Pale Snake lifts his chin and surveys the forest carefully. Tilting his head, he answers, “No. Though I feel something out there. What do you see?” He looks dpwn at Silver Water very seriously.
Words flood out of her mouth. “I—I see snakes. Lots of them. They have shiny scales and long tongues and … “
Her voice fades as a frown carves lines around his eyes. Firelight retreats from those lines, leaving them deep and dark.
Scary.
“Snakes,” she repeats, barely audible. “Out in the trees.”
The lines go away as his face slackens. He looks at the forest again. “Where? Show me. Point them out for me.”
Silver Water jumps up and runs to sit beside him. “There!”
She points at a big one. “See it? Behind the bushes. It’s crawling toward us.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, and it … it’s huge. It could swallow us whole.” Her hands are shaking.
Pale Snake peers down at her meditatively. Gently, he smooths a hand over her clean dry hair. “Has the Serpent spoken to you?”
She shakes her head.
“Well, I’m sure it will,”
“Why? Why would it?”
A faint smile warms his face. “I think that’s why it’s here.
For you, little one. I’ve already met that Serpent, so it can’t be after me. And your mother, well … ” He sighs. “She’s not the sort the Serpent would want to swallow.”
Silver Water’s heart thunders. “But I … I don’t want to be eaten by that snake!”
“Maybe not yet,” he answers, “but someday you will.” The lines are born again around his eyes. He lowers his voice, and it comes out like the deep rumble from a mountain lion’s throat.
“Someday soon, I imagine.”
“No. No, I—I don’t—”
Silver Water whirls when her mother steps out of the trees and starts back for camp. Pleadingly, she looks up at Pale Snake, trying to tell him that she wants to talk more, but … Her mother sits down on the opposite side of the fire, and Silver Water quickly scoots back to her former place and stares wide-eyed out at the forest. Her back teeth groan against each other. They are elk antlers, spiky, locked in a death struggle.
She can’t pull them apart.
“What’s the matter?” her mother demands, looking first at Silver Water, then at Pale Snake.
“Not a thing,” Pale Snake says and laces his fingers over one knee. “Did you see anything move out there in the darkness, Star Shell?”
“No. Why?” Suspicion fills her mother’s voice.
Pale Snake laughs softly. “We didn’t think you’d see anything,” he says. “No, not in ten tens of years, Star Shell. Not you. You’re just not the type.”
“I don’t know why you always have to insult me when I least expect it.”
“Don’t be silly. That’s the only time to insult someone. I mean, if you wait until they’re expecting it—”
“I’m going to bed!” her mother announces. “Come along, Silver Water. I’m very tired.”
“Yes, Mama.” Silver Water jumps up and runs to grab her mother’s cold hand.
As they pass Pale Snake, he winks at her, and Silver Water can breathe again. Her lungs fill with cool air.
Pale Snake mouths the words, Don’t worry.
She cranes her neck to watch him as her mother drags her away. He stands and starts kicking dirt over the fire. With each kick, dust puffs, and the snakes slither away into the forest and vanish.
Silver Water’s mouth drops open. She looks around, searching for them. But they are gone. All gone. He has killed them.
Glancing at her mother to make sure she isn’t watching, Silver Water lifts a hand to Pale Snake. He smiles again, and a tiny smile tugs at the corners of her own mouth.
For just a moment, the world changes.
The tree leaves aren’t black, they are coated with starlight.
Everything gleams, the rocks, the blades of grass. The clouds.
And she knows that if she can just break her heart and let the stars in, she will be all right. All the shadows will go away.
The snakes will not eat her.
… At least not until she wants them to.
Naked and dripping, Black Skull waded out of the cold water and onto the pale sand of the beach. Shivering, he turned and looked out across the glossy Fresh Water Sea to where the rising sun lay just below the horizon. They’d rounded the peninsula.
Soon the sun would rise out of the water and spread over the land as they headed south. Shreds of high clouds drifted across the sky, forming patterns like glowing-red fish meat.
He raised his hands, and from his heart a Song of welcome and thanks rose to his lips. He’d stolen the Song, of course; it belonged to the Blood Clan, but after years of hearing it as he practiced with his war club, he supposed they wouldn’t mind if he Sang it. Though, if they heard his cracked and coarse voice rising off-key and toneless, they might kill him for desecrating such a thing of beauty. The Singing made him feel better, at peace with himself, As he returned to his clothing and war club, he noticed Otter walking loose-limbed up the beach, thumbs tucked in his belt.