Moonsnail grimaced. Her daughter’s every move possessed a cold, calculating elegance. She was very beautiful, with slanting eyes, a rich brown complexion, and long black hair as soft as a mink’s fur. Moonsnail had often wished her daughter looked more like her, with a square face, eyes too small, and a bulbous nose. Perhaps then Dark Rain would have spent more time tending to the needs of her children and clan instead of traipsing about trying to sate her own … needs. But no, Sun Mother had seen to it that Dark Rain received the seductive face of a sea Spirit.
“Good afternoon, Mother. Are you happy to see me?”
“About as happy as I would be to see a poisonous toad in my bedding.” Moonsnail brandished her walking stick at Dark Rain. “Whatever it is you wish to say, say it quickly and be gone, before you have the entire village in an uproar.”
“Ah, my loving mother. You have not changed at all. I assure you, the matter I bring is crucial to our clan, or I would not be here.”
“This is not your clan. You are Outcast. A clanless woman without relatives. And I like it that way. Keeps me from having to make excuses for you.”
Moonsnail slumped down atop a thick pile of palmetto mats at the rear of the council shelter. The hem of her short, brown tunic spread around her thighs as she arranged herself so that her joints didn’t ache so badly. In the past three summers the fire in her right hip had gone from a tiny flame to a raging blaze. She propped her walking stick and clutched the head with both hands. “Well, hurry it up. What do you want?”
Dark Rain angrily threw her berries on the floor and glared. “You should be proud of me. I have managed an alliance you could only dream of! Must you be so hostile?”
“I must.”
Dark Rain propped slim brown hands on her shapely hips. The belt of her red tunic had been knotted tightly to accentuate her tiny waist. Before she had turned ten-and-five summers, Dark Rain knew a multitude of plants which would induce abortion: bay lavender, ground vanilla-tree bark, ripe fruit juice from the pink spine plant. Despite that fact, she had birthed two children, but Dark Rain had the maternal instincts of a horseshoe crab. She laid her eggs, and left them to the whims of nature—or rather to her mother. And Moonsnail admitted she felt grateful for that. She loved Pondwader and Kelp with all her heart.
“So,” Moonsnail finally said. “I heard that you and—what was his name—that boy trader? I heard the two of you had gone to visit the northern clans, and yet here you are, back disgracing my shelter. What could possibly have drawn my daughter from the arms of her latest lover? I thought you were quite taken by that stout young man.”
Dark Rain laughed in that low cruel way she had. “He was ‘stout,’ Mother. Unfortunately, the stiff manhood between his legs was all he had to give me. I left him.”
Moonsnail did not smile. The silly boy had probably showered Dark Rain with valuable trinkets to secure her love, and once she’d stocked up enough, she’d left him for more interesting pursuits. Moonsnail had heard it all before. Her daughter’s overwhelming passion for dice games had impoverished the Heartwood Clan three times. The clan bore the responsibility for its members’ debts. Under normal circumstances, a person who had so shamed their clan would come crawling back, begging forgiveness and promising to repay every item which had been donated to cover such debts. But not Dark Rain. She had accepted the Outcast declaration with a laugh—and gone looking for a new fool to pay her debts.
“Mother,” Dark Rain said. “I have news that I am sure you will appreciate. Do you wish to hear it, or not?”
Moonsnail clutched her walking stick more tightly. Beyond the council shelter four children chased a rolling willow hoop, seeing which of them could throw the most acorns through the circle before the hoop came to a stop. Their joyous voices filled the humid air. Moonsnail waited for them to move away, then spat, “What is this ‘alliance’?”
Dark Rain flapped the cord which belted the waist of her short red tunic. Two small clamshells dangled at the ends of the cord, clicking together. “First, tell me about my children. The information is critical to our prospects for this ‘alliance.’”
“Your daughter, Kelp, has turned into a terror. She’s learned how to cast a dart better than any of the village boys, and has been racing around like a—”
“Oh,” Dark Rain waved a hand dismissively, “I’m sure you are bringing her up as best you can. And what of Pondwader? Where is he? I looked for him the instant I arrived.”
Moonsnail’s suspicions roused. Rather than giving her daughter the truth, she said, “Probably out lying in the ocean weighted down by big pieces of coral. He likes to listen to passing fish. Says you can hear a school of croakers coming for a day’s swim away.” Which, if he had not been ill, would have been the truth.