Bone Walker by Kathleen O'Neal Gear

Author:Kathleen O'Neal Gear
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2012-06-05T04:00:00+00:00

COLD SUNLIGHT DRENCHES the tan cliff and shoots like arrows into Piper’s eyes.

“Did you tell him that I knew you?”

Piper tries hard not to cry out as Aunt Obsidian twists her arm.

“Answer me!”

They stand in a tumbled pile of rocks behind Kettle Town, but on the second-story porch, warriors perch, watching the stairs cut into the cliff behind Piper. They do not see her, but she sees them through the cracks in the rocks.

Aunt Obsidian kneels in front of Piper and her eyes are a dead flying squirrel’s, huge and bulging, filled with anger. Her black hood waffles around her face in the icy wind.

She shakes Piper so hard that Piper’s head snaps back and pain flies down her spine. A sharp squeak comes up her throat, but she keeps it locked behind her clenched teeth.

“What are you doing here?” Aunt Obsidian’s voice is a snake’s hiss. “Did your mother send you to spy on me?”

Piper hears, but she doesn’t really. She has put her breath-heart soul in the boulder in front of her, and all it hears is Wind Baby whistling around the corners of Kettle Town.

“You are a bad girl!” Aunt Obsidian whispers and shoves Piper hard into the rocks. Gravel scritches beneath her sandals, and she almost falls. “No wonder Father hates you!”

Piper tries to live inside the tears of the boulder, and she feels very old and sad, as though the boulder thinks it’s dying, and is frightened. She peers at the ground and sees small rocks and sand that have fallen from the boulder, and she knows why it’s scared. It doesn’t want to fall to pieces.

“Wait until that old man finds out who you are. He’ll order his warriors to take you out into the desert and leave you, without food or water, so you’ll die. Do you hear me?”

Piper sucks her lip.

Aunt Obsidian slaps Piper and her feet go out from under her. She hits the ground hard and lies on her belly among the fallen rocks and sand, a piece of the boulder that is alone now. If she listens very hard, she can hear the boulder crying.

Aunt Obsidian lifts a finger and stabs it at Piper. “I have a chance, Piper. One single chance to live like a normal woman. Go home!”

Tears fill Aunt Obsidian’s eyes as she turns and stamps away through the rocks toward the town.

Piper breathes in the dust from the boulder’s skin and wonders if she has swallowed part of its breath-heart soul, if right now the boulder is living inside her.

Piper wraps her arms around herself and curls onto her side, trying to keep the boulder safe and warm.

Up above her …

Wings flutter.

Owl lands on the top of the boulder, cocks his head, and peers down at Piper. He is big and gray.

She whispers, “I wish she were dead.”

Owl fluffs out his feathers as though cold.

In a voice like Wind Baby’s on a still summer day, he whispers, “Your aunt has tears. Did you try to

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