The crowd had gone silent. People stared at her as she walked past them, out into the trees, and disappeared among the shadows.
“Where’s she going?” Black Urchin whispered to Seedpod. “It’s dangerous out there, we don’t know where they were attacked! Cottonmouth might be—”
“Close your mouth,” Seedpod ordered. He felt weak, dazed. “I want half of this village standing watch tonight. Find every able-bodied person who can use an atlatl. It will be your duty, Black Urchin, to decide where to place them. Go now. Move. I will find two other men to carry Diamondback to my shelter.”
He nodded obediently. “Yes, Spirit Elder. I—I will.”
“What now, Grandfather?” Diamondback choked out the words. “What will we do? We just lost one third of our warriors! We are almost defenseless.”
“Don’t fret about it tonight, Grandson,” he said gently and stroked his grandson’s arm. “Tomorrow, the Spirit Elders will gather to discuss it. We’ll figure out something.”
Seedpod pointed to two young men in the crowd. “Ragged Wing. Shoal. Come. Carry Diamondback to my shelter.”
The two youths trotted forward to obey, slipping their hands beneath Diamondback’s knees and their arms around his back. They lifted him. Seedpod led the way back to the village with people following in a flood.
Seedpod’s heart ached for Musselwhite. When Thunderstorm died, Seedpod had gone for a long walk down the beach. He had just wanted to feel the cool sea against his legs, and the spray coating his face—while he remembered little things, the way Thunderstorm’s gray brows arched when she smiled, the feel of her arms around him, the sound of her voice in the darkness.
Old Ashleaf hobbled up beside Seedpod as he passed, his bushy white hair awry around his lean face. He carried a walking stick with him. “Seedpod?” he said softly. “Where is Musselwhite? We must call a meeting tonight to discuss this matter. We need her here.”
Seedpod waved Shoal and Ragged Wing by him and stopped to peer into the old man’s faded brown eyes. He had a deeply seamed brown face, like the flesh of an ancient palm berry. “Let us speak of this tomorrow, Ashleaf. Tonight, Musselwhite has a husband and two children to mourn. That is more than enough to occupy her.”
Four
Kelp trotted through the forest behind her older brother, veering around dogwood and buttonbrush limbs until they found the white-tailed deer trail that led over the hill next to Bird Lake Marsh. Mist fluttered close to the ground. It hid the marsh, but she could hear ducks quacking, frogs croaking, and the splashes of diving turtles.
Pondwader, a summer older than Kelp, halted at a turn in the trail to listen. After a few moments, he motioned for Kelp to get down. Raiders had been sneaking through the forests, and they had to be very careful. She dropped to her stomach and lay flat on the dew-soaked red and gold leaves. Pungent scents of deer dung and pine needles filled her nose. What did Pondwader see? He cautiously walked ahead. The pale green color of his long robe melted into the forest background, but his waist-length white hair caught the diffused light like a torch, reflecting it back in rainbow waves.
Kelp followed him with her eyes. Everybody else in the village wore short tunics, but Pondwader’s robe dragged the ground, had long sleeves, and an attached hood—to protect him from Sun Mother’s wrath. Sun Mother didn’t like Pondwader. She blistered his skin at every opportunity.
Pondwader glanced over his shoulder and signaled Kelp forward.
“Are you sure?” she called softly, wetting her lips. The closer they got to the Sacred Pond, the more her knees shook. They had been running since long before dawn to get here, and if they left this very moment, they wouldn’t reach home before dark. Pondwader had to visit the Pond, he’d said, but Kelp didn’t know why he had begged her to come along. “What if … what if there are alligators there?”
Pondwader turned to smile at her. He had a straight nose and odd eyes, pink, transparent as a fish scale. At the age of ten and five summers, he stood a head taller than any other boy in the village. The White Lightning Boy, her people called him, the first of his kind to be born in ten tens of summers.
“Of course there will be alligators, Kelp,” Pondwader said. “They guard the souls of the dead. I would be very worried if there weren’t any. It isn’t much farther. Come on.”
He ducked beneath a palmetto frond and headed up the hill.
Kelp frowned. His appearance still startled and awed her. Many people ran from him. Legends proclaimed that a Lightning Boy would shoot down the Four Shining Eagles who floated at the corners of the world, holding back the winds of destruction.