Nikolai stared at him, but inside, he trembled. He couldn’t imagine living in a city. “I can’t do that, Ngubi.”
“Can’t, or won’t?” his dad asked.
Nikolai’s throat closed. “Do you want me to go?”
Ngubi hesitated, and Nikolai’s heart twisted. But then the dark eyes met his. “I do not want it, Nikolai. The desert is no longer safe for you, but I do not have it in me to force you to go. Promise me you will think about it.”
How could he even consider leaving? But Nikolai nodded.
Out of the corner of his eye, something caught his attention.
Like a true hunter, Nikolai observed without moving his head as a tiny creature emerged from a crevice in the rock. A long nose waved at him, the rounded, pink ears twitched and the whiskers vibrated. The fur almost glowed white, and the eyes were a vivid blue.
“Never seen one like that,” Ngubi commented.
Nikolai hadn’t either—an elephant shrew, he thought, but they were usually a golden-brown color with beady little dark eyes. Cute, but he’d never seen a white one.
Or one this brave, either. The tiny creature—it could have fit into the palm of his hand—moved into the light cast by the fire, coming to within a few feet of Nikolai.
He picked up the melon rind and offered it with one hand.
“It won’t eat that,” chided Ngubi.
When Nikolai lowered his hand toward it, she—he was pretty sure it was a she—flinched, but then moved forward. She sniffed the offering and licked at it.
Ngubi’s brows rose. They climbed even higher when the shrew jumped right into Nikolai’s hand.
The Khomani shook his gray head. “You are truly a freak if you befriend rodents.”
Nikolai shrugged as he lifted his other hand to stroke the creature with one careful finger. Even when her feet were still, the remainder of the tiny body quivered with perpetual motion. She blinked unusually brilliant blue eyes up at him.
“I’m going to call her Maitseo,” he declared.
“That name is bigger than she is,” his friend noted.
Nikolai reconsidered. “Maybe Mai for short.”
Ngubi’s gaze drifted back to the fire. “The animals see something in you.”
“Yeah, that I will feed them,” scoffed Nikolai.
“It is more than that.” Ngubi looked uncomfortable. “When I found you, there were animals gathered all around. A pair of elands. A herd of springbok. Meercats and birds and rodents. Even your little shrews. I was tracking the springbok, and instead found your mother, and you.”
Nikolai sat frozen with his finger in Mai’s soft fur. His dad rarely spoke of the events surrounding his birth. Something about Ngubi’s expression—“You told me you found my mother dying.”
Ngubi’s eyes flashed up once and then returned to the fire. “Your mother was still alive when I got there,” he agreed. His dark gaze took on a dreamy appearance. “She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen—dressed in this shimmery fabric. Like spider silk. Such a tiny thing, with long, white hair braided with these glittering crystals. And eyes as blue as your little shrew’s. But she had that sword buried in her chest.”
Nikolai nodded. “You called the sword ‘weird.’ All one piece, the hilt the same material as the blade, and spiral shaped with sharp edges.” He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about this. It always raised uncomfortable questions that had no clear answers. Like who had hated this pregnant woman enough to stab her with a strange sword and leave her to die in the desert?
Ngubi pulled a tuber from the fire, unwrapped it to check on it, then rewrapped it and put it back again, before continuing. “You were about ten feet from her.”
Nikolai stared at him. The story repeated over forty years had changed? “You told me I was in her arms.”
Ngubi sighed. “I know, but you weren’t. You were lying a ways away, as though someone had placed you there. Blood had soaked through your blanket, but you didn’t have a mark on you—except that weird burn on the back of your neck.”
Nikolai reached to trace the pattern of raised flesh. “Was it fresh?”
Ngubi shrugged. “Looked it. But I have no idea what made it. And you weren’t crying. Just staring up at me with those big silver eyes. They were a different color from your mother’s, but the same shape.” He shook his head. “I didn’t think I could move her without killing her. And certainly pulling the sword out wasn’t a good idea.” He poked again at the tubers. Only because Nikolai knew him well did he decipher how upset his dad actually was.
