People of the Masks(59)
Wren dawdled, studying the poles that framed the door. Since the False Face Child might die today, her grandmother had ordered Wren to dress in new finely tailored pants, and a knee-length shirt. White spirals decorated the blue fabric. When the boy died, Uncle Blue Raven would come into the village and ask everyone to gather for the final ceremony where they boiled the boy’s body and stripped it clean of flesh. Usually, the dead child’s bones were buried beneath the floor of the longhouse. That way, if he chose to, his soul could enter a woman’s womb and be reborn. But Wren didn’t know what her clan would do with Rumbler’s bones. They hated him so much they might throw his bones to the village dogs.
She hacked at one of the doorway poles, and her grandmother snapped, “For the sake of the Ancestors, Wren, come and sit down! You’ve got Bogbean jumping at her own wheezes!”
The two old women had been spinning dog hair since midday and several long sticks lay beside them, wrapped with different colors of the yarn. Frost-in-the-Willows looked especially tall and weedy next to Bogbean’s girth. Even during Starving times Bogbean remained corpulent. It always astounded Wren.
“I don’t want to sit down, Grandmother,” Wren protested. “I’m too nervous.”
“About what?”
Bogbean put a hand on Frost-in-the-Willow’s arm. “She’s worried about the False Face Child. When Blue Raven took the boy out to Lost Hill, Wren begged him to let her go along.”
Frost-in-the-Willows arched her thin white brows. “It is against tradition and you know it, Little Wren. You will see your uncle, and the boy, at suppertime when you take Blue Raven his meal.”
“But I—”
“Don’t talk. Listen.” Her grandmother pointed a stem finger. “No one may go to the hill, except you. You must honor the obligations that go along with that privilege. You go, you deliver food, and you return home. That is how it’s done.”
Wren turned her gray chert knife in her hands. “I wish Rumbler didn’t have to—”
“Starflower determined his fate. It is done. Stop thinking about it.”
More gently, Bogbean said, “Grandfather Day Maker makes no promises that we will see all the days we wish to, Wren. We must live the best we can, and be happy that our lives are no worse than they are.”
Frost-in-the-Willows made a half disgusted, half amused sound. “Don’t you realize, Wren, that the False Face Child is lucky? If Blue Raven hadn’t begged Starflower for leniency, the boy would be out in the plaza this instant with a fire under his feet. Be thankful.”
In a small voice, she said, “I am. Thankful.”
“Besides,” her grandmother added, “people usually get what they deserve.”
Wren slowly lowered her knife. The smiling faces of her mother and father, and little Skybow, appeared on her souls. Then Trickster trotted happily into the picture, his white tail wagging. Without warning, tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked dumbly at her grandmother.
“What’s wrong with you?” her grandmother asked. “You look like a hurt animal!”
“D-did my family deserve to die?” Wren demanded to know. “Did Trickster? He never did anything wrong! He was a good dog, and a good friend to me. I—”
“No one wishes to hear your babbling!”
How many times had adults told her they didn’t want to hear what she had to say? As though her thoughts could not possibly matter.
Wren tucked her knife back into her belt sheath, grabbed her white fox-fur cape from the pegs near the entry, and ducked outside into the gale. Long black hair whipped around her slender face, tangling with her eyelashes.
“Oh, let her go,” she heard her grandmother say. “She is such a troublesome child. She always has been. I remember right after—”
In the empty plaza, the village fire pit had blown clean of ashes. Long streaks of gray created a starburst around the rocks. She ran past it to the northern palisade gate. Lost Hill sat at the bottom of the trail. As long as she did not set foot on the hill, she would not be violating any rules. She glanced up at the afternoon rays slanting across the forest. She had at least two hands of light left, and the gods knew, no one in Walksalong Village was going to miss her. At least not until the time came for her to carry Uncle Blue Raven’s food to him at dusk. She would be home long before that.
Pinecones and twigs scattered the trail. Wren leaped them as she ran.
Where the trail veered around the toppled maple, Wren bent over to peer into the gaping hole left by the roots. Water had leeched from the ground and soaked the pebbles in the bottom of the hole. They resembled polished jewels.