Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

He saw her rib cage rise then fall in a huge sigh of relief.

“Where’s Thistle-chaser?” she asked, her eyes still shut. Thakur’s gaze went to Newt, and he watched her ears flick nervously.

“Here,” she answered, her voice thin with exhaustion and uncertainty.

Ratha’s teeth chattered but she managed to say, “Lie down with me. I need you.”

With another uncertain glance at Thakur, Newt arranged herself with her belly against Ratha’s back. Thakur saw her grimace as her lame foreleg cramped. “Here,” he said, taking her paw in his mouth and pulling it to ease the tight, knotted muscles. He massaged it gently with his tongue.

“Well this is certainly a cozy group,” said Fessran as soon as she had dried Mishanti as well as she could. “I’m starting to feel left out.”

“Well, join us,” said Thakur. “Ratha needs all the warmth she can get.”

“After what I did, I’m not sure… ”

“She doesn’t need apologies or arguments,” Thakur replied. “Just a warm pelt against her.”

“Mine’s pretty damp, but I’ll do what I can.” Fessran shook herself off and fluffed her fur.

Together they rubbed against Ratha and wrung as much water out of her fur as they could by pressing against her. The sunlight brightened, helping to dry her pelt, while the sheltering rocks kept the wind from blowing away the heat.

Yet as Thakur worked alongside the others, he felt that there were many things yet to be resolved. As Ratha started to recover, Newt began inching away from her, as if she could only dare to touch Ratha when she was too sick or weak to really notice.

And as Ratha became more like her old self in the warmth and dryness of the sun and those around her, she seemed ill at ease with Newt. She let her daughter gradually retreat without calling her back. Perhaps, Thakur thought, everything that had happened on the island was just a feverish dream to her, unsure, unreal. And perhaps to Newt the intimacy that crisis allowed was gone.

He looked at Ratha and then at her daughter and felt angry. Both were strong, stubborn, and adamant about denying the tie that bound them together, yet both were clearly driven by it.

He shook himself, bristled his whiskers, and said,“Ratha, Thistle-chaser, there is someone I would like you to meet.”

Both stared at him as if he had gone mad.

“What, by the Red Tongue’s ashes, are you talking about?” asked Fessran. “There’s no one else on this wave-washed rock but us.”

He ignored the Firekeeper. Instead he went to Thistle-chaser, nudged her back toward Ratha.“This is your mother,” he said, looking into the sea-green eyes. “She birthed you, fed you, and desperately wanted to love you.”

He turned next to Ratha, still lying on her side, looking up at him.“And this is your daughter. She came from your belly, suckled at your teats, and never had the chance to be what you wanted her to be.”

Pausing, he surveyed both of them.“That is the simple truth between you. You may deny it at the top of your voices, but everything you have done shows that it is still at work.”

There was a very long silence.

Ratha lowered her muzzle, looking at the ground, then gave a sideways glance at Newt.“Thakur has the most sense of any of us, doesn’t he? Do you think he’s right?”

“He is right,” said Newt softly, choosing her words carefully and slowly. “But want to know. Why you bite me bad when I was small?”

Ratha closed her eyes, and for an instant Thakur thought she couldn’t answer the question.

“I think the best answer to that,” Ratha said, “is to have Fessran bring Mishanti over here.”

When the Firekeeper had placed the cub between Ratha and Thistle-chaser, Ratha said,“Look at him. If there is light in his eyes, it is hard to see, isn’t it?” As the Firekeeper started to bristle, she added, “No, Fessran. I’m not making a judgment of him now. For one thing, I’m hardly in a condition to do that. I just want to show Thistle-chaser something she needs to know.” Ratha nudged Mishanti so that he faced Thistle-chaser.

“That is what you looked like to me,” Ratha said. “I looked in your eyes and could not see what I wanted the most; the promise that you would grow up as one of the Named, be able to speak, think, and know what names mean.” She looked up at her daughter, half-angry, half-pleading. “Can youunderstand? I had seen the empty faces of the Un-Named and to think that you would be like them… I couldn’t bear it. I clawed Bonechewer. I bit you. I didn’t realize it would wound you so badly. I didn’t know.”

Thistle-chaser bent her head and thoughtfully licked the collar of rough fur that hid her scar. Then she gave Ratha a searching look.“Am I what you… are afraid of?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Ratha admitted.

“Am I what you wanted?”

“I’m not sure about that either,” Ratha confessed. She looked away. “You lived so long without me, do you really care what I think?”

Newt looked as if she were struggling to put the right words together. At last she said,“I did not live without you. We both made Dreambiter.”

Ratha’s jaw trembled. “There is no way I can take back what I did. And I know you can’t pretend it didn’t happen. That trail is not an easy one.”

“You do one thing for me,” Newt said. “Help me let Dreambiter go.”

“How?” Ratha’s gaze went to Thakur. He could see the lostness in her eyes.

He answered,“The Dreambiter is everything in you that she dreads and fears.”

“But I am not just that,” Ratha said, pleading. “Thakur, tell her. I’m not.”

“You will have to show her yourself. By not judging, not pushing, and learning patience.”

Ratha looked away from him toward Newt. Nervously licking the tip of her nose, she gave a soft come-here purr. Newt crouched then crept to her, putting her head beneath Ratha’s chin. Slowly, tentatively, Thakur saw Ratha lick the top of Newt’s head. She gave a startled grimace. Obviously the sea had not rinsed away all of the sea-beast tang from Newt’s fur. But she did not let the rhythm of her licking falter. She sent a defiant glance toward Thakur.

Then Newt withdrew her head and settled nearby, laying her head on her forepaws.

“I think this gives us a lesson about judging cubs,” Thakur observed. “If we could be so wrong about Thistle-chaser, what about others? The thing we call the light in our eyes is more than just that. I think it shows itself in many ways and we must learn to see it in whatever form it takes.”

He saw Newt twitch her tail impatiently.“What about him?” she said, pointing her nose at Mishanti.

“Well, I guess we should let him grow a little more; give him the chance that we didn’t give you,” Ratha answered.

“No,” Newt said abruptly, startling everyone. She rushed on, her anger making her strangely eloquent. “It won’t work. He is like I was. Different. None of you will have the patience to teach him. You will always be thinking that he should be this or should be that. Even if you try not to, you will. And someone will get impatient and bite him.”

Fessran narrowed her eyes at Newt.“Then what do you suggest?”

“Let me take Mishanti, teach him what I know.”

The Firekeeper grumbled to herself, but Thakur heard Ratha say,“She’s right. We would get impatient with him. Even you, Fessran.”

“I’m not sure that she’s the best… ” Fessran started.

“Well, she may not be, but we certainly didn’t do any better,” Ratha argued. Then she turned to Newt. “I’d like you to come into the clan and help Fessran with Mishanti.”

Thakur saw Fessran sit up, startled.“You mean you’re not going to throw me out? Even after what I did?”