But people could die from other things, too: Wicked Spirits hunted human souls; witches killed with poisons and magic arrows; powerful shamans, like the False Face Child and Silver Sparrow, could kill with a word.
In the dying light, gulls hunted the lake, diving and swooping, their guttural calls like wood scraped against gravel. Farther out, fish leaped high into the air, wriggled and fell. Silver rings bobbed outward from their splashes.
This had always been one of Wren’s favorite places. She and Skybow used to play here. With Trickster. They would run up and down the beach, laughing, while Trickster chased them. Her souls could still hear his happy barks. She turned to the place where her mother always knelt to wash clothes, and Wren’s insides, broken and carefully pieced back together again, suddenly cracked. She felt as if her heart and bones were falling apart before her eyes.
“Stop it,” she murmured, and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. The last time she’d cried for her family, her grandmother had ordered her to sit in the corner with her back to the rest of the longhouse until she’d gotten over it. She’d stopped crying, but as for being over it …
Wren knelt and dunked a gut bag. Cold green water flowed inside. When it was full, she jerked the laces closed, knotted them, and slung the bag over her shoulder.
As she dipped the second bag, she heard a strange sound, like … laughter.
She spun around.
Sweet and high, the laughter seeped from the depths of the twilight.
“V-Vine? Is that you?”
Wren scrambled to her feet.
“Dark Wind? You coward! Come out and face me!”
Her gaze searched the trees, lingering on tangles of deadfall and dark bushes, expecting to see one of the other village children. If not Vine or Dark Wind, maybe little Toothwort. He was always doing irksome things to people. Only last moon he’d set a snare in a walking path and caught old man Marsh Elder by the right foot. After pounding dirty clothes with stones for twenty-eight days, Toothwort should have reformed a little. But perhaps not.
“Toothwort? Is that you out there? You’d better get back to your lodge before I catch you and wring your neck like a grouse!”
Stepping over the water bags, she—
“Hello, Wren.”
—jerked her head up.
The boy leaned against the trunk of a pine, his arms folded across his bloody chest. He was a stranger, but he looked to have seen ten winters. His hide clothing hung in filthy tatters, and the deep gashes across his chest and throat leaked red down his pants. As dusk grayed into night and fires sprang to life in Walksalong Village at the top of the hill, shadows danced across his young face. He smiled at Wren.
Her pulse pounded in her ears. “Blessed gods, what happened to you? You’re hurt!”
The boy stepped away from the tree. “Yes. Hurt badly. Come and help me, Wren. I need your help.” He turned and ran into the forest.
Wren hesitated. How could anyone smile when they were draining blood like a deer with its throat slit? But perhaps the pain had taken his senses.
Cautiously, she followed him. When she entered the trees, the brittle scents of damp bark and dirt filled her nostrils. The forest giants moaned in the evening breeze.
She cupped a hand to her mouth and called, “Where are you?”
“I’m here. Up the trail. Follow my voice.”
Wren’s breathing went shallow. Grandmother Moon’s silver light slanted down through the trees, shining on black spots in the snow. Drops of blood. She knelt and touched them. The odor left a tang at the back of her throat.
“Come back!” Wren yelled. “I’ll take you to my village, and we’ll Heal you. You’re bleeding badly!”
“I need you to come to me, Wren. It isn’t far. Come, please. Help me.”
Wren’s eyes widened when she saw him—Dancing—a specter of blood and moonlight flashing between the dark trunks of the trees. He lifted his arms and spun like a summer whirlwind. Blood flew from his wounds, speckling the trees and snow.
Wren couldn’t move. It was like staring into the eyes of a big cat about to pounce … .
“I’m not following you!” she said. “I don’t know you!”
A pale ghostly face, streaked with blood, peered from behind a smoke-colored trunk. He grinned. “Do you know why ghosts build houses, Wren?”
“What?” Wren shook her head.
“They build houses because they do not have enough lightning arrows, and they know it. They are afraid of us.”
“Afraid? Why? They’re ghosts! We can’t hurt them.”
He held out a hand, and it seemed to be made of moonlight, luminous, sparkling. “You must see the ghost houses for yourself, Wren. Our world is about to end. We have to warn people, before it’s too late. Please, come with me. Help me. I cannot do this alone.”