Shadows Cast by Stars (34 page)

She looks up at me. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I smile. “Not today.”

She takes the onions from me. “See them often?”

“What? Ghosts?” I shake my head. “No. Just people’s shades. Ghosts are Paul’s thing.”

“Hrumph,” she grunts as she halves an onion and drops it into a pot. “Now, let’s see.” She glances at the mess on the counter. “I need some garlic. Got any out there?”

“I think so. I’ll go check.”

A driftwood fence is the only thing that separates the back garden from the salmonberries creeping in from the forest, and they’ve decided a little driftwood isn’t going to
stop them. I make a mental note to tackle them tomorrow before they run riot.

Garlic flowers twist like tormented swans at the far end of the fence. I rip one from the ground and the air blooms with sharpness. The bulb’s still a little small so I pull a second, straightening up just as a bat darts close to my head. A bat.
I haven’t seen one of those in ages
, I think, as it dips and weaves its way toward the forest, veering off just before it hits … a dzoonokwa. I rub my eyes, and blink. Yes, she’s there, almost hidden in the twilight shadows. I can just make out her bloodshot eyes and the flecks of spittle at the corners of her enormous lips. Gnarled knots of hair fall over her shoulders. A bark skirt hangs at her hips. She takes a step forward and in a rasping voice calls,
Hoo, hoo
.

I cannot move. My legs are clay; my tongue, gone. My hand pulls the pouch that holds the sisiutl’s pearls out from under my shirt and some small part of my brain has the wherewithal to hold it up so the dzoonokwa can see it.

She cocks her head, considering the pouch, and then takes another step forward. Another dzoonokwa joins her, and then, another.

“What do you want?” I whisper. “What do you want from me?”

“Cassandra?” Ms. Adelaide’s voice floats out of an open window. “You okay out there?”

“No,” I say. “Close the window and bar the door.”

“What?”

“Just do it.” My voice trembles. “There are three dzoonokwa standing at the edge of the forest, watching me.”

“Cassandra, come inside,” she says. “Just walk away like you never saw them.”

“No.” My voice stops trembling. My hands stop shaking. I hop the driftwood fence, garlic bulbs in hand, and walk toward the dzoonokwa. They murmur and mumble as I approach. My heart flutters in my chest. Which heartbeat will be its last?

The first dzoonokwa snarls as she fishes something out of a basket on her back.

How will they kill me? With their hands, like they did Madda? With a club hidden in that basket? Will they wait for me to stop breathing before they begin to gnaw on my bones? The dzoonokwa straightens up and howls. The others join in. Then they fall silent as the first one lobs something into the air. When it falls at my feet, they turn and run into the forest, the darkness swallowing them whole.

My heart thuds against my breastbone as I scan the trees and wait for them to return, but they don’t. My teeth have started to chatter, and only then do I realize just how scared I actually am.

Grass rustles behind me and then a hand falls on my shoulder. “Girl, whatever possessed you to do that?” Ms. Adelaide says.

I can’t answer.

“Damn stupid girl,” she mutters, shaking her head. “The stupidest and bravest thing I ever saw. Take that damn bundle they left you and let’s get inside.”

“The garlic,” I say, holding up the tiny bulbs.

She laughs. “The garlic? You come face-to-face with three dzoonokwa and all you can think about is garlic? Clearly we need to get some food inside you, because you’ve gone crazy.” With that, she steers me back into the safety of the cottage.

Once we’re inside, with the door locked and the windows shuttered, Ms. Adelaide sits me down and goes back to what she was doing as if nothing happened. The bundle rests on the table before me. Cedar bark, bound by rotting string, covers it. I close my eyes so I don’t have to look at it, and listen to the clank of Ms. Adelaide setting the stew pot on the cookstove, the pop of a cork being pulled from a bottle, glasses clinking together, and the rush of something being poured.

“Here,” she says, slipping a glass of parsnip wine beneath my nose. “Drink it.”

The wine is sweet and musty, a strange taste in my
mouth after the sourness of fear. I’m aware of Ms. Adelaide waiting for me to swallow, but I can’t. I just swirl the wine around and around my mouth, because I’m not sure that I’ll be able to keep it down.

When I finally swallow, the wine drops into my stomach, and a burst of warmth rises up. I sigh, a deep, releasing sigh that makes my bones go slack.

Ms. Adelaide smiles. “There,” she says, settling back. “My parsnip wine will fix just about anything.” The words are light, but I see the cloud of worry in her gaze. “Good thing no one else was here to see that. Best not speak of it. You’ve got a mighty strong way with the supernatural world, that’s for certain, but this …” She gestures at the bundle on the table. “I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

“Should I open it?”

“Suppose so.”

A shiver runs down my spine. The last thing I want is to touch the bundle. Grease on the bark glistens in the candlelight. Where did that grease come from? Some poor animal? An unsuspecting child? Madda?

Ms. Adelaide cuts the string with a paring knife. “The rest,” she says, “is up to you.” With a faint smile, she picks a tangled skein of wool, sits down across from me, and begins to unravel the knots. “Staring at it won’t make it go away.”

“I guess not,” I say, but that doesn’t mean I’ll touch it. A pair of tongs rests by the hearth. I grab them and fish the bark away. The pieces come off, one by one, to reveal a smooth, translucent moonstone hidden beneath the layers.

My breath catches in my throat.

The chair creaks as Ms. Adelaide reaches out to me. “What’s wrong?”

It takes several minutes before I can tell her. “That’s Madda’s,” I whisper. With a single finger, I reach out and touch it. It’s icy cold. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Now, don’t panic. Just sit for a bit. But first, burn that bark. The dzoonokwa touched it.”

I fling the bark into the fire where it bursts into blue flame. “That’s not normal.”

Ms. Adelaide snorts. “Honey, when you’re dealing with supernaturals, nothing is normal, and it’s unreasonable for you to expect it to be. You probably want to know why it’s you they’ve chosen. I wondered the same thing once, back when Dzoonokwa came to see me. You’re young, you’re strong, you’re as smart as a whip. And you’re pretty—the gods like the pretty ones.”

“Gods?”

She shrugs as she rummages around in the pantry. “Gods, spirits, Elders, whatever you want to call them.
Shining Ones—that’s my own favorite.” She emerges triumphant, a kettle in one hand and a canister in the other. “Aha! I knew Madda had a stash in here!” She sets the kettle on the stove. “Whatever you call them, they’re the same thing, and they’re all part of this land. They’re waking up and they’re not happy. If I was a bettin’ woman, I’d bet you’re their voice.”

I let my head fall to the table with a dramatic
thunk
. “They? Who’s they?”

“The spirit people, the ones from the old stories, Cassandra.” Ms. Adelaide looks at her hands, turning them over to expose her palms. “These hands are supposed to tend the land, care for it, nurture it. This voice? For telling the old stories, for keeping our way alive, and it’s not just our way—it’s
the
way. Look at the Corridor. Do you think what’s happening there is a coincidence?”

“It’s a big leap from Plague to gods and myths, Ms. Adelaide,” I say.

“So it is, but how does it feel to you?” She cocks an eyebrow at me as she sets the kettle over the fire. “Take a second. Feel it out.”

I close my eyes and think about all that’s happened, about the shades I see, about walking the paths of spirit. I think about the sisiutl and the earthquakes and how ravens haunt my every step. I think about Bran with his shifting
shade and my brother’s relationship with lost souls, and how we came to the Island. I think about Plague, and the sea wolf, and the poisonous cloud that works with him. Everything happens for a reason, and nothing—absolutely nothing—is without meaning. I stretch my hand out toward the moonstone, hesitating for one moment, and then wrap my fingers around it, claiming it. This has been given to me. I don’t know why, but there’s a reason. There’s a reason for everything.

Ms. Adelaide nods as if she knows my answer.

“So,” I say, “what do I do now?” My fingers wrap around the moonstone, tracing its smooth, cold planes, over and over.
What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?

Ms. Adelaide sinks into the armchair, shuffling back and forth until she’s comfortable. “I’m not sure, but what I do know is that the creatures of the old stories are seeking you out.” She points at the moonstone. “Madda told you about the making of the boundary?” I nod. “Well, here’s a bit more of the story for you. Back when that happened, the women who made the boundary asked the supernaturals for help, you know, all the old ones. Raven, Thunderbird, Sisiutl, Wolf, the ones from the old stories, except, that’s the thing. They aren’t stories. They’re living myths, and those creatures, they’re as alive as you and me. You know that now. Anyhow, some of them agreed to help, those that still had hope for
humans. Some just wanted to cause trouble, like Raven, and look what happened to him. And the dzoonokwa, well, my guess is they just don’t care anymore. People have been hunting them for ages, trying to take their picture, making up all sorts of lies about them, so I don’t blame them for ignoring us. But when the boundary went up, they got stuck in it.”

“In? Like, they
are
the boundary?”

Ms. Adelaide nods. “And now the boundary’s failing, which tells me that the supernaturals aren’t going to last much longer, either. They don’t belong to us, Cass. They aren’t ours. This place, this haven we’ve created?” She casts her arm around me. “It isn’t for free. Everything costs something. I know we think we’re safe here, but are we?” She peers at me. “Are we really? Or do we just think we are, because that’s what we want to believe?”

I’m not sure she’s really talking to me anymore, but her words hit me in the face just the same. “So what exactly am I supposed to do?” I ask. All the hair has risen on my arm. “Free the dzoonokwa? Just how do I do that?”

“I don’t know, but then, it’s not for me to know. It’s your task.” She reaches out and squeezes my hand. “But I think you’ll be okay. One dzoonokwa could have killed you in the blink of an eye. Three? They could have torn you limb from limb, but they didn’t. They need you for something. Just remember that Dzoonokwa’s not bad. She just is what
she is. She takes the life of some people; she gives others beautiful things. Special things. You know what that spirit stone is, don’t you?”

“Sort of. Madda told me the story, but I’m not sure I understood it entirely.”

“Well, I imagine you know that there are only two left—that we know of, at least. That one was Madda’s. Now it’s yours. A little bit of the wearer stays with the stone forever and ever, so your ancestors are always with you. You just have to listen, and they’ll help you along, but you have to know how to listen first, and that’s the hard part. The monolith was a gift from the supernaturals, and so is that stone. You have a piece of spirit, and now, by wearing that stone, it has a piece of you.”

“So Bran’s …”

“Is similar, though his stone is bound more to the land.” Ms. Adelaide yawns. “Now, stir that stew, would you? Don’t want it to burn.” She goes back to her wool while my mind spins. Spirit stones. Supernaturals. Old stories. The land. And the task Dzoonokwa has set before me.

Then it dawns on me—Bran’s spirit stone. If I’ve lost it, the thing that binds Bran to this land, where, exactly, does that leave him?

I
dream
.

I dream I stand in a circle of light. Across from me is Paul, standing in his own circle, and when he turns around, I see he’s changed. One half of his body is covered in black feathers. They’re dull and ragged. Some have fallen out and lie at his feet, leaving white, pebbled bird flesh exposed at his shoulder, his flank. His right arm is a wing. He stands with his shoulders slumped, his back curved, as if at any moment he’ll curl into the fetal position
.

I reach out to him, stretching my hand across the circles of light
.

Paul raises his head slowly. When he sees me, his lips form the word
no,
and when I don’t stop trying to reach
him, he brings his winged arm across his face and pushes me back. Again. And again. And again. And again
.

Leave me alone,
he says
. Leave me alone. Why won’t you ever leave me alone? Leave me, leave me …

I can’t, Paul,
I say
. I can’t.

Then I leave you.

And just like that, he’s gone
.