Free LIFE NEAR THE BONE by Billie Sue Mosiman

supreme angel of them all.
    And now she was a human girl.
    Her thoughts painfully returned to what she was doing. She swore at the vines and hacked at the bushes, pulling and tearing, cuts opening on her hands. She would not give up, she couldn’t. She worked furiously, enraged, determined to get her way, to get herself inside the cool, safe cave and away from the prying eyes of both natives and intruders sailing quickly now to her shores.
    Finally some of the vegetation gave way and, parting, provided entrance. She squeezed through the narrow opening and stepped into the dark interior where little sunlight entered. She saw it was a large place just as she remembered. The overhead rock was smooth and vaulted and a great many feet above her head. The floor at the entrance was level and the earth soft and dry beneath her bare feet. She stepped forward, hands outstretched, and suddenly stepped on something sharp, causing her to howl and jump back, hopping around. She stooped to investigate. It was a cache of bones, and nearby, several long sharp teeth of an animal. The bones were those of small animals, perhaps hogs or the small deer that roamed the island, or antelope. The teeth, another matter altogether. She lifted one, laying it gently in her torn palm and studied it closely. It was an incisor, at least six inches long, curved and pointed. It could be from a saber tooth, she realized, a tiger that did not today exist on the island. The bones, then, were leftovers from dinners and snacks taken by the ancient beast, and then later the beast itself had expired here.
    This was indeed an ancient place and had been home to animals for millennia.
    She turned to make sure the vines were rearranged again at the entrance. She must make sure her safe place was not noticed by a hiker up the mountainside.
    Now she went further into the darkness of the cave, for she heard the sound of water, and thought that was a very good thing. After some time she came to a bend in the cave wall and, trailing her hand along the damp cave, she rounded the corner, almost stepping into a hole that would have definitely taken her into the deep bowels of the mountain. She stood absolutely still, sucking in damp, cool air, thanking her stars. She could have ended it all here. Over the lip of the hole from the opposite direction, across from where she stood, came a small stream of water that slid smoothly into the opening where it dropped down into the darkness. She did not hear a splashing as she might if the water struck a surface or a pool so the hole was very deep.
    She would have to find a way to get to that water across the way, she knew, to slack her thirst. At least it was there, an underground stream dropping off into the mountain hole and probably rushing away through some opening in the bottom of the mountain. To those on the jungle floor it appeared as a rushing stream.
    She turned back and made her way into the cave proper, to have a look around. She would need to move some of the great piles of animal bones, get them out of her way. She would need some of the leaves from the giant vines at the entrance to fashion a comfortable bed. As for food, she would go out at night only, not much more than a predator herself, but one with preternatural powers, and hunt what she needed.
    All the while she would keep an eye on the strangers and the ships, waiting patiently for indication of their departure.
    She sat down on a hump of earth and tucked her knees to her chin. She breathed in deeply of the metallic scent of the mountain water deeper at the back of the cave, and sighed. A caul like soft mist fell over her face, draping it with damp.
    She hoped it would not take long—the leaving of the ships. She had been living this horrible, primitive existence forever, it seemed to her, just forever and a day and she was more than done with it. She expected she was half-mad already. Her mind was an idle bit of matter sitting like a slug in her skull. It had