Moonsnail nodded. “Yes. If only a few people survived the attack, there is no point in combining villages, since they have none. It might be more prudent to just adopt their survivors into our own clan.”
“The problem,” Floating Stick noted, “is that we have no way of knowing the number of survivors until we see them—and we promised Seedpod we would meet him at Manatee Lagoon. I think we should keep our promise.”
Sun Hawk’s wrinkled face rearranged into distressed lines. “Yes, I must agree with Floating Stick. We promised. Either our word is good, or it is not.”
Moonsnail and Rivercobble exchanged looks, reading the other’s expression. They both nodded at the same time.
Moonsnail said, “Very well. Let us get on with the move then.”
The other Spirit Elders left and made their way through the mist toward their own shelters. Moonsnail could hear their soft conversations for some time after they had gone. Fog swirled in their wakes, twisting and turning as if Dancing.
Kelp rose to her feet and stood stiffly, her chin up.
“What?” Moonsnail asked.
Kelp stepped forward, walking wide around the fire and coming to a halt in front of Moonsnail. Her young face wore a resolute expression.
“Grandmother,” she said. “I wish to accompany our warriors on the war walk. I am—”
“I need you here!”
Kelp took Moonsnail’s hand and held it tightly. “There are many other people to help you, Grandmother, and I am good with an atlatl. You know I am. I must do this. Please don’t tell me ‘no.’ Pondwader …” Tears filled her eyes, but she sternly blinked them back and looked at Moonsnail again. “The day we went to the Sacred Pond to meet Dogtooth, Pondwader told me something, in secret. I promised not to tell anyone, but I don’t think he would mind now.”
A queasy flutter invaded Moonsnail’s chest. “What? Tell me.”
Fog had slicked wet black hair down Kelp’s cheeks, framing her short pointed nose and large eyes. She smelled of the palm-berry cakes she had made for the council meeting. She said, “Pondwader told me that for about a moon he had been feeling strangely, as if something were being born inside him. The way he put it was ‘like thunder waking up.’ He …” She hesitated.
Moonsnail squeezed Kelp’s hand hard. “Go on.”
“He said that a faint roaring had started in his chest, and that sometimes, in the middle of that roar, he heard my voice. Mine, Grandmother. Pondwader said he knew I was trying to warn him.”
“Warn him about what?” Moonsnail shook Kelp’s hands, urging her to hurry.
“He didn’t know, Grandmother. But he said, ‘I need you, Kelp. I think I need you very badly.’ I didn’t understand then. But I do now. I believe he needs me there with him now.”
They gazed deeply into each other’s eyes, and Moonsnail saw Kelp’s fear and her utter devotion to her brother. “What else?” Moonsnail said. “You are holding something back. I can feel it. Tell me!”
Kelp wet her lips. “Grandmother … Dogtooth’s Dream? Those crazy things he said about Pondwader?”
“What about them?”
Kelp gently pulled her hands back and wiped her moist palms on the skirt of her tunic. Fog rolled through the shelter, cold, borne on a chilling breath of wind, and the thatched roof shished and thumped. Moonsnail rubbed her arms briskly to warm them.
In a low voice, Kelp said, “Pondwader told me that he heard a voice inside him, and I thought … that is, he didn’t really say so, but I took it to mean that it was the voice of a Lightning Bird.”
Moonsnail just stared.
Kelp rushed to add, “Don’t ask me what it means, Grandmother, because I don’t know. Pondwader got married and was gone so quickly, I never had a chance to ask him to explain.”
Moonsnail irritably waved the words away, struggling to think. She had heard many strange things in her time, and most of them had come from Dogtooth’s mouth, but this … Thunder waking up? A Lightning Bird inside Pondwader? How did these things fit with the legends about a Lightning Boy shooting down the Shining Eagles and unleashing the end of the world? She shook her head. If they fit at all, she did not see how. Moonsnail felt the sudden urge to run all the way to Manatee Lagoon and hold Dogtooth at dart point until he told her. Providing he knew. Often, his Dreams came in fragments, a bit now, and another bit later. His Dreams had frustrated the Council of Spirit Elders for tens of summers. Often it took moons to piece together the old lunatic’s Dreams, so they could make sense out of them.
Kelp reached out and touched Moonsnail’s shoulder. “Grandmother? Please. Pondwader needs me. I don’t know why. But he does. I must go on this war walk with Tailfeather.”