Jonayla

My head hurts, so I slip out of the Zelendoni meeting that my mother insisted I attend, and skirt around the tent. Going past where my father tells once again how he met my mother, I hurry so he doesn't see me, and get me to come and listen, and head toward the lake.

The lake that I've longed to swim in since we arrived at the distant summer meeting.

The sun is high in the sky, meaning it is middle of the day and I don't have long until the meeting breaks up, and my absence is noticed. Soon they will break for a meal.

But I don't care. I don't want to be a Zelendoni, so I don't know why she, my mother, the First, insists on me going to the meetings.

She probably thinks I will change my mind, but I won't. I don't want to do what she wants me to do.

And neither do I want to be a flint knapper like my father.

I must admit, I find the little bits of flint around our shelter in the Nine Cave annoying.

And cannot imagine I would ever, and I mean ever, want to do that once I'm fully grown.

Though I nearly am. My mother was by my age.

She had a child when she was younger than me, and sometimes I see her looking at me as if she is wondering if I will ever become a woman.

I am twelve summers old and in no hurry to grow up. Not if it means I will have to become a Zelendoni, or have to choose a trade.

The thing is, I don't know what I want to do. Sometimes at night, I go outside and stare up at the lights in the dark sky, and think about what they are. I wonder if they are really the Hearths of those already gone, like the Hearth of my grandmother who I barely remember.

But sometimes I wonder if those pinpricks of light are actually other worlds, like ours, or different.

I wonder what it would be like to live somewhere totally different.

'Jonayla.'

I sigh when I hear my name, though I know it is not my mtoehr, because she would be shouting at me if she knew where I was.

I turn.

'What do you want Jaradal?' I hiss.

'I just wanted…' He sighs. 'Are you going to the lake?'

'I was.'

'Can I come too?'

'No.'

He frowns. 'Why not?'

'I just…'

Why don't I want him to come? I like him, he's the son of my father's brother after all, and I have grown up with him, but I don't know, I just feel that I want to be alone. It feels almost as if something wants me to be alone. Something is calling to me.

Yes, something is definitely calling to me.

And it isn't calling to him.

'I'm not going to go to the lake,' I say quickly. 'I was just taking a walk, and now I'm going back to the Zelendoni tent, where my mother will be waiting for me. I really do need to go. You could go to the lake though. I'm sure there are others there.'

'There probably are,' he says with what sounds like a disappointed voice. 'But they won't be you.'

I shrug.

'I will walk you back to the Zelendonii tent if you want.'

I shake my head. 'I can find my own way.' And before he can argue, or try to come with me, I push past him, and run toward the nearby forest.

And I'm a fast runner so easily leave him behind.

'Jonayla' he shouts.

'See you later.'

I reach the trees, and turn around to see him heading toward the lake. So it seems like I'm not going to go there today after all.

So where should I go?

I walk through the trees, edging around them until I come to the cliff.

'I wonder if there are any caves around here?'

I've never found a cave. My mother has, in fact, she's found quite a few, but me, no, I've never found any. Though it doesn't help that all the caves near my home have already been found by my mother.

But she has never been here before.

So she hasn't found any caves around here.

'I wonder,' I say to myself, as I stare up at the cliff wall.

And see a dark shape that can only be a cave.

With no way up to it, unless I climb the sheer cliff wall.

So I start to climb.

Putting my hands on it, I search for a crevice to pull myself up with, and others so I can place my feet in them.

And very slowly, pretty much like a spider on a cave wall, I climb up the cliff to the dark shape far above.

Its tiring climbing, but I don't rest when I pull myself onto a jutting out stone in front of what is definitely a cave.

No, I stand up, and walk carefully into the cave.

I leave all my world behind, in the bright sunlight, and walk into what should be a dark space, if it wasn't for the strange light coming from the back of the cave.

That looks like a waterfall of light.

And feels a bit like water too, well until it pulls me in.