It Dreams in Me (3 page)

Read It Dreams in Me Online

Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear

BOOK: It Dreams in Me
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“DID SHE—”
“Yes, of course she did!”
The shout woke Sora.
She lay still, listening. How long had she been asleep? It felt like mere moments. Rain pounded through the branches and down upon the ramada like tiny fists. The fragrance of wet pines drenched the air.
“Who was it?” Strongheart asked. “Did you recognize him?”
Sourly, Flint responded, “Not right away.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the body? I would have liked to have examined it myself.”
Flint just glared at him.
Sora studied the two men who sat ten paces away, beneath a roof of moss-covered oak branches. They made a striking contrast. Flint was tall and muscular, with a handsome chiseled face and long black braid. He wore a plain leather deerhide cape that accented his broad shoulders. Strongheart, though a head taller, looked smaller and thinner. His gaze always
seemed to look past a person, as though he lived in a Spirit world no one else could see.
Strongheart repeated, “Who was it? You said you didn’t recognize him right away, so eventually you did.”
In an icy voice, Flint replied, “Chief Short Tail.”
“He was Water Hickory Clan?”
“Yes. She said he’d led the attack.”
The lines around Strongheart’s eyes deepened. He pulled up the hood of his painted cape and squinted at the sky, watching the rain fall.
Flint rested his balled fists on his knees. “I thought this was over.”
“We have just begun, Flint. The Midnight Fox is not dead, just shattered. It’s trying as hard as she is to pull itself together.”
As though he’d heard, something deep inside Sora stirred.
He is a darkness that listens, that watches.
Over the winters she had learned that he was not merely darkness. He was a darkness that spoke in the voices of knives.
She rolled to her side and frowned. Lying beside her was a beautiful buffalo-wool cape. She blinked at it, studying the magnificent red and white designs that decorated the collar. It did not belong to her.
Where did I get it? Eagle Flute Village?
From what seemed a great distance a voice whispered,
“I know you killed her, Sora. I know. I know.”
She shook her head, not certain whether she’d heard someone say those words, or she’d only dreamed them.
Flint stabbed a finger at Strongheart. “You’re supposed to be the greatest Healer in our world. If you can’t bring her reflection-soul back and fix it in her body, tell me, so that I may carry out my duty to protect my people.”
His duty. Her belly cramped.
Strongheart drew up one knee and laced his fingers atop it. “Do you think it’s time to kill Chieftess Sora?”
“I—I don’t know.” Flint got to his feet and walked a short distance away. “Maybe.”
Emotion tightened her throat. She struggled to stay silent.
“You were married to the chieftess for fourteen winters, Flint. Though you divorced her three winters ago, you told me you still loved her.”
“I divorced her because I was afraid I was going to be her next victim! She had murdered so many people, I—”
“No,” Strongheart said in a deep voice, “she didn’t.”
Flint squinted. “Have you lost your senses? She committed her first murder at the age of seven. Her father—”
“Her father killed himself. He was distraught and lonely. He must have thought it was his only way out.”
“What are you talking about? She told me herself that she’d killed him.”
“Yes, I’m sure she did. All of Chieftess Sora’s life her mother led her to believe she’d killed her father by accidentally adding a poisonous plant to the stew she’d made for him. But she did not kill him.”
“What about her sister, Walks-among-the-Stars? Sora bashed her brains out with an oar!”
“For three winters, Walks-among-the-Stars lived with the pain of believing Sora had killed their father. She must have heard her mother say it a thousand times. When she could stand it no longer, she took her younger sister, Sora, out in a canoe during a storm to accuse her of murdering their father. Sora had seen ten winters. Perhaps Walks-among-the-Stars meant no harm. All I know is that the two of them began fighting with their oars. Sora struck her older sister in the head, and Walks-among-the-Stars fell out of the canoe and drowned.
Sora made it back to shore alive.” Strongheart gazed steadily at Flint. “Her sister’s death was accidental.”
Surprise and disbelief vied on Flint’s handsome face. “I’m sure she told you that, but she’s lying!”
“I don’t think so.”
Flint threw up his hands as though exasperated. “What about the murders in Eagle Flute Village, just before the attack? She killed Grown Bear, Black Turtle, and Snail. You’re the one who found their bodies!”
Sora’s blood went cold. She remembered none of it. But she never did. For twenty-five winters others had had to tell her the things she’d done when in the grips of the Midnight Fox.
Strongheart stared at Flint for such a long time that his dark eyes caught the light and held it like polished mica mirrors. “She was being held captive by those men. She killed them to escape. She was defending herself.”
Flint’s handsome face slackened. “Blessed gods, you’ve actually convinced yourself that she’s telling the truth. Well, you can deny all the other murders, Priest, but there’s one murder you cannot deny. White Fawn’s. She killed the woman I was engaged to marry.”
Strongheart stared out into the trees, and his brows drew together. “She may have. I’m not sure yet. I—”
“Sora said she did it!”
“Sora said she
thought
she’d done it. She said she remembered ‘things,’ images.”
Flint’s fists tightened. “Has your love for her totally blinded you?”
She glanced at Strongheart for confirmation, but the words didn’t even seem to affect him. He leaned toward Flint and said, “If she is a murderer, she became one much later in life. The question is, why? What started it?”
Flint propped his hands on his hips. The front of his cape pulled apart, revealing the pale yellow shirt he wore. “You asked me if I still loved her. I do. I always have. That’s why I brought her to you. I tried for more than half my life to Heal her. I couldn’t.”
Less than three moons after Flint had divorced her, Sora’s mother, Chieftess Yellow Cypress, had arranged for Sora to marry an elderly Trader named Rockfish. She’d never expected to see Flint again. Then he’d come back and turned her world upside down. He’d given her a powerful sleeping potion and carried her into the Loon Nation, to Eagle Flute Village, in the hopes that Strongheart could Heal her. But she’d been there just a few days when Eagle Flute Village was attacked by warriors from the Water Hickory Clan.
Strongheart said, “Tell me what you did to try and Heal her?”
Flint waved a hand. “Why do you care? I couldn’t do it. And, apparently, neither can you. Your efforts have proved no better than mine, or those of her mother.”
“Her mother?”
Flint turned and stared at Strongheart. “Yes. Didn’t Sora tell you? Her mother was terrified by her attacks. You’ve seen what happens when the Midnight Fox overtakes her. Sora falls to the ground with her limbs jerking and her teeth gnashing. Throughout her childhood, Sora’s mother forced her to see one Healer after another. By the time I met her, at age fourteen, she’d eaten so many Spirit plants that even the smell of them sickened her.”
“Has the chieftess ever remembered one of the attacks?”
“She always recalls disconnected images, pieces of things that happened during the killing spree.”
Strongheart turned and looked straight into Sora’s eyes.
Their gazes held. All the kindness in the world seemed to be concentrated in those dark depths.
“One thing you can be certain of,” Flint said, “my kinsmen from the Water Hickory Clan are out there hunting for Short Tail’s murderer. We can’t stay here. We have to leave.”
“How would they know he’d been murdered? He must have disappeared during the attack. Surely his clan believes he was killed by Loon warriors.”
Flint’s jaw hardened. “His warriors would have searched for him—or his body. And they would have found it, just as I did.”
“But you had trouble recognizing him. Perhaps they will—”
“They won’t have any trouble. Sora did things, bizarre things that will leave no doubt but that he was murdered.”
The silence stretched, and the sound of the rain falling through the trees seemed to fill the world.
Finally, Strongheart asked, “What things?”
Flint waved a hand. “She … took his possessions … and arranged them around him in a circle. My kinsmen will recognize every weapon and piece of jewelry.”
“If you knew they’d be recognized, why didn’t you take them?”
Flint glared at Strongheart. “I didn’t think of it at the time.”
Strongheart made a soft thoughtful sound and asked, “Had you ever seen her do something like that before?”
“Yes. Once.”
When Flint didn’t continue Strongheart took a few moments to study his tormented expression before asking, “When?”
“There was a … a pearl Trader.” Flint walked a short distance away, to the edge of the swamp, and gazed out at the rain-stippled water. “I didn’t know they were in the council chamber. I walked in on them.”
Stunned by his implications, Sora couldn’t even speak to defend herself. She stared at him with her mouth open.
Strongheart said, “What were they doing?”
“She was in his arms,” he said as though it was still painful to speak of it. “I was furious. I left Blackbird Town and didn’t return for two moons. Later, I heard that a woman had found the Trader’s body just north of Blackbird Town. She said that every item had been removed from his pack and arranged around the corpse in a circle.”
Is it possible that I killed the man and don’t remember any of it? Not even what happened in the council chamber before the murder?
Strongheart’s voice was mild. “Is that when you gave her the water hemlock that caused her to miscarry your son on the Red Hill?”
Flint went rigid. He slowly lifted his eyes and pinned Strongheart with a deadly look. “Don’t ever ask me about that again, Priest. Do you understand? If you ask me about it, I’ll kill you.”
Strongheart’s gaze never wavered. “Flint, we must talk. Just you and I. I can’t Heal the chieftess until you have told me—”
“I’m not telling you anything. I’m not the one who’s sick. She is.”
Strongheart inhaled a deep breath and exhaled the words, “All right. There’s only one thing I ask of you: please help me to find a safe place where I can work.”
“There’s a war going on out there, Priest. There is no safe place.”
“The war is between the Black Falcon Nation and the Loon Nation … your people and mine. The Sandhill Crane People have not yet taken sides. Nor have the Lily People.”
Flint grimaced as though Strongheart were a fool. “But they will, Priest. Soon. And they will side with the Black Falcon Nation. The Lily People will be first; they are the most vulnerable. And the Sandhill Crane territory won’t be safe for more than a
few days. Here, we are two days from my village, Oak Leaf Village. If we need help, I can go find it. We need to stay where we are.”
“I’m taking the chieftess away, Flint. You can accompany us, or not.”
Strongheart rose to his feet and walked across the clearing. As he knelt at Sora’s side, he gently drew the hide up around her throat. “I think I know a place. Do you feel strong enough to travel? We should leave soon.”
She gazed up into his dark eyes. “Yes.”
Flint glowered at Strongheart’s back and demanded, “Where is this place?”
“There’s an ancient village, Forbidden Village, on the shore of Sassafras Lake, north of Minnow Village. It used to be a gathering place for Healers from every nation, but almost no one goes there now.” Strongheart helped Sora to her feet. She felt weak, her knees shaky. “It’s a Power place, but I believe we’ll be safe there.”

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