In this small moment, I’ve never been happier.
Chapter Six
One Year Later
HARLOW
I tug a boot off of one of my swollen feet, then kick it onto the rocky shore. Off goes the other boot, and the cold air bites into my skin. I get to my feet – not an easy task given the size of my middle, and then gingerly step into the rushing tide. It’s ice cold, and a shiver moves through me. I don’t go in far, though. Just far enough to cover my toes.
And then I wiggle them and wait.
It doesn’t take long. Never does. A long, white tendril snakes forward, toward my feet. I force myself to stand totally still as it touches one wiggling toe, then another. In the water, I see the thick body of the creature surge forward, toward my foot. I quietly flip my spear over in my hand, point down, and then jam it right into the eye as it opens to look at me.
The creature flails and thrashes in the water, and I lean on the spear to hold it steady. A moment later, the water stills and the tendrils go limp.
Dinner caught.
I shiver and bound out of the water, dragging my freshly killed ’spaghetti monster’ with me. I don’t know what the critter’s called but it’s got a lot of snaky arms and a meatball looking body, so I went with that. It’s also Rukh’s favorite seafood item, so I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he comes home and sees it cooking on the fire. He does love himself a good spaghetti dinner, I think, and then giggle at my own joke.
My back twinges as it has been lately, and I groan, rubbing the base of my spine. The baby seems to be resting on something on my upper right-hand abdomen, as that part of my body constantly aches lately. I go back and forth from rubbing the side of my belly to rubbing my lower back. My shoes suddenly seem like a lot of effort to put on, especially pregnant, so I pick them up and shove them in my shoulder bag. In the other bag goes my kill, and I use my spear as a walking stick as I pick my way across the sand and head back home.
Funny how this weird beach is ‘home’ now, but it is. I hum a nursery rhyme to myself as I hang up my bag on one of the rocky outcroppings that serves as a coat hook. I want to rub my aching, swollen feet, but I can barely reach them these days, so I shuffle toward the fire and stoke it, instead.
After the fire is good and roaring, I chop up, skin, and spit the spaghetti monster on the fire. By the time I’ve done that and washed my hands, I’m pooped. I rub my aching lower back and head toward my furs to lie down. Being pregnant is taking a lot out of me, and it seems like an eternal pregnancy with no end in sight.
I ease my body onto the thick pile of furs and relax, closing my eyes. My swollen feet are propped up on a pillow stuffed with feathers from one of the raptor-looking birds that hunt the shoreline. There’s another one behind my head, and the pelts under my body are soft and supple and warm, even if they’re not all that pretty to look at. I’m not the best at tanning, but I get better every day.
I glance over at my ‘calendar’。 It’s the first of December.
Okay, so it’s not really the first. Nor is it December, like it says. We don’t have paper or much wood, so I took several rib bones from different creatures and carved the months of the year into each one, then strung them up like a xylophone. It’s a modified calendar in that I have hash-marks for days and I only put thirty days in each month regardless of how long it truly was. It’s just a general way for me to count time, since the seasons are all out of whack here on Not-Hoth, and Rukh pays zero attention to them.
I rub my belly and muse at the time that’s passed. I created that calendar in ‘January’。 It was an arbitrary date, but I got tired of time passing and me not knowing when it was. With a baby on the way, I wanted to track somehow. I’m pretty sure it’s been a year since Rukh and I mated for the first time and made the baby.
I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be pregnant forever. I run a hand along my belly, frowning. It’s big, but nothing’s dropped like I hear in pregnancy stories. I’ve already been pregnant for about two months longer than a human woman. The fourth trimester, I like to joke, not that Rukh gets my jokes.
The baby kicks and then flips in my belly, and I rub a hand over it soothingly. “You get them, though, don’t you?”
A flutter in my stomach makes me think of laughter. Baby laughter. I fall asleep in the furs, wondering what it’s going to be like when the baby gets here. Rukh’s going to be such a good daddy.
RUKH
I snarl in irritation at the family of plumed ‘raptors’ that squawk along the beach. All day, I’ve been out looking for small ones, because their feathers are softer than the adults and Har-loh wants them for our kit’s bedding. I’ve ranged far and wide today, looking for the perfect ones, and managed to find one when I was at the end of my temper. Now I come home and see three of the things frolicking in the waves. Irritating. They’ll live another day, because I already have what I came for.