“Have it.” She all but threw one-half in Oh’na’s hands. “You, too. If you want it.” She handed the other half to the older girl.
“For me?” she asked in surprise. And then she smiled, revealing her sharp pointed teeth.
Addie had known about the teeth from Sathe’s infrequent smiles, but Sathe had missed quite a few as a result of her injuries. This girl had a full set. They gleamed in the sunlight, pearly white at the root, gradually becoming silver at the tips.
Even prepared, Addie shuddered inwardly. So in-human.
“For you,” she repeated.
“I’m grateful.”
Addie figured the words meant thank you and made a note to memorize the phrase.
The girl snatched the string and tucked it into her boot. “I am Melmie. This thing you have,” she pointed at the slingshot Addie still clutched in her hand, “it’s funny.”
“Funny!” Oh’na bobbed her head and giggled.
Still giggling, they started walking away swinging their baskets.
Suddenly, Melmie stopped and bent down, picking something off the ground. A rock? As Addie watched, frowning in confusion, Melmie pitched it into the grass. Oh’na set her basket on the ground and took off in the direction of the thrown rock, only to reappear in a few seconds and run up to Addie.
“For you, funny strange person Addie.”
She thrust a dead Truned into Addie’s lax hands.
???
Laying in her small tent at night, Addie couldn't sleep. Her mind replayed the early morning encounter with stubborn persistence. Like dirt all cracked and dry from drought, it suckled at the tiniest details from the meeting like they were droplets of water. She felt shaken to her core.
The happy, sturdy girls with baskets grounded Addie like nothing in the now-defunct City of Seraphims ever could. They represented life as she understood it. There were people out there who formed social groups, who had children, and they dressed their children in pretty clothes and boots with fluffy fur, and it was so wretchedlynormal. She longed to feel a little normalcy after floundering in this strange and hostile world.
The City of Seraphims hadn't had any children. Only now Addie could see how warped life had been in that place, how twisted the relationships between its inhabitants.
Sathe had been right, it wasn’t the planet that made her life miserable, although the planet definitely hadn't helped to welcome her into her new life. It was the people at the city, the forced intimacy between them, the petty intrigues and covert power struggle, the ever-present undercurrent of derision the women had felt toward the alien For, and the Fors’ veiled scorn toward the easy human women. It had been toxic, all of it.
Addie’s mind buzzed with implications of the girls’ appearance. A For campsite couldn't be too far from here. What were her chances of making friends with the adults? Oh, what would she give for being accepted, even as a poor relation, to a group of people! Just the notion of living life in total isolation, with only her Yuux for company, was suddenly intolerable.
She would go, find the tribe, make herself known, and take it from there.
Excited and apprehensive, Addie finally fell asleep.
Chapter 5
Aweek had gone by since the For girls’ chance visit, and Addie was beginning to feel disheartened. The girls hadn’t come back, and she had so far been unable to find where they came from.
She was angry at her own nearsightedness. She should have followed the girls straight away, before the spongy moss they stepped on sprang back and concealed their footprints. But like a dingbat she was, she spent the rest of that day in excited lalaland, daydreaming about making friends with For as she skinned and gutted the Truned. It was a disgusting task, and even that effort had been wasted. During the night, some animal had gotten into the pot where Truned meat was marinating and absconded with her bounty, breaking her new clay pot in the process.
But Addie hadn’t given up on her search. She had drawn a map in the sand, positioning her teepee in the center. Every day, she ventured out in one direction and walked for miles in search of the settlement. Over the course of several days, she’d gone south, east, north, and west, and did it all over again with absolutely zero results. Had their tribe passed by this area and was now gone? For were, after all, nomadic.
Sitting by her teepee mushing her tubers, she contemplated improvements to her search strategy.
One of her Yuux - Ihr - came back and settled on a nearby bush, watching her out of its five unblinking eyes. Ehr batted its wings in greeting but otherwise didn’t engage.
“Huh,” Addie said out loud, her going to the Yuux and refusing to move on.
When was the last time both Yuux had left her side? Usually, they would often disappear during the day to take care of their Yuux business. But lately, at least one always stayed close. And they didn’t sleep.
Suddenly unsettled, Addie slowly straightened her back and scanned the area.
