Shadows Cast by Stars

I force my eyes open and look down at a bandage bigger than my hand. Madda peels it back to expose a perfect circle of brown dots, each bearing a single stitch.

“What is it?” I whisper.

“A gift,” she says. “Open your hand.” She spills thirteen translucent pearls into my palm. “One for each one of those dots,” she says. “Had a devil of a time getting them out, and used up most of your father’s whiskey in the process. Good thing you weren’t conscious. It hurt me to do it.”

“What did that to me?” The words scrape against my throat and I want to go back to sleep, but I can’t. I need to know.

“Sisiutl.” The word is sibilant, as if Madda has taken on the voice of the double-headed sea monster.

“But…” I touch one of the dots. It hurts, but not as much as my head.

“Yeah, but is right. They’re the meanest of the mean in the spirit world. Looks like you’re one of the lucky ones, though. It marked you-that means it will never harm you again, sort of like choosing you as its own.”

“Great,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to be a two-headed serpent.”

Madda chuckles. “That’s not quite what I meant and you know it. My people believe sisiutl chooses the most powerful warriors to fight alongside it.”

“Warriors?”

“Sure. Sometimes, people call us healers ‘spiritual warriors.’ Sounds about right, don’t you think?”

I shake my head. “That wouldn’t be me.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. You fended it off, after all. You fought back.”

“Thanks to you. It was your knife that did it.”

Madda purses her lips. “I knew you were going to need that knife. I just didn’t think it would be for this.” She gently pats the bandage into place and draws the blanket back up. “Now, you need some rest. Sisiutl gave you more than that love bite-you’re covered in bumps and bruises and I’m pretty sure you’ve got a concussion. You’re to stay in bed until I say you can get up. Got it?”

I smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

Madda snorts and moves to leave.

“Wait,” I say, though sleep is already pulling at my eyes. “Bran-?”

“Is outside. He hasn’t gone home since it happened. Thinks this was his fault. Always does.” She shakes her head. “But don’t you worry about that right now. Just go to sleep, all right?”

“All right,” I manage to say, before I drift off.

Sometime later, I wake. Light stabs at my eyes. I raise a hand to cover my face. My body feels as if every square inch of it is swollen and raw.

“Cass?” A hand touches my cheek.

Bran.

“The light hurts,” I say.

“Oh.” I hear him rummage about and then the light goes away. “Is that better?”

“Yes.” I open my eyes slowly, testing them for pain, only to see that Bran’s shirtless. I raise an eyebrow at him.

“Oh.” He glances down at his chest. “I used my shirt to cover the window.”

“Ah.” I try to laugh, but it becomes a cough.

Bran’s face drains of all its color as he watches me. Then, as my coughing subsides, he bends to help me sit up. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not very good at this.”

“You’re doing just fine,” I say. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t left,” he says. “God, Cass, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

His head drops so I can’t see his eyes and I know he’s fighting back tears.

Madda’s words drift back to me. Thinks this was his fault. Always does. I want to say something to change that, but all I can manage is to take his hand and hold it tight.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

There is no pain quite like the pain of healing. I walk up and down the sundeck, Paul at my side, holding my hand while I gasp for breath. Madda decided one of my ribs must be broken. She’s plastered my rib cage with boneset and honey and now I have to wait for it to heal. It hurts so badly, but it feels good to be up and moving.

Bran is asleep on my bed right now. He still hasn’t gone home.

“Are you tired?” Paul asks as I reach out and take the railing. He’s been distant since the night of the attack. I think he feels a little guilty that he wasn’t around to help. In fact, he didn’t return until late the next day, from what my father says, and left as soon as he saw me.

“Hey.” Bran stands by the kitchen door, running a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Thought you could use a break,” Paul says. “Divvy up the duties of taking care of this pain in the arse.”

“Hah,” I say, nudging him.

“That’s the best you can do?”

“Yeah.” It is. Even that hurt. “Let me try walking on my own, okay?”

Paul smiles and releases his hold. I shuffle toward Bran as if I’m ninety. If this is what it feels like to get old, I want no part of it. Bran takes my hand and tucks it into his. “You should be back in bed.”

“Madda said I should get up and move around.”

“In small doses.” He looks at Paul. “Tell her.”

Paul waves us away. “You’re on your own, man. She never listens to me.”

I stick out my tongue at him as Bran and I step inside. Paul’s laughter drifts after us.

“You’re looking a lot better today,” Bran says as we pause for me to catch my breath.

“I’m feeling better.” It’s not much of a lie, really. He draws a chair up for me and I sit, gazing out at the lake. A skiff divides the silver water in two. A canoe bobs in its wake. On the far shore, smoke drifts lazily above the evergreens. The mountains watch. Everything is deceptively peaceful, for somewhere out there is the sisiutl, and the longer I stare at the lake, the more I’m convinced it’s waiting for my return. Despite what Madda said- that I’m safe from it now-I don’t believe it one bit.

Bran stands behind me, stroking my hair.

“Have you seen what the sisiutl did to me?” I say, though what I really want to ask is, Are you here because you feel responsible, or because you really want to be here?

He shakes his head. “I don’t want to look. Not now.”

“But you’ll have to someday.”

He takes a deep breath. “Yes. Someday.”

I reach up and take his hand, giving it a squeeze. He squeezes back.

A week later, Bran leaves to do battle with his mother (as he put it). My father has been busy building the outhouse, and who knows where Paul is. When I ask my father, he just shrugs and frowns.

Madda has been back to our house almost every day under the pretense of checking on me, but really I think she’s here to see my father.

It’s been five years since my mother died. Five years of my father wandering through days without blinking, without thinking of anyone but me and Paul. At first, after Mom, he stopped living too, as if his life was a house and he no longer came home. Each day he returned to us a little more, but for five years I haven’t seen his shade. It’s a robin-the first true shade I ever saw-and as I stand at the window, watching Madda and my father survey the garden they’ve planted, a lump forms in my throat. My father’s robin sits on his shoulder, warbling its heart out.

Madda glances up at me and heads toward the house. “Well?” she says when she arrives, huffing from the climb up the hill. “Have you learned all you can from that herbal I lent to you?”

“I’ve memorized it.”

She sniffs. “Memorizing isn’t the same as learning. Come to the cottage tomorrow. We’ll see how much you