A November Sky

Chapter Twelve

I bathed at the waterfall, hiding the leather journal, the writing stick, a fyrestone, and two full beeswax candles in the bottom of my basket under a soft drying fur and a change of clothes. Kocoum sent me to the clearing without his men, though his eyes lingered on my basket, weighing his decision. He made me promise to return after my bath, so he could see me off and assign men to escort me.

It was my first bath in a half-moon, since Kocoum had barricaded me in our hut. I could have snipped my pride and asked him to take me, but the supervised latrine breaks had been humiliating enough. The thought of Kocoum witnessing such a raw and private moment was dizzying. There was something otherworldly about the waterfall that filled my chest, forcing breath, drowning me, breaking me until all that remained was the land and the water and me, standing under the weight of the falls, my calves burning, the water driving white spears into my back and shoulders, every part of me alive with the challenge. I can't fully explain the way it restored me, dwarfing my doubts and uncertainties. Sometimes you have to shatter for the pieces to fit.

When I rose from the water, my wet hair hung limp and straight, plastering itself to the back of my neck. I wrung it out the best I could and wove it into a quick braid.

I returned to the cave with the two full beeswax candles, lifted from the storage house inventory. Like before, my eye was drawn to the painting of powwow, the men clustered around the fire. I traced one man's blue outline with my finger, lingering on a strange line protruding from his side. They all had this. Not a bow exactly, but some kind of weapon. A thunder stick. These men were newworlders, sitting around our powwow fires. Had we attempted peace with newworlders before? It shamed me that I didn't know. I knew so little of our history, our stories. I could repeat the journey of Mother Moon from memory, yet all I'd ever heard of the pale men was their cruelty. I peered at my mother's symbols, painted in a string a blue along the roof of the cave, as if their harsh lines held the answers. But it was a language I couldn't translate. Not my mother's, I realized, but newworlder. That was why I hadn't recognized them. She'd learned the language from the newworlders. I leaned my candle against the cave wall, frantically copying the blue newworlder symbols onto the journal's lined pages.

I stayed in the cave until my second candle burnt to the wax. I'd been gone a long time, but that was normal. I never visited the falls without taking the time to savor the lush scenery, winding my way through the clearing like a smooth creek licking down the mountain side. At our hut, Kocoum paced, his moccasins wearing grooves in the packed dirt floor. I stopped in the doorway, my shadow long on the dirt, and Kocoum strode to me, drawing me into his arms. With my face against his chest, my breath blew warm on my cheeks. His muscles bunched beneath my fingertips. He exhaled, a long breath that ruffled the frizzing hairs escaping my braid.

One of his men cleared their throats, and Kocoum released me. Each of the four men, clad with red warpaint and long-range bows, watched the ground, toeing the clay path as if some mystery lay in its floury grain. Kocoum tensed and straightened, drawing his emotions inside of himself. I hadn't noticed the way he'd relaxed against me; I never did until it was gone.

Kocoum held out a fur bag. Supplies, heavy and jostling in my hand, water swishing within a waterskin. "Be swift," he said.

"As the skies and seas." I laid my hand on his arm, trying to convey the message: I remember. I will honor my promise. Then I turned from him and, trailed by his men, entered the forest.