I looked down. I was immensely fat again, and mottled with specks. I wore a garment like a wide belt, and from it hung a number of pouches. My neck was ringed with necklaces of leather strung through beads of polished stone. My wrists were likewise decorated. Soldier’s Boy opened his mouth to speak. With frantic energy, I fought him for control of the mouth and words. Here, I suddenly discovered, we were much more equally matched. I could not force out the words I wanted to say, but neither could he. We stood before Epiny, two battling spirits in one body, voiceless as the mouth worked and only nonsense sounds came out.
Epiny’s image of herself suddenly brightened and firmed, as if she had come closer to me without moving. “Nevare. You are here, aren’t you? This is that ‘dream-walking’ you wrote about in your journal! Why have you come to me? Is there something important I must know? Are you in danger? Are you hurt? Where are you, Nevare? What do you need of me?”
Epiny in the flesh could be overwhelming. Epiny on this dream plane exceeded that. As she focused herself on me, she seemed to grow larger. The room disappeared; only the cradle remained at her side, and despite her frantic questions, she continued to rock it in a calm and calming manner. I thought I finally understood what the “aura” she told me about was. Epiny radiated her self like a fire radiates heat. In this place, nothing was concealed. Her intensity, her curiosity, her burning sense of justice, and her equally hot indignation at injustice; it all flowed out of her, a corona of Epiny-ness. It was humbling to stand there and feel the waves of her love for me beat against me.
I wanted so badly to stay and speak with her. Soldier’s Boy’s desire to stay mute and flee was equally strong. Caught in that tug-of-war, we were a silent presence full of conflict.
“If you cannot speak to me here, at least hear what news I have. It may comfort you to know that both Spink and Amzil believed me when I told them that you lived. It was such a relief to them. Neither had wanted to admit to the other that the memories of that night were truncated and contradictory. Still, there have been repercussions. Spink can go about his daily tasks, knowing that he did not fail you. But it has still changed his heart toward the men he rode with that night. He cannot abide the sight of them. He knows how capable of evil they are. He avoids Captain Thayer, Carsina’s husband, but the man knows that Spink despises him. I fear he will take umbrage against Spink someday. I fear for him, Nevare. He cannot hide what he knows about those men; it shows in his face and his eyes whenever we encounter any of them. And they, I think they feel they must be rid of him; perhaps it is the only way in which they will be able to forget that night. They believe they beat you to death, or at the least, witnessed their comrades doing so. But their memories are not clear on exactly how it happened. So when Spink looks at them with disgust, well, I do not think they know what to believe about themselves.
“And Amzil does not make it better. I do not know what you said to her that night, but it has made her fearless. And when I gave her your message, that you loved her but had to leave her, it hardened something in her. Now she is worse than fearless whenever she encounters one of those men. She torments them. When she sees one of them on the streets or in the mercantile, she does not turn her eyes away or avoid him. Instead, she stalks him like a cat, meeting his gaze, walking up on him and staring him straight in the face. They flinch from her, Nevare. They look away, they try to avoid her, but she is making them hate her. The one who tried to stand up to her, who would not leave the store when she glared at him? When he looked at her with disdain, she returned his gaze and said aloud, loud enough for other customers to hear her, ‘Perhaps he has forgotten what happened the night a mob beat the grave digger to death. I have not. You think you know what I am; I’ve heard you call me the Dead Town Whore. But I know what you are. I remember every detail. And I would far rather be a whore than a sniveling coward.’ He fled from her then, convinced that what she recalls is what others recall of him as well.
“Winter will close around us soon, Nevare, and winter is not a good season here in Gettys. It is a time when every injury festers, and the cold and the dark promise to hide every evil thing that is done. I am afraid. I bar the door at night, and Spink sleeps with his pistol cocked and ready on the bedside table. He has talked of resigning his commission; he no longer wishes to serve with these men. I think that if winter were not so close, he would do it, and we would flee, for the sake of the baby. Such cowardice would scald him and leave a scar that would never heal. Yet, when spring comes, if nothing has improved here, what else can he do? Better that he take us away from here than that he is shot in the back and I am left at the mercy of these wolves. So he has told me himself.”
