It Dreams in Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

powerful sleeping potion and carried her into the Loon Nation, to Eagle Flute Village, in the hopes that Strongheart could Heal her. But she’d been there just a few days when Eagle Flute Village was attacked by warriors from the Water Hickory Clan.
    Strongheart said, “Tell me what you did to try and Heal her?”
    Flint waved a hand. “Why do you care? I couldn’t do it. And, apparently, neither can you. Your efforts have proved no better than mine, or those of her mother.”
    “Her mother?”
    Flint turned and stared at Strongheart. “Yes. Didn’t Sora tell you? Her mother was terrified by her attacks. You’ve seen what happens when the Midnight Fox overtakes her. Sora falls to the ground with her limbs jerking and her teeth gnashing. Throughout her childhood, Sora’s mother forced her to see one Healer after another. By the time I met her, at age fourteen, she’d eaten so many Spirit plants that even the smell of them sickened her.”
    “Has the chieftess ever remembered one of the attacks?”
    “She always recalls disconnected images, pieces of things that happened during the killing spree.”
    Strongheart turned and looked straight into Sora’s eyes.
Their gazes held. All the kindness in the world seemed to be concentrated in those dark depths.
    “One thing you can be certain of,” Flint said, “my kinsmen from the Water Hickory Clan are out there hunting for Short Tail’s murderer. We can’t stay here. We have to leave.”
    “How would they know he’d been murdered? He must have disappeared during the attack. Surely his clan believes he was killed by Loon warriors.”
    Flint’s jaw hardened. “His warriors would have searched for him—or his body. And they would have found it, just as I did.”
    “But you had trouble recognizing him. Perhaps they will—”
    “They won’t have any trouble. Sora did things, bizarre things that will leave no doubt but that he was murdered.”
    The silence stretched, and the sound of the rain falling through the trees seemed to fill the world.
    Finally, Strongheart asked, “What things?”
    Flint waved a hand. “She … took his possessions … and arranged them around him in a circle. My kinsmen will recognize every weapon and piece of jewelry.”
    “If you knew they’d be recognized, why didn’t you take them?”
    Flint glared at Strongheart. “I didn’t think of it at the time.”
    Strongheart made a soft thoughtful sound and asked, “Had you ever seen her do something like that before?”
    “Yes. Once.”
    When Flint didn’t continue Strongheart took a few moments to study his tormented expression before asking, “When?”
    “There was a … a pearl Trader.” Flint walked a short distance away, to the edge of the swamp, and gazed out at the rain-stippled water. “I didn’t know they were in the council chamber. I walked in on them.”

    Stunned by his implications, Sora couldn’t even speak to defend herself. She stared at him with her mouth open.
    Strongheart said, “What were they doing?”
    “She was in his arms,” he said as though it was still painful to speak of it. “I was furious. I left Blackbird Town and didn’t return for two moons. Later, I heard that a woman had found the Trader’s body just north of Blackbird Town. She said that every item had been removed from his pack and arranged around the corpse in a circle.”
    Is it possible that I killed the man and don’t remember any of it? Not even what happened in the council chamber before the murder?
    Strongheart’s voice was mild. “Is that when you gave her the water hemlock that caused her to miscarry your son on the Red Hill?”
    Flint went rigid. He slowly lifted his eyes and pinned Strongheart with a deadly look. “Don’t ever ask me about that again, Priest. Do you understand? If you ask me about it, I’ll kill you.”
    Strongheart’s gaze never wavered. “Flint, we must talk. Just you and I. I can’t Heal the chieftess until you have told me—”
    “I’m not