not match the sparkle of her eyes as she looked at Stanton and Emily. She smiled broadly, as if they’d both done something vastly amusing.
“Komé, Miss Emily Edwards. Miss Edwards, Komé.” The introduction was spoken so formally, Emily wasn’t sure whether to curtsy or bow or shake hands, so she did a bit of each and ended up looking silly. Stanton began speaking haltingly in Miwok. It was clear he was no expert in the language, but the woman bobbed her head indulgently, as if listening to a favorite grandchild.
“Show her your hand,” Stanton said.
Emily pulled off her glove. Then she stretched her arm to extend her hand, not wanting to step any closer to the girl at Komé’s feet, having gotten the distinct feeling that she might get bitten. The stone winked dully in the heavy gray light of late afternoon. The old woman glanced at it, but it didn’t appear to interest her. Emily’s face, on the other hand, she seemed to find fascinating. She searched it, muttering as she pinched Emily’s cheek. She then held Emily at arm’s length and looked her up and down, appraisingly. She squinted at Emily’s ankles, her waist, her hair. All the while, she talked under her breath in a creaking monotone.
“Sizing me up for the cook pot, no doubt,” Emily muttered.
Indeed, even Stanton seemed frustrated with Komé’s unwillingness to get to the point. He shook his head and said something that cut her mutterings short. The Maien looked at him, shocked, then gave a big boisterous laugh. She hit Stanton fondly, punching him in the arm with her little gnarled fist.
“What is she saying?” Emily whispered furiously. Stanton paid no attention to her, but rubbed his arm as he spoke to the old woman again, separating each word carefully. With a smile, the woman took Emily’s hand again and looked at the stone more carefully. The twisted girl shuffled closer, too, reaching up to put both her hands on Emily’s arm. Her eyes were turbulent pools. There was a question in those eyes, a question that Emily wished she knew how to answer. A question she wished she understood.
The strange moment was broken when the Maien threw up her hands and waved Emily and Stanton away, peppering them with a rapid verbal staccato. She turned back toward her longhouse, and the girl shuffled after her without a backward glance.
“She’s got no more time for us tonight,” he said to Emily, taking her elbow. “She and Lawa have to get ready.”
“Lawa? That bent girl?”
“Her daughter,” Stanton said.
“She gave me the shivers.” Emily looked up at Stanton. “So what was all that about? She went on and on.”
“When speaking to Komé, threshing the grain from the chaff can be a taxing pursuit.”
“What did she say?”
“She congratulated me,” Stanton said. Emily knit her brow at him.
“Congratulated you? For what? You haven’t done anything.”
“The congratulations were part of the chaff,” he said. “The grain, on the other hand, was her insistence that the stone is watching us.”
“Watching us?”
“Watching over us. Protecting us.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Emily snorted. “If the stone was watching over us, it certainly wouldn’t have sucked up all that magic you tried to throw at the raccoon. Indeed, given the evidence, it seems more likely that the stone would like nothing better than to see us in our graves.”
“She said that the stone was trying desperately to speak to us. But it cannot, she said, for it does not have the tongue to speak and you do not have the ears to hear.”
Emily looked at him.
“It’s a mineral, Mr. Stanton.”
“As I said, she can be somewhat abstract in her expression. The point is that she speaks of the stone as if it were … alive.”
“Min-er-al.” Emily emphasized each syllable.
“A few magical theorists have pursued the question of whether the Mantic Anastomosis possesses a kind of nonhuman consciousness.” Stanton rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “They’ve all been dismissed as crackpots. But that’s understandable, because to believe that it does implies that we might have some sort of responsibility to it. And no one likes responsibility.”
“Leaving magical theory aside …” Emily stroked the stone with her thumb. “What if it does have some kind of consciousness? What would that mean to us?”
“I can’t answer that,” Stanton said. “But it would be interesting to know what it was trying to tell us, wouldn’t it?” Then, sniffing the air, on which a succulent and meaty odor wafted delicately, his eyes closed with pleasant