III The First and the Last
Vierra winced awake and noticed she was lying on an opening that led inside the cliff. Underneath her, she could feel the cold surface of the rock, and behind her twinkled the bare, star-filled sky. Forward, somewhere in the depths of the corridor, she could see a fluttery gleam of light. Vierra got up and approached it cautiously. Soon the corridor opened up into a big cave. In the middle was a fire, and behind the flames was the Mother. She stood facing the wall, away from Vierra, painting the wall with a color as red as blood. The huge walls of the cave were covered in pictures of men, animals, and life. There were the deer, the salmon, and the moose, the most important game for the Kainu. Amid them were the gallant wolf, bear, and wolverine. The entire history of the tribe was painted on the walls. Somewhere they hunted, somewhere they loved, here and there the children ran around playfully. The gloom of the fire made the wall paintings flicker and overlap. Some showed battles against men or beasts, in which the red paint looked the most like blood. The changing light made one picture disappear, only to reveal another one beneath it. In turn, this one also disappeared and made way for a third. The movement of the lively flame made Vierra doubt her eyes, and she blinked furiously to clear them.
Extending her hearing, Vierra could discern the low voices. The pictures were alive! People were talking and animals grunting. Here and there, children laughed or cried. As Vierra kept looking, the voices became louder and more numerous until they completely filled her head and she had to close her eyes.
The Mother turned towards Vierra, and her wrinkled face was full of surprise.
“What are you doing here? It is not your time yet.”
“I don’t know. I must be dreaming.”
“A dream this is not. There must be a reason that you are here, though; you must know because you are the last.”
“The last what?”
“The last of the Kainu, the last Mother. The greatest of us all, and yet still so small and powerless. Everybody else I will paint to this wall, but in time, you will paint yourself. Then our story will have been told in its entirety, and we will all meet by the fires of the underworld. You will paint it there,” said the Mother, pointing at the only empty spot in the cave wall. Around it were only pictures of women. There were noble young women armed with spears and bows. There were wrinkly old women sitting by their campfires. Others were giving birth, bringing new life to this world. Some dried fish in the strong winds in between winter and spring.
“What do I have to do?” asked Vierra. The fate of their tribe was making her uneasy. She could feel how tiny and insignificant she was in the middle of these majestic walls that surrounded her. “Why isn’t Aure here? Isn’t it she who will be the chieftain?”
“I do not know,” said the Mother,laughing in a tone that was not at all encouraging. “And even if I did, it is not my place to say. Your cousin’s path is not yours to travel.”
“And why did you take my father and mother? Why didn’t you take anything from Aure?”
“The Fargoer does not have a mother; the Wanderer does not have a father. When you have to decide, decide well. When you can’t affect things, bear them. When you do well, do not stop and rejoice because the next challenge will come soon and pass you by. You will perform great deeds, but your path will also be filled with great pain and sorrow. Songs are not sung of such deeds in Kainu campfires, but it doesn’t make them meaningless.”
“That means nothing,” Vierra replied. She tried to keep her anger at bay out of respect to the walls rather than the Mother.
“That is true. Luckily, your life’s troubles are not my troubles. Sleep now, but remember everything, especially this cave. You will know when it is time.” And Vierra’s eyes closed, and no dream reached her again that night.
The girls awoke to the flies buzzing; the fires had gone out a good while ago. The sun had risen to the cloudless sky, boding another hot day. However, there was a dark front of thunder far on the horizon like a huge, steep line of mountains. The girls got up and quickly readied themselves for their journey home. Both had wide smiles across their faces. Like any children, they quickly forgot the bad things they had suffered and nurtured the good things in their minds. They would be considered adults now, and would soon be celebrated by the hut fires of their people. Their child minds couldn’t yet anticipate what adulthood would bring with it. As they climbed down the cliff towards the strand, their eyes met and their smiles faded. They both knew that the events of the previous evening would be kept a secret.
What had happened on that island had changed them irreversibly, and the joys of childhood had now slipped from their grasp, forever gone.
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The story continues in chapter 2: Autumn Flames. You can find it from here.
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