People of the Morning Star by W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O’Neal Gear Read Free Book Online Page B

feeling foolish. Her people were already leery of her. More than once she’d lashed out at them in her grief.
    Husband? You helped me, kept the voices in check. You never mocked me. I need you to help me understand.
    She reached down, her slender fingers dipping paste from a small ceramic bowl that rested beside her right knee. Thick with crushed datura seeds, and the consistency of mud, the paste chilled her fingers. Slowly, carefully, she began massaging the mixture into her temples. As she did, she hummed a lilting melody, waiting for Sister Datura’s Dance to slip around her like a protective cloak. Waiting for the freedom that would allow her to float away from this world and down through the well pot’s portal into the Underworld. Down, until she could feel her husband’s muscular arms around her. A place where she could once again look into his sparkling dark eyes. Where she could seek the endless reassurance of his smile. Soon now, he would speak to her again; his voice would be rich and melodious as he chastised her for such silliness.
    She could love him again, and be loved.
    The grief would evaporate; the pain would shimmer away into memory. Her souls would spring to life, wrapping and entwining themselves in his. And they would dance, laugh, and wind their bodies together for as long as Sister Datura allowed.
    The voices and the flickers of people and things that appeared and disappeared at the edge of her vision would finally fade away.
    The first tendrils of ecstasy began to filter through Night Shadow Star’s nerves, soothing her anguished souls. Only then did she lean forward and stare down into the dark recesses of the well pot.
    Well pots were crafted as symbolic re-creations of the world, the upper shoulder and rim representing the Sky World with its four winds. The opening above the rim exposed the contents as they would be viewed by Hungo Ahuito, the great two-headed eagle that saw all things as it looked in the four directions. The curve below the bowl’s shoulders—now filled with water like its earthly counterpart—represented the Underworld, and it was through this portal that Sister Datura’s Power carried her.
    The reflection of her face on the still water wavered, and her gaze traveled down through the darkness, passing from this world into the eternal.…
    Like a reflection, his face formed in the dark haze, the line of his chin growing firm. The familiar nose coalesced from nothingness, nostrils but dots of black. Flickers of light merged in the form of his eyes. Patterns of lines re-created the tattoos that had decorated his cheeks and forehead.
    “Hello, my love,” she whispered. “I have missed you so.”
    “You shouldn’t do this,” he told her softly. “It only adds to your pain.”
    “I can’t help it. I need you.”
    “You have to be stronger than this.”
    “You are my strength, husband.”
    “I am dead, my beloved.” His loving expression shifted to one of concern. “Sending your souls into the Underworld is dangerous. He’ll use me as a way to lure you—”
    “I have no reason to live without you, husband. And in Sister Datura’s arms, I shall Dance to you so that we can be together. Nothing will ever part us again.”
    She mustered the smile she’d always resorted to when he chided her. “Come, husband. Reach out. Embrace me. I want you to pull me inside you, make you one with me.”
    “Do you understand the risks? Piasa may be closer than you know. He’s tricky, calculating. To sink his fangs into a Four Winds Clan woman? You’d become his, Night Shadow Star, a pawn in his game of death.”
    “I don’t care! Without you, I have nothing.”
    She saw him relent, as he always had. In all their life together, he’d never denied her.
    “Is this your wish?”
    “Oh, yes. Draw me to you, devour me, husband.” Her voice broke. “I don’t want to be alone .”
    “Even at risk of the Piasa—”
    She almost sobbed. “I can’t stand the loneliness.…