest of the vegetable has discolored, and I know it’s no good. You can’t leave not-potato uncooked once you peel it or it turns bitter and rubbery.
“Someone has chewed on these,” Kemli declares. “They are wasting food. All of the roots in storage look like this.”
“But why would someone bite them and put them back?”
Farli looks at me curiously.
I jump to my feet, my heart pounding. “I swear, it wasn’t me! I wouldn’t do that!”
“No one said it was you, Megan,” Georgie begins. “Let’s all calm down.”
“But why would you say such a thing?” Warrek asks, a curious note in his voice.
“It was a joke.” I didn’t think anyone was really going to go in and bite all the roots and make them rot. Why would I? It never occurred to me.
Kemli just shakes her head. “Someone bit these and now our food is ruined.”
I jerk to my feet and gather the project I’m working on.
“Megan, calm down. Really. No one thinks you did it,” Georgie says. “Really. It’s okay.”
But it’s not okay. I feel as if Warrek and his father are judging me. That Kemli is looking at me with accusing eyes. That even Georgie isn’t saying what she could to have my back. It’s because they’re all just looking for an excuse to get rid of dead weight around here…and the dead weight is me.
I should have known I can’t be happy here. Something always happens to ruin my happiness. First they took my home from me, and then they took my baby. Now I feel as if I’m losing my new home and it hurts so badly that I can’t breathe.
Because it means I’m going to lose Cashol, too. Of course he’d choose the tribe over me. Who wouldn’t?
They don’t cling to him and tell him not to go hunt, and he loves hunting. They aren’t needy, these people.
They’re independent and I’m not like that and I didn’t tell him “I love you” quick enough.
Now it’s too late.
I race back to my cave with the leather pieces in my hands, and I fling them down and throw the privacy screen up the moment I cross the threshold. I fight back a sob, pressing my palms to my eyes.
There’s a scratch at the screen. “Megan? Come out so we can talk.” It’s Georgie, and she’s using her Reasonable-Tribe-Leader voice, acting as if nothing’s wrong. “Don’t be like this.”
I don’t want to talk to her. I just want to hide.
Even if she tells me they don’t think I did it, I know some of them did. There will always be that doubt. After all, Ariana cried a few too many times and now some of the hunters think she’s a whiner. Josie gets called “noisy” because she talks a lot and puts on an enthusiastic air when she’s nervous. Am I going to be the food thief forever? The pig that can’t control herself around the food stores?
No matter what happens, I’m going to get pegged as a problem because I made a stupid joke to Farli.
Because no one trusts me. Because I don’t really fit in.
I ignore another scratch at the privacy screen, and for once, I’m really glad that those screens are sacrosanct in the tribe. Georgie can’t barge her way in and talk to me; everyone would frown on that as the height of rudeness. I can be by myself, and I can think.
And right now…I think I need to leave.
I sniff, then look in our small pile of stored goods for a bag. There are lots of caves in this place. I can learn to live in one by myself if I have to. I know how to make fire, and how to look at tracks, and I can fish and… and…
And just be alone for the rest of my life.
I crumple on the furs, weeping.
