People of the Lightning(7)
His most precious possessions, three brightly painted Power bundles, hung on the northeastern pole. They had not talked in a long time, but Seedpod knew they still lived. His heart could hear them breathing. When he’d been young and filled with life, the Spirits in the bundles had walked in his Dreams, guiding him, teaching him secrets no other human knew. The Spirit of the sea bundle had allowed him to ride on the cloudy back of Storm Girl once … . But the Spirits slept now.
Rain began to beat harder on Seedpod’s roof. He gazed out at the village. Eight other shelters dotted the plaza. People sat around their fires, talking quietly. Many had pulled up their hoods to shield their faces from windblown rain drops, but it did little good when strong gusts pummeled the beach. On three sides, forest cradled Windy Cove Village; the fourth opened eastward, to endless ocean.
“I think mine’s cool enough,” Thorny Boy said. He reached pudgy hands intro his bowl, gripped the small catfish, then stopped. “Grandfather, are you sure I shouldn’t run and tell mother that supper is ready?”
“I don’t think she’s hungry, Grandson. Let us start without her. She’ll be in soon. I’m sure of it.”
Thorny Boy gave Seedpod a worried look as he stripped the skin from his fish and stuffed it into his mouth.
Musselwhite had been out there since sunrise, her long dart propped on the ground before her, face turned into the wind, peering up the trail that led north. Like all the people, she wore a hooded loose-fitting tunic, cut wide at the neck and belted at the waist with a cord. Black hair whipped around the edges of her hood. In the sky behind her, Lightning Birds rode the storm winds. Their jagged tail feathers slashed the sky as they leapt from their perches in the clouds and plunged downward, hunting the ocean for whales and dolphins.
Thorny Boy licked his lips. “Grandfather?” he asked. “Did Mother tell you about the bad dreams she had last night.”
Seedpod frowned. “No, she didn’t. What dreams?”
Thorny Boy swallowed his bite of fish. “She was moaning. It woke me up. She said she kept hearing my father call her name. Over and over, like he needed her. Once,” he said and lowered his voice, “she even whispered Cottonmouth’s name.”
The wrinkles of Seedpod’s gaunt face rearranged themselves. He could feel the mass of crisscrossing lines curve around his sharp nose and carve deep crevasses at the edges of his thin lips. The entire village had spent the night in wakefulness. At dusk, a thin directionless wind had begun to whimper through the shelters, shaking bags and clacking gourd bowls together, as if in warning.
He kissed the top of Thorny Boy’s head. “Your father is only a day late. If they found suspicious markings in the forest, they would have had to track them out. Sometimes such things take a while. Your mother shouldn’t be worried.”
Thorny Boy flipped his catfish over and peeled the roasted skin from the other side. Tatters of firelight mottled his intent little face. “She is, though, and I don’t think she wants a second husband, either.”
Seedpod peered at him suddenly. “How do you know about that? Did your mother say something?”
Thorny Boy pulled off a long piece of white meat and put it in his mouth. While he chewed, he responded, “Mother said my father is enough for her.”
“For two-tens-and-five summers I have respected that sentiment. But we live in a far more dangerous world now.” Rain gusted into the shelter, and Seedpod grabbed for his hood, pulling it up to cover his white hair. The tiny top shells sewn to his sleeves tinkled as the wind thrashed about the shelter and ran away into the forest. “We need this alliance, Thorny Boy. Pondwader’s clan has many warriors, five times as many as we do. Cottonmouth will think twice about attacking us if he knows he will be facing the combined forces of Windy Cove Clan and Heartwood Clan.”
Thorny Boy rubbed his pug nose and grease smeared his face. It glimmered in the firelight. “But why does mother have to marry when she doesn’t wish to? Why can’t somebody else marry this Pondwader so we can get his warriors to help us?”
Seedpod pulled a piece of flesh from his own catfish and ate it. A swaying curtain of rain poured from the roof, momentarily obscuring Seedpod’s view of Musselwhite.
“Because, Grandson, the matron of the Heartwood Clan, old Moonsnail, is cunning. This Pondwader is a very special young man. He’s a Lightning Boy. Moonsnail would accept no woman from our little clan except the great Musselwhite.”
Thorny Boy’s dark eyes widened and his mouth opened, revealing a half-chewed piece of fish. “He’s a Lightning Boy? I might have a Lightning Boy living with me?”