Darkthaw (33 page)

She leads us into the foliage, and as I drag my foot through the deadfall, I notice the ground is getting softer. Moister. When we reach a rise in the pocket of trees, she stops and points. Before us is sheer rock, like the hillside has been shaved off to reveal a small wall. And it's weeping. Water trickles out from tiny cracks and fissures along its surface. It runs down the face and disappears into the earth at our feet.

“Of course,” Matisa says. “A spring.”

I look at her, puzzled.

“This water passes through layers of silt and clay; the sickness is only in water that runs open to the air,” she explains. “Their water source is safe.”

‡

That evening we eat with Genya's family. It is another meal I can't quite believe: a whole roasted chicken, root vegetables, brined cabbage, and rolls of dark bread with butter.

The little boys are beside themselves—they ask for two helpings before they are dished.

Kane scolds their manners, but I understand their delight: it's more food than I've ever seen all at once. Surely the villagers are making an effort on our behalf: no way they'd have the stores to eat like this all the time.

But as Genya's ma, Dorotea, speaks to us in halting English, we learn that there is plenty of food, for everyone in the village. She says they brought many things with them from the east—livestock, seeds, supplies. She says her ancestors knew how to work this soil—that her family came from across the sea—from a country with similar, unforgiving land. They tell us about settling here at the end of last summer: digging ditches at first, and sleeping in those as they built their homes into the hills.

They chose this spot because it is protected by the drylands to the east and south, and the low hills here give them shelter. They don't seem to know anything about the Bleed reappearing. No one in the village has been sick.

As we talk, Genya translates for her pa—a serious man but friendly—and young brother and sister, who look just like her with their turned-up noses and bright blue eyes. They ask questions and tug at her arms, their voices happy and lighthearted.

This is a dinner table I don't recall. Pa and me often sat silent, him thinking on Ma, me thinking on my Stain. Thinking
on how to stop failing my virtues. No happy chatter. Just the sound of scraping bowls.

This . . . this must be what Kane's table was like. The food itself would've been meager, but the feeling—it would've been like this. And looking at Kane now, seeing that worry off his brow for the first time in I don't know how long, I know I'm right.

I dart a quick glance at Genya, at her pink cheeks and shiny hair. She's so healthy looking and strong. This village—it's our settlement. Just better. It's what ours could have been if we hadn't been living in fear all those long years.

I look at Genya again—she's smiling at Kane—and fight down the panic in my heart.

The chatter continues.

I listen, distracted, as they describe seeing people who look like Matisa back last fall. Saw them from a distance only, passing by on horses. They didn't speak with them.

Dorotea wants to know where we are headed and who we have seen.

Matisa and I take turns recounting the journey—leaving the settlement, finding people from our own who had been banished, having to send Nishwa on ahead. Genya translates for her pa. They listen, eyes knitted like they're a mite confused, but when we get to the part about the burning homestead, Dorotea holds up a hand to stop us.

“The children.” She gestures toward Daniel and Nico. “They see this?”

I start to answer but notice her face—it's white: she's plain horrified. Genya's eyes fly to Kane, wide and alarmed.

Shame shoots through me, hot and bright. I haven't even told the worst of it. I look around at our group. Our thin, bedraggled group.

A silence descends on the table.

Genya's pa clears his throat and speaks up.

“He says—” Genya stops. “We hear this story later.”

Dorotea shakes her head, clucking her tongue. She looks at the little boys.

When dinner is over, we are left in the kitchen as the family prepares for bed.

No one seems inclined to speak. Isi paces the small room until Matisa's narrowed eyes stop him in his tracks. Tom sits where Nico has fallen asleep in a trundle bed near the stove. He busies his hands, checking his rifle.

Kane is slumped in a chair with Daniel asleep on his lap. Daniel's cheek is pressed against Kane's chest and two of his fingers are twined in Kane's leather shirt laces. Their clean skin shines in the firelight. Kane's dark eyes trace the floor.

Dorotea's shocked eyes surface in my mind. It took me a moment to understand her alarm. So much has happened since we left the settlement, I've all but forgotten how awful it is. When did horror become normal to me? When did I decide it should be normal for Daniel and Nico? For Kane?

How would I feel if I were him right now?

These villagers have to protect themselves from outsiders, sure, but the youngsters, at least, are sheltered from that. For me, the fence around this village would always feel like a cage. But for others . . .

There is warmth here. Food. Safety. Love.

My heart is pierced through with that last thought.

“We leave in the morning, then?” Tom's voice breaks the silence.

Kane's eyes snap up and find mine. I glance away, pretending to look to Matisa for an answer.

She answers, a mite halting. “Those who are rested.”

I have to go with Matisa. But Kane . . .

Kane has a different responsibility. His little brothers would be welcomed here—I saw it plain on Dorotea's face. They would be safe. They'd never go hungry.

“We should not delay further,” says Isi. “The way was longer to the north, and the storm would have slowed them, but the
sohkâtisiwak
will be close.”

Matisa nods.

I look over at Tom, at Nico's slumbering form. I look at Daniel breathing so peaceful. I look at Kane. His dark eyes haven't left my face.

A torrent of emotion washes me—guilt, anger, sorrow—and bursting through it all, a love so strong and fierce for Kane, and for his brothers, I feel like I might shatter.

And what steals my breath in this moment is not the realization that I can't ask him to come with me, it's the realization I don't want to.

I don't want him to leave his brothers.

Not even to be with me.

I PUSH OPEN THE SOLID WOODEN DOOR OF GENYA'S
home and step outside. The sun has disappeared, but the last glow of its light remains, painting the air a dull violet. The village sounds are soft and muffled as people retire for the night. A chill descends on my skin. I wrap the shawl Dorotea gave me tighter around my shoulders and step to the side of the door, gazing about at the little houses. Their chimneys puff, and the small windows in their fronts glow with light.

The door creaks as it opens again.

Tom's blond head appears. “You all right?” he asks.

“Just needed some air,” I say.

He steps out and closes the door, and I see he's dressed in his cloak and carrying that strange rifle.

“You heading somewhere?” I ask.

“Just to look around,” he says.

“With your weapon?”

He looks down at it. Shrugs. “Better in my hand than in
one of the little boys'. That Daniel's a precocious sort. He's just like Edith.”

I smile soft, thinking about Tom's little sister, her mischievous little smile. Always chasing after cabbage moths and asking me about my day.

Tom scans the courtyard and houses. “Such a strange place,” he says. “These homes, built into the hill like this.”

“Nothing like our settlement,” I say. “But somehow . . .”

“Feels like our settlement?” he asks, finishing my sentence and turning to me.

I nod. The way he stands, with his head lifted like that. “You weren't . . . scared to leave?” I ask. “Alone?”

“A mite.” Tom shrugs. His eyes get shy. “It was foolish, but I brought some of that tea you left for Pa. It helped heal him, so I brought it. Felt like you were nearby.”

I smile, thinking about Tom sitting round his own campfire with my tea.

He continues. “And then everything was so fresh, so new, I kind of . . . forgot to be afraid.”

I think back to our first night out in the woods. The wild song, the starlight. I was so content. “The stars out here,” I think aloud. “Never seen anything like it.”

Tom nods. “The river at night was real peaceful.” He smiles. “And in the morning, with the mist coming off the water before the sun burned through? Was like some fairytale land from those books of Soeur Manon's.”

I swallow against a sudden lump in my throat. That beauty he's speaking on—it's all around us, still.

Isn't it?

“This settlement's a good place,” I say.

His prairie-sky eyes measure me.

“It's safe here.” My voice catches.

Tom wraps an arm around me and pulls me close. Rests his chin atop my head.

I press the heels of my hands to my eyes and take a deep, shaky breath. “Nothing's happened like it was supposed to.”

Tom answers by squeezing my shoulders.

“If I had known . . .” I trail off because what I was going to speak next isn't the truth. The real truth in my secret heart is that even with the danger, even with these unknowns, I would be out here. I know I would.

Tom speaks, his voice ringing out clear in the cooling night. “Andre taught me to look far beyond the Watch flats. Taught me to look careful at what's around us.” He draws back and looks down at me, holding my gaze meaningful. “But being able to see doesn't change what's coming.”

It is full dark, and the boys and I are all drowsing beside the fire in Genya's kitchen when Matisa appears. I start, unable to remember when she left us. She touches Tom's shoulder and looks at Kane and me.

“Come,” she says, her voice low and her eyes sparkling. “I want to show you something.” She speaks to Isi. “
Kânîmihitocik
.”

Kane looks to the little boys, tucked together in the trundle bed, and back at Matisa, unsure.

“I will stay with them,” Isi assures Kane. There's a mysterious smile on his face. Tom and Kane and I look at each other, puzzled. But we wrap up against the cold night and follow Matisa from the warmth of the kitchen.

She leads us from the center of the village, away from the torches and fires. We head southwest, to the hills Genya brought us to earlier, near the spring. But instead of heading into the grove of trees, we climb until we are at the top of the hill. Matisa turns to the north and points to the sky.

Tom is the first to turn, and his eyes go wide.

Kane and I do the same, looking up into the black of night.

My heart stutters.

The sky to the north is exploding in all shades of color, like the brightest wildflowers in spring: purple, pink, blue, and green. The air shimmers and dances, bending to brush the tops of the hill, stretching to reach the farthest star. The light blends and glows and disappears, reappears. The entire starry sky is bathed in magic light.

“Kânîmihitocik.”
Matisa's voice comes from behind us. “The old people tell us they are ghosts, dancing in the sky.”

The sky shimmers. All shades of heartbreaking color burst and flow.

Ghosts. “Why would they say that?” I ask. I think about the dead—sent to the Cleansing Waters for peace. The Crossroads ensured the spirits of the Waywards never returned to get revenge. The notion that the dead would come back like this . . .

“I believe it is a way of reminding us that we are a part of the land, and air, and water,” Matisa says.

I think about my dreams. About the dead under the river, calling to me. They're here, regardless. The things we bury—they have a way of resurfacing.

Tom frowns. “But the dead appearing in that sky . . . doesn't seem right.”

“Why?”

“Because it's so beautiful.”

“So are the people we have lost,” Matisa says.

Tom's face fills with wonder. I look to Kane.

He's standing, head tilted up to the stars, cloak drawn back, his shirt laces open careless-like, the moon glowing on his skin.

My chest hitches. I think about Sister Violet being one of those soft lights, reaching so tall into the starry night. Andre, too. And my pa.

I tilt my head skyward, and we watch for long moments, until the dancing lights dwindle to a soft yellow.

When I look back down, Matisa is giving me a knowing look. She touches Tom's arm. “Let's go,” she says. “We should sleep before our journey.”

Kane and I watch Matisa and Tom climb down the hill and disappear into the house.

And we are alone. A silence stretches between us.

I risk a glance at him and see he's no longer looking at the sky. His arms are crossed and his eyes are fixed on the soft glow of the village. My heart is so heavy I can barely speak. But I have to. We can't part, having this between us.