“Were I you, I’d be thinking of where I would go.”
“Do you know something I don’t?”
“Yes. And don’t ask me more. I won’t tell you what I’ve seen. Where will you go? What will you do? You must get the Mask away from here. Men like Robin and the other clan warriors want that Mask, girl. You will have no friends.” His voice lowered. “Everyone will be searching for you.”
She could make out the familiar lines of Sun Mounds now, see the individual roofs where they poked up over the earthen enclosure. Children should have been playing in the snow, sliding down the ‘ on deerhides. People should be out and about, but here, too, the outlying houses were silent, only tendrils of smoke rising from the bark roofs.
“Something’s not right.”
The Magician remained silent.
And her daughter? Would Silver Water still be safe at Mica Bird’s mother’s farmstead? Yes, she would. Old Gray Deer wouldn’t let anything happen to her granddaughter.
What do I do? What am I walking into?
She turned off the Holy Road, following a beaten track that led to the eastern equinox opening in the earthen perimeter. At least people had walked this today. It wasn’t as if the clan grounds had been abandoned.
The sick feeling in her stomach grew worse as she covered that final distance. The sun had begun to slant into the southwestern sky, ready to dip behind the far bluffs that marked the uplands on the other side of Many Colors Creek.
At the entrance, Star Shell muttered the ritual greetings to the ancestral ghosts … and felt the chill within her soul, as if the ghosts were trying to warn her about something terrible.
It’s going to hurt me.
No, don’t think that. After all, Tall Man still accompanied her. Despite his small size and great age, he’d shown himself more than a match for the troubles they’d already encountered.
Her heart in her throat, she entered the clan grounds, noting the familiar structures, the charnel hut, the burial mound with its—
Star Shell caught her breath. A gaping hole had been dug into the side of the humped earthen mound that marked Mica Bird’s grandfather’s tomb. The hole gaped blackly in the sloped side, like a mortal wound in an otherworldly beast. Clods of dirt had
been scattered about wildly; they spattered the dimple-trodden snow like day-old blood, coagulated and black.
Who would have dared to … She closed her eyes, a dizzy horror eating at her.
No. Not even he would have the nerve for that!
She swallowed hard, sensing the wrath of the ghosts. A frantic horror spurred her to run forward, past the defiled mound, around the charnel house.
“No! Wait!” Tall Man cried from behind her. “Wait!”
She ignored him, dashing with all her might for the clan house. People stood in a mass before the humped structure, silent, gazing uneasily at the door flap. They seemed paralyzed, unaware of the cold.
Terror flowed bright with her blood as Star Shell ran panting to the knot of people.
“What’s happened?” she demanded. “What’s going on?
Have you all lost your minds?”
“Mama!” Silver Water cried out, breaking free from her grandmother’s arms and flinging herself at Star Shell.
For the briefest of instants, Star Shell bent down, hugging her daughter to her. Endless tears had streaked Silver Water’s face; a wretched fear lay in those wide, dark eyes.
“I’m home, baby. It’s going to be all right.” Taking her daughter’s hand in hers, she stood to face Gray Deer, her motherin-law. “What’s gone wrong here?”
The old woman had a distant stare, one of panicked horror.
“He wasn’t strong enough. He … he’s mad. Possessed!”
Star Shell fought the trembling fear that threatened to betray her. “Where?” But she knew. A few eyes had turned in her direction before they fixed again on the clan house doorway.
“Silver Water, stay with your grandmother.”
“No!” Gray Deer insisted, clawing at Star Shell’s blanket.
“Don’t go in there! He’s wearing the Mask. Crazy! Mad, I tell you. He’s been running around screaming, digging into graves.
He’ll kill you! Just like the others!”
Star Shell thrust her daughter into Gray Deer’s arms and turned for the door flap just as Tall Man came puffing and wheezing through the stunned crowd.
Worry glittered in the High Head Elder’s eyes as he glanced around uneasily. He was muttering something under his breath in a language she couldn’t understand. It sounded a great deal like a warding spell.
Star Shell could sense the evil, heavy brooding—a malignancy twisting around them like polluted smoke. Taking a deep breath, she strode purposely for the door flap on the silent clan house. She must face him. In there. Now.