People of the Masks(148)
“I know. I—I love her, Grandmother,” he murmured.
Dust found the folded bandages and Healing herbs, lifted them out. The laces on the leather herb bag had been gnawed in two.
“Mice!” she said. “They chew up everything. I wish the gods would wipe them all from the face of the earth.”
Wind fluttered Rumbler’s hood around his face. He tilted his head and looked away.
“What’s wrong? Do you like mice?” Dust asked.
“They do chew on things, but …”
“What, Rumbler?”
“Well, they also listen, Grandmother. When I was on Lost Hill they came to me every night. I talked to them, and they listened. The mice made me feel better.”
Dust stroked his hair. “I’m sorry, Rumbler. I won’t say another bad thing about mice.”
His black eyes glowed. “The mice might have been trying to tell you something, Grandmother, but they had to chew your laces to get your attention.”
Dust shrugged awkwardly. “Well, if so, I didn’t hear them.”
“Mother … my mother,” he said with a quaver in his voice, “she told me once that animals talk to humans all the time, but only our souls can hear them. She said that even though we have human bodies, our souls have wings and whiskers. That’s why our souls hear the voices of the animals, and our ears don’t.”
Dust smiled. “Yes, that sounds like Briar. She was very wise.”
Dust dipped up a cup of pine-needle tea, and set it on the sand beside her, then unfolded two strips of bandages. Shadow Spirits fled from the scent of pine needles like cougars from the scent of humans. She tucked the bandages into the cup, and while they soaked, loosened the gnawed ties on her bag of licorice root.
Rumbler sniffed. “Is that licorice, Grandmother?”
“Yes, it is. Here, let me see your hands again.”
Rumbler propped his right hand on Dust’s knee, and watched as she poured a little ground licorice powder into her bowl. “I told Wren about licorice.”
“She didn’t know that licorice drives away Shadow Spirits?”
He shook his head. “I think her people have different plant Spirit Helpers.”
Dust poured enough tea over the powder to make a paste, then stirred it with her finger. She dabbed the thick paste over the feeding grounds of the Shadow Spirits, then lifted one of the bandages from the tea. After wringing it out, she carefully coiled it around Rumbler’s little finger and wrapped his palm twice. As she tied off the cloth ends, she said, “Let’s take care of the other hand, then we’ll have a cup of tea. How does that sound?”
“I’d like that, Grandmother.”
Rumbler held out his left hand, and Dust glanced at him as she coated it with licorice paste. “What are you thinking, Rumbler? Your eyebrows just pinched.”
He moved his bandaged finger, then in a barely audible voice, said, “I found my mother.”
Dust hesitated, then finished bandaging his left little finger and tied it off. She touched Rumbler’s chin, tipping his face to look into his eyes. Anguish and grief filled those black depths. Until this moment, it had not occurred to her that perhaps he’d seen Jumping Badger clubbing Briar, or watched her crawl from the lodge on fire … or heard her screams.
Dust murmured, “We saw her, too.”
Rumbler tucked his freshly bandaged hands in his lap. “Grandmother? Do you think … I’ve been worried about Mother’s afterlife soul. I asked a siskin to go and see if she was in the Up-Above-World, but it never came back. What do you think that means?”
Dust could see the terrible fear in his eyes, fear that his mother wandered the earth alone, a wailing homeless ghost. “Oh, Rumbler, I should have told you the instant we found you. Don’t worry about your mother. Sparrow and I buried her.”
Rumbler’s mouth dropped open. Disbelief vied with hope in his eyes. “Did you Sing her soul to the Up-Above-World?”
“Yes, we Sang her soul to the Up-Above-World. I’m sure she’s there this instant, laughing with old friends.”
His head trembled. “Then—if I ever learn to soul-fly, I can go see her?”
“You certainly can.”
He threw his arms around Dust’s neck and hugged her. His hood fell back. “Oh, Grandmother, thank you.”
She kissed his hair. “We couldn’t leave her like that, Rumbler. We loved her, too.”
His breath warmed Dust’s ear for a time, then he whispered, “I miss her.”
She hugged him tighter. “I do, too. There’s something your mother wished me to talk to you about.”
“You spoke with her? Before—”