It Dreams in Me Read Free Page A

burned her eyes. She blinked them away. “I’m here wasting your time.”
    He finished his tea and got to his feet. “Are you telling me you don’t believe you can be Healed? Or you think I’m too poor a Healer to accomplish the task?”
    She clenched her fists and in frustration shouted, “I’m too broken to be Healed! Can’t you see that? Let me go home where I can be of some use!”
    As he walked back toward the fire pit, he asked, “Are you hungry? There’s some duck soup left over from breakfast.”
    She didn’t answer. She felt shattered, certain that no one would ever be able to fix her wandering reflection-soul in her body. Finally, she responded, “I might be able to keep down some broth.”
    He dipped a cup into the pot sitting at the edge of the coals and walked back. As he handed it to her, he said, “You realize, don’t you, that if you go home before you’re Healed, you will probably be killed by your own people?”
    She clamped her jaw to keep it from trembling.
    The illness that Strongheart called the Rainbow Black took a strange form inside her. Sora had seen it. It was a dark wicked spirit, a Midnight Fox. Flint believed that her reflection-soul wandered away, roaming the forest while her body committed murder. If Strongheart couldn’t find her lost soul and make it stay in her body, her clan would have no choice but to protect itself.
    Gently, he pointed out, “If the Midnight Fox seizes you
again and someone—anyone—in the village dies, you will be blamed.”
    Blamed and killed for it. Not even Wink would be able to save her, not this time.
    As her throat tightened and tears burned her eyes, she set her bowl down.
    Strongheart smoothed her hair. “Eat. Then get some sleep. We’ll be moving again soon. You will need your strength.”

4

    VOICES PENETRATED AROUND THE DOOR CURTAIN TO THE council chamber in the Matron’s House at Blackbird Town.
    For a few moments, High Matron Wink stood in the dim hallway, listening to the three men inside the chamber. She couldn’t make out any of their words, but their indignant tones told her a great deal.
    She straightened the conch shell combs that pinned her graying black hair behind her ears and smoothed the wrinkles from her purple dress. She had seen thirty-six winters and felt every one today. Weariness draped her body like an iron cape. As she ducked beneath the door curtain into the torchlit council chamber, the three men rose to their feet.
    The council chamber was twenty paces across, and sacred masks lined the walls, divine beings that watched over the Black Falcon People. Birdman, Sun Mother, and the different Comet People were her favorites. Their empty eye sockets seemed to be staring straight at her. As she walked by, the
streaming hair of the Comet People swayed and the scent of long-dried herbs filled the air.
    Four log benches framed the fire hearth. When she neared them, the men bowed.
    Her sixteen-winters-old son, Chief Long Fin, stood directly in front of her. He looked regal today. His golden cape fell around his tall body like sculpted sunlight. One long black braid hung down his back. To his left stood War Chief Feather Dancer, a heavily scarred man with a thumblike nose; to his right was a short man with hunched shoulders. He had small shining eyes and a twitching nose that reminded Wink of a trapped packrat. Red Raven. Matron Sea Grass’ secret messenger. Every time she had a task too onerous for a decent person to complete, she paid this snake to do it. While Wink had never met him, she had several allies in the Water Hickory Clan who’d been watching him for winters.
    “Please sit down,” she said as she walked to the one open bench and sank down atop it. “We have a good deal to discuss. I assume you are Red Raven?”
    The little man swallowed hard. “I am, High Matron. I was surprised when you sent War Chief Feather Dancer to drag me out of my chamber. May I ask why I have been summoned?”
    The pearls on the