It Dreams in Me (9 page)

Read It Dreams in Me Online

Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear

BOOK: It Dreams in Me
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“Male shadow-souls? What does that mean?”
“It means there’s a man who lives inside you.”
“Really,” she said, skeptical. “I don’t think I know him.”
“Oh, I think you do. He is your strength and daring. It’s his voice that tells you ‘of course you can do it,’ when logic says ‘it’s impossible.’ But his soul can also be very harmful. Whenever a woman is alone, it’s the male shadow-soul that tells her she’s lonely and ugly and a disappointment to everyone who loves her. Unfortunately, women tend to project their shadow-souls onto the real men in their lives.”
Sora’s face slackened. “So it’s my shadow-soul telling me that anyone who loves me should be pitied?”
“Yes, and you obviously believe him.”
She turned to gaze out at the lake while she thought about it. In the distance, sunlight glimmered from the backs of ducks as they sailed down toward the green water.
“I do believe him,” she whispered.
“Then you’re not grateful for love, you’re ashamed that you’ve duped a man into feeling that way. Is that it?”
Her mouth fell open.
Was
that it?
“What makes this even more difficult,” he said, “is that men have female shadow-souls.”
She straightened. “You have a female soul inside you?”
“I do.”
Half in jest, she asked, “And what does she say to you when you’re alone?”
Strongheart smiled down at his bowl and ate another piece of goose. “Mostly that I’m weak and stupid, and I’ll never be a success at anything.”
“Well, she’s certainly wrong about that. You’re the greatest Healer in our world.”
“She doesn’t think so. She thinks I’m a fraud.”
Sora gave him a disbelieving look. The brightening light shone on the arch of his hooked nose and the high curves of his cheeks. If she did not look into his eyes, he appeared very young, younger than his twenty-three winters, but his eyes contradicted every other physical observation. They held a calm centuries deep. Once caught by his gaze, it was hard to look away. She always felt that if she just kept looking, she would find an answer for every question she had ever asked.
She frowned. “Then even if a wife isn’t telling her husband that he’s weak and stupid and a failure, he thinks she is? Because he hears his own shadow-soul’s voice coming out of her mouth?”
Strongheart nodded. “Both male and the female shadow-souls are monstrously clever at deception. They want the human being to believe the words are coming from outside. It gives them more power.”
Sora pulled off another strip of meat and ate it. “I wonder how marriages survive.”
He just tilted his head as though it were a mystery to him as well.
Around the edge of the lake, the cypress’ trunks still held the azure deeps of night, but a pale yellow gleam painted the branches and the backs of the waterfowl that paddled the water.
She cast a sideways glance at Strongheart. Two upright lines had formed between his brows. He seemed to be concentrating on finishing his breakfast. She wondered what it was about the combination of his deep gentle voice and his luminous eyes that drew her so powerfully. Over the past quarter moon, he had carved out his own space inside her, leaving her feeling hollow and lonely whenever he was away.
Strongheart set his empty bowl on the log between them and retrieved his tea cup to sip it. “Do you think it’s possible that Flint was right?”
“Hmm?” she said in confusion. “About what?”
“That his pity for you is what loosed the Midnight Fox?”
“No,” she said too quickly. “The Midnight Fox first appeared to me when I’d seen seven winters, long before I met Flint.”
He swirled his tea in his cup before taking a long drink.
“What’s wrong, Priest?”
“You chose not to answer my question.”
Her gaze darted around the camp. “I did?”
“I asked if his pity had loosed the Fox, not created it.”
“Oh … well, I—I don’t know how to answer that. It’s something I’ve never thought of. I don’t think it’s likely, though. Do you?”
He smiled, and pointed to a large fish that leaped out of the water. She looked just in time to see it splash down and send a spray over a nearby duck that squawked and shook its feathers.
She took another bite of succulent goose, and juice dribbled down her chin. As she wiped it away, she said, “Now you’re the one who’s not answering questions. It frightens me.”
He clutched his tea cup and looked down at his fingers for a long moment—shiny with grease, she saw, and in the growing sunlight, splotched with soot. “I suspect you might be a good deal more frightened if I did.”
As though to forestall the discussion, he rose to his feet and
extended a hand to her. “Eat that last bite and come walk with me.”
She gobbled down her goose, set her bowl down, and took his hand. He helped her up, then released her fingers and backed away slightly, as though shocked by his own reaction to touching her.
He smiled self-consciously and said, “Let’s take the northern trail around the lake. It’s very pretty this time of season.” He started up the same trail that Flint had taken, carrying his half-full tea cup with him.
Sora followed a few steps behind him. “Where are we going?”
“To the opposite side of the lake. There’s a cave there.”
They slowly walked around an inlet where fish tails flipped the surface of the water.
Sora said, “Tell me about Juggler. Was he a great Healer?”
“Yes, though many considered him to be a witch.”
“Why? Was he evil?”
He looked over his shoulder and said, “Evil is an amorphous thing. Juggler used Spirit plants to Heal many people, but he also used them to poison his enemies, who were all very wicked, or so he told me.”
“Naturally,” she said. “How did he survive the accusations of witchcraft?”
“First, he was a doddering elder with an idiotic smile. No one who met him could believe he was a witch. Second, he denied the accusations, and no one could ever prove he’d done anything wrong. Which was exactly what he’d counted on.”
“Then he was a witch?”
Strongheart glanced back at her, and leaf shadows danced over his short, irregularly cut black hair. “It doesn’t matter. At least, not to me. After my parents died, he took me in. He was my entire world. He—”
“He trained you as a witch?”
His eyes sparkled. “Do you think I’m a witch?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she mimicked. “Not to me. So long as you can cure me.”
His expression turned serious. He didn’t answer for a time, then he murmured, “I can, Sora. I give you my oath, but I need your help.”
“Just tell me what to do. I’ll do anything you ask.”
After a moment, he said, “Will you?”
“Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
He remained silent.
She said, “Do you think I’m
not
helping you?”
As he held aside a low-hanging branch and gestured for her to walk out front, he said, “On occasion you work against me.”
She walked forward and stopped less than a hand’s breadth away to look up at him. “I don’t do it on purpose.”
“I know.”
Their gazes held, and a pained longing filled her. She wished she’d never met him, never known what it was to feel his touch or know the deep sound of his voice.
Gently, he asked, “What do you want to say to me?”
She opened her mouth, hesitated … and walked up the trail.
What could she say that wouldn’t force him into a corner? After twenty heartbeats, she called, “You told me once that your parents had been killed by the Lily People when you’d seen nine winters.”
“Yes. My parents had gone north to attend the marriage of my uncle. They were ambushed on the trail. I was at home with my grandmother. I didn’t find out they’d been killed for almost a moon.”
“I don’t understand why you came to live with Juggler. Among my people, one of your relatives would have adopted you.”
“Eventually that’s what happened. But not at first.”
“Why not? In the Black Falcon Nation it would have been inconceivable to allow a recently orphaned child to be taken to a total stranger.”
“I was …” He paused as though remembering, and she heard him take a drink from his tea cup. “A difficult child. My relatives were frightened by me.”
She walked into a patch of warm sunlight and stopped. He stayed a full two paces away. “Did you have Spirit Powers even then?”
“Oh, yes. They came to me at three or four winters. My mother used to say that every rock and bird in the sky was my Spirit Helper.”
“But you must have done something to make your relatives fear you.”
He didn’t respond for a long time; then finally he answered, “I did. I killed a boy.”
The forest seemed go silent around them. Even the wind stilled. The mossy scent of the lake grew stronger.
In a hushed voice, she asked, “What happened?”
He gestured uncertainly with his free hand. “We were playing and he shoved me. I landed so hard it knocked the wind out of me. When I could breathe again, I pointed at him and cursed him.”
“And?”
“He dropped as though I’d hit him in the head with a war club. He was dead. The other children ran away screaming. After that, no one felt safe around me.”
“How old were you?”
“I’d seen five winters.”
Blessed Spirits, is it possible that such a young child could have gathered enough Power to kill?
“Do you think you killed him?”
His brows drew down over his nose. “Everyone believed that I’d done it. After my parents died it was my grandmother’s excuse to be rid of me. She stuffed my clothes in my pack and had me escorted here, to Sassafras Lake, to ‘study’ with Juggler. I think she genuinely hoped he could teach me to control my Spirit Powers. I did try very hard to learn from him.”
The love in his voice touched her. “He must have been like a father to you.”
“Yes. Or at least he was my best friend.”
His gaze drifted away from her and out to the sunlit trees, where long beards of hanging moss swayed. His shadow-soul seemed to be walking trails from long ago, not all of them pleasant.
“Why did you decide to leave him and return to Eagle Flute Village?”
“I didn’t decide to leave him.” He braced a hand on a nearby palm trunk; his sleeve fell down, revealing the beautiful tattoos that covered his arm. Red and azure, the interconnected bands of human eyes seemed to be staring straight at her. “He threw me out, told me to go home. For moons I secreted myself in caves around Sassafras Lake, praying he would change his mind and come looking for me. Yesterday when we found his lodge empty and I knew he must be dead …” He grimaced at his tea cup. “It’s the first time I’ve known for certain that he would never change his mind. I—I always thought he would, someday, send for me.”
Sora put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “It must have been difficult, losing your parents, then your family, and finally the one person you thought loved you.”
Strongheart started to place his hand over hers, but stopped midway with his fingers hovering above hers. He grasped his tea cup instead. “He did love me, Chieftess. That’s why he made me go home. I just didn’t understand it at the time. He’d
taught me everything he could. I needed to face the world. I wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t forced me to.”
“How long had you been with him?”
“Three winters.”
“Then you were twelve winters old. That hardly seems old enough to face the world, Priest.”
She walked around him and continued up the trail. The velvet touch of the wind stirred the massive beech and oak branches that canopied the trail, scenting the air with a pungent fragrance. She breathed it in. As the day warmed, swarms of insects climbed from their hiding places and created great glittering veils in the sunlit depths of the forest. As she slowed to veer around a fallen tree that blocked the trail, she heard Strongheart’s soft steps come up behind her. Just as she started to step into the brush, he grabbed her arm, and she heard his tea cup thunk on the ground.
“Wh—”
She only got out part of the word before his hand clamped over her mouth, and he leaned down to whisper, “Be very quiet. Look through the berry vines.” He removed his hand and pointed.
At first she saw nothing but the dense tangle of vines; then one of the men moved. He stepped to the left and she could see him. It was Flint. His mouth was moving as though he was talking to someone she couldn’t see.
Sora glanced up at Strongheart and noticed that his gaze was not on Flint, but on the person Flint spoke with. He was much taller than she. He could probably see both men. He looked down at her and mouthed the words, “Get down.”

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