Chapter Thirty-Four - Coming Clean

  -Summer-

  “Clothing can be used to keep us warm during winter. Much warmer than the furs. And when used in conjunction with the furs, we’ll be so warm it’ll seem like summer, instead of cold. Cloth can also be used to process foods so that they’re different and tastier, as well as keeping things out of food like bugs and dirt.” Belbet explained, falling into a rhythm with her lecturing. Her fingers were falling into a rhythm with the hair net, as well. Maybe after so many days of working on it, she was finally starting to get to the point where the movements were instin-Nope, she just slipped up, and now she had to cut a section and start knotting in longer strands.

  Olleb looked up from where he was grinding down seeds to make flour, and spoke. “How do you know all of these things?”

  It was a question Belbet had gotten from everyone she knew, and at this point, she wasn’t sure how to answer it. Deenat and Kaion had both let it pass when she distracted them, but it brought her thoughts back around to what exactly she was meant to say to it. She couldn’t just say that she was from a whole different world and had lived a life there and then got shoved into Belbet’s brain, could she?

  …Actually, why couldn’t she? Not in so many words, that is. But… Well, in the old times of Victoria’s world, people had claimed to be things like Shamans and Witches, believing in past lives and dream visions and such. And this world obviously had more magic than Victoria’s old one. Would she be believed?

  She looked around to Deenat, to Kaion, to Olleb and Mermel who were only staying for a short time. Honestly, wouldn’t the people who joined them later be more inclined to listen to her if she seemed to be blessed by gods or something?

  Hold on, now. This is cult-leader-stuff. Belbet thought to herself. Telling lies about stuff like this is how people start forming cults and that never ends well.

  It’s also how people start religions. She countermanded her own thoughts, considering, And religion has been used for aeons to control others and keep people from doing heinous things. …and also to do heinous things, but well… I’m a good person. I don’t intend to let anyone be hurt or get hurt, so…

  What’s the harm in telling the truth? She concluded. Or at least, a modified version of the truth.

  “A while ago, I had a fever. During the fever, I saw many, many things. Visions of another world and another life, where life was easier. Food was so abundant that it was wasted in great caverns. People lived in solid houses that were so good at keeping heat in and cold out that in the summer, they had to use machines, magic tools, to bring cold air into them. Babies rarely died, and people lived so long that their bodies just gave out on them. Very few died of sickness or injury, because medicine could reattach limbs and take out organs that hurt and replace them.”

  She looked up from the net after she finished this, to see all of the adults' eyes on her. She swallowed, smiling encouragingly at them. She continued, “In this dream, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how they had done all of these things in this other world. And I learned some, but not all of their techniques.”

  She gestured to the hut and the kilns, “But these, I learned, and so I’m using them now, to try and keep us alive as long as I can, as well as I can.”

  “Visions?” Deenat pressed, frowning, “Is that what changed you?”

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  Belbet nodded, “In my visions, I saw children raised lovingly by their close family, and cared for so well that they grew up to make machines that sent people up to the stars and back. I saw children who grew up so well that they made things that allowed people to talk to people on the other side of the world, in the same day.”

  An oversimplification, to be sure, but it was enough that she had their rapt attention, that she was able to impart her visions and share with them what it was she was aching for, reaching for, desperately yearning for.

  “It was a world with it’s own problems… but it was paradise compared to this world and it’s problems. So I want to make somewhere better. A Home that isn’t deadly, but safe, a home that isn’t hungry, but full, and a home that isn’t scary, but exciting.”

  “That’s quite the dream.” Kaion murmured, and he had that weird scowl on his face that Belbet had learned meant he was thinking on something. “Do you think it possible to reach that level in one lifetime?”

  Belbet couldn’t help but bark out a sharp laugh and shake her head. “No. No, I don’t. Some of those things that they made in that world took so many generations that people forgot the names of those who started it. You don’t have the words to understand what amount of time it took.”

  Mermel and Olleb looked confused at each other, and she realized they didn’t know what time was. She sighed, shaking her head, “No. But we have enough time in our lives that we can at least give our children a head start, and maybe leave ideas for them to take with them into the future. We can leave them with plans for how to get closer to what I saw. That’s all that we can do.”

  Deenat nodded slowly, as if things were starting to come together for her. “That’s why you were so worried about the children.”

  “Yes. Because if we lose them, we lose the chance to bring my visions to reality.” Belbet confirmed, “And also because I love them, and I don’t want to see the people I love hurting or dead.”

  She nodded again, and her white hair slipped over her shoulder, the usual braid she kept it in sloppy. Belbet really needed to figure out how to make oil, so that they could begin to make hair oil that would help with that. She sighed, pushing away the thought of things she needed to make, turning her attention back onto what she was doing. Then, like lightning, she had a thought.

  “I know how to make a sieve.” She breathed, and grinned, “I just need a circular hoop made out of wood!” She bounced a little in her seat, and turned to Kaion, who flinched as if startled that she was looking at him. His eyes bounced up to her face, and she grinned at him, “Can you make me a hoop of wood, about this big?”

  She held out her hands to the size of a serving platter and when he gave her a quizzical nod, she grinned even bigger. “Perfect! Thank you!” She turned back to her net, because she couldn’t leave a project unfinished.

  Olleb reached over and took another handful of grains, putting it onto the stone plate and continued grinding. Looking over, Belbet lamented ever having enough to be able to make substantial savings. But at least they would have enough for this meal. More calories meant more healthy workers. She smiled, and nudged her chin towards the growing pile of stone-ground flour. “Can you give me that?”

  She turned to Eefim, and smiled, “Did you find anymore eggs today? It’s okay if you didn’t.”

  When he shook his head, she sighed and nodded, “Alright, can you bring me a sweet potato?”

  Once she had one, she wrapped it in mud, and set it in the fire beneath the soup-skin, and gave it some time to cook. The camp crackled and settled silently as the setting sun painted the sky pinks and purples. Shadows lengthened in the camp, and she knew it would be dark soon. She paused in her intent to get the net started and began showing Eefim how to turn some of the hair into wicks by essentially turning them into yarn. Then, she showed him how to boil down beaver fat, put it into a cup, set the wick inside and turn it into a very rudimentary lantern.

  Soon, they had quite a few of these little lanterns sitting at various spots in the camp, thanks to Eefim. By the time he’d placed his fourth, she pulled the clay-covered sweet potato out of the fire, and cracked it open. Ignoring the skin, she scooped out the steaming hot insides and combined them with the flour from the seeds. This, she shaped into patties and set them to cook on the same rock that she’d cooked the snake-meat on.

  This, she put to the side to cook all the way through, before returning to check on the soup. It was bubbling and aromatic, and when she scooped out a small cup full and tasted it, it was bland. She wrinkled her nose, knowing that they needed some salt for it, but honestly she still hadn’t perfected the salt-processing and she wasn’t in the mood to deal with grit in her soup tonight. So this would have to do.

  She took a deep breath as the last of the sun slipped beneath the horizon, and night truly began. The Blue Moon was entirely eclipsed, invisible in the dark except for where stars didn’t shine, and the grey moon showed only a crescent, slowly growing into full, but it would be a long while before that happened. Belbet considered the stars and the moon for a moment, before serving up the food to everyone, wood-carved bowls holding soup and sweet-potato cakes dipped into the greasy broth.

  It was a good reminder she was alive. It was a good reminder that they all were alive.

  A woeful whine reminded her of their furry companion, the wolf still laying still due to his injuries, and she gave an indulgent smile when Eefim fed the wolf some of his sweet potato cake, and a big serving of the almost-spoiled snake meat.

  Mini Character List

  Victoria/Belbet - Our Main Character, 21 yr old pregnant Mom. - Other transmigrators never bother saying, but it could be useful. So I'm gonna.

  Dahnei - 5 year old paleolithic child. Daughter of Belbet. Jerboa Mouse-Spirited. - ZzzzzZZZZZZzzz

  Mohniit - 2 year old paleolithic child. Son of Belbet. Rabbit Spirited. - ZZzzzZZZZZzzzz

  Unborn Baby - Oh, I like this stuff. MORE PLEASE.

  Deenat - 25 year old paleolithic gatherer - Ermine Spirited. - So thats why she changed so much... Visions. My sister has been granted visions. ...What God granted them, though?

  Eefim - 11 year old paleolithic hunter-in-training - My aunt is so frickin' cool. She figured out how to make torches that keep themselves lit and don't burn us!

  Kaion - 26 year old man. Ram Spirited. - Okay, so she has visions. Shit. I am aiming so far above my league here. I need to figure out something useful. quick.

  Wolf - FINALLY. Oh, this is tasty as hell actually.

  Olleb - age 35 - viper spirited - ... A vision-having woman... and the visions she speaks of are so... compelling.

  Mermel -age 39 - Malamute spirited - I wonder what a seive is. It sounds interesting.