The clan of the cave bear_ a novel - Jean M. Auel [159]
The second snowfall had no magic 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 meadow was too high. If she got 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 promised herself to get more wood the next day.
By morning, another blizzard was howling with full force, and the entrance to her cave was completely blocked. She felt closed in, trapped, and frightened. 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 hole and went back to her fire.
It was fortunate she had decided to measure the height 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 from which she’d never wake up. She had been in more danger than she knew.
She found she didn’t need much of a fire to keep the cave warm. The snow, trapping minuscule air pockets between its frozen crystals, was a good 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 dim light that filtered in through the air hole during the daytime. She was careful to mark a notch on her stick each evening when the light faded.
With nothing much to do except think, she stared long at the fire. It was warm and it moved and, enclosed in her tomblike world, it began to take on a life of its own. She watched it devour each stick of wood leaving only a residue of ash. Does fire have a spirit, too? she wondered. Where does the fire spirit go when it dies? Creb says when a person dies, the spirit goes to the next world. Am I in the next world? It doesn’t feel any different; lonelier, that’s all. Maybe my spirit is someplace else? How do I know? I don’t feel like it, though. Well, maybe. I think my spirit is with Creb and Iza and Uba. But I’m cursed, I must be dead.
Why would my totem give me a sign, knowing I’d be cursed? Why would I think he gave me a sign if he didn’t? I thought he tested me. Maybe this is another test. Or has he deserted me? But why would he choose me and then desert me? Maybe he didn’t desert me. Maybe he went to the spirit world for me. Maybe he’s the one who’s fighting the evil spirits; he could do it better than I could. Maybe he sent me here to wait. Could it be that he’s still protecting me? But if I’m not dead, what am I? I’m alone, that’s what I am. I wish I weren’t so alone.
The fire is hungry again, she wants