“No,” I say. “Close the window and bar the door.”
“What?”
“Just do it.” My voice trembles. “There are three dzoonokwa standing at the edge of the forest, watching me.”
“Cassandra, come inside,” she says. “Just walk away like you never saw them.”
“No.” My voice stops trembling. My hands stop shaking. I hop the driftwood fence, garlic bulbs in hand, and walk toward the dzoonokwa. They murmur and mumble as I approach. My heart flutters in my chest. Which heartbeat will be its last?
The first dzoonokwa snarls as she fishes something out of a basket on her back.
How will they kill me? With their hands, like they did Madda? With a club hidden in that basket? Will they wait for me to stop breathing before they begin to gnaw on my bones? The dzoonokwa straightens up and howls. The others join in. Then they fall silent as the first one lobs something into the air. When it falls at my feet, they turn and run into the forest, the darkness swallowing them whole.
My heart thuds against my breastbone as I scan the trees and wait for them to return, but they don’t. My teeth have started to chatter, and only then do I realize just how scared I actually am.
Grass rustles behind me and then a hand falls on my shoulder. “Girl, whatever possessed you to do that?” Ms. Adelaide says.
I can’t answer.
“Damn stupid girl,” she mutters, shaking her head. “The stupidest and bravest thing I ever saw. Take that damn bundle they left you and let’s get inside.”
“The garlic,” I say, holding up the tiny bulbs.
She laughs. “The garlic? You come face-to-face with three dzoonokwa and all you can think about is garlic? Clearly we need to get some food inside you, because you’ve gone crazy.” With that, she steers me back into the safety of the cottage.
Once we’re inside, with the door locked and the windows shuttered, Ms. Adelaide sits me down and goes back to what she was doing as if nothing happened. The bundle rests on the table before me. Cedar bark, bound by rotting string, covers it. I close my eyes so I don’t have to look at it, and listen to the clank of Ms. Adelaide setting the stew pot on the cookstove, the pop of a cork being pulled from a bottle, glasses clinking together, and the rush of something being poured.
“Here,” she says, slipping a glass of parsnip wine beneath my nose. “Drink it.”
The wine is sweet and musty, a strange taste in my mouth after the sourness of fear. I’m aware of Ms. Adelaide waiting for me to swallow, but I can’t. I just swirl the wine around and around my mouth, because I’m not sure that I’ll be able to keep it down.
When I finally swallow, the wine drops into my stomach, and a burst of warmth rises up. I sigh, a deep, releasing sigh that makes my bones go slack.
Ms. Adelaide smiles. “There,” she says, settling back. “My parsnip wine will fix just about anything.” The words are light, but I see the cloud of worry in her gaze. “Good thing no one else was here to see that. Best not speak of it. You’ve got a mighty strong way with the supernatural world, that’s for certain, but this …” She gestures at the bundle on the table. “I’ve never heard of anything like it.”
“Should I open it?”
“Suppose so.”
A shiver runs down my spine. The last thing I want is to touch the bundle. Grease on the bark glistens in the candlelight. Where did that grease come from? Some poor animal? An unsuspecting child? Madda?
Ms. Adelaide cuts the string with a paring knife. “The rest,” she says, “is up to you.” With a faint smile, she picks a tangled skein of wool, sits down across from me, and begins to unravel the knots. “Staring at it won’t make it go away.”
“I guess not,” I say, but that doesn’t mean I’ll touch it. A pair of tongs rests by the hearth. I grab them and fish the bark away. The pieces come off, one by one, to reveal a smooth, translucent moonstone hidden beneath the layers.
My breath catches in my throat.
The chair creaks as Ms. Adelaide reaches out to me. “What’s wrong?”
It takes several minutes before I can tell her. “That’s Madda’s,” I whisper. With a single finger, I reach out and touch it. It’s icy cold. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Now, don’t panic. Just sit for a bit. But first, burn that bark. The dzoonokwa touched it.”
I fling the bark into the fire where it bursts into blue flame. “That’s not normal.”
Ms. Adelaide snorts. “Honey, when you’re dealing with supernaturals, nothing is normal, and it’s unreasonable for you to expect it to be. You probably want to know why it’s you they’ve chosen. I wondered the same thing once, back when Dzoonokwa came to see me. You’re young, you’re strong, you’re as smart as a whip. And you’re pretty—the gods like the pretty ones.”
“Gods?”
She shrugs as she rummages around in the pantry. “Gods, spirits, Elders, whatever you want to call them. Shining Ones—that’s my own favorite.” She emerges triumphant, a kettle in one hand and a canister in the other. “Aha! I knew Madda had a stash in here!” She sets the kettle on the stove. “Whatever you call them, they’re the same thing, and they’re all part of this land. They’re waking up and they’re not happy. If I was a bettin’ woman, I’d bet you’re their voice.”
I let my head fall to the table with a dramatic thunk. “They? Who’s they?”
“The spirit people, the ones from the old stories, Cassandra.” Ms. Adelaide looks at her hands, turning them over to expose her palms. “These hands are supposed to tend the land, care for it, nurture it. This voice? For telling the old stories, for keeping our way alive, and it’s not just our way—it’s the way. Look at the Corridor. Do you think what’s happening there is a coincidence?”
“It’s a big leap from Plague to gods and myths, Ms. Adelaide,” I say.
“So it is, but how does it feel to you?” She cocks an eyebrow at me as she sets the kettle over the fire. “Take a second. Feel it out.”
I close my eyes and think about all that’s happened, about the shades I see, about walking the paths of spirit. I think about the sisiutl and the earthquakes and how ravens haunt my every step. I think about Bran with his shifting shade and my brother’s relationship with lost souls, and how we came to the Island. I think about Plague, and the sea wolf, and the poisonous cloud that works with him. Everything happens for a reason, and nothing—absolutely nothing—is without meaning. I stretch my hand out toward the moonstone, hesitating for one moment, and then wrap my fingers around it, claiming it. This has been given to me. I don’t know why, but there’s a reason. There’s a reason for everything.
Ms. Adelaide nods as if she knows my answer.
“So,” I say, “what do I do now?” My fingers wrap around the moonstone, tracing its smooth, cold planes, over and over. What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?
Ms. Adelaide sinks into the armchair, shuffling back and forth until she’s comfortable. “I’m not sure, but what I do know is that the creatures of the old stories are seeking you out.” She points at the moonstone. “Madda told you about the making of the boundary?” I nod. “Well, here’s a bit more of the story for you. Back when that happened, the women who made the boundary asked the supernaturals for help, you know, all the old ones. Raven, Thunderbird, Sisiutl, Wolf, the ones from the old stories, except, that’s the thing. They aren’t stories. They’re living myths, and those creatures, they’re as alive as you and me. You know that now. Anyhow, some of them agreed to help, those that still had hope for humans. Some just wanted to cause trouble, like Raven, and look what happened to him. And the dzoonokwa, well, my guess is they just don’t care anymore. People have been hunting them for ages, trying to take their picture, making up all sorts of lies about them, so I don’t blame them for ignoring us. But when the boundary went up, they got stuck in it.”
“In? Like, they are the boundary?”
Ms. Adelaide nods. “And now the boundary’s failing, which tells me that the supernatura
ls aren’t going to last much longer, either. They don’t belong to us, Cass. They aren’t ours. This place, this haven we’ve created?” She casts her arm around me. “It isn’t for free. Everything costs something. I know we think we’re safe here, but are we?” She peers at me. “Are we really? Or do we just think we are, because that’s what we want to believe?”
I’m not sure she’s really talking to me anymore, but her words hit me in the face just the same. “So what exactly am I supposed to do?” I ask. All the hair has risen on my arm. “Free the dzoonokwa? Just how do I do that?”
“I don’t know, but then, it’s not for me to know. It’s your task.” She reaches out and squeezes my hand. “But I think you’ll be okay. One dzoonokwa could have killed you in the blink of an eye. Three? They could have torn you limb from limb, but they didn’t. They need you for something. Just remember that Dzoonokwa’s not bad. She just is what she is. She takes the life of some people; she gives others beautiful things. Special things. You know what that spirit stone is, don’t you?”
“Sort of. Madda told me the story, but I’m not sure I understood it entirely.”
“Well, I imagine you know that there are only two left—that we know of, at least. That one was Madda’s. Now it’s yours. A little bit of the wearer stays with the stone forever and ever, so your ancestors are always with you. You just have to listen, and they’ll help you along, but you have to know how to listen first, and that’s the hard part. The monolith was a gift from the supernaturals, and so is that stone. You have a piece of spirit, and now, by wearing that stone, it has a piece of you.”
“So Bran’s …”
“Is similar, though his stone is bound more to the land.” Ms. Adelaide yawns. “Now, stir that stew, would you? Don’t want it to burn.” She goes back to her wool while my mind spins. Spirit stones. Supernaturals. Old stories. The land. And the task Dzoonokwa has set before me.
Then it dawns on me—Bran’s spirit stone. If I’ve lost it, the thing that binds Bran to this land, where, exactly, does that leave him?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I dream.
I dream I stand in a circle of light. Across from me is Paul, standing in his own circle, and when he turns around, I see he’s changed. One half of his body is covered in black feathers. They’re dull and ragged. Some have fallen out and lie at his feet, leaving white, pebbled bird flesh exposed at his shoulder, his flank. His right arm is a wing. He stands with his shoulders slumped, his back curved, as if at any moment he’ll curl into the fetal position.
I reach out to him, stretching my hand across the circles of light.
Paul raises his head slowly. When he sees me, his lips form the word no, and when I don’t stop trying to reach him, he brings his winged arm across his face and pushes me back. Again. And again. And again. And again.
Leave me alone, he says. Leave me alone. Why won’t you ever leave me alone? Leave me, leave me …
I can’t, Paul, I say. I can’t.
Then I leave you.
And just like that, he’s gone.
I wake to the sound of a flight of geese making their way south. The seasons are beginning to shift.
My back aches from a night curled up in the chair and my head is still fuzzy with sleep, but something has changed. If Paul doesn’t want me in his dreams, that’s one thing, but if he thinks he’s turned me away, he’s mistaken.
I’ve just finished dressing when my father’s truck pulls up outside, laden with firewood. He gets out and starts unloading.
I dash outside to help.
“About time you got out of bed,” he says, laughing at first, until he sees the look on my face. “Everything okay?”
“No.” I feel like I want to hit something. “I met with the Elders yesterday.”
“Oh.” My father scowls. “Why don’t you go put the kettle on? I’ve brought wood for you—figured I wouldn’t use it all myself. Let me get it stacked, and then we’ll talk, okay?”
But putting the kettle on doesn’t do anything to assuage my anger, so a few minutes later I’m outside, helping my father pack alder and fir to the far side of the house. We don’t talk. Not yet. I’m still too angry, and my father? I don’t know. Sad, maybe. There’s something about the way he moves, the way he balances each piece of firewood so carefully on the one below—too carefully, maybe—that tells me something’s not right.
The shriek of the kettle’s whistle calls me inside to make tea. There’s still some blueberry pie left, so I put it on plates and take it out to my father. He rolls up his sleeves and washes his hands under the spigot of the rain barrel, thoroughly, thoughtfully, like he used to back in the Corridor, and then sits down on the chopping block. I hand him a cup of tea.
“It’s real,” I say when his eyebrows shoot up in wonder.
He takes a sip and sighs in appreciation. “Real tea. And blueberry pie. Did you make that, too?”
“No. Ms. Adelaide did. She came by yesterday.”
“Did she?”
We continue making small talk, because we’re not ready to change the mood just yet. But we must.
“So,” my father says. He sets his teacup down on the woodpile and spreads his fingers wide over his knees. “What did the Elders say?”
“What do you think? They gave me some excuses about needing time, that this isn’t the first canoe to go missing, that I need to be patient.”
My father draws a deep breath. “Cass, we have to be careful with this. Really careful. It isn’t that they’re doing nothing—they’re doing something. Just not what we want them to do. I want Paul back as much as you do, I promise you that, but …”
“But what, Dad?” My father’s shade, his robin, has appeared at his shoulder, dragging its wing. Wounded, or just pretending to lure a predator away from its young? Which is it? I can’t tell. “What is it that you’re not telling me?”
“Cass,” he says, “they don’t want to find that canoe. I get the feeling they may know where it is, or, at least, where it was, but … it’s not Paul. They don’t care about him. It’s Bran.” He sits back. “Grace Eagleson has been hounding me every day, begging me to make the Elders listen, because they won’t to her, but I’ve gone to see them twice now. Paul and the other men in the canoe are insignificant—innocent bystanders, if you will. They haven’t come right out and said that, but … think about it, Cass. With Bran gone, where does that leave them?” He balls his hand into a fist. “Without anyone who has a claim to be chief.” He sighs. “There wasn’t much hope in finding them anyhow, Cass. Even if the Elders knew where they went, a single canoe out on that sea? They could be halfway across the ocean by now, if they got caught in the wrong current. I fished out there when I was young. That ocean? She’s unforgiving.”
“So,” I whisper, because I can scarcely believe what I’m hearing, “are you telling me that I shouldn’t try? That I should give up? That you’ve given up?”
“No.” My father fixes me with a steely look. “But we’ve got to be smart about this. You just can’t go running off on a fool’s chase. I’ll help you if I can, but it has to be you, Cass. If I do it, well—let’s just say the Elders aren’t afraid of hurting you. I think Henry knows you’ve got some power, but the rest? They think you’re just some girl. Who knows what they’d try to do to you if I weren’t here. I can’t take that risk.” The steely look begins to fade. He’s fighting tears too. “I’m sorry, Cass. I’m sorry this is the way it is.”
“You could come with me,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I could, but then, once we found them, what would we do then? What would we have to come back to? Besides, there’s always a chance Paul will find his way home. Someone needs to be here for him.”
There’s more to it than that. I don’t know what, but if my father says I have to do this alone, I will. I trust him.
I hug him. He smells like sawdust and tea. “I’m going to go tomorrow, Dad.”
He kisses my cheek. “Then I’ll see you so
on.”
The remainder of the day is devoted to preparations. Spirit’s my destination. The journey begins when I pick up Madda’s stone, douse it in salty water, string it on a leather strand, and fasten it around my neck. It feels different than Bran’s spirit stone, cool and soft, nothing like Bran. Nothing like Madda. Maybe that’s because this stone’s mine now, and Bran’s never was.
My next stop is the forest, Madda’s herbal in hand. As I give thanks and sever a bough from the nearest cedar, I remember Madda’s advice about putting wardings at the burial ground. Helen will know where the boundaries are, but on the other hand, maybe I’ll just take my sweet time and see how the Elders feel about that. Then we’ll see who holds the real power.
Two ravens fly overhead. They circle round and land on the limb of an alder.
If I can face the dzoonokwa, I can face anything, I decide. “Shoo!” I yell, and they burst into flight, voicing their raucous opinions as they wheel away.
I dig for wild ginger and scrape moss from a maple tree, thanking each plant for its gifts. Before long, my gathering basket holds rocks and branches, roots and mushrooms. And then, I gather stones. They’ll be for more than marking the boundary of the fire ring. The herbal says to mark the boundaries of now and notnow, of here and spirit, so that when I want to return, they’ll guide me home, just like the breadcrumbs left by Hansel and Gretel, except this trail won’t be gobbled up by ravens. Granite is for the quarters, marking out the directions of the wind. Quartz is for the cross-quarters to provide protection against anything or anyone who would seek to harm me. This time, I will do everything exactly right because I must, I must find what I’m looking for. There is no other option.
As I strike flint against steel, I think of the lost ones, the souls who speak to my brother and drift between worlds. What of them? Maybe there’s a way of helping them after all—if I could only find a way into their twilight. Smoke puffs from the handful of moss in the center of the fire ring as I wonder if Paul’s already found a way there. Maybe that’s why he was so strange before he left. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want me in his dreams anymore.
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