Faced with the dinner offered by the Indians, Emily would much rather have eaten soggy bread and cheese from the horses’ saddlebags. But, for the sake of politeness, Stanton insisted that she at least sample the Indians’ feast.
“What’s this?” she asked, pointing to a pile of mush that had been presented to her on a broad, flat oak leaf.
“Maskala. Acorn bread.” Stanton was shoveling his down like a sailor who hadn’t seen port in a week. “Acorns are a staple of their diet.”
Emily tasted it gingerly; it was bland and slightly bitter, like cornmeal soaked in water and seasoned with black tea. Emily forced down a couple of bites and deemed politeness more than served. Stanton, however, helped himself to seconds. The Indians seemed to find feeding him a challenging entertainment. The women brought dish after dish and he worked valiantly to keep up the pace. Finally, they brought a great wooden platter of steaming meat. Emily took a whiff, recognizing it immediately.
“Raccoon!” She looked at Stanton suspiciously. “Don’t tell me—”
“Waste not, want not,” Stanton said taking a piece of meat with his fingers.
“Is it safe to eat?”
Stanton took a big bite.
“The Indians have been feasting on Aberrancies for years,” he said, licking a thumb. “They call them ‘tragic gifts of the earth.’”
Emily took a piece of tragic gift meat and tasted it. It was aggressively gamey—a flavor that reminded her unpleasantly of the hard winter just passed. She wondered what Pap was doing. What was he eating? Was he eating? Mrs. Lyman would see to it that he got his meals, wouldn’t she? The old busybody wouldn’t abandon Pap just because everyone in town thought that his foster daughter had run off with a traveling Warlock … would she?
Emily’s worried thoughts were interrupted by a general mumbling from the people around them. Komé came into the middle of the circle. She was followed by Lawa—limping, shuffling, and bent. In her hands, the girl clutched her mother’s staff.
Komé was magnificently arrayed in a skirt of iridescent magpie feathers and a hat of flicker plumes. She wore a tunic and leggings of white deerskin, fringed and beaded. Taking the staff from the bent girl, Komé began to chant, a sibilant song that resonated with gravity and meaning. All around her, the feasters stilled in respectful silence.
Stanton used a handkerchief to wipe his hands, then leaned close to murmur in Emily’s ear:
“You might find this interesting. Komé will lead a spirit dance to night to pray for the soul of the dead raccoon. It’s a fascinating magical ceremony, with roots in the most ancient traditions on the North American continent.”
“Then I’d better get as far away from it as possible.” Emily thought of how Stanton’s magic had been sucked into the rock in her hand. She certainly didn’t want to do anything that would interfere with the satisfactory disposition of the spirit of the evil raccoon. Besides that, thinking of Pap had left her feeling somewhat low-spirited and weary. “I think I’ll just go to sleep.”
One of the women showed Emily to a hut that was used for storing food. It was dry and tidy, full of finely woven baskets brimming with acorns and dried meats. Herbs hung from the ceiling, and Emily looked them over with a professional eye. Balsam and purple milkweed, black nightshade and mountain misery, rattlesnake weed and monkey-root—even desert lavender. She crumbled some in her hand, sprinkled it all around herself, wishing she could empower it with a rhyme of general protection. But since she couldn’t, she satisfied herself with the relaxing odor.
On the floor had been laid a massive pelt, large as the fancy carpet in Mrs. Bargett’s reception parlor. Emily felt the fur between her fingers. Beaver, the largest beaver one could imagine. Another “tragic gift,” no doubt. She wondered how one went about cleaning black slime off a pelt that size.
Wearily, Emily curled up under her soggy buffalo coat, the smell of which did battle with the lavender and won handily. She did not sleep. The Maien’s slow rhythmic chanting made the darkness vibrate. It made Emily’s nerves jangle and her muscles tense, and even when it started to rain again, the soft pitter-pats on the leaves overhead did nothing to soothe her. After what seemed an eternity of frozen wakefulness, there was a noise at the door. She felt for the heavy rock she’d hidden beside her. She lifted it, ready to brain any redskin who came looking