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The rasses supplied food, too They were top-heavy with seeds and grains In the ih-bush cranberries, bearberries, hard small apples, starchy potatolike roots, and edible ferns She was pleased to find reen pods held rows of suweed to grind and add to grains that she cooked into mush Her environment supplied her needs

She decided shortly after she arrived that she needed a new fur wrap Winter held back the worst of its weather, but it was cold and she knew the snoould not be long in coht first of a lynx fur; the lynx held a specialfor her But its meat would be inedible, at least to her taste, and food was as i care of her i as she was able to hunt, but she needed to lay in a store for the time ahead when snoould keep her in the cave Food was now her reason for hunting

She hated the thought of killing one of the gentle shy creatures that had shared her retreat for so long, and she wasn’t sure if a deer could be killed with a sling She was surprised they still used the high pasture when she saw the se of the opportunity before they moved to lower elevations A stone hurled with force at close range felled a doe, and a hard bloith a wooden club finished it off

The fur was thick and soft—nature had prepared the animal for the cold winter—and venison stew ht a bad-tempered wolverine, a swift stone killed it and reminded her the first ani fro, she had told Oga Frost fro did not build up on the fur of a wolverine; their pelts always made the best hoods This ti the slain scavenger back to the cave

She built fires in a circle around her lines of drying meat to keep other carnivores away and to hasten the process of drying, and she rather liked the taste the s a hole in the rear of her cave, shallow, since the layer of earth was not deep at the back of the small crack in the mountain, and lined it with stones from the stream After her meat was stored, she covered her cache with heavy rocks

Her new fur, cured while the , had a smoky odor, too, but it arm and, with the old one, , too, from its ashed, waterproof stomach, and sinew for cord, and fat from the lump above its tail where the animal stored its winter supply She worried about snow every day while her , and slept outside within her circle of fires to keep theht She felt relieved and much more secure once it was safely stashed away

When a heavily overcast sky hid the e of tirace of the spirits, you are able to return froh its cycle once and is in the saain” She didn’t know if she was in the “otherworld,” but o back She wasn’t really sure if she could, didn’t know if they would see her if she went back, but Brun said she could, and she clung to the leader’s words Only hoould she knohen she could return if the clouds covered the moon?

She re before when Creb showed her how to uessed that the collection of notched sticks he kept in a part of the hearth—off limits for the other nificant events Once, out of curiosity, she decided to keep track of soh repetitive cycles, she decided it would be fun to see how many notches it would take to complete one cycle When Creb found out, he scolded her severely The repri her not to do it again She worried a whole day how she would ever knohen she could return to the cave before she reht No matter how she tried to control them, tears came to her eyes every time she made a mark

Tears caeredacross her path re walks with Creb She loved his craggy, one-eyed, scarred old face The thought of it filled her eyes to overflowing Seeing a plant she had gathered for Iza, Ayla would burst into sobs re hoas used; and a freshet of new tears cahts were the worst

She was accusto the countryside gathering plants or hunting, but she had never been away fro at the fire and its glowing reflection dancing against the wall, she cried for the companionship of those she loved In soed her fur to her chest and rocked back and forth, hu softly under her breath as she had done so often with Uba Her environment supplied her physical needs but not her human needs

The first snow sifted down silently during the night Ayla exclaiht when she stepped out of her cave in theA pristine whiteness softened the contours of the faical dreamland of fantastic shapes and mythical plants Bushes had top hats of soft snow, conifers were dressed in nens of white finery, and bare exposed liainst the deep blue sky Ayla looked at her footprints,white, then ran across the snowy blanket, crossing and recrossing her own path to inal intent was lost in the execution She started to follow the tracks of a sed her e of the rocky outcrop swept clean of snow by the wind

The entireup behind her in a series of majestic peaks was covered hite, shadowed in blue It sparkled in the sun like a gigantic, luminous jewel The vista spread out before her showed the lowest reaches of the snowfall The blue green sea, whipped to a frothy foam of waves, nestled between the cleft of snow-covered hills, but the steppes to the east were still bare Ayla saw tiny figures scuttling across the white expanse directly below her It had snowed at the cave of the clan, too One of the figures seeic left the snowy landscape and she climbed back down

The second snowfall had no ic at all The temperature dropped sharply Whenever she left the cave, fierce winds drove sharp needles into her bare face, leaving it raw The blizzard lasted four days, piling snow so high against the wall, it nearly blocked the entrance to her cave She tunneled out, using her hands and a flat hipbone of the deer she had killed, and spent the day gathering wood Drying the meat had depleted the supply of fallen wood nearby, and floundering through deep snow left her exhausted She was sure she had food enough to last her, but she hadn’t been as careful about stockpiling wood She wasn’t sure she had enough, and if it snowed much more, her cave would be buried so deep she wouldn’t be able to get out

For the first time since she found herself at her small cave, she feared for her life The elevation of her ot trapped in her cave, she’d never last through the winter She hadn’t had time to prepare for the entire cold season Ayla returned to her cave in the afternoon and proet more wood the next day

Bywith full force, and the entrance to her cave was cohtened She wondered how deeply she was buried under the snow She found a long branch and poked it up through the branches of the hazelnut bush, knocking snow into her cave She felt a draft and looked up to see snow flying horizontally in the driving wind She left the branch in the hol

e and went back to her fire

It was fortunate she had decided to ht of the drift The hole, kept open by the stick, brought fresh air into the tiny space she occupied The fire needed oxygen, and so did she Without the air hole, she could easily doze into a sleep froer than she knew

She found she didn’t needood insulator Her body heat alone could almost have kept the small space warm But she needed water The fire was more important to melt snow than to maintain heat

Alone in the cave, lit only by the small fire, the only way she could tell the difference between day and night was by the di the dayti when the light faded