People of the Lightning(95)
…The scent of insect grease, tangy with smoke, startles me.
My lungs want to pant, and when I try to suppress the urge I feel as if I might explode. But if this person wanted to kill me, wouldn’t I already be dead? Cautiously, I slit one eye.
Against the silver-splotched bowl of the night sky, Turtle Bone Doll flies. She rides the wind currents down, soaring and dipping, and hovers just over the tip of my pointed nose. Her tattered tunic looks even more ragged—as if a cruel stranger has twisted her in his hands, trying to tear her apart. A wide rip slashes her skirt.
“Are you all right?” I whisper. “You look like someone nearly rubbed your face off.”
Turtle Bone Doll flips, and pirouettes above my head. “Nothing in the world is all right. One of the Shining Eagles died. I came to tell you.”
Terror grips me. I shove up on one elbow. “Hallowed Spirits! And I had nothing to do with it! What about the other Eagles? Can they hold Hurricane Breather?”
Turtle Bone Doll swoops about like Falcon with her wings tucked, swerving through branches, and over palmettos. Her dark hair whips in the wind. “For the moment.”
“But why tell me about it? There’s nothing I can do to help them.”
“Isn’t there?”
“No! I mean, I don’t think so … . Is there?”
Turtle Bone Doll stops. “Humans fascinate me. Cottonmouth is always telling me what he can do, and you’re always telling me what you can’t do.”
My chin jerks up, and I stare into her faded brown eyes. “You know Cottonmouth?”
“Oh, yes. Very well.”
“Why have you never told me this! I have so many questions about him! I wish you’d—”
“I will allow you to ask one. But just one, Pondwader. Be careful which you choose.”
“Just one?” Pondwader frowned. “Why? Why can’t I ask as many as I need to?”
“Ask me one. And do it quickly, I haven’t much time.”
My hood has fallen down, leaving my long white hair tangled around my face. I gather it up with one hand and hold it at the back of my neck while I consider this. Which question is the most important? What do I need to know most of all?
“All right,” I say, and heave a breath. “Is Cottonmouth a witch, or just mad?”
“He has a rage for pain which gives him exquisite clarity. Darkness unobstructed by light. In that place, all questions go quiet, and he can be with himself as a stranger. He can live a moment without their past. Are you too young to understand this? To know what it is to clutch the agony of regret to your bosom like a precious child? To be willing to die to protect it?”
I rake my fingers through the cool sand. Bits of shell shimmer. “What I really wanted to know is if he is a witch?”
Turtle Bone Doll sighs. “I just told you everything you need to know about Cottonmouth, and you complain.”
“You … you did?” I blush. “But I didn’t understand it! Why would anyone want to die to protect agony?”
In that innocent little girl voice, Turtle Bone Doll whispers, “When the agony is all you have left, Pondwader, you dare not give it up. Because then you will have nothing at all.”
Turtle Bone Doll launches herself into the air, and flies away toward the stars. An almost imperceptible trail glitters in her path, loops upon loops, circles within circles …
Mulberry huddled in the forest with another warrior, Loonfoot, watching the sleeping Lightning Boy. His white face shone so in the darkness it seemed to glow, and his hair … the strands that haloed his head had surely come from Sister Moon herself. They seemed made of moonlit mist.
“Should we capture him?” Loonfoot asked softly. Tall and lean, he had a square chin and small black eyes. He’d braided his hair and coiled it into a bun at the base of his skull. He wore only a breechclout.
Mulberry released the palm frond he’d been holding aside and sat back on the sandy forest floor. He had stood witness to the murder of at least two tens of his warriors. All he really wanted now was to return to his wife and infant daughter. The attack had been madness in the first place. What was Cottonmouth trying to prove? That he could wipe out every other village on the coast? For what purpose? If, indeed, the end of the world was at hand, what did it matter if these paltry clans lived out their remaining days in peace?
“What happened to Batfish and Spotted Paw?” Mulberry asked, evading Loonfoot’s question, while he scanned the trees. “Did you see where they went?”
“Batfish said he had to find some cobwebs to stop the blood from Spotted Paw’s wound. I didn’t see what direction they headed, but they’ll return soon. There are cobwebs under every fallen log.”