People of the Owl(146)

Father Moon chased after her, following her south across the Sky. As his light waned, Winter came roaring down from the north, cloaking the land in snow and ice. Plants died, turned different colors, and lost their leaves. Animals burrowed into the ground, desperate to save themselves from the freezing weather and the endless darkness. Birds, desperate for Mother Sun, flew south, many disappearing out in the gulf; where they ended up, no one knows.

In the end, it was Bird Man who, seeing his world dying, flew south after the birds. There he found Mother Sun sulking at the edge of the sea, where it joined the Sky. He told her of the cold, of the dying trees, and how the animals had burrowed into the earth. He told how Father Moon was so lonely that he had hidden his face in sorrow.

“If you do not come back, the world is going to die!”

Mother Sun listened, and realized that no matter how mad she was at Father Moon, she couldn’t let the rest of the world die. So it was she came back to the Sky, and the plants came alive, and people and animals were warm again. Seeing how grateful the creatures were, she shot beams of light onto the water, and a beautiful flower grew there. To this day the yellow lotus grows, its flower reflecting the face of Mother Sun. It is her promise to the world that she will always return to light the Sky.

Mother Sun never forgave Father Moon. That is why she forever moves across the Sky, always avoiding him. Father Moon still hides his face in shame and never glows as brightly as he did before the night he betrayed his mate.

Among the animals, bear, raccoon, the bats, the bees, and so many other creatures still hibernate when Mother Sun goes south with each cycle. In return, Mother Sun marks her return to the high summer Sky with the blooming of the yellow lotus. When the people harvest it for the solstice ceremony, its roots are sweet, and its flower resembles the face of Mother Sun so that people never forget her gift of life to them.

As she Sang the song, Pine Drop took damp lotus leaves from a stone bowl and wrapped balls of dough in the leaves. These she laid to one side on palmetto matting.

Her heating fire had burned down to coals, the central cluster of lotus-shaped cooking clays having taken on a white glow. She used a stick to scrape half of them onto a thin wooden platter and gingerly lowered them into the earth oven. As she poured them, she had to jerk her hand back from the searing heat.

“Hey, Cousin!”

She glanced up, seeing Eats Wood as he strode down the ridge. Sunlight shone on his muscular chest. His lightly greased skin reflected the light; his tattoos stood out as dark blue designs on his brown skin. Several necklaces of stone and bone beads hung around his neck, and he wore a green-dyed breechcloth. A mocking smile curled his round face, and his hair had been parted down the middle and cut short to bob just above his shoulders.

“Greetings, Cousin.” She shot him a polite smile and bent down to lay the first of her wrapped lotus-root breads onto the cooking clays.

To her irritation, Eats Wood knelt beside her, asking, “Can I help?”

“No. Just a moment.” She artfully laid the rest of the wraps onto the cooking clays. She couldn’t help but wonder what he wanted as she scraped the last of the cooking clays from the fire and shook them from the smoldering plate into the earth oven. She had never liked Eats Wood. He let his penis dominate any good sense he might have had. The parallels between Father Moon and Cousin Eats Wood couldn’t have been more clear. When she had placed the bark lid on the earth oven to seal in the steaming heat, she looked up.

“I just came to see how you were doing,” Eats Wood began. He gestured around at the ramada, then at her house. “Do you need anything? Can I bring you anything? Firewood? Some palmetto for that place where the wind shredded your ramada roof?”

She picked little bits of dough from her slim brown fingers. “I appreciate your offer, but I suspect that you didn’t come here because you were worried about my firewood supply.”

He settled back on his butt, rubbed his sun-browned shin, and looked around at the near houses. His expression had a slightly pained look as if he were trying to find the right words.

“Is it about your mother?” she asked. Eats Wood still lived at home. He had been notoriously hard to marry off. Despite the size of Sun Town, Eats Wood’s reputation preceded him. Few in the other clans considered him a likely candidate for marriage—even though Snapping Turtle Clan’s influence had grown like a north wind at winter solstice.

“She is fine, but thank you for asking.” He pressed his lips together, studying her with narrowed brown eyes. “It is said that you will very likely become our Clan Elder someday.”