Old Jazz Marie smiled and left the veranda. She did not look back at them, but raised her hand to wave as she swayed her hips into the swamp. Luanna was waiting for her. The two women disappeared behind a banyan tree.
Kit felt no sense of loss; her grandmother would be back. Death was not always the end. She realized that now.
She glanced at M’cal, and found him fingering the gris-gris pouch, his eyes thoughtful. She asked, “What are you thinking?”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “I was thinking … that life is strange and awful and lovely, and that to have one, you must have the others.”
Kit leaned against him. “Regrets?”
“Some,” he admitted. “None that have to do with you.”
The sun was setting behind the swamp; clouds blushed rose and gold, like honey mixed with some warm dream. M’cal slowly exhaled, sliding his arm over her shoulders, and glanced down at the table beside them. Kit followed his gaze. Her fiddle lay on the hard battered surface, surrounded by dried chicken feet and bones and rocks.
He smiled. “Play me a song.”
“Only if you’ll sing.”
“Magic, if we do it together.”
Kit stood on her toes and brushed her lips against his cheek. “So, let’s make magic.”
M’cal laughed. “Only with you, Kitala. Only with each other.”
She picked up her fiddle to hide the sudden burn of tears in her eyes. “Always, M’cal. You and I are so blessed.”
We are indeed, he said, inside her mind, reaching down between their souls, holding her with a love that was wild as a thunderstorm and deeper than the sea. There was mystery between them; magic. Enough to move the stars.
Kit smiled and struck a note.
Other books by Marjorie M. Liu:
EYE OF HEAVEN
THE RED HEART OF JADE
SHADOW TOUCH
A TASTE OF CRIMSON (Crimson City Series)
TIGER EYE
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank, as always, my agent, Lucienne Diver, for her endless encouragement and spunky good cheer; Chris Keeslar, for being a wonderful (and patient) editor; and Brianna Yamashita, Brooke Borneman, and Diane Stacy, three of Dorchester’s finest ladies, who work hard for their authors, and are generous of heart.
Finally, to my readers, a heartfelt thank you for being friends to my words. May we share many more, together.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SOUL SONG. Copyright © 2007 by Marjorie M. Liu. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition JUNE 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-201365-1
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