it were alive. She’d begun to tremble. “Please talk to me.”
She heard the sound of Becky’s voice. It was muffled, but she called out Sage’s name, over and over. Would her daughter hide in a closet? Why hide at all?
He started to speak again, but his voice was so soft she had to put her ear next to his face to hear.
“When our people massacred the Indian tribe, they left their children behind. But they didn’t die.”
She furrowed her brow. That’s not what her mother told her, but she didn’t want to interrupt and kept her head still.
“The last woman they killed, the one they all saw dancing near their campsite?”
She murmured, “I know of her.” She recalled the brutality, the little details.
“She escaped with her children during the attack on her tribe. She almost made it to the banks of the creek, where a canoe was hidden in the reed, but we were close behind her. She stumbled upon the lean-to and begged the colonist’s children to keep hers safe.”
No, she didn’t remember this. This wasn’t a part of the legend she’d been taught. “She stroked his cheek, urged him to go on, “I’m here.”
“She was so beautiful.” He paused as though he remembered the woman himself. “Dark skin and eyes so large you could see your reflection in them. The children didn’t understand her language, but knew what she asked of them and they didn’t hesitate to help. She captivated them. They took her babies into their bedrolls, covered the two up with their blankets and gave them shelter.” He stopped speaking and took a breath. He could no longer do both at the same time.
“The children heard the screams outside,” he finally continued. “The cries of pain, and were so afraid they wanted to run away but they kept their promise to the woman and stayed with her little ones.”
He stopped again, and was getting slower to start with every breath. Liberty listened for Becky and didn’t hear any sound at all. She lifted her head up and looked toward the door. Had Becky found her? Had she not, and was now thinking of how she’d break the bad news? My God, what could take so long?
Conflicted, an urge to go up herself, she looked back at Mitch and jumped. He stared at her, with eyes wide open and irises as black as his pupils.
“Liberty,” he said, though his mouth did not move.
She couldn’t pull her gaze away. “Yes,” an acknowledgment she heard with her ears, but certain her lips hadn’t formed the word.
The tiniest spot, a speck, appeared in the center of the blackest part of his eye and Liberty watched as it grew larger. Became more than a grain of sand, it was a tiny bead, and then, it became the flame of a candle. The orange fire danced and she watched it flicker up and down. They spoke to one another again, and like words in a corridor, they echoed. No other sounds existed. Not Mitch’s respirations, not Becky calling out. There was only the flame.
“Liberty, are you listening?”
“I am.”
“Pay attention.”
Accelerated vertigo overtook her, not slow motion like her fainting spells, but a whirling she couldn’t control. She fell fast, straight into the flames in his eyes. When the vertigo passed, she saw the fire had grown, and found she wasn’t alone with Mitch. In fact, she was no longer with Mitch at all. She was in a strange place, but felt no fear, only wonder.
She looked down at her arm, half expected she’d become Sasquatch, the vertigo much like transformation, but there wasn’t fur. The arm was tiny, dark, and golden. Not Sasquatch, but at the same time not hers. She looked to her right and saw a person she knew as her sister, but the girl was not Patience.
Sounds began to filter in, and the scene around her came into focus. Children, with skin that glistened from the heat, sat shoulder to shoulder in a circle around the fire, mesmerized by the flames.
She counted quickly, twenty-one children. Not including the sister nor herself. Knowledge filled her and she understood. She was there to bear witness, but no more.
The beautiful woman Mitch spoke of appeared, the one with huge dark eyes, beautiful hair, and dark skin. She looked like their mother, but was possessed by another. And the woman was broken. A bare thigh popped inward at an odd angle, and her skin was split and pierced in a dozen places across her