hand, and struck the hard dirt. For some time, Grace and Mai Lin stood over him as he scratched and dug.
Standing in the river of dust, Grace held the pouch close to her chest under the great fur. She had learned from Mai Lin that each thing carried with it a life and a destiny that could not be ignored. She had learned to listen for portents sent on the wind and offered by the smallest of signs. Sometimes the future spoke to us with smoke on the horizon. Or with the dance of a handkerchief fluttering on the wind or a skull tossed down on firm soil. Each person and thing had its say and was of consequence. There was no way to undo the past or to correct the way things had gone, but attention must be given to the secrets whispered along the way. Ghosts spoke to us all the time, if we were only willing to listen. Not to do so was hubris. She could see that now and suspected that the Reverend had understood it in the end as well.
The shovel in Ahcho's hand chipped away at the hard-packed land, sending puffs of dust into the breeze. He paused to wipe his forehead with one of the Reverend's handkerchiefs. Grace could feel her husband here with them in each gesture of his devoted manservant. Her Reverend had not abandoned her but was with her still and would be always. The poor man had been so busy arguing with God, hashing out the ever-narrowing parameters of his faith, that he had quite forgotten to ask for her simple forgiveness. She wished he had understood that her love for him could have offered shade in the manner of the willow tree in all seasons and years. Ah, well, she would show him soon enough, when they met in the sweet by-and-by.
Ahcho finished the shallow, makeshift grave, and Grace wondered if she should say a few words. Bow her head. Offer a prayer. Something. But she decided that the time for last rites was long past. If anything, Mai Lin should mumble incantations as she had so many times over Grace's ill body before administering her potions. No, this skull needed no ceremony. It simply had to be gotten rid of expediently, returned to the soil where it belonged. It had cast its spell long enough.
She untied the embroidered sack, lifted out the child's skull, and placed it in the hole. Then, with her pale hands, she brushed the desert dirt back over it. The loess felt painfully soft in her fingers, like the silkiness of good, rich baking flour back home. Every week she had helped her mother prepare pies for Sunday supper. Today was a Sunday, was it not? Grace had lost track of so much— the days blending together and gone in a haze. And the loved ones, so many loved ones, gone, too, she knew now for good.
As the sun began to slice the horizon, she thought she could hear the voices of her family echoing down from the cottage nearby. Yes, it was the hour of Sunday supper, and she could hear the familiar rattle of silverware set down upon the table and the clink of glasses being filled by her mother's fine silver water pitcher. If Grace had been a good girl that week, she was allowed to light the candles. She glanced up at the house and expected to see it softly lit from within, but there was no light coming from that bleak cabin. She was far, terribly far, from home.
Shivers took her again, and her chest ached as the cough began. When it subsided, her body was soaked with sweat. Her skin was burning up, and yet she liked the heft of the hide on her shoulders. She finished the burial task and used the side of her hand to make the rough surface smooth.
She rose from the dusty riverbed and turned toward the cottage. Mai Lin helped her on one side and Ahcho on the other. She wished they wouldn't fuss so, but they continued to jabber their concerns as she shuffled forward.
"Mistress, truly I must explain to you," Ahcho said with great urgency. "The boy is out there. I heard about your son. He lives. And he is a prince."
Grace smiled. The old man worried far too much. Of course her son was alive out there. Of course he was a prince. "Yes, Ahcho, I know," she