Three dead. Six seriously injured. Two of those will likely pass into the spirit world before dawn. Many with minor cuts, contusions, scrapes, burns. By all accounts, we’ve been lucky. It could have been worse, the men whisper. Much, much worse.
If we lived in the Corridor, if we weren’t Others, the injured men would be treated in a hospital with the best drugs the UA government could muster up. In the Corridor, a broken bone is a painful nuisance. A little plaster, a few pins, maybe surgery, some rest, and you’re all better, sonny. Right as rain.
Out here, we have splints. Honey. Garlic. Boneset. That’s it. The two men who may still pass over? They’ve been burned by the searchers’ weapons. They might still have died if we were in the Corridor. But then again, maybe not. Maybe if we were somewhere else, they’d wake up tomorrow in a hospital room, smile at their family, comment on how lovely the lilies are, May I have a sip of water? Could you bring the bedpan, please?
Darkness descends around us. It’s not true night yet, but the shadows of the rain forest don’t know that, nor do they care. I’m sewing up a bone-baring gash in a man’s arm-I asked him his name but I don’t remember what he said-as I wonder why we’re still here. If the searchers found us once, what’s stopping them from finding us again? Maybe I should wish for that. If they came, we could send these men back with them. The searchers have reason to get them back to the Corridor quickly, to fix what we can’t. But then what would keep them from taking all of us? I don’t know. I still don’t understand why that searchcraft attacked or how it found us to begin with.
I think these things over and over and over because I don’t want to think about what’s happening beyond the canopy of the trees. I don’t want to think about how the searchers penetrated the boundary. I know Madda said there are gaps now, but still-gaps big enough to allow a searchcraft through? That means the boundary is failing. How long until it’s gone completely? And what will stop the UA from coming and rounding us up then?
Madda brings me a steaming cup of tea. “Drink it,” she says when I wave it away. “Healing is hard work. If you don’t, you’ll regret it later, and you’re dangerous to everyone, including yourself, if you’re exhausted.” She glances at the row of stitches that run up the man’s arm. “Nice work.”
I sip the tea. It’s bitter, but warm. “She’ll bring some to you later,” I say to the man when he glances at my cup.
“I hope not,” he says as he closes his eyes. “That smells awful. Hurry up. I want this over with.”
When I’m finished with his arm, I start mixing a poultice for a man who’s lost most of his right ear. While I pound and grind, Cedar returns with the two older men. They go to join Henry Crawford.
“Well?” I hear him say.
“Found it. Killed the two still alive,” says one of the older men.
“And the searchcraft?” Crawford says.
“Salvageable.”
“Did you mark its position?”
“Cedar did the triangulation. We’ll be able to get to it again. Disabled the tracker and covered it well, so the UA won’t find it unless they stub their toe on it.” He grins.
Cedar glances my way and I drop my gaze back to my work. The last thing I want right now is his attention.
Later, as the men are settling down to sleep, Madda comes and sits beside me. “So,” she says. “It wasn’t what you thought it would be.”
“No.” It wasn’t. It was harder, and scarier, and yet… good, too, in a way that tastes both bitter and sweet.
“I remember the first time I watched someone die. I want to tell you it gets easier, but I’m not sure it does.” She gives me a kind smile. “But it’s necessary, you know. Death-it’s not the end. Something happens afterward.” She points up at the single star that has poked its way through the clouds. “Some say that’s what we become. Others, they say we become part of the wind until the day we’re born again.” She shrugs. “We all get to find out sooner or later.”
“Madda,” I say as I tug my blanket closer. I’m suddenly very cold. “The boundary. You said that there are gaps now. Do you know why?”
She scratches her cheek. “Not exactly. I’ve sensed it for a while, that the boundary isn’t what it used to be, though as far as I know, this is the first time a whole searchcraft has come through. Before, they only managed to drop their soldiers through the gaps. Maybe… maybe it’s just that nothing lasts, you know?”
“But if that’s the case, Madda, shouldn’t we be ready to leave? If it’s not safe here?”
She looks at me from the corner of her eye. “Remember when I told you there were things you’d have to say that no one would want to hear? Well, that would be one of them. I’ve said it. No one wants to listen.” She sighs. “They’ll come around, though-soon, I hope. Before it’s too late. But don’t you worry about that now, Cass. You’ve had a long, hard day. Get some sleep.”
I shuffle around, and when I’m mostly comfortable I close my eyes, but it’s some time before Madda’s words leave me. Before it’s too late. Before it’s too late.
What if it’s already too late?
I dream.
I dream of Paul sitting by a fire, staring at the embers. Bran sits across from him, a rifle resting across his knees. I float between them, a wraith called up by the depth of Paul’s vision, or maybe the dream’s merely a manifestation of my mind, a hopeful projection of what I wish was happening.
I touch Bran’s cheek and he shivers. It’s then I know that this is real, that Paul’s called me into his world for some reason. I sit by Bran’s side, rest my head on his shoulder, and watch my brother, wondering why he wants me here. What does he need me to see?
Something shifts in the shadows behind Paul. I’m not the only one he’s summoned. Faces peer out of the darkness, contorted in suffering. They moan and reach for Paul with crippled, wasted hands.
I scream at them to leave him alone, though my voice carries no weight in this place, and neither does my body, for when I try to push the faces away, my hands pass right through them and I stumble into darkness.
It’s all right, Cass, I hear Paul say. I had to try. He shakes his head and I spiral through the darkness until I feel my body jerk awake.
We set out for the boundary around midmorning. I’m not sure why we’re still going. Surely we should take the injured men back to town and see if the searchers attacked there too. But the order is given to move out and that’s what Madda’s doing, so that’s what I do too.
Three men, not two, passed during the night and Henry Crawford decided not to leave until beds had been made for the deceased high in the tops of the cedars where they can see the sky. I feel the dead men now, looking down over our shoulders as we leave them behind.
The men around me sing as we walk. I don’t know what they’re saying, though I can understand the gist of it-a song of mourning. A song that will accompany the deceased on their journey to what comes after. The men sing in their soft, rustling language, a language that I don’t know, though the sound of it makes my head swim. Madda places a hand on my arm and squeezes it from time to time, probably to make sure I’m staying with her.
We walk well into the night, and rise early the next morning to walk again. The day passes without incident, and by late afternoon, we arrive.
The forest just stops. One minute, we’re in the trees, and the next, we’re not. Legend says that a long time ago, the earth just slipped away into the ocean. My father said it was too full of sorrow over the land lost to the earthquakes, so it wanted to die too. Now it sits at the bottom of the ocean, looking up at the stars.
My gut aches at the sight of the ground stripped bare of every living thing. No birds. No trees. No water. Just the red stone running like an artery, bleeding all over the place, red stone as far as I can see.
I press my hand to my mouth, biting down on my knuckle hard to stave off the panic surging inside of me. Cedar pulls my hand away. “Don’t,” he murmurs. “They’re watching you. Want to know what you’re made of, whether they can control you better than Madda. Don’t let them do it.” He lets go of my elbow and walks away without another word.
Men approach from the east. They talk with Henry Crawford, who shouts at us to move out. A path traces the edge of the forest and leads to a makeshift camp, where mildew-stained tents huddle close to a cabin tucked into the tree line.
Madda drops her pack on the ground. “Leave yours too. They won’t need us for a while. We’ve got other business.”
I set my pack down and follow her into the woods. I’m so relieved to be away from the red stone that I’d happily follow her anywhere.
We walk north for a good long while, long enough for the shadows to drape themselves across the trees. Madda doesn’t speak. I don’t speak. Whatever we’re doing needs to be done in silence.
Our path runs uphill to where the forest thins. Madda pauses, scans the mountains, and then turns west. We scramble down an incline of pebbles, and then I see it: a tall, black stone, so polished our reflection ripples across its surface. It stands in a crater where nothing grows.
“What is it?” I whisper. Sparks buzz around my head, drawing closer and closer until I’m afraid to breathe, for fear of inhaling them.
“The source of the boundary,” Madda says. She takes a deep breath. “Gather some firewood, but don’t wander too far. I don’t want to have to go searching for you.”
Windfall litters the edge of the crater and it isn’t long until I’ve collected a fair pile of kindling. Madda’s built a fire next to the monolith. She digs several strips of oolichan out of the pouch at her hip and offers them to me. I shake my head. Hunger has left me. Madda nods and starts taking other things out of the pouch: eagle feathers, twine, a moonstone with a drop of red right in its center, a rattle, a needle, a jar of ink. She sets them in a row, and then crumbles sage onto the fire. “Drink up the smoke,” she says.
I inhale deeply. The smoke winds its way into my lungs.
“Now, take off your shirt.”
I do as she asks, shivering as wind touches my sweaty skin.
“Hold still.” The pungent fumes of whiskey fill my nose as she touches a cloth to a flask and then rubs it on my shoulder. Then she dips the needle into the ink, but pauses. “This isn’t right,” she murmurs to herself, shaking her head for a moment before raising her gaze to meet mine. “I need to ask you a question. Do you want to become my daughter?”
“Your daughter?” I echo.
“Yes. I want to adopt you. The Elders aren’t sure about you, and if you’re my daughter, well, that gives you some protection. You’re without clan, you see. Clan structure is a lot more lax now, not like the old days, but it’ll help if they see I’ve claimed you as my own.”
“But my father…”
“That doesn’t change. We’ve actually had this in the works ever since you got hurt. Had to wait for the full moon, though.” She points to the haze of white that’s beginning to rise over the eastern horizon. “So?”
After a deep swallow, I nod. Madda and my father decided. Without even asking me. It’s all predestined, out of my hands, decreed. I want to be angry, I really do, but I’m not. I just don’t have the energy.
It’s then that I notice the monolith is humming. “Couldn’t we have done this back at the camp?” I ask. I have the weirdest feeling that the monolith is looking at me.
“We need its power. We’ve got more to do tonight than your adoption.” She frowns. “Time to figure out your shade, I think. I’m pretty sure you’ll find a sisiutl. It’s rare to have a supernatural as a totem, but not unheard of. Besides, everyone’s special in their own way, you know? But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. First things first.” She nods toward the monolith. “Time you know the story of this land. Comfy?”
“Comfy enough.”
“Good.” She dips the needle again, holds it close to my shoulder, and then stabs. At first I feel each pinprick deep in my flesh, as if Madda is burrowing the needle to the bone, but slowly, as it bites into me again and again, the pain fades until it’s little more than a dull ache, like an ember trapped under my skin. Madda sings under her breath as she works, sweat beading on her brow, and all the while, the monolith watches, humming in counterpoint to Madda’s tune.
“There,” she says at last, sitting back to admire her work.
“What is it?” I strain to see, but my skin is angry and swollen, marring the image. All I can make out are grotesque, protruding lips, a squat torso, and huge, swollen breasts.
“Some call her an earth mother, and some the wild woman of the woods. She has other names too,” Madda says as she rubs more alcohol over my skin. “I got her from the medicine woman before me, and she got it from the medicine woman before her. Sort of like our own clan, you know, a clan of women. Lots of power in her, the woman of the woods. Strong medicine. She’ll protect you, watch over you. She looks ugly, but that’s the way she likes it. Ugly demands respect.” She takes a swig from her flask and then hands it to me. “Just a mouthful,” she says when I shake my head. “We have more work to do, and pretty soon that shoulder of yours is going to be hurting bad. Don’t be a martyr. Have a little. Go on. It won’t kill you.”
I pull my shirt over my head and take a swallow. The whiskey burns its way to my gut.
“So.” She puts away her supplies and then shifts around until she’s comfortable. “Part of what comes with being my daughter is learning the stories that were passed on to me by my teacher, so pay attention. You’re going to have to pass this stuff on one day too, because without it, we lose sight of where we came from, and if we’ve lost that, we aren’t anything. These stories are living things, as alive as you and me. Just in a different way, that’s all.” She picks up a pebble and inspects it. “Like this stone. It’s got a soul, and I’ve got a soul, so in that, we’re the same, but what houses the soul, that’s completely different. The stories are like that-alive, just housed in a different body, a body our words give them. And our voices are their food. They need us to keep them alive.”
I nestle myself into the gravel, pull a branch out from under my rump, and nod that I understand, though I don’t, not really.
“Let me explain. In the days before the treaties that formed the territories, people knew what was coming,” Madda says. “They knew there would be a time when the world would be hurt bad, so bad it would actually cry. But knowing isn’t enough. It has to be more.
“So, some of the medicine women back then, they knew that the earth was tired and unhappy, and pretty soon, things would happen that would scare them right down to their bones. They knew that the old creatures, the supernaturals, were fed up with humans. They had taught us everything we knew, and we forgot to be grateful for their gifts. The few of us who remember, who honor their teachings by living the Old Way, well, there’s still hope, right?”
I nod. Yes, there’s always hope.
“Anyhow, those women, they got together and made a big magic. Back then, there were still lots of spirit stones, you know, like the one I wear inside this amulet, like the one Bran’s given you. They had a different name back then, but that’s the thing about time-it transforms everything. Names change, but the essence of something doesn’t. So, the women gathered up the stones, as many as they could find, and brought them here, and when they had finished, they had a pretty big pile. ’Course, all the men were upset that the women took the spirit stones, but the women did it anyhow because it needed to be done.
“They met here and once they placed all the stones on the land, they started to dance and after a while, Raven came to see what was happening. Well, he took one look at all those spirit stones and decided he wanted a few for himself, because everyone knows Raven loves shiny things.”
She pauses to make sure I’m listening, and I am, though my hand has found its way to a stick. My fingers curl around it and I scratch in the dirt. It’s not the same as knotting or weaving, but I need something to hold me here.
Madda clears her throat, and continues.
“Raven, he landed on the pile and watched the women dance for a bit, because he liked their dancing too, the way women sway and all, but he was so interested in the dancing that he didn’t really notice when they started to sing. He just got a big, happy smile on his face and stood on the pile of rocks, watching the pretty women, and then got to thinking about which one might make him a good wife, because it had been a long time since Raven had taken a wife. One of those pretty stones might make a good wedding gift, too. Some of the other supernaturals joined him-Sisiutl and Dzoonokwa, for example. Not Thunderbird. He just watched from high in the sky. Smart, that Thunderbird. The others, what they didn’t notice was that as the women were dancing and singing, they were weaving a web of spirit right over top of those spirit stones, binding them all together, and when Raven picked up a stone and tried to fly off, he couldn’t. He was stuck, bound here on the Island, along with the other supernaturals. Raven started to struggle, and as he struggled, two of the stones fell out of the web and rolled toward the dancing women. One of them is the spirit stone you wear around your neck. I have the other one here in this amulet I wear. The woman who picked them up was the first medicine woman here on the Island, after all the tribes came together and formed the Band and the treaty lands were made.
“Anyhow, the women saw that Raven was trying to steal the stones, so they danced faster and faster until the spirit stones were coated in sticky spirit threads and Raven and his friends were trapped inside. And so Raven swallowed the stones, thinking the spirit threads would dissolve in his gut, but when he swallowed the first stone, his left foot turned to obsidian, and with the second stone, the right. He tried to stop, but a powerful hunger came upon him and he gulped and swallowed and gulped and swallowed until he had eaten all the spirit stones. And here he stands, after all this time, and I imagine he’s pretty mad that he’s still stuck here, but that’s what you get when you go taking things that don’t really belong to you.”
My skin rises into goose flesh. The raven is trapped here. Is that what he’s been after, all this time? He wants me to free him?
Madda rubs her temples. “So now you know, and you’d better not forget. It’s time to get some work done. Close your eyes. I’ll guide you through the rest.”
I do as she asks, though the image of the monolith doesn’t leave my mind. It pulses behind my eyelids, sings to me: My sweet doe, my gentle dove, and when I realize it’s my mother’s voice, I let go. I slip into the monolith and let it consume me.
I float between the stars, carried by the currents of the night. The stars smile down at me. Each has a face; each has wings. Behind them I can see a double-headed serpent swimming among them. I only know it’s there because stars disappear when it draws near. It swallows them whole.
“What are you?” I say.
You, it replies as it stretches forth and swallows me too.
I spiral in the icy cold of nothingness, down and down and down, slipping through the great serpent’s bowels, screaming as it pushes me through its body. I rake it with my fingers; I bite, I claw, I try to grab hold of anything, and then it expels me and I’m falling, falling, falling…
Back into myself.
Above me, the serpent slithers down from the stars to wrap itself around the moon. It tastes the night with its tongue.
I reach for it. My fingers touch its scales as it winds itself around my wrist, twisting my arm. It rears back, and before I can stop it, sinks its fangs into my neck. Be careful what you look for, it whispers just before dropping away into the night.
I hear the hum of the monolith and from far away, a woman’s scream. Me? Madda? I don’t know. I can’t tell. I begin to cry. I’ve learned nothing. I’ve failed.
No, a voice says. You are the serpent that flies by night.
And then the real world falls away once again and I’m stretched across the sky until I am the sky, I am the air, I am the fire of stars and the water of rain. A kingfisher flies with me and catches me in its bill and I know Bran still lives, but behind us, racing through the dark, is something else. I can’t see it, but I can smell it, a foul stink, like rotting flesh. Faster, I say to Bran. We must go faster!
The kingfisher releases me and vanishes in a burr of song.
I fall, but I don’t hit the earth. Instead I open my eyes. The horrible smell is still in my nose, my mouth. I grab the bottle of whiskey and drink, hoping it will burn the smell away, but I swallow wrong and cough it back up instead.
Madda doesn’t help. She just sits across from me, waiting. “Well?”
I struggle to find my voice. “I saw Sisiutl,” I say, though my throat is hoarse and my neck burns where it bit me.
“I suspected as much. He wears many skins, that sisiutl, and has many names. Dragon, Wyrm, Wyvern, those are some of them. Doesn’t really matter what you call him. He is what he is,” Madda says as she presses a cup of water to my lips. “Drink. Come on, open up and drink.”
I push it away. “I’ll be sick.”
“No, you won’t. Spirit is trying to pull you back under. Drink.”
The water sends my stomach into spasms and the pain on my neck gets worse. I touch it and discover blood on my fingers. “I’m bleeding.”
“Let me see.” Madda moves in close to inspect it, so close I can smell the stink of her perspiration. “How did that happen?”
“Sisiutl bit me.”
“Hold still. Don’t move a muscle.” She thrusts a knife into the fire and then pulls it out, pressing it against my neck without warning.
And all goes black.
I dream.
I dream that I’m surrounded by people I can’t see because it’s so dark, though I can feel them. They’re pushing me, shoving me, kicking me. All of us are fighting for room, for we’re contained within something that’s small, far too small for all of us. And then the tapping begins. Someone is drumming outside the dark space, drumming so loud my ears ache and we begin to moan.
A beam of light breaks the darkness. An eye is peering at us-a black eye, so highly polished it reflects my face. The eye blinks, and then a beak reaches in. The others around me scream and try to hide, but they needn’t worry. It only wants me.
I see you, the raven says as it tries to pull me out. I’ve got you now.
I wake. The fire is dead. The moon hangs above my head like a great pearl in the sky. The monolith is silent.
And Madda?
She’s gone.