The Broken Land(13)
“Why aren’t you asleep, my daughter?” He put his arm around her and kissed the top of her tangled hair.
She nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder. “I woke and saw you staring at Mother. You looked like you needed someone to hold you.” She slipped her small arm over his chest and hugged him hard.
As though all the horrors he’d been reliving were nothing more than shreds of mist in bright sun, they evaporated. He stroked Kahn-Tineta’s hair and whispered, “What took you so long?”
She giggled against his shoulder and yawned again. Within heartbeats she was asleep with her arm still around him.
He sighed and closed his eyes.
Six
From the dark recesses of the morning forest, a child’s sobs echoed.
Sonon flipped up his black hood and continued along the icy riverbank, placing his sandals with care. To his left, the river roared over rocks, sending splashes leaping ten hands high. A misty halo of sparkling droplets fell in the wake.
He took his time. At dawn the snow had turned to freezing rain. Everything was sheathed with ice: the weathered driftwood along the shore, the tangled piles of freshly broken branches. Many trees had split down the middle. Others drooped mournfully, their heavy limbs bent and dragging the ground. Across the forest, a symphony of snaps, loud cracks, and thumps rang out as branches succumbed to the burden and came crashing down.
A whimper. Just ahead.
He hurried as much as the ice allowed.
When he reached the little girl, Sonon crouched beside her. She’d lost her grip on the log. The others had tried desperately to grab her as she was swept past. One of the women, the older one, had shoved away from the log and jumped in after the child.
He studied the body. The river had been brutal, raking her over rocks, dragging her across shallows—until she’d washed ashore here. Coated with ice, her naked body lay curled on its side—as though about to be born. She’d seen perhaps six summers, and bruises and cuts mangled her face, but it was also ethereally beautiful. The ice had turned her starved features into shimmering otherworldly sculptures. Frozen black hair slicked down around her face. Through the thin veil of ice, her shrunken opaque eyes stared up at him.
Another whimper.
He didn’t turn. Instead, he looked out across the river where branches rolled in the waves, turning over and over as they were dragged downstream.
He caught a yellow twinkle at the edge of his vision.
Mildly, Sonon called, “Are you afraid?”
The cries stopped.
“It’s confusing, isn’t it?”
Stillness now. Observing.
Sonon had no idea how she saw him. Did he appear to be a man? An Earth Spirit? Perhaps one of the Flying Heads that thrashed through the trees?
“I’ll make sure you get home,” he said gently. “Don’t worry about that. Please, come out of the shadows.”
No movement.
As Elder Brother Sun climbed into the morning sky, the ice-coated trees resembled a translucent quartz forest. Every twig caught the sunlight and held it. When the breeze stirred them, the branches tinkled like seashell bells.
As he shifted, his shadow fell over the girl’s frozen body. For a long moment, it held his attention.
Before he and his twin sister were sold into slavery at the age of eight summers, he used to go out of his way not to step on people’s shadows, and was horrified if anyone stepped on his. It was strange to think of now. Even as a boy, he’d known shadows were more than darkness.
A carefully placed foot crackled the ice. Coming toward him.
Sonon vented a breath and watched the water splash over the rocks. People tended to dwell on the last moments, reliving them, trying not to die. This little girl must still be seeing the snow fall through the waves above her. Her heart must be fluttering as her lungs go cold. She may be struggling to call out to someone, a parent probably.
Flickers … at the edge of his vision. Trying not to frighten her, he turned slowly.
The small golden light swayed in the air. Beneath it, a pale shadow mirrored its movements. Most people could not see soul shadows, but they were always there. Everything that existed cast a shadow.
He gestured to her body. “I’m going to carry you to a place where you can see your home. You will need to visit your relatives in their dreams and guide them to the place where your body rests.”
“Why?”
“So they can find you and prepare you to cross the bridge to the afterlife.”
The light flared, then faded to near nothingness, and trembled. “Am I dead?”
“Do you see your shadow?”
“Yes.”
“It is the connection point between light and dark, between this world and the next. Once you’ve been prepared for the journey, it will lead you across the bridge to the afterlife, where your new life will begin.”