Diver glanced around, sensing their fear. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
No one said a word. Cottonmouth entered the shelter, spread a blanket over the sandy mats, and stretched out on his side with the doll propped in front of him, staring into its long vanished eyes, an odd—almost loving—expression on his face.
“See?” he murmured intimately to the doll. “I told you he was here. Look at him with your own eyes.” He turned the doll around and lifted it closer to Diver. “Do you believe me now?”
Mulberry’s fingers sank into Diver’s left arm, and Diver felt the youth shaking. His heart began to pound. Bracing his knees, Diver stiffened his muscles to keep standing erect. In bare whispers he heard two men behind him say, “Crazy,” and “I hate it when he does this!” then another man muttered, “It’s the doll. Every time he touches it … !” Mulberry gave them stern warning glances.
Diver wet his chapped lips. “What—what’s happening?”
Cottonmouth drew the doll back and held it to his heart, like a precious child. His eyes moved to Diver, cold, empty. “I have decided you are strong enough, Diver,” he said.
“Strong enough? For what?”
Cottonmouth did not smile. His handsome face had gone as rigid as stone. “Mulberry? Stoke up the fire. We will need many coals.”
“What are you going to do?” Diver said.
Cottonmouth propped his chin on the doll’s head, and his eyes went unfocused. “Do you know, Diver, that all of my life I have struggled to understand the meaning of pain. I mean, why does it seem to be our constant companion throughout life? Why is it that the blood of innocents is so often spilled for no reason at all?”
Diver swallowed hard.
Cottonmouth said, “I am going to let you think on pain for a while. We shall see if it changes your understanding of life … as it has mine.”
I rest against my pile of blankets and watch Kelp building up the fire in the middle of the shelter. She is carefully arranging small sticks over the old coals, and blowing on them. Her round face is tense with the need to ask me questions—but she hasn’t yet, and I wonder what answers I will give her when she works up the courage. Flames lick through the new wood and sparks flit and sway, dancing toward the rafters where a black coating of creosote shines in the sudden flickering light. Kelp sits back on the floor mats and looks at me.
I smile. She is worried about me. I can sense it, like worms twisting in my belly. But she smiles back.
“Do you need more nickerbean tea?”
“Yes, thank you, Kelp.”
Raw nickerbean seeds possess a strong poison, but when roasted and crushed they produce a deliciously bittersweet brew. Kelp refills my gourd cup from the gut bag that hangs on the tripod at the edge of the fire, keeping warm. She sets the cup down at my side and frowns at me.
“Are you all right?” she asks. “You’ve been acting strangely, I mean even worse than usual, and it’s more than just the fact that you almost died.” She slumps down beside me and extends her long legs. Her short pointed nose has a smudge of soot on the tip. “What’s wrong, Pondwader?” Glistening black hair falls down her back. The front of her short tunic is sprinkled with grains of white sand, and she smells pleasantly of wood smoke.
I pick up my cup and stare down at my soul floating on the surface of the dark tea. It ripples in the wavering sea breeze. That’s just how I feel, as if my whole being is rippling, going out of focus and coming back again, changing shapes, being born into something bright and new … .I swallow hard. “Kelp, I don’t know how to explain it to you.”
“Well, try, and do it fast before Grandmother or Mother come back. I need to know, Pondwader. Ever since crazy old Dogtooth said you were going to die, I’ve been worried sick.”
“I know you have.”
I bite my lower lip and squint at Kelp. How can I tell her that I did die, that I spent three days drifting in terrible darkness, watching each strand of my braided soul fray and come unraveled; each withered before my eyes … until only darkness remained. It will frighten her, and I can’t bear the thought that my own sister, my best friend, might fear me the same way other people do.
“Do you still feel thunder waking up inside you?” she whispers hoarsely and leans closer.
“Oh, yes,” I answer, glad to be on familiar ground. “I’ve even learned to tell his voice from—”
“What voice?” Her dark eyes narrow.
I take a sip of my tea so I won’t have to say anything more. I had forgotten I hadn’t told her that part. The truth is beginning to sink in, and I can see anxiety in Kelp’s expression. Does she understand?