That’s how the answer to the riddle goes, the one no one ever asks out loud, the riddle my grandmother whispered to me in the nighttime, as her grandmother had whispered it to her. “What is it men relish and women regret?” Grandma asked, preparing me. Letting me know without really letting me know. Frightening me, but not terrifying me.
It’s the way we do things now. We hint. We almost tell, but not quite. We let young people learn only a little. If they never know it thoroughly or factually, well, that makes the choice easier. If they do stupid things because they don’t know enough, that’s expected.
As a result, ignoring the house becomes habit and I was able to ignore my approach to it until we arrived at the stone-paved area outside the door. Then I had to admit where I was.
“Shhh,” whispered Masanees, putting her arms around me. “It’s all right. We’ve all been through it, child. It’s all right.”
Still I shivered, unable to control it. “I’m scared,” I whispered, shaming myself.
Evidently I wasn’t the only one to have said something like that, for Masanees went on holding me.
“Of course you’re scared. Of course you are. The unknown is always scary. Sooner we get to it, sooner it’ll be over. Come now. Be a good, brave girl.”
She pushed the door open. The house had a pitched roof, but there were wide openings under the eaves where birds had flown in and out and little nut-eaters had scrambled down to make their mess among the other droppings.
“First we had to make all clean,” said Masanees. The brooms were lashed to her pack, and I followed her example as we gave the place a good sweeping and brushing, including the tops of two low stone tables that stood side by side. One table had a stone basin in its center. We wiped it clean and filled it with water we’d carried up from below. Then we emptied the packs at either side of the basin, and I exclaimed at the sight of such bounty! Meal cakes, beautifully colored and baked in fancy shapes. Strips of meat dried into spirals around long sticks of candied melon. Squash seeds roasted and salted. Dried fruits. More candied fruits. Masanees showed me how to lay it all out in patterns, varying the colors, making it bright and attractive. There is always a store of such foods kept in the hive, she said, even when we have nothing to eat but winter-fungus. Even when we hunger, these ritual foods are kept sacred so they will not hunger.
When everything was done on the one table, she cast me a look from the corners of her eyes, and I knew whatever was going to happen to me, Saluez, would happen now. She spread a folded blanket upon the other table and helped me lie facedown upon it. She gave me a ring of basketwork and told me to put my face firmly down in it. She shackled my wrists and ankles to the rings in the stone.
“Ready?” asked Masanees.
I jerked at the shackles. I could feel my eyes, wide. I knew the whites were showing, knew I was beginning to panic.
“Shh, shh. It’s all right. Here. Drink this.” She raised my head and held the cup to my lips.
“I’ll be all right,” I cried mindlessly, not drinking.
“You’ll be all right,” Masanees agreed, tipping the cup. “Come on, Saluez. It’s easier so.”
I made myself drink. My arms and legs jerked against the bonds. Gradually they stopped moving and lay quiet. I could hear. I could feel. I could breathe through the basketwork, but I did so quietly. The basket ring encircled my face, and beneath my eyes was only the stone of the table.
I heard the heavy door close as Masanees left. I knew what was outside, nearby, hanging from the branch of an ancient tree: a wooden mallet beside a gong. I heard her feet pause, heard her voice saying words I knew, heard the metal struck by the mallet, a slow series of blows that reverberated among the canyons, a long plangent sound, not sweet but seductive. One, two, three. Then a long pause.