Shadows Cast by Stars

before I can stop it, sinks its fangs into my neck. Be careful what you look for, it whispers just before dropping away into the night.

I hear the hum of the monolith and from far away, a woman’s scream. Me? Madda? I don’t know. I can’t tell. I begin to cry. I’ve learned nothing. I’ve failed.

No, a voice says. You are the serpent that flies by night.

And then the real world falls away once again and I’m stretched across the sky until I am the sky, I am the air, I am the fire of stars and the water of rain. A kingfisher flies with me and catches me in its bill and I know Bran still lives, but behind us, racing through the dark, is something else. I can’t see it, but I can smell it, a foul stink, like rotting flesh. Faster, I say to Bran. We must go faster!

The kingfisher releases me and vanishes in a burr of song.

I fall, but I don’t hit the earth. Instead I open my eyes. The horrible smell is still in my nose, my mouth. I grab the bottle of whiskey and drink, hoping it will burn the smell away, but I swallow wrong and cough it back up instead.

Madda doesn’t help. She just sits across from me, waiting. “Well?”

I struggle to find my voice. “I saw Sisiutl,” I say, though my throat is hoarse and my neck burns where it bit me.

“I suspected as much. He wears many skins, that sisiutl, and has many names. Dragon, Wyrm, Wyvern, those are some of them. Doesn’t really matter what you call him. He is what he is,” Madda says as she presses a cup of water to my lips. “Drink. Come on, open up and drink.”

I push it away. “I’ll be sick.”

“No, you won’t. Spirit is trying to pull you back under. Drink.”

The water sends my stomach into spasms and the pain on my neck gets worse. I touch it and discover blood on my fingers. “I’m bleeding.”

“Let me see.” Madda moves in close to inspect it, so close I can smell the stink of her perspiration. “How did that happen?”

“Sisiutl bit me.”

“Hold still. Don’t move a muscle.” She thrusts a knife into the fire and then pulls it out, pressing it against my neck without warning.

And all goes black.

I dream.

I dream that I’m surrounded by people I can’t see because it’s so dark, though I can feel them. They’re pushing me, shoving me, kicking me. All of us are fighting for room, for we’re contained within something that’s small, far too small for all of us. And then the tapping begins. Someone is drumming outside the dark space, drumming so loud my ears ache and we begin to moan.

A beam of light breaks the darkness. An eye is peering at us-a black eye, so highly polished it reflects my face. The eye blinks, and then a beak reaches in. The others around me scream and try to hide, but they needn’t worry. It only wants me.

I see you, the raven says as it tries to pull me out. I’ve got you now.

I wake. The fire is dead. The moon hangs above my head like a great pearl in the sky. The monolith is silent.

And Madda?

She’s gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

This has been the longest day of my life. The monolith started humming again hours ago, keeping me company as I wait for Madda to return.

Am I to stay here? Is this some kind of test where I’m supposed to try to find her? I don’t know and can’t find any trace of where she went, or even how to get back to the boundary, so I bide my time walking around the crater, searching the woods surrounding the clearing while the monolith watches.

The wound from the sisiutl throbs. I clean it with the water left in Madda’s canteen, and then clean it again- anything to stop myself from dwelling on the fact that Madda is missing. What if she’s hurt? The thought makes my throat grow thick. I call her name over and over until I’m hoarse. No reply. No sound at all, save for the hum of the monolith. No bees. No birds. No frogs. Nothing but the monolith’s incessant hum.

I dream.

I dream of Paul, floating in the ocean. His hair fans out around his shoulders and moonlight catches in his eyes. He spreads his arms and legs until he is a star, a spinning star in the sea, a starfish, a sea star. He looks at me and says something, but I can’t make out his words. I lean close, and realize I’m in the water too, swimming toward him, when a great fin pierces the water and a creature swallows Paul whole.

And then I scream until water fills my lungs and I wake, drenched in sweat.

Night comes and goes, and still no Madda. I stuff moss in my ears, but it doesn’t stop the hum.

Could I find my way back? Maybe, if I had paid closer attention, but the woods all look the same to me and I’m just as likely to end up back here at the clearing as at the camp. But the humming is getting louder and I can’t shake the feeling I’m being watched.

I pass the time first by drawing concentric rings around the monolith, as if that will stop the hum, and when I grow tired of that, I use stone to make a great wheel, radiating out and away from the slab of obsidian. The stones are heavy, and before long, my hands are blistered and sore, but I don’t stop. I just keep on working, doggedly, as if that will bring Madda back.

And then, something changes. A sound breaks through the monolith’s hum. The snapping of twigs. I freeze. I can’t make out where the sound’s coming from, and all at once the entire world seems to spring to life with noise. Twigs snap, birds call, and my head reels. The humming ceases-a blessing!-but my nerves are shot and I whirl around, trying to find the source of the snapping. Something’s coming.

I squeeze my eyes shut and when I open them, I see Cedar, Henry Crawford, and another man-I don’t know him-standing at the edge of the clearing, staring at me. They hold rifles in their hands.

Cedar takes a step forward. “Are you okay?” he calls.

I realize they don’t want to come close to the monolith. They’re afraid of it. Their fear rolls off them, down into the crater. The monolith drinks it up.

I run toward them. “Madda’s missing!”

“We know,” Henry Crawford says. He slings his rifle over his shoulder. “We’ve come to take you back.”

“But Madda…,” I say as the men exchange looks. “What? What’s happened?”

Henry Crawford shakes his head.

“What does that mean?” My voice is flat with anger. “What’s going on?”

Cedar reaches out and takes my arm. “Come on, Cass. Let’s get back to the boundary and talk about it there.”

“No,” I snarl, pulling my arm back. “You tell me what’s happened.”

The men won’t look at me.

“I have a right to know,” I say. “I’m her daughter.”

This startles them. Henry Crawford scratches his head. “She adopted you?”

I pull up my sleeve, exposing my shoulder to show him the tattoo as proof.

Cedar shakes his head. “Cass, no. Just come back, okay?”

I glare at him. “Don’t you treat me like a child. You don’t know me.” I lean toward him. “But I see what sits on your shoulder.”

Cedar’s muskrat peeks out at me.

“I see all of your totems,” I say, nodding at the other men-Henry’s weasel, the other man’s frog. “I see more than you can imagine.”