People of the Mist(21)
Hunting Hawk motioned the two uneasy warriors holding Red Knot’s body. “Take my granddaughter to the House of the Dead. Tell… tell Green Serpent to smoke her, but to do nothing more until I tell him to.”
“Yes, Weroansqua,” Flying Weir said reverently, and he and Squirrel trotted off with their swaying burden.
“Mother!” Shell Comb wheeled, fire in her eyes. “Are we going to—”
“Enough!” She made a chopping with her hand. “We will do nothing until I have considered all sides to this thing! Unlike you, girl, I must think before I act! A policy I expect you to begin to emulate. That, or Okeus help us, you’ll be a slave washing Water Snake’s pots within a week of my death!”
Turning from her horrified people, she waddled painfully for her Great House. She had to sit, to think, to try and see the correct path through this madness. Otherwise, it would destroy them all.
Five
High above the winter forest, two black dots wheeled through the lavender rays of dusk. Sun Conch tucked her bright feather cape around her drawn-up knees, and tipped her chin to watch them. They must be eagles down from the north. They spiraled, their lazy flights the only movement in the gleaming bowl of the sky.
As Night Woman gathered the world in her arms, the cold deepened. Sun Conch shivered. The woodpile sat to her right, on the north side of the fire, and just beyond it stood the doorway to her mother’s house. As she reached for more wood, her eyes strayed to the entry. The grass-thatched long house flickered orange in the jumping light of the flames. Whispers seeped around the curtain—her mother’s voice low and forlorn, her aunt’s angry.
“Panther take her!” Aunt Threadleaf’s old voice hissed. “She’s shamed us! Her punishment must be severe!”
Sun Conch placed the branch in the fire and watched the sparks crackle and dance as they climbed into the evening sky. The Panther, a powerful witch, lived by himself on an island in the bay. Curses spoken in his name were said to fly like arrows to his ears, and cause him to cast spells upon the person cursed. That’s why people only uttered them in the most dire situations.
Sun Conch stared sightlessly at the flames, and wondered what to do. High Fox had promised to run off with Red Knot. What did it matter now that Sun Conch had thrown herself at him, that she had pleaded for him to marry her?
“We should outcast her for a time. Let her think on—”
“No, no,” her mother said. “I don’t think we need to be so harsh.” “Then a good beating is definitely in order. She can’t go on like this. I will not tolerate this defiance of clan, family, and tradition!”
A cold pain, like an icicle, pierced Sun Conch’s heart. She gazed out across the plaza. The shaggy houses of Three Myrtle Village stood silent, blue curls of smoke rising from the smoke holes in their roofs. A palisade, an oval wall of upright posts twice the height of a man, surrounded the village. Within it, nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Even the eagles had vanished from the night sky, leaving her more alone than she had ever been in her four and ten Comings of the Leaves.
While most of the village had gone to attend the Newly Made Woman ceremony at Flat Pearl Village, Sun Conch and her family had been ordered to remain here. Black Spike had been disgusted by Sun Conch’s behavior. He’d declared before the entire village that his son, High Fox, had done nothing to encourage “such an embarrassing incident.” All the while, High Fox had stood at his father’s side with his head bowed, and his whole anguished heart in his dark eyes. She had hurt for him. And for herself. How could she have done that? Just blurted out her feelings in the middle of a plaza filled with people? “You know why.” She mouthed the words so no one would hear. He’d told her the night before that. he would not allow his precious Red Knot to marry the old man her Greenstone Clan had promised her to. He’d said he was going to run away with her, run all the way to the Father Water if necessary, and never return.
Desperation had wrenched Sun Conch. She’d had to tell him, no matter the cost.
Her aunt’s hoarse whispers grew more insistent, and tears blurred Sun Conch’s eyes. She pulled a stick from the woodpile and prodded the fire. Blue flames flickered through the orange, like the fluttering of bluebird wings. Stalwartly, she kept her tears at bay. She would not cry. Not ever again. The only time tears did any good was when someone was there to comfort them.
“Did you know of this?” Aunt Threadleaf asked.
“That she had taken to the Weroance’s son? Such arrogance! How could she think that she, a plain-faced potter’s daughter, could marry into that family?”