The tribe gathers, but no one has died and no one has been killed. This confuses me.
A woman sits in the center, belly round as a full moon, and she does not hunt. She does not gather. She sits, and the others bring her things. Small skins. Soft skins. Skins for a person who is not yet a person, folded and stacked like she plans to clothe a whole new tribe. The child is not born. It cannot wear these yet. Still they bring them. This is either great faith or great foolishness, and I cannot tell which.
There is food, but it is wrong. Sweet grass-cakes. Water the color of no water I know. No meat. A tribe that gives no meat to a breeding woman does not understand what the belly costs. I would bring her the liver. I would bring her the marrow. They bring her a soft toy shaped like a beast that does not bite.
They play games. Grown hunters guess how wide her belly is with a strip of vine. They laugh. No one is testing strength. No one is testing the spear.
Then I see it. The old women watch the young mother close. The circle sits tight around her. They are not playing. They are counting her, marking her, saying without words: you are ours, and the small one is ours, and when it comes screaming we will already be here.
The vine games are foolish.
The circle is not.