People of the Masks(31)

Wren wondered about that. Sometimes she had trouble recalling what their voices sounded like, and it terrified her. Is that what he meant? “I don’t know. I … I guess so.”

Sobs puffed the False Face Child’s chest. “Then maybe my mother is dead.”

Wren let her finger trace the place where Trickster’s pointed ears rested beneath the soil. The boy’s cries clawed at her heart, sounding very much like her own eight moons ago. At least she’d had Uncle Blue Raven and Trickster to comfort her. This boy had no one.

“She can’t be dead!” the boy sobbed. “She promised she would never leave me!”

“Well, you are a False Face, aren’t you? Can’t you bring her back with your Spirit Powers?”

“I don’t have those kinds of Powers!”

“How do you know? Have you tried?” Wren asked. “We have a story about a very old dwarf named Hungry Eyes. He could bring ghosts back from the Up-Above-World. He snared them, carried them home in a rawhide bag, and tied them to their bodies again.”

“And the people came alive?”

“Yes. You may not be old enough to soul-fly yet, but I suppose that same Power lives inside you. Even if it doesn’t, you’re no worse off for trying.”

He squeezed his eyes closed, and cried. Like every other stolen child who had ever come to Walksalong Village, he looked lost and hopeless.

“Thank you,” he croaked, “for talking.”

Wren lifted a shoulder. As she began scooping snow over Trickster’s grave, covering him and his favorite toy, she said, “I have to go, Rumbler. Matron Starflower said that no one was supposed to come near you. If she catches me here, I’ll be punished.”

Rumbler gazed back toward Walksalong Village, which hid beyond the low pine-whiskered hill to his left. Blue smoke curled above the treetops. He frowned, apparently seeing something that Wren did not, and Wren’s chest prickled. She got to her feet.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I will have to learn to fly fast.” He breathed the words. “Your people are going to kill me.”

“How do you know? We have had no council meeting yet.”

Rumbler twisted his wrists against his bonds, and Wren saw the blood that dripped onto the fresh snow. Pain laced his expression. “I know.”

Wren started to back away. But stopped. Rumbler was biting his lip to hold back his tears. She did not know why she did it, but she walked forward and knelt beside the Power child.

“It’s going to be a bitter day,” she said. “And tonight will be worse. I can smell a bad storm on Wind Mother’s breath.”

She tucked the edges of Uncle Blue Raven’s cape securely beneath him, so it wouldn’t blow loose. “Try not to roll around too much.”

Rumbler’s mouth opened, as if to thank her, but he whispered, “If you see my mother, will you tell her where I am?”

“Well … I don’t know. That would get me into a lot of trouble.”

“I know, but will you?”

“But I—I don’t even know what she looks like.”

“She is short, and thin, with long black hair and eyes the color of a buffalo’s undercoat. She has my father’s image, a green tree, tattooed on her forehead.”

Wren chewed her lip, trying to imagine how she’d feel if their positions were reversed, if she were the one staked out in the snow by an enemy people.

“All right, Rumbler. If I see her, I’ll tell her you are here. But you can’t tell anyone I did it.”

Rumbler smiled weakly, and Wren found herself smiling back. When she realized it, fear, like cold hands, gripped her throat. Blessed Spirits, if anyone found out what she’d just said, she would be flayed alive!

Turning, she walked across the meadow until she was out of his sight.

Then she ran as if wicked Spirits were diving at her head.





A little boy’s cries …

Crowfire staggered to a stop. The cries echoed through the forest, circling him like playing falcons, sometimes loud enough to make him jump and spin around. At other times, they toyed with his souls, whispering and taunting.

“Who are you?” he shouted.

His gaze searched the glistening world. A doe stood perfectly still fifty hands away, her eyes shining like white shells, but he saw no people.

“Hallowed Spirits, has the fever stolen my wits?”

He reached for the boulder that thrust up to his left and braced his hand. Snow spun out of the ashen sky, the flakes frosting the trees, and blanketing the well-worn trail. Grandfather Day Maker had risen over a hand of time ago, but his gleam barely penetrated the clouds. This was the right trail. Crowfire had run it dozens of times. Matron Dust Moon always placed her village somewhere along this trail, perhaps two or three days to the east or west, but …