It Sleeps in Me (13 page)

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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear

BOOK: It Sleeps in Me
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SHE CUT ACROSS THE PLAZA AND HEADED TOWARD THE eastern end of the bluff that formed the northern boundary of Blackbird Town. Spark flies flashed as they flitted through the towering oaks. The mist had turned into a fog that eddied with the breeze, twining like ghostly arms around the massive trunks.
Emotion tightened her throat. Could she do it? Could she slip poison into Skinner’s drink?
It won’t hurt Skinner. It will help him by driving out the evil shadow-soul that’s stolen his body.
“But Flint … Flint, forgive me.”
When she passed beyond the gleam of Blackbird Town, she slowed down and carefully picked her way over the uneven ground. Some of her earliest memories were tied to walking this trail. When she was a child her mother used to take her to the small pond that glistened at the end of the bluff to gather duck eggs. She could still recall the laughter of the women and children who combed the reeds for nests, still see the mother ducks soaring overhead, squawking in dismay. Later, after they returned to Blackbird Town, the rich scent of eggs frying in deer fat had filled the air.
As she followed the bend in the trail, her souls filled with other recollections … nights of wild excesses with Flint. Toward the end of their marriage, when the strain was almost unbearable, he used to demand that they row out onto the pond in their canoe and love each other through the night. It was an odd routine where they would sleep for a hand of time, then one of them would wake, leisurely begin touching the person who still slept, and perhaps another hand of time later, couple again.
Nights of moonlit eyes, smiles, and soft words.
Those dreamlike moments, however, always shattered at dawn when she woke and wanted to return to town. He never wanted to go back. He would beg her to stay in the canoe with him. His protests grew so desperate they frightened her. At the very end, she was so afraid he might not let her go home that she started refusing to leave town with him. He grew truly sullen after that. His eyes became dark abysses that seemed to suck the life from her souls.
“Sora
?”
She stopped and stared at the hanging moss ahead of her. She could make out the shifting forms of trees, but nothing human. Sister Moon must have crested the horizon, because the mist had taken on a frosty shimmer.
“Skinner? … Flint?”
“I’m over here.”
She angled away from the trail toward the sound of his voice. Palmettos rustled against her goose-feather cape as she walked.
“Where are you? I don’t see you.”
“At the edge of the pond. You remember.”
She shouldered through thick curtains of moss until she saw him kneeling before a small fire dressed only in a breechclout and leggings. Long black hair fell down his back, but the wet sheen of mist outlined every muscle across his naked torso.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he said.
“I had to. There are things I must know.”
He reached into the darkness behind him, pulled out two folded blankets, and spread one over the sand. “Come and sit beside me.”
She sat down cross-legged. At first she avoided his gaze. Through a break in the clouds, she could see Sister Moon hanging over the treetops like a round ball encircled by a gauzy orange halo. The pond, which measured thirty paces across, rippled silver. Everything was starkly beautiful.
Sora turned and found him watching her with luminous, unblinking eyes.
“Do you ever think about the nights we spent together on this pond?”
She nodded. “Often. Those times were very precious to me, Flint.”
Clearly happy that she hadn’t called him Skinner, he knelt beside her on the blanket and smiled. “Those nights kept me sane. I had you all to myself. I didn’t have to be afraid that another man was gazing at you admiringly. You were mine. Totally.”
“Other men were of no interest to me, Flint. I’m just sorry I couldn’t make you believe that.”
He bowed his head. “My beliefs were crazy. I know that now. I see everything as if for the first time.”
A chill wind breathed across the pond and fluttered his long hair over his broad shoulders. “You must be freezing,” she said. “Why don’t you wrap the other blanket—”
“No.” He shook his head. “I feel alive. That’s what I need tonight.
Life
.”
The way he’d said it sent a shiver up her spine, as though being cold somehow fended off death. “What’s wrong? Is something happening?”
He slowly turned, and she saw the hard line of his clenched jaw. “I have to leave soon. I’ve spent too much time here.”
“You mean … tonight? You’re leaving for the Land of the Dead tonight?”
He tightened his fingers over his knee. “Yes.”
The pot in her belt pouch felt suddenly cold, as cold as a dead fist. If he truly planned to leave, she wouldn’t have to use it, and that thought comforted her.
“That means,” he said darkly, “that we must speak honestly. Ask me whatever you wish; then I’ll ask you my questions.”
Lightning flashed over the treetops, followed a few moments later by a peal of thunder. The storm must be moving closer.
She said, “Tell me why Skinner was covered with blood when he entered Minnow Village.”
His black brows plunged down. “Who have you been talking to?”
“I asked Wink to send a runner to Wading Heron.”
A swallow went down his throat. For a time, he didn’t answer. “I should have known you’d do that. I don’t even like remembering that day. Skinner was running, carrying me in his arms. I kept spitting up blood. I felt like my insides had been shredded by a thousand copper flakes. Every time I vomited, he clutched my body more tightly against him and told me to hold on, to stay with him, that we were almost there.”
Sora shivered. When a man became sick at the stomach and vomited it was believed that a dead person had been eating out of the same dish with him.
“Did you make it to the village?”
“No, I died along the way.” He rubbed a hand over his face, and grief tightened his eyes. “Gods, Skinner loved me. He’d loved me since we were children. His sobs were heartrending. I’ve relived those last moments many times and I—I think Skinner wanted me to live so badly that he actually ‘invited’ me inside him.”
You give him permission … . It happens in an instant.
Beneath her cape, Sora’s hand rose to grasp the rattlesnake pendant old Teal had given her. Her fingers found nothing, and she remembered she’d given it up to protect Touches Clouds.
“I’m sure he did invite you inside him,” she said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Something Teal told me. He tried to warn me about you. He
said you’d make me happy and when I wished I could feel that way forever I would be unwittingly giving you permission to come inside me.”
His eyes flared when lightning flashed through the forest, followed by the deep-throated roar of a thunderbird. In a taut voice, he said, “Yes, that’s what it felt like. Skinner didn’t want me to travel to the Land of the Dead. He couldn’t let me go.” He shook his head. “But I should have gone anyway. I know that now. This was a bad choice. I needed to talk with you, but—”
“The agony in your voice tells me you are not a shadow-soul. I don’t think evil souls would ever worry about whether or not they’d made the right decision.”
As though in gratitude, he reached out and placed his hand on the cape over her thigh.
“You said the two of you had gone out to scout for Lily People raiders, but Wading Heron said Skinner told her you were meeting someone in the forest.” She studied his hand on her cape, saw the fingers flex. “You weren’t meeting one of the Loon People, were you?”
His hand caressed her leg. “Why do you ask?”
“Who were you supposed to meet?” She held her breath, waiting for the answer.
His fingers parted the gap in her cape and moved up her leg. His touch had always affected her like a splash of hot water; it seared her flesh.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Sora. I must talk to you about that. My last living words were a question for you.”
He slipped his left arm around her shoulders and kissed her while his right hand moved up her thigh.
Slowly, he lowered her to the blanket and propped himself on one elbow beside her. The misty rain thickened, creating the impression that his dark face was floating above her. When the lightning flashed again, his features bleached to a silvery white. He had his jaw set, as though straining against himself.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I will be. You know what I need to calm me.” He kissed her again. “You want me inside you, don’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
He smiled as he untied his breechclout and rolled on top of her. His manhood swelled against her abdomen. It took only heartbeats for him to enter her. He groaned and arched backward.
Sora locked her legs around him and held him tightly. “I just want to feel you inside me. This may be the last time we …” Tears constricted her throat. She started moving.
“Blessed gods,” he whispered, matching her rhythm. “You cannot know how I need this. It keeps me here. Here with you. Just as it keeps your reflection-soul home. Tell me what to do. I’ll do anything you want.”
She sat up with him still inside her. Over the fourteen winters they’d been together, they’d perfected this; she moved in frantic fits, bringing him close, then stopping, just petting him, before she slowly began again. He braced his chin on her shoulder, and a low moan sounded in his throat. He didn’t have to do anything except give her the freedom to please him. When her own body flushed on the verge of ecstasy, he rasped, “Harder, Sora. Hurry.”
She moved faster. As the fiery wave built, he gripped her hips and violently shoved her down on his manhood.
He moaned, “Oh, gods! I love you so much.”
His hands moved up her arms and clenched around her throat. When she started gasping for air, it was as though white-hot fire exploded inside her. Her entire body bucked and quivered. She fell back to the blanket, and the weight of his body covered her. His wet hair fell around her like a dark curtain.
Abruptly, he lifted his head and choked out, “Who … who’s there? Sora? Do you see him?”
“Who?”
“Him.
”
She tried to rise to look, but he shoved her down, and his fingers
tightened around her throat again. “Quickly, before he comes, tell me how you did it.” He was glaring at her with huge eyes, feral eyes, more animal than human. “How did you do it!”
“Do what?” she begged, and tore at his hands. “What are you talking about?”
“How did you kill her? Did you slip something into her food? Did you hire someone to do it?”
She struck him with her fists, fighting to shove him away.
“Stop it
!”
He shook her so violently she thought her neck might snap. “How did you get that close to her camp without someone seeing you? Witchery? Did you fly in on raven wings?”
The edges of her vision went gray. Just before she lost consciousness the Midnight Fox’s gleaming eyes blazed to life inside her, and she …
Skinner rolled off her and shouted, “No, don’t! You don’t understand! Talk to Wink. She’ll tell you …
Wait!”
Then he roared.
And kept roaring.
Like a man fighting for his life.
RAIN PATTERING LIGHTLY ON THE ROOF WOKE HER.
She fought her way up from a horrifying dream where she was running, running through a dark forest, utterly lost and alone.
When she opened her eyes, she blinked in shock at the familiar walls of the temple chamber in her house. A pile of hides covered her body, so many that she felt too warm—but she didn’t shove them away. Not yet. She fought to remember how she’d gotten home. Had he let her go? She didn’t remember anything after blacking out. High above her, the deep blue light of predawn streamed through the smoke hole. It was almost morning. Several hands of time had passed since Flint had had his fingers around her throat. The fragrances of wet thatch and bark walls filled the room.
When she heard hushed voices in the hallway outside, she started to shake. Men’s voices.
Where is he
?
With the stealth of a shivering rabbit, she remained still. Only her gaze roamed the temple, landing on the magnificent carving of Black Falcon that hung on the wall, then drifting down to the Eternal Fire, and finally to the swaying door curtain at the far end of the
temple. The main door curtain at the front of the house must be hooked back, allowing a breeze to flow down the corridor. As the temple curtain fluttered, she caught glimpses of men in many-colored capes. At least two. Maybe three.
She sat up.
A new scent came to her. Bitter. Like poison.
She slowly turned to her left.
And looked straight into Skinner’s eyes.
For a moment, she was too shocked to move.
He lay on his stomach with his arms and legs twisted at impossible angles. As wind gusted into the temple, he didn’t blink. Still, were it not for the coagulated blood that had pooled in his mouth, she might have thought him alive.
As the truth sank in, she leaped to her feet and stood over his dead body trembling like a leaf in a powerful gale. Her teeth chattered. Her fists twitched.
“What
happened?
”
The voices outside stopped.
“Chieftess?” War Chief Feather Dancer drew the curtain aside and looked into the temple. Tall and muscular, he’d seen a great deal of raiding in his twenty-six winters. His heavily scarred face proved it. But he had kind brown eyes.
Feather Dancer hurried toward her, his red cape fluttering around his long legs. He wore his black hair in a bun over his left ear. “Forgive me. You were hurt so badly, we didn’t think you’d wake for several hands of time. We just brought you here moments ago. Please believe me, if we’d thought you might wake so quickly, I would have never left you lying beside the criminal.”
Almost without her knowing, her hand lifted to rub her swollen throat, then moved to the back of her head. A lump the size of her fist met her probing fingers.
She croaked, “What happened? I—I don’t remember very much.”
“You wouldn’t, not after that blow to your head. Priest Teal woke me shortly after midnight. He told me he’d gone to your
house to speak with you and found you gone. He ordered me to find you.”
Teal must have feared the worst. Thank the gods for his prudence.
Feather Dancer examined her tormented expression, and the lines at the corners of his eyes deepened. “I woke Far Eye, and together we began to search for you. After about four hands of time, Far Eye stumbled upon the two of you near the pond. When Far Eye first flipped him over, the war chief was still alive, but by the time Far Eye shouted to me and I ran to find him, the war chief had died.” He heaved a breath. “We brought you here immediately, and I sent Far Eye to notify Matron Wink. I’m sure she’ll arrive shortly.”
Sora shakily walked to the benches arranged around the Eternal Fire and sat down. Her rain-soaked dress stuck to her legs. On the wall, Black Falcon seemed to move in the shadows of the flames. His eyes shifted slightly to glare at her like an accusing god.
She stared at Skinner’s dead body. “What killed him?”
As Feather Dancer walked forward, he threw back his cape and pulled a small pot from his belt pouch—the pot Teal had given her. He handed it to her. It was empty. “We found this beside him. Far Eye smelled the pot, then the war chief’s breath; he said they smelled exactly alike. We assumed that after he hurt you, the war chief took his own life by drinking the poison.”
An eerie mixture of grief and doubt swelled her chest. Skinner would have never taken his own life, but Flint …
During their marriage, every time he’d hurt her he’d suffered terrible guilt. She’d often wondered if that wasn’t why he ate too many Spirit Plants; he was trying to atone, to find a Spirit Helper to guide his souls away from the need to hurt her.
“Please send a runner for Priest Teal. There’s something I must ask him.”
“Yes, Chieftess, I—” Feather Dancer swung around when loud voices erupted in the hallway.
“Where is she?
” Wink demanded.
“In the temple, Matron!”
Wink burst through the door curtain with her eyes blazing. Panic lined her face. Her graying black hair hung over her shoulder in a long frizzy braid. As she rushed forward, her brown cape swept back, revealing the pale green sleep shirt beneath. She must have risen straight from her blankets.
“For the sake of the gods!” she growled at Feather Dancer and flung out a hand to Skinner. “Get his filthy body out of the temple! What were you thinking bringing him here!”
“Forgive me, Matron,” he pleaded. “Where should I—”
“Take him to Teal!”
“Of course—so his body can be prepared. Far Eye! Help me carry away the war chief’s body.”
Far Eye ran beneath the door curtain and grabbed Skinner’s legs. Feather Dancer took his shoulders, and together they muscled the dead body out of the temple.
Wink dropped onto the bench beside Sora and wrapped her arms around her in a tight embrace. “What happened? Far Eye said Skinner attacked you.”
Sora leaned against her. Having Wink close was like cool salve on a hot wound. She felt safe for the first time in days. “I don’t remember much, Wink. He started choking me. I blacked out. Someone clubbed me in the head. I don’t even remember it.”
“But you were alone. He must have done it.”
“ … I suppose so.”
Wink’s gaze went to the pot sitting on the bench beside Sora. “What’s that? Far Eye told me Skinner had apparently drunk poison. Is that it?”
Sora pulled away from her and soberly stared into her friend’s eyes. “There’s more to it, Wink.”
“What do you mean?”
“I decided I needed help. I went to Teal around midnight. I—”
“I thank Black Falcon you had the wits to do that. He gave you the poison?”
She nodded miserably.
In fierce pride, Wink said, “You did the right thing. I assume you gave him the poison, and when he realized it he tried to kill you?”
Sora blinked. Had she done that? It sounded plausible. “I honestly don’t remember. I may have.”
As the shock and fear began to subside, overpowering grief set in. She felt sick to her stomach and utterly exhausted. She desperately needed to sleep.
Wink scanned her face with more than twenty winters of experience and gently said, “It’s over now. Let it go. You did the right thing,” she repeated. “What else could you have done?”
Tears welled hotly in Sora’s eyes.
I could have run away. Why didn’t I just run away?
More voices rose in the hall.
Teal ducked under the door curtain, followed by Far Eye and Feather Dancer. The warriors took up positions on either side of the door while Teal hurried forward with his walking stick. He looked like he’d been up all night worrying. His old face was drawn and cadaverous. He wore the same coarsely woven white robe that he’d had on earlier.
“Chieftess,” he said as he hobbled to stand in front of her and examine her with his white-filmed eyes. “Are you all right?”
“I’m alive.”
“Which is more than we can say for War Chief Skinner,” Wink coldly added. “Good work, Teal. I’m grateful for your fast thinking.”
The old priest dipped his head in acknowledgment. “When she came to me last night, I knew I had to do something, so I—”
“Wink,” Sora interrupted. “Could you leave us alone? I need to speak with Teal in private.”
Obviously confused by the sudden change in her behavior, Wink rose to her feet. “Of course. I’ll be waiting just outside the door. Call me when you’re finished.”
She walked away and ducked beneath the door curtain. Soft voices rose outside.
Sora inhaled a deep breath, and through the long exhalation asked, “You told me there wasn’t enough poison to kill him. Why?”
“I told you one pinch wouldn’t kill him. That pot is empty, Chieftess. Did you give him all of it? Not that it matters.” He heaved a sigh. “I was hoping you would.”
Sora leaned forward to brace her forearms on her knees. If she didn’t get to bed soon, she was going to collapse. “I must have done it.”
The silence stretched. She didn’t know what else to say.
Teal lifted his chin. “Shadow-souls choose their victims carefully, Chieftess. He was intent upon having you. For a time you will feel guilt and regret, but what happened was for the best. You stopped him before he could enter you or someone else.”
Powerful emotions seethed in her heart. She longed to weep. “He told me he was leaving. He told me he’d spent too much time here and he had to leave.”
Teal reached out to put a gentle old hand on her arm. “Chieftess, please try to see this clearly. You have bruises on your throat. Someone struck you in the head. I suspect he lied to you about leaving. He must have known you were not going to invite him inside; he may have even suspected you would fight him with all your heart. He had to knock your souls loose before he could seep into you.”
She opened her eyes, and her lips parted in fear. “Are you saying he might have—”
“Only that it’s possible. I will keep a close watch on you for the next few moons to make sure you’re alone in there.”
“Thank you, Teal.”
“I am, as always, your servant.” He dutifully inclined his bald head and walked away. When he ducked beneath the curtain, she heard him speak to Wink, but couldn’t make out the words.
Moments later, Wink came back into the temple with a frightened expression. Feather Dancer and Far Eye followed her.
“We need to get you to bed, Sora,” Wink said. “Teal tells me there are evil Spirits feeding around your head wound. Your headache is
going to get worse before it gets better. He’s brewing a strong pot of willow-bark tea for you. It should ease your pain, but you’re going to be very ill for a while.”
“I’m sure he’s right.”
She rose and stood on trembling legs. Sparkles suddenly filled her eyes. She staggered. Was it her head wound, or was the Midnight Fox sneaking in for the kill?
“Help her!” Wink ordered.
Feather Dancer and Far Eye leaped forward to take Sora’s arms, supporting her while she slowly walked down the hallway to her bedchamber. Wink brought up the rear.
By the time she sat on her own sleeping bench, she had barely the strength to lie down. Wink shouldered by the warriors and pulled the blankets up over Sora.
Softly, Wink said, “Try to sleep. I’ll wake you when the pot of tea arrives.”
Sora nodded and closed her eyes.
Wink and the men moved to the door, where they spoke in low voices.
“Feather Dancer,” Wink whispered, “I want you to post twice as many guards, and organize several scouting parties. This news is going to travel like it’s riding Eagle’s wings. We must guard our borders for the next moon or so until I can work out an agreement with the matron of Oak Leaf Village to compensate her for the life of her son.”
Why didn’t I think of that?
When Skinner’s mother learned of the death of her son, she would be outraged. No one would be able to convince Matron Sea Grass that her only son, the man destined to become the chief of Oak Leaf Village, had been possessed by a shadow-soul. She would want revenge.

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