Still Water - Chapter 2
The world had always been one way. Until it wasn’t.
Chapter Two
The smoke was there again when I woke the next morning. It lay low against the pale morning sky, a dark smudge just above the trees to the south-west. At first, I told myself it was fog caught by the light, the way mist sometimes thickens and pretends to be something else. But fog does not rise straight up, and this did. It climbed slowly, as if fed with care.
There had been mornings when the sky held nothing but light. When I woke to birds and the low breathing of my people and thought only of water and hunger and the path to the stream. I would press my hand into the earth beside the fire pit. It was cool and certain. I believed then that the ground did not change. Smoke belonged to storms or to our own cooking fires. It did not belong to distance.
I lay still under the furs and watched it through the shelter opening until my eyes watered from the cold. Morning Dew slept curled on her side, her breath shallow and quick. I did not wake her. Smoke where no one should be camping was not a thing you bring into sleep lightly.
When I stepped outside, the air smelled wrong. Not burned wood—burned green things. Leaves, perhaps, or brush cut too hastily. The forest does not like that smell. It carries too far.
Others had seen it too. I could tell by the way people stood facing the same direction, pretending not to. Red Antler was already awake, speaking quietly with two of the hunters near the edge of camp. When he noticed me, his voice did not change, but his eyes slid past me as if I were a stump.
The winter had loosened its grip, but only just. Ice still skimmed the river in the shallows, and the ground sucked at the feet where the frost had come out unevenly. The marsh lay quiet, waiting. Birds lifted suddenly from the trees to the south, a whole scatter of them at once, wings flashing pale. I paused, watching them go. That was not right. The birds did not cry as they fled. That was what struck me most. They scattered in silence, as if the sound itself were dangerous.
I stood there longer than I should have, my breath fogging the air, trying to decide whether this was something I was meant to notice or something I was meant to ignore. Once, I would not have hesitated. I would have named the birds—thrush, jay, the small brown ones that cling to bark—and listened for which voice was missing. Absence speaks as clearly as sound when you know how to hear it.
Now all I felt was a dull pressure behind my eyes, the sense of being watched without knowing from where. I crouched and rubbed a handful of damp earth between my palms, smearing it along my forearms and throat. It was an old habit, half-remembered, meant to quiet a man’s scent so animals would not read him too easily. I could not recall the words that went with the gesture, only the shape of it. I whispered something anyway, hoping the intent would be enough. The forest did not answer.
Somewhere to the south, a branch cracked. Not the sharp report of a deer’s step, nor the careless noise of a bear. It was followed by another, and another, too evenly spaced. I told myself it was ice shedding from limbs as the day warmed. I told myself many things.
When I straightened, my knees protested. Hunger makes even the young feel old. I glanced again toward the place the birds had fled from and felt, irrationally, that if I looked too long, something would look back. I turned away first. I touched my fingers briefly to the earth, a small asking. “Easy,” I murmured. “I see.”
By midmorning, the strangers arrived. They came from the same direction as the smoke, moving slowly, without song or calling. There weren’t many of them—three families at most—but even so, they came too close. Close enough that their dogs’ voices carried faintly, high and uneasy. Close enough that we could smell them.
Red Antler ordered no one to approach. We watched instead, from the edges of our camp, as they made themselves a place among the trees across the narrow rise. They did not cut much wood. They did not light a fire at first. That marked them out as careful people, or full of fear.
“They’re really thin,” someone murmured near me.
“They always are,” another answered. “Fat people don’t come begging.”
The chief finally went to them in the early afternoon, taking Cold Crow and two hunters with him. He did not invite anyone else. I was not surprised.
I watched from a distance as they met in the open ground between camps. The other band’s chief was a man with graying hair bound in a strip of hide. His shoulders slumped with exhaustion. Even from where I stood, I could see the way his eyes kept flicking to the trees, as if he expected them to move.
The meeting lasted a long time. Too long. From where I stood, I could see details the chief pretended not to notice.
One of the refugee women limped badly, favoring her left leg as if the joint had swollen and never became right again. A child clung to her hide cloak, his face streaked with soot that had not been properly washed away. Their dogs were thin enough that their ribs showed even through winter fur, their ears flat, eyes darting constantly toward the tree line.
They did not spread out the way people usually do when they stop at camp. They stayed close together, shoulders almost touching, as if space itself had become dangerous. That troubled me more than their hunger.
When the refugee chief spoke, his hands never stopped moving. They worried at the fringe of his cloak, twisted the cord at his waist, pressed flat against his thighs, and lifted again. A man who has run a long way does not trust stillness.
Cold Crow shifted once, subtly, angling his body so the light caught the other man’s face. I saw then the faint mark along his cheek—not a cut, but a scrape, smooth and pale, as if something had rubbed the skin away rather than torn it. The sight made my stomach tighten.
The smoke to the south thickened as the day wore on. At one point, it darkened enough that I wondered if clouds were gathering, but the sky above us stayed clear and hard. Smoke without weather is never a good sign.
By the time Red Antler turned back toward camp, the refugees’ chief bowed too deeply, too quickly. Gratitude can look like submission when it’s forced.
As they separated, I thought I heard a sound drift from the trees beyond the refugees’ camp—not speech, not quite. A rhythm, too regular for wind. It stopped the moment I tried to focus on it, leaving behind only the echo of unease. I rubbed my hands together, smearing dirt deeper into the cracks of my skin, and wished—foolishly—that I still knew the proper way to ask what followed people when they ran.
When Red Antler returned, his mouth was set in a line I knew too well. It meant he had heard things he didn’t like, and couldn’t yet decide which ones to believe.
“They’ll stay two nights,” he announced, loud enough for all to hear. “No more. They will take water but no game. Anyone found hunting our grounds answers to me.”
No one argued. No one welcomed the strangers either. That silence was its own message.
I saw Morning Dew standing with the other women near the fire, her arms folded tight against the cold. She was watching the trees too, her face pale. When our eyes met, she made the smallest questioning gesture. I shook my head. Not yet.
The refugees’ camp grew more visible as the day wore on. Children wandered at its edges, thin as reeds, their eyes too large in their faces. There were only three, too few for a group this size. One of the women squatted by the riverbank, rinsing something wrapped in hide. She worked quickly, glancing up often. Fear makes people efficient.
Toward evening, word began to leak through the camp, as it always does.
“They were driven out,” Bone Needle said quietly, working a stone back and forth along a dull blade. “Not by hunger alone.”
“By whom, then?” someone asked.
Bone Needle shrugged, but her eyes were sharp. “They didn’t say. Not in so many words.”
Later, one of the younger hunters—fresh enough not to know when to keep his mouth shut—said more. He had lingered near the strangers’ camp longer than Red Antler would have liked, trading dried roots for a bit of sinew.
“They say there are people burning the woods,” he said, voice pitched low but eager. “Not just cutting them. Burning them. For no reason.”
That got attention.
“People burn for game,” someone said.
“Or for war,” another offered.
“These ones don’t hunt,” the young hunter insisted. “They move through and leave nothing but ash. The strangers hadn’t seen them, only heard tell. They heard that they’re small. Pale. Like half-grown men. Or spirits.”
I felt a chill creep up my spine. I remembered the vision by the fire—the smoke fed by something that was not wood. Cold Crow said nothing. He sat with his hands folded in his cloak, eyes half-lidded, listening. That worried me more than if he had spoken.
When the evening meal was divided, the refugees were given water and nothing else. That was not cruelty. That was survival. Still, I saw the way some of the women in our camp watched the thin children with something like grief. I did not receive a portion. I had not expected one.
Morning Dew shared what little she had, pressing a strip of dried root into my hand when no one was looking. I took it, hating myself for the relief that flooded me.
Later, as the fire burned low, Red Antler allowed the refugees’ chief to speak.
He stood awkwardly, hands empty, his voice hoarse. “We were five families,” he said. “Now we are three.”
No one interrupted him.
“Our hunting grounds to the south failed first. Game scattered. Fish tasted wrong. Then we found the trees.”
He paused, as if choosing his words carefully.
“Birch trees, cut smooth. Not marked. Not scarred. Shaped.”
That made a ripple through the listeners. The People carve signs when they must, but never like that. Birch is for canoes, for bark, for light things. You do not waste it.
“What kind of shapes?” Red Antler asked.
The man hesitated. “Spirals. Grooves. Not deep. Like something rubbed them again and again.”
I thought of the odd smoothness I had once found on a tree far upriver and dismissed it. I felt my stomach tighten.
“And the people?” someone called. “You saw them?”
The refugee chief shook his head slowly. “No. Others have. From a distance. Too many together. Too quiet. They wear skins, but not like ours. Their feet leave narrow marks, as if bound.”
“Spirits,” someone scoffed, a little too loudly.
The man shook his head. “No. Spirits don’t burn the forest. And these bleed. Some had been killed, we have been told.”
A hush fell.
“Then more came,” he finished. “Always more. So many more, like ants.”
That night, sleep came harder than before. The forest felt crowded, pressed in close. I lay awake listening to unfamiliar sounds—coughing from the strangers’ camp, a baby crying, hushed too quickly. Once, faintly, I thought I heard singing from far off, too many voices moving together, but when I held my breath to listen, it faded.
Morning Dew shifted beside me. “We should go inland,” she whispered.
I turned to look at her, surprised. She rarely spoke first about such things.
“There’s nothing there,” I said automatically.
“There is less here,” she replied. Her hand found mine in the dark, thin fingers closing with quiet determination. “And too many eyes.”
I didn’t answer. The image of smoke rose unbidden in my mind, climbing straight into the sky. Outside, the forest creaked and settled, as if making room for something new.
* * *
I went out alone the next morning, before the frost had fully loosened its grip on the ground. The refugees were quiet in their camp, smoke barely rising now, thin as a breath held too long. I did not look their way. It is rude to stare at hunger, and dangerous besides. Instead, I took the old path inland, toward the low ridge where the soil thins and certain roots grow if they are not overharvested.
My basket was light against my back. I told myself that was a good sign. Light baskets fill more easily. That was something Cold Crow had once said, smiling faintly as he watched me struggle with a load too big for my shoulders. I tried to hold onto that memory as I walked. It was women’s work, the foraging, but I was past caring about such things. I could not sink lower than I had already.
The forest was waking reluctantly. Winter still clung in the shadows, but the air had softened, carrying the damp promise of rot and growth. I breathed it in deeply and slowed my pace, forcing myself not to rush. Rushing is loud, even when you think it is not.
I stopped near a stand of alder and crouched, pressing my palm to the earth. It was cold and slick, smelling of old leaves and water. I rubbed some of it along my calves and forearms, then across my throat, just as I had the day before. The words that should have gone with the gesture hovered just out of reach, like a name you know belongs to someone you loved but cannot quite summon.
I waited then, longer than was comfortable, trying to remember the next part. There had been a sequence once—earth, breath, shadow. Or maybe shadow first. Cold Crow had insisted that order mattered, that spirits were like easily offended guests. Arrive wrong, and they would not listen, no matter how politely you spoke afterward.
I shifted my weight and felt the damp soak into my knee. Somewhere in the distance, water moved under the ice. I tried to match my breathing to it, slow and patient, but my chest felt tight, my thoughts skipping ahead.
At last, I gave up and rose, ashamed of the relief I felt at not having to decide. Forgetting is its own kind of cowardice, but it lets you keep walking.
“I mean no harm,” I whispered instead. “Hide me.”
It felt foolish, but foolishness offered is better than silence.
I moved on, placing my feet carefully, avoiding brittle twigs. I tried to recall the rest of the old teachings—the way scent carries downhill in the morning, the way animals read intention as much as smell. Once, masking myself had felt as natural as breathing. Now it took effort, and even then, I wasn’t sure that it worked.
The first place I stopped had already been stripped bare. The shallow pits where roots had been dug lay open to the air, the soil dried and cracked around them. Whoever had come before me had not bothered to close them properly. That was a bad sign. People who expect to return don’t leave the ground like that.
I knelt and probed anyway, fingers sinking into cold mud. Nothing. Not even the bitter little tubers that usually hide deepest, the ones that taste of medicine and hunger both.
I moved on, farther than I normally would have gone, my steps growing longer despite myself. Each empty patch tightened something in my chest. I tried not to think of Morning Dew counting what little we had left, of the careful way she rationed without ever saying so.
The second stand was no better. Nor the third. By the time the sun had climbed high enough to thin the shadows, my basket was still empty. My stomach cramped sharply, a reminder that the day was moving whether I was ready or not. I straightened and wiped my hands on my leggings. As I did, I noticed the birch.
At first, I thought it was a trick of the light. The bark caught the sun oddly, smoother in one place than it should have been. I stepped closer, my unease sharpening. The tree bore no cuts. No gouges. Instead, its white skin had been rubbed away in a shallow spiral, the surface beneath pale and slick, as if polished by a thousand careful touches. The shape wound upward, loose and deliberate, ending just above my head. I did not touch it.
Birch does not scar like that by accident. Animals chew. Weather splits. People cut. This was something else. I backed away slowly, my eyes never leaving the mark. I became suddenly aware of how quiet the forest was around me. No bird calls. No rustle of small things in the undergrowth. Even the wind seemed to hesitate.
“Who did this?” I whispered, and felt at once how wrong the question was.
Not who. What.
I forced myself to look away and continued on, though every instinct urged me to turn back. I told myself it was nothing—a bored child, a trick of rot and weather. The lie was sour in my mouth.
Farther upslope, I found more. Another birch, this one bearing long smooth grooves running parallel down its trunk, close together, too regular. Another spiral, tighter than the first. None of them deep. None broken. All fresh.
I knelt at the base of the last tree and pressed my ear to the ground, feeling ridiculous even as I did it. Once, I would have known whether this was a place that listened back. Now I felt only the cold seep into my cheek.
I rose with an effort and moved on again, my steps quicker now. The forest felt wrong in a way I couldn’t name, like a story told with the wrong rhythm.
Near a low hollow where the ground dipped toward the marsh again, I found something worth taking at last. A cluster of shoots pushed up through the leaf litter, pale and fragile. Relief washed through me, sharp enough to make my hands shake.
I worked quickly, loosening the soil with a stick, easing each shoot free with care. I thanked the ground under my breath, awkwardly, aware of how thin the words sounded. The basket grew heavier by degrees, enough that hope stirred despite my caution. And, as I dug, a little miracle—a large rat, still fresh, left by an owl, maybe, or a falcon, disturbed at its meal. I touched my head to the ground in thanks to the forest for this gift.
That was when I found the tracks. They crossed the soft ground at the hollow’s edge, overlapping and confused, far too many for one family. I crouched and studied them, my earlier training stirring reluctantly.
The prints were narrow. Not bare feet, but not the soft, rounded marks of our moccasins either. The edges were oddly straight, as if something stiff had held the foot’s shape. They ran close together, as if the walkers had moved in a tight group. There were a great many walkers. Too many.
I followed them a short distance and saw that they did not spread, did not fan out the way hunters’ tracks do when they search. They moved like a single body, stopping and starting together. My mouth went dry.
I straightened slowly, my eyes scanning the trees. I could not shake the sense that I had come too late to something, or too early. The hollow suddenly felt exposed, the slope above it watching. I told myself to leave. Wisdom lies in knowing when not to push.
I took a few steps back toward the path, then stopped. My bladder ached, sharp and insistent. I hesitated, then stepped aside behind a fallen log, setting my basket down carefully within reach.
It was over in moments. The sound came first—a low, furious chittering. I spun just in time to see a wolverine burst from the brush, all muscle and teeth, eyes wild with hunger. It went straight for the basket, tearing into it with reckless speed.
“No!” I shouted, lunging forward.
The animal hissed, a raw, tearing sound, and dragged the basket away with shocking strength. Roots spilled across the ground. I grabbed at the handle, felt it rip free, and stumbled.
The wolverine vanished into the undergrowth almost as quickly as it had appeared, leaving torn reeds and scattered food behind. And not even scraps left of the rat. I stood there, chest heaving, staring at the mess. My hands shook violently now. Rage flared, bright and useless. Then it collapsed into something else.
Of course. Of course, this was how it would go. A moment’s carelessness. A step aside. The spirits had watched me gather, watched the hope grow, and decided to remind me of my place. I sank to my knees among the scattered shoots. Some were salvageable. Most were not. I gathered what I could with numb fingers, my vision blurring.
“I understand,” I whispered hoarsely. “I see.”
The words surprised me with how easily they came. I had blamed luck before. Cold weather. Thin seasons. The greed of animals. Those excuses had always felt sufficient, even righteous. Now they rang hollow, like a drum that has been stretched too tight.
I thought of the moment years ago when I had turned my back on Cold Crow’s fire, convinced I could choose this life and still be whole. I had told myself the spirits would understand. That they would forgive.
Kneeling there in the torn earth, my food stolen almost as soon as it was won, I felt the weight of that choice settle fully into my bones for the first time. This was not punishment flung in anger. It was abandonment. I had stepped aside, and the spirits left me. The world, their world, continued, bypassing me the way that water flows around rocks. My words weren’t a plea this time; they were an admission.
When at last I rose, my basket held barely a third of what it had before. It was still more than nothing. It did not feel like a gift. I turned back toward camp, taking a longer route, unwilling to pass the defaced birches one more time. The forest remained quiet, too quiet. Once, birds burst from the trees ahead of me, scattering in sudden panic. I froze, heart pounding, but saw nothing follow.
By the time the camp came into view, my legs ached, and my shoulders sagged under the familiar weight of failure. Smoke rose from the central fire. Voices drifted toward me. Life went on.
I tightened my grip on the basket straps and walked the last distance slowly, rehearsing what I would say to Morning Dew, how I would explain the thinness of my offering without letting the bitterness show. Behind me, unseen, the forest closed ranks again, keeping its secrets.
* * *
The fire was already crowded when I returned. Smoke lay thick over the circle, caught low by the cold evening air, stinging my eyes and throat. Bodies pressed close together, drawn as much by anxiety as by warmth. Voices overlapped in a low, restless murmur that never quite rose into argument, though it edged close.
I hesitated at the edge, shifting the basket on my back. Its lightness felt conspicuous, as if it rang when I moved. I told myself it was better than nothing. I told myself many things.
The fire circle had changed shape since last winter. People sat closer together now, knees almost touching, their backs curved inward as if guarding something fragile at the center. I remembered when there had been gaps—room for movement, for choice. Now even the children were folded into the adults’ space, quiet in a way that made my skin prickle.
I could smell the broth long before I saw it. Thin, mostly water, but carrying the memory of marrow and crushed bark. My body responded before my mind could stop it. Saliva gathered under my tongue. My stomach cramped sharply, as if offended by the scent.
I shifted my weight to hide the movement, pressing my knees together. Hunger is a private thing until it isn’t.
Someone laughed suddenly, too loud, and the sound startled me. It broke the tightness for a moment, then snapped back into place. The circle closed ranks again, leaving me outside its shape. That, too, was speech.
Hunters were returning from the north bank as I approached, their faces set in the particular way that meant disappointment carefully contained. One carried a single hare, thin and stiff, slung over his shoulder. Another carried nothing, his hands empty, his jaw clenched.
Red Antler stood near the fire, arms folded, listening without speaking as they reported. I could not hear their words clearly, but I did not need to. The gestures said enough: small sweeps of the hand, tight shakes of the head, a finger stabbing toward the darkened tree line. Too quiet out there. Too many tracks crossing. Nothing moving like it should.
I moved closer, drawn by habit more than invitation. Hunting talk had once been where I belonged—not as a hunter, but as someone who listened for what lay beneath it. I told myself that was still true.
As I stepped into the outer ring, the voices faltered. Not all at once. One man trailed off mid-sentence. Another cleared his throat and did not resume. The silence spread outward like a stain until only the fire spoke, popping softly as a stone was shifted. No one looked at me.
I stood there for a few breaths too long, heat flushing my face despite the cold. Then I nodded, as if satisfied, and stepped back out of the circle. Conversation resumed behind me, cautious at first, then freer. The message was clear. It had been clear for some time.
I went to the far side of the fire where the old women sat. Bone Needle was there, her legs folded beneath her, a small skin-pot between her knees. She was lifting stones in and out with a forked stick, steam puffing up around her hands. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes flicked up as I approached.
“You’re late,” she said.
“I went farther,” I replied.
She snorted quietly. “So did everyone.”
I set my basket down beside her and loosened the straps. She did not look inside, but I saw her mouth tighten.
“Better than yesterday,” she said after a moment. It was not praise. It was acknowledgment.
Across the fire, Morning Dew sat apart from the other women, her shoulders drawn inward. She was shelling something small and hard, her fingers working steadily. Most of the women didn’t sit near her anymore. Pity is a heavy thing to carry when food is scarce.
She didn’t look toward the fire as she worked. Her eyes stayed on her hands, as if the small task before her were the only solid thing left in the world. I recognized that posture. It was how you make yourself small enough not to be noticed, not to be resented.
Bone Needle rose at last and crossed the circle with deliberate slowness, her movements drawing no attention because they were expected. She paused near Morning Dew and lowered herself with a soft grunt, blocking her from view for a moment. Her hands moved quickly.
When she shifted aside again, Morning Dew’s fingers closed around something hidden in her furs. She didn’t look up. She didn’t thank Bone Needle. Gratitude spoken too clearly becomes an accusation.
I felt a tightening behind my eyes that had nothing to do with smoke. This was how my wife survived now—not through me, but around me. Through the quiet defiance of old women and the careful blindness of the rest of the camp. I wondered how long that kindness would last if food should become even more scarce.
Bone Needle followed my gaze and clicked her tongue. “She ate,” she said softly. “Before you ask.”
“From where?” The question slipped out before I could stop it.
Her eyes sharpened. “From where old women have always found things.” She leaned closer, her voice dropping. “And don’t you shame her with that look. She has enough to bear.”
I bowed my head. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant,” she cut in. “Meaning isn’t the problem.”
A stone slipped from her fork and hissed loudly as it hit the water. Several heads turned. Bone Needle didn’t hurry. She retrieved it calmly and set it aside to cool.
Across the fire, voices rose at last.
“This can’t keep going,” one of the hunters said, frustration breaking through. “We can’t feed three camps from a single river.”
“We’re not feeding them,” another snapped. “We’re barely feeding ourselves.”
“And if they don’t move?” a third asked. “What then?”
Red Antler raised a hand. “Enough.”
Silence fell again, thicker this time.
“We will not fight over shadows and rumors,” the chief said. “They stay two nights. No more. If they move closer, we speak again.”
“And if the smoke keeps rising?” someone pressed.
Red Antler’s jaw tightened. “Then we watch. And wait.”
Waiting costs less than taking action. Everyone knew that.
As the meeting dissolved back into low conversation, Ash Reed moved quietly among the women, her presence steadying. She paused near Morning Dew, murmured something, and pressed a small bundle into her hands with practiced subtlety. Morning Dew’s shoulders sagged with relief she could not quite hide. I looked away.
Later, when the stones were lifted from the pot, and carved bone spoons reached toward the broth, I wasn’t called. They ate around me as if I weren’t there. That, also, was familiar.
A group of hunters gathered near the fire’s brightest edge, heads bent close. I recognized the shape of the meeting instantly. Planning. Measuring. Assigning. No one glanced my way. I could have approached. No one would have stopped me. That was how it worked—you weren’t barred outright. You were simply not included.
As I edged closer, voices lowered further.
“They say there were dozens of tracks together,” one murmured.
“Too many for a band.”
“Too quiet.”
“People don’t move like that.”
I cleared my throat softly, more a habit than a request. The talk ceased at once.
Someone poked at the embers with unnecessary force. Another stood abruptly, muttering about checking a snare that didn’t need checking. Within moments, the group had dissolved, leaving only the fire and my own reflection trembling in the heat shimmer. I remained standing there for a few breaths, long enough to be certain. Then I turned away. I didn’t protest. Protest would have been worse.
When the fire burned lower, and people began drifting away to their shelters, I took out my net and sat where the light was best. Repair work gives you a reason to remain without intruding. I spread the mesh across my knees and set to work, fingers moving by memory. As I worked, talk drifted close again.
“They say the footprints aren’t shaped right,” someone murmured. “Too narrow. Like the foot’s been bound.”
“Soft boots,” another replied. “Deer skin wrapped high. A trader from the People of the Sturgeon told me.”
“Traders say lots of things.”
“Not this time.”
I kept my head down, listening. Listening had once been my calling. Now it felt like trespass.
Bone Needle settled beside me again, her presence solid. She did not speak at first, only watched my hands move.
“You still remember that,” she said at last.
“Yes.”
She nodded. “Pity you remember only what keeps things together.”
The words stung more than she knew.
A shout rose briefly from the far side of the camp—anger, then laughter quickly forced. Someone had drunk too much of the fermented berries saved from autumn. Hunger makes people reckless.
As the fire sank toward embers, Cold Crow appeared at its edge. He did not sit. He stood, staff resting lightly against his shoulder, eyes scanning faces one by one.
When his gaze reached me, it lingered. Not accusing. Not forgiving. Measuring. I looked down first. He said nothing. He didn’t need to. His silence pressed heavier than any rebuke.
When Morning Dew came to sit beside me at last, she leaned close, her voice barely stirring the air. “They’re planning a deer drive.”
I felt the words land like a stone dropped into deep water. “When?”
“Soon. Before the ice breaks up completely.”
I nodded, though my chest tightened. “Good.”
She hesitated. “No one mentioned you.”
“No,” I agreed. “They wouldn’t.”
Her hand found mine, fingers cold but steady. “We could still go inland. Just us.”
I thought of the marked birches. The too-many tracks. The smoke climbing where no fire should have been.
“Yes,” I said, though the word felt heavy. “We could.” I didn’t add that we would surely die there. No one can live without their band. But then, she knew that as well as I did.
Around us, the camp settled into uneasy rest. The fire dwindled, embers glowing like watchful eyes. Somewhere beyond the trees, something moved that did not care whether I was a hunter or a spirit-talker, welcomed or shunned. For the first time, I understood how thin the space between those things had always been.
* * *
The net lay across my knees, its familiar weight grounding me as the camp settled into uneasy sleep. Firelight flickered low, just enough to catch on the pale cords and make them glow. My fingers worked steadily, tightening a knot here, easing a snag there. It was work that asked little of me beyond patience, and tonight that felt like mercy.
It was while I worked that the memory came back fully. Not all at once. It never did. It came the way a wound reveals itself when the cold eases—slowly, with a dull ache before the sharpness returns.
I had been younger then, much younger, or so it felt. Newly named. My hair was still worn the way apprentices wear it, bound back to keep it out of the way, not yet marked with the small tokens Cold Crow gave his adult student. The camp had been larger then, and louder. There had been more food, more laughter. Or perhaps that was only how it looked from inside lost hope.
Cold Crow had sent for me at dusk. Being chosen had never felt like an honor, the way people imagine it.
Even as a boy, I’d understood that it meant being watched more closely than others—not for mistakes, but for alignment. When I spoke, adults listened for echoes they didn’t name. When I had bad dreams, Cold Crow asked what I’d seen before anyone thought to comfort me. There was pride in that attention, yes, but also a narrowing. A sense that certain paths were no longer open, even if they still lay before my feet.
I’d learned early to hold myself a little bit apart, to listen before acting, to measure the world as something that might speak back if treated the right way. That training didn’t leave room for ordinary mistakes. You didn’t get to fail loudly and learn later. You either listened, or you didn’t.
Walking toward Cold Crow’s shelter that evening, I’d already felt the weight of everything I was about to refuse. I remembered the way the message came—not a summons shouted across camp, but a child touching my arm and saying simply, “He wants you.” No urgency. No room for refusal.
I’d known what it would be about. I’d known for days. Morning Dew—though she still bore the name her captors had given her then—had come to sit beside me by the river that afternoon. She hadn’t spoken at first. She’d just watched the water move, her fingers worrying the edge of her cloak.
“They’re going to ask you to go farther this time,” she’d said finally.
“Yes,” I’d answered.
“To stay away longer.”
“Yes.”
She’d nodded, as if confirming something she already knew. “They won’t let you come back easily.”
“No.”
That had been when she’d turned to look at me fully, her eyes sharp despite her thinness. “Then don’t go.”
Her plain words had landed harder than any command could have. Don’t go. As if it were that simple. As if the path laid out for me since childhood were just another trail I could step off without consequence. I’d opened my mouth to tell her she didn’t understand. I’d closed it again when I realized that she did. That was the moment, though I hadn’t known it then. The moment when the world tipped and didn’t settle back the way it had been before.
Cold Crow’s shelter lay a little apart from the rest, close enough to hear the river at night. I approached it with the careful steps of someone entering a place where the air listens. The fire inside burned low, fed with wood chosen as much for smell as for heat. He did not look up when I entered.
“Sit,” he’d said.
I sat. For a long time, he’d said nothing. He’d only watched the smoke curl upward, his face unreadable. When he finally spoke, his voice had been calm, almost gentle.
“They’re ready for you.”
I’d swallowed. “I know.”
“You don’t sound glad.”
I hadn’t answered right away. The truth pressed at my chest, heavy and insistent. When I finally spoke, my voice sounded strange to my own ears.
“I don’t want to go.”
Cold Crow had turned then, slowly. He’d studied me with the same care he brought to everything else, as if trying to see not just what stood before him, but what lay behind and ahead.
“This isn’t about wanting,” he’d said.
“I know,” I’d said. “That’s the problem.”
Silence had followed, thick enough to feel. The fire had popped softly. Somewhere outside, a bird had cried once and gone quiet.
“You were chosen,” Cold Crow had said at last. Not proudly. Simply. “Not by me. Not by the People.”
“I know.”
“Then you also know what it means to refuse.”
“Yes.”
That had been the moment when dread had set its hook in me, deep and sure. I’d known, even then, that whatever relief I felt would not come free.
“You know the spirits will close their ears to you once you have been with a woman? That you will never hear them again? That there is no way back after that?”
“I cannot leave her,” I replied. The words had come out rough, scraped raw from somewhere low in my chest. “She’s already lost everything once. I won’t be the one who does it to her again.”
Cold Crow’s eyes had softened, just a fraction. “And if the spirits take her because we no longer hear them?”
The question had not been an accusation. It was worse.
I’d looked down at my hands then. They were steady, and that surprised me. “I don’t believe they would do that,” I’d said.
Cold Crow had held my gaze. “Belief doesn’t bind them.”
I’d felt a flare of anger then, sharp and sudden. “They don’t live with her,” I’d snapped. “They don’t know what she needs.”
“That’s exactly what they know,” he’d replied quietly.
I’d stood. I remembered that clearly—the scrape of my knees against the mat, the way the firelight jumped with the movement.
“I won’t go,” I’d said. Louder now. Certain, at least on the surface. “If that means I’m unfit, then say so.”
Cold Crow had risen too, slowly, as if his bones weighed more than mine. For a long moment, he’d looked very old.
“You’ve made your choice,” he said then. “That’s all I’ll say. Don’t pretend it’s anything else.”
I’d wanted him to shout. To curse me. To strike the staff against the ground and call down whatever punishment waited. His restraint had felt like abandonment.
“I choose her,” I’d said and nodded, to make myself more certain than I felt.
He’d nodded once. “Then know this. When the band no longer hears the spirits, they’ll remember this moment. And so will you.”
He’d turned away then, dismissing me not with anger but with finality. I’d left without another word, my heart pounding with something dangerously close to triumph. A raven called then, once, from beyond the fire. Not near. Not far. I did not turn toward it.
The change hadn’t been immediate, but it had been swift. By the next morning, people looked at me differently—not with anger, but with a careful distance, as if I carried a sickness that might spread. Conversations slowed when I approached. Requests that once came easily—help interpreting a dream, a strange sign in the river, a child’s fever—simply stopped. No one said why. They didn’t have to.
Cold Crow kept up his work, of course. The spirits didn’t vanish because I had refused them. But something thinned. The listening took longer. The answers came late or crooked. When a hunt failed, people shrugged. When illness lingered, they shook their heads. These were things that happened, after all. But each time, I felt the space where my voice should have been. And I did nothing to fill it.
Morning Dew had been waiting outside, her face tense with hope she didn’t quite dare trust. When she saw my expression, relief had broken over her like sunlight.
“You stayed,” she’d said.
“Yes.”
She’d laughed then, a sound that was half-sob, and pressed her forehead to my chest. I’d wrapped my arms around her, feeling right in a way that was almost painful.
That night, I’d slept deeply, convinced I had chosen life over shadows. Now, years later, sitting by the dwindling fire with the net across my knees, I knew how thin that certainty had been.
Cold Crow kept doing what he could, but there are paths only one person can walk at a time. Without me, the listening grew faint. Misfortune crept in slowly, plausibly. Hunger. Illness. And when Cold Crow dies, the band would lose its Spirit Talker altogether. How would it live then?
That was how our little daughter slipped away as well. No lightning strike. No sudden curse. Just a weakening, day by day, as winter pressed in harder than expected. The aunties tried what they could. I could hear them muttering about spirits being angry at my refusal to take up my calling. Cold Crow came and sat with us, sang softly, listened until his shoulders sagged with the effort. I watched him then with something close to terror, wondering if this was the moment the spirits would finally make their anger plain. They did not.
She faded quietly, like a fire starved of fuel, and when it was done, no one argued about why. No one needed to. The explanation lay waiting, fully formed, in the space I’d left behind. Even Morning Dew did not deny it. She only held my hand tighter, as if daring the world to take anything else. No one had needed to say why.
I tightened a knot until the cord bit into my fingers, grounding myself in the present. The camp around me slept fitfully. Somewhere, Morning Dew turned in her shelter, her breath catching briefly before settling again. I’d chosen her. I would choose her again. But choice didn’t erase consequence.
I finished the repair and folded the net carefully, laying it beside me. Before rising, I pressed my fingertips to the ground and bowed my head, a gesture that once would have been second nature.
“I remember,” I whispered into the dark. “I haven’t forgotten.”
Whether that was true—or whether the spirits still cared to hear it—remained unanswered. Above me, unseen in the night, the forest leaned closer and did not pull away. To the southwest, a malevolent-looking red glow could be seen, as if an entire forest were burning.
To be continued…
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