The Bitter Taste Read Free Page B

back to the small altar
she had made. Salt encircled it, giving her little room to move
inside. She didn’t need a lot.
    The wind dropped and she felt his presence.
She turned. He came towards her, his arms open.
    She ran to him, willingly folding herself
into the nothingness that always followed him.
    “I sense out child growing within you,” he
murmured, placing a hand over her stomach. “She will be
strong.”
    Yau smiled.
    He raised his hand, taking hers and holding
it tight.
    “I have a gift for you,” he murmured. “A
symbol of our joining.”
    He passed his hand over her finders. She felt
cold numbness spread through her and she shivered, looking
down.
    A smooth, solid black band rested on her left
index finger.
    “This is for our daughter- and then for every
first-born daughter throughout time. It will bring great strength
to them.”
    “I will keep it safe for them.”
    He looked down at her. Yau smiled, pulled
away and moved to stand in her circle. She took the knife from her
belt and stared at it before staring back out to sea. The sun had
disappeared below the horizon now and the sky was filled with blood
red clouds.
    “I’m coming, Tepil. I swear it.”
    She placed the tip of the knife to her wrist.
Sweat broke out between her shoulder blades as it always did at the
thought of slicing herself open. She looked down at the criss-cross
of old scars and smiled. There was no fear this time. She sliced
the knife up from wrist to forearm and chanted the words her lord
had whispered to her the previous night.
     
    *
     
    She dropped to her knees and pushed her hand to the
soil, forcing her blood into the earth, calling to those whose
bones lay within its embrace.
    She felt them answer- an echo of life as her
rich blood lent them the power to move once more, to regrow the
sinew and muscle they needed to rise.
    When she closed her eyes she could see
through theirs- she could feel the grit in their sockets, knew the
cold, suffocating pressure of damp soil. She urged them on- to
scrabble and scrape until they were free of the rotted shrouds, to
claw the earth away until she could see the stars.
    She turned her head towards the village,
opened her eyes and watched as the ground erupted and the dead rose
up, able and willing to do her bidding.
    She heard a scream, quickly followed by
shouts and horrified moans as the dead all turned to face her,
awaiting her command.
    She could see Amoxtl, his corpse the freshest
amongst the dead. She felt nothing for him. Her friend was no
longer there, but she knew he would want the honour.
    With a thought she sent them down to the
lagoon. The older ones shuffled, barely able to control their
movements, and with every movement the wind carried to her the
wheeze of air trying to move through paper-dry lungs. The more
recently dead moved faster, keeping pace with Amoxtl as he raced to
finish what he had started in life.
    She turned to face her consort.
    “Perfect,” he rasped, his tongue lashing
wildly in his broken mouth.
    “Oh Gods above,” another voice said.
    “Go home, Nan,” Yau said without even turning
round.
    “Child, what have you done? Tounatil protect,
you deal with devils this night!”
    “Tounatil is powerless to protect. Look at
the sky- already he sleeps.”
    “Yau, stop this- you cannot wake the dead,
you are not a God- you earn the wrath of them all with this.”
    “Not all,” said Yau, and she smiled, looking
directly at Nan. “You were kind to me,” she said. “I’m sorry- but I
will not leave my brother to wander lost, not when the Lord of all
Souls waits so patiently for him.”
    “Yau, please- it is not too late- give the
dead their rest, come back with me- it is not too late”
    “It was too late the minute the priests gave
my parents to the Harvest.”
    Yau gave Nan one long, sorrow-filled look,
and then turned back to the sea. She closed her eyes and groaned as
she stared through a multitude of focal points.
    She felt their minds, sluggish