Jonayla

The bird they call a hovercraft lands, and Gale, the man, releases me from the cage that traps me to the sitting platform, and then taking my arm, leads me out of what I can only think is the bird's mouth, past its tongue that moves out of the way.

Outside is not any better though. It smells funny, makes me cough, and I am led down a tunnel to a large sharp walled cavern.

Where I am made to sit on another sitting platform, and tied up.

The woman Bluebell comes and sits on another platform next to me, and smiles.

But this place is so strange, that her smile does not comfort me.

A man, followed by others, comes in.

And Bluebell and Gale immediately stand up.

So he must be important.

He says something to them, in the strange words they use that I do not understand, and they all look at me.

Bluebell says my name and then shakes her head.

'Why are you holding me here?' I ask.

The leader says something, obviously asking what I just said.

And then Bluebell comes over to me, and speaks to me again.

'He just wants to know who you are, and where you come from.'

I sigh. 'I have told you already. I am Jonayla of the Ninth Cave of the Zelendonii.'

'And where do these Zelendonii live?'

I shrug. 'Everywhere.'

'I assure you that they do not live anywhere. No one has ever heard of them in the Capitol or the Districts.' She frowns. 'Are you from any of the Districts though?'

I shake my head.

'Then you are from outside. From out there?'

'I must be.'

She nods, and turns around and speaks in that funny language again. Then she looks back at me.

'President Paylor wants to know how you came to be in the Games arena, and how you got there?'

'Games arena?'

'Where you were picked up.'

'Oh. There. I do not know.'

She frowns. 'What do you mean by you don't know.'

'I…' sighing, I look into her blue eyes. 'I was at the summer meeting, one I had never been to before. One taking place with a group of the Zelendonii who live far away from mine, but I was bored, so I was going to go swimming, but then I climbed a cliff, and found a cave, with a strange light, that looked like water. It pulled me in and then I found myself in the game arena.'

'A cave?'

I nod.

'Okay.'

She turns around and talks once again with her strange words.

The other men nod, and they leave the cavern as does Gale.

Bluebell goes over to a table, and taps something.

A hole appears in the wall, and she takes something out and brings it to me.

'You must be hungry and thirsty,' she says as she loosens my arms. 'You should have some food.'

I nod my head and look down at the plate she has just given me. It is filled with sections, from which food steams. A brown stew and something white that looks like grain. A pink object that looks a bit like grain cake, and there is also a cup filled with white liquid.

I dip my fingers in the stew, and scald them.

Bluebell picks up some sort of tool from the plate and looks at me strangely. 'Use the spoon.'

I take it off her and look at it. It has a long handle to hold it with, and a curved bit to scoop up food. I stick it into the stew, and then carefully taste the stew.

It is wonderful.

I eat another mouthful, and some of the white grain that Bluebell calls rice.

I am so hungry. It feels almost like I have not eaten for years.

'What's going to happen to me?'

Bluebell does not answer. She asks me a question instead. 'Are your clothes made of animal skins? I have never seen leather treated like that before. It is so basic, though beautiful too.'

'I nod. 'My mother made them for me.'

'Oh, she's a dressmaker?'

'What? I do not know that word.'

'A dressmaker? Someone who makes clothes.'

'Then yes, she is a dressmaker. It is made from an auroch.'

'An auroch? What animal is that?'

'Just a wild one.' I pick up the pink cake and sniff it. It smells of berries. I bite into it.

'A wild animal? You have wild animals where you live?'

'Yes, does not everyone. They roam everywhere and it is just as well they do or we would starve.'

'You would starve? But how do you eat a wild animal? How would you catch one?' She laughs.

'We hunt.' I pick up the cup and sip the liquid. It tastes almost like mother's milk. 'Is this…?'

'It's milk. So your people hunt these wild animals?'

'Milk? Should this not be just reserved for your young? Is it yours?'

'Mine?' She frowns. 'I don't understand.'

'Is it your milk from your…'

'Oh, oh,' she blushes. 'No, no, it's not mine. The milk, it comes from a cow, from District Ten. How could you think it was from me? I've not even got a…' She looks at the floor, her face burning with embarrassment.

I shake my head. These people are strange. 'What is a cow?'

'It's an animal. A big one, it has brown short fur, sometimes speckled and eats grass. Goes moo.'

I laugh. 'You are describing an auroch.'

'No definitely a cow. I don't know this auroch, but you said they are wild, and cows are definitely not wild. They've been domesticated for thousands of…'

She tilts her head to look at me, and then shakes her head. And then looks at me again. Then she stands up and goes over to the table and taps something again. This time a hole does not appear in the wall, a face appears instead. A woman.

'It is the Mother,' I squeal, straining against the ties around me because I want to get on the ground to worship her. 'It is the Mother.'

'What? The Mother?'

And then the Mother speaks.

'During the ice age, our ancestors hunted the ancestors of the modern day cow, that have been named aurochs. They roamed around the open grasslands of Europe and our ancestors used them for food and clothing.'

Bluebell looks at me.

'The Mother,' I cry. 'The Mother. It is she?'

'The Mother? Who is the Mother?'

I stare at Bluebell. 'How can you ask who the Mother is when she is right there. She is the Mother of us all, the Creator of all things.'

'You mean God?'

'I do not know God, I only know the Mother, and she is right there.'

Bluebell shakes her head. 'That is not the Mother, that is just a computer image.'

'She is not the Mother?'

Bluebell shakes her head.

'Are you sure?'

She laughs. 'Yes, I am. Jonayla, where you come from, you say you are from the Ninth Cave, do you mean you live in a cave?'

I nod.

And you hunt aurochs?'

'Is it very cold where you live?'

'Sometimes, not in the summer, but yes, it is cold the rest of the year, when the snow and ice comes and covers all of nature in its sleep.'

'And if I was to describe an animal, that's massive, which has a long nose that it uses like a hand, and has very shaggy fur all around its body, would you know what that animal is?'

'A mammoth. I have hunted mammoths,' I proudly say. 'Well, not on my own, but with my people.'

She laughs. 'Jonayla, I think I know where you're from.'

'You do?'

She nods. 'I think you are from the ice age.'

'The ice age?'

She reaches out and touches my hand. Smiles. 'Look Jonayla, I know this is going to sound strange, but the time you live in, the time your people are from, that was a long time ago. A long long time ago.'

'How long?'

'Thousands and thousands of years ago.'

I shake my head. 'I do not understand.'

'This is the future, you have somehow come forward in time to our time.'

I blink.

'How do I explain this?' she says to herself, and then looks back at me. 'A person can expect to live so many years…'

'I do not know this word years.'

'Oh, well, um, what about seasons? How many seasons are you?'

I shrug.

'Okay, how many summers?'

'Oh,' I understand what she wants to know now. 'I am twelve summers old.'

'Okay, and your people could expect to live say eighty summers.'

'No one lives for eighty summers,' I laugh.

'How long do they live?'

'Forty or fifty summers.'

'Right, yes, well say a man lives fifty summers, and then another lives another fifty summers, that's one hundred summers. Yes?'

I nod.

'So if these two men's live for fifty years each, then what about twenty men?'

'They would live for…' I look at my fingers. 'Ten hundred summers.' I grin.

She nods her head. 'Yes, ten hundred summers, or as we call it one thousand summers.'

'Okay.'

'Do you understand?'

'Yes.'

'So if twenty men live all together for one thousand summers, two hundred men would live for…'

'Ten thousand.'

'Yes,' she looks shocked. 'You are very clever.'

I shake my head. 'My mother is much cleverer than me.'

'I doubt it, but that doesn't matter, so two hundred men live for ten thousand summers all together. But if eight hundred men lived all together for fifty summers, that would make…'

'Forty thousand summers.'

'Yes, and that is how long ago the ice age was. You are from forty thousand summers ago.'

I frown. And feel something pricking at the back of my mind. 'How is that possible?'

'I don't know, but you are here.'

'But how did I get here?'

She shrugs.

'The water light,' I gasp.

'What?'

'The water light, it must have brought me here. I thought I was dead when I was in it. I thought I was going to the Mother, but I was not was I? I was coming here. To the…'

'Future.'

'Yes, to the future.' I grin. 'I thought it was a strange place.'

'Well now you know why.'

'Yes, I do. My mother…' I gulp. 'My mother…'

Bluebell squeezes my hand.

'She is dead?'

Bluebell does not answer, but she does not need to. My mother is dead. My father is dead. My friends. Everyone I have ever known, they are all dead. And they died a long time ago.

'Mother,' I sob. 'Motheeerrrrrr.'