Thirty-one

Tsilu

Astonished, my mouth hanging open, I try to think of something to say. “Then … you’re my grandfather? My real grandfather.”

“Only by blood. Tocho is far more your grandfather than I will ever be. He was there when you needed him most. I was not. Neither was your father.”

Wind batters our ridge-top camp, thrashing through the trees like a wild beast on a rampage. Must be a storm coming. While I allow this news to seep through me, I look northward at the dark wall of clouds that boils high into the night sky, blotting out the Star Road. Could be rain, but I fear it’s snow. Either way, by midnight, we’ll be shivering.

Crane looks tired and frightened. He pulls his black hood up and holds it beneath his chin to keep the wind from jerking it away.

If this man is my grandfather, he’s the only true member of my family I have ever met. And I have a father.

I have a father. Somewhere out there. A man who is feared and despised, as well as considered a hero by many.

This news changes everything. But I’m not sure how yet.

“No one knows that, Tsilu. If you repeat what I just told you, you could kill our entire family, and there aren’t many of us left. Over the years, we have gone to great efforts to make sure no one knows our real story. People have fragments, but they’ve confused them, mixed them up. Some of the fragments you’ve heard about Maicoh are actually about me. The reverse is also true. We have cultivated that confusion.”

There’s a question that has plagued me my whole life, but now, when I have a chance to find the answer, I’m afraid to ask.

Finally, I work up the courage. “Is my mother really dead? So many times I’ve dreamed that she’s alive and searching for me, and I knew that someday she would find me—”

“She’s dead.” Sadness tightens his eyes, as though it hurts him that I’ve spent my life hoping for that. “The flashes of memory you saw, so far as I know, are correct. That’s what happened.”

More pieces of my life. A rush of elation warms my veins, momentarily diminishing the wrenching despair. “Did you carry my dead body to Grandfather?”

“No. Your father did that.”

“And was I truly dead?”

Crane leans forward, and the firelight illuminates his face. It looks waxy and yellow, as though all of his life’s blood has drained away. “My son believed you were. More than that, I don’t know.”

I need time to come to terms with this fact. Since I was a little girl, I’ve felt disconnected, like I am somehow stranded in this world. Half here, half somewhere else. Just a lonely ghost traveling among the condemned, not able to live in this world, not able to go on to the Land of the Dead. I thought it was just because I was an odd orphan who had trouble making friends.

“Crosswind told me that my … my breath-heart soul was in the Land of the—”

“And it scared you, didn’t it?” Rage strains his sallow face.

“Yes.”

“That’s why he said it. People think a witch’s power is all supernatural allies, spells, and incantations, but for the most part, witches use distraction and deceit to kill.”

Distraction and deceit. I must remember this.

“Tsilu? Please listen to me. This is very important. Your father is always at risk. I don’t want him to expose himself unnecessarily to get the information he needs to rid the world of evil, so I, and other people, help him. Do you understand?”

“And that’s why some think you are Maicoh?”

“That’s right.”

Licking my lips, I consider what that means for me, his daughter. “How many people know who I am?”

“As of tonight? Four, including you, and we must do everything we can to keep it that way.”

I’m wondering … thinking back …

“Elder—Grandfather, may I ask one more question?”

He smiles faintly. “Please save that title for Tocho. He’s earned it. You can call me Crane. Go on. What’s your question?”

“At the council meeting in OwlClaw Village, Kwinsi said he hadn’t seen you in thirty-five summers. What did he mean?”

“Ah…” he says and leans back. As he tightens his hold on his hood, he draws the black leather close around his face, and his skin looks ghostly pale. “I knew, at some point, you’d ask me that.”

“What did you decide to tell me?”

Crane pauses—as though still deciding—and pulls two sticks from the woodpile, which he uses as tongs to lift hot rocks from the fire and drop one into the teapot, another into the stewpot hanging from the tripod. Steam explodes, and glistening veils rise into the firelight.

To help him decide, I say, “When I talked with Kwinsi later that afternoon, he did not remember the event at all.”

“No, he wouldn’t have.” He shakes his head. “It was his first time with her, and it must have been overwhelming for him. I’m surprised he made any sense at all that day.”

I think back to that afternoon by the river when he told me I was pretty. “Kwinsi told me he’d seen his death. She had showed it to him.”

Crane’s gaze lifts, and respect and admiration etch his features. “Then he was a very brave man. He knew what would happen if he came along on this journey, but he came anyway. She must have felt it was necessary to tell him, so he could make the decis—”

“Are we talking about Nightshade?”

Crane rubs his left palm on his cape, as though it’s suddenly gone clammy. “Yes. You see, when Kwinsi entered the council pithouse, he was carrying Nightshade’s soul pot.”

I’m stunned. “He was?”

“Yes. It wasn’t Kwinsi who said he hadn’t seen me in thirty-five summers. It was Nightshade. I met her when I was twelve, and I remember every instant of that astonishing encounter. She knelt down, looked into my eyes, and told me that one day my selfishness would kill my souls. I was terrified.”

My spine slowly straightens. “And that’s why you thought Kwinsi had the pot in his pack?”

“Yes.” Crane gestures to it where it rests on the ground to my left. “I’m still not sure it isn’t there.”

The star-silvered pack seems to have heard him. It glows brighter, beckoning one of us to drag it over and look inside.

It takes a moment before I can convince my hand to reach for it. As I pull the pack into my lap, it feels wrong. Like a violation. This does not belong to me. It belongs to my dead friend. Before I untie the laces, I let my soul drift through the air, trying to ask Kwinsi if he minds … but I sense no response now. He really is gone, on his way to the Land of the Dead.

“I guess it’ll be all right.”

As I work the knots loose, the leather laces are icy cold against my fingers.

Crane slides across the ground, getting closer to me so he can peer inside the pack the instant I open it.

Taking a deep breath, I untie the last knot and use my hands to spread the pack open. A folded shirt, old and frayed, with faded yellow designs, is revealed in the firelight. Gently, I lift it out and rest it on the ground at my side. Before I return to sorting the pack, I lay a hand on the shirt and lovingly stroke it. I miss you so much.

“What’s that?” Crane says and points.

Also inside the pack are several small bags and something carefully wrapped in thick cloth. I lift a blue bag to my nose and sniff it. “Dried mint.” Placing it on top of the shirt, I reach for the next bag, which rattles.

Just from the sound, Crane says, “Pine nuts. What’s wrapped in the red cloth?”

“Don’t know.” Pulling it out, I can tell that whatever’s inside is fragile and precious. “It’s thickly wrapped.”

I set the pack aside and rest the fabric wrapping on my cape. When I begin unrolling it, I hear voices. Tiny, tiny voices. High-pitched. Whimpers, maybe. The same voices I heard in the old storage room that rainy night at GoingBuck Village.

It takes me a while to reveal what’s inside. When I unroll the last layer of cloth and they appear, Crane lets out a sharp cry and scrambles backward, breathing hard. His black eyes are huge.

I don’t know why he’s afraid of them, or maybe he’s just stunned to see them. They are beautiful. Four perfectly sculpted clay figurines about the length of my palm—and they know my name. Each calls to me in a sweet bell-like voice, turning my name into an unearthly musical chime. Their voices make me feel as though I’ve just been swaddled in a fire-warmed blanket. Suddenly, I know I’m loved and safe.

“Are they speaking to you?” Crane asks in a hoarse whisper.

I can’t answer.

Far back in my soul, in a place inside me that I have walled off, I see them. The figurines stand on a shelf in our house. Mother is there, smiling at me where I curl on my side on the soft sheep hide by the fire, watching my older brother and three sisters play around me. I’m so happy to see them again.

When I lift the first figurine, it sobs, and I know it’s glad to see me. My hand shakes with the force of the figurine’s wrenching emotion.

“It’s all right,” I softly say and pet the figurine. “I haven’t forgotten you either.”