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soon?'
    'Maybe.' She walked on a little faster. The first night they camped she had tried to make him understand why they had to leave Carp and Benu's hunters behind. But as he realized she meant that they were running away from Carp, he had become agitated. The more she explained, the more upset he had become, swiftly reaching a point where he was not hearing anything she said. 'Carp, Carp!' he had wailed, rocking back and forth as he crouched on the frozen ground beside the small fire. 'Carp! Carp!' Until she had feared that if there were any of Benu's hunters tracking them, the sound would attract them.
    'Hush, hush,' she had comforted him, choosing any words that would quiet him. 'Tomorrow, then, we'll go back. Just be quiet now, Kerlew, and tomorrow we'll go back to find them.' And then, cruelly, because he wailed still, 'Hush! Or a bear will hear you!' That had silenced him, leaving him shaking with his pale eyes wide. 'We will go back tomorrow,' she had assured him, repeating the words until he slept. But when morning came, she had continued on her trek away from the hunters' camp, Kerlew none the wiser. A few times each day now he asked when they would find Carp, and she gave him nebulous answers. Soon enough he would forget. She knew her son that well; nothing stayed in his memory for long.
    'I walk where no man has ever walked before!'
    She glanced over at him. His smile was too wide, too wet. Sometimes she longed to slap it from his face, make pain chase away the vacuous, idiot smile and the foolish words. But she did not. She knew only too well the consuming self-disgust that would follow such an act. 'You chose to keep him with you,' she reminded herself. 'You could have left him to Carp. You know you cannot beat sense into him.' To Kerlew she said, 'That's silly. Just because you cannot see a trail does not mean that no man has ever walked there before.'
    'On this snow!' Kerlew explained, smiling at the thought: 'On this snow, no one has ever walked before, for the tracks would be here. This snow fell new last night, and the first tracks on it are mine. I walk where no one has walked before.'
    'Mmm.' Tillu kept walking. There were times when the hoy almost made sense, when she believed that, to him, his observations and statements followed some mysterious logic of his own. Carp's shamanic instruction of the boy had made him more vocal; there was that she could say for it. Unfortunately, what Kerlew vocalized was the mystical gabble he had picked up from the old man.
    She glanced across at her son. If only he would stand straighter, not drag his feet when he walked. If only his eyes would not wander and stare through things, he would not be such an awkward-looking boy. Not handsome, perhaps, but no worse than some she had seen take wives and build homes. Perhaps she could change the way he moved and spoke. Alone and apart from all others, perhaps he would turn once more to her, listen to her again. She would teach him, and this time it would he different. This time he would learn and grow. He would walk at her side through the forest and learn, not only her herbs of healing, but a hunter's skills. He would learn silence, and swiftness, and skill with a bow. As he grew, he would stand tall and move as a man should move. And one day she and Kerlew would be hunting, and they would come across strange hunters. Kerlew would be standing straight, having just brought down a fine deer, and the hunter folk would smile at the sight of the tall young hunter, and there would be a young woman who would look at him just a little longer than was quite proper, and she would be the —
    'I'm hungry.'
    The complaint broke the dream. Tillu sighed, both at her own foolishness and at Kerlew's request. She had taken what supplies she could, but already they dwindled. The boy ate so much, so fast. She glanced again at him. Skinny. Perhaps she should give him the worm tea again.
    'I'm hungry,' he repeated into her silence.
    'Soon.' One