your body your afterlife soul flees, and no Healer can find it and bring it back. It is lost, doomed to forever walk the earth.”
That’s why they wanted to know if I’d been witched. They fear I carry the sickness.
Kanadesego whispers, “The pain is excruciating. Eventually the body wastes away. As soon as it does, the charm is released and it leaps into another body. Death is everywhere. We were Trading in Canassatego Village when it struck our own village. Traders brought word. That was one moon ago. We waited until ten days ago to go home and gather our loved ones.” He glances at the bones. “Now that the curse has swept Standing Stone country clean, it is striking at the heart of the People of the Flint.”
Terror rises like a hot storm in my veins. “Twenty days ago, I was with a war party that attacked a Flint village. The people there were sick. Which Flint villages are affected today?”
“I don’t know. They’ve suffered from the witchery for perhaps two moons. Long enough that most of them are gone. The Hills People have barely been touched. That makes everyone suspect that Atotarho and his witches loosed the sickness.”
As I stare at Kanadesego, my souls seem to rise above me in the dawn-drenched air, and when they do, I am back with her, back to summer afternoons and a thousand blessed moments … . Breezes laden with the kicked dust of warriors on the move … her fingers trailing down my face …
“Did you hear me?” Pandurata says.
“Forgive me? What did you say?”
“I said that one by one the nations are crumbling. There’s no one to tend the fields, no one to fight off invaders. Even the women who survive have no milk to suckle their babies.” She paused. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
I run a hand through my long black hair. “Yes, I do.”
“This war only makes it worse,” Kanadesego says. “Are we all fools?”
I cannot find the will to respond. The answer seems obvious. Finally, I say, “Why don’t the clan matrons stop it? The easy answer is to end the war, pool our food, and give our Healers everything they need to fight the witchery.”
Pandurata laughs out loud. Her eyes blaze when she looks at me. “Don’t be silly. They don’t wish to stop it. They want to destroy their enemies. Vengeance has become life. That’s all. We are like packs of lost souls, forever seeking revenge. Little more than half-human beasts.” She lifts a hand to her trembling lips.
Kanadesego slips his arm around her shoulders and pulls her close. “That’s why we’re here. We’re going to help end it.”
I have witnessed many horrors, more than I will ever be able to silence, including unexplained diseases that maraud through starving villages leaving husks of human beings behind to Sing death Songs over their own children. But witchery on the scale they describe seems impossible. Our people recognize three types of illness. Illness from natural causes can be cured by herbs, incisions, poultices, and profuse sweating. Illness caused by unfulfilled desires of the soul—of which the patient might not even be aware—can be cured by ascertaining and fulfilling the soul’s desires. The third cause is the most insidious: witchcraft. Witchery can only be cured if the Healer discovers and removes all the spells or charms that have been shot into a person’s body.
“Where are the Healers?” I ask.
“Oh, they died first. They ran from village to village with their Healing bags, tending the sick, until they, too, were overpowered by the witchery. There’s no one left to Heal.”
I don’t believe it. Especially if the illness is racing across the nations, many Healers would rise to take the places of those who’d perished. She can’t be right.
“It was all foretold,” Kanadesego said, smiling again. “It’s coming true. The world will be left clean and new. Humans will be better, smarter, next time. We won’t destroy ourselves ever again.”
A crow flaps overhead,
That’s why they wanted to know if I’d been witched. They fear I carry the sickness.
Kanadesego whispers, “The pain is excruciating. Eventually the body wastes away. As soon as it does, the charm is released and it leaps into another body. Death is everywhere. We were Trading in Canassatego Village when it struck our own village. Traders brought word. That was one moon ago. We waited until ten days ago to go home and gather our loved ones.” He glances at the bones. “Now that the curse has swept Standing Stone country clean, it is striking at the heart of the People of the Flint.”
Terror rises like a hot storm in my veins. “Twenty days ago, I was with a war party that attacked a Flint village. The people there were sick. Which Flint villages are affected today?”
“I don’t know. They’ve suffered from the witchery for perhaps two moons. Long enough that most of them are gone. The Hills People have barely been touched. That makes everyone suspect that Atotarho and his witches loosed the sickness.”
As I stare at Kanadesego, my souls seem to rise above me in the dawn-drenched air, and when they do, I am back with her, back to summer afternoons and a thousand blessed moments … . Breezes laden with the kicked dust of warriors on the move … her fingers trailing down my face …
“Did you hear me?” Pandurata says.
“Forgive me? What did you say?”
“I said that one by one the nations are crumbling. There’s no one to tend the fields, no one to fight off invaders. Even the women who survive have no milk to suckle their babies.” She paused. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
I run a hand through my long black hair. “Yes, I do.”
“This war only makes it worse,” Kanadesego says. “Are we all fools?”
I cannot find the will to respond. The answer seems obvious. Finally, I say, “Why don’t the clan matrons stop it? The easy answer is to end the war, pool our food, and give our Healers everything they need to fight the witchery.”
Pandurata laughs out loud. Her eyes blaze when she looks at me. “Don’t be silly. They don’t wish to stop it. They want to destroy their enemies. Vengeance has become life. That’s all. We are like packs of lost souls, forever seeking revenge. Little more than half-human beasts.” She lifts a hand to her trembling lips.
Kanadesego slips his arm around her shoulders and pulls her close. “That’s why we’re here. We’re going to help end it.”
I have witnessed many horrors, more than I will ever be able to silence, including unexplained diseases that maraud through starving villages leaving husks of human beings behind to Sing death Songs over their own children. But witchery on the scale they describe seems impossible. Our people recognize three types of illness. Illness from natural causes can be cured by herbs, incisions, poultices, and profuse sweating. Illness caused by unfulfilled desires of the soul—of which the patient might not even be aware—can be cured by ascertaining and fulfilling the soul’s desires. The third cause is the most insidious: witchcraft. Witchery can only be cured if the Healer discovers and removes all the spells or charms that have been shot into a person’s body.
“Where are the Healers?” I ask.
“Oh, they died first. They ran from village to village with their Healing bags, tending the sick, until they, too, were overpowered by the witchery. There’s no one left to Heal.”
I don’t believe it. Especially if the illness is racing across the nations, many Healers would rise to take the places of those who’d perished. She can’t be right.
“It was all foretold,” Kanadesego said, smiling again. “It’s coming true. The world will be left clean and new. Humans will be better, smarter, next time. We won’t destroy ourselves ever again.”
A crow flaps overhead,
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