She swallowed hard, remembering her husband, and the rope creaking in the darkness. “It was the Mask that made Mica Bird do the things he did. He wasn’t that way … before.”
“He wore the Mask?” Pale Snake licked his lips uneasily.
“Listen, Star Shell, why don’t we just throw it in the river and be gone? I’ll take you wherever you want to go. The Mask, it’s nothing but pain, heartache, and trouble. It’s already working on Silver Water.” f Tendrils of dread ran down her arms. “What? What do you mean?”
“Can’t you see it? That look in her eyes? Haven’t you seen the changes?”
An ache began in Star Shell’s throat. “What … what changes?”
“Power is talking to her.” He turned, his voice gentle. “Isn’t it, Silver Water? Teaching you Songs?”
Silver Water glanced imploringly at her mother, as if she wanted to answer but was afraid to; she squatted down and stared at the fire. Looking for faces? Like the old woman had told her about?
Pale Snake walked around, knelt, and placed a reassuring hand on the girl’s bare shoulder, smiling at her—but he spoke to Star Shell. “It will be all right. We have time.”
Star Shell’s mouth had turned dry. “What … what do you see that I don’t?”
“She’s been touched by Power, that’s what. With a child’s innocence, it simply follows her whim and will. Power isn’t evil by itself. Human beings use Power, and sometimes it uses human beings.”
“My husband … hung himself. Did terrible things. Killed.
The Mask made him do those things. Are you suggesting—”
“No.” Pale Snake shook his head. “It only used what was already lurking in his soul. That’s why I’m surprised that Tall Man wore the Mask.”
“He didn’t.” “But you said he did. When we were talking about families.”
“I meant my husband.” She shook her head. “Wait a minute.
I’m confused. Tall Man feared the Mask. He came to me at the winter solstice. I was in Starsky … for my mother’s funeral. Tall Man was there. He’d heard of the Mask being used for evil. My father took me to see him just after Mother’s cremation. The Magician understood what was happening, and he, told me that First Man had given him a Vision. He knew how to recover the Mask, how to use the wolfhide to dampen its Power. But he said that only throwing the Mask into the Roaring Water would neutralize it forever.”
Pale Snake playfully tugged at Silver Water’s hair as he watched the fire. “That doesn’t sound like him. Since-when would the Magician care if a Mask was terrorizing half the world? Let alone his little corner of it.”
Star Shell bit off her response, glancing away.
“You know something else.” Pale Snake lifted an eyebrow suspiciously at her. The serpents on his cheeks wiggled uncomfortably as his jaw muscles tensed.
“It was a confidence.” She bristled. “I’m sorry, but I don’t trust you … or anyone. I’ve watched my life, the lives of my father, mother, and husband, destroyed … and if what you say about Silver Water and the Mask is true, my daughter’s life may be in greater danger than I know. I’ve seen people die, one after another. Robin is hunting me, trying to kill me as he did the Magician. I can’t trust anyone … not anymore. Especially not you.”
He nodded, his expression thoughtful again. “But, Star Shell, you trusted Tall Man. Now isn’t that a curious twist of fate? I’d sooner stick my hand into a basket full of rattlesnakes than allow him within a week’s travel of me.”
“Why? What did he ever do to you?”
Pale Snake’s eyes narrowed, and the slow, pulsing anger was measured by the tightening of his muscular fists. “Everything he could. In the -beginning, I wanted to be like him in every way. I blamed myself for outgrowing him. That was the first disappointment. No matter how I tried to follow in his footsteps, I was different. The more I despised him, the more he hated me.”
“Tall Man? Hated you?”
“Everything he was, I was the opposite.”
She bowed her head. “He was kind to me.”
“That’s what bothers me.” Pale Snake reached over to the drying rack, feeling Silver Water’s clothing. “A little while longer.”
“If he hated you so much, why would he send me to you?”
She absently pulled the comb through her long black hair.
“None of this makes sense—except that he knew I’d be enough of a fool to save you no matter what. I always was a sucker for a hard-luck story. It makes me a mediocre Trader at best.”