People of the Masks(30)
“Why are you sorry?” the False Face asked. “Did you strike him down?”
Wren did not answer. She should not even be here, and definitely should not speak with the boy, not after Matron Starflower had screamed orders against it. But more than that, it hurt to talk about Trickster’s death.
It had happened so fast. Trickster had been playing in the snow all day, romping with the other village dogs, until that afternoon his nose and ears had grown fiery hot. Throughout the long night, Trickster had lain in Wren’s lap, gazing up with watery eyes, occasionally wagging his tail at the sound of Wren’s concerned voice.
She had fought to stay awake, to keep watch so that the Sunshine Boy couldn’t sneak past and steal Trickster’s wavering soul. Then, suddenly, in the middle of the night, Trickster had wakened her, barking three times—his signal to Wren that he’d scented an intruder. Wren had swung around to peer at the fluttering door curtain. By the time she’d turned back, it was too late. The Sunshine Boy was already inside him. Trickster had looked up at Wren, not with love, not to say goodbye, but with sadness and surprise, as if Wren had betrayed him by falling asleep and letting the Sunshine Boy enter. As the soul-light drained from Trickster’s eyes, Wren had started shaking him with all her might, trying to dislodge the Sunshine Boy. Then she’d started screaming. She remembered because her grandmother had slapped her to make her stop.
The False Face shifted to see the grave. “My dog’s name was Stonecoat.”
Wren’s mouth pressed into a tight line. She really ought to obey at least one of Matron Starflower’s prohibitions.
Wren dug around in her cape pocket, and drew out the gift she’d brought. “Look, Trickster. I found it behind a stack of baskets.” She held the stick out to her friend. Both ends had been heavily chewed. “Remember how we used to play with this? You would growl and leap, trying to tug it away from me?” Gently, she laid the toy on the frozen ground over Trickster’s nose. “I was afraid the ghosts in the Up-Above-World might not know you loved such things.”
Snow began to fall heavily. Huge white flakes pirouetted from the sky, coating the surrounding rolling hills, and melting on Wren’s long braid. The land became so silent when it snowed. Birds sat hunched in the trees, looking miserable, while wisps of cloud scudded just above the treetops.
She tucked her hands inside her cape and let out a breath. “I gave some of your jerky to Black Nose. I hope you do not mind, Trickster. He was hungry. You know what a hard winter it’s been. All the raiding has left people frightened. No one wishes to share a bite with a puppy.”
The raiding had been going on for many winters, since long before Wren’s birth. Her grandmother said that the Turtle people—the False Face Child’s people—deserved destruction because they were ignorant and dirty. Wren did not know how she could say that. Or how anyone could deserve to die. She fumbled with the stick. Trickster hadn’t deserved it.
“Something’s wrong with my mother,” the False Face Child whispered, “I don’t know what. She promised me she would come, but”—his eyes scanned the trees again—“she hasn’t.”
Thoughtlessly, Wren said, “She’s probably dead.”
The boy’s black eyes seemed to expand. “Why do you say that? Is that what it means, when the echoes die?”
“Echoes?” She swiveled to peer at him. “What echoes?”
“Of my mother’s heartbeat. I have always heard them, even before I was born.”
“A person can’t remember things from before they were born. You did not even have a human soul then.”
That’s why newborns could be left out to die on Lost Hill when a Starving came upon the people. Some souls had to be returned to the earth, so that the clan might survive. Better a newborn child with only one animal soul, than an adult with two souls. The second soul, the human soul, came to a person at about age four. Everybody knew that!
“But I do remember,” the False Face Child said.
Wren tenderly petted the frozen dirt over Trickster, letting his closeness soothe her fears. After a pause, she added, “My mother is dead, too. So are my father and brother.”
The False Face Child strained to lift himself to look into her eyes. “How did they die?”
“There was a storm on the lake. Their canoe tipped over. They drowned.” How peculiar that she could recite the event without even the slightest hesitation, as if it had been someone else’s heart that had shattered and blown away like old leaves.
Rumbler let his head slowly fall to the snowy ground. “Are their echoes gone from inside you?”