It Wakes in Me

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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear

BOOK: It Wakes in Me
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A SHIMMERING DUST OF RADIANCE, FAINT VOICES, A FLOATING sensation … but that’s all.
I can’t feel my heart beating. My lungs don’t seem to be moving air.
Where is my body?
For a time, I allow myself to ride the waves of light while I search for my hands, my legs … my face.
Nothing.
I am gone. The world has vanished, and along with it, everyone and everything I have ever loved.
An ugly, high-pitched voice whispers, “You killed my father … . I hate you … . Mother hates you … . You deserve to die … .”
Grief shivers the brilliance, and it turns white-hot, blinding. Who is that? I don’t recognize the voice.
I
must
be dreaming.
The dazzling ocean washes around and through me, but it has no warmth, no feel on my skin.
Maybe I am dead.
Is this what it feels like when the reflection-soul, the soul that travels
to the afterlife, slips out with the last breath and hangs in the air around the body?
Somewhere deep inside me, a silent scream rises.
How did I die?
Was I sick? Was Blackbird Town attacked?
I remember being afraid that we were going to be attacked, that war was about to break out.
But with whom?
Words again. Very soft. The deep voice comforts me. It … it sounds like Flint. But that can’t be. I have a vague memory that he, too, is dead. Blessed gods, maybe he’s come to lead me along the treacherous trail that leads to the afterlife.
According to the tradition of the Black Falcon People, each person has three souls: the eye-soul stays with the body forever, but at death the shadow-soul and the reflection-soul slip out together. All the evil leaches into the shadow-soul, leaving the reflection-soul pure and clean, fit to live among the Blessed Ancestors in the Land of the Dead. Usually the evil shadow-soul dissipates into the air, but on rare occasions it sneaks into a passerby and uses the body of the living person to commit hideous crimes.
… Perhaps I am dead and this is my eye-soul?
Is this all I am now? A nothingness that dwells in rotting bones forever?
Anger flickers.
Why didn’t anyone tell me it would be like this
—
this strange disembodied floating sensation?
What am I supposed to do now?
Old Priest Teal once told me that at death the reflection-soul has to make a decision. It can either go directly to the Land of the Dead, or spend ten days speaking with loved ones, saying the last things that need to be said.
Perhaps that’s where I am? Suspended between decisions? Blessed gods, I hope so.
As if in answer, the radiance shifts, twisting into a shining path that seems to lead upward.
I climb, or think I do.
The path becomes clearer, crystallizing into a vast spiraling blanket of stars.
… The voices are louder.
Confusion fills me, rapidly followed by fear.
If Flint has come to lead me to the afterlife, I know I can fight the monsters that inhabit the dark underworld forests, but what if my reflection-soul is entering the living world again?
Perhaps this is my last chance to tell people how much I love them.
It takes every bit of my strength, but I manage to open my eyes for a single heartbeat.
… Log roof beams … flame shadows on the walls …
As the hazy council chamber comes into focus, terror floods my veins.
He stands three paces away, with his long black cape swaying around him like midnight wings. His face is darkness.
From somewhere far away, I hear a great voice like raging water whisper, “Seven. She has killed seven people, and Chief Blue Bow’s murder may start the worst war the Black Falcon Nation has ever known. We must do something … .”
VEILS OF RAIN SWEPT THE DARK FOREST, DRENCHING WAR Chief Feather Dancer where he stood guard outside the front entrance to the Matron’s House. He drew his buckskin cape more tightly around his shoulders. A tall, muscular man, he could feel the scars on his face pull tight when he frowned out at Blackbird Town.
The enormous earthen mounds of the rulers, each five to six times the height of a man, rose from the forest like unnatural hills. Atop them, the massive log buildings were dark. Quiet. The only light came from the door curtain to his left. Inside, he could hear Matron Wink, Priest Teal, and the loathsome outsider named Flint talking. He couldn’t make out their words, but he heard the strain in their voices.
“What’s Flint talking you into now, Matron?” he murmured to himself. “The destruction of the entire Black Falcon Nation?”
Feather Dancer’s stomach muscles clenched. He longed for nothing more than to get his hands around Flint’s lying throat.
For fourteen winters Flint had been married to High Chieftess
Sora. When he’d divorced her three winters ago and gone home to his own people in Oak Leaf Village, it had broken the chieftess’ heart, but she’d remarried and was getting on with her life. Then, ten days ago, Flint had secretly returned to Blackbird Town, with his best friend War Chief Skinner, and thrown the entire nation into an uproar. War Chief Skinner had been murdered and Chieftess Sora accused of the crime. At this very moment, the Chieftess lay on a litter inside the Matron’s House drifting in and out of fevered dreams brought on by the Spirit Plant Flint had forced her to drink to keep her asleep while the Matron decided what to do.
Feather Dancer expelled a gruff sigh. Flint had talked everyone, including Matron Wink, into believing that the chieftess was a murderer.
As he stood there gazing into the rain, his shadow-soul drifted, remembering everything that had happened in the past three hands of time … .
He and the Matron’s son, Long Fin, had been dispatched around midnight to meet an enemy war party, led by Chief Blue Bow of the Loon Nation. The old chief had supposedly come to discuss a Trade: he was holding eleven men, women, and children from Oak Leaf Village hostage. He would release them if Chieftess Sora and Matron Wink would agree to send warriors south to steal a beautiful green stone called jade from the southern barbarians. Around two hands of time past midnight, they’d seen the war party approaching through the forest.
Blue Bow had bravely marched out in front, followed by his war chief, Grown Bear, and twenty warriors. Blue Bow was a bald, frail old man, but he wore his massive copper breastplate as though it weighed no more than a milkweed seed.
Feather Dancer had called, “I recognize you, Chief Blue Bow. You are welcome in the Black Falcon Nation. Matron
Wink asked us to escort you safely into Blackbird Town. Do not be alarmed when our warriors come out of the trees. They are here to protect you.” He’d lifted his hand, and men filtered through the dark oak trunks to surround the Loon party.
Blue Bow’s old eyes had narrowed. “To protect us from whom, War Chief? If your matron welcomes us—”
Long Fin had called, “Do all the Loon clans agree on political decisions, Chief?”
Blue Bow’s grizzled brows had lowered. “No. They do not. Which clans oppose my presence in the Black Falcon Nation? I would know so that I might prepare myself for their treachery.”
Long Fin had answered, “No one has openly opposed your visit, but my mother is cautious. She truly wishes to keep you from harm.”
“I appreciate that.” Blue Bow had turned to his war chief and added, “Grown Bear, I wish to speak with Long Fin alone. Please follow twenty paces behind us.”
“But my chief!” Grown Bear had objected. “That is too risky. They may be plotting—”
“I will take that chance. Do as I say.”
Grown Bear had murmured something unpleasant and backed away.
Blue Bow came forward and looked up at Feather Dancer with starlit eyes. “Let me walk out front with Long Fin for a time, War Chief.”
“As you wish.”
He’d heard Blue Bow ask Long Fin, “Is it true that Chieftess Sora has offered her life to Matron Sea Grass to compensate her for the loss of her son, War Chief Skinner?”
“It is.”
Blue Bow had shaken his head. “It saddens me to hear of it.
These sorts of things make political negotiations much more difficult.”
“I’m sure the chieftess will put her own personal concerns aside during her time with you.”
“Yes, I’m sure she’ll try, but when one’s life is at stake it’s impossible to concentrate fully on difficult negotiations, don’t you agree?”
“I am just the matron’s son. Trade agreements are not my expertise. I do not even understand why this green stone is so important to possess.”
Feather Dancer had squinted at the lie. Over the past hand of time, Long Fin had talked of little else. He wanted the stone badly. What was the youth up to? Had he worked this out with Matron Wink?
Obviously confused, Blue Bow had asked, “What green stone?”
Long Fin frowned. “The jade.” When Blue Bow’s expression didn’t change, Long Fin clarified, “The jade brooch you sent to Chieftess Sora.”
The warriors following twenty paces behind had muttered among themselves, probably exchanging insults, as enemy warriors did. Someone chuckled, and another man growled a response.
Blue Bow’s sunken face contorted. “I didn’t send her any brooch. What are you talking about?”
“You sent your war chief to Chieftess Sora with a brooch—”
“It was her broken promise that forced me to send Grown Bear to your chieftess. There was no brooch.”
Clearly taken aback, Long Fin had said, “Explain.”
A twig had cracked behind Feather Dancer, and he’d heard the soft hiss of a lance cutting the air.
“Get down!” Feather Dancer had shoved Long Fin aside.
Blue Bow staggered, gasped,
“No, dear gods!”
and toppled to the ground.
Warriors had raced forward to surround them. Copper-studded war clubs glinted like torches as they waved in the starlight.
Feather Dancer had dropped to his knees to examine Blue Bow, and hot blood spurted over his chest. Blue Bow writhed on the ground, clutching his throat, trying to clamp the artery shut.
“How bad is it?” Blue Bow screamed.
The chunkey lance had lodged below his left ear, neatly slicing the big vein in his throat. They couldn’t pull the lance out or it would make things worse. The chief ’s life had drained away onto the forest floor with stunning rapidity. Through gritted teeth Grown Bear repeated, “Who did this?”
Long Fin had gestured to their warriors. “Follow me. We must find the chief’s killer!”
His men instantly obeyed, lunging into the trees behind Long Fin, their war clubs up and ready.
Grown Bear had shouted to his party, “Go with them! See that the killer is brought to me unharmed. I must question him!”
Several terrible heartbeats later Long Fin cried,
“Quickly! Someone help me!”
A cacophony of voices had erupted as warriors raced to his location from every part of the forest.
Feather Dancer leaped over Blue Bow and ran. Through the weave of tree trunks, he saw Long Fin kneeling near a body that lay at the edge of a starlit meadow.
“Who is it?” Feather Dancer called. “Do you recognize him?”
Long Fin answered, “It’s Far Eye!”
Feather Dancer and at least ten warriors converged on the scene at the same time. He had to shoulder through the crowd to get to the body.
Far Eye, Matron Wink’s nephew, lay on his back staring up at the night sky.
A pool of blood spread around his crushed skull. It had looked black and shiny in the starlight.
Feather Dancer and Long Fin had immediately run back to notify the matron, and she’d ordered Feather Dancer to get the chieftess out of bed.
But she hadn’t been in bed, or even in Blackbird Town. Fearing for her life, Feather Dancer had taken a war party out to search the forest. Two hands of time later, she’d come in from the forest, covered with blood, and claimed she could remember nothing. Flint had convinced Matron Wink that the chieftess had murdered both Blue Bow and Far Eye. Matron Wink, desperate and frightened, had immediately set up a Healing Circle for their chieftess.
… Feather Dancer was jerked from his memories by a faint glimmer. Out on the lake.
He sucked in a breath, and his hand dropped to the war club tied to his belt as he scanned the shimmering expanse of Persimmon Lake. Was this it? Had the Loon People rallied their forces and come to take revenge for the murder of their chief? Surely the Loon Nation could not have gathered enough warriors this quickly?
He squinted at the commoners’ houses that lined the shore. The bones on the roofs gleamed. No one allowed the bones of the animals they’d caught in traps or snares to touch the ground. It was disrespectful. Instead, they placed the bones on their roofs, where the souls of the animals could keep watch for their new bodies. If animals were killed correctly, with reverence, death was only a temporary thing. Within a few days, Skyholder, the Creator, would send a new body, identical to the old one, and the soul would rise up from the bones and resume its life.
The flash came again, this time longer, and he knew it was not a warrior’s signal.
The owl fluttered, then soared down across the water, hunting. Its wings shone in the diffused light of Sister Moon that penetrated the Cloud People.
Feather Dancer sank back against the log wall and let out the breath he’d unwittingly been holding.
After a night of cries and running feet, the townspeople had finally settled into their blankets, leaving an odd stillness in possession of the world. Every sound, every glimmer that might be a raised weapon, caught his attention.
“Sleep, you fools,” he whispered. “I thank the gods you have no idea what’s going on. I wish I didn’t.”
As though to mock him, Priest Teal’s hoarse old voice seeped from the leather door curtain: “Flint tells me you have chosen Long Lance to Heal her. What if he refuses?”
“We must offer him so much that he cannot refuse,” Matron Wink answered.
“Wealth is of little concern to an old man, Matron. He will be far more worried about the consequences if he fails.”
“What do you mean?”
Teal’s voice rasped: “Well, he knows he must succeed. She is the high chieftess of the Black Falcon Nation. That means he has to use every Spirit Plant and technique he knows to try to Heal her. Do you understand?”
Matron Wink hesitated for several long heartbeats before she said in anguish, “Yes, I understand.”
Feather Dancer clamped his jaw. So … the matron had chosen the legendary witch Long Lance as the chieftess’ next Healer.
Footsteps suddenly padded down the hallway inside, and Feather Dancer straightened. He knew the sound of the matron’s steps as well as his own.
As the wind gusted, yellow light spread across the mound top, strengthening the shadows of the trees that lay like dead arms across the wet ground.
Matron Wink pulled the curtain aside, stepped out, and anxiously smoothed her hands up and down her purple sleeves. The seed-beads that covered her bodice shimmered. Was she shaking? She’d piled her graying black hair on top of her head and secured it with a polished shell comb. It, too, glimmered.
Quietly, she ordered, “Come inside, War Chief.”
“Yes, Matron.”
Feather Dancer followed her down the torch-lit hall and into the council chamber. Twenty paces across, the room’s only adornments were the twelve sacred masks on the walls and the four log benches that framed the fire hearth. The masks represented the divine beings that watched over the Black Falcon People. The empty eye sockets, long fur fringes, and gaping beaks sent a prickle up his spine. They seemed to be watching him with a predator’s intensity.
He stopped five paces from the fire, and Matron Wink walked back to stand between Priest Teal and Flint.

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