Beneath the Slashings (Divided Decade Collection) by Michelle Isenhoff

Author:Michelle Isenhoff [Isenhoff, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2012-07-30T04:00:00+00:00

Grace awoke to a soft crackle and the smell of wood smoke. Her body burned, and she cried out with pain.

“Lie still,” a voice commanded. “Stay under warmth.”

“I’m on fire,” she gasped.

“No. Safe. Body very cold. Warm up slowly.”

Grace bit back another cry of agony. Her hands and feet prickled with pain that shot up her limbs. But she couldn’t be on fire, she realized. She was still shivering.

Her eyes took in the dim interior of a rustic shelter. She lay on a pallet of furs. The musty coverings were tucked all around her, and a merry fire danced close by.

“Where am I?” she ground out, shifting position and feeling something hard strike against her side. Something hard and warm.

“In the wigwam of Swims Like a Loon.”

A figure she seemed to remember from a dream was silhouetted briefly against the flames. It was an Indian woman with a bent form and long braids. Grace watched the woman knock something out of the coals with a stick and wrap it quickly in a scrap of fur. She drew back in alarm as the woman moved to tuck it beneath the fur robes.

“A stone,” the woman explained. “Make warm.”

So that’s what she had bumped against. Grace shifted again, feeling another rock near her feet. The contact made flames of agony lick up her leg once more.

After that, Grace lay very still, moving only her eyes. They followed the woman about the room as she prepared something in a kettle above the flames that gave off a delicious aroma. Firelight played on the woman’s form and cast her wrinkled face into planes of light and shadow. She didn’t seem very frightening.

Gradually, Grace’s body stopped shaking, and the fire in her limbs subsided to a pulsing ache. “Are you Swims Like a Loon?” she asked timidly.

The woman gave one solemn nod.

“Do you live in the forest?”

Another nod.

“How did you find me?”

Deeply set eyes peered out of the weathered face and met Grace’s over the fire. “I hear sound. I look. Find Cries Under Tree.”

Grace blinked. “Cries Under Tree?”

The old woman pointed at Grace.

“Me?”

Another nod.

The name suddenly struck Grace as very funny, and she laughed feebly. “I thought I was going to die.”

The old woman’s face split in a shriveled smile. “Almost die,” she nodded happily. Only a few broken teeth dangled from her top gum.

Grace laughed again, afraid she might break into tears if she considered her situation too closely. She wondered if Sam would be proud that she had mastered her fear with hysterics.

“I am Grace,” she said when her amusement faded. “Thank you for saving me.”

“Let me see fingers.”

When Grace produced them, Swims Like a Loon pulled them close to the light of the fire, squinting as she turned them this way and that. Finally, she let go. “You will not lose. Maybe they will blister. Toes too. But they will heal. Come. Sit close to fire.”

Grace rose to squat beside the flames. The effort left her trembling with fatigue.

The Indian woman draped a fur across the girl’s shoulders then pushed a bowl of broth into her hands.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.