It Wakes in Me (18 page)

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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear

BOOK: It Wakes in Me
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… I hear my father sobbing. He must have his face buried in a blanket, because the sounds are muffled. He …
Barely audible, she thought she heard him say,
“It’s not your fault … .”
The words vanished as the root of Flint’s hard shaft hammered at the arch of her hips.
In desperation, she tightened her arms around him, and her nails dug into his back.
Every muscle in his body rippled when his hot seed jetted into her. A ragged cry burst from his throat, rising and falling each time he bucked.
When he finally collapsed against her, she cradled his head between her breasts, and stroked his long black hair.
To her surprise, the Dancers did not mimic her. They were staring at her, questions in their eyes as they lay intertwined with their partners.
When she glanced at young Sora, it was to see a stranger. The link was gone.
What Power does this ceremony have that it can conjure the dead and take my soul back to the past?
The old men at either end of the room began shaking their rattles, and the young men and women rose to their feet and formed the two familiar circles again.
The women lifted their right legs before stamping their feet
down. Then they followed suit with their left. They shuffled sideways for four steps. When they turned to face the men each woman suggestively shook her body and thrust her hips forward, emphasizing her charms. Their breasts and bellies gleamed with sweat; dewlike droplets sparkled on dark pubic hair. Each woman gave the man opposite her a furtive bow before they straightened. In unison they raised their right legs. Their new partners stepped forward to embrace the women. Once again they lowered their partners to the floor.
Sora asked, “How long does this go on?”
Flint nuzzled his cheek against her breast, an action mimicked by the reclining men. “Until dusk. Then it begins again at dawn.”
WHEN THE PURPLE RAYS OF SUNSET FLOODED THE HOUSE, the two old men picked up their tortoiseshell rattles, rose, and ducked beneath the door curtain. The old women followed them out.
It took the young Dancers longer. Many of them barely had the strength to rise and drag themselves through the door. Several couples left with their arms wrapped around each other, smiling, speaking soft words.
Flint rolled off Sora and lay beside her with his arms over his head, staring at the ceiling. “Blessed gods, I thought it would never end. I’m getting old.”
Sora pillowed her head on his broad chest. A warm breeze fluttered the door curtain, and the aroma of roasting duck seeped into the house. “I just realized that I’m starving.”
“As am I. We haven’t had anything to eat since last night.”
The old women had been tending the fire all day; now, it began to die down. As Sora stared at the firelit shadows on the walls, a calm exhaustion filtered through her limbs. The
shadows seemed to draw her. As some people were drawn to light and flames, she was drawn to shadows and darkness—a thing she had never realized until this moment. Staring at the shadows, she perceived living creatures, amorphous, moving as though their wings could not find air enough to fly. Strange iridescences tipped their wings, like stringers of lightless fire.
“In the middle of the first dance,” she said softly. “I began to see and hear things.”
“What things?”
“I heard shouts and sobbing. More images came with each Dance.”
He smoothed her hair away from her forehead. When she tipped her face to look up at him, his dark eyes might have contained all the hope in the world. “Who was shouting?”
“My parents. I had the sense that I’d seen four or five winters.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“I don’t know. They screamed at each other often when I was a child. I never knew what they fought about.”
He tenderly kissed the top of her head. “What about the sobbing? Was it your mother?”
“No. It was F-Father.”
How strange that her voice shook when she spoke of him. She slipped an arm over Flint’s chest and hugged him tightly. As she listened to his heartbeat and the steady rhythm of his breathing, things that had comforted her for most of her life, the moony pallor of early evening crept into the house. With it came the sounds of people cooking supper, laughter, and dogs playfully barking.
“Why was he crying?” Flint asked.
She closed her eyes and heard the wrenching sounds again. “I think he was sad.”
“Did you know why?”
“No.”
Even through the thick thatched walls, she could hear the rasping of handstones grinding seeds. The breeze smelled richly of corn and sweet sap, and of cakes being fried somewhere nearby.
“Sora,” Flint said carefully, “the Spirit Plant I gave you to make you sleep should be wearing off. Can you tell me now?”
“Tell you what?”
“Where were you?”
“When? What are you talking about?”
“You camped outside Eagle Flute Village. You told Feather Dancer you were coming in with just one guard, Walking Bird. But you sent Walking Bird in alone and you vanished into the trees.”
Glimpses. Faces.
They shot around behind her eyes like lightning bolts, almost too brief to see, but they left afterimages … .
Warriors scouting the forest … a beautiful woman being carried on a litter … smiling …
“I don’t remember.” She shook her head violently as though to deny the images.
Flint stroked her hair. “It’s all right,” he said. “I was just hoping. Let me try something else.”
She lifted her head to look into his black eyes. “What?”
“The council must have given you orders when you came here. What were they?”
She sank down against his shoulder. “They authorized me to come to Eagle Flute Village to negotiate with Blue Bow for the release of our hostages, but they ordered me to give away nothing. I was to tell Blue Bow straightly that the gathering grounds were ours and if he did not release our hostages and retreat from our gathering grounds, we would attack and wipe out his village.”
Flint’s shoulder muscles contracted. “How did my own clan matron vote?”
“Wood Fern was the most insistent of all. She hates the Loon People.”
He sighed. “You knew, of course, that threats wouldn’t work. They would have just made Blue Bow more recalcitrant.”
“Yes, I knew that, but I had no choice.”
He toyed with her long hair, wrapping it around his hand and then bringing it to his nostrils to smell the fragrance. It was such a tender loverlike gesture, it brought tears to her eyes. “How did Grown Bear get the jade brooch, Sora?”
She frowned. “He said he paddled for sixteen days—” “Yes, I know what he said, but I’m asking you for the truth.”
“What do you mean, ‘the truth’?”
Flint slipped out from under her, and rolled to his side to face her. His handsome face showed signs of fatigue, but he also looked oddly serene, as though the strenuous activities of the day had leached away every other emotion. “You and I both know where the jade came from.”
“We do?”
“Don’t play with me. This isn’t a game. You must have given that brooch to Grown Bear. I just want to know why. Were you negotiating with him for the release of our hostages?”
Totally baffled, she said, “Flint, please tell me what you’re talking about.”
He searched her face, and looked surprised that she really didn’t seem to understand. “Sora, that brooch came from the box your mother hid behind the statue of Black Falcon in the temple.”
“The box …” Her mouth hung open. “You mean the box that had been passed down to her by my grandmother?”
“Yes.”
Stunned, she said, “Flint, are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Didn’t you ever look in that box?”
Sora swallowed hard. She felt as though she had something lodged in her throat and couldn’t breathe. “No. It wasn’t mine. It belonged to my mother.”
“You didn’t look in it even after you … her death?”
She felt so grateful he had not said, ‘after you killed her,’ that she honestly replied, “No, Flint. There were too many things to do. I was trying to avert a war, I had just appointed a new war chief, and my new husband was pushing me to Trade pounded copper for …”
She stopped, and stared at him. “How do you know the brooch came from that box?”
Flint’s brows plunged down. “Because
I
am not nearly as scrupulous as you are, and apparently I’m a good deal more curious. I looked in it.”
“When?”
“A few days before I left Blackbird Town. I’d found the box many winters before tucked into the niche behind the statue. I knew it had to be
the
box that Yellow Cypress spoke about. So I took it.”
“You stole it?”
“Of course,” he replied unabashedly. “We were competing to see who could hurt the other most. I saw no reason to let you get in the final hurt. Besides, no one would know I’d stolen it. When it was discovered missing, they would blame you.”
She propped herself up on her elbow to peer at him. “But … you didn’t steal it. Isn’t that why you asked if I had given the brooch to Grown Bear?”
He put his hand on her cheek. “Yes, that’s why I asked. At the end, I just couldn’t do it. I left the box in my personal basket, along with other things I couldn’t bear to take with me.”
“But Flint, I—I … ,” she stammered, “I never looked in your basket. I had it sealed with boiled pine pitch and put away.”
His eyes narrowed. “You never looked in my basket? I was certain you would take out each item and burn it with the proper ritual glee.”
“No.” She smoothed her hand over the contours of his arm muscles. “I couldn’t even stand to throw away the small things that had belonged to you. Every time I found one of your hairs twined in my clothing, I coiled it up and put it in a box for safekeeping.”
He tilted his head, as though bewildered that she had cherished such tiny parts of him. “If you didn’t do it, then someone else opened my basket and took the box.”
Once again, very slowly, she asked, “Are you absolutely certain that the brooch Grown Bear brought me came from that box?”
“Yes. Unquestionably.”
“Did you tell anyone you’d taken the box?”
Flint blinked, and his expression slackened. For several moments he gazed at the far wall, but she could see thoughts moving behind his eyes. A variety of emotions crossed his face: disbelief, dread, and finally … fear. “I told Skinner.”
She couldn’t speak.
Flint stared at her for another three heartbeats; then he shoved away, got to his feet, and reached for his cape. As he swung it around his shoulders, he said, “I must speak with Grown Bear.”
TWO HANDS OF TIME LATER, AS NIGHT DEEPENED, SORA knelt before the fire and began feeding branches to the glowing coals. A chill wind seeped beneath the door curtain and breathed around the room. She had tried to follow Flint, but the two guards who stood outside the door wouldn’t allow it.
She kept thinking about the jade brooch. Could Flint be right? Such a treasure had come from her mother’s box? Yellow Cypress had first showed the box to Sora just before Sora’s marriage to Flint. She’d taken Sora into the temple, reached behind the statue of Black Falcon where it hung on the wall, pulled out the box, and told her the story of how it had been passed down for generations. Sora had indeed longed to see inside, but Mother had said, “
Never touch this box. Not ever. Do you understand me? It is only to be opened in the case of a true emergency. It would be better if you just forgot it existed.”
“But why, Mother? What’s in there?”
“Coiled serpents waiting to strike,”
she’d replied in deadly
earnest.
“Open this only if our clan is disgraced and you are desperate to escape with your children’s lives.”
Mother had tucked it back into the niche, and ushered Sora out of the temple.
From time to time over the next eight or ten winters, Sora had reached around the statue and touched the box to make sure it was still there, but she’d never even lifted it from its hiding place. She had feared what Mother might do if she ever discovered Sora had been handling it. After Mother’s death, there were just too many more important matters to take care of.
Outside, Strongheart said, “Good evening.”
One of the guards responded, “A pleasant evening to you, Priest,” and Sora recognized Snail’s voice. They’d changed guards. Was he on duty with his good friend, Black Turtle? Revulsion curdled her belly.
Strongheart ducked beneath the door curtain, accompanied by a slave woman carrying two steaming platters.
“You may set them near Chieftess Sora,” he ordered.
The woman walked across the floor, set the platters in front of Sora, and left.
Strongheart sank down to Sora’s right and gestured to the food. “I’m sure you’re very hungry. The duck is excellent, and I think you’ll find the corncakes and palm-berry jam tasty as well.”
She reached for a succulent piece of duck and ate it. The rich dark meat melted in her mouth.
Strongheart wore his flaxen shirt with the shell bells on the hem. When he moved to sit cross-legged, facing her, the bells clicked. “Flint tells me that memories stalked you throughout the Dances.”
She nodded. “Yes, I saw and heard strange things. Why didn’t you attend the ritual?”
He gave her a curious look, as though she might be asking
him to participate with her tomorrow. “My presence proves to be a distraction for the patient. You don’t need to worry about what I might be thinking, or how to please me.”
Sora reached for a corncake, dipped it into the palm-berry jam, and ate it slowly. A sweet burst of flavor coated her tongue. It was particularly delicious after a day without food.
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Yes, please.”
Strongheart reached for the cups that always rested beneath the tea pot and dipped one full. As he handed it to her, he said, “Do you want to tell me about the things you saw and heard?”
She had to pull her attention back to grasp the cup. She’d been wondering what it would take to please him, and how many women had tried to find out. He was a priest, a young one. She doubted he’d had much experience with women; priests always seemed to be occupied mixing potions or Healing wounds.
“I heard voices. Shouting. I think I was four or five winters at the time. My parents were arguing in their bedchamber.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“I couldn’t tell. I just heard shouts, not words.”
He dipped a cup of tea for himself and held it in his lap. Lines creased his brow. “What about the sobs?”
“Yes, I heard my—my father crying.”
“As he did the night he died?”
“Yes. Except today when I heard him, his cries were more heartrending, as though everything he loved in the world had vanished. He sounded lonely.”
“Flint tells me that you did not ask any of the young men to Dance with you. Why not? Did Flint pressure you to stay with him?”
Sora smiled and shook her head. “No, Priest. I wanted to stay with him. I started wanting Flint when I’d seen fourteen
winters, and I’ve never stopped. Were it not for the fact that I am a captive in an enemy village, today would have been one of the best days of my life.”
He sipped his tea and said, “Tomorrow will be different.”
A tendril of fear tickled her belly. “Different? How?”
“Tonight you will dream. In the morning, I will question you about the dreams to discover the unfulfilled desires of your souls. Then I will alter the ritual to assure those desires are filled.”
In a tired voice, she replied, “After today, my desires aren’t of the body.”
Strongheart drew up one knee and propped his cup atop it. The bells on his hem made music. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, it’s just that the things I long for are things I can no longer have. I mean, I wish with all my heart that there was some Spirit Plant that could make Flint love me the way he did when we were fourteen winters. When our love was new and innocent, before we hurt each other so much.”
He sighed as though he’d heard that same request too many times to count. “There are no Spirit Plants that can make love last, Sora.”
“But there are love potions; I’ve heard priests speak of them.”
“Yes, there are, but after a few days they wear off, and when they do, the two people usually despise each other.”
“But why? You’d think even a little love would be better than none.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You see, the person who came for the love potion knows that it took a Spirit Plant to make him love her. And when the plant wears off, the man or woman usually realizes he’s been deceived. I’ve heard it’s a bitter feeling, especially when the person who came for the potion is very young.”
A sad smile turned her lips. She remembered what it was
like to have seen fourteen winters. She would have been willing to do anything, to try anything, even buying a Spirit potion, to make Flint love her. She thanked the gods that she hadn’t had to do that. “Yes,” she said, “I suppose that’s true, but isn’t it unfortunate that love is so … temporary?”
The anxious look in his brown eyes went to her heart. “Love is like a river, Chieftess. You may catch the water in your hands, or scoop it up in a pot, but the instant you do it begins to dry up. The river must be free to renew itself, every moment, or it turns to dust.”
Running a finger over the rough texture of her tea cup, she smiled. “Perhaps, but I’m still sorry there is no potion that can change a person’s heart forever.”
When he just sipped his tea, she raised her eyes, hoping he would tell her he agreed. Instead, he smiled at her in a detached, kindly way.
She longed to ask him the question that, all day long, she had been asking herself, but wasn’t certain she could actually force her mouth to form the words.
“What is it?” he said. “I can tell you wish to ask me something. Ask. I’ll answer if I can.”
She drew up her knees and hugged them against her chest, barricading her heart.
“I—I’ve been wondering … Do you think … ? Is it possible that my father killed himself?”

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