QUILLER
Quiller, hand him to me. You’re very tired, and it’s my turn to carry him again.”
I lift Jawbone into RabbitEar’s arms. I have slowed to a stumbling walk as we near the trail that slants down toward Sky Ice Village. “Be careful. Don’t run so fast that you hurt him. He’s completely limp.”
“I’ll be gentle,” he says in understanding. “Come when you can.”
While I watch him sprint away with Jawbone bouncing over his shoulder, I remain in the trail like a carved wooden statue. Unfeeling. Just watching him put distance between us.
Everything seems to be moving more and more slowly. The clouds have frozen in place over my head. The zyme barely rises and falls on the distant waves. Even the Ice Giants have gone quiet, as though out of respect for my loss.
My gaze instinctively seeks out the high point in the distance where two warriors stand guard night and day, and I try to recognize the closest man just from the way he braces his feet and carries his spear. Mink, maybe.
Filling my lungs, I breathe out slowly.
If I don’t go down to the village, I’ll never have to hear Hoodwink’s verdict. I can remain suspended in this numb state of uncertainty forever. Why do I so long for that? Is not knowing better? Once RabbitEar and I accept the truth, we can begin building the burial scaffold while the village women wash our son’s body and dress him in his best clothing. Then we can carry him up to the high point where the scaffold stands. It will be covered with soft buffalo hides and decorated with brightly painted ribbons that flutter in the sea breezes. Together, RabbitEar and I will lay our son to rest where he can look up at the campfires of the dead. The entire village will gather around him to sing his soul to the villages of the ancestors.
Jawbone will never again be cold or hungry. And he’ll be greatly loved. My son will be all right.
Then why can’t I let him go?
Mink shouts to me and abandons his guard post. I watch him charging across the tundra toward me with his long cape flapping behind him.
Suddenly, the clouds begin to move again, drifting eastward, pushed by the sea wind, and the Ice Giants awaken. When they stretch, the ground beneath my feet quakes. Waves crash across the shore below . . .
If only I could believe in an afterlife. Unfortunately, I’m a warrior. I’ve witnessed far too much death and destruction, and I know the next moon will bring the death of my soul, for I will be condemned to watch my husband sitting beneath the scaffold, watching his son’s body decay while he tears himself apart with guilt.
A commotion breaks out in Sky Ice Village when RabbitEar pounds down the cliff trail and into the village plaza. People drop whatever they’re doing and race toward him. My guilt is magnified a thousand-fold when my three little girls duck beneath the flap of Gray Dove’s lodge and run toward their father.
Little Fawn screams, “Jawbone!” and it shivers the blood in my veins.
How could I have allowed RabbitEar to face this alone?
I gird myself and run hard, forcing all emotion from my thoughts. I must be able to think straight when I get there. Someone has to answer all the questions. Someone has to make the decisions.
Mink meets me halfway there, shouting, “Quiller? What happened?”
I stop and manage to say, “Jawbone fell off the quest cliff.”
Mink’s dark eyes go wide. “Is he alive? I saw RabbitEar carrying—”
“Of course he’s alive,” I say a little too stridently.
Mink grabs my shoulder, forcing me to stare into his eyes. Long black hair blows around his face. Mink is a father of two sons. “Does RabbitEar think he’s alive?”
Wearily shaking my head, I look away from him. “No, I . . . I don’t think so, but . . . Mink, I have to get down there to help RabbitEar. I shouldn’t have let him enter the village alone. My girls need me.”
“I’ll go with you.” He releases my shoulder.
When I break into a run, Mink is right there beside me, shoulder to shoulder, just in case I need him.
By the time we’re halfway down the trail, people are streaming out of lodges, running for RabbitEar, who has rested Jawbone on one of the buffalo hides around the central bonfire. Lying on his back with his legs akimbo, my son looks pale and broken. His lips are blue.
What is it inside me that insists he’s still alive? He can’t look like that and be alive. But something inside me insists that I saved him once, three summers ago when his village was destroyed by lions, and I can save him again. I must save him.
“Father?” Little Fawn tugs on RabbitEar’s sleeve. “What happened to Jawbone?”
RabbitEar crushes his daughter to his chest with one arm and opens the other arm so that Loon and Chickadee can run to him. As he kisses their blond heads, he says something soft that I cannot hear.
At the far end of the village, Elder Hoodwink ducks from his lodge, clutching the knob of his walking stick. He scans the gathering, then lifts his gaze to watch me and Mink trotting down the trail into the plaza.
Within heartbeats, RabbitEar is surrounded by people calling questions. He ignores them all and shouts, “Elder Hoodwink? Please, hurry? Jawbone fell!”
Hoodwink hobbles forward as fast as he can, shoulders through the murmuring assembly. When he kneels beside RabbitEar to bend over Jawbone, gray hair swings around his face. “Please, give me some room.”
My daughters cry out, “Mother!” in unison and run to grab me around the legs and waist.
“Mother?” Little Fawn cries. “Is Jawbone going to be all right?”
“Why won’t Jawbone wake up?” Loon asks.
The youngest, Chickadee, just gazes up with tears streaming down her face.
I pet their hair. “He fell off the quest wall into a deep snowdrift. Hush now, Elder Hoodwink must be able to hear your father.”
Hoodwink lays his walking stick aside and quietly runs his hands over Jawbone’s skull, arms, and legs, then lifts the boy’s drenched shirt to probe the ribcage. A mystified expression comes over his elderly face. He grabs Jawbone’s wrist and simultaneously bends down to place his ear against our son’s lips. After a few moments of listening, Hoodwink straightens and sits back.
Before he can pronounce our son dead, I shout, “His soul is loose, but I feel it nearby. Can you bring it back?”
All the kindness in the world fills Hoodwink’s eyes. “If it’s close, I’ll find it,” he says and turns to RabbitEar. “Why don’t you strip him out of these wet clothes and swaddle him in a fire-warmed hide while I fetch my healer’s bag.”
“Yes, elder.”
Mink crouches beside RabbitEar. “I’ll help you.”
“Thank you, Mink.”
RabbitEar and Mink work on different arms, tugging Jawbone’s shirt over his head. As they work, the tiny, gray soapstone sculpture of a buffalo falls out and bounces across the floor. RabbitEar picks it up, and a sob catches in his throat.
“Quiller, could you come with me, please?” Hoodwink grabs his walking stick and grunts as he shoves to his feet. “It would help if you could carry my heavy bag.”
“Of course, elder.”
Elder Stone Bowl and Elder Crystal Leaf trail behind us, but the rest of the village crowds around Jawbone where he blindly stares at the cave ceiling with half-open eyes.
When we’ve walked twenty paces away, Hoodwink quietly asks, “Can you tell me how long your son’s soul has been gone?”
“I pulled him from the drift before dawn this morning, elder. I don’t know exactly when he fell, but the blizzard had been raging for long enough that huge drifts had built up at the base of the cliff. I could see the tunnel his falling body made as it knocked a hole in the snow.”
As though confused, Hoodwink frowns. “But the blizzard didn’t get bad until well after nightfall.”
“Yes, I know. For some reason, and I can’t imagine why, he must have tried to climb the quest trail in the middle of the night.”
Propping his walking stick, Hoodwink halts and motions for Elder Stone Bowl and Elder Crystal Leaf to join our small circle. They hurry forward, and Hoodwink whispers, “Can you guess how high Jawbone was when he fell?”
“Maybe five hundred hand-lengths above the shore?”
Stone Bowl and Crystal Leaf stiffen. Tears fill Stone Bowl’s eyes.
Hoodwink glances at them, then lightly shakes his head. “It makes no sense. The boy appears dead, but—”
“He’s not dead!” I stubbornly say.
“He may not be.” Elder Crystal Leaf folds her stick-like arms over her chest. “Little Gull fell from a much lower height and his skull was shattered. Why isn’t Jawbone’s?”
“Yes. It’s very curious,” Hoodwink agrees.
“Does the boy have any broken bones?” Stone Bowl asks.
“No.” I shake my head. “Not that I could find. I think the big snowdrift cushioned his fall.”
Crystal Leaf softly says, “Perhaps. Doesn’t seem possible, but . . .”
Stone Bowl says, “Even if the drift cushioned his bones, the boy could still have a split liver or pulverized lungs. He may have bled to death inside and would show no signs, except bloodless flesh.”
“His flesh is blue.” Hoodwink clutches his walking stick. “But he was lying in a drift for many hands of time.”
I shift to brace my knees. Though I’ve thought about all of these things, hearing them from the mouths of respected elders makes them somehow more real.
By the fire, I see RabbitEar disintegrate. He’s always been a tower of strength, but now he seems to be shaking apart. When he gathers the girls into his arms, a sob escapes his lips.
I square my shoulders. I have to be able to bear this. One of us has to bear this.
Hoodwink must have noticed my gaze, for he places a hand on my forearm and gives it a comforting squeeze. “Thank you, Quiller, for speaking with us. Please go back to be with your husband. He needs you more than I do. Crystal Leaf and Stone Bowl will help me carry my things.”