Havva: The H Mutator: A Genetic Eve Story

By MPH Deborah Dunn MD and C. L. Kagmi

Havva lives in Ice Age Europe, where her people hunt majestic wild animals and harvest herbs, roots, and berries from the land. She has always wanted to be a hunter, but her grandmother says he clan needs her to be a healer instead.

Havva isn't sure healing is a useful skill - until her whole family falls ill with a dangerous sickness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Genetic Eve
• Release date: Mar 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733636315

Book preview

Prologue

The medicine woman Awyn stirred the embers of her fire with a stick, sending up a jet of bright orange sparks. Around her, the forest had grown dark, and the other people of her clan were preparing to sleep. They knew better than to bother their healer when she was deep in thought.

The night before, she had dreamed a True Dream - a dream with a quality of knowing about it. The kind of dream that Awyn was certain would turn out to be true. But this dream had been strange beyond measure - unlike any True Dream Awyn had dreamed before.

She had dreamed True Dreams about ordinary things. About the outcome of a hunt, about whether a baby would be a boy or a girl. But this was a dream about something new. Something that had never happened before. She knew the rules of nature; knew that the same patterns repeat. She had never dreamed a True Dream about something new before.

Her own daughter, Danee, was due to give birth before the next new moon. Danee was so looking forward to the child, and had been pressing her mother about what she might see in her dreams of the baby’s future. Was that why Awyn had had this dream? Did she simply have great hopes for her granddaughter?

In her dream, the baby had been born glowing with golden light. It was the light of Sohul, the Sun Goddess’ light. She was a special child, in ways Awyn had never seen before.

In her dream, Awyn had named the baby Havva - after Sohul’s first daughter from the old stories. Havva grew up to have thick dark hair and bright blue eyes, just like her mother.

And in her dream, Havva spoke with the land itself.

She had seen the child Havva kneeling in a field of white flowers - the magical flowers that helped people who grew sick recover from the winter illness to recover from it.

The sickness, Awyn knew, was the land’s trade with the people - it gave them animals to hunt for meat, food plants to eat, and magical plants that could help cure injury or disease.

In return, the land sometimes took the people back to itself. For each magical plant, there was a disease that could return one to the earth. That was a balance that could not be broken.

But in Awyn’s dream, her granddaughter Havva knelt in the field of white flowers and said to the land: You will no longer take so many of us in this way. We are becoming stronger. Now, the people and the land will work together, instead of against each other.

The land had given its assent by giving her a healing flower, which seemed to grow straight out of the ground and into the girl’s hands. A change had come over the whole field.

Awyn poked the embers again, remembering the power of her dream. Changes like this were the stuff of old stories, the stuff of myth.

But she knew that each myth had started with a true story.

*

Chapter 1

Havva knelt beside a stream, panting hard to catch her breath. Around her, trees rose tall, thick with green needles and red and yellow leaves.

She had been running for a long time. She was a strong runner, she knew - but the hunters had a whole morning’s head start on her. They had left at dawn - before the children were permitted to go out and forage for nuts and berries.

Havva had had to wait until Awyn let her go run after them. She knew her grandmother didn’t approve of her following the hunters. It seemed like lately, her grandmother didn’t approve of anything. She said Havva would have to learn to wait to hunt large beasts until she was bigger and stronger.

But Havva was impatient - another quality her grandmother didn’t approve of.

She wanted to learn now. She knew she was ready. She wanted to know how to wield a spear and how to move silently, so that she could sneak up on the wild boar and giant deer and huge, delicious giant cattle that roamed the plains beyond the forest.

When she knew those things, she could help feed her clan. Her grandmother said that wasn’t her job, that the clan had plenty of strong hunters.

Instead, her grandmother made her spend hours gathering herbs and mushrooms, and drying them or preserving them in fat.

She made Havva memorize what each one did - whether it battled bad spirits of a certain disease, helped the body heal from a wound, or eased the pains of childbirth and aching joints.

This tribe already had a medicine woman. Why did Awyn think it needed another one? And why did it have to be Havva?

Since she was the medicine woman, everyone in the clan did what Awyn said. Except for Havva. If she always did what Awyn said, she’d never have a free moment!

Havva knew she would be in trouble when she didn’t return with the leaves Awyn had asked for. But she couldn’t help herself. The hunt was on, and she had to be part of it.

She was practicing her tracking skills - the ones she was not supposed to know - on the hunters now. She’d followed their trail this far, and she knew she had to be getting close.

As she rose to her feet, a flash of movement caught her eye. She froze, and was rewarded by a breathtaking sight.

Across the stream from her, a majestic giant deer was drinking. Its antlers were almost twice as wide as a man was tall, and its body seemed impossibly large.

She sucked in a breath and clutched the stick she had sharpened close to her. She had never seen such a huge animal so close before. It was thrilling!

If they’d let me have a proper spear, she thought, we could all eat well tonight. And everyone would be so impressed!

A giant animal like this could feed her clan for many nights. It could make many soft skins to keep them warm in winter, and some of the meat and fat could be saved for the coming months.

She could even use the fat to preserve some of Awyn’s herbs and make healing poultices - if she could only have a real spear! But the adults would not give her one.

The giant deer looked away and went back to its tranquil drinking. Havva took some more deep breaths and felt her pounding heart slow. She listened to the water of the stream burble and splash as it sped along, slapping over the rocks and around the bend.

Around her, birds twittered and leaves rustled in the breeze. A chill on the wind reminded her that winter was coming soon.

She stood up, confident that she could move as silently as the hunters.

But then she stumbled. A twig snapped beneath her feet, and the deer looked up again. Havva gritted her teeth. If she could not sneak up on a deer, how could she sneak up on anything?

The deer stood, staring at her, for a long moment. Then it leapt away, its huge body moving with incredible speed beneath the canopy of trees.

Her prey gone, Havva cried out in frustration. How could she ever become a great hunter if her clan would not teach her how?

It would be a whole winter before the next training season started. If she could only show the hunters how good she was before the snow and ice came, surely they would teach her more.

The forest was Havva’s playground. It was the only place she’d ever known - the only place, as far as she was concerned, in the world.

Its canopy was ruled by tall evergreens, and summergreen trees like beech and oak, now turned yellow and red as winter neared. Occasional openings in the treetops allowed plenty of light through to a forest floor made of plants and thorny underbrush.

The air was alive with birdsong, leaves blowing in the wind, and the occasional rustle or snuffle of a large animal on the forest