and my foot stepped on it, slippery and soft. They left it there for me to see. The goddess who hears man’s cry and returns the same cry mocked me.
I woke up, feeling cloth on my face, wrapped around my eye.
“Will you now say that you will kill us, we mockery of women?” the middle one said. “I wish to hear of your rage, or your savage talk. It entertains me.”
I had nothing to say. I wanted to say nothing. Not to spite her, since I didn’t want that either. I wanted nothing. That was the first day.
Day two, the old one woke me with a slap.
“Look how little we feed you and yet you still piss and shit yourself,” she said.
She threw me a piece of meat with the fur still on it. Be glad it’s fresh kill, she said. But I still could not eat raw flesh. Eat it and think of him, she said, then went back into the dark. She changed slow and it sounded like bones cracking and joints popping. She threw another piece at me. The side of a warthog’s head.
Day three, the young one ran in as if somebody was chasing her. She of the three liked changing to woman the least. She came right up to me and licked my shoulder and I flinched. I knew the heh-heh-heh was not a laugh, but it felt like mockery. She made a sound I never heard before, like a whine, like a child saying EEEEEEEEE. She opened her mouth, flattened her ears, and tilted her head to one side. She bared her teeth. Out of the dark came another hyena, smaller, the spots on the skin larger. She EEEEEEEEE’d again and the other one came in closer. The hyena sniffed my toes, then trotted away. The young one changed to woman and yelled at the dark. I laughed but it came out like a sick man’s laugh. She punched me quick in the left cheek, and again and again, until my head went dark again.
Day four, two of them argued in the dark. Present him to the clan, the old one said, for now I knew her voice. Present him to the clan and let them judge him. Every woman in the clan deserves a bite of his flesh. Every woman is not my sister, said the middle one. Every woman did not raise her cubs like my own, she said. Revenge is true, but not just for you, the old woman said. But I shall have it, the middle one said. No other woman has longed for this day, no other. The old one then said, Why not kill him, then, kill him now? You should hand him to the clan, I say this again.
In the night when the hole was all dark, I could smell the middle one.
“Do you miss your eye?” she said.
I said nothing.
“Do you miss home?”
I said nothing.
“I miss my sister. We were wanderers. My sister was everything that is home. The only thing that is home. Did you know that she could change, but chose not to? Only twice, the first when we were still cubs. Both of us, daughters of the highest in our clan. The other women who were of one form hated us, and fought us all the time even though we were stronger and had more craft. But my sister did not want to be smarter or sharper, she just wanted to be any beast moving east to west. She wanted to vanish in the pack. She would have walked on all fours forever, had she a choice. Is that strange, Tracker? We women of the clan are born to be special, and yet all she wanted was to be like everyone else. No higher, no lower. Are they among your kind, people who work hard to be nothing, to vanish in a group of your own? The one-bloods hated us, hated her, but she wanted them to love her. I never wanted their love but I remember wanting to want it. She wanted them to lick her skin, and tell her which male to growl at, and call her sister. And yet she wanted no name, not even sister. I called her a name that she would not answer to, so I called her that name over and over until she changed only to say stop calling me that or we will never be sisters again. She never became woman again. I forget