more calmly.
Mai Lin let out an exasperated sigh, one of her many heaving sounds that needed no translation. "He is very busy this morning."
"Whatever he is doing can wait."
Mai Lin offered a beady stare, but Grace did not flinch.
"He is digging a grave, Mistress."
A surprising heat rose up Grace's neck as sudden tears pooled behind her eyes. The Reverend was truly gone. Her Reverend was to be buried this very day. She thought she might collapse if she allowed herself to consider that she would never see him again. She cleared her throat and carried on in a firm voice.
"I shall not keep Ahcho for long. He can return to his task straightaway. The Reverend's soul has already flown, and his body— well."
The truth was that her husband's body had become a filthy, foulsmelling thing some time ago. She shivered at the memory of his dusty and blood-covered flesh. The meticulous man she had married and admired was a distant memory. His body, like her own, was of no consequence any longer. It was their spirits that mattered. That was what the Reverend had said all along.
"Please," Grace tried more softly, "ask Ahcho to come?"
Mai Lin turned and left.
Grace tipped back her head and shut her eyes. The child's skull felt cool against her belly through the thin robe and nightgown. It was cradled where once she had carried her children. Her body had borne so much, and now it was empty. Her hip bones protruded, and the flesh of her stomach was pulled taut. She had not eaten since— she couldn't recall exactly when. Behind her eyelids darted small suns, and the buzzing in her head carried on as it always did. Her ears filled with the whoosh and pulse of thin blood.
Strange, she thought, to have less and less attachment to the body just when it was trying its utmost to demand her attention. Her head throbbed, and the coughing began again, though she refused to notice it. She hacked for many minutes until she leaned over the side of the bed and spat blood into the spittoon Mai Lin had placed there for that purpose. Grace felt her insides weighing her down just when her spirit wanted most to lift up. That was all right. She would inhabit this weak frame a little while longer until, like the Reverend, her soul was ready to fully take flight.
Then she heard the children, always eager to welcome her. Accompanying their high, angelic voices came the clatter of camel bells, approaching ever nearer. Grace smiled and tried to listen more attentively. Yes, bells and singing voices— that was what came to her now that she no longer concerned herself with her illness.
"Mistress," Mai Lin said and shook her arm most rudely.
"Don't interrupt, Mai Lin," Grace said, her eyes pinched shut. "The children are about to arrive."
"No, Madam," her amah clarified, "it's only Ahcho."
Grace opened her eyes. The vision had seemed so real, every bit as real as the man before her. The poor old fellow stood with bowed head before the bedside. Yellow dust covered him. His cheeks were bisected by still-damp streaks where tears and sweat had fallen. Grace wondered if she should feel ashamed for not having wept more this morning. Ahcho appeared a more dedicated mourner than even the Reverend's wife.
In Ahcho's arms were the many leather cords and amulets the Reverend had worn. There hung the camel bell that she had heard moments before. And the bloodstained strip of red cloth, which swung lifelessly, no longer strung across the Reverend's proud chest. The pouch that had held the skull drooped like a flayed body. Each of these languishing objects appeared to have had the life sucked out of them on this day.
Grace pointed to the red sash, and Ahcho handed it to her. She undid the silk string on the pouch and touched the twin embroidered dragons with her fingers. Then she placed the skull back inside, pulled shut the ties, and made a bow. Mai Lin and Ahcho both nodded in approval, and Grace realized that they thought she was tucking away the skull so that she might forget it, when, in fact, her intention was quite the opposite.
"Where did this thing come from?" she asked, holding up the pouch that now bulged with the orb inside.
Ahcho cleared his throat, and Grace sensed that he fought to hold back more tears. "I came upon it the night your small boy was taken." Ahcho's head began