Red Under Ash

In winter, my ritual is not song. It is work.

I crouch near the heat and do the same steps, slow and exact. I wake what stayed alive under ash. I feed it careful. I listen for the change in breath, the small sounds that mean the fire will hold.

When the coal takes, I tell myself a story. Not as memory. As a way to remember what winter asks of a body.

In the story, every voice says “I.” The voice stays mine until it dies. Then the next “I” steps forward.

If no one steps up, the fire loses, and winter wins.

• ᚱ • I

Wake. Feed. Listen.

Winter comes into my bones before it comes into the sky.

My knees know first. My fingers know next. The stone at the mouth of the cave turns colder to the touch, and the cold stays there. The day shortens. The night gets long enough to feel like a weight.

The fire sits in the middle of the cave in a bed of ash and cracked rock. Smoke has painted the ceiling dark over many winters. The fire is not proud. It is small. It is the only thing that matters.

I wake before the others. I always wake. The others still have sleep on their faces, mouths open, breath slow. I crawl close to the ash and hold my hands over it first, not touching, feeling. Heat tells the truth.

I know which winter takes me. I have known for a long time. That is why I wake first.

Before I move the ash, I tap the bone tool against stone, once, twice. I do not know why I started. I only know my hands do it every winter morning.

I move the ash with a bone tool. Slow. Gentle. If I dig too fast, I bury the red. If I breathe too hard, I scatter it. When I find a coal still alive, I do not smile. I work.

Dry bark. Twisted grass. Shaved wood from the sheltered side of dead branches. I feed the red like you feed a child that cannot swallow too much at once. I watch for smoke. If it smokes low, I shift stones near the mouth. If it hisses thin, the fuel is wet and my day will taste bitter.

My fingertips split in winter. The cracks sting when ash gets in them. I keep working anyway.

The children watch me. Three of them. Braided hair, mixed blood. Their hands are small, but their eyes are learning.

The men go out. Father and Uncle. They bring meat when the world allows it. They bring nothing when winter decides no.

One winter, the fuel comes back wrong. Too wet. Too green. The fire coughs smoke into our faces. The smallest child starts to cough and cannot stop. Mother shifts stones and lifts hides and tries to make the cave breathe right, but the wind presses in from the mouth and ruins the draft.

Father comes back with frost in his hair and anger in his throat. He has nothing dry. Nothing that will catch clean.

I do not argue. The cold has never answered a man.

At night I lay my thick hide over the children and tuck it tight. The hide holds my heat. It will hold theirs. Then I move my body closer to the mouth of the cave, where the cold comes in first. I lie down there because heat is heat, and I have more of it to spend than they do.

The last thing I hear is the fire taking again, a small crackle. Good. Good.

Old hands go still now

embers hide under white ash

we wake them with breath

my hide holds three small bodies

while I feed the frost myself

• ᚱ • II

Wake. Feed. Listen.

I sit where he sat.

No one tells me to wake first. I wake first anyway.

The space feels wrong under my shoulders. Too empty. My hands are faster than his were. I have to make myself slow down. The fire punishes hurry. Mother does not speak much, but her eyes make rules. When I feed the coals too heavy once and smoke rolls low, she slaps my wrist away. Not cruel. Just final. I do it her way after that.

In winter, I feel my blood get colder. Not fear. Cold. Like the season is inside me, making my thoughts stiff.

Meat is heat. Fat is life. The children need it. The fire needs it. We cannot sit in the cave and wait for the world to be kind.

I go out with my brother. We move low and quiet. The white distance looks clean until it kills you. We follow tracks that harden overnight. We hunt what still walks then, heavy-hoofed animals that carry winter on their backs, old cats that wait in silence, wolves that follow like shadows with teeth.

Our noses bleed in the dry cold. We wipe it with the back of a wrist and keep moving.

We find a herd. We choose one. I tell myself I know this. I have done this before.

The wind turns. The powder hides the stone. My foot slides, and my pride slides with it.

I reach for the spear and grab air. My shoulder hits first. Then my head.

For a breath I wait for my body to obey me. It does not.

I think of the cave. I think of ash. I think of small hands scraping too hard.

I understand the worst part. It is not dying. It is leaving work behind.

I do not get back up.

Father’s step is gone

tracks erased by drifting snow

my spear goes home first

their mouths chew grief like sinew

and keep the fire from shame

• ᚱ • III

Wake. Feed. Listen.

I come back alone.

My throat burns. My eyes burn. The wind has scraped me raw. I hold my brother’s spear like it is not mine. I stand at the cave mouth and cannot make words clean. I do not need to. Mother takes the spear and touches the wood once.

Her mouth moves like she is counting.

Then she turns away and I hate her for it, and I hate myself for hating her.

I step into the space he left. I try to be two men with one body.

I hunt. I haul. I mend hides. I show the oldest how to split finger-thick sticks from dead branches. I show the middle how to keep dry bark tucked high in stone where damp cannot reach. I show the smallest how to bank coals deep under ash so red lasts through the worst of night.

I talk to the dark when it presses in. I do it loud on purpose. I want the dark to hear something other than fear.

I talk like I can shame it. The dark has no shame.

One winter night, the cave turns against us.

The wind shifts wrong. Smoke rolls low and thick. Eyes burn. Throats tighten. The smallest coughs until she gags. Mother hauls stones, trying to open the mouth of the cave without inviting the cold inside.

I do not think. I act.

I grab the smoking fuel and carry it out fast. If I keep it inside, their lungs fail. Outside is risk. Inside is death.

The wind takes the ember glow the moment I step into it.

I hear the bone-crushers before I see them. Hyenas that can split a goat leg like a twig. Their sound is not laughter. It is hunger making noise.

I swing. I shout once. The night closes.

My voice breaks off

night answers with hungry jaws

smoke clears in their lungs

they listen to paw-steps fade

and learn what “outside” costs

• ᚱ • IV

Wake. Feed. Listen.

After that, I become the ritual.

My hands do not stop. Scrape hide. Seal seam. Turn meat. Bank coals. Wake and check the ash bed. Sleep in pieces. Wake again. I do not waste words on winter.

The children grow in winters. Their braids lengthen. Their hands get sure. The oldest starts waking before I touch his shoulder. The middle listens at the mouth of the cave without being told. The smallest learns when to be silent.

Then my belly grows heavy.

A newborn comes in winter. Winter is not kind to anything that arrives soft.

I lay hides near the fire. I keep water close. I sharpen stone until it can cut clean. I send the children out for every dry thing they can find, because birth costs heat, and heat is already tight.

The newborn comes and is quiet in the wrong way.

I try everything my body knows. I rub. I breathe. I press it to my heat.

The skin cools and the quiet grows heavier.

I learn something I did not want to learn.

The ritual does not save everyone.

Then my blood comes fast, and my legs turn soft.

I keep my face steady for the children. I keep the newborn against my heart until my breath thins.

New mouth will not cry

my blood runs out too quickly

firelight shakes on hands

they press close and feel my heat

turn into stone and silence

• ᚱ • V

Wake. Feed. Listen.

I am the oldest now.

No one tells me to step up. I step up anyway.

There are no adult voices left in the cave. At first I still hear them in my head. The old man’s patience. My father’s sharpness. My uncle’s loud courage. My mother’s steady hands. Then those voices thin, because winter does not let you live in memory. Winter makes you live in the next breath.

My brother sleeps with his hands tucked under his belly so his fingers will still work in the morning.

My sister lies closest to the mouth of the cave, not asleep, listening.

I wake before the sky softens. I crawl close to the ash bed and move it aside with bone. If I find red, I feed it slow. Dry bark. Twisted grass. Shaved wood. I watch for smoke. I listen for crackle.

One morning I wake late. Not long. Long enough.

The ash is colder than it should be. Grey, nearly all grey. My sister does not say anything. She just looks at me, and I feel it in my throat like a stone. I scrape too hard, frantic, and scatter what little red there was. My hands shake. My brother makes a small sound in his sleep and it turns my stomach.

Then I stop. I breathe once. I go slower.

I find a living point no bigger than a seed.

I do not feel proud. I feel warned.

The fire does not forgive. It only takes what you give it.

I feed it like it can hear me.

If I find only grey, I do not sit and die about it. I go out.

I wrap hides tight and move fast, close to rock, close to shelter. I break dead wood and strip bark from the side the wind does not touch. I take what winter forgot to wet. I come back with fingers burning numb and a face stiff as stone, and I try again.

We sleep in turns, but I do not say “we” out loud. Saying it feels like pretending we are more than we are.

One watches the fire. One listens at the mouth. One sleeps.

Breath is heat. Heat is life.

I grow in winters. My shoulders widen from hauling. My hands thicken. My fear gets quieter, not smaller. Quiet fear keeps you alive.

Some nights the wind presses into the cave and makes the flame crouch low. I make the fire small, so it does not shout smoke into our eyes.

Some nights the cold finds every gap in stone. I pile us close and let the fire warm our backs one side at a time, turning like meat.

I do not count years.

I count winters.

And every winter, the same law returns. Loss comes, then someone steps up. If stepping up stops, the fire loses. Winter wins.

Then one winter, the cave speaks a new sound.

Drip.

Not warmth I can trust. Just water returning, one drop at a time, and the stone mouth of the cave feels less hungry. The wind still bites, but it bites less. The dark still comes early, but it does not sit as long.

I go to the mouth and see the white breaking.

I go back to the coals and feed them anyway, because I am not a fool. The ritual does not end when the season turns. It only becomes easier to keep.

And that is the whole story, told in winters, told in hands, told in the small red thing that refuses to die if you do not abandon it.

Red under ash. Always.