It Wakes in Me (17 page)

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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear

BOOK: It Wakes in Me
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AFTER ALL THE OTHER MATRONS HAD BEEN SERVED TEA, Wink motioned for the slaves to leave the council chamber. They filed out one by one, leaving a curiously pregnant silence in their wake.
Wink walked around the four benches, and sat on the south bench, across the fire from her son, Chief Long Fin. To Wink’s right, Matron Wood Fern sat with her hands propped on the knob of her walking stick. She kept the stick in front of her as though she might need it to knock some sense into one of the other council members.
To Wink’s left, Matron Black Birch of the Bald Cypress clan sat beside Matron Wigeon of the Shoveler Clan. Both old women had gray hair and shriveled faces.
Only her son looked out of place. This was his first council meeting as chief of the Black Falcon Nation, and he kept glancing at the clan matrons as though he feared one of them might stab him in the heart at any moment. At least he had dressed well for the occasion, wearing his best cream-colored cape,
painted with intricate red and yellow geometric designs. Copper bangles ringed the hem.
Wink said, “As you know, Matron Wood Fern of the Water Hickory Clan asked that I call the council together again to reconsider the matter of the jade. She suggested that one of you wished to change your vote. Who would like to speak first?”
Wigeon lifted her frail old hand. “I would,” she said in a gruff voice. “I have been hearing rumors for days about things Chief Blue Bow said before he was killed. The rumors keep growing larger and more bizarre by the moment. Does anyone here know exactly what Blue Bow said?”
Long Fin nodded, and all eyes turned to him. “Yes, Matron, I do. I was speaking with him just before he died.”
Wigeon’s mouth pursed. “Well, what did he say?”
Long Fin took a deep breath, and replied, “He said many things, but I assume you wish to know specifically about the jade brooch?”
“Yes, of course.”
Long Fin jerked a nod. “Blue Bow said he knew nothing about it. He said he had not sent it to Chieftess Sora.”
A din rose as the old women all talked at once.
Above the fray, Wink called, “Who wishes to speak next?”
“I do,” Wood Fern said. She tilted her head so that her white-filmed eyes caught the light. “This is just another reason
not
to send warriors after the jade. No one knows what’s really going on! Sea Grass told me that she believes the jade brooch once belonged to Chieftess Red Warbler. I can’t say that I recall ever seeing Red Warbler wear that brooch. Do any of you?”
Heads shook around the chamber, and the skin at the back of Wink’s neck crawled. Had the old witch lied to her?
Why would she?
Wigeon said, “Sea Grass came to me, just like she did to the rest of you, to tell me that story, but I recall no such brooch. And as for a box of jade jewelry …” She sighed. “I never heard of such a thing.”
“Nor did I,” Matron Black Birch rasped in agreement. She adjusted the yellow blanket over her shoulders, and extended one bony finger, to command attention. “But let us be straight here. My memory is not as good as it once was. Perhaps Sea Grass’ memory is also shaky. That leads us back to Grown Bear’s original story, that he canoed south for sixteen days, where he met the Scarlet Macaw people, who gave him the brooch in exchange for his promise that he would return with warriors and help chase away the owners of the jade quarry.” She lifted her chin. “What does it matter who sent the brooch? Perhaps Grown Bear is working for himself. I don’t care. I’m still in favor of sending warriors after the jade.” She extended a thin arm to Wigeon. “What about you? The last time we met to discuss the brooch, you voted with Wood Fern. Since my vote has not changed, nor has Wood Fern’s, I assume yours has.”
Wigeon wet her wrinkled lips. “Right after Blue Bow was killed, I asked Rockfish to come to my chamber. He told me the jade could be the cornerstone of a new and greater Black Falcon Nation.” She extended a gnarled fist. “Aren’t any of you afraid of the Loon People, or the barbarian Lily People, or the Sandhill Crane People? Their numbers grow each winter, I think much faster than our numbers are growing. We should look to the future.”
Wood Fern scowled. “Are you suggesting that someday these pusillanimous worms might overrun us?” She waved a hand. “Ridiculous. They are savages.”
Wink said, “I would also mention that sending our warriors
south at this moment in time would leave Blackbird Town vulnerable to attack by any of the peoples Matron Wigeon just mentioned.”
“I agree,” Wood Fern said.
Wink studied the expressions of the other matrons before she said, “Perhaps we should cast our voices. Let me be the first to vote no.”
“I vote yes,” Wigeon said, barely above a whisper.
“As do I,” Black Birch called.
There was a lull, and Wink said, “Wood Fern?”
“Absolutely not.” She stamped her walking stick for emphasis. “I will not have it said twenty winters from now that Water Hickory Clan sent hundreds of warriors to their deaths for nothing.”
Wink turned to Long Fin. Her son shifted uncomfortably. His vote would break the tie, one way or the other. “Chief, how do you vote?”
He hesitated, and Wink longed to grab a piece of firewood and bash his brains out. “Chief?”
His throat bobbed with a difficult swallow. “I believe that Sea Grass is mistaken about the brooch. I don’t think it belonged to Red Warbler. I think it came from the Scarlet Macaw People, just as Grown Bear said it did. From the moment I saw that brooch, I knew that boatloads of jade could make us the most powerful chieftainship in the world … .” The buzz of voices that erupted over this statement made Long Fin’s expression tense. “I have spoken to Rockfish many times since that night, and he has explained to me in great detail the possible benefits to the Black Falcon Nation. Therefore, I—I vote yes.”
Wink felt the blood drain from her face. By the gods, she would have him assassinated!
In a preternaturally calm voice, she said, “It is settled, then. When the war party arrives, we will join it. It is now the duty of each matron here to decide how many warriors from her clan will accompany the party. We should meet again—”
Wood Fern grunted as she braced her walking stick and got to her feet. “I don’t want any rumors flying about this council session. When people ask you what I said, you tell them straightly that I believe this decision is catastrophic. If it results in the downfall of our nation, the Water Hickory Clan is not to blame.” She made her way to the door, shoved aside the curtain, and left without a backward glance.
Wigeon and Black Birch steadied each other as they, too, rose and headed for the door.
That left Wink staring at Long Fin.
He squirmed for a moment, then lurched to his feet and cried, “Mother, don’t look so stunned. You’ve known all along that I wanted us to join the war party!”
“Yes, but I thought we had an agreement that we should wait until a more fortuitous time.”
He squared his shoulders. “I am the chief now. I make my own decisions.”
Slowly, Wink rose to her feet. Earlier, when Sea Grass had accused him of not being ‘independent,’ of doing whatever Wink told him to, it must have shamed him.
“Congratulations,” she said with deadly softness. “You’ve just cast your first bad vote. You’d better pray that none of your friends die because of it.”
Wink swept out of the room and headlong down the hall.
Before Mother Sun went to sleep that night, she had to select a new war chief to replace Feather Dancer—a task she’d been dreading—and tell him that each clan would be assigning warriors to accompany the party south.
It would be an ugly day, filled with bitter accusations from those who opposed the decision, and shouts of joy from those who supported it.
Through it all, she would be thinking about one person.
The person most responsible for all of this.
Rockfish.
THE SWEET SOUND OF A FLUTE MIXED ODDLY WITH THE drizzling rain and penetrated her sleep.
Sora rolled to her side and gazed around the house. The fire blazed, but she smelled no food cooking, no tea simmering. She was alone.
Lifting herself on one elbow, she used stiff fingers to comb the snarls away from her eyes. From the color of the sky through the smokehole, it must have been just before dawn. When Wind Mother batted the door curtain, iron-gray streaks of light patterned the floor.
The flute player came closer, and she could hear him Dancing in time to his melody. It became a haunting tune, sweet and high, like the cry of a dying songbird. His thumping footsteps might have been the bird’s erratic heartbeat, fluttering toward an eternal stillness.
“Priest?” she called, thinking the flute player might be Strongheart.
The music stopped short.
“Strongheart?”
Out in the plaza, a sharp cry split the silence. Sora listened, taking a moment to place the rhythmic shuffling sound: bare feet moving in unison across the packed earth. She could make out the faint rattle of shell necklaces, the clacking of bracelets as the Dancers came closer. Fear tickled her belly.
Was this some prelude to an execution? Could this be part of a ritual reserved specifically for elite prisoners?
Anxiously, she glanced around the house for a weapon, but didn’t see one. Didn’t priests carry weapons in Loon society? A strange tradition, since so many people had reason to kill them.
Two old men stepped through the door carrying tortoiseshell rattles. Their flesh had shriveled from too many summers in the sun. Each wore a cloth about his waist, layers of necklaces on his chest, and shell bracelets that rattled loosely on his bony arms.
Neither man so much as glanced at her before going to sit on the floor mats at opposite sides of the house. Together, as though they’d done it many times, they started shaking their rattles and Singing in soft, pathetic voices:
“Take courage woman, and you will be cured tomorrow.
Take courage woman, take courage,
And you will be cured tomorrow.”
They Sang the words over and over, eyes closed, until Sora felt as though she were being mesmerized by the monotonous drone.
Next, four old women—the village elders who had judged her the day before—ducked in and crossed to the fire.
Ignoring her, they seated themselves on the north, south, east, and west. Elder Littlefield’s sparse white hair shone orange as she pulled a pipe from an otterskin sack, filled it with tobacco, and used an ember to puff it to life. She exhaled the blue smoke,
chanting under her breath as she watched it rise. The pipe passed around, and by the time it had returned to Elder Littlefield’s hands, the house was filled with a thick blue-gray haze.
Elder Littlefield blew a final stream of smoke toward the roof, and gave a great shout of “
Hé!”
The other elders echoed,
“Hé, hé!”
Light flooded in as the door curtain was drawn back over its peg and, two by two, young women and men Danced into the house. The women were perfectly naked, except for the earrings, bracelets, and anklets Sora had heard rattling. The men wore red sashes, no more than a finger wide, around their waists. Some had painted their bodies with extraordinary designs. Others sported elaborate tattoos. Feathers had been woven into long braids and adorned with shell bells.
Sora drew the soft deerhide up to cover her own nakedness. She had heard vague stories of this ritual, tales told in low voices by Traders.
With the young women on the outside, the Dancers formed two concentric circles, surrounding Sora. In time with the old men’s song, the women lifted their right legs high, then stamped their feet down with a jangling of jewelry. Then they stamped their left. After four or five short steps to the right, each young woman turned to face the man on the inside of the circle, shook her body in a way that emphasized her hips and breasts, and gave the man a challenging look.
The tension in the men couldn’t be mistaken. Muscles flexed, buttocks tightened; each man clenched his fists. As Sora looked around the circle, she could see their enlarged penises beginning to stiffen.
On some cue, the women lifted their right legs high, as though to touch their knees to their breasts. The men stepped smoothly forward to take the women in their arms.
Each man swung his partner up and gently lowered her to
the floor. Soft sighs rose here and there as men slid atop the women, rubbing their taut penises over smooth brown flesh. All the while, the two old men continued to sing, their voices stronger now, rising as they repeated their litany.
Sora stared in amazement at the ring of naked bodies surrounding her. They were doing this for her? Each couple was fondling and kissing, their bodies writhing against each other. Sora’s heart began to pound, and her loins stirred.
All the while, the old men Sang and the old women chanted,
“Hé, hé! Hé, hé!”
Sora looked up when a dark form filled the doorway.
Strongheart?
No. Flint entered, his fists at his sides, a black cape hanging from his shoulders. He wore nothing beneath it but the same thin red sash the other men wore.
Their gazes locked, and he smiled when he read the desire in her eyes.
With the grace of a forest panther, he crossed to her, knelt, and laid a warm hand on her bare shoulder. His eyes narrowed when he said, “Look at them, not me.”
He hardly had to tell her; she couldn’t take her eyes from the entwined lovers—if that’s what they were. But now everything had changed. Where they once had had eyes only for each other, now every stare was leveled at Sora and Flint. The Dancers had frozen, each man placing his right hand on the woman’s shoulder, just as Flint had done.
Sora shivered in sudden embarrassment, not just from the watching eyes. Flint had tugged her blanket away, and begun kissing her neck. She tried to squirm free, but he gripped her arms to keep her there. His warm lips sucked at her skin.
The circle of watching lovers followed his every move, the men lowering their mouths to their partner’s necks and throats. The women squirmed just as she had done.
The sight of it was shocking in a way Sora had never imagined. Half of her wanted to flee in horror; the other half was desperate to see what would happen next.
“Flint, I can’t do this! I have to get out—”
“Shhh!” he whispered against her skin. “Watch them, Sora. Don’t take your eyes off them.You are them; they are you.We are here to free parts of your souls, to Heal them with the joining.”
They are all watching me!
The thought paralyzed her as Flint lowered his head to kiss her breast.
Refusing to meet the circle of eyes, Sora fixed on one particularly beautiful young woman. As their gazes met, the woman smiled, and Sora experienced an odd quickening of the soul.
The woman could have passed as a younger copy of herself. Her full breasts, narrow waist, and long legs might have been Sora’s ten winters ago.
The young man who kissed her breast had Flint’s same muscular body, though his face was different. His moves mimicked Flint’s right down to the way he rolled her right nipple with his tongue.
She gasped and stiffened as Flint’s mouth covered her breast—and saw the young man take the young woman’s breast into his mouth. Sora felt as though she were staring into her own eyes. Her face, her younger face, had taken on an expression of joy.
Flint’s mouth, sucking, caressing, became the young man’s. They were merging, falling together, souls rising and swaying to the Song the old men Sang …
Sora pulled herself back from the dizzy sensation, asking, “What is this ritual?”
Flint looked up from her breast. “It’s called the
andacwander
. It’s the Soul-Curing ritual Strongheart told you about last night.”
“Where is he? Where’s Strongheart?” Why was that suddenly so important?
“He told me he probably wouldn’t be here today.”
“Why not?”
“Ask him when you see him.”
“But I—”
“
Watch
the Dancers,” Flint insisted as he lowered his mouth to her breast again. “Strongheart told me you had to watch the Dancers.”
Sora was panting as she glanced around the room. Women sighed, legs shifting, arms in slow motion as they fondled the men’s heads. The beautiful young “Sora” had arched her back, forcing her breast deeper into her partner’s mouth. The round globe elongated, slipping past his lips as he took as much in his mouth as he could.
Images flashed in her souls of the first time Flint had taken her breast in his mouth. The honeyed sensations, just like now …
She swallowed against a sudden longing, wishing she could be that young woman who was separated from her by a few paces and too many winters. If only she could go back to those free days of youth, before she had committed so many …
“Let yourself go, Sora,” Flint whispered softly. “Watch them, and let yourself drift.”
She stretched out on her back, attention focused on the beauty she called “young Sora.”
She, too, stretched out, a delighted smile on her face as her muscular young man ran the flats of his hands down her lean belly the way Flint was doing.
Sora tensed as Flint’s hand smoothed down her abdomen to the warmth between her legs. She watched her younger self arch with delight.
“Young Flint” spread the woman’s legs and moved to kneel between them as Flint did between hers. She could almost believe the young man looked her way with Flint’s eyes as he removed the red sash from his waist, and knotted it several times.
“What’s he doing?” she asked.
Flint didn’t answer. Instead, he tucked a finger inside her. From the slick ease of it, he’d found her already wet. When had she become so aroused?
“You’ll like this, Sora. I give you my oath.”
He tucked the first knot into her opening, and used his fingers to force it deeper. Slowly, as though calculating her response, he shoved in another knot, and another. With each additional knot, she felt herself filling, tingling.
… A flash of memory … darkness … voices from my parents’ bedchamber … angry shouts …
After eight knots, Flint lowered his lips to her ‘little manhood. ’ She watched the dark red cloth disappearing into young Sora, felt it inside herself, and waves of pleasure began to tighten her womb.
Someone cried out; then other cries erupted. One woman screamed in ecstasy. Sora kept her eyes on young Sora, desperate to maintain that link.
It barely registered that she and young Sora were writhing and bucking in unison. She might have been watching herself lift against her lover’s lips in those hard, sure thrusts.
The slow tugging on the cloth sent stinging bolts through her pelvis. Slowly, deliciously, each knot was pulled out. Her panting gasps were mirrored in young Sora’s; each whimpering cry was forced simultaneously from her throat. Their eyes were locked as the orgasm burst through their hips. Their cries came as one, the tingling waves washing up their spines, down their spread legs.
The young man rose over young Sora, and she could see a clear droplet of semen gleaming on the tip of his long, thick shaft. His scrotum had knotted tightly around his testicles.
Sora reached for Flint and ran her fingertips along the engorged veins that swelled beneath his taut skin.
She whispered, “I need you inside me, Flint.”
“Yes, I know.”
When he entered her, she wrapped her arms around his back, closed her eyes, and was quickly lunging against him.
“Open your eyes, Sora. Look at the Dancers.”
She turned and saw dozens of other bodies entwined, slick male shafts driving deeply into warm flesh. The shadows they cast upon the walls were wild and black, like frenzied ghosts seeking to give birth to the world.

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