Come In and Cover Me by Gin Phillips

Author:Gin Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group, USA
Published: 2011-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

THE PARROTS CAME FIRST. They were splashes of paint in the air. Lynay had never seen one until the day that Non came, announced by the parrots. They came as a pair, circling, and Lynay called to her mother and asked what they were, knowing they had too much red and blue to be hawks or eagles, were too big to be firebirds or jays.

This is what Lynay noticed about Non: The air around her vibrated, as with heat. Years passed before she realized that not everyone found Non beautiful, that it wasn’t something undeniable like small feet or long hair. Non made no noise when she walked. Her thighs were long and muscled like a large cat’s. Her teeth were large, and she was missing none of them. When her wide mouth smiled, her teeth formed a white wall.

It was not unusual for a woman with sons of the right age to make the journey to find suitable women. It was a helpful bargaining piece for a man to have his mother with him, to have some visible sign that he was of a good family, that he had connections of his own. It meant something to the women of a place to know the beginnings of a man who would be climbing down their ladder, laying his sleeping mat next to one of their daughters’. Of course, many men came by themselves, small clouds of dust announcing they were coming to Women Crying.

What was unusual about Non arriving, other than the parrots, was that she came alone with her sons. The traveling groups were usually larger. Mothers needed someone to accompany them on the way back to their own people if their sons did indeed find women. No mother would stay with her sons. But obviously Non intended to do that.

She came with her bright waving apron and her hair threaded with red and blue and green feathers and her jangling shell bracelets and a basket on her head and one on her back. She came with two boys and two parrots. After a few seasons, she would have only one of the four left to her.

The men and women of the village, the older ones who always knew of things without being told because the wind brought all secrets to them, whispered that there had been trouble, that Non had been someone of considerable power in a large place farther north. But the water had gone dry, and even Non and her parrots and all the power their feathers brought could not make the water return. The elder men and women said Non had a daughter and the daughter had been chosen for one of the blessing ceremonies, the killing ceremonies, and Non had turned dark after that. She refused to intercede on her village’s behalf anymore. She had closed the door on top of her head, so she would no longer listen to the will of the Creator. But because of her power, her village was afraid to punish her.

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