People of the Masks(37)
Bogbean glowered at her. “You talked of the preciousness of life with a fist shoved in Dark Wind’s face?”
“Well”—Wren shrugged—“I thought if words wouldn’t work—”
“I don’t wish to hear it! I am full of your excuses, girl! That’s all you are, Wren. One excuse after another!” She put a fat hand against Wren’s back and shoved her toward Frost-in-the-Willow’s longhouse. “Go and fetch as many water bags as you can carry. You are going to haul water up from Pipe Stem Lake until it becomes too dark to walk.”
“Pipe Stem Lake!” Wren objected. “But the little pond down the hill has plenty—”
“Do not argue with me!” Bogbean bellowed. “Go!” She thrust a massive arm at the longhouse.
Wren stalked for the doorway. Behind her, she could hear Dark Wind and Vine giggling, and the sound ate her belly like tiny teeth. She wished she had broken Dark Wind’s nose. At least then she would have something to smile about while she endured her punishment.
Pushing aside the leather door curtain, she ducked into the dim longhouse and reached for the gut bags that always hung on the peg by the door. Ten hung there! Had some slouch been hanging bags on Frost-in-the-Willow’s peg, or … she tried to recall the last time she’d gone for water.
Guilt-ridden, she dragged the bags off the peg and slung five over each shoulder. Blessed Spirits, once she’d filled them, she’d waddle home like a dog burdened with too many packs.
She ducked out of the house, and marched down the trail toward Pipe Stem Lake. Children laughed in the plaza, and Wren knew she was the joke. She lifted her chin, and tried to convince herself she didn’t care, that she didn’t like them anyway … . But she did care. Their laughter hurt. She ran for the northern palisade gate, and the forest beyond.
Shadows had already eaten most of the underbrush, and the hickory limbs looked like dark skeletal hands opened to the graying heavens.
She trotted up the first hill, and down the other side, then stopped and pondered a while. As it was, she would not make it home until well after dark. What was her hurry? When she finally returned, her grandmother would ridicule her, and spend the rest of the evening telling people in the longhouse how much trouble Wren was. Worse, Uncle Blue Raven would sit before the fire with his head down, and his mouth tight with pain. That look always made Wren feel as if she’d been born under a rock.
She kicked a pinecone, and watched it tumble down the trail, then sauntered along behind it. The land smelled damp and earthy, and Wind Mother swayed the tops of the tallest pines. Lingering patches of snow glittered in the depths of the forest.
The trail veered around a toppled maple. Wren walked past the gigantic roots that had been torn from the ground, and examined the hole they’d left. Rocks glittered inside.
As she continued on down the hill, she could see the beach. Grandmother Moon had just risen, and her gleam silvered the waves. Wren dropped her water bags in a heap on the sand and let the sight fill her. To her right, Lost Hill rose a hundred hands tall, the top whiskered with pines and oaks. She did not even glance at it for fear that she would hear the cries of the lost children who had died there.
Instead, she gazed up longingly at Grandmother Moon. Of all the hero stories told by her people, Grandmother . Moon’s story fascinated Wren the most. Before the world was shaped, Grandmother Moon had lived in the Up-Above-World. One day while she was out trying to find Healing plants to cure her sick husband, she pulled a tree up by the roots and opened a hole in the sky. While she was peering over the edge to get a better look, the ground crumbled away beneath her feet, and she was sucked through the hole. Beaver saw her falling, and dove down beneath the vast waters that covered the earth, found dirt, and made a soft place for her to land. But when she landed, all manner of evil landed with her. She gave birth to twin boys, one good and one very bad. The bad one, Red Flint, forced his way out of her womb and killed her. In mourning, the good son, Sky-Holder, cast her face into the heavens where it became the moon, then he molded the mountains from her breasts. The rest of her body melted into the water and became Grandmother Earth. From her had sprouted the three Sacred Sisters, corn, beans, and pumpkins.
Wren’s favorite part of the story, however, concerned Grandmother Moon’s souls. Like all living beings, she’d had two souls, one that stayed with her body forever—meaning it lived in Grandmother Earth—and one that was supposed to join the Night Walkers in the sky. This second soul was called Falling Woman. Falling Woman was filled with rage at her murder. She vowed she would never return to the Up-Above-World until she’d found Red Flint and killed him. But Red Flint was crafty. He learned to hide by transforming himself into other red things, rosehips, bird eyes, stones, and blood. Unfortunately for humans, whenever Red Flint changes himself into blood and tries to hide in someone’s veins, Falling Woman drives him out by sending all manner of illnesses upon the person’s body. Sometimes, they even die.