by Tara Maya, Elle Casey, J L Bryan, Anthea Sharp, Jenna Elizabeth Johnson, Alexia Purdy (epub)
Dindi nodded.
Encouraged by this response, Gwenika continued, “I was the lucky one. I had Stomach Upheaval at the time, and Stripe—that’s my chipmunk—helped me through it.”
The rest of the meal, Gwenika merrily continued to discuss the various illnesses she had endured in her short life. For some reason, the more diseases she mentioned, the less Dindi worried about catching Drowned Man’s Lung.
“You must be our guest tonight,” Gwenika said after the dancing ended and the revelers began to totter to the huts to sleep.
Dindi followed her to one of the beehive shaped houses honored by a golden Ladder-to-the-Sun top piece. There was no way that either girl could reach the round window-door from ground level, and there appeared to be no ladder.
“Hey!” shouted Gwenika. She slapped the side of the house.
Another girl, Jensi’s age, appeared in the window-door.
“That’s my sister, Gwena,” said Gwenika. To her sister: “Let us up!”
Gwena shoved a dark bundle over the ledge of the window. A rope ladder with wooden slats snapped down to knee’s reach. Gwenika scrambled up, followed more slowly by Dindi. As soon as both had crawled over the sill, Gwena silently rolled the ladder back inside and pushed it into a nook next the door.
It took Dindi a moment to adjust to the dimmer light inside the beehive house. Smoke stung her eyes.
Two adobe steps led down from the window to the interior floor, which was raised compared to the ground level outside. A fire flickered in the hearth at the center of the round room, while about the edges were adobe platforms for sitting, sleeping and eating. Everything looked clean and well swept.
It wasn’t hard to guess which platform belonged to Gwenika. Two rabbits snuggled on the blankets, under dangling birdcages. Other cages sat on the platform, which held a prairie vole, an opossum and a dozen lizards. A large, ventilated pot sat behind them all from which came the distinctive, and most unnerving sound of a rattle snake. Each of the animals that Dindi could see had an injury that had been lovingly bandaged—the birds had broken wings, the lizards lacked tails, one rabbit had a hurt paw, the other suffered a mite-infected ear. She wasn’t sure about the rattlesnake and didn’t care to investigate.
Puddlepaws, who had returned to Dindi’s pack and was peeking out, looked extremely interested in the rabbits.
Gwena and Gwenika’s mother turned out to be none other than the rather intimidating Zavaedi Brena. Her greeting was accompanied by a critical cross examination, with particular focus on Dindi’s family background.
“So there are no Tavaedies in your family?” Zavaedi Brena asked several times, several different ways.
“No, Auntie.”
“Hrmf.” She glanced significantly at her daughters, with a tiny shake of her head.
Gwena avoided close conversation with Dindi after that, but Gwenika appeared not to take her mother’s hint.
“You’ll guest with us,” Gwenika informed Dindi.
Late as it was, Dindi wanted nothing more than to sleep, but the platform barely had room for a single human, definitely not two.
“Gwenika, sleep on the floor,” said Zavaedi Brena.
“But her delicate health—” said the grandmother.
“She will survive one night.”
“I can sleep on the floor,” Dindi said.
“You’re our guest, it wouldn’t be right.”
Gwenika unrolled a mat of rushes and lay down beside the platform; while Dindi tried to accustom herself enough to the strange place enough to sleep. The animals shifted in their cages, except for the cat and bunny, which snuggled her. Once she closed her eyes, it almost felt as though the warm bodies breathing beside her was Jensi, and the smell of animal fur was the smell of goats milling in the pen below her loft.
Dindi
Wailing awakened her. Dindi sat up, her heart pounding as it had when she’d been kidnapped. The sky, visible through the smoke hole in the ceiling, showed the face of night freckled with stars. She identified the source of misery as Gwenika. While her grandmother patted her back helplessly, Gwenika threw up into the hearth. The burning vomit stank up the whole hut.
“Is Gwenika sick again?” asked Gwena, rubbing her eyes. She sounded less concerned than Dindi would have expected. “What is it this time?”
“I’m going to die,” sobbed Gwenika. “This time, I know I’m going to die.”
“Fa, then, can’t you just die quietly for once and let the rest of us get some sleep?” demanded Gwena.
Gwenika gagged and retched again, although nothing came out this time. She looked terrible. “One day I will die, and then you’ll be sorry you were so mean to me.”
“I’ll be too busy catching up on my rest,” said Gwena.
“Gwenika, don’t jest about such things, you’ll invite the Deathsworn. And Gwena, just focus on resting yourself,” said Zavaedi Brena. “You know your sister isn’t like you, but you mustn’t ruin your own chances at you-know-what.”
“Yes, Mama,” said Gwena.
“She can sleep on my bed,” said the grandmother. “I’ll brew her a soothing tea.”
They all returned to bed, except the grandmother, who stayed up long into the night, brewing tea and humming songs of healing.
Dindi
The next day, the Initiates from the Rainbow Labyrinth tribe were joined by another dozen Initiates from Sycamore Stands, as well as their chaperon, Zavaedi Brena. Among the new Initiates were the sisters Gwena and Gwenika. The new Initiates wore grass skirts and wood disk headdresses painted yellow instead of a woven wrap, but they also painted symbolic bands of kohl like blindfolds over their eyes, and stenciled rope designs around their wrists and ankles.
Gwenika clutched Dindi by the elbow for the day’s trek. Dindi felt uncomfortable, like a leashed goat, but also pleased, just a little, someone besides the fae wanted her company. Also, Puddlepaws liked Gwenika, and that sealed it. The furry little traitor took to riding on Gwenika’s shoulder. As she pet Puddlepaws, she explained she’d had to leave her pets behind in the care of her grandmother.
“Though perhaps it’s for the best.” Gwenika hunched under the weight of her backbasket. “With the number of Upper Back Bloat Spasms I’ve been suffering, I won’t be around much longer to care for them.”
They stopped an hour before sunset to eat evening meal and camp by a river. The two groups of adults were too busy talking amongst themselves to bother about enforcing the No Talking rule among the Initiates. The boys had gone hunting together.
Jensi nodded vaguely at Gwenika, but looked thrilled to meet Gwena.
“Everyone in your clan thinks very highly of you,” Jensi told her. “They say you are the best dancer since someone called the Corn Maiden, and you’ll be invited to join the Tavaedi for sure.”
“It’s too soon to say,” said Gwena, although she looked pleased.
Her younger sister Gwenika chewed her lip and looked away.
“Who is the Corn Maiden?” asked Dindi. A shiver had coursed through her as soon as she heard the name.
“You’ve never heard of the Corn Maiden?” Gwena asked. “But she’s famous in the Rainbow Labyrinth too!”
Jensi and Kemla exchanged a baffled look. “No.”
“Maybe your people know her by a different name. She was the best dancer that has ever lived.” Gwena blushed. “I’m not saying I really dance like her. People just say that.”
The Corn Maiden. Dindi’s heart thumped. Should she say anything about the doll, the Vision? Gwena, in particular, might know more about the Corn Maiden, and be able to tell Dindi if the corncob doll actually had some importance.
Then again, she might make a fool of herself.
She wished there were some way she could invoke Visions from the doll again, to learn more, before she started telling other people about it. That way she could be sure they wouldn’t just laugh at her—or worse, call her a liar.
Dindi
The days of walking
blended together, not unpleasantly. Now that they traveled with Yellow Bear tribesfolk, it was easier to barter with clanholds along the trail, so they ate better and hunted less. The pace was swift but not grueling, and it must have been safe from marauders, as the Tavaedies let the Initiates hike at their own pace. For long stretches, Dindi and Gwenika walked alone together, mostly out of sight of the others.
It was on one of these stretches that Gwenika asked, “Do you ever think about becoming a Tavaedi?”
All the time. She answered, “Maybe. What about you?”
“Maybe.” Gwenika chewed her lower lip. “Do you know what tama you’ll do?”
Dindi looked at her in surprise.
Gwenika lowered her voice, even though no one was close enough to hear them. “I know it’s a secret. And I know you said no one in your clan was a Tavaedi. But I thought you might have said that to… fa, you know. Hide. So no one would steal your tama. Mama says only the Initiates who perform the best tamas will make it. My sister knows enough steps to handle a difficult one, but it’s easy for her. Mama says even if I get an easy one, I’ll likely still flub it. But it’s not my fault! Whenever I try to dance, I get sick, because of the hex on me.”
“I don’t know what tama I will do,” Dindi said. Her heart thumped so hard it hurt. This must be what her grandmother meant, that if only she had known the tama of the Unfinished Song, she would have passed the test.
“I’m just being realistic. It doesn’t matter. I’m happy for my sister. She’s the important one. I don’t matter.” Gwenika’s whole body shuddered when she coughed. “How can I when I’m so sick with Incurable Coughing Foot Pox?”
Dindi had never heard of Incurable Coughing Foot Pox.
“I’ll be dead by morning,” moaned Gwenika. She examined her foot. It was a perfectly ordinary foot, complete with five healthy, pink toes, except for a single blister on her sole. “Look, the characteristic death poxes have appeared already!”
“Try to survive the day, at least,” advised Dindi.
“I’m sure my sister Gwena will do well in the Testing, but I probably won’t be able to participate,” Gwenika said, teary-eyed. “But really, what does it matter if I go through the Initiation? I’m likely to die before we reach the tribehold anyway.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“You don’t believe I’m really sick, do you?” Her faced purpled and she began to cry. “You’re just like all the rest! But I am, I really, really am—oh, Mercy—”
Gwenika gasped. Her face had turned ashen. Dindi followed her gaze and saw several diminutive but ugly Yellow fae riding upon squirrels, creeping toward her.
“They’re coming for me,” Gwenika whispered. “The yeech. Those are the fae who bring me the sicknesses. You can’t see them, can you?” Gwenika asked, already resigned to a negative. “No one can, except for…”
“Who?”
“Gwena.” She said her sister’s name with an odd catch in her voice.
The yeech were following a faint, luminous trail, like a ribbon of pale yellow light, that led to Gwenika. One of them darted forward and pricked Gwenika with a tiny spear. She bent over coughing so hard she vomited on the dirt trail.
“I believe you, Gwenika,” Dindi said. For the first time, she did. “Let’s get away from here. Maybe we can outrun them!”
They took off running down the trail until they were both panting. Up ahead, Gwena and Kemla were walking together, and heard them coming.
Gwena turned around and smiled innocently at her sister. “How are you feeling, Gwenika? Sick again? Poor baby!”
She and Kemla burst into snickering laughter. Dindi’s skin crawled at the sound.
Gwenika stopped and stood still until the older girls disappeared from view.
“No one believes me about the yeech,” said Gwenika hoarsely. “No one believes I’ve been hexed. So who would believe me if I told them I knew who did it—or that it was my own sister?”
Dindi put her arm around her shoulder. “I believe you. I don’t know what I can do to help. But somehow, we have to find a way to stop her.”
Kavio
The woman led Kavio to an isolated dome-shaped hut in a clearing in the woods. He did not dare leave his canoe unattended, so strapped it onto his already heavy rucksack.
Her home was not far from the river. Someone had erected sticks and slim tree trunks in a fence around the clearing, but it was a shoddy defense at best. Inside the fence, a shallow ditch formed a circle around the hut, but it was not deep enough to constitute an obstacle.
She invited him to sit, but though he removed his rucksack and his canoe, and stretched the pains from his back, he remained standing.
“Have you no clan?” he asked.
“I do,” she said. “I am Ruga, daughter of the Lark Creek Clan. But they won’t let my son in the clanhold, and I won’t leave him alone. So we live here, we two. My sister and her husband help me, though they won’t spend the night here. I’m no beggar. If you heal my son, I can give you your price.”
“What sickness hexes him?” asked Kavio.
Ruga fidgeted with her rope necklaces.
“I’ll let you judge,” she said, then cupped her hands over her mouth, calling, “Gremo! Hey ho, Gremo!”
Kavio expected to see a small child, but a full-grown man shambled into view, from round the backside of the hut, walking in the ditch. He was skinny enough his ribs showed, but otherwise seemed healthy, and obviously strong, for behind him he dragged a boulder almost waist tall. It was the immense stone, Kavio saw, which slowed Gremo’s pace to a crawl. Hundreds of ropes had been wrapped around the boulder, and thrown around Gremo’s body, so it looked as if a nest of mad spiders had spun a web to glue him to the rock.
Gremo would not meet his eyes, or acknowledge his greeting. Instead, the man muttered to himself and shambled forward, ropes streaming behind him, dragging the great stone across the yard, following the curve of the ditch. The stone would never fit through the door of the hut, but Gremo did not remove the ropes, or make any attempt to enter. He kept going round the yard, in the same rut, which indeed, he must have created.
“The ropes are knotted too tightly to remove,” said Ruga. “That is his curse.”
Kavio walked closer, and Gremo flinched away, ashamed. He kept slogging forward, the rock grinding behind him. Kavio sliced at the ropes with his obsidian blade, but the stone edge only dulled against the cords without cutting them.
Ruga was right. The ropes glowed in his Vision with many Chromas, Blue and Yellow especially, entwined like a nest of snake. The bindings between Gremo and the rock were magical as much as physical. The magic web would have to be destroyed before any blade could hew the ropes.
Gremo cringed and whimpered during the inspection in a way that made Kavio want to slap him and tell him to stand like a warrior. I am not my father, Kavio reminded himself, and I should pity weakness, not punish it.
“Don’t be afraid.” Kavio hoped he kept annoyance from his voice, but Gremo cowered under his arm. Exasperated, Kavio walked to the far side of the yard and sat against a log in the fence.
“What are you doing?” demanded Ruga. “Why aren’t you dancing? Do you wish me to hide my face?”
“I need to look at the knots,” Kavio said. “Then I will tell you if I can untie it.”
“You promised me you would heal my son!” Her voice rose to a screech.
“I promised nothing. Please, auntie. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”
Grumbling, she went behind the house, and he heard the sound of a mortar on pestle. He let the rhythmic thud-thud-thud fade into the background. Dimly, he was aware of the wind in the trees, the smell of bread when Ruga began baking, the purpling sky as day shifted to evening. But he never removed his gaze from Gremo, the ropes, and the rock. Gremo made several rounds about the house while Kavio watched. Ruga brought a piece of flat corn bread and set it beside him on a leaf, but he ignored it.
In his mind, he rew
orked the knots seven upon seven times and then seven upon seven more, but try as he might, he could not make the pattern unfold. The bread, now stiff, tasted flavorless and gritty with sand. He ate the whole thing. His stomach growled afterward, less satisfied with the small offering than complete neglect.
At sunset, a man armed with a spear and painted for war entered the compound.
“You! Outtriber!” He jabbed the spear toward Kavio. “My wife’s sister told me a stranger was here.”
Ruga hurried from behind the hut. “Lambo, I asked him here. He’s a healer who can cure Gremo.”
“Is he, now? Doesn’t look to me like he’s done any healing, only lounging around on his arse, guzzling your food and beer.”
Beer? There was beer?
Lambo stomped over to stand chest to chest with Kavio. “You may think Ruga is an unattended basket, but she has kin to collect her deathdebt.”
“And Gremo?” asked Kavio. “Would his clan collect his deathdebt?”
“Gremo is her baby, and Ruga would die before letting harm come to her baby.”
On the other side of the yard, Gremo continued to grunt softly as he heaved the rock. The muscles across his emaciated back gleamed with sweat. He was no baby.
“He’s never gone through Initiation?” Kavio asked. “He’s been suffering this hex for that long? No wonder the magic is so tangled and strong.”
“Smoothly spoken, but fancy gabber about magic doesn’t prove you are even a Tavaedi, still less that you can free Gremo from the stone. Others have tricked Ruga out of her gold. But look at her, outtriber. She has no gold left, or she would be wearing it. She’s promised you a sun and a star, I’m sure, but she has nothing left to barter. So save your tricks and your lies.”
“I’ll take your warning for what it is worth to me,” Kavio said. “Which is not much.”
He turned his back to return to his spot by the wall.
The shuffle in the dust and a growl would have been warning enough, but Lambo’s attack was also clumsy. Kavio ducked beneath the first blow and lifted up into a throw that sent Lambo sprawling onto his back. In the same move, Kavio grabbed the spear, which he held to Lambo’s throat.