Kestrel sat rigid, watching him through wide, unblinking eyes. Several of the seashells on the front of her dress had
been ripped loose, and they dangled from their hide thongs. Rare shells. They would bring a fortune back in the marsh country.
Lambkill reached out and yanked off two of the exquisite, ruffled jingle shells. They came from the lands of the Ice Ghosts far to the north. She cried out shrilly at the violation and looked as though she wanted to snatch them back from his hands. Her mouth trembled as tears filled her eyes. Lambkill cocked his head. What would she find so precious about these shells? She knew nothing of their worth in trade. “Don’t move, wife. Don’t even breathe.” He lifted his knife. The flaked facets of the blade glittered. “Remember, the longer you can convince me to let you live, the more chance you have of being rescued.” He chuckled. “Yes, hope for that. It’s very unlikely. No one can track at night. But be quiet. Live longer. Hope, Kestrel. Hope all you want.”
In a shaky voice, she murmured, “L-Lambkill, tell me about my son… our son. What did you do to bring him to life?”
He studied her through half-lidded eyes. Was she just making talk to delay him from performing his final duty? Or did she really care about Little Coyote? The haunting sensation of being watched by invisible eyes intensified. Lambkill squinted at the smoke-colored trunks of trees, the stacks of deadfall, the clots of brush.
Owls hooted close by. Their calls drifted on the wind, mixed with the rustling of pines and oaks. Vague premonitions of danger taunted his soul. What creature could cloak itself so well with darkness that even his trained Trader’s eyes couldn’t spot it? Something black, blacker than tar from the coastal pits, and as silent in its approach as Death.
The vibrations of the forest floor had stopped, but his discomfort didn’t ease.
Cautiously, he slipped his pack from his shoulders and unlaced the ties. “Now you will see, my wife. Yes, finally you will know the great Power of the husband you spurned.”
He lifted Little Coyote out and cradled him in his arms. The baby boy’s tiny body had become browner and more shriveled than ever. It smelled of smoke and sacred sage, which Lambkill had stuffed into his pack to make a soft bed for the boy.
Kestrel whispered, “Blessed Spirits …”
Lambkill sat down cross-legged across from Kestrel and stood Little Coyote up on his knee, facing his mother. The boy’s mouth had pulled taut to form a puckered black hole. The green stones that Lambkill had placed in the empty eye sockets glittered.
“Do you remember your mother, Little Coyote?” Lambkill tilted his head to listen for the boy’s voice. “It’s all right, son,” he encouraged. “You don’t have to fear her anymore.”
Futile tears poured from Kestrel’s eyes. She remembered the warmth of the baby boy’s naked flesh against hers, the pain of giving him birth, the terror of that rainy day not so long ago when lightning had flashed all around her.
How shocking to see the gentle way that Lambkill held the dead infant. Despite the paralyzing fear that pumped bright in her veins, she could still wonder. She had never seen him display that much tenderness in their entire life together.
“How … how did you do that?” Kestrel asked hoarsely. Her throat ached. Cautiously, she lifted a hand to rub it.
Lambkill grinned at her, his broken yellow teeth reflecting dully. Shadows played across his wrinkled face, while moonlight flashed in his eyes. “I disemboweled him. Then I smoked him over an open fire for seven nights in a row. After that,” he said, leaning forward to whisper, “I called up his Spirit and tied it to his body.”
“Why? Why… would you do that?” How horrible, unthinkable, to tie a soul to a dried, rotted husk like that. She didn’t believe it, but what if he really had done it? The
poor little boy… “How, Lambkill? How could you do it to him? How could you condemn his young soul to living in a dead body?”
Lambkill frowned as though she must be mad to ask. “Because I love my son. That’s why. I wanted him to be with me forever!”
He cradled the dead baby in his arms again and rocked him gently, as though trying to get the boy to go to sleep. The baby’s puckered brown body moved in and out of the shadows. Kestrel’s soul writhed at the sight. All around them, storm winds whipped the trees, making their boughs groan and creak.
Lambkill would kill her—just as he had killed Iceplant. She wanted to hate him, but he looked so pitiful. An expression Of desperation creased his face … as if he needed to believe that the baby still lived.