To walk the dead out, the Shadowed People played a deep drum that they played at no other time. It sounded like the heartbeat of the world.
Tum, thum — Kestrel reached out and took Otter’s hand. And the procession gathered itself, and stepped into the river. To Otter, the water where she’d so often splashed seemed bitter cold that day. The ward, now that she was about to pass through it, seemed taller. It did not feel like something that was keeping them safe. It seemed like a thing with its own power, its own intentions. Going through its gap was like going through its mouth.
Otter was not sure if they were being spit out or swallowed.
She tightened her hand around Kestrel’s; Kestrel’s hand tightened around hers. They went out.
The Shadowed People had always bound their dead to rest high in trees. In the time of Mad Spider, they had learned not to do it too close to home. It was some way, therefore, to the scaffolding grounds — the distance gave the pinch safety, warning, if the dead did not stay bound. Outside the ward the scrub meadow went on a little farther, and they passed between birch saplings and digger pine. Then, sudden as passing through a curtain, the procession was in the forest itself.
The forest. Bare and straight, darker than skin, the trunks of the pine trees stood in ranks. They went back and back, until they made a blur, like dark mist. The ground under them was mostly bare, cloaked in needles. Gray stone broke from it here and there. It was more than quiet: It ate sound. It was more than shadowy: The shadows watched.
At the back of the procession, the drum beat. The splash of many feet made a constant living sound against it. Someone began to play a bone flute. We are here, the drum said, the flute said, We are alive.
Soon the bitter water had soaked through even the best-greased of boots. The round stones of the river were difficult underfoot. The women carrying the bier staggered. One of the oldest women — Flea, the storyteller — fell, and from there had to be helped along. But no one left the river. The water could only kill you. The forest could do worse.
The procession left the river and went up, climbing beside a splashing rivulet, through wet ferns. On either hand was a rough fence of knotted cords, just a strand or two, strung from trunk to trunk. The path grew steep, and the fern and pine needles gave way underfoot to scoured slopes of rock. Finally the procession came into a stand of lodgepole pine that clung to a cliff edge, high above a black lake. Across the lake rose great gray spires of granite, round-topped and steep-sided as fingers. It was as if something huge had been buried there, and was digging its way out.
Willow stopped. The people bunched and gathered behind her. They were surrounded now with a warding: not a few token strands but a constricting snare of knots. Unlike the ward of Westmost, this ward pushed inward. The scaffolding ground was tight with that power, airless and almost hot. Otter shivered. The drums beat.
And Otter saw that she was standing in bones.
There were pebbly finger bones. There were femurs like fallen branches. There were skulls. Otter looked up. High in the trees were loose-woven platforms, some piled with squirrel nests and lost in leaves, others showing still the shapes: the red lumps of the bodies.
The drums stopped.
And Willow turned around.
To Otter, it seemed her mother was wearing a mask: Her face was stark. Her hair stood out around her like the hackles of a wolf. The women of the pinch edged backward, away from Willow, away from the body of Tamarack. Only the body bearers stood still, silent.
Willow stalked up to the red bundle that was Tamarack and peeled back a wrapping. A bare hand flopped free. It had gone gray and loose.
Otter swallowed. The hand was so … She had known Tamarack. She did not know this hand. But Willow did not hesitate. She opened the palm and slipped her fingers among the dead fingers.
“Tamarack,” she said.
It was the first word in the grove; it startled like a slap. Otter shook back at the ringing voice. She could see the bearers trembling with their effort to stand still, and the body trembling too. “Tamarack, your name is done with the world.” She dropped the dead hand and it swung from the frame. From around Willow’s arm, a single cord unwound itself, slinking through the air under its own power. There was a muttering of fear.
Willow did not seem to notice. “Hold fast to your name,” she said. “Follow it from this world and do not return.” She touched the wrist once as if in blessing, then bound it to its platform with a harsh jerk of rope. Otter could feel the power of the knot as if it were around her own neck. The bearers shook, and sweat sprang through the black paint of their faces.