Amber and Clay by Laura Schlitz (phonics books txt) 📕

the pine needles off her dress and stumbled down the steep bank, setting her feet sideways because of the slope. She held out her hand to the child.

“It’s time for you to stop crying.” Her voice was brusque, with a hint of Thracian accent.

The little girl scampered up to grab her hand. Her eyes were half drowned in tears.

“Come and bring your cloak. You can sleep with me. If we have two cloaks, we’ll be twice as warm.”

The little girl wiped her nose on her palm and handed her cloak to Melisto. Melisto showed her the sheltered place under the pine trees. The little girl spoke respectfully. “Did you make that? It’s good.”

Melisto nodded, happy to have this confirmed. “We’ll have two blankets,” she pointed out, “and we can pile pine needles between them.”

“I can sleep with you?”

“I said you could, didn’t I?” Melisto squatted down and smoothed out a wrinkle in her cloak. “Lie down. I’ll cover you.”

She covered the child with half her cloak and heaped pine needles on top. Over the pine needles, she draped the second cloak, folded in two. “Now, let me in.” She squirmed under the blankets and curled up on her side, knees bent.

“What’s your name?”

“Melisto, daughter of Arkadios.” Melisto spoke proudly, as befitted the child of a distinguished man.

“Mine is Elpis.” The girl wiggled closer, fitting her body into the curve of Melisto’s. “I saw you when we were on the Akropolis. You’ve got a necklace, too.” She pointed to a circlet of beads around her neck. “Mine is new.”

Melisto had forgotten the amber sphinx. She cupped her fingers around the carved sphinx head.

“Did your mother give you yours? Mine gave me mine.”

Melisto frowned. “In a way.”

“My mother gave me mine, because she’s going to miss me. She cried, and I cried. I didn’t want to leave home. But she says I’ll like it. She was a Bear when she was a little girl.”

Melisto raised herself up on her elbow. “Did she tell you what it’s like?”

Elpis shifted onto her back. She propped her legs on top of Melisto’s knees. The warmth of her childish body was surprisingly sweet. “She told me everything, but I’m not supposed to tell. It’s a secret, what it’s like being a Bear.”

“But what is it like?”

“We get to play outdoors all the time. The priestesses don’t care about us getting dirty or sunburned, because we’re Bears. Except, when we stop being Bears, and go home again, we have to stay indoors. Till our skins get pale. Then we can get married. But as long as we’re Bears, we can play outside. And we can have pets. I want a frog and a little rabbit. All the animals around the sanctuary are tame, because nobody dares hunt them. Artemis would punish them. Some girls like hunting, and they go out with bows and arrows, but they can’t hunt close to the sanctuary. Mother says the priestesses like wild girls, so they aren’t strict during the day, but at night we have to do everything they say, as soon as they tell us, and the best we can — ”

“At night?”

“Yes, because at night we play the games and say our prayers and do the dances for Artemis. If we don’t do them right, we’re disobeying Artemis. That’s bad.”

“What happens if we’re bad?”

“If we’re really bad, we get sent home. And we have to find the way back ourselves, and we might get lost. Or eaten by wolves. And even if we found our way home again, it’d be shameful for our families, and no man would want to marry us. No man wants a girl who wasn’t a good Bear.” Elpis gave a great yawn. “And even if we did get married, we might not be able to have babies, because Artemis won’t help. My mother was a good Bear, but I was hard to birth. She prayed, and Artemis saved her life, but she almost died. She said she loved me all the more, because she had to fight so hard for me.” Her voice was drowsy.

“She didn’t say that,” Melisto said accusingly.

“Yes, she did,” insisted Elpis. Sleepy she might be, but she was definite on that point. “She says it all the time.” She snuggled closer to Melisto and gave a little sigh. All at once she was asleep.

Melisto’s mind sifted through the day. Thratta was braiding her hair; Lysandra was giving her the amber sphinx . . . By midwinter, her father might have a son. She shut her eyes at the thought and seemed to be back on the Akropolis: she heard the women cry out as the goat’s blood spattered the dust. Then she was walking by the grave markers outside the city, the butterfly perched on her arm . . . The butterfly’s wings were blue as rosemary flowers, and Korinna was smiling, that godlike, roguish smile . . . “Korinna,” murmured Melisto, and then: “Elpis.” These were the two new people in her world, and she must not forget their names. She repeated them to herself until she fell asleep.

3. CAVE, GROVE, BRIDGE

On the second day of the journey, there was thunder and downpour. The rain fell in veils that blinded the children and blurred the green of the trees. The four handmaids gathered the Bears and divided them into groups, locking their hands together. Korinna led her group to a steep hillside. Like a shuttle finding its way through warp threads, she tugged the girls between overlapping rocks.

The girls shivered. Inside the cave, the air was dim, but Melisto’s owl eyes adjusted quickly. Korinna was counting the girls, touching each one on the crown of her head. There was a firepit surrounded by black stones. A rough niche held a clay figure of Pan, the god of caves.

Korinna finished her head count. She untied a flask that hung from her belt and went to the clay image. She poured a few drops of liquid in front of