The Spirit Keeper (17 page)

There followed a long, long pause during which Syawa’s face twitched with spasms of pain. I still could not tell whether the pain came from his injuries or his memories. In any case, he fought against it for some time, finally controlling it enough to go on.

“It was you,” he said at last, so quietly I could scarce hear him.

I shrank back, stunned. “What?”

“It was your people.” Syawa closed his eyes and seemed to slip into unconsciousness, tho’ he remained upright and steady.

I stared at him with an open mouth. “What . . . what you mean it was my people? You think . . . you think my people cause earthquakes?”

He smiled without opening his eyes. “Your people
are
the Earthquake.” His breathing was becoming slightly labored, and I could see he was hard-presst to continue. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, still with eyes closed. “There are so many of you. So many. I saw them, saw them all—all colors, all kinds, all crowded, all suffering. So many. Like leaves on the trees, like drops of rain, like stars in the sky. All fighting, all struggling, all pushing against one another, helpless, hopeless. All coming this way.”

Syawa opened his eyes, which warmed when they looked at me. “And then I saw you. You were so lonely. So sad. I saw you lying on your stomach on top of round wooden boxes, your clothing sliced on your back, blood seeping from long, thin wounds. You were crying. You had flowers in your hair. The flowers were the color of the sky, the color of your eyes.”

As I listened to this slow and soft description, my face crumpled and tears rolled down my cheeks. Well I remembered the scene he described. It happened on a lovely day in May when I was fifteen, when we were on our way to the parcel of land in the wilderness where we were going to build a farm and recover all the riches and prestige and power my father had lost. We were traveling with at least a dozen other families, and one day my new friend, Abigail, made me a crown of bright blue flowers to wear on my red curls.

After we stopt to camp, I went to the creek to get some water, accompanied by a man at least twice my age who said he’d lend a hand. He kept saying how pretty I looked with those flowers in my hair. The creek bank was high and the only way he could reach the water was to lie on his belly, but the bucket snagged on an underwater branch and he could not pull it up. I knew my mother would beat me if I lost a bucket, so I lay down and reached to unsnag it. Whilst I was reaching, the man rolled atop me, threw my skirts o’er my head, and forced himself upon me. I struggled mightily, to no avail.

I had ne’er been used by a man and it was brutal. After he ran away, I wiped the blood from my legs with a handful of weeds. Then I staggered back toward our camp, carrying the two heavy buckets of water.

On the way I passed some boys, two of whom were my younger brothers, playing at chopping wood. I should have told them they were too small to be swinging that large ax, but I didn’t. I just kept walking. Before I made it back to camp, I heard a scream and dropt my buckets. I joined the others running toward the scream, only to find Edward’s hands had slipt and he had cut off his great toe.

As the midwife tended Edward’s wound, Mother was hysterical, raging ’round in circles as she looked for someone to blame. Accustomed as I was to her red-faced fits, this one was truly formidable. When her eyes fell upon me, she demanded to know how I could have passed those boys without taking the ax from them. I had no answer. She pulled a pliant limb off a bush and began striking me with it, the switch slicing through the thin fabric of my dress like a whip . . .

As I sat beside Syawa, remembering that trauma, I was stunned by the accuracy of his description. Whilst everyone else fretted o’er Edward, I climbed into our wagon and lay on my stomach across some barrels. I cried ’til I had no more tears to cry. I prayed for relief, for protection, for salvation. When my prayers were not answered, I went out and threw the crown of flowers into a ditch.

“I heard you call,” Syawa said softly. Momentarily lost in the painful memory, I looked up, startled. “And I pitied you. You are so smart, so strong, so brave. How could I leave you in that meaningless life when it was in my power to save you?”

I opened and shut my mouth several times but could think of no English words at that moment, much less any words in Syawa’s language.

It was about then that Hector returned, carrying everything we had, as well as the loaded waterskin. He gave Syawa a drink whilst I laid out his bedding. The two of us helped him lie down. At that point I was able to get a good look at the bites.

The purple on his calf was turning black, with dark streaks climbing up his thigh. His arm was, if possible, e’en worse, swollen to twice its normal size, with the purple stains creeping to his armpit. His arm was hot and so tender that he winced when I touched it.

Hector rolled some hides to put under Syawa’s head and shoulders. I could not bear to look at Hector—his desolation was too dreadful to behold. I went to collect firewood and heard them talking, but by the time I returned, Hector was preparing to go off with his bow and arrow, saying Syawa thought he might be able to eat. I glanced at Syawa, then turned my dubious eyes to Hector. He must have known Syawa would not soon be eating.

I went to Syawa to ask if I could put a damp compress on his arm, but he told me not to bother. He said he must finish before Hector returned. His voice was getting weaker, his breath more ragged, but he was determined to go on. By this time I had thought of numerous questions to ask, but he grabbed my arm and gave me no chance to speak.

“The Holymen would not hear me,” he said slowly. “I tried to tell them the meaning of the Earthquake, to make them understand. But I failed. I failed. I wept in frustration. I prayed for help. That was when I heard your call. And then I understood, at last. I could help you—you could help me. I knew you were going to die, so I had to find you, to save you, even tho’—” He stopt abruptly, turning his head to look off into the dark woods.

“You come for me, e’en tho’ you know you die!” I finisht for him. In the whirlpool of emotions spinning me ’round, I suddenly recognized a new one—anger. “Why you do that? Why come for me, knowing it kill you? I not ask for that! If I know this, I not come with you!”

Syawa smiled vaguely. “That is why I could not tell you. It was best you did not know.”

“But
you
know. And you do it anyway.”

“Of course.” Syawa concentrated on breathing a moment before offering me another weak smile. “It was a gift, Kay-oot-li. I know you do not yet understand Gifting, but you will learn. You will learn.”

I looked down for a moment, still fighting my resentment, still o’erwhelmed by how quickly the day had gone from glorious to tragic. “You save me, I bring gift to your people—is that it?” I struggled to think of the words in his language, using gestures when I got stuck. “But, Syawa, how can I do that when I not understand, when I not know what gift is?”

He assured me I would know the gift when I needed to know it, then smiled sadly as he added, “Ah, Kay-oot-li, believe me when I say you should not struggle so hard to understand. I understand—I
know
—but knowing changes nothing. Life is good, even if you do not know, even if you do not understand. Life itself is a gift—please accept it and be happy.”

I tried to smile, tho’ tears were rolling down my cheeks as I shook my head with certainty. “I ne’er be happy before you. I ne’er be happy without you.”

Syawa’s face went through a range of emotions. I had the strong impression of a little boy caught in a lie. He finally looked up at me, tipping his head apologetically. “I knew you were becoming attacht to me, and I should not have let you. I just wanted to know . . . how it felt. I am sorry I did not tell you sooner.”

I raised my tear-soaked face to the sky, breathing through my open mouth. When first I met Syawa, I thought he was odd, an outcast, a loner. Then I learnt he was held in the highest esteem by his people, revered and celebrated. Now I was finding out that all along he believed he was soon to die and yet did not tell me. A thought whirled through my mind: there might be other things he hadn’t told me. But I could not think of that now—I could think of naught but that I loved him with all my heart, and he was dying.

Hector returned with a raccoon, which I skinned and cleaned with trembling hands. I set about heating some water in the stomach the way Syawa had shown me, hoping he could take some broth.

Whilst I worked, Syawa and Hector talked. I tried not to listen to their private conversation, but from what I heard they talked mostly of family matters—Syawa’s mother, Hector’s father, other people back home. At first Hector was, understandably, extremely upset, but after Syawa discussed mundane things like the river and the canoe, Hector was able to restore his usual face of stone.

When the broth was ready, I could not get Syawa to take more than a few mouthfuls. Neither Hector nor I had much appetite either. We sat, one on each side of Syawa, watching him slip farther and farther away from us.

Well into the night Syawa urged Hector to get some sleep, so Hector wrapt up in his furs and almost immediately began to snore lightly. As Syawa rested fitfully, I continued to sit beside him, watching the dark spot on his arm slowly spread. I kept mulling all that he’d said to me, but the more I thought about it, the less sense it made. How could Syawa have known about that May day in the wilderness? And why would he come on this incredible journey to “save” me, dragging Hector the whole way, if he truly knew he was going to die before it was accomplisht? I wasn’t worth it. He shouldn’t have bothered.

As the light of dawn began to fade the stars from the sky, I whimpered aloud, “It’s not fair!”

“Make it fair,” Syawa croaked hoarsely in his language. I looked at him and saw the whites of his eyes had turned yellow.

I could not believe he understood me. “What?” I whispered in his tongue.

“You have been given the gift of a life. You must give a life in return.”

“But how I give you life if you are gone?” I whined, causing Hector to stir in his sleep.

“Kay-tee—I gave my life for the Vision,” Syawa struggled to say. He laboriously turned his head ’til he could see Hector’s slumbering form. “
He
is the one who killed your murderer.
He
is the one who saved you from a pointless death.
He
is the one you must re-pay.”

I looked at Syawa, who was working to turn his eyes back to me. “No,” I said tearfully. “No!” I made the gestures Tomi had taught me which meant “I love you,” and Syawa’s eyes crinkled in a pale version of the smile that had captivated me in the loft of my family’s farm.

He blinked very, very slowly and whispered, “Not me.”

“You!” I wailed. “I want to give my life to you!”

The noise brought Hector upright, and he groggily resumed his place on the other side of Syawa. By that time I was being wrackt by such violent sobs I could barely breathe, and when Syawa and Hector exchanged some words, I couldn’t e’en hear what they said. I sat holding my face in my hands, rocking back and forth, retching in a despair that shredded my miserable soul.

Suddenly I felt a strong hand grab my arm and jerk me roughly. I looked up, startled, to find Hector reaching across Syawa. He was furious as he leant o’er and growled, “Do not send him on his Journey this way!”

I gasped, frightened by the wild look in Hector’s eyes. I gulped, nodded, and bent down to wipe my face on the hide of Syawa’s bed. When I was back in control of myself, I returned to sit by his head and give him a feeble smile.

He had been talking to Hector, but he looked at me now with warmth. “Fire and Ice in one Creature . . . now they will believe me.” He looked from me to Hector and said, “My time with you has been beautiful. Thank you . . . both.”

He closed his eyes for a long, long time, his breath coming slower and slower. Finally he opened his eyes again and looked at me. He managed a faint smile as he said a few words I didn’t understand. I would later learn those words meant: “It was worth it.”

“Don’t leave me,” I mumbled, and when I could see he did not hear me, I bent o’er him and said again, “Please don’t leave me. Please, Syawa . . . don’t leave me!”

I could feel Hector glaring at me, warning me not to break down again, and, somehow, I did not. Syawa was trying to respond to me, and tho’ his breathing had become nigh impossible, he struggled to shake his head and mouth the words “I will not . . .” Through an act of sheer iron will, he lifted his hand and put it on my heart. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. I nodded and smiled through my tears. We had communicated by gestures for so long, I knew exactly what he meant.

I once again made the gestures to say “I love you,” then leant o’er and put my trembling mouth on his dry, cracking lips. I almost sobbed again, but stopt myself in time, afraid of what Hector might do. I could feel Syawa’s lips respond, and for an infinite moment we hung there, breathless, in the space between life and death. Then his lips relaxed, his breath seeped out of him and into me, and he did not inhale again. I pulled back, horrified. His eyes were open, but they had rolled up slightly and were blank and lifeless.

I cringed as Hector lifted his face to the brightening sky and screamed in abject agony.

~16~

A
S ALL-CONSUMING AND UNENDURABLE
as was my own grief, ’twas a drop in the ocean beside the infinite anguish of Hector. I’ve ne’er seen nothing like it and hope ne’er to see nothing like it ne’er again.

He shrieked, he howled, he wailed, he raged. He suffered—oh, God, how he suffered! For an endless span of time whilst Hector thus lamented, I huddled beside Syawa’s body, holding my knees to my chest, trembling, rocking back and forth, still too stunned by all that had been said and done e’en to think. My mind was frozen solid, like a pail of water left out in the cold.

At one point I thought Hector had recovered himself, for his sobs subsided, but when I dared look up I saw he had gotten out his knife. I gasped and screamed for him to stop, please stop, certain he was preparing to plunge the stone blade into his own heart and leave me stranded in the wilderness with two dead bodies!