People of the Lightning(28)

Moonsnail rose on rickety knees and raised her walking stick over her head. Dark Rain scrambled backwards like a crab fleeing for its life. “Mother!”

“Tell me, blast you! Or as Sun Mother knows, I’ll break every bone in your miserable body!”





Seven

Dripping wet, Kelp trotted through the sea-foam that scalloped the beach. Last night’s storm had washed tens of tens of glittering shells up on the shore, as well as living creatures. Tiny crabs skittered across her path, forcing her to swerve to miss them. Salt-scented wind caressed her face. The group of children who had come to fetch her ran along far behind; she could hear their gay laughter as they played tag with the surf.

Kelp ran faster. Her mother … the very idea terrified her.

Before being Outcast, Dark Rain had returned to the clan only on Celebration Days, always with a new man, and always smiling as though she alone knew the secret of Sea Girl’s rising tides. The sharp points of her teeth showed when she smiled that way, reminding Kelp of a shark’s mouth. Her mother always laughed too much, and gave away bags full of jewelry: conch shell bracelets, strings of pearls, whelk whorl hairpins, and bleedingtooth shell necklaces. Items she had won gambling. But her mother spent less than a hand of time a day with her children—and if Pondwader or Kelp tried to hug her or touch her bright necklaces, Dark Rain would slap their hands and shove them away.

“Pondwader! Look what you did. You got sand down the front of my tunic! Mother, he will be a wild animal all his life if you don’t teach him manners. Now, run away, Pondwader. Run far away. I do not wish to see you anymore. And you, too, Kelp. I am tired of you both.”

As they’d grown older, Kelp and Pondwader had started running away the instant they saw her coming. They’d tried hiding in the forest, but someone always found them and dragged them back. Then they had discovered that if they plucked hollow reeds from the marshes to breathe through, and weighted themselves down with coral, they could lie invisible in any body of water. No one, not even their grandmother, could find them.

Kelp pounded up the path that led into the heart of the village. Shelters stood empty, food bags swinging in the wind, although dogs lay in the cool shade beneath the roofs. Children, and adults, crowded around the council shelter. They watched her approach with dark furtive eyes. Men whispered behind their hands, while women stared in silence.

Kelp slowed down and panted, “Where is my grandmother? She sent for me.”

Her aunt, Polished Shells, a plump woman with bushy black eyebrows, shouldered through the crowd and guided Kelp a short distance away. She placed a hand on Kelp’s shoulder, and the tiny shells of her bracelet glittered in the sunlight. “Moonsnail took your mother back to her shelter, so they could talk while she watched over Pondwader,” she murmured. “Take great care, Kelp. Your mother is acting like Vulture with a moldy carcass in sight.”

“She always acts that way, aunt,” Kelp said, and gestured to the crowd. “Do my relatives believe I will take her side? Is that why they look at me with such indecision?”

“They do not know what to believe. We suspect Dark Rain wants readmittance to the clan.”

Kelp lifted her chin. “Well, I, for one, will vote against her.”

Polished Shells smiled wanly. “Yes, me too, even if she is my sister. She has shamed our clan too many times. But all this is for later. You had better go to your grandmother now, Kelp. I will handle things here.”

“Are you certain you don’t need my help?”

“No. I saw my sister’s wicked face. I fear there is something very unpleasant awaiting you at your grandmother’s shelter. Go now, and get it over with. Come speak with me tonight, at my shelter. I will tell you what passed here today.”

“Thank you, aunt.”

Frightened murmuring broke out as Kelp walked away. She knew how they felt, her belly hadn’t stopped twisting in days. First Dogtooth’s visit to the Four Shining Eagles, then Pondwader’s brush with death, now her mother’s return. The world might very well end.

The wind had picked up. Oak branches creaked and moaned in complaint, tossing the hanging moss as Kelp swung wide around the midden where last night’s shells topped the pile, drying in the sun. A chaos of flapping gull wings moved over the pungent mound. The birds fought, hoping to discover a fragment of clam or oyster. Squawks serenaded the village all day long.

Her grandmother’s shelter came into view. Kelp sucked in a deep breath to prepare herself.

Dark Rain lay draped over a pile of blankets on the northern end of the shelter, her eyes staring blandly up at the roof while Kelp’s grandmother held a cup, probably water, to Pondwader’s lips. He seemed to be drinking.