Tesni: The T Mutator

By Deborah Dunn

Before History...

Tesni has a secret. While the other members of her clan hunt animals for food, Tesni has forged a secret friendship with a family of wild horses who live near her clan's cave.

 

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Genetic Eve
• Release date: Sep 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781733636377

Book preview

Prologue

This was a bad time for a birth.

The medicine woman looked down at her own thin, weak hands, and hoped that she could find the strength to welcome this baby in the world.

On the furs before her, the mother-to-be thrashed and moaned. Sweat gathered on her brown skin as her screams echoed off the rock walls of the clan’s cave. The mother’s limbs were thin and scrawny, just like the medicine woman’s own. Only her round, swollen belly showed that she was ready to bring a child into the world. She had been in labor for hours, but the baby had not yet appeared.

The medicine woman knelt between her legs and parted them, noting her skinny thighs. Would the young woman be strong enough to survive this birth?

Would the baby be strong enough?

This was a year when the rains had not come. The summer had been cool, but dry. The food plants the clan relied on for most of their meals had grown dry, shrunken, and shriveled - or had simply vanished.

Even the fish of the sea and the big game herds that roamed the plains had been few and far between. The animals couldn’t find enough food to feed themselves, either, so they moved to greener pastures. If only the clan could do the same.

As the mother screamed and strained, the medicine woman watched the baby’s head crown. It was big and round and covered with thick, black hair. The medicine woman leaned closer, frowning.

This was a good sign - for the baby. It meant there was a good reason for the mother’s difficult birth: the baby was having trouble getting out because it was large, healthy, and strong. But it meant the mother likely had hours more labor ahead of her.

It also presented a mystery. How had this baby grown so healthy and strong, when there was so little food to be had? Why wasn’t it small and sickly, like other babies born in times of hunger?

The medicine woman reached between the mother’s legs and carefully grasped the baby’s head. She pulled gently, assisting the mother’s body in her pushing.

You’re almost there, dear, she urged. And there is good news. Your baby is big. No wonder you have labored for so long.

Something like a relieved sigh came from the mother’s lips, but then a fresh round of screaming began.

Why must giving birth be so difficult? The medicine woman wondered, not for the first time. Animals of the field did not strain and scream so when they brought babies into the world.

It is their heads, her mentor had told her once, nodding wisely. Human babies have large heads. This is why they learn so fast.

Still, the medicine woman wished it could be easier.

Finally, the baby’s head emerged fully, and the most difficult part was done. The medicine woman expected the baby’s shoulders and body to slide out easily - but this was no ordinary baby. Her shoulders were broad and thick. Her little arms, when they finally showed, were thick and chubby.

It’s a girl, the medicine woman pronounced lovingly, rinsing the baby in water from a clay pot. As the water touched her skin, the baby began to howl with a strong, lusty cry.

And she is healthy. Despite herself, the medicine woman’s face split into a grin. She had been so worried about this baby, conceived during such a difficult time.

The baby was heavy in the medicine woman’s arms. Her eyes were still the milky blue of a newborn, but promised to darken into brown like her mother’s.

As she wrapped the baby in soft furs and handed her to the exhausted young woman, the mother’s face lit up with an ecstatic glow.

She is - healthy? She really is?

The baby wailed so loud that her cries echoed back from the far side of the cave. She waved her little fists, expressing her distress at this new world.

She is, the medicine woman confirmed. Only then did she realize how tired she was herself from attending the difficult birth. She lowered herself onto the stone floor of the clan’s cave and called her assistant.

Broth for both of us, please.

The broth, made from boiled bones of hunted animals, would strengthen both her and the mother. The medicine woman’s stomach wrenched with desire, thinking about the meat that had once hung on those animal’s bones.

We will be alright, she said, to reassure herself as much as the young woman. The rains shall come again, and we shall eat well.

The baby howled, as though in answer to her promise.

The strength of the young one’s lungs held a promise of its own: that the clan would survive.

*

Chapter 1

Tesni, Tesni’s mother called. Where are you?

Tesni scrambled up the rocks outside her clan’s cave entrance, struggling to balance a basket of fish on her hip. She had caught many fish this day, and the wet, slippery basket threatened to slip out of her grip.

Coming, mother!

Where have you been? her mother scolded. It’s nearly dark. I was growing worried.

I’m sorry, Tesni apologized. It’s just - these are hard to carry.

Her mother’s face lit up when she saw the basket. You have done so well, my sweet girl! she exclaimed. Everyone shall eat well tonight.

Her mother took the basket off of Tesni’s hands, and Tesni’s body sagged with relief. She watched as her mother’s lean, strong arms wrapped around the basket and carried it to the roaring fire that blazed in her family’s corner of the cave.

Tesni inhaled deeply, and her mouth began to water. The smoke from the fire promised delicious flavors, and charred crispy fish skin with warm, moist meat underneath it.

Tesni had never known a time when food was plentiful. The clan had always struggled to eat. She was used to it now - and she knew that getting food was everyone’s primary concern.

She sometimes heard the elders talk of a time, years ago, when food had grown everywhere and great prey animals roamed near the cave each day. But Tesni was not sure if she believed this. It seemed so different from the world she knew.

She made her way to join her mother and father beside the crackling fire. Her father was pounding herbs in a stone bowl, using another round, long stone to crush them and release their flavor. Tesni’s mouth began to water even more. She loved the hot, tangy flavor of the wild garlic that grew near the clan’s cave.

Tesni sat down heavily. She loved spending time at her secret seaside cave, but the climb back up to the cave was harder for her than most. She had a heavy body and sometimes felt she had to work twice as hard as other children just to move around. The other children teased her about her size - but the medicine woman smiled knowingly, saying Tesni had a strength they could not see.

Tesni, her father asked warmly, how was your day?

It was - good, father, Tesni said cautiously, avoiding looking her father in the eye. She had learned not to tell adults too much about what she did out there.

They believed that she was only fishing and gathering, and she brought back fish each day to prove it. But in reality, she spent a lot of her time painting - using ashes and colored earth mixed with water to create her own, private murals. The elders would say she could not paint because she had never been on a hunt.

‘Painting is for hunters, not for children,’ they would say. ‘How can you paint an animal if you have never seen one up close?’

They didn’t know the whole story about that, either. And Tesni was determined to keep it that way.

I’m glad to hear it, her father said. You certainly found a great bounty. He glanced at the fish, which her mother had begun to gut and clean with one of her stone knives.

Tesni nodded, looking for an excuse to change the subject. Yes. I did. How was your day? Did the hunters go out? she was anxious about the answer.

Her father sighed, shaking his head. His thick, black hair was beginning to show strands of silver and grey, like the elders. Tesni worried about him sometimes. She knew he worked very hard, but that the hunters often couldn’t find animals to bring meat home to their families.

Privately, Tesni didn’t mind that. She loved animals and hated eating them. She would have been happy eating nothing but plants and fish, which did not give birth or take care of their babies like people did. But she still worried about her father.

It has been a difficult season. He smiled then. "But not as difficult as some! The medicine woman says the