The South American Expedition 4
(story continues from The South American Expedition 3) Part Four Phoenix endured weeks in her vertical hole with at least one person from the tribe with her at all times. She could only listen, and respond with grunts or eye motions the rare times she was awake, to the stories that the others told her, a kind of oral tradition of the long history of the tribe. She was fed through her mouth tube, and her body rebuilt itself with the special mixture of nutrients she was carefully fed. This was a special form of magic the elder village women had discovered by trial and error when they first learned of their condition brought on by the spider bite. By offering up their bodies for the ritualistic feast, they were rewarded with regrown ones that were in some cases better than the ones that were devoured by the village. The four elder women could even alter her body by varying the kind of nutrients she received at specific times. ...