About Hart and Soul
Written by Nica Berry
134 pages / 56500 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-400-7, 1-60370-400-0
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc
Orphaned Niann has one wish, to go up the mountain to seek a spirit guide like the rest of his peers. Instead, he's forced to wait until frustration drives him to go without permission on his eighteenth birthday. There, he meets his guide--the kala deer, the tribe's patron animal and one that grants its disciples the ability to heighten the power of others's animal spirits. Unbeknownst to him, the tribe's shaman, Heyka, plans to use Niann to harvest enough spiritual energy to transcend into the spirit world.
Jennar, a talented carver and hunter who's cared for Niann since Niann's infancy, has a secret of his own; he went up the mountain to seek his spirit guide, but none came, and he's been lying about his spirit animal ever since.
Jennar leaves to find the reason for his lack of a spirit guide, but returns to find Niann under the sway of Heyka and living as a woman, as those with the deer totem usually do. Jennar's focus turns from saving himself into saving the man he loves, but all his love and determination may not be enough to stop the relentless ambition of Heyka and his snake patron.
Review
Syd McGinley, author of the Dr. Fell stories, writes:
Jennar has literally known Niaan all his life – five-year-old Jennar saw Niaan born, and was the first person to show the newborn baby affection. That innocent, kind act has ramifications beyond imagining as they grow to manhood in the Kehani tribe.
Nica Berry has done some fine world building in Hart and Soul. Niaan and Jennar live in a tribe that’s home, but not perfect. Accepting in some ways, but cruel to outsiders in others. There’s respect for sexual choices, but a stern adherence to tradition in other matters. For those who can find the right path it can be a good, but not easy, life, and Niaan and Jennar face some extra challenges as they seek the right path.
I particularly admired how the spirituality in the story was woven in -- no clunky info dumps, but no confusing concepts either. The beliefs of the tribe were presented as matter of fact -- nothing faux New Age! -- just as they would have been for the tribe. I never once doubted what was happening was real even as I worried for the peril the men were in.
The story is so tightly constructed with plot stemming from character and vice versa that it’s difficult to say much more without spoilers -- but that’s also the mark of strong story. In short, I heartily recommend this beautiful, passionate, and profound love story.
Sample
One night, when Jennar was five years old, a heavily pregnant woman stumbled into the Kehani camp wearing nothing more than a few scraps of white kala deer hide. She wasn't from a tribe Jennar recognized. She was too pretty, her features too thin and delicate to be from one of the mountain tribes or even the plains tribes. The beads and feathers braided into her hair were foreign.
The hardships of her journey showed in her bloodied feet and the hunched-over way she walked. Her breaths were hoarse, her face taut with pain. As soon as she reached the circle of women huddled around the cooking fires, she collapsed, crumpling to her knees and then rolling onto her side. Jennar's mother, Lea, took charge of the newcomer and issued orders to the other tribeswomen. Lea had just gotten the new woman to lie down on her back when fluid gushed from between the pregnant woman's legs. She cried out and clutched her belly.
Curled up in blankets, Jennar watched, wide-eyed and forgotten as the women fussed. Sweat coated her skin as the tribeswomen tried to get her to stand, and kept telling her that squatting would make the birth easier, but every time she tried her legs crumpled beneath her. Finally, they let her be.
"What tribe?" Lea asked, over and over, but the woman wouldn't answer. After the first cry of pain, she made no sound, even though it looked to Jennar that she must be in a lot of pain. "Who is the father?" Again, no answer. Lea looked irritated. Jennar knew that some tribes were their friends, and others weren't, and that if the new woman wouldn't give an answer she was probably from one of the unfriendly tribes. If it was true, she'd be given only the most basic courtesies and then sent on her way as soon as she could stand.
Jennar didn't think it would be soon. The woman's harsh gasps made him cringe. Blood mixed with the dirt where she lay.
Lea and the other women crouched nearby, but did nothing to either help or interfere. With the friendly tribes, sometimes the women went from one camp to the other to live, to bring fresh blood to the tribe. Where that was looked on as a fair trade, an uninvited woman was seen as a traitor, someone untrustworthy that might bring harm to the tribe.
Jennar knew what the women thought of such things, since he'd heard them talk about it often enough, but he didn't think it was very nice to just watch as the woman struggled to give birth. He'd seen babies born before, and knew that the mothers were often in pain, but not this much. Something had gone very, very wrong.
"Feet first," Lea muttered. She reached between the woman's legs and did something Jennar couldn't see. The sight of the blood and the woman's strained face scared him, but he couldn't look away. On the outskirts of the women's circle, a few of the men from the tribe had come to watch, curious at the noise. More men gathered as time went on. Jennar felt sick, but he still couldn't bring himself to hide his head under the blankets to muffle sight and sound of the woman.
Lea kept working. After a long time, the baby was born, shiny, and blood-covered. It wriggled feebly in the dirt, still attached to its mother's body by a blue-gray cord. A boy, Jennar saw when Lea moved the infant so she could lean over and cut the cord with her teeth. His mother's body was still. Too still, Jennar knew.
"Dead. It figures," Lea said unhappily. Jennar knew why; none of the tribe wanted the extra burden of raising a child that wasn't their own. The dead woman had no name, no tribe, no possessions except the scraps of hide, and those Lea took from the body and wrapped around the infant without bothering to clean the blood and dirt caked on its skin. Kala deer hides were special, a token given in love from a tribe member to their lover, but they were the only bits of love from a woman the baby was shown. With a knife, Lea cut a string of beads from the woman's hair and set them aside. "Maybe someone will come looking for her and recognize her by these. But what to do with the child?"
"Leave it," one of the other women said. "It looks sickly enough to die soon anyway."
Lea looked sorely tempted, but shook her head. "The gods would not want us to be so cruel. We'll feed and shelter it until it's of age and then send it away."
Despite Lea's proclamation, the women left the infant there on the ground while they readied the dead mother's body for burial. Jennar lifted the poor little thing and then wetted some rags and used them to clean the baby as well as he could. It was tiny, wrinkled and brown, and Jennar took his time cleaning between every finger and toe, fascinated by the tiny hands and feet. He held the infant to his chest. It cried weakly. Jennar kissed the baby on the forehead, as he'd seen women do with their babies. "It'll be all right. I'll take care of you. I promise."
He probably imagined it—his mother told him later that he did—but he could have sworn he felt something pass between them. Childishly, he thought it was love, because he'd decided to love the baby since no one else did. When he got older, he thought the feeling might have been a sort of magic he didn't understand. By the time he was a man, he forgot about it completely.