Where the Dead Talk Read Online Free PDF

summer or winter, never did quite match the night sky elsewhere. Ripples touched the rocks along the shore where Pannalancet stood looking out from the trees. There was little wind, and no frogs or crickets singing. He was tired, and this place weighed on him, worse than ever.
    Something had disturbed it. The feeling had been stuck on him when he’d awoken two days earlier, and had grown since. He'd tried to write it off as an old man’s imagination, but standing here, he couldn't ignore it. He made his way around the edge of the lake, looking for signs on the ground, in the grass and reeds. He found hoofprints fifty yards from the lake. Looking closer, he spotted some bootprints with them, ones that went to the rocky southern cut of the lake. They were three, four days old. He stared at them a long while.
    He wouldn’t have done it again, he thought. Not after the last time.
    Word had reached him about the young Chase who’d broken his neck; the news had stayed long in his head through the days and nights since. William hadn't come to him and Pannalancet had left him to his grief, knowing he'd let him know if he needed help with the boys. Over the years they'd come to an understanding, and now he felt for the man whose family had had its own share of tragedy; he'd help them if he could, as he had with fevers and flux and sprained ankles and poor harvests and sick animals and lonely toddlers. Still, some things were beyond his ability to help. Pannalancet looked out across the still water, where the moon rose through the treeline. He turned and headed off to his nephew’s cabin. He would need his help. Nashoonon would complain, of course – he complained about everything.
    Still, the lake needed watching.
    The trail to Nashoonon’s cabin was a twenty minute walk and his hips scolded him for so much walking. When he got there, the cabin was dark - no smoke from a fire, no lanterns burning. At first, he thought the young man must have been down at the tavern again, where – for all his disdain for the English – he'd spent an awful lot of time over the past year. Then, another stab of intuition touched his heart. By the time he pushed the door open, he knew that Nashoonon had left. Horse, weapon, tools, blankets – all gone. Not much besides some split quarters of wood next to the chopping stump, lying where they’d fallen.
    Pannalancet stood looking at the deserted cabin until his moon shadow began to pull itself in towards his feet. The stillness of the dark cabin had the power to reach inside him, to encircle his heart like a cold hand. More voices of his people, silenced. Where once these woods were full of their songs and voices – where once nothing could get into the cold waters of the lake with his people standing watch – it had come down to this, grown too much for even Nashoonon, who had nothing to rely on but Pannalancet’s own fragments of ceremony. Not enough meat on the bone for a young man’s appetite. Too much silence, too much responsibility. Too much tragedy. With a sigh, Pannalancet turned back to the lake.
     
    He watched the water from the eaves of the dark woods and a dread came over him made inexplicably worse by the sight of the black surface. On the far side of the lake, the evening stars shone below the moon. It was too dark to try to search the rest of the lakeshore for signs. There was one thing he could do, though – a way to tell. Pannalancet took pained steps down to the water. At the edge, he kicked off his light shoes. The mud was cool under his feet. He stepped into the water. His feet sunk into muck and the icy water grabbed his bare ankles.
    The voices were suddenly everywhere.
    To the eye, the lake was still, but whispers surrounded him. Here and there, fragments of speech – some in Pennacook, some in English, some in Nipmuck or Abenaki. Many in tongues he didn’t understand. Voices moved past him – some were far off. There were cries and screams, mutters and laughter.