Shadows Cast by Stars

by Catherine Knutsson

  My hand finds the knife Madda gave me and unsheathes it, blindly lashing out at whatever is pinning me down. I strike and strike and scream and forget that I can’t breathe underwater. I don’t care. I will kill this thing that seeks to kill me.

  And then, it’s gone. I float. Up, down, I don’t know. I don’t care.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Hands lift me from the water. I drift above my body, looking down at it, at Bran, at my father running down the dock, at Madda chasing after him.

  I think I might be dead.

  Bran presses his mouth to mine and blows air into my lungs. I know this, but I don’t feel it. He tries again, and then Madda takes over, pushing Bran out of the way. My father holds him back while he moans, “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, Cass. Oh Jesus …”

  A strong voice whispers in my ear, “You aren’t going anywhere yet. Get back in this body right now!”

  All at once, I’m pulled in two directions simultaneously, and then with an audible snap I am back inside my body, staring up at Madda as she blows breath tasting of whiskey and wood smoke into my lungs.

  My body jerks and as she draws back, lake water gushes out of my mouth, all over me, all over her, all over the dock. I retch and retch as if my lungs have drunk the entire lake dry and now they’ve decided to give it back.

  Arms grasp me, strong arms, and I look up to see my father. He rocks me back and forth. “Oh sweet Jesus,” he whispers. “I thought I had lost you, too. Not you, too.”

  My throat aches, but my rib cage aches more. “You’re hurting me.”

  Madda pulls my father back. “Lou, let her go. I need to check her over. Bran, step back. You’re in my way. Go get my medicine kit. It’s up at the house. Go!”

  Bran thunders down the dock and disappears into the shadows.

  Madda eases me down. Pain sears my skin as she peels back my wet shirt. She sucks in a breath. “Cassandra, I need you to stay very still. You’re bleeding quite badly. Lou, get something for a stretcher.”

  I reach out for my father’s hand, but all I touch is nothingness.

  • • •

  They carried me up the hill on an old door. But I don’t remember this. I don’t remember anything except the blackness that stood over me like a stalwart soldier and refused to let consciousness draw close.

  Madda sits beside my bed. Her eyes are closed. Her face is pale. I’m not sure whether she’s asleep or not, so I don’t move. If she is sleeping, I don’t want to wake her.

  Every inch of my body hurts. Sparks float before my eyes, threatening to draw me back under when I move my head. I try wiggling my toes. I shift my body a little to the left, a little to the right, just enough to know I can move but not enough to upset the sparks that buzz about me like flies.

  Madda’s eyes flutter open. “You’re awake,” she says. Her voice is hoarse and her eyes are bloodshot. “Let me get your father.” She rises slowly and leaves the room.

  I hear them talking, but I can’t make out the words— just the low rumble of my father’s voice and Madda’s gravelly response. Then, footsteps echo down the hall. Madda enters first, followed by my father. He looks as bad as Madda. “Hey, starshine,” he says. “You gave us quite a scare.”

  I force a smile onto my face, though it hurts so much. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he says as he bends to kiss my forehead. “I love you, Cassandra.”

  I try to find words, but they won’t come, so I nod.

  “Okay, that’s enough for now,” Madda says, gently pushing my father back. “Now that she’s awake, we need to have a talk.”

  Madda herds him out the door. I hear him walk away and wish he’d come back.

  Madda kneels at my side and draws the blanket down. Then she lifts me up a little, just enough to wedge a pillow under my back. “I need you to see what happened,” she says.

  But I don’t want to. I squeeze my eyes shut.

  Her hand is cool to the touch. It falls on my stomach where the cool vanishes, replaced by blistering heat. It hurts so much. I moan. I can’t help it.

  “Sorry,” she says. “This is going to smart, but you need to see.”

  I force my eyes open and look down at a bandage bigger than my hand. Madda peels it back to expose a perfect circle of brown dots, each bearing a single stitch.

  “What is it?” I whisper.

  “A gift,” she says. “Open your hand.” She spills thirteen translucent pearls into my palm. “One for each one of those dots,” she says. “Had a devil of a time getting them out, and used up most of your father’s whiskey in the process. Good thing you weren’t conscious. It hurt me to do it.”

  “What did that to me?” The words scrape against my throat and I want to go back to sleep, but I can’t. I need to know.

  “Sisiutl.” The word is sibilant, as if Madda has taken on the voice of the double-headed sea monster.

  “But …” I touch one of the dots. It hurts, but not as much as my head.

  “Yeah, but is right. They’re the meanest of the mean in the spirit world. Looks like you’re one of the lucky ones, though. It marked you—that means it will never harm you again, sort of like choosing you as its own.”

  “Great,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to be a two-headed serpent.”

  Madda chuckles. “That’s not quite what I meant and you know it. My people believe sisiutl chooses the most powerful warriors to fight alongside it.”

  “Warriors?”

  “Sure. Sometimes, people call us healers ‘spiritual warriors.’ Sounds about right, don’t you think?”

  I shake my head. “That wouldn’t be me.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. You fended it off, after all. You fought back.”

  “Thanks to you. It was your knife that did it.”

  Madda purses her lips. “I knew you were going to need that knife. I just didn’t think it would be for this.” She gently pats the bandage into place and draws the blanket back up. “Now, you need some rest. Sisiutl gave you more than that love bite—you’re covered in bumps and bruises and I’m pretty sure you’ve got a concussion. You’re to stay in bed until I say you can get up. Got it?”

  I smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Madda snorts and moves to leave.

  “Wait,” I say, though sleep is already pulling at my eyes. “Bran—?”

  “Is outside. He hasn’t gone home since it happened. Thinks this was his fault. Always does.” She shakes her head. “But don’t you worry about that right now. Just go to sleep, all right?”

  “All right,” I manage to say, before I drift off.

  Sometime later, I wake. Light stabs at my eyes. I raise a hand to cover my face. My body feels as if every square inch of it is swollen and raw.

  “Cass?” A hand touches my cheek.

  Bran.

  “The light hurts,” I say.

  “Oh.” I hear him rummage about and then the light goes away. “Is that better?”

  “Yes.” I open my eyes slowly, testing them for pain, only to see that Bran’s shirtless. I raise an eyebrow at him.

  “Oh.” He glances down at his chest. “I used my shirt to cover the window.”

  “Ah.” I try to laugh, but it becomes a cough.

  Bran’s face drains of all its color as he watches me. Then, as my coughing subsides, he bends to help me sit up. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not very good at this.”

  “You’re doing just fine,” I say. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  “I haven’t left,” he says. “God, Cass, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

  His head drops so I can’t see his eyes and I know he’s fighting back tears.

  Madda’s words drift back to me. Thinks this was his fault. Always does. I want to say something to change that, but all I can manage is to take his hand and hold it tight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  There is no pain quite like the pain of healing. I walk up and down th
e sundeck, Paul at my side, holding my hand while I gasp for breath. Madda decided one of my ribs must be broken. She’s plastered my rib cage with boneset and honey and now I have to wait for it to heal. It hurts so badly, but it feels good to be up and moving.

  Bran is asleep on my bed right now. He still hasn’t gone home.

  “Are you tired?” Paul asks as I reach out and take the railing. He’s been distant since the night of the attack. I think he feels a little guilty that he wasn’t around to help. In fact, he didn’t return until late the next day, from what my father says, and left as soon as he saw me.

  “Hey.” Bran stands by the kitchen door, running a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “Thought you could use a break,” Paul says. “Divvy up the duties of taking care of this pain in the arse.”

  “Hah,” I say, nudging him.

  “That’s the best you can do?”

  “Yeah.” It is. Even that hurt. “Let me try walking on my own, okay?”

  Paul smiles and releases his hold. I shuffle toward Bran as if I’m ninety. If this is what it feels like to get old, I want no part of it. Bran takes my hand and tucks it into his. “You should be back in bed.”

  “Madda said I should get up and move around.”

  “In small doses.” He looks at Paul. “Tell her.”

  Paul waves us away. “You’re on your own, man. She never listens to me.”

  I stick out my tongue at him as Bran and I step inside. Paul’s laughter drifts after us.

  “You’re looking a lot better today,” Bran says as we pause for me to catch my breath.

  “I’m feeling better.” It’s not much of a lie, really. He draws a chair up for me and I sit, gazing out at the lake. A skiff divides the silver water in two. A canoe bobs in its wake. On the far shore, smoke drifts lazily above the evergreens. The mountains watch. Everything is deceptively peaceful, for somewhere out there is the sisiutl, and the longer I stare at the lake, the more I’m convinced it’s waiting for my return. Despite what Madda said— that I’m safe from it now—I don’t believe it one bit.

  Bran stands behind me, stroking my hair.

  “Have you seen what the sisiutl did to me?” I say, though what I really want to ask is, Are you here because you feel responsible, or because you really want to be here?

  He shakes his head. “I don’t want to look. Not now.”

  “But you’ll have to someday.”

  He takes a deep breath. “Yes. Someday.”

  I reach up and take his hand, giving it a squeeze. He squeezes back.

  A week later, Bran leaves to do battle with his mother (as he put it). My father has been busy building the outhouse, and who knows where Paul is. When I ask my father, he just shrugs and frowns.

  Madda has been back to our house almost every day under the pretense of checking on me, but really I think she’s here to see my father.

  It’s been five years since my mother died. Five years of my father wandering through days without blinking, without thinking of anyone but me and Paul. At first, after Mom, he stopped living too, as if his life was a house and he no longer came home. Each day he returned to us a little more, but for five years I haven’t seen his shade. It’s a robin—the first true shade I ever saw—and as I stand at the window, watching Madda and my father survey the garden they’ve planted, a lump forms in my throat. My father’s robin sits on his shoulder, warbling its heart out.

  Madda glances up at me and heads toward the house. “Well?” she says when she arrives, huffing from the climb up the hill. “Have you learned all you can from that herbal I lent to you?”

  “I’ve memorized it.”

  She sniffs. “Memorizing isn’t the same as learning. Come to the cottage tomorrow. We’ll see how much you really know.” She pulls something from her pocket. “Before I forget—this is for you.”

  I take the little cloth pouch from her outstretched hand.

  She nods at it. “Open it. See what’s inside.”

  Inside are the thirteen tiny pearls that the sisiutl gave me. I force myself to touch them.

  “You’re right to be scared,” Madda says. “They’re strong with spirit. They’ll guard you. Next time you see that raven, you wave those pearls at him. He’ll be leaving you alone. Raven and Sisiutl have never been friends. Put them in that pouch I gave you.” She scratches her head. “Where is that pouch, anyway? I thought I told you to wear it.”

  “I did. I was,” I say. My gaze flickers to the lake.

  “Ah.” Madda wrinkles her brow in thought, and I realize she thinks I lost the pouch the night of the sisiutl attack. “That’s an even exchange, I guess. One thing for another. Well, you’re good with your hands. Probably best you make yourself one anyhow.” She reaches out and gives my hand a squeeze. “Tomorrow. After lunch. Don’t forget.”

  I wrap my fingers around the pearls and clutch them tightly as Madda leaves the room. I have no pouch to put them in. That pouch, the one Madda gave me, is sitting at the bottom of the lake, where I should be right now.

  I’m beginning to think the raven that’s been dogging me is actually Paul. It’s there, perched on the railing of the sun-deck every time I wander into the sitting room. It follows me when I make my way down the hill to feed the chickens. I hear the whoosh of its wings outside my window every night. It haunts me, and makes me worry for my brother.

  I’ve only seen him a couple times since the night of the attack. Last night, he crept into my room and sat on the floor while he thought I was sleeping, but I wasn’t. Tension hangs between us. That’s what woke me.

  He’s afraid of me.

  And, if he really is that raven, I’m a little afraid of him, too.

  • • •

  My father rouses me early. “Get up,” he says, grinning from ear to ear. “I’ve got something I want to show you.”

  There’s magic in the air today. I can see it in the rosy glow of the early-morning sun and smell it drifting on the wind.

  I dress quickly. The scabs on my stomach crack when I lift my arms, but it’s a good feeling, a feeling that reminds me of nature’s power to remedy wrongs. Breathing doesn’t hurt, finally, and I feel so good I bet I’d be able to fly if I tried.

  Paul and my father are outside, waiting for me. Paul drops his eyes to the ground as I wind my hair into a braid. I hate this distance between us, but how can I fix it when I don’t know why it’s there?

  “Hey,” I say, edging up to him and giving him a nudge. “Haven’t seen you around much.”

  He shrugs and turns his dark eyes to my father, who gives each of us a forked willow branch. “Gonna teach you to witch,” he says as he takes another branch from the back pocket of his jeans. “Figured we need a well. I’m tired of hauling water up the hill.” He holds the tines of the branch in his hands. “Gently,” he says as we copy him. “Let the willow talk to you.”

  I close my eyes and allow breath to slip in and out of my lungs. The air around me hums. I feel open, a channel for the earth. The willow branch vibrates in my hands and when I open my eyes, I see the tip is bobbling up and down.

  “That’s good,” my father says, nodding in encouragement. “Now, walk with it. When it points at the ground and doesn’t move, you know you’ve found water.”

  I start off slowly at first, a step forward, a step to the side. The willow branch bounces and trembles, bending in impossible directions as it seeks out water far below the ground. Everything else fades away.

  The branch continues to jerk back and forth as I make my way up the hill toward the back of the house, and then, all at once, it points straight down at the ground.

  “Dad,” I call. “I think I found something.”

  He comes racing up the hill. “Looks good,” he says, holding out his own willow branch. It mirrors mine. My father pats my shoulder and drives his branch into the ground. “Good spot for the well—close to the house, but not too close. How far down do you think we’ll have to dig?” he ask
s as he narrows his eyes.

  I recognize that look—he already knows the answer, but wants to know if I’m a natural at this. It’s the same look he gave me when he taught me to fire a rifle.

  I close my eyes. “Not far down,” I hear myself say. In my mind, I see myself burrow into the earth like a root, a twisting, winding root searching for water among the rocks and the bones and the ghosts of dead things. And then I see the water—a deep, dark pool like the one in the spirit lands. It’s fed by three streams. “About twenty feet down,” I say. “There’s a pool down there.”

  My father whistles under his breath. “Well, that’s lucky. Sounds like an artesian spring. Huh. Surprising no one tapped it before.” He smiles. “If there’s enough pressure, we might even be able to pipe it into the house. Wouldn’t that be something!” He takes the willow branch from my hand. “Good work. Let’s go see how Paul is making out, huh?”

  We go back down to the house, but Paul is gone. His willow branch lies on the ground, twisted in half. My father sighs as he bends to pick it up, and shakes his head.

  I stare at the forest. I’m pretty sure that’s where Paul’s gone.

  Why, for once, couldn’t this gift have gone to Paul? He needs it more than I do, and if I could, I would give it to him. I would give him anything he asked for. But I can’t, and no amount of wishing is ever going to change that.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I leave for Madda’s after lunch. I’m worried about Paul. He didn’t come back, and I can’t help feeling that all the time he spends by himself isn’t helping. Part of me hopes he’s with Bran, and maybe he is. I like the idea of them working wood together. The thought erases some of the worry I feel for Paul, but not all.

  The road is thick with shadows, and chickadees dart back and forth, chattering as they hunt for bugs. I pause to watch them. The basket on my arm suddenly feels very heavy, even though all it holds is Madda’s herbal. But it’s my gathering basket, and a good apprentice, says Madda, never goes anywhere without one. You never know when you might spot something valuable, she says.