It Dreams in Me by Kathleen O’Neal Gear Page A

hot fat dripped onto the fire and filled the air with a wonderful aroma.
    “Was Flint there this time?” Strongheart asked.
    “No. But he wasn’t there in reality either; why do you think he’d suddenly appear in my dreams?”
    Strongheart just smiled and studied the movements of her hands on her blanket. She looked down. She hadn’t realized that her thumbs were tapping out an irregular staccato. “What happened after you placed the bones on the roof?”
    “I walked home.”
    “Was Flint there when you arrived?”
    “No. He stayed gone for several days.”
    She had never been the same. For moons afterward, she’d heard that little boy calling to her. She had prayed constantly that a pregnant woman would walk past the Red Hill and her little boy’s soul would slip into the woman’s womb and find a new body waiting for him. To this day, not a single night went by that she didn’t feel her son searching for her in her dreams.
    Wink’s voice penetrated her memories: Oh, Sora, all women worry about the souls of children they’ve lost. Don’t think you’re going to get over it. You won’t. Not ever.
    “Did you forgive Flint for leaving you alone?” Strongheart asked.
    “Of course I did. I was always the stronger of the two of us. He just couldn’t stand it.”
    She looked past Strongheart to Flint, and found him staring straight into her eyes. Her souls ached for him. He had never had the strength to face anything truly difficult. She had always been his shield against the world.
    Strongheart touched her hand where it lay on the blanket. “Sora, do you know the story of the three brothers and the pitying wives?”
    She blinked and looked back at him. “No. I don’t think so.”

    “It’s a very popular story among my people.” He pulled his hand away, as though to withdraw the comfort he’d been giving. “Three brothers all married within a moon of each other. Both their father and their grandfather had been adulterers, so the brothers saw nothing wrong with it. The first time the eldest brother came home smelling of another woman, his wife told him if it ever happened again, she would divorce him. She was the only one to save her husband from his destructive family. The other wives blamed themselves and so pitied their husbands that they coddled them like overprotective mothers, and pleaded with them to stay home. One brother was run over by a herd of buffalo on the way to a married woman’s house. The last brother died when he was lanced through the heart by the enraged father of a little girl.”
    Sora stared at him. “Are you saying that I am like the two pitying wives?”
    “I’m saying that it is the duty of every adult woman to rid herself of the sort of pity that contributes to the destruction of the man she loves.”
    For an instant, she did not know what to say. His voice had no anger in it, no reproach; it was just a realistic statement about life.
    When, after several heartbeats, she hadn’t answered, he added, “The wrong kind of pity frees the evil Spirits that lurk inside human beings, Sora. It can be very dangerous.”
    He rose and ducked out of the old lodge.
    Flint called, “Is she all right?”
    “Yes,” Strongheart answered. “She’s awake. How’s the goose coming?”
    “Almost ready.”
    Sora sat up and reached for her sky blue dress. When the wind blew, the scents of moldering wood and damp vines seeped from the old lodge like a pall. Every time she inhaled,
she had the urge to cough. She slipped her dress over her head, laced on her sandals, and combed her hair before ducking outside into the cool morning.
    Birds crowded the trees around the lake, hopping from branch to branch, uttering a cacophony of chirps and caws. The pearlescent glow of sunrise reflecting off the water flickered in the veils of hanging moss near the shore.
    She walked out into the deep forest shadows to empty her night water.
    As she walked back, she felt unusually tired. She always did after