People of the Mist(22)

Sun Conch shoved her stick into the fire and watched it burn.

Her feelings for High Fox had’ started to change two Comings of the Leaves ago, after his Blackening. High Fox had been reborn a man, and his steps had turned lighter, his smile more teasing. He had looked at Sun Conch strangely, his eyes suddenly luminous, and she had heard his unspoken words as if he’d shouted them. He could not speak for her until she had become a woman—but his eyes had promised that he would.

Then, at last summer’s solstice celebration, his attention had shifted to the beautiful Red Knot, granddaughter of the Weroansqua, Hunting Hawk, of Flat Pearl Village. Red Knot’s status had matched his own. Though not yet a woman, Red Knot had taunted High Fox like one, running her hands over High Fox’s muscular arms, smiling up at him as if he knew, more than First Woman herself. Sun Conch had hated her for it, but she’d done nothing. Perhaps if she had… maybe he … maybe … She clenched handfuls of her feather cape. “You are a foftl,” she said, barely audible. “He loved her. Not you. He never loved you.”

The wind shifted, bathing her face with the fragrance of cedar smoke; it spun before her soft brown eyes and, in the eddies, she saw High Fox’s face, as it had been two days ago, the shining light gone, replaced by a soul deep ache. She had seen that look before, the day his beloved dog had limped-into the village after being attacked by a bear, and High Fox had had to brain him with his war club.

Her mother’s voice pleaded, “Do you not recall your first love, Threadleaf? The terrible pain and longing? I do. I—”

“You did not humiliate your clan! You waited until you stepped out of the menstrual hut for the first time before making your love for Windsong known. And then, you told me, and I told the clan. We went to speak for you! You knew your place, your duties. Sun Conch knows nothing.”

Aunt Threadleaf pushed back the door curtain and glared out at her. She had a fat, deeply wrinkled face with white-filmed eyes that had always struck fear into Sun Conch’s heart. Red images of birds painted her deer hide cape.

“Come closer, girl,” Threadleaf demanded.

Sun Conch obediently rose, and went to kneel less than two hands away. “I am here, Aunt.” Her normally deep voice came out shrill.

“Did you couple with him?”

Sun Conch’s lips parted in shock. For a moment she could only stare at Threadleaf in mute disbelief, then she sputtered, “Wh-what? I am not yet a woman! Do you think I would—”

From inside the house, her mother said, “Threadleaf, for the sake of the Spirits! She is a child and High Fox knows it. Do you think he wishes to die? He would never risk—”

Aunt Threadleaf swung around to scowl through the entry. “Do not tell me what a young man will risk when his loins are aching. I, of all people, know. I birthed eight sons.” When Threadleaf turned back, she lifted a brow and slowly, deliberately, examined Sun Conch, her filmy eyes moving from Sun Conch’s fringed moccasins to her pale face. When she spoke, her voice cut like finely flaked chert. “Well, you aren’t much to tempt a man, I will give you that. Now. Tell me again, niece, what happened between you and High Fox? Did he toy with your affections? Or did you chase him like a weasel in heat?”

“I-I told you!” she answered frantically. “We are friends. We have always been. I started to love him—”

The force of the blow slammed Sun Conch to the ground. She landed hard, clawing and spitting dirt. Blood filled her mouth. When she tried to sit up, her vision swam in a sickening blur. “Threadleaf!” her mother cried. “Get out of my way! What have you done?”

Sun Conch forced herself to stand, and stumbled across the plaza toward the passage that led out of the palisade. Her legs shook. She had not eaten since the “incident,” and felt hollow, her soul floating like dandelion seeds aloft on an icy breeze.

One of the village dogs saw her, and starting barking. She ran.

“Sun Conch!” Aunt Threadleaf shouted. “Get back here. I order you to return!”

She glanced over her shoulder at her aunt and mother standing beside the fire. They both wore knee-length deer hide capes over their frayed mantles. Her mother’s expression was tortured, and that, more than anything else, tore Sun Conch’s heart. She rushed ahead, her moccasins flying over the frozen soil of the plaza. The darkness had strengthened, the birds gone silent. The forest beyond the palisade stood quiet as death.

“Sun Conch?” her mother called. “Please! Come back!”

Sun Conch hurried out through the narrow passage between the overlapping courses of posts and into the open.