Thirty-five

Blue Dove

Shouting wakes me, but I can’t seem to open my eyes. Lightning bolts of cramps lance through me. I’m sweating, my hands trembling. The cramps are so intense I feel as if I’m being flayed alive. What’s wrong with me? I fight to scream, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t move or speak. It takes twenty heartbeats of struggling to pry my eyes open enough that I can see the pithouse in the orange haze. Dark shapes move around me, but I can’t see them very well.

“There’s nothing I can do,” Mother Mazanita says, and a wavering black splotch leans down close to my face. Eyes shine in the middle of that darkness. “It’s killing her.”

“How did this happen?” Wasp Moth asks.

“She must have lifted her hands in the night to use them as a pillow and accidentally rested her head on the old bag.”

Is that what the lump is? I have to move! But I can’t!

“You’re a fool, old woman. This is no accident. The bag waited until she was asleep, then it crept up there by itself and wiggled under her ear.”

“Gods!” Weevil cries. “How are we going to get it out? Will it kill us if we touch it?”

Mother Mazanita’s face fades, moving away from me as she straightens up. “I’m sure it will try.”

Wasp Moth orders, “You’re supposed to be a Powerful shaman. Reach down and pull it out!”

Mother Mazanita backs away. “I’m not touching that thing. The monstrous old witch who inhabits that bag is far more Powerful than I will ever be. She’ll swat me like a buffalo gnat.”

My vision clears slightly, and I can see legs shifting back and forth, as though no one knows what to do next.

Wasp Moth orders, “Iron Dog, pull a stick from the woodpile and try to drag the bag from under her head.”

“Don’t be an idiot. This has nothing to do with the pot. She’s diseased! She probably caught the plague from WhiteBark Village. I’m not going anywhere near her.”

“You mutinous maggot, as soon as I have a chance I’m going to crack your skull with my club!”

“Try it,” Iron Dog says in a low threatening voice. “If you’re too much of a coward to drag out the bag, why don’t you make Weevil do it? He’s low man here.”

Wasp Moth stomps over to stand directly in front of me. I can make out the lower half of his body, enough to see him pull his club from his belt and clutch it in a hard fist. “Do it, Weevil.”

There’s a moment of tense silence, then Weevil says, “This is ludicrous. Why do I have to do it?”

Wasp Moth takes a new grip on his war club.

“Oh, dear gods! All right.” Weevil tiptoes across the floor.

The ugly warrior pulls a branch from the woodpile and comes forward to crouch in front of my face. I see the stick loom toward me and feel the bag tug slightly. I can’t see it, but a portion of the bag must be exposed beneath my right eye.

“Pull harder,” Wasp Moth orders.

“I’m pulling as hard as I can! I think it’s stuck to her head.”

“It’s probably grabbed onto her hair,” Mother Mazanita says.

“Well how am I supposed to get it loose?”

Mother Mazanita scratches her wrinkled throat while she thinks about it. “Hit it with the stick. Maybe it’ll let go.”

Wasp Moth backs up, getting as far away as he can.

I see Iron Dog prop his hands on his hips and shake his head in disbelief.

“This is not a good idea,” Weevil complains, but he lifts the stick and repeatedly slams the bag right in front of my eye.

With each blow, my vision clears a little more, but agonizing cramps lance through me. An eerie wail, like a ghost keening through a graveyard, seeps from my mouth.

“I told you!” Weevil shrieks, throws down the branch, and charges over to where Wasp Moth and Iron Dog discuss the situation in hushed voices. I see their bodies swaying in the fire’s glow.

Mother Mazanita goes over to stand in the warriors’ circle. After surveying the men’s faces, she says, “Maybe you should set fire to it.”

“Fire?” Wasp Moth frowns. “Do you think that’s wise?”

“Might force the bag to let go.”

Iron Dog mulls the idea for a few seconds. “Kind of like holding a burning twig to a tick that’s dug in.”

“Exactly. You’ll have to be careful not to set fire to the Blessed daughter’s eyelashes or hair, of course.”

The imbeciles! My limbs start jerking spastically, as if trying to run away.

“What’s happening to her?” Weevil sneaks closer to peer down at me. His facial tattoo scrunches up. “She’s squirming like somebody has hands clamped around her throat. Is the dead witch choking her to death?”

Mother Mazanita says. “Better set fire to it fast, before—”

“Blessed Spirits,” a deep, annoyed voice comes from somewhere behind me, and I hear feet pad across the floor.

The albino quietly kneels in front of me. “Shhh,” he whispers and extends a pale hand to stroke the bag. Carefully he unties the laces from my limp wrist, eases the bag from beneath my head. “This is mine now. I’m taking it.”

Everyone but me nods enthusiastically.

As the albino rises and walks away, my pain vanishes, but I’m so exhausted I barely have the strength to roll onto my back and stare up at the clouds scudding across the roof entry. Above the top rung, veils of windblown rain gust and spin.

“All right,” Mother Mazanita says. “Now listen, I’m going to boil you a pot of mush for breakfast, then I want you out of my house.” She pauses to take a breath. “You’re a scary bunch.”

Wasp Moth answers, “We’ll stay as long as the Blessed daughter tells us to, old woman. And if I were you, I wouldn’t object.”