At least Raahosh is with him. Liz comes over every day to keep me company, grumbling that now that I’m cave bound, he wants her to stay with me. She thinks he just wants her to stick around in the caves because he worries she’ll end up like me. I want to point out that it’s likely she never had a brain tumor, but then my secret would be out, and I don’t want to be treated weirdly by the others.
Aehako and Haeden stop by from the south caves one day, and I’m thrilled to see both of them looking so healthy. It eases my lingering guilt, especially when Aehako wraps me in a bear hug and tells me all about Kira’s pregnancy and how happy they are.
Days pass, and still the baby doesn’t come.
I start to relax, because I’m feeling a lot better. The endless nagging pain in my side is gone and I no longer feel stretched to my physical limits. I suspect that maybe my baby won’t be coming early after all. Georgie’s further along than me and she shows no signs of going into labor any time soon.
Since there are so many of us heavily pregnant, we tend to gather by the bathing pool. The water’s heated from one of Not-Hoth’s many hot springs, and it feels wonderful on my swollen feet. I’m happy to see that Marlene also suffers from puffy feet, and it makes me feel less like I drew the short end of the pregnancy stick.
Today, several of the human girls are sitting around the pool. It feels a little cliquish, but then I remember that there are practically no sa-khui women in the tribe. There are two women our age, and two elderly women. Oh, and Farli, who is the Earth equivalent of a pre-teen. So I guess it’s okay if we huddle together.
Megan holds up the leather belt she’s braiding. “See? You thought being a Girl Scout wouldn’t be handy at all. Who knew that I’d be using macramé skills on a daily basis in the future?”
Nora snorts and wiggles her feet in the water. “When you’re done with that, make me one. I’m all thumbs.”
“You are?” Georgie kicks a bit of water in Nora’s direction. “Have you seen my attempts at sewing? I can balance a checkbook like nobody’s business and can count a drawer of money in a heartbeat. But crafty shit? Not in the slightest.”
I’m seated next to Megan, between her and Stacy. She’s trying to show us how to macramé leather together into knotted creations. It looks useful, and I think of the things I could make – a sling to carry the baby in, and Rukh’s shoulder bag looks as if it’s about to fall apart it’s so worn. Hell, maybe I could macramé a bra, because right now? My boobs hurt like there’s no tomorrow and the leather band I wear around them tends to slide.
Liz sits nearby, sharpening and resharpening the tips of bone arrows. Marlene’s with the group, but she’s quiet, preferring to listen while others chatter. Ariana’s sleeping in back in her cave, and the men are out hunting to stock up. Last ‘winter’ apparently cleaned the storehouses out and so they’re working extra hard to make sure everyone has enough to eat for this upcoming winter, when the snows get so high they sometimes can cover the cave entrance entirely. Liz has plenty of stories about the insane amounts of snow, and they make me shiver. It was cold by the sea, but not nearly as cold as that.
I concentrate on working the cords together like Megan’s showed me. “I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed,” I tell her. “I’m not good at craft stuff, either. Cooking, yes. Mechanical stuff? Yes. Crafts? No.”
Liz looks up at that. “Oh, I forgot. Your dad was a mechanic, right?” At my nod, she continues. “Kira said that before you disappeared, you were trying to put together some stone cutters out of the ship’s old parts. You think we could still do that? Cut a few more caves? The south ones are nice but I miss having Tiff and Josie and Kira and Claire here.”
“Maybe,” I say, twisting my leather cords. It looks wrong and I immediately untwist them again, frustrated. “I never got to finish the stuff from before. Things…happened.”
“Yeah, we know,” Nora chimes in. “Rukh happened.”
Georgie bats her arm. “Be nice.”
“That was nice!”
Georgie lifts her chin at me. “Speaking of Rukh, have you guys talked about baby names?”
I make a knot with the cords, and Megan immediately pulls them back out of my hands and proceeds to redo them. Maybe I’ll just ask Megan to make me a sling instead of doing it myself. Crafty, I’m not. “We hadn’t really thought about it, no. I thought there would be plenty of time. And then, well…other stuff happened.” Other stuff like Liz and Raahosh showing up, and me getting sick, and and and…