“Oh!” Otter broke away and ran back through the waves.
He pulled up, smiling at Trout. “Take care of her. She’s the best woman there is.” He reached into his shirt, pulling out a folded mat of grass as he turned to Pearl. “Here,” he said, briefly meeting her eyes. “I think this is yours. I don’t know what your prayers were … but I hope they’ll come true.”
He patted her hand gently and backed away. “Goodbye.”
As he trotted for his canoe, Pearl stared at the prayer mat, remembering those carefully tied knots; each represented a moment of despair or terror.
“Pearl?” Trout asked anxiously.
Her fingers traced the folds in the plaited grass. He had to have found this on the river, carried it all that way in his shirt, next to his heart. Why? Did he know the ways of her people?
That they believed warmth stirred the soul in the mat, fed it, kept the prayers alive? Maybe that was why she had managed to escape the Khota. Because he had cared enough about an unknown woman and her terror to … “Trout?” She could barely speak. “I … I can’t go with you.”
“Why not, Pearl?”
“I’m steam, not stew.” She sniffed, fighting for the words.
“Because I love Otter.”
When she turned, her eyes shimmering with tears, Wave Dancer was already slicing through the waves, driving out into the water under the furious paddles of its crew. Only Catcher looked back, his ears up, tail wagging.
A hand clapped over Star Shell’s mouth, bringing her wide awake. She stared out at the moonlit meadow, the grass and wildflowers ghostly white before the dark wall of trees.
“Shhh!” Tall Man whispered in her ear. His elderly little face hung over her, the wrinkles drawn into an expression of fright. The polished moon-gleam sheathed the leaves of the sumac grove behind him. “Don’t make a sound! Wake Silver Water and take the packs. Crawl back into that sumac, and as your ancestors are witnesses, be quiet!”
“Why? What—”
“Hush! I’ve done almost all that I can for you, Star Shell.
One thing remains. Then you will have to rely on your own wits. Trust no one! You know by now that the Mask can pervert the strongest of souls.”
He backed away, his small feet sinking into the thick grass.
He made calming motions with his hands, perhaps more for himself than for her. Then he turned, taking little twists of sticks and grass from his wolf-headed medicine pack and driving them into the ground as he hurried down the trail toward the dark trees.
At the far edge of the clearing, he paused and shoved another of his crossed sticks into the rich earth. In the blink of an eye, he vanished into the weave of forest and night.
Star Shell threw off her blankets, rolled them and slipped the Mask pack over her shoulder, trying all the while to hear beyond the thunderous pounding of her heart.
She woke Silver Water the same way that Tall Man had awakened her. “Come with me, baby. We have to be very, very quiet!”
“Why, Mama?”
“Shhh!” Star Shell pushed her belongings and the Mask pack before her and crawled into the smooth sumac, looking back to make sure that Silver Water followed. In the heart of the thicket, she looked up at the moonlight, barely visible through the rows of lanceolate leaves. Night sounds, crickets, faint rustlings in the grass, and the distant hoot of an owl merged with the whisper of the leaves high overhead in the forest.
“Mama?” Silver Water whispered. “I’m frightened.”
Me, too. “It will be all right, Tadpole.” But what were they doing? What had Tall Man discovered that would—
“This way!” Robin’s voice called from the trail.
And Star Shell clamped her jaw so hard that her head trembled.
She tightened her grip on Silver Water’s coat, barely allowing herself to breathe. She rested her face on the leaf mat, the smells of earth and mold filling her fear-bright senses.
“There he goes!” Woodpecker cried. “Capture him! He’s headed for Starsky!”
“Does he have the Mask?” Robin cried, and footsteps pounded up the trail. ‘
Star Shell huddled on the ground with Silver Water pressed against her. The little girl’s shallow breaths warmed her throat.
On the cold night wind, scents and sounds seemed to magnify tenfold. The chirping of birds and crickets competed with the pungent odor of a nearby skunk.
“Mama?” Silver Water asked.
“Quiet, baby,” she whispered. “We have to be as silent as ice on a, pond.”
Silver Water peered through the tangle of branches, her little hands nervously crushing and releasing the spongy leaves.
The faint, plaintive sound of a whippoorwill floated eerily through the night air.