Read It Sleeps in Me Online

Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear

It Sleeps in Me (7 page)

BOOK: It Sleeps in Me
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“Do you think Skinner might be tricking you about Flint’s death?”
Sora jerked around in surprise. “Why did you say that?”
“Well, if not Flint’s death, what?” Wink pressed.
When Sora didn’t answer, Wink said in a stern voice, “Is he still proclaiming how much he loves you?”
Sora squeezed her eyes closed.
“Hallowed gods, Sora. Why are you so upset by this? You should be honored that he—”
“I’m
terrified
.”
Wink scrutinized Sora’s tortured expression. “Why did you say it like that? With such desperation?”
“I …” She fumbled with her cold hands. “I asked him how close he was when Flint’s last breath escaped.”
Wink didn’t ask about the answer. She could see it in Sora’s eyes. The color drained from her face. “Sora, are you telling me you believe Flint’s shadow-soul is hiding inside Skinner?”
Their gazes held for a long time.
Sora’s skin prickled as though Skinner’s hands were moving over her body. His very presence, the way he moved, the sound of his voice, had reminded her so much of Flint that she’d actually started to believe it. “Gods, maybe my reflection-soul is out wandering lost in the forest.”
“That’s one possibility,” Wink admitted in a wry voice, “but I hope not. If so, I’ll have to hire a priest to go search for it, which will cost me a fortune. Then, if the priest can’t find it, one of your relatives will be responsible for whacking your soulless body in the back of the head. I don’t want it to be me.”
Wink’s sense of humor had never been less amusing. “That wasn’t funny, Wink.”
“Especially not if Flint’s shadow-soul
did
sneak inside Skinner, but I suspect your first instinct is correct: Skinner is tricking you. In that case, he’s the one who deserves to be whacked in the head.”
Sora mulled over her words before she said, “There’s another possibility, one we haven’t considered.”
“What’s that?”
“This could be Flint’s reflection-soul. I’ve heard priests say that sometimes the reflection-soul lingers on earth, completing tasks, saying things to loved ones that need to be said before it travels to the afterlife.”
“If it’s his reflection-soul, it has to leave within ten days of his death, or it will become a homeless ghost wandering the earth forever. This is the fourth day after his death, which means it has six more days to remain here.”
“Then, in six days, we’ll know. Isn’t that right?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Wink blurted. “Do you want to take that chance? What if it is his shadow-soul? Or what if Skinner is tricking you in order to hurt you, or Shadow Rock Clan?”
A gust of wind blasted through the forest and swept old leaves around them. They both turned their faces away until it raced past, whirled down the face of the mound, and out into the plaza, where dogs barked and ran away with their tails between their legs.
“Stay away from him, Sora, until I can get this sorted out.”
“Blessed gods, do you think I’m an idiot? Of course I’ll stay away from him.” Despite her words, longing rose, and she knew she
needed
to see him again. She had to be sure.
“I see that look on your face,” Wink said in disbelief. “Don’t even think it. If the worst is true, he’s
not
Flint. Shadow-souls are filled with all the evil that ever lived inside the person. He’s dangerous.”
But he hadn’t felt evil. He’d felt
Powerful
—as though a hurricane lived inside him, which he held at bay through sheer force of will.
“You know what we’ll have to do if we find out it is Flint’s shadow-soul?” Wink asked.
The thought chilled her. Shadow-souls rarely rested in one body. Once, when she’d been a child, her mother had ordered three people killed to stop the shadow-soul of an old priest who wouldn’t leave his family alone. He’d kept slipping from one unsuspecting
person to another, hiding until discovered, then moving again. Because shadow-souls resembled breath, they could slip from one mouth to another barely noticed. Whispering usually passed the soul.
Wink rose to her feet. “I’m going to instruct our guards that Skinner is not to enter this town again.” She remained standing there, looking down at Sora as though she expected her to object.
“Thank you. That’s a good idea,” Sora said.
“I’m glad you agree.”
Wink marched up the trail—a woman on a mission.
Sora continued to stare blindly out across the forest at sprays of flowering redbud. Blossom-scented wind, blowing off Persimmon Lake, tousled her long black hair around her shoulders. As Mother Sun rose higher into the morning sky, the shadows of the mounds stretched toward her like long, pointing fingers, silently accusing her.
Of what? What had she done?
For three winters, I’ve been longing for him
…
Fifty heartbeats later she found herself striding down the mound steps, past the women who stirred the yucca blades. They cast fearful glances her way and whispered to each other.
She hurried along the north side of her mound. To her left, across the broad plaza filled with commoners and racing children, War Chief Feather Dancer stood atop his mound, practicing with his war club. He swung the massive copper-studded club over his head, then slashed downward, as though cutting an opponent across the belly. When he saw her, he bowed.
She dipped her head in acknowledgment. A very tall, muscular man, he’d seen twenty-six winters. She’d chosen him as her war chief when she’d ascended to the chieftainship—a reward for extraordinary bravery while serving her mother. Not only that, the former war chief, White Pelican, was old and always too eager for war.
Feather Dancer had sided with her in the council, speaking against war with the Loon People. She wondered how he would feel if he knew that his matron was now considering another war,
with a people he did not know at all, over a green stone he’d never seen before.
As she rounded the northeastern corner of her mound, her white dress flapped around her legs. Despite the thousands of times she had climbed these fifty-four steps, she still counted each as she trotted to the top. She did that: counted things unconsciously, like the angles in a painting or the leaves on a palmetto. Counting seemed to order her chaotic heart.
From the crest, the view was stunning. She could look out across the top of Priest Teal’s mound to the lake, where ducks and cormorants paddled the green water, coming to within a few body-lengths of the people fishing onshore. The birds never got too close. They just seemed to want to watch for a time; then they veered away, leaving a wake of silver rings bobbing behind them. All around the lake, for as far as she could see, farm plots, patches where the trees and brush had been cleared, resembled irregular green squares. The corn, beans, and sunflowers that sustained the Black Falcon People had just begun to turn their faces to Mother Sun.
Far down the lakeshore someone shouted in glee and pulled a wriggling fish from the water. His family gathered around as he used a hook to draw the intestines out through the anus without cutting the fish open, then skewered the fish, tail to jaw, with a cottonwood stick. His wife covered it with mud and put it in the embers of their breakfast fire. When the mud cracked off, it would be ready to eat. The cottonwood gave the meat a pleasantly tangy flavor.
“He is
not
Flint,” she whispered to herself. “He can’t be. Skinner is tricking me, but why?”
In the dark place deep inside her, where her own shadow-soul walked, fear rose. If all the evil had been sucked into Flint’s shadow-soul at his death …
It would come looking for me
.
She entered her house and stood for a moment in the cool
hallway, listening. Rockfish must be away. The silence pressed against her ears like huge hands.
Though her mother had always insisted that her slaves live in this house, Sora had sent them away the first day she’d become the chieftess. They lived in slaves’ quarters out on the lakeshore, came when she asked for them, and left when she ordered them to. This house was the only place on earth where she had any privacy. She wanted to keep it that way.
Sora walked into the temple. The low flames of the Eternal Fire cast a soft, flickering light over the enormous figure of Black Falcon that hung on the wall.
It took a few moments for her to realize that a special offering lay on the altar at Black Falcon’s feet: a necklace of copper hands connected by a leather thong. From the palm of each hand, wide-open eyes, embossed by a master copper worker, stared out at her.
A circle of disembodied eyes.
Every time they’d argued, Flint had left her a gift in this very spot. It was his way of apologizing without having to say the words.
As her heartbeat increased to slam against her ribs, she had the terrifying sensation that he was here, very close by.
Sora glanced around the temple. Nothing moved except the shadows cast on the walls by the flames.
She climbed the altar steps and went to touch the necklace. It was warm. Had it just been pulled from around someone’s throat and placed here?
The door curtain behind her whispered.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he called softly.
Sora swung around. He must have been waiting in the council chamber across the hall. “Skinner, I told you to leave me alone.”
The shark’s teeth on his buckskin shirt flashed as he walked toward her. “Yes, today you did, but last night you said you would give up everything for me, including your husband. I’m here, Sora. I want you as much as you want me.”
“Leave. Now!”
His gaze focused on the fists she’d clenched at her sides, then moved to the necklace on the altar behind her. “I made that for you the day I died. I had to bring it to you myself.”
“You are not Flint! Stop pretending to be!”
“Please, please, listen to me,” he pleaded. “From the instant my souls seeped from my body—”
“Skinner, I beg you not to say these things! If you feel this way, then just tell me and we’ll—”
“I knew I had to see you before I traveled to the Land of the Dead. There are so many things I must tell you.”
She stepped backward, almost into the Eternal Fire. Maybe it was his reflection-soul?
I’m insane.
I should run to a priest and ask his advice.
“Then you’re not Flint’s shadow-soul?”
So much hope filled her voice she could barely stand to hear it herself.
A sad look came over his handsome face. “How does a person tell, Sora? Please, I need you to help me figure this out.”
He made a helpless gesture with his hand and turned slightly away from her. As he stood in profile, his solitary eye squinted as though in confusion.
She said, “Can you tell me what happened at the end? What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Skinner started sobbing and gasping for breath and I … I knew.”
“You knew what?”
“I knew I was dead.”
Hearing him say it made her ache as though she’d just received the news for the first time. “And then?”
He clutched the fabric over his heart. “A deep sense of gratitude went through me, and I realized it wasn’t me feeling it.”
“You mean, Skinner was feeling grateful? That—that you were dead?”
“No, I think he knew my soul had slipped inside him. He could feel me there, and didn’t mind. In fact, he seemed deeply relieved.”
Breathlessly, she asked, “Did he tell you that?”
“Yes. Later. Now, we talk often.”
She edged around the circumference of the fire pit. His one eye followed her. He knew she was getting ready to bolt.
“You’re toying with me, Skinner. You know how much I loved him. Are you trying to hurt me?”
He got down on his knees and spread his arms wide in a warrior’s gesture of surrender, exactly the way Flint used to do when he was begging her to listen to him. “Give me three more days, Sora. Just three days of your life. Please, there’s something I must ask you, and so many things I must tell you.”
The crackling of the Eternal Fire seemed suddenly unbearably loud.
“If I agree, will your reflection-soul be at peace and able to go on to the Land of the Dead?”
Tears beaded his lashes. “Yes. I think so.”
A battle raged inside her: good sense warring against an emotional need so deep and dark it wrung her souls.
“Wink told the guards you are never to set foot in this town again.”
“Then I won’t. We can meet in the forest, like we used to.”
Slowly, as though trying not to frighten her, he rose to his feet and stepped forward. “Please, Sora, let me hold you. I need to feel you in my arms.”
She shook her head. “No. I—I can’t do that.”
He extended his hands, and her muscles seemed to freeze solid. She just watched as he slowly came forward. When he embraced her, a stunning wave of calm flooded her veins. She felt as though for three winters her body had been wound up like knotted strips of rawhide, waiting for his arms so it could relax. She leaned against him, and he kissed her.
BOOK: It Sleeps in Me
3.74Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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