QUILLER
Lying on my side with my back pressed tight against the stone wall, I feel RabbitEar move. When he edges forward, I blink at the brilliant zyme light wavering over the roof above me like green flames. The predawn air is filled with the soft roar of ocean waves, the birdlike chirping of Ice Giants, and the feral musky urine of lions.
“Careful,” I say. “They could be bedded down waiting for us.”
“I’ll let you know soon enough.”
RabbitEar cautiously slides forward on his belly. I stay put, afraid that he’s going to come rushing back at any moment.
When he reaches the opening, he sticks his head out to listen. Lions post sentinels to keep watch while the pride sleeps. If the sentinels spot him, we’ll hear soft growls, then the pride rising to its feet and stretching awake in the freezing wind.
RabbitEar slides out with his spear gripped in his fist and silently gets to his feet. All I see now are his lower legs silhouetted against fluorescent zyme hillocks that rise and fall on endless waves.
He walks out of my sight. I remain motionless, just listening, waiting for him to tell me if it’s safe to come out.
It takes another twenty heartbeats before he calls, “They’re gone, Quiller.”
Grabbing my spear, I work my way forward on my belly, eager to escape this cramped shelter. At the mouth, I see the deep grooves in the sandstone. They dug hard, even after they hit solid rock.
After I stand up, I sniff the pungent wind. “They must have spent half the night urinating around our shelter.”
“Marking their territory, telling the dire wolves and short-faced bears to stay away from their trapped prey.”
“Which means they’ll be back later to see if we’re still hiding beneath the ledge. We’d best find better shelter before that happens.”
“Agreed.”
Two of the brightest campfires of the dead glitter on the western horizon. RabbitEar glances at them, then turns to face the quest wall that rises into the sky like a luminous jade-hued monster. The handholds and footholds are still filled and smoothed over with windblown snow, but the cracks that hold the children’s camps are black ovals.
My gaze clings to them. There’s no sign of life, not even the soft red glow of a fire burned down to coals. RabbitEar has his head tilted far back, as though he’s scanning the rim, praying to see a little boy standing up there waving to him.
Mounting agony encompasses my body. I clench my fist around my spear. “I think you were digging in the wrong place last night.”
“Tell me where to dig, and I’ll do it.”
My gaze locates the place where the trail must run between the second and third camps, then I calculate the drop point. My chin gradually lowers until I’m staring at the massive drift at the base of the cliff where our son’s body would have landed. The sea wind has sculpted and molded the drifts into flowing curves twenty times the height of a man.
“There.” I draw a line with my finger. “Somewhere in there.”
RabbitEar heaves an agonized breath. “All right. Could you make breakfast while I get started?”
“Yes.”
He trots toward the cliff.
In the meantime, I force my legs to take me to the ocean’s edge, where dead clumps of zyme and sticks of driftwood lie upon the wave-scoured sand. I collect firewood until my arm is full. Searching the shore for a place sheltered from the prevailing wind, I spy a curious wind-hollowed drift near where RabbitEar digs snow.
“Take me home, Mother. Please, take me home.”
Despair beyond anything I’ve ever known fills my chest.
Many summers from now, when I’m spearing fish, or netting snowshoe hares, I’ll find myself looking down into Jawbone’s terrified blue eyes, begging me to help him, and I’ll remember that I killed my son. No one else. I could have reached down, taken his hand, and walked him back home.
Guilt is a finely honed knife. It carves and shapes the soul. I have the feeling mine is just beginning to feel the blade.
I force my legs to walk toward the wind-hollowed drift; it has a curious circular shape, open to the north, looking up the shoreline. Kneeling in the drift’s shadow, I dump my armload of driftwood and arrange the larger sticks, then I pile small twigs inside atop the clump of dead zyme, and open my belt pouch to draw out my fire-sticks.
Three paces away, RabbitEar scoops snow with his hands and throws it aside. The windborne white haze that surrounds him makes him resemble a ghostly apparition engaged in some strange burial ritual.
While I spin my hardwood dowel in the punky stick, I listen to the sounds my husband makes. RabbitEar digs snow as fast as he can. He must be feeling the same half-fright, half-desperation that I am, wondering if it would be wiser to run home, assemble the entire village, and return with more hands to search for Jawbone. In the end, it would take less time. But the truth is, wisdom plays no part now. Neither of us is going to leave here until we know for sure what happened to our son.
When red coals glow in the punky stick, I tuck it inside the driftwood tent and tap them out over the dead zyme and twigs, then carefully blow until the zyme catches and tiny flames lick up through the tinder. The firelight is weak and frail, but I can see the circular drift better now. It’s so oddly shaped, I wonder if days ago the lions buried a carcass here. Is that why the pride returned last night—to dig it up and carry it off to eat? Absently, I examine the floor searching for claw marks, but don’t see any.
I add more twigs to the fire. The larger sticks catch and began to burn in earnest. Chunks of ice litter the ground, as though they fell from a great height and shattered on this spot. As soon as the fire really gets going, I’ll pull my boiling bag from my pack and toss a couple of the chunks inside to melt for tundra wildflower tea.
Blessed spirits, it’s cold this morning. Rubbing my freezing arms, I notice a dark discoloration to my right. It’s a faint shadow in the snowdrift. The shadow cuts a straight vertical line about eight hands wide down through the drift. Bending my head back, I try to chart its course. It’s as if something, maybe a boulder, fell from the rim and knocked a hole through the drift all the way to the ground.
My gaze traces the shadow down to where the drift meets the sand, and I frown at the tan object hidden in the firelit snow. Could simply be a dead animal the lions buried . . .
“RabbitEar! Gods, no! RabbitEar!”
Scrambling to my hands and knees, I lunge forward and thrust my hand into the drift. As I close my fingers around the object, I realize it’s a small arm.
“NO!” I shout.
“What is it?” RabbitEar screams as he rushes toward me.
It takes all of my strength to tug my son out of the drift and drag him onto my lap. By that time, I’m breathing hard, staring wide-eyed down at his bluish face wavering in the firelight. His eyes are half closed, his blond hair frozen solid.
RabbitEar’s boots pound across the shore.
Then there’s a dreadful moment of silence.
“NoNoNoNo!” He sobs the words as he drops to his knees beside me, pulls his son from my arms and lays him on the ground. “Did you check to see if he’s breathing?”
“No. I—I . . .”
RabbitEar places his ear against Jawbone’s chest. “He’s not breathing.”
“Heart—heartbeat?”
With his ear still to Jawbone’s chest, he grabs our son’s wrist and waits with desperation in his eyes.
At the same time, I reach down to place my fingers against the big artery in Jawbone’s throat. “I don’t feel—”
“It could just be really faint. Maybe we should . . .”
My ears don’t hear him anymore. There is only the thunder in my chest. Slumping back against the drift, I concentrate on the sound of air stuttering in and out of my lungs.
“Let’s go!” I order and gather our son into my arms.
“Go?” he asks in confusion. “Where?”
As I stagger to my feet, I gently shift Jawbone to carry his stiff body over my left shoulder. “We have to get him home right now.”
“H-home?” RabbitEar’s eyes are eerie reflections of zyme light bouncing off the cliff. “Right now? Why?”
“So Elder Hoodwink can bring his soul back to his body.”
“Back? But Quiller, he’s—”
“No!” I shake my head angrily. “That’s not true! You don’t know that! This could just be one of his spells. He always looks dead when he has a spell.”
RabbitEar shakes his head like a fawn struck in the head by a rock. “His soul is already on the way to the Land of the Dead. All we can do—”
In a booming voice, I shout, “This is just a spell! That’s why he fell, and that’s why he’s not awake now. We must get him home so Hoodwink can call his soul back to his body.”
RabbitEar weakly rises and stares at me, bewildered. I know he loved Jawbone. I’ve never seen a man love a child so deeply, so I’m stunned when he says, “This is madness. You’re a warrior. You’ve seen death many times over. How can you not see it now?”
“He’s alive, RabbitEar! I know he is!”
“No, Quiller,” he says softly. “We must carry him home and build a burial scaffold.”
“Don’t you dare tell me my son is dead! He . . . he’s not dead.” I clutch Jawbone’s body in trembling arms, and see a familiar blend of desperation and sympathy in my husband’s eyes.
“I know this is hard, Quiller. It’s killing me, too, but we must—”
“Stop it! He’s a special child, touched by spirit power. You know it as well as I do. He—he’s gone, but he’s coming back to us.”
He stares at me dumbly, unable to find more words.
“He’s coming back!” I repeat and wait for him to nod or agree, to give me hope.
Finally, he says, “Yes, Jawbone is touched by spirit power. Let’s get him home to Hoodwink. We can take turns carrying him. Why don’t you let me start?”
He reaches out and I reluctantly transfer my son’s body into his muscular arms.
Then I turn and take off at a dead run for the trail that leads back to Sky Ice Village.