Blue Raven glimpsed Wren coming down the trail from the hilltop, a bag of food slung over her shoulder. She waved, and Blue Raven smiled. Her white fox-fur cape hung about her like a shimmering mantle. She’d pulled up the hood as a shield against the wind, but a few locks of her long black hair had escaped and danced about her pretty face.
From fifty hands down the hillside below him, Blue Raven could hear a thin cry rise and fall. The sound clawed at him, deep, like a talon buried in his souls.
He sank back against the aged oak trunk. Snow drifted out of the twilight sky in a leisurely fashion, swaying and spinning before alighting on Lost Hill. Though a Cloud Giant hovered above him, most of the sky remained clear. The feathered lodges of the Night Walkers had just begun to appear, popping into existence out over the vast blueness of Pipe Stem Lake.
Blessed gods, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could take this.
Snow had covered everything except Rumbler’s head. His disembodied face stared unblinking at Blue Raven, the black eyes alive with fear. Over the past six nights, his cries had grown shrill. Blue Raven didn’t understand it. By now Rumbler should barely have the strength to draw breath.
Blue Raven blinked and forced himself to break eye contact with Rumbler. When he looked into the boy’s eyes, fire ran along his bones, crept into his shaking muscles, and became a raging inferno in his heart. The intensity of the pain left him shaking.
He fumbled with his mittens. He kept going over the stories his mother had told him, things she’d heard from old Silver Sparrow himself, about how Rumbler’s father, the evil Forest Spirit, used to whisper to him in his robes at night, and how the Night Walkers obeyed the boy’s commands. Anyone who had ever dared to harm the boy had died hideously—or so people said.
Blue Raven frowned, wondering.
A silver sheen glimmered across the surface of Pipe Stem Lake. People fished on the shore. The catch must have been poor, or by now they’d be back in the village cooking supper. Blue Raven tried to imagine himself at home, wrapped in hides before a blazing fire, talking with Frost-in-the-Willows, telling her the Vigil was over, and they could all sleep again. He wished …
Two small fists, tethered to a stake by a short rope, broke through the blanket of snow, fingers open, reaching.
“Lamedeer!” Rumbler shrieked. He rolled over, and tugged against his ropes, sobbing breathlessly.
Since Rumbler had seen Lamedeer’s severed head on the post in the village plaza, Blue Raven assumed he called to Lamedeer’s ghost. That, or the cold and hunger had taken the boy’s senses.
“Blessed Spirits,” Blue Raven whispered. “Why is this taking so long? It’s winter. The marrow of his bones should be frozen by now.”
Wind blasted the hillside, and Blue Raven turned his head. When he looked again, a white blanket of snow covered Rumbler. Smooth and unbroken, the boy might have never been.
As Blue Raven watched, a huge gray owl leaped from the grove of trees at the crest of the hill, and soared down toward Rumbler. The bird circled, flapped once, then gently alighted on Rumbler’s chest.
As if the sight had cut Blue Raven’s souls from his body, he seemed to float high above the earth, no longer cold, or buffeted by the gale. Graying strands of hair danced before his eyes, but he barely saw them.
The owl flapped its wings, and snow blew from Rumbler’s face and chest. Then the big bird hopped down and perched on the stake which pinned Rumbler’s feet. He hoo-hoo’d once, then silently soared up and away through the falling snow.
Blue Raven whispered, “Stop being a fool. Owls are _ predators. Scavengers. That’s all. The bird probably thought Rumbler was dead and hoped to find a meal. It. must have been surprised when it discovered the boy was alive. It …”
From deep in his souls, his grandfather’s ancient voice rasped, You have seen thirteen winters, grandson. It’s time you learned the strange ways of the gods. You must stand your first Vigil. Watch the child. Protect it from hungry animals. Let no one touch the baby until it is dead. That is your duty as Vigil Keeper. Curious things may happen. Often they do. Each is a test. The gods will be watching you. You mustn’t let them turn you from your duty.
Blue Raven remembered running all the way to Lost
Hill clutching that forsaken baby to his chest. A wan patchwork of sunlight had flashed through the naked hickory and oak limbs, and he had to squint to keep from colliding with trees. The child had gurgled and cried. Though the little boy had only beheld four mornings, the threads of his heart had been like iron. It had taken forty-two hands of time for that baby to die—and Blue Raven’s souls to wither to dust. But nothing strange had happened. Nothing he could recall, he—
Wren startled him, kneeling at his side. “Good evening, Uncle.”
Blue Raven sucked in a breath. “Wren. Hello.”
She carefully unslung her pack. “I brought you slices of roasted goose and a bowl of cornmeal mush.” She drew out two covered wooden bowls and placed them in front of him, along with a horn spoon. The mush still steamed. “Are you well?”
“Well enough, Wren. Thank you for coming. Now go home. Tell your grandmother that the child still lives.”
Her large dark eyes strayed down the hill, and agony lined her face. “Would you like me to collect wood for you first, Uncle? It won’t take me very long.”
Blue Raven reached out and squeezed her arm. She had made the same offer for the past six nights, and her bravery always swelled his heart. “If you wish to, it would be a great help. But it is not necessary, Wren. I can collect wood later.”
“I wish to, Uncle.”
Wren dashed up the hill toward the stunted grove of elms and oaks that whiskered the top. Against the deep blue of evening, the trees resembled skeletal arms. The Cloud Giant had traveled out over the lake, leaving the clean sky spotted with the Night Walker’s feathered lodges.
Wren’s white cape blended so completely with the
snow that she looked ghostly as she moved among the dark trunks, cracking off dead limbs and placing them in the crook of her left arm.
Rumbler screamed suddenly, and Wren spun around so fast her load tumbled into the snow.
Blue Raven shuddered.
As Wren bent to pick up the wood, her ravaged expression tore his heart.
Where did she find the courage? For many moons she had been living with death. This must be harder on her than any of them imagined. He wished that Frost-in-the-Willows had chosen someone else to bring him food, but his mother probably considered this just punishment for the abandoned water bags.
Wren made her way down the hill as swiftly as she could, slipping on ice, and dumped her load onto his woodpile. She fed branches to the fire. Flames leaped and swayed, blinding him to the night.
“Thank you, Wren.” Blue Raven put a mitten on her cheek. Her lean angular face had flushed from the cold, and she was breathing hard. “These past few nights have been hard for you. You have made me very proud.”
“I don’t know how you do this, Uncle.”
He let his hand fall to his lap. “I do it because I must.”
In a sudden move, she threw her arms around his neck, and hugged him. Her voice came out strained. “I wish you could come home.”
“I will,” he whispered, kissing her hair. “Perhaps tomorrow. Don’t worry about me.”
She nodded against his neck. “Try to rest, Uncle. You look so tired.”
Vigil Keepers could nap for brief periods, but never really sleep. With Rumbler’s cries, even his naps had been tortured. He must look as exhausted as he felt. He
stroked Wren’s back. “Tell your grandmother I hope to see her soon.”
Wren picked up her pack and slung it over her shoulder. “Good night, Uncle. I love you.”
“Be attentive on your way home, Wren. You haven’t much light left.”
She nodded. “I will. I’ll see you at dawn.” She sprinted up the hill for the trail.
Blue Raven watched her disappear over the crest, then he picked up a piece of roasted goose and ate it, savoring the rich flavor. A soft orange gleam had begun to warm the sky to the south, rising from the freshly lit supper fires in Walksalong Village.
He concentrated on it, willing himself home.
Dusk fell in smoky veils across the lake, draining the colors from the water.
Wren hid behind a boulder, her back pressed against the cold stone, watching people climb the hill from the lake. At her feet lay the bulging pack, bow, and quiver of arrows she’d hidden earlier in the day. She didn’t expect to need them, not tonight, but … but she might … .
Four old men led the procession, laughing softly, telling stories about the day’s fishing. To the west, across the face of Lost Hill, remnants of sunlight gilded the bellies of the Cloud Giants, turning them a deep dark blue.
Old Bogbean and Loon trudged up the trail next. Wren couldn’t see their faces, but she knew their voices.
“You don’t have to tell me!” Bogbean whispered. “I sleep at his end of the longhouse. All night long, I have
to listen to him whispering to that rotting head. It singes my backbone!”
“What does he say?” Loon asked.
“Mostly he makes threats. Can you imagine? Threatening a dead man?”
“Many of the men in my longhouse fear he’s lost his souls. They say that unless he has fifty warriors around him, he shrieks when a finch chirps.”
“He’s always been odd. When he was a child, he used to knock out his playmates’ teeth and carry them in his pocket, to gain power over their souls. Keeping this rotting head is probably the same …”
Their voices faded as they climbed higher up the hill.
Wren stood, barely breathing. The wavering gleam from Uncle Blue Raven’s fire had turned the shadows slippery and liquid. More people followed Bogbean and Loon, speaking quietly. It took forever for all of them to pass.
When the last one had climbed to the top of the hill, Wren leaned from behind the boulder, and looked around. She’d seen the bloody boy down here, and the darker it got, the more her fear increased. But she had to do this.
She ran down the trail toward the lake.
Uncle Blue Raven’s fire flared as he tossed another piece of wood onto the blaze. He yawned, and stretched out on his side, pillowing his head on his arm. His eyes fell closed almost immediately.
But Wren waited. Even if he woke, the flames should blind him to her movements, but she dared not take chances.
Wren laced her hood tightly beneath her chin, and started sliding across the snow. She could feel every hair on the inside of her wolfhide mittens. Like tiny fangs, they nipped at her fingers.
A hundred hands away, Rumbler lay on his back, gazing up at the Cloud Giants who hunted the darkening heavens. Their gleaming bodies billowed, changing shape, as they stalked the owls and other night birds.
Pipe Stem Lake had turned into a sea of winking silver eyes. Waves splashed the beach. Wren slid closer to Rumbler. When she got to within twenty hands, she whispered, “Rumbler?”
He lifted his head. “Wren?”
“Shh!”
Her white fox-fur cape made her almost invisible, but she glanced at her sleeping uncle, then back at the trail, before slithering toward Rumbler. “I’m sorry it took me so long, Rumbler. There were people fishing on the lake. I had to make sure no one saw me.” She opened her cape and drew out her pack.
The aroma of meat seemed to strike Rumbler like a physical blow. He trembled all over. “What did you b-bring me?”
Wren lifted out a thin slice of roasted goose and Rumbler opened his mouth. She fed him three slices, then rummaged in her pack for a skin bag. “Here,” she said as she tipped one corner to Rumbler’s lips, “this is snowberry leaf tea. It was hot when I left the longhouse.”
Rumbler drank the sweet liquid with his eyes closed. The faintest trace of warmth clung to the tea, and it steamed in the frigid air.
Chunks of ice dotted his chin-length hair. The snow must have melted on his head earlier in the day, and the water frozen as night deepened. His beautiful round face
had gone hollow and clay-colored. His cheekbones stuck out like a corpse’s.
For a moment, her souls refused to see.
“Rumbler? Are you all right?” she asked as she tucked the empty bag beneath her cape.
Tears blurred his eyes, but he did not seem to have the strength to blink them away.
“All of my echoes have died,” he said. “All of them. My mother’s heartbeat, Grandmother Tail’s laughter, even S-Stonecoat’s bark, they are all gone. Wren, I—I have to catch a bird. Will you help me catch a bird?”
She studied his face. He couldn’t keep his eyes still, they kept sliding and jerking back, trying to stay on her. “I’ll help you, Rumbler.”
Wren spread one side of her fox cape over him, and hugged him against her. He shivered harder, his body twitching and jerking.
“Rumbler,” she said. “I’ve been looking for your mother. Every day, just as I promised. Either she hasn’t come, or she won’t show herself to me, but I haven’t given up. I—”
Rumbler’s mouth opened to the stars and night, and he cried, but no sounds came out.
“Maybe your mother’s echo is just so faint you can’t hear it over the wind, Rumbler. You know how loud Wind Mother’s been for the past quarter moon. All she does is howl through the forests.”
He tugged at his ropes.
Wren pulled off her right mitten, looked at his bound hands where they lay above his head, and grasped hold of them. They felt swollen and icy cold.
“Rumbler?” Wren said, fear edging her voice. “Your hands. Are they—”
“I can’t f-feel them.”
Wren sat up, and swiftly massaged his stubby fingers. “How about now?”
He shook his head.
Wren held his hand more tightly. She’d seen people with frostbite. The frozen fingers turned black and had to be cut off to save the rest of the hand. Sometimes the Shadow Spirits started feeding on the dead flesh, and the person lost his arm.
“Wren, I need to … to …” He went quiet, as if he couldn’t remember what he’d been about to say. After several instants, he repeated, “Wren, I have to catch a bird. Will you help me catch a bird?”
“Yes, I will, Rumbler,” she choked out.
He smiled. “You are my friend.”
The struggle drained from Rumbler’s eyes, and his head lolled to the side.
“Oh, Rumbler—”
“Look,” he said, barely audible. “Do you see him?”
Wren forced her neck around.
Starlight had turned the snow a pale blue. She searched every drift and cornice, then the dark tree line and sparkling shore. The snow crept and spun. “Who, Rumbler?”
“He’s been coming to me every night. Singing. He—he Sings to me.”
The frozen ground beneath Wren’s feet melted to quicksand. Her knees went wobbly. “Who? Who does?”
Rumbler’s eyelids drooped, then flared, as if he wanted to keep looking at her, but couldn’t. “He wants me to go now, Wren. I have to go … with him.”
Wren frantically looked around again. “Who, Rumbler? Who is he? Is it the—the bloody little boy?”
He closed his eyes and his muscles relaxed.
“Rumbler?” Panic fired her blood. “Rumbler, you’re not dying, are you?”
Wren put her hand on his chest to check his breathing. She couldn’t feel anything! She gripped him by the shirtfront and rolled him to his side. He flopped over like a string doll.
“Rumbler, no!” She tugged hard at his bound hands, then scrambled around to pull on his feet.
… Something broke inside her.
Wren jerked her knife from her belt and sawed through his ropes as fast as she could.