The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [126]
“Yes, you did. Just not with words. You taught me how to speak like the Clan does, with signs and motions, not words. I just try to understand your other signs.”
“But I didn’t teach you any signs like that. I don’t really know any. And you knew how to give me Pleasures before you ever learned how to speak in the language of the Clan.” She was frowning with seriousness in trying to understand, which brought a smile to his face.
“That’s true. But there is an unspoken language among people who speak, much more than they may realize.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” Ayla said, thinking how much she was able to understand about people they met just by paying attention to the signs they made without knowing it.
“And sometimes you learn how to … do some things just because you want to, so you pay attention,” he said.
She had been looking into his eyes, seeing in them the love he felt for her and the delight he seemed to be taking in her questions, and she noticed the unfocused look that came over him when he spoke. He stared into space as though he were seeing something far away for a moment, and she knew he was thinking of someone else.
“Especially when the one person you want to learn from is willing to teach you,” she said. “Zolena taught you well.”
He flushed, stared at her with shocked surprise, then looked away, disturbed.
“I’ve learned much from you, too,” she added, knowing her remark had troubled him.
He seemed unable to look directly at her. When he finally did, his forehead was knotted in a frown. “Ayla, how did you know what I was thinking?” he asked. “I mean, I know you have some special Gifts. That’s why the Mamut took you into the Mammoth Hearth when you were adopted, but sometimes you seem to know my thoughts. Did you take those thoughts from my head?”
She was sensing his concern and something more distressing, almost a fear of her. She had encountered a similar fear from some of the Mamutoi at the Summer Meeting when they thought she had some uncanny abilities, but most of it was misunderstanding. Like thinking she had some special control over animals, when all she did was find them when they were babies and raise them as her own.
But ever since the Clan Gathering, something had changed. She hadn’t meant to drink any of the special root mixture that she made for the mog-urs, but she couldn’t help it, and she hadn’t meant to go into that cave and find the mog-urs, it just happened. When she saw them all sitting in a circle in that alcove deep in the cave and … fell into the black void that was inside her, she thought she was lost forever and would never find her way back. Then, somehow, Creb had reached inside her and had spoken to her. Since then, there had been times when she did seem to know things that she couldn’t explain. Just like when Mamut took her with him when he Searched, and she felt herself rise up and follow him across the steppes. But as she looked at Jondalar and saw the strange way he was looking at her, a fear welled up inside her, a fear that she could lose him.
She looked at him in the light of the fire, then looked down. There could be no untruths … no lying between them. Not that she could deliberately say something that wasn’t true, anyway, but not even the understood “refraining from speaking” that the Clan allowed for the sake of privacy, could come between them now. Even at the risk of losing him if she told him the truth, she had to tell him and try to find out what was troubling him. She looked directly at him then, trying to find words to begin.
“I did not know your thoughts, Jondalar, but I could guess them. Weren’t we just talking about the unspoken signs that are made by people who speak with words? You make them, too, you know, and I … I look for them, and many times I know what they mean. Maybe because I love you so much and want to know you, I pay attention to you