Eyes of Crow (8 page)

The forest seemed to grow colder. “And you thought—” she almost didn’t dare say it “—you thought it could be me?”

“The way you speak sometimes, as if you possess many times the wisdom for someone your age. It made me wonder.”

“Hawks are also wise beyond their years.” Rhia hoped she didn’t sound obsequious. “Why didn’t you think I could be Hawk?”

“Your gifts were obvious when as a child you foretold the deaths of animals. They say that Crow often chooses those who confront and conquer death early in life. Like you.”

“I did hear Crow for the first time when I was ill.”

“Perhaps at the same time, Raven also brushed you with Her wings before giving you to Her favorite son.”

Rhia sat stunned. So many questions burned inside her, each competing for the chance to be the first one asked.

“Before we begin our journey again…” Galen reached in his pack and handed her a small pouch.

She tugged on the pouch’s strings to open it, and her mouth watered. An assortment of dried fruit—pears, apples and grapes—spilled like jewels into her hand. She shone a grin of gratitude upon the Hawk. If his offering was a tactic to get her to stop talking, it worked.

As she chewed, she reflected on what Galen had said about Raven. Only a few minutes before, she had had the presumption to tell him how to handle his own son. Now she understood how much experience and wisdom Galen held within his mind, and recalled the awe she had felt for him in her younger years. His forbearance in the face of Rhia’s onslaught of opinions showed a patience and control that she needed to learn. Someday she would undoubtedly face grieving family members who would question her ability to serve their loved ones. Even her mother had encountered those who thought they knew more about healing the sick than she did.

When Rhia finished eating, Galen rose without a word, heaved the pack to his shoulders, and continued up the path, deeper into the forest. Rhia scrambled to her feet and hurried to catch up. She did not want to think about being left alone in a place that was becoming stranger by the step.

The afternoon darkened early, due both to the increasing tree cover and the clouds that had blown in from the south. Rhia’s feet ached less now, as the path had grown softer from the presence of fallen pine and spruce needles. It looked soft enough to lie down on and sleep until dinnertime. Her mind dulled from exhaustion, and she had seen nothing but the path beneath her feet for what felt like hours.

Suddenly Galen pulled up short, and Rhia walked into his back with an
oomph!
of surprise.

“Sorry,” she said. “What is it?”

He pointed to a pine tree about ten paces from the path. Four claw marks gouged its trunk, higher than Rhia could reach even on tiptoe. Strips of fresh bark dangled from them, red as clay, standing out against the gray-brown of the trunk.

“Bear.” Galen went to the tree and reached for the claw marks. The bear’s paw dwarfed his hand. Rhia imagined the power such a paw would wield in an angry strike.

“A big one,” he noted with typical understatement. “Probably groggy from its winter rest. We should make plenty of noise. If it hears us coming, it will move away.”

He walked up the path and began singing a favorite Asermon tune, a lively harvest song meant to strengthen field workers through their hard labors. Rhia joined him. Her voice was strong but by no means melodic. The Hawk switched to a harmony that would accompany her limited vocal range.

When the sky’s gray was more black than white, they stopped for the night. Galen chose a spot off the path where a clearing would make a safe place for a fire. In the center of the clearing sat a large boulder the height of Rhia’s head. It widened at the top, providing a sort of roof, which would shelter them if the rain that the skies promised came to pass.

Rhia cleared needles from a section of the forest floor and built a campfire. She stayed by its side, for it was the only familiar thing in this place, and instinct told her the fire would hold danger at bay. She imagined brandishing a burning stick to ward off a furry, fanged creature.

For dinner, they skewered pieces of rabbit and root vegetables on sticks and roasted them over the fire. Though the meal lacked herbs and oils she would have added at home, she savored it like a harvest feast. It would be the last fresh meat she would eat for days, maybe longer.

“How much farther to the place of Bestowing?” she asked Galen midway through the meal.

“You’ll know when you’re there.”

“How?”

“By the fact that I’m gone.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “Will that be soon?”

Galen crunched a blackened potato peel and pretended he hadn’t heard her.

That night Rhia lay with her back to the boulder, a section of blanket tucked behind her to prevent the stone’s cold from seeping into her body. She stared at the fire and waited to hear Galen abandon her. The slightest movement from where he slept at her feet, or even a change in the rhythm of his breath, roused her to terror.

On the other side of the campfire, a bundle hung from a branch, swaying in the gathering wind. The bundle contained their food, which Galen had suspended high enough to keep out bears, raccoons, cougars and even starving little Crow women.

When the wind died down, signaling the sky’s temporary withholding of rain, the forest became quieter and louder at the same time. The sounds the wind had muffled now came sharply to Rhia’s ears.

A small creature scurried through the nearby underbrush. An owl dove with a soft roar of wings. A scrambling of twigs and a peep cut short told her the nameless animal had just turned into prey. She appreciated for the first time how well the walls of her home muted the night’s tiny battles.

A distant shriek sliced the darkness, and Rhia yelped. Galen turned over with a grunt.

“What was that?” she whispered. He snored in response. She resisted the urge to kick the Hawk in the head to wake him. A few deep, calming breaths later, she considered the animals who might make such a sound: screech owl, bobcat? Both too small to eat her.

Just to be sure, she crawled to the dying fire and stoked it until the flames jumped as high as her face. As she warmed her hands, she became aware of her exposed back. Rhia looked over both shoulders and saw nothing but the uninterrupted blackness of the boulder. Galen’s figure was invisible, as he had wrapped himself from head to foot in a dark woolen blanket.

Rhia reached for her own blanket and shifted it around her body as she sat before the fire. Crows were bold, fearless of anything that didn’t pose a genuine threat. How much more powerful she would be when she shirked her silly fears.

The creature shrieked again, closer. Rhia stifled a cry and scooted back into the sanctuary of the boulder. She lay down and forced herself to close her eyes. The dancing flames cast lurid images on the backs of her lids. She recited a childhood prayer to Swan, her father’s Spirit, to cradle her in a dreamless sleep. Exhaustion nibbled at her consciousness, and she began to slip away just as a wolf howled in the distance, long, low and unanswered.

Frozen rain had covered the trees while she slept, and now each needle bore its own tiny icicle glistening in the faint morning sunlight. The millions of mirrors sparkled reflections against each other to create a dazzling mural. Not a single surface lay untouched by ice. Even the tree trunks held a slick glaze.

Dry except for the edge of her blanket, which had frozen to the ground, Rhia stared at the sight from her place under the overhanging rock. Her muscles ached from the cold and the vigilant posture she had held all night. Even the slightest stretch made them cramp. So she remained motionless, half-asleep, in awe of the beauty that surrounded her. Perfect ice storms such as this had occurred perhaps half a dozen times in her life. The rising sun would soon return the frigid, fragile magnificence to its watery origins.

Quick, light footsteps crunched on the other side of the rock. Rhia raised her head.

“Galen, is that you?”

No reply.

“Galen?”

Against the protest of her muscles, Rhia sat up.

“Galen, did you hear—”

He was gone.

Not just him, but his blanket, his pack, the bundle of food that had hung from the tree—all gone.

Rhia scrambled to her feet, calling his name again and again. The campfire was nothing but a wisp of steam now, doused by the ice. She turned her stiff neck in every direction, hoping to see Galen in the distance, maybe collecting wood or praying in solitude.

A small pack lay in the space where he had slept. She pulled it open to see two clean pairs of trousers and two blouses, all her size. Beneath the clothes lay an extra blanket, a waterskin, a flint, a small shovel for digging latrines and a package of dried venison.

The food, she realized, was to break her fast.

In three days.

And so it begins.
She examined her surroundings, which did not appear sacred or extraordinary. The only remarkable feature was the boulder, which was situated in the exact center of the clearing, as if someone used it to hold court.

The footsteps crunched behind her again. She whirled, her hands flying up to defend herself, and saw…nothing, not even a mouse creeping along the thin crust of snow.

The sound came again, this time to her right. Icicles scattered across the ground. She realized with a sigh that they had made the eerie noise, the one that sounded like a dozen tiny someones creeping up on her.

A breeze blew, and the forest around her erupted in chiming, skittering clashes of ice and snow. She backed against the rock and looked up to make sure no branches overhung the place where she stood, for some of the icicles were as large as her forearm. The nearest tree was at least twenty paces away.

Rhia set down the pack, pulled out the extra blanket, a pale brown woolen one, and climbed atop the flat rock. She spread out the blanket and sat cross-legged upon it, keeping her original blanket wrapped tight around her. Though the morning sun was already warming the dark surface of the boulder, the constant ringing of ice against snow made her shiver.

There was nothing to do but wait. Wait, and pray. She closed her eyes.

Spirits, grant my body and soul the strength to last these three days. Send all who can teach me what I need to know, and let me understand your wisdom in my limited mortal way.

You know I’m afraid. Take my fear away, or at least give me the courage to swallow it, however bitter it may taste.

She stopped and opened her eyes. Was she making sense? Her thoughts were as shattered and scattered as the icicles on the ground around her. She cleared her throat and stared up at the clear sky.

“Maybe if I speak out loud, I can make you understand.”

Her voice sounded halting and weak, and she was unsure how to put the moment into words. Her pleas were unutterable, her emotions inscrutable even to herself. So she decided to simply wait. Wait, and try to make her mind as empty as her belly.

Rhia lay back on the blanket, face warming to the sun. The icicles’ cacophonous plummets echoed the chaos in her own mind.

She had taken her first step into the unknown. It was hesitant and unsteady, but there was no turning back.

The day slouched forward more slowly than any day in Rhia’s memory. It was not cut into bits by chores or rituals or conversations—it just
was
. By the time the sun had reached its peak, all of the icicles had fallen. Since the trees no longer bore implements of death or dismemberment, she decided to gather wood for that night’s fire. She set off toward the east, never losing sight of the boulder.

Her feet kicked icicles out of her path, creating a spirited music as they clinked against one another on the bare ground. Due to the storm, branches of all sizes were scattered across the forest floor. In just a few minutes she had collected enough firewood to last three days. She arranged it into piles according to size, stepped back to examine her work, then felt suddenly foolish.

Her time was a gift, not something to be occupied. These three days would come once in her life. She should be honored.

Why, then, did she feel little more than nervousness? The sky would darken soon, and she would be sleeping alone for the first time in her life. But sleep was forbidden during the Bestowing, she reminded herself, along with food and water.

Water. Her tongue went dry just thinking about it. She paced around the boulder, trying to take the edge off her agitation.
Special, special, special,
her mind recited with each step.
Honor, honor, honor.

Water, water, water,
her body replied, in the moments between the steps.

Rhia ignored the petitions of her mouth and stomach, determined to concentrate on more important things. Things like prayer and meditation and journeying and communing with Spirits, who were bound to show up any moment.

Whenever her pacing brought her near the sack, it seemed to beckon her. Her fingers and tongue could almost feel the strips of dried venison within, rough and crumbly around the edges but chewy and smoky at the center.

Perhaps she could eat now, then begin her three-day fast again tomorrow. Galen shouldn’t have left her by surprise. She needed today just to get used to being alone in the woods. Tonight she could pray for tomorrow’s strength, so that tomorrow she’d be stronger, more prepared. No one would know.

Except the Spirits. But were they even here?

Rhia went still, holding her breath. The forest rustled with noises of birds, animals, and wind. On the branches above her head, needle slid against needle as the breeze passed over them. She waited for several minutes, empty, for the Spirits to approach her. Perhaps when she opened her eyes, they would surround her, animals in their iconic forms ready to impart wisdom to their newest seeker.

But they weren’t. All that met her squinting eyes were the same trees and rocks that had been there before. Her senses detected nothing extraordinary.

“They’re here,” she said.

Though the day had stretched long, night hurried to drape itself over the forest. Rhia could barely see the flint in her hands as she tried to start the evening’s fire. Her surroundings were so black, the spark that leaped from the stone onto the pile of dry leaves seared an image onto her eyes that lasted for several blinks.

Soon the fire burned brightly, and Rhia huddled near it, both blankets wrapped tight around her, as if warmth alone could protect her from whatever lurked in the forest. She missed food even more now that she was cold, missed the heat it would help her body produce. She missed the chamomile tea her mother would make for her on the nights she couldn’t sleep.

She missed her mother. She wanted her mother.

Pride held in her tears, even here, until they could be contained no more.

“Mama…” She sobbed like a child, shoulders heaving and throat aching. If only she could see her mother one last time, feel Mayra’s arms enclose her.

Suddenly she felt a presence in the dark. Every inch of her skin prickled. She dared move nothing but her eyes to peer around. But the firelight scorched her vision, making it impossible to see into the forest.

Had she called Mayra’s spirit from the Other Side? The presence felt anything but maternal. Was she angry at being disturbed?

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. Please, no.”

Rhia’s breath came so shallow now, she thought she would faint from lack of air. She should pray for strength and courage, but even if she found the words, her lips were too paralyzed to form them, her throat too tight to utter them.

She strained for any unfamiliar sound, but none came, only the wind whispering through the branches. Her skin bristled every time two twigs scratched together. A tree on the other side of the campfire had lost most of a branch during the ice storm; what remained hung by a few fibers, creaking during the stronger breezes.

Whatever lurked out there was watching her. Testing her. Judging her.

It held her in its gaze as the nearly full moon rose into the sky, silvering the forest floor. It observed her as the moon crossed the sky into high clouds that muted and softened the light to a pale glow.

She didn’t know how to pass its test, other than to survive, to fail to die from terror. Right now even that modest goal was a struggle to achieve.

It kept watch over her, silent and unmoving, until the eastern sky lightened with the first blush of dawn. It drew away then, slowly, uttering a single, unbreakable promise.

Until tonight.

Rhia burst into uncontrollable shudders. She hugged her knees until her arms ached, fearing that her body would break apart and crumble into a pile of bones.

When the sun peeked over the horizon, her eyes devoured the orange light as if it were sustenance itself, while part of her wondered if it would be the last sunrise she would ever see.