My gaze returns to the fire cherries.
There is something almost hypnotic about the stillness. The wind has stopped. The fog seems to have frozen in place. The dark branches resemble hundreds of fingers reaching toward the Sky World.
A brief blue flicker shines near the big sycamore.
I prop myself up on one elbow. Is it a Forest Spirit?
Odion.
I feel the whisper along my bones, a faint creeping sensation like spiderwebs trailed over the skin.
Terrified, I drag Tutelo against me, shielding her from the unknown. In her ear, I hiss, “Don’t move.”
She obeys.
Very faintly, I hear it again—the unmistakable sound of my name whispered by a man, and the soft scrape of leather against wood.
Then the trees rustle, and I think I see a dark cape billow as a man walks away through the glistening fog.
Tutelo whispers, “It’s Shago-niyoh.”
The milky stillness of her calm is unnerving.
“D-did he talk to you?” I stammer.
Tutelo tilts her pretty face and stares at me owlishly. “Did you see him?”
I feel like my lungs are starving. I gasp in cold air before I exhale the words, “I’m not sure. Maybe.”
Ugly turns our direction and scowls. “Stop talking. Go to sleep. We have to carry you tomorrow, and it’s a lot harder to carry someone who’s asleep.” He aims his war club at us.
We both stretch out on our sides, and I curl my body around Tutelo to keep her warm. She heaves a weary sigh and closes her eyes.
Blood pulses so powerfully in my veins that I feel slightly ill.
Gannajero rises and silently bird-walks across the ground. Her black eyes are huge and, if I didn’t know better, I’d say scared. She stops by her warriors and hisses, “What did you see?”
“Nothing.”
“What frightened the birds?”
Ugly shrugs. “I don’t know. We didn’t find anything.”
Gannajero’s gaze slowly moves over the fire cherries, as though expecting to see something or someone. No one makes a sound. In the darkness, her greasy twists of graying black hair hang about her wrinkled face like black fringes.
Gannajero takes ten silent, measured steps toward the cherries. She’s breathing hard. In a hideous gasp, she says, “It’s the Child.”
Ugly frowns. “The children are all accounted for. It can’t be—”
“He’s found us.” Gannajero quickly retreats to stand between her warriors. Her gaze darts over the forest, as though an ancient evil has risen and is about to swallow them all.
I twist my head to stare back out at the fire cherries.
Waiting.
But now there is only fog and forest.
Gannajero wildly glares down at me. “Did you call it?”
“Wh-what? I don’t under—”
I sit up and her fist is like a meteor plummeting out of the night. It strikes me squarely in the jaw and knocks me hard to the ground. Tutelo screams. I feel dazed. My head is spinning. I can’t seem to sit up. All the other children wake and start talking at once, asking each other questions.
“Never call to it!” Gannajero hisses. “Never speak to it! Not even if it speaks to you first. Do you understand me?”
I manage to jerk a nod before I roll to my side to spit mouthfuls of blood on the ground. Two teeth roll out. I can feel the gaps in my lower jaw, on the right side.
Gannajero bends over me with blazing eyes. “Tell me you heard me. Don’t just nod!”
Before I can speak, she draws back her hand again, and I cover my head, preparing for another blow. But from the corner of my eye, I see Wrass leap up and grab Gannajero’s fist as it plunges toward me.
I scream, “No, Wrass, don’t!”
Gannajero cries out hoarsely and tries to twist free of his grip. Wrass is hanging on, trying to wrench her arm out of its socket. Her men instantly leap into action. They beat Wrass off Gannajero with their war clubs.
He curls into a ball on the ground, huddling against the beating. The sound of his grunts and cries wither my soul.
None of us dares to go to his aid. We are all too afraid of getting beaten to death ourselves.
“Enough,” Gannajero finally orders, and her guards back away.
Wrass is lying with his arms over his head, whimpering, and rolling as though in great pain.
Gannajero meets each of our gazes, and her wrinkled lips pucker as if she wants to spit upon us. “If any of you dares to touch me ever again, you will all be beaten bloody. Do you understand?”
We nod.
Tutelo crawls over to me and puts a cool hand on my back. “Odion? Odion, are you all right?”
“I … I think so.”
Gannajero turns to her warriors. “This means we’re being followed. He’s leading them right to us. Tomorrow, at first light, I want both of you to scout our back trail. And if you see anything, anything, return and tell me immediately.”