Spirited (17 page)

Then he directed the others to move to the right, and they carried her across the vast floor to another small cavelike entrance. They stopped before it; Wusamequin let go of the litter, lifted her against his chest, and carried her into the cave. Afraid-of-Everything chuffed softly behind them, his paws padding on the hard packed ground. Her four tiny friends scrambled off her and climbed onto Wusamequin’s shoulders. He ignored them.

The cavelike entrance opened into another tunnel; also illuminated. As he cornered her, Isabella breathed in his familiar smell. She was slightly more at ease in his arms than she had been in Oneko’s, but it didn’t matter how she felt. She had no say.

Chapter Twelve

The tunnel opened up into a naturally formed chamber. Wusamequin carried her inside.

She caught her breath. Crimson and indigo flowers hung from the ceiling, and brilliant yellow and purple ones kissed with white. They dangled from vines, as if they were growing down from the earth above them. The walls were gray rock; on them, symbols had been painted in red, white, brown, and black: birds, snakes, and stick figures surrounded by small dots, as if they were glowing. Blankets covered the ground, and there was an array of dishes steaming with delicious-smelling food positioned in a semicircle. In the center of the room, a fire burned brightly as it devoured small chunks of wood. Isabella looked up, and saw no hole for the smoke to escape. And yet, the room was not smoky at all.

She saw that the perimeter of the chamber was lined with flowers; she didn’t know if they had been placed there deliberately or if they were growing there. The effect was enchanting, and very much as she had pictured Titania’s fairy bower in William Shakespeare’s play.

“Komeekha,”
he said, his voice strained and polite,
as he set her down on a colorful blanket beside the fire. The four fairy people scampered out of her lap and ran to explore, sniffing at the food and looking expectantly up at Wusamequin. He spoke to them, and they shifted their gaze to Isabella.

“Wusamequin,” she began, playing with the hem of her dress as she looked up at him. “I’m sorry I was rude. Please accept my apology.”

He folded his arms across his chest. He glanced toward the tunnel, and then he tapped his fingers together.

A thick shadow played over the entrance to the chamber, obscuring it from the view of anyone who should come down the tunnel.

Startled, she glanced from it to him. His face remained impassive.

Then he settled down beside her, and took her left hand in his left hand. His cleared his throat.

“Listen to my words,” he said; and as always, it startled her when he spoke in her tongue. “The Makiawisug are the slaves of Mahwah now.”

“We don’t keep slaves,” she replied, but her face tingled. That was untrue. The English imported slaves from Africa; however, the Colonists had begun to make slavery illegal within some of their borders. She wondered if that had anything to do with the fact that the savages were beginning to do the work for the Colonials that the slaves had once performed, in return for provisions and clothing.

She lowered her head and said,
“Wneeweh.”
She
looked at the little people, who were still hovering around the dishes, and said,
“Gemeze”
They tucked into the dishes, scooping up stew with their tiny hands.

A ghost of a smile flashed over Wusamequin’s features as he watched them, and she relaxed a trifle. Then he said, “I will fight the evil spirit again.”

He spread the forefinger and middle finger of his right hand wide, then drew them down over her eyebrows, urging her to close her eyes. Reluctantly she complied, then opened them again, to find him staring at her. She grimaced; he smiled, and closed his eyes while she watched.

So she closed them again.

“Listen to your heart,” he told her.

He began to chant very softly. She could barely hear the words, but they seemed to summon a new rhythm into her pulse. She grew alarmed; she was the daughter of a physician, and she knew that an irregular heartbeat was rarely a good thing. Yet she kept her eyes closed and listened.

Warmth diffused throughout her body, and she found herself smiling. Wusamequin’s voice rose and fell, so quietly that at times she thought he had stopped singing. Then her ear would catch his voice again, and after a few minutes she felt lighter, as if she were beginning to float off the ground. His hand around hers ceased to feel like a separate thing; she lost track of where she began and he left off.

Her mind wandered as she wondered what her little band of four were doing; as if he knew she had
stopped concentrating, Wusamequin gave her hand a squeeze.

His voice rose and fell, rose and fell; the fire crackled. She smelled first the succulent food, and then the sweetness of the flower blossoms, which reminded her of her mother’s perfume.

Her throat tightened as the image of her mother filled her mind. The warmth seeped away, and she began to flood with grief.

As if in response, Wusamequin gripped her hand harder and raised his voice. Isabella’s viewpoint shifted; she saw her own self, nigh these ten months, racing into her mother’s bedroom.

There was her mother dead in her bed, and everything in her cried out, “No! No, Mama! Oh, please, no!”

Wusamequin inhaled sharply, held his breath, and exhaled. His chant rose in pitch and shifted in rhythm. He clamped his hand around hers, and the grief poured out of her as she wept, so hard she made no sound.

He held her hand, then pulled her into his arms and cradled her against his chest.

Mama, Mama, Mama …

His heart spoke the word against her ear, and as she listened it became,
My son, my son, my son …

She whispered, “You have lost someone, too. Your child.”

And she saw in her mind a tiny copper-hued baby, fists clenched, arms flailing. A hand wrapped
around the baby’s right fist; it was small and feminine. Another hand wrapped around his left. It was larger and heavily veined, and Isabella knew it for Wusamequin’s.

“You have a wife,” she murmured, feeling dashed. “Where is she?”

And then she knew. She knew that they were dead.

She was afraid to know more.

So she closed her mind against the images, even those of her mother.

He chanted on; she wondered if the others would come looking for him. That thought faded, replaced by an anxious thought of Sasious.

He sang on.

The warmth returned, and the sensation of floating; her errant thoughts vanished.

Her wounded thigh grew very warm, then tingled; then was overlaid with a refreshing coolness, as if she had just stepped from a bath. It was quite pleasant; she began to open her eyes and he squeezed her hand tightly, as if to remind her not to. She obeyed, though she was horribly tempted.

The chant rose, fell. Her mind drifted to her father; she wondered where he was, if he was alive. If he would come for her.

Not if. When.

What if he never does? What if I am trapped with these primitives forever?

She reeled, as if she were jumping off the cliff outside.

Wusamequin’s voice rose, and he squeezed her hand, but it did no good. She had lost the thread of his song, and her heart rattled with fear.

She began to open her eyes; then she felt his other hand pressed against them, forcing them closed. He kept singing.

And she saw him in her mind’s eye as she had seen him before, half-naked but for a loincloth. This time he held a scalping knife, and he was circling the fire at the center of the chamber they sat in, only she was not there.

A tall misshapen creature with a topknot joined the circle around the fire, sitting back on muscular haunches, extending long arms that looked like claws. Its fanged mouth dripped with saliva; its red eyes gleamed and it spread wide its clawed hands, swiping the air between them.

She moaned, frightened. Wusamequin kept his hand over her eyes, holding her other one. He chanted.

In her mind, he flung himself through the fire and at the monster. It was unprepared and staggered backward. Flailing at the spirit warrior, it growled with fury as Wusamequin grabbed its topknot and hacked it off. He threw it in the fire, and the demon howled in protest, lunging to grab it out of the flames.

Wusamequin took advantage of its distraction to leap onto its back. He grabbed one ear and sliced it off, tossing it into the fire. He hacked off the other one. He wrapped both his hands around the knife, raising it over his head, preparing to plunge it into
the neck of the fearsome creature. But the monster whirled around expectantly, trying to grab him; Wusamequin hung onto his back and rode him like a wild horse he was attempting to tame.

And suddenly Isabella’s mind filled with memories of Albany, and of the sunny day her father and mother had taken her to the commons, to view a dozen horses being trained for regimental service. On the sweet green grass, several young soldiers had erected a practice ring of white-painted wood. They’d run the horses inside the ring and, dressed in their white breeches and red coats, they were attempting to convince them that they should allow double bridles and cavalry saddles. Older, perhaps wiser soldiers perched on the railings, watching and laughing.

Civilians approached to enjoy the spectacle, and spectacle it was. The feisty steeds bucked and stamped their hooves, tossing their manes as the young men chased after them. Their white breeches soon became brown with dirt and streaked with grass stains.

James Stout, an enterprising innkeeper, had his barmaids bring out tankards of ale to sell. Soon, meat pies were offered as well; it became quite a festival. Isabella nearly swooned with the happy memory. Her mother, dressed exquisitely in China blue, twirled her parasol as her father doffed his tricorne and bade Mrs. DeWitt a lovely day.

Her happiness transformed into longing, and then into fear. What if she never saw that world again?

Papa, Papa, come for me. Save me. Bring me back. Find me!

Then the memory vanished as if someone had snatched it away from
her.
In its place, the battle between the demon and Wusamequin took a sudden turn as the monster reached around and grabbed Wusamequin’s leg. As Isabella watched in horror, it tore the medicine man off its back and held him out over the fire. One of his moccasins began to smoke.

Wusamequin shouted in pain, and Isabella screamed.

Then she darted forward, grabbed Wusamequin’s knife from his hand, and stabbed the monster in the arm. It threw back its head and bellowed in agony. Its grip on Wusamequin slackened, and Isabella grabbed his arm and tried to push him out of the fire as he fell.

She was partially successful; his foot came down hard on the end of a piece of wood that had not begun to burn. It flipped up into the air, then fell into the fire, sending up flames and sparks.

As he struggled to find his balance, the demon batted a claw across his chest, sending him flying across the room. He slammed into the gray stone wall and slid to the ground, bringing a vine of flowers with him.

With the shaman out of the fray, the monster whirled on Isabella, who screamed again, backing away. It came for her, wildly waving its arms. Its
mouth opened and its fangs gleamed in the firelight. Its crimson eyes glowed.

She backed away, horrified, unable to tear her gaze away from the hideous thing.

As if from far away she heard Wusamequin chanting, and felt his work-roughened hand across her eyes.

Then in the next breath, both the chanting and his hand were gone.

She looked over at him, to see that he had gotten to his feet again. He held out his hands and shouted, “Knife, Mahwah!”

The monster’s fetid breath wafted over her like steam from a kettle; overwhelmed, she staggered backward, clutching the knife in both her hands.

“Knife!” Wusamequin bellowed as he approached the creature on its left flank.

“No, no,” she pleaded, unable to give it up. The demon spread wide its arms, the injured one dripping blood, and rushed at her.

With a shriek, she threw the knife under its arm to the shaman, who grabbed it. With a fierce war cry, he stabbed the demon under its arm, ducking as it whirled in his direction. The force of his movement extracted the knife; he landed on the balls of his feet and propelled himself back toward the demon. This time the knife sank into its chest.