Shadows Cast by Stars (38 page)

“Who took you, Bran? Who?”

A sound comes from Bran’s throat, a growl, primal and
bizarre. “They call themselves the sea wolves,” he says through bared teeth. “And they’re hunting you, too.”

I treat the cuts and abrasions as best I can, and then we get everyone on the boat and out to sea before the tide’s completely gone. It’s a long way back to the estuary, and the sea isn’t happy to see us go. The ocean is whitewashed with waves. The skiff lurches over them, slamming into each trough so the whole boat shudders. I know I should feel this, but I don’t. My entire body has gone numb. All I can think of is that my brother is gone.

My brother is gone
.

My brother is gone
.

Cedar struggles into the dodger and tries to help Helen keep the skiff on course. Bran huddles beside me and stares at his father with vacant eyes. His shade fades in and out, guttering like damp tinder. He needs spirit healing as much as his father, but I can’t help either of them until we’re back on land.

The skiff hits another swell. The engine shrieks as we hover in midair before crashing down, throwing everyone off balance again.

“Put into shore,” Cedar finally yells over the wind. “Over there!” He points to a sandy spit. “There’s a burial
ground there, and an old longhouse. We can get out of the wind, at least.”

Helen turns the wheel and the skiff banks, cutting through the water, drenching us with spray. My stomach can’t stand it any longer, and I vomit over the side. Cedar grabs hold of the waistband of my pants so I don’t fall overboard.

Helen runs the skiff up onto a beach. The waves lick at our heels. The ocean’s hungry today, and not happy that we’ve managed to elude her.

Cedar and Bran lift Bran’s father from the skiff as Helen and I frantically try to figure out a way to moor it. I have no idea how far we are from home, but if we get stuck here, that’s that. We finally decide to wrap the mooring line around the biggest log we can find and hope the storm’s not bad enough to take the log out to sea. It’s the best we can do.

The longhouse is a little way off, set into scrub pines just beyond the beach. It’s in a bad state. Most of the roof has fallen away, but enough remains to keep us out of the worst of the weather. Cedar’s already left to search for wood, taking Helen with him, leaving me alone with Bran and his unconscious father.

We sit on the ground, staring at our feet. I want to ask Bran a thousand questions, but I fight to keep quiet. He’s
not ready to talk yet. I’ll have to be patient. I know how to do that. I’ve done it a hundred times with my brother.

Who is gone.

A sob lodges in my throat, but I swallow it away.
Not now. Later
. Paul will have to wait for later, even though all I want to do is scream at the skies that my brother is gone.

I glance up to find Bran watching me. For a moment he looks like he’s going to take me in his arms, but then Cedar and Helen arrive with driftwood and the moment passes. Bran returns to looking at his feet. I rise to help Helen and Cedar with the fire.

We are strangers once again.

R
ain slashes sideways through the gaps in the roof. We huddle in the only dry space as the fire hisses and pops in the strange, shifting wind. Bran’s father lies on the ground, bookended by Bran and me. His breathing is slow and shallow. His heartbeat? Jumpy and faint. It could be his heart that’s the problem, but there’s no way for me to tell for certain. He’s not running a fever, nor does he bear any major physical injury that I can find. That means one thing: If I’m to help him, I’ll have to cross into the spirit world to do it, and the last time I had an audience? It didn’t go so well.

I sit back on my heels and rub my eyes. I can feel Bran watching me. Hope radiates from him. But what if I can’t fix his father? I couldn’t help Saul.

“Cass?” Helen says. “What do you need?”

“Nothing,” I say. “I’m going to have to cross over.”

Helen bites her lip. Bran clenches his jaw and drops his gaze. Cedar sits back in the shadows so I can’t see him at all.

I try not to think about any of them. There’s a man beside me who’s really hurt, so hurt that I can’t let myself think of last time. My gaze drifts out of focus as I look for where his totem should be, but it’s gone. He had one once, though. I know because I can feel it, and I can also feel the wound left behind, a raw, gaping hole in his being, a wound that must be stanched before it bleeds him dry.

I draw a deep breath and force my gaze back into focus. Delaying isn’t going to make this any easier. “Bran,” I say. “What happened to your father? Do you know?”

He won’t look at me.

“Bran, please,” I say. I want to touch him so badly, but he draws away from me. “I need to know what I’m dealing with.”

Bran drops his head. He’s on the verge of tears again.

In the shadows, Cedar groans.

“Shut up,” I snap at him. “Just shut up.” I slide closer to Bran. “I need to know what I’m looking for when I cross.”

He raises his gaze to mine. His expression is blank, but
in his eyes, I see the shadow of fear. “There’s a man. The leader of the sea wolves.” His voice is weak and hoarse. He’s fighting for every word.

“Go on,” I say, giving him a smile.

He clears his throat, making way for his voice. “They’ve broken away from the Bix’iula. They live on their own, somewhere up north, along the coast.”

“Okay,” I say, trying to be patient. I’m not sure what this has to do with his father. “Just take your time.”

He coughs again, and I start to worry. The cough is heavy and thick. I want to check him out, but I force myself to sit there like a rock and wait for him to speak.

“They came for us when we were patrolling the boundary,” Bran finally says. “Put us in the hold of a ship. Beat us, but the beating wasn’t as bad as what came later. That’s when the man came.” He draws his knees into his chest. “We stopped somewhere, I don’t know where. There weren’t any windows in the hold. That’s when he took our men out one by one, and when he brought them back … they didn’t talk anymore. They didn’t even look like men—more like … shells. Like their life was burned out of them.” His gaze shifts to his father. “Paul said the man was taking their souls. Paul … he spoke with … ghosts, and that’s what they told him. That’s what they had done to my father. That’s what they were going to do
to us. I don’t know what they do with the souls, Cass, but our men … we should have killed them. I should have. Put them out of their misery.” He finally looks at me, eyes so full of agony that I have to force myself not to look away. “Except I didn’t have the courage.”

“Oh.” The urge to curl into myself is overwhelming. I know the depth of failure he feels, the knowledge that life will never be the same again because every time you close your eyes, the people you failed are there, staring straight at you—not with accusation, but with sadness, with regret that they chose the wrong one. But I won’t give in—not without a fight. I sit up straight, put on a mask that says
I’m fine, I can handle this
, that I’m not scared to the pit of my stomach. That I’m not terrified for my brother. That I’m not torn between raging at Bran for leaving Paul behind and wrapping him in my arms and rocking him until his tears fade away and never come back.

Bran grimaces and looks up to the sky. He can’t stop crying, no matter how hard he tries.

“What a pussy,” Cedar mutters.

And then, just like that, Bran launches himself at Cedar. Helen screams as they roll toward her, kicking and biting and fighting like bears. I yell at them to stop, but they don’t hear me. Battle-frenzy has taken them. Cedar lands a good, hard punch to Bran’s kidneys, but
Bran doesn’t even seem to feel it. A growl rises from his throat. He twists, pinning Cedar in the dirt, and then his hands are around Cedar’s throat, choking the life right out of him.

I grab Bran’s shoulders and try to pull him away, but he shakes me off. Cedar is gagging and wheezing as he claws at Bran’s hands.

“Stop it!” I scream. “You’re going to kill him! Stop it!”

Bran ignores me. Cedar’s face turns purple as he tries to punch Bran, but each punch is weaker than the last. His eyes bulge in his head. He opens his mouth, gasping for air.

“Bran,” I say, crouching beside him. “You’ve got to stop. That’s Cedar you’re killing. Listen to me. Come back. Bran, please come back.” I set my forehead against his shoulder and whisper to him. “Please. Come back. You have to come back.”

I feel him shudder, and when I look up, he’s watching me as if seeing me for the first time. Slowly he releases his grasp on Cedar’s neck, leaving brilliant red welts that mark the outline of his fingers. Cedar wheezes and spits as he tries to breathe.

“He deserves to die,” Bran says. “I saw what he did to my father. I know what he’ll do to Paul.” His voice sounds like the wind.

“But it’s just Cedar, Bran. Not the man who hurt you.” I take one of his hands and hold it in mine. “It’s just Cedar.”

Cedar lies there on the ground, staring at us. He doesn’t move. “Yeah, it’s just me, man,” he croaks. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Bran drops his chin to his chest, panting. I close my eyes and see things swirling around him, things I’ve never seen before. His kingfisher is barely attached to him and there are other things now—sea wolves, for one, but not the healthy black-and-white orcas we saw in the ocean. These are depraved creatures, bloody and mutilated— monsters. And I must get them away from Bran before they take him, too.

My hand finds one of the strings at my neck and I pull my pouch, the one holding the sisiutl’s pearls, over my head. “Wear this,” I say, closing his fingers around it. “I want to give you a little sisiutl medicine, just for a while, just until you’ve found yours again.”

Bran just stares at the pouch, so I take it and string it around his neck. “There,” I say, patting it against his chest. “They can’t come for you, and if they do, sisiutl will eat them.” I smile, hoping he will too, and I’m rewarded with a quiet chuckle.

“Thanks,” Bran says as he gets to his feet. I’m not sure he believes me.

Cedar pushes himself away and creeps back to his seat in the shadows.

“I’m so sorry, Cass,” Bran says. I’ve never seen him look so lost, so uncertain.

“Apologize to Cedar,” I say. “He’s the one you attacked.”

Bran shakes his head, as if what I’ve said isn’t true, but he goes to where Cedar sits, crouches, and offers him his hand. “I’m sorry, man. So sorry.”

Cedar grunts something I can’t hear and after a tense moment, I see a hand extend from the shadows to take Bran’s. They sit there, hand in hand, until Bran nods and releases Cedar’s grasp. “Thanks, man,” he says.

He waits a second, takes a deep breath, and then moves back to sit beside his father. “They took my father’s totem,” he says. “He was a bear. Now he’s not. That’s what they did with all the men, except Paul and me. They were saving us for the man who fragments souls—that’s what they called it—and when Paul came back, he told me about the exchange. He gave up his totem, Cass— gave it to my father so he could come back to this world. The others? They’re all lost. That’s what Paul said. Lost.”

“They took Paul’s shade?” I whisper.

“No,” Bran says as his eyes change to storm clouds. “I don’t know what that man said to him, but Paul gave his totem up. Willingly. He came back afterward to tell me
to tell you. He said he didn’t need it anymore, so he was giving his to my father to replace the one he lost. He said to tell you not to look for him. Not to try. He said he’s beyond help now. Beyond hope.”

I edge closer to the fire, hoping its warmth will ease the chill that’s seeping into my heart. Paul chose to stay. What could this man have said to make him want to stay?

Solace
, I think. That’s the one thing Paul’s never had. Solace. Peace.

But I can’t think about that now. Something’s changed with Bran’s father. His breath is coming in short, shallow gasps, as if our words have unleashed something from the spirit world and it’s begun to steal him away.

I take sage from my medicine kit, but before I set it on the fire, I look at Helen, and then Bran. “This isn’t going to be easy,” I say. “I’ll need you guys to watch over me while I’m gone.”

Helen creeps closer and sets a hand on my back. “We can do that, Cass. Don’t you worry.” She smiles. “We’ll be your anchors.”

Bran nods. “I know you can do it.”

I try to smile, but my lips quiver and all I can manage is to clench my teeth together. I hope they’re right, because if I can’t find Bran’s father, I might not come back either.

T
he wind throws itself against the longhouse. Rain drives down from the sky. We sit in our corner, staring at the clouds, as our fire fights for life.

Every bit of me has been scraped thin. I can’t cross into spirit like this. I’ll be fodder for whatever’s hunting me, for now I realize that’s what’s going on—the wolves I’ve seen in the spirit world are tied to the man who has taken Paul. I’m going to face him down, that man—there’s no doubt about that, but I’ll do it on my terms, not his.