“Whose voice?”
“I don’t know. Maybe my sister’s. I think it’s Kelp calling me. But I’m not sure … not anymore.”
Musselwhite brushed her long hair behind her ears, and let out a breath. Against the background of yellowing vines twisting through the oak boughs, she looked very beautiful. “What did the man look like?”
Pondwader squinted, as if it would help clarify the image imprinted on his souls. “Cruel. Angry. I couldn’t see him very well, but he was tall. He had black eyes and a scar on his back. About here. He was carrying a deerbone awl in one hand—”
Musselwhite made a soft pained sound. She squeezed her eyes closed and slowly lowered herself to the sleeping mat. Her knees came up as she curled into a ball in front of him, and started to shake.
“Musselwhite! What is it?”
“Hold me, Pondwader. Just hold me. I have no one … to help me through these bouts now … except you.”
Stunned, he just stared. A flood of tenderness swept him, and he swiftly wrapped his arms around her and drew her against him, holding her as tightly as he could. “It’s all right,” he whispered, pressing her head to his heart. “Everything is all right.”
Turtle Bone Doll comes to Dance in my dreams …
She spins, her skirt whirling. Sucking up the tendrils of mist that twine from the sun-splotched forest floor, she swirls them into glistening spirals around her bone body, and begins to dip from side to side. In a blink, she resembles a tiny tornado. Leaves leap from the ground and clothe her in autumn colors.
“He is not cruel, Pondwader.”
“Who?”
“He is derelict. Desolate. A weightless shadow somersaulting underwater. The waves of his solitude drown him. But he can’t let anyone see him flailing. He can never cry for help. It isn’t that he wants to die. Can’t you understand? He wants to be nothing.”
“Who? Please tell me? I must know who the man is.”
Turtle Bone Doll giggles. The sound is like crystal clear water falling on mossy rocks. She stops spinning and tips forward to peer directly into my eyes. Her faded face is sheathed with mist … or tears.
“For many summers, I slept with that awl across my heart. We made a perfect cross, the awl and I. That is what we are to him. Opposites crossed. The embodiment of everything he hates, and everything he loves. He longs to be rid of us—but cannot let us go. We are Light meeting Dark. The place where Death is Life. We are his only hope of salvation … . And he knows it.”
“Turtle Bone Doll,” I say, “you are so exasperating. I wish you would talk straightly. You are always posing riddles and I am lost before I begin.”
“A human boy with a Lightning Bird in his chest condemns me for posing riddles,” she says with an irritated switch of her skirt. “No wonder the world is on the brink of catastrophe.”
A tiny cyclone of autumn leaves and mist, she spins upward into the glare of morning sunlight, until she pierces a tuft of cloud … and is gone.
Fifteen
Tendrils of fog, backlit by sunshine, crept through Heartwood Village, coiling around shelters and gently stroking people’s happy faces. The joy of yesterday’s celebration lingered. Laughter echoed, full and robust. Children shrilled as they raced along the edge of the forest, playing “chase” with their dogs. The remains of the feast had been evenly distributed to each shelter, and the scents of roasted gourds and warming palm berry cakes filled the air with sweetness. Sea Girl rocked in a slow, leisurely fashion, her voice soft amidst the squawking and squealing of gulls that sailed over the beach.
Moonsnail leaned back on a stack of blankets in her shelter and surveyed the morning’s gathering. Kelp and Dark Rain sat to her right, dressed in plain tan tunics, and Seedpod, his short white hair blowing around his gaunt face, sat to her left. He was peering up at the bags of prickly pear fruit hanging from the ceiling. Floating Stick stretched out on his side next to Seedpod. Bars of ribs showed through the fine weave of his faded moss-colored tunic. He’d rubbed insect grease over his stringy legs and face, and the shine made his hooked nose seem all the more prominent. He had a ripe persimmon in one hand and a rabbit-scapula spoon in the other. He scooped out the ripe pulp and ate it with gusto. A variety of foods sat in wooden bowls before them: goose, roasted catfish, hickory nuts. Kelp had her head down. Dark hair hid most of her pretty face as she ran a finger over the sand on the bottom of her bare foot. She’d been silent all morning. Moping. She kept glancing at Pondwader’s empty bedding, which Moonsnail had rolled up and placed along the southern side of the shelter. Was she missing her brother? Probably. That, or she was worried about him. Maybe both. Moonsnail sympathized. Those same tender emotions had been tormenting her. All morning, she’d kept watch on the deertrail, hoping to see Pondwader and Musselwhite walking into camp. Kelp looked up and Moonsnail winked supportively. Her granddaughter smiled, and a shared sense of loss and love passed between them.