But there was something else—a voice, frail, childlike, but there. Pitch held them for as long as he could, studying them; then he shoved the fetishes back in the bag and set it on one of the hearth stones.
“Hallowed Spirits.” He shivered. “Who made these, Dzoo?”
A cold smile touched her lips. “He’s Powerful, isn’t he?”
Pitch wiped his hands on his cape, but he could still feel the man’s presence, a fetid prickle, like hungry maggots crawling around his bones. “Who is he?”
“Coyote, I assume, but I’m not certain.”
Pitch washed his hands in the freshly fallen snow. “Where did you find them?”
“Broken Sun offered them to me.”
In a heartbeat he saw the entire thing on the fabric of his soul. Broken Sun must have known the instant Dzoo found him that she had seen everything.
“Where did he get them?”
“That was the bargain. Coyote gave them to Broken Sun in exchange for me.”
Pitch flinched. “Dzoo? What did you do with … I mean, Antler Spoon searched …” He made a face. “The warriors backtracked you through the snow. They found blood, but no body. No other tracks but yours.”
The wind shifted, and snow plummeted out of the sky, creating a thick white veil between them. The fire sizzled and popped.
Dzoo answered, “He would not have been welcome at the Underwater House. I just spared his ancestors the trouble of telling him so.”
He squeezed his eyes closed. If a person’s body was not properly cared for, the soul became a homeless ghost, wandering the earth forever, trying in vain to speak with people, watching loved ones die. Most homeless ghosts went mad and took out their vengeance on the very people they loved most.
“What he did was wrong, Dzoo, very wrong, but he thought he was saving his village. I wish you had—”
“A man who will sell a sick woman’s life for a handful of trinkets is capable of anything. I couldn’t let him go.”
It sounded like something Pearl Oyster would have said: Who will he sell next? Hmm? You? Me? His own daughter?
Pitch asked, “What does Coyote want with you?”
“Possession.”
“Possession? Of what?”
“My body. One of us will devour the other. We will embrace each other, and one of us will suck the other dry.” Dzoo stood, and her black buffalo cape billowed in the gale. “Why don’t you try to sleep? I’ll take the first watch.”
Pitch finished his fir needle tea and placed the cup beside the tripod. “I think you should sleep first. In two days, you are supposed to lead the Moon Ceremonial at War Gods Village. You will need …”
Dzoo turned suddenly, eyes searching the storm.
He followed her gaze to the trees five tens of paces away. “What is it?”
The reflection of the firelit snow wavered over Dzoo’s beautiful face. She said nothing, staring in knowing silence.
An elusive wink of light flashed in the alders.
Pitch grabbed the fetish bag, stuffed it into his pack, and gathered his things.
“Back away. Slowly,” Dzoo said. “When you’re two tens of paces up the trail, turn and run. I’ll be right behind you.”
“But it might just be a messenger from Antler Spoon, or Rain Bear. Perhaps we should—”
She turned. “Go. Now!”
Twelve
Evening Star picked her way carefully down the path, placing each foot so that she didn’t slip and fall among the exposed roots and rocks that clogged the trail leading to the beach. She glanced back to see her two young guards following carefully, half of their glances for her, half for the surrounding forest, and a couple stolen for themselves, as if to express their unease at escorting a matron of the North Wind People.
Evening Star stepped out from the lowest trees that masked the beach and strode forward. She wore a bulky bark hat, a rain-slick grass cape, and a snug badgerhide dress that one of the women had supplied her. It was really quite cleverly made, strips of badgerhide having been twisted and then woven together to create a warm but light garment.
Through the gray drizzle, she could see Rain Bear bent over the gunwale of his canoe, placing long slender poles into the craft. As she walked closer she made out the painted red grizzly bear that decorated the canoe’s side; the head had been carved into the bow, where the eyes could look out at the water. The clawed paws rose up, following the tall prow as if about to pounce on whatever lay beneath the waves.
Rain Bear caught movement from the corner of his eye and looked up. She saw surprise quickly replaced by curiosity, and then a sort of dread.
“Matron? Can I help you?”
She came to a stop beside him, looking out over the gray water. A pair of gulls wheeled and dove over the surf. “Are you going out?”