Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [8]
Not heard, not exactly. But it was a sense like hearing.
A stand of birch trees grumbled in the shadow of a great spruce. The grasses and scrub of wide-open spaces flourished with a brief, exuberant shout. Wildflowers whispered delicately and perished.
And animals…
It was harder because they moved, but I could sense them, too—if I stayed still enough.
Once, a fox-vixen trotted across our path, a grouse hanging from her narrow chops. She saw us and froze, one forepaw raised.
"She's got kits," my mother murmured. "Half-grown, I reckon. Needs to feed them with autumn coming."
I felt relieved that I wasn't alone in my ability to sense such things. "You can tell, too?"
"Aye, of course. And you're growing into your skills if you can." She looked at me sidelong, then addressed the fox conversationally, summoning a flicker of twilight and making a shooing gesture. "Go on, you."
It trotted away fearlessly.
"Do you hear the trees grow?" I asked her. "The grass speak?"
My mother shook her head. "No. Do you?"
I took a deep breath. "I do."
She eyed me. "Well, that's a fine thing, isn't it?" Is it?
My mother smiled. "To be sure, Moirin mine."
"But it's not a gift of the Maghuin Dhonn?" I pressed her.
She walked without answering for a while. "I cannot say for certain. Surely, there have been those among us tied to the sacred places— the springs and groves and the standing stones. But you sense this everywhere?"
"Aye," I murmured. "Not easily, but aye."
She shrugged. "Mayhap it is a gift we have lost."
"Mayhap." I thought of the man with the seedling and said no more.
At the end of our journey, we found our neat, cozy cave had grown foul and smelly and messy with neglect. Mice and other scavengers had gotten into our stores and nibbled holes in our blankets. It took days to set matters in order, sweeping out droppings and spoiled foodstuff, pounding our blankets on rocks in the clean, cold water of the stream and hanging them to dry. It was hard work, but I didn't mind. It was good to be home.
By the end of the first day, we had cleared away the worst of the debris, but a rank odor lingered.
I wrinkled my nose. "Shall I see if there's pennyroyal yet blooming in the meadow?"
"'Tis too late in the day." My mother made a face, too. "And I fear a stench too great for pennyroyal. Do you have a sense we've further unwelcome visitors lurking?"
I shook my head.
"Nor I." She dusted her hands and cast a glance at the sky. "We'll sleep in the open air tonight and have a closer look on the morrow."
As it happened, we didn't have to wait that long. My mother built a merry fire in the firepit while I plucked a grouse I'd shot the day before, much to my considerable pride. We roasted it on a spit and ate it along with handfuls of late-ripening blackberries. As the soft blue light of dusk began to settle over us, I felt warm and content. Insects buzzed in the last summer air. Along the stream, trout were feeding. Tomorrow, I'd catch fish for our supper.
Something in the far reaches of the cave rustled.
My senses sharpened.
There were visitors—scores of them. They were so tiny and slept so soundly during the daylight hours that neither of us had sensed them. A vast black cloud of them rushed out of the mouth of the cave, rising into the dusk on flittering wings.
"Bats!" I leapt to my feet, laughing with unexpected delight. The cloud split and streamed around me. Nearly inaudible cries filled the night. I spun around amidst the rising swirl. "Can we keep them?"
"Are you mad, child?" my mother asked, but she was smiling. "No, there's the source of the stench, right enough. We'll let them feed and drive them out in the morning."
"All right." I gazed wistfully after the swarm.
My mother's smile deepened. "Never doubt you're a true child of the Maghuin Dhonn, Moirin mine. From what little I've seen of D'Angelines, none of them would dance