Children of the Dawnland (North America's Forgotten Past Series) Read Free Page B

runner talked with War Chief Puffer, and Puffer came to talk with me right after the runner left. Puffer wondered if I had dreamed anything about the Thornback raiders.”
    “Did you?”
    Mother tucked a lock of black hair behind her ear. “No.”
    For a time they sat in silence. Twig watched Mother from the corner of her eye while she ate. Mother looked frightened. What else had Puffer said? There had to be more to the story, something so bad that Mother didn’t want to tell Twig about it.
    Finally, Mother said, “What about you? Did you remember anything else from the dream that woke you last night?”
    Without thinking, Twig squeezed her eyes closed, and the dream came back … .
    The wave of heat hits me, and it’s as though my skin is peeling from my face!
    “Help!” I cry out. “Someone help me!”
    “I’m right here. Come to me, Dreamer.”
    The ground is heaving and shuddering. I try to see who spoke, but I don’t see anyone. “Where are you?”
    “Come. Fly to me. Your people need your help.”
    The gentle voice echoes from the snow, and on the crest of the high ice ridge, I see a young woman sitting. She wears a white mammoth hide over her shoulders, and black hair whips around her beautiful face. Behind her, strange, half-transparent things dance. They don’t seem to have any arms or legs.
    I shout, “But I’ve only seen twelve summers! What can I do?”
    The woman smiles. “You can save them, Twig. If you’re brave enough. Just remember that to step onto the path, you must leave it. Only the lost come to stand before the entrance to Cobia’s cave, and only the defenseless step over its threshold. You—”
    “Twig?” Mother said sharply. “I asked about your dream. Answer me.”
    The memory died. Twig shuddered before she could stop it. “N-no, Mother. I don’t remember anything else. Really. I just remember seeing the green ball of light and being scared. That’s all.”
    Mother stared at her unblinking. “You didn’t tell anyone about the dream, did you?”
    Twig took another big bite of rabbit and chewed it for several heartbeats before she lied, “No. You told me not to. But I still don’t understand why I can’t—”
    “Yes, you do. The story would travel through the village like lightning. Within days the elders would call a council meeting to question you to determine if you are a Spirit dreamer. Do you want to be made an outcast?”
    “But you’re a Spirit dreamer, and you’re not an outcast. Spirit dreamers are only made outcasts if they become too strange to live among other human beings. I won’t change—”
    “How do you know that? You have powerful dreaming blood. You could become as crazy as Screech Owl, or—or worse, Cobia. That’s why your grandfather was sent to kidnap Cobia. She was a power child, and everyone knew it. Everyone wanted her to dream the future for them. Do you want someone to come and kidnap you?”
    Twig swallowed hard.
    Mother lowered her voice and hissed, “Ever since you were born, I’ve seen Cobia’s shadow hanging over you, as though you are her daughter, not mine. The two of you are linked, Twig. I don’t know how or why, but it frightens me.”
    The fear in Mother’s voice terrified Twig. She ate the last bite of meat from the rabbit leg and set the bone down in her bowl. “Did Cobia ever dream the future for our people?”
    Mother sat back and seemed to be thinking. “Cobia
had seen four summers when our Spirit dreamer, Chief Minnow, first asked her to dream for him. From that moment until the day she left, people never left her alone. She dreamed constantly, for anyone who asked, and her dreams always came true.”
    Mother looked away and stared at the lodge flap, as though she expected Cobia to walk right through it at any instant. “I don’t know how she stood it. She must have been exhausted.”
    Twig hesitated for a long time before she worked up the courage to say, “Mother? Maybe I should go ask Screech Owl about my