Willow fell silent. She lashed Tamarack wrist and wrist, ankle and ankle. She stepped back. “Raise her.” And the rangers began the hard work of casting ropes into the trees, raising the new dead one to rest among the old. The red looked harsh against the black trees, the soft summer sky.
“May the wind take her into the wind,” said Willow when they were done. “May the rain take her into the water. May the wood hold her away from this world. May the ravens fly her far.”
The drums began.
“And when she comes back,” said Willow, under the drumbeat but not quietly enough. “When she comes back, may she tell me why.”
The binder is mad.
The whisper had started even before they got back to the pinch.
The old binder is dead; the new binder is mad. She called back the dead. The one whom the dead obey, she called one of them back.
For Otter, it was as if her mother’s whisper had stolen her voice. Under the scaffolds, her throat closed. Her body shook. With Kestrel holding her elbow as if to hold her up, she walked back to the pinch like a woman struck blind. She was that lost. That frightened.
And even inside the safety of the ward — but was it safe? — the cords pulled at her. She felt them twang against some sense she didn’t know she had, something deep in her body, signaling her as a web signals a spider. Even inside the safety of the ward she felt as if dead eyes were on her, as if something hungry were watching.
In truth, there were indeed eyes on her. Willow had stalked off to her lodge, silent, majestic, unconcerned. The women of Westmost had watched her go. They stood around in threes and fours and whispered. Often they looked at the binder’s lodge. Often they looked at Otter.
Otter just kept walking. She wanted to get away from the ward, its strange and stirring power. But where to go? Not into the darkness of the binder’s lodge. Not into the whispering knots of women standing on the packed clay of the palm, the open space at the center of the earthlodges where dances were held and gossips traded. The corn was thick enough to hide in, but she had a cold thrill at the thought of what could be hidden in corn. Kestrel walked beside her and was silent even as she slowed and stumbled — and finally stopped, leaning on a pile of rocks by the edge of the sunflower patch.
Otter tried to breathe deep, but each breath made her shudder and shudder. Kestrel put her hand between Otter’s shoulders: steady. The summer stones were rough and warm to the touch. They were not alive, but if they were dead, it was a simple kind of dead: They were only themselves. They needed nothing.
Otter was thinking this and not watching the world, and so when someone moved just behind her, her heart leapt like a startled grasshopper. She spun and had her bracelets thrust up before she saw who it was.
“What happened?” said Cricket.
“Once our dogs were wolves,” said Cricket, when no one answered him, “and though we loved them, we watched them carefully.”
Kestrel half laughed. “They’re watching Willow.”
“No, they’re sure she’s rabid.” He turned to Otter. “They’re watching you.”
Otter trailed along the edge of the sunflower row, away from the lodges and the open space of the palm. She could feel the eyes of the pinch on her back. “I didn’t do anything,” she said. “It’s only that I’m — I’m —” This girl is a binder born. “— her daughter.”
Slowly they walked away from the lodges of Westmost, as if they were deer browsing. As if they were not afraid. Kestrel put out her hand and skimmed it along the top of the grass as the meadow became wilder.
“What happened?” said Cricket again. “Have mercy on a storyteller: Tell me a story.”
“It’s not just a story,” said Otter. Something broke out of her that sounded like anger.
“They never are,” said Cricket softly.
“My mother …” said Otter — and she could say nothing more. It was Kestrel, then, who spun the tale: Kestrel, foursquare as flint, plain as that, unornamented. She told the story of how the binder had turned around wearing the face of a wolf. Of how her cords had moved by themselves to make the knots. Of how she had bound the old binder to rest. Of how she had closed her eyes and called the old binder back.
Silence fell in the meadow.
“Oh,” said Cricket.
“What does it mean?” said Otter. “Cricket — you said you knew a story like this.” The night Tamarack had died, he’d said that. “A … an unhappy story.”
“No, I don’t know this story,” said Cricket. “But —” He touched the tip of his tongue to his upper lip, as if he suddenly was unsure. They watched him, silently, and when he spoke again he sounded tense. “Otter, think a moment before you ask me. It is a serious thing. Do you want to hear a story?”
“Tell me a story,” said Otter.
In answer, Cricket turned around three times, like a wolf seeking rest, then sank into the grass. His turning had made the grass into a little nest around him. He sat cupped in it, cradled like a fawn.