Musselwhite moved her head slightly. Pondwader could not discern whether it was a nod or a shake, and from the confusion on her face, he didn’t think she knew either. “I cannot say, Pondwader. Just after Glade slipped into the coma, he began talking of the old witch who lived over by Slender Grass Village. I think the man’s name was Bright Feather.” Her forehead furrowed. “For a brief time, Cottonmouth was gone. A night and half a day. I remember thinking he probably just needed time alone, to mourn.”
“So …” Pondwader nervously smoothed his sleeves. The thought of standing face-to-face with a witch horrified him. “Cottonmouth might have gone to learn things from Bright Feather?”
“It’s possible. But I think I would have known, Pondwader. I don’t think he could have hidden that from me.” She seemed to drift away from him, eyes going vacant, seeing something on the fabric of her souls. “We were very close.”
Pondwader tucked his robe back around his leg where the wind had worried it loose. “Have you never hidden something from someone you love, like Diver?” he asked innocently, just wondering, and so her response left him stunned.
In a lightning-quick move, she was on her knees, leaning over him with a deadly glare. “Do not ever ask me such a thing again!”
He nodded, too numb to say anything for a several moments. Then, he mustered his courage and said, “I’m sorry. I did not mean to pry. It’s just … I asked because people do that. Everyone has secrets.” Slowly, she eased back to the sand, but her fierce expression remained. He continued gingerly, “And, Musselwhite, I asked because I have heard that the best witches never reveal the truth to anyone. They leave people fearing, and guessing. Was that illness caused by an evil Spirit, or a witch? Did those men die in a bad storm, or did a witch make their canoe overturn? That sort of thing. If people can’t definitely lay blame, then the witch is liable to work for many summers before being discovered.”
Her hard warrior’s face had returned, jaw clamped, eyes narrowed. “Well, whether Cottonmouth was or was not a witch doesn’t matter. The possibility horrified me so terribly, that I killed my own son … so Glade would not have to go through that.” A flicker of agony etched her face. “And so I would not have to, Pondwader. How could I ever look into my son’s eyes again, knowing someone else’s soul lived there? A man my husband had murdered?”
He gently stroked her arm. “Grandmother Moonsnail used to whisper about the terrible things the murdered souls did to their new body … madness, mutilation … horrors too awful to imagine.”
As though from a stabbing ache in her heart, she bent forward, and suddenly she looked very old and very tired. “Cottonmouth said that sometimes the souls actually learn to accept their new bodies. He wanted Glade to live so much that he was willing to take the chance. He hoped that if we were good and kind to those new souls, they would not hurt Glade. I …” She bowed her head. “I could not bear the thought.”
Pondwader longed to wrap his arms around her and hold her tightly, but he sensed she would not like that, so he folded his arms and hugged himself instead, to lessen the need. “The Pelican Isle Massacre occurred after that?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Immediately afterward. Glade’s death almost killed Cottonmouth. He leaped upon me, screaming, and tried to tear me to pieces with his bare hands. Iran away, to Pelican Isle, to warn my family, but he and his warriors beat me there.” The flames had died, though every so often, tiny yellow tongues would lick up around the red eyes of coals, and shine in her fierce eyes. “He never made a promise he didn’t keep. Had I not been at Pelican Isle, he would have killed everyone I loved.”
“I’m glad you escaped him, my wife,” he said softly, squeezing her arm.
She lightly worked her thumb along the sharp edge of her dart point, using the nail to follow each indentation in the red stone. “I never escaped him, Pondwader. Not really. From the instant I left him, he has hunted me in my dreams. I hear him calling me in that strange haunting voice of his, and I am a child again. Terrified. Wanting him with all my heart, and at the same time running as hard and as fast as I can to get away from him.”
Was that what was happening when she cried in that little girl’s voice at night? He was “calling” her? Trying to coax her into coming to him again? Could it be possible that after all these years, after all the horrors they had inflicted upon each other, Cottonmouth still wanted her? And more terrifying, Pondwader heard an undertone of want in her own voice. But he could not ask her about that—would not—because he feared her answer too much.