Spirit Walk_ Old Wounds (Book 1) - Christie Golden [77]
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Sekaya said sincerely. “May she walk in the spirit world.” The words were traditional for her tribe; Sekaya wasn’t sure what the Lakota would have said. She knew her old friend would understand.
“Thank you,” he said. “I miss her a great deal. But yes, you are right, I have come when the Cardassians called like a faithful pet.”
Now Sekaya felt a smile tug at her lips. “You don’t like this either?”
“Who would?” Blue Water Dreamer replied. “But it is best to cooperate. It’s not as if we don’t know what the Cardassians can do to a world if they think it’s going to be troublesome.”
She sobered. “True,” she said. “It is good to see you, nonetheless.”
“And you,” he said. “The years have blessed you. I think you are even more beautiful than I remembered.”
She felt her face flush and turned back to her skins. “I have to tend these,” she said. There was no sound behind her, and she thought he had gone. Then she heard the song of the flute, sweet and lovely, spiraling up to the skies. It lifted her heart and also had a touch of wonder to it, like the magic the spirits were said to work.
When he had finished, she asked him, “What song is that?”
He looked gravely into her eyes and said, “That is the song the blue water sings to the sky, who is reflected and held in its heart.”
“Oh,” said Sekaya, and then, “Oh!” as he continued to hold her gaze and comprehension dawned.
“But then, they came back again. And this time, they wanted more. They wanted to ask us questions. Subject us to various…tests.”
Sekaya’s voice suddenly went thick and she fell silent. Chakotay wanted to interrupt, to get clarification, but he held his tongue. Sekaya was telling a sacred tale, and to interrupt would be highly disrespectful. If he had questions, he could ask them later.
“Some of the tests were strangely simple. They asked us to think of things, and see if others could guess what we were thinking. They wanted us to try to move objects with the power of our minds. We laughed about these; foolish Cardassians, we thought….”
Kolopak had not approved of Sekaya’s dating young men outside the tribe when she was younger. But now, even he had to admit that his daughter was a grown woman. She had never connected with any man in the tribe, never felt drawn to anyone but the mystical Lakota boy with the flute. She said nothing, but she knew Kolopak noticed the fact that since Blue Water Dreamer’s return, they did nearly everything together.
“Oh, and then he said”—Blue Water Dreamer made his voice sound very deep and serious—“ ‘Now, my boy…see if you can move the pebble with your mind!’ ”
Sekaya laughed as they pulled in the nets from the day’s fishing. Bright silver fish flopped and wriggled. They would be eaten tonight at the Feast of the Full Moon, and what was left would be dried the old way for future use.
“Really?”
“Really,” continued Blue Water Dreamer. “It was all I could do not to laugh. So I did what he wanted. I closed my eyes, I concentrated, and I imagined the pebble flying off the table—and lodging in his nose.”
“Too bad it didn’t work,” chuckled Sekaya, smiling at the image. She would have liked to see a Cardassian with a pebble shoved up his nose. She wished she could be the one to perform the act.
The nets were safely in. They should be paddling to the next site, to pull up the next net full of silver fish, but neither one did. Blue Water Dreamer leaned forward and stroked her face. Sekaya looked up into his eyes, her heart pounding. He smiled, trying to appear bold and confident but succeeding only in looking as nervous as she felt.
“I am remembering,” he said softly, “a time from long ago, when Sekaya and Blue Water Boy were young. When their playmate, her brother, left for a brave new world, and they wept together.”
“I am remembering that too,” Sekaya said. Great Spirit, she was every bit as shy and nervous now, a woman in her thirties, as she was as a teenager.
“I am remembering something they did there,” he said, “something that stayed in Blue Water Boy