Sound of the Heart
Page 29
Usually when I saw him, he was at peace. Not this time. His dark hair was pulled back from his sweat-streaked face, tied into a tail. His teeth were bared. He was weak with injuries and exhaustion, disheartened by the sight of an endless tide of red coats pushing toward him through a field of smoke. Muskets and cannons boomed in their wake.
Every one of his muscles ached. I rolled over in my bed, feeling the tension between my shoulders though I was cradled within my mattress. His head thrummed, echoing the drums in the field, the crack of guns, and his racing heartbeat.
I felt what he felt, but my body was miles away. My eyes burned with gritty tears. My limbs were heavy, weighted down by defeat. The stink of sulphur singed my nostrils, and my feet squelched through ice-cold muck while my body slept in my warm, safe bedroom, the air sweet with baking bread.
The sensations roaring through my veins were unlike anything I’d felt before. Fear forced the blood through my veins at an exhilarating speed, but I had to control the panic. He was in grave danger. He needed more than encouragement from me. He needed me to be a part of him. My senses were alive, my body untouched. I gave him all I had, despite the fact I couldn’t touch him. Where he felt pain, I brought a healing touch. Where there was dizziness, I gave him strength.
A grunt alerted me to someone approaching from behind. In my mind I thrust out an arm, and the body I inhabited followed. He jumped, reacting to my unexpected presence, and I felt his sense of surprise. But of course I was there. I would never let him die. He took the strength I offered and turned it to rage. He roared, fighting for his life, twisting and moving with the violent grace of a wolf. His sword blocked a strike, although the smoke was so thick I almost didn’t see it happen. Steel sliced through the air on his other side, and I turned to foil its attack, knowing he would turn with me. Again and again he blocked killing blows and struck out, cutting through the attacking soldiers. His strength was returning, his confidence back in place. I felt a surge of power as it filled his body and mind.
All the silent communication from our childhood had brought us to this point. I would never leave him. I would be wherever, whatever he needed me to be, if only in his thoughts. I would give him courage and strength and love. And he would give me the same whenever my mind called to him.
Close enough that our minds were like one, far enough that we never felt each other’s touch. We were what we had always been.
CHAPTER 3
Beyond the House
For nearly two years I spent my days looking forward to falling asleep. For me, the darkness was full of life.
The dreams that comforted me the most were the ones featuring him, the boy from my childhood, now grown into a man about the same age as I. He was tall with a solid build and ruddy complexion. Dark hair fell in loose waves to just past his shoulders, and sometimes a short beard framed lips that curled slightly at the edges. When we saw each other in dreams, his smile felt so warm I thought I might burst into flame. But it was his fathomless brown eyes that spoke to me the most.
He usually visited when I slept, but if I could find a quiet place and relax, I might see him under the light of the sun. He appeared in my thoughts as if to watch me, as intrigued by me as I was by him. Sometimes I sensed his presence, but couldn’t see him. Occasionally the spectre of a wolf loped through my thoughts, but somehow I knew the spirit of a man lived within its coarse dark coat. The eyes were the same: unflinching, deep wells of intelligence. So, without any other name to give him, I took to calling him Wolf.
I had dreams where I walked without him, seeing images I didn’t try to understand: colours that swirled and left me breathless, streams of voices shining silver as they passed, featureless faces shadowed by unfamiliar trees.
Then something changed. The dreams went dark.
Nightmares invaded my sleep the summer after I turned seventeen. It was the hottest summer anyone could remember. Weeks passed with no rain, and the air grew fragile with need. Dead grass lay flat on the cracked earth with no hope of resurrection. Cicadas screeched from the faraway forest, a constant trill from dawn until dusk. And at night apparitions stole my sleep—bulky shadows creeping closer or retreating at their whim, like creatures hunting.
Everyone has nightmares, but mine were different. They showed me my future. Except they were unclear. All I knew was something horrible was coming. Something I couldn’t see, but knew. I could do nothing but wait.
I found it hard to fall asleep in the heat, but I didn’t mind. When sleep finally claimed me, I wished it hadn’t come. My nightmares became darker every night, oppressive with growing urgency. Their menace accompanied me constantly, even creeping into my waking hours.
When the need for waiting came to an end, I knew. On the morning of that day, sunshine flooded the walls of the bedroom I shared with my sisters, but I saw only blackness. Fighting dizziness and nausea, I rose from our bed, needing to escape the grasp of the dreams. My legs were weak, and I clung to the yellowed wall. I stared at my sleeping sisters for so long they awoke and returned my stare.
“What is it?” Adelaide whispered.
My mouth opened and closed, but words were trapped in my throat.
“Get Mama,” Adelaide said to Ruth, keeping her eyes on me.
Ruth ran to our mother’s room, next to ours. Mother came and stood with me, letting me cling to her as if I were a small child. Slightly steadied by her presence, I dressed in the same dress I wore every day. I only had one other, and I kept it folded in our wardrobe, saving it until this one was too dirty to wear. On the table by our bedroom door sat a large tin bowl and a small ewer half full of precious well water. I dipped in a cloth and used it to scrub my teeth, then wet down my hair with my fingers and tied a neat blue ribbon around my braid. My mother had given me the ribbon a week before, in celebration of Adelaide’s fifteenth birthday. Blue for me, pink for Adelaide, and yellow for Ruth. To distract myself from the pounding fear in my head, I kept busy, mending torn clothing and cleaning the house. I wove a thin bracelet for Adelaide out of the dry grass that brushed our house’s walls, and pieced together a little dress for the black-eyed rag doll Ruth carried everywhere.
The day seethed with heat, trembling in distorted waves over the baked grass. There wasn’t even a hint of breeze. The late afternoon sun bubbled low on the horizon, and its glare painted black silhouettes of our small barn and listing fence posts.
From out of the silence came the sounds of horses’ hooves, heavy on the dried earth, coming toward our house.
My mother had never been a hunter, but I had seen her use our father’s rifle against coyotes that pestered our hens. She had never hit one while I’d been watching, but the crack of a shot scattered the predators and urged them to seek easier meals. At the sounds of the horses, she grabbed the rifle from where it hung on the wall. My mother, my sisters, and I crowded through the doorway and stood on either side of its crooked frame, squinting into the light and watching the black profiles of men on horseback as they rode toward us. She held the rifle across her body like a shield, resting the end of its barrel on our faded wooden doorstep.
Before their faces came into view, I knew who they were. I started to shake. Adelaide took my hand and clung to it.
Berkley Sensation titles by Genevieve Graham
UNDER THE SAME SKY
SOUND OF THE HEART