Bobbing mayapple leaves danced as she passed, her bare feet water-streaked as she stepped through the ground cover. Buds were just forming, anticipatory to blooming. Overhead a small beast scampered through the parallel rows of lanceolate leaves on a white ash—then identified itself by a fox squirrel’s high-pitched chattering.
Snakes take it, had the squirrel given them away? Anhinga raised a hand, and Spider Fire stopped close behind her. The others, too, froze in place. In silence they waited, ears cocked to the gray dawn, but only the calls of the birds, the soft moaning of insects, and the irregular patter of water dripping from the trees could be heard.
“No voices,” Slit Nose whispered from the rear. “Maybe there’s no one there?”
“Or they are still asleep,” Spider Fire added. “It’s early.”
“Hush.” Anhinga glanced nervously at the encompassing fog that pressed down around them. Was it her imagination, or had it thickened, drawn closer?
A shiver played down her spine. She had never liked thick mist like this. Something about the way it rose from the water, as though alive, played eerily with her imagination. That it flowed around everything in its path bespoke a great Power that she had yet to comprehend. In times like this, when death prowled the land, mist could carry ghosts right around a person. She could imagine wraith hands tracing their way along a living person’s body, caressing it, slipping thin fingers into a person’s nose, mouth, and ears. How could you tell? How would you know that you had been witched? Any evil could be lurking just there, beyond your vision, waiting for you to step into its lair.
“Let’s go,” Right Talon muttered as he clutched his darts and atlatl. “If anyone is there, they’ll be wide-awake by the time we finally arrive.”
Mist Finger gently tapped his wooden dart shafts in agreement, but said nothing. Anhinga shot him a sidelong glance, measuring him. After his cavalier words the night they had left, he had been solid, never boastful like the others, and calmly capable when it came to making camp and seeing to the things that needed to be done. During the two days they had been traveling she had found herself admiring him more than once. Smooth muscle rolled under his greased skin. He stood straight, proud. Something in his demeanor made it clear that as he aged, he would become a leader. If only he hadn’t been so blunt that night in the canoe.
He just spoke what the others already knew, she reminded herself. Yes, they had come to impress her. Mist Finger’s assertion that first night in the canoe simply lifted the veil, placed all of the young men’s actions in complete clarity.
So, are you going to marry any one of them? She had begun to look at them through different eyes. They were no longer childhood friends, no longer the easy companions of hunting and fishing expeditions or harmless teasing. The seriousness with which they dedicated themselves to her, to this raid, bespoke of adulthood as she had never before understood it.
As she considered that, she realized her attention had fixed on Mist Finger. He alone didn’t fidget, didn’t stare anxiously out at the mist-shrouded trees, but met her uneasy gaze with his clear brown eyes. That look reassured, speaking to her without words. He smiled the way he might if he were reading her souls.
“Are we going?” Slit Nose asked, “or would you rather wait for the mayapples and greenbrier to bloom?”
Anhinga strode forward, breaking eye contact with Mist Finger. A curious tingle had formed at the root of her spine, warming her pelvis. She flipped her hair, worn long and braided in anticipation of the day’s coming trials. Her other hand tightened on the darts and atlatl in her hand. After all, this wasn’t about handsome young men who made her heart leap. It was about war—about revenge and blood. Within moments, provided that Panther Above favored her, they would be killing enemies.
Taking a long stride, she tried to ignore the mist that sifted through the vines and branches. A sweetgum seedpod rolled under her heel as she marched up the trail. How far was it? She tried to remember.
The trail leveled off, winding through the trees. The branches overhead disappeared into a gray haze, hanging moss dangling like daggers. The trees themselves might have been ghosts vanishing into the haze. Ghosts?
Why did everything, no matter her momentary revelation about Mist Finger, return to ghosts? Was it because Bowfin’s lost souls prowled these selfsame forests? Did her brother’s empty eyes even now peer over her shoulder? Was he confused by her oddly timed attraction for Mist Finger when she should be contemplating the death of his killers?
A stab of guilt made her reorder her thoughts. Was this the right decision? Was it the time to strike? Is that what left her filled with unease? When she glanced up, it was to stare straight into the piercing eyes of a huge barred owl. The bird was perched on a branch, half-obscured by the patchy mist. She could see its scaly feet, the black talons gleaming where they encircled the wood. Those nightspeckled feathers were grayed by the dew, slick-looking and shimmering; the bird might have been born of the mist itself. The eyes boring into hers did not seem to be of this world.