The sky had gone a dark indigo by the time she crouched next to him beside the box. She could not remember Father Sun vanishing so quickly . . . maybe we really did trap him! Excited, she shouted, "Can I see? Please, Wanderer, let me look?"
"Oh, not yet." Wanderer crooned softly as he picked up the box and held it tightly against his chest. "Later tonight. First we have to prepare ourselves. Come on, let's take him home."
In the comer of Wanderer's house. Lichen sat on the pile of fox hides that had become her bed. She stared at the Power symbols on the walls, just as Wanderer had commanded her. In the dim glow of the fire, they gleamed as though alive. The black crescent moons seemed to be leaning sideways, whispering secrets to the purple starbursts. But the red spirals . . . oh, the spirals! She bit her lip as she gazed at them. They moved tonight. Spinning, rising and falling over the wall, pulling at her with invisible hands.
Wanderer's chanting only intensified the sensation. He sat on his blankets on the opposite side of the room, hunched over the trap like a vulture. He had been painting it for hours, until the spirals, serpents, and faces of Father Sun, Moon Maiden, and First Woman looked perfect. When not absorbed in his artwork, he spent his time glancing at Lichen . . . measuring, appraising.
When he at last picked up the trap and stood. Lichen turned—
"No, don't look at me," he said quietly.
Lichen returned her gaze to the spiral in the center of the back wall.
But from the comer of her vision, she saw Wanderer reach into the green-and-red basket where he kept shavings of butterfly-weed root. A Power plant. In Red weed Village, only her mother had the right to keep and guard it. The ceremonials surrounding the digging, drying, and distributing of the root took six full days in the spring. Wanderer dipped a bristly handful into his water jar, shook off the excess water, then sprinkled the shreds of root on the flames. Steam and smoke exploded, filling the room. The fragrance encircled Lichen as sweetly as a rain-soaked forest.
Wanderer closed his eyes and began chanting again while he waved the trap through the sacred smoke. His feet moved in a Dance step that Lichen didn't know— but the spiral on the wall did. It bounced from place to place in perfect rhythm. Her breathing went shallow as she watched it. She became so entranced that she barely noticed when Wanderer stepped away from the fire and came to kneel before her.
"What do you see, Lichen?" he asked in a soothing voice.
"The spiral . . . Dancing." Her mouth didn't want to work. And her body felt numb, floaty. With every breath she took, the sensation deepened. How long had she been staring at the spiral? Half the night? Or for only a few moments? She didn't know—^but she could no longer take her eyes from it. It had begun to expand and contract in time to her heartbeat.
"Good. Keep watching it." Wanderer lowered himself and sat cross-legged in front of her, the trap held protectively in his lap. "All right, Lichen. I want you to look at me now."
It took great effort to force her head to turn. Wanderer's eyes shone as black as the darkness, deep-set and piercing under tufts of gray brows. Sweat covered his beak nose. In the glimmers of firelight, his gray hair blazed like polished threads of silver.
"Now look at the trap, Lichen."
She did and found another spiral there, spinning, as red as blood, just like the one on the wall.
"What do you hear, Lichen?"
"You."
"Listen harder. Listen to the motion of the spiral. Listen . . . listen ..."
Wanderer's voice faded, going so low that she could barely hear it. At the same time, blackness closed in around her, swallowing everything except the spiral on the trap.
She did hear something—or rather, she felt it, warm and soft, like the water in the hot pools that lined the Father Water. The "sound" swirled up out of the spiral, enveloping her. Lichen's body at first seemed to rise off the floor and hover; then it evaporated into nothingness. Her soul floated alone in the silence of the spiral. Silence? A tingle of longing went through her. Could she find Falcon's soul here? Or maybe Water Snake's?
Bird-Man? Are you here? I need to talk to you. Can you come and talk to me? I —
"Lichen? Lichen, look at the trap." Wanderer's kind voice came from a great distance.
She hadn't even realized that she had closed her eyes, but now her lids felt as heavy as granite. She fought to open them. When she managed a slit, she saw Wanderer smiling gently.
"Not at me," he whispered. "At the trap."
She lowered her gaze and noticed that he had placed his hand on the edge of the lid. His fingernails had gone white. Then she heard the leather hinges creak when he slowly lifted the cover.