“Are you coming?”
The Spirit did not answer. His quartz-crystal eyes had gone dark. Only a smoky gray haze filled his hood.
A strange chill prickled Sky Messenger’s wrinkled skin. He shivered. “What’s wrong?”
Something was wrong; he could feel it.
Sky Messenger walked back. Just before he reached Sonon, he saw something on the ground, and stopped.
The bones of a human hand thrust up through the soil, the fingers extended as though they’d clawed their way up through the earth just to reach out to him.
“What’s this?”
The Spirit remained quiet.
Sky Messenger scanned the leaf-strewn soil. Other bones lay exposed, scattered along an irregular line—a line beyond which Sonon did not seem able to pass.
Sky Messenger looked up into Sonon’s dark hood. The shining eyes were no longer blazing quartz, but filled with tears.
“Did you want me to find this, old friend? Is that why I’m here?” Sonon’s hood buffeted in the wind as he walked back up the twisting trail into towering sycamores.
Sky Messenger watched him until he vanished … . Then he gazed back at the bridge. Gitchi stood up and whimpered, calling to him. All the birds that had been perched on the planks took wing and circled, waiting.
“I’m such an old fool. Why did it take me so long to understand?”
He held onto his walking stick as he lowered himself to his knees and spread his cape like a blanket before him.
One by one, he picked up the bones and placed them on his cape, then moved on down the line and picked up more. They were old, fragile. Some crumbled in his hands. He soon found his cape covered with bone slivers. When he’d collected every fragment he could find, he folded the hem of his cape to create a basket for the bones, and grunted to his feet.
“I’ll make sure you reach the Land of the Dead,” he whispered. “Your work here is done, old friend.”
Sky Messenger swung around to face the bridge. The planks had picked up the fading rays of sunlight and gleamed as though sheathed with liquid amber. He steeled himself, and started forward.
Gitchi barked and leaped. His ears were pricked, and his tail ferociously sliced the air.
“Yes, boy, I’m finally coming.”