“You are gracious, sir.”
“Then share your thoughts with me.”
“Oh, sir, I’m most definitely not worthy to share anything with anyone. It was only that I saw a pretty shadow …”
Matthew immediately knew that for a prevarication, as he could see nothing anywhere that might qualify as a pretty shadow.” Because he didn’t wish to drive the timorous girl so far into her shell that she would be even less communicative than she was already, he let the matter drop.
It took four days by snocle to reach the Vale. Goat-dung rode in misery and, when she was allowed, in silence. The journey was much for her as sleep had been in the Valea respite, a brief time away, but always with the knowledge that she would wake within the Vale.
She was not traveling with Dr. Luzon because of his promises to free her, to adopt her. No, she knew better than to hope for such things, and besides, she was not the sort of person that anyone thought important enough to keep their promises to. She rode with him because she knew, as she had always known, with a dull, dreading certainty, that sooner or later she would wake up, end up, back in the Vale. When she had been with Coaxtl in her Home, she had for a time hoped to be free. With Coaxtl, who was free above all else, it had seemed reasonable to hope for freedom. As soon as she was back among people, even happy, laughing, squabbling people, people who were too ignorant to know that she did not deserve their pity, people who surely lied to pretend they were able to care about her, as soon as she was with them, she knew she was destined to return to the Vale.
And who better than Dr. Luzon, who was like and yet unlike the Shepherd Howling, to take her there? He did not strike her or try to touch her dirty secret places. He did not, in fact, seem interested in her at all. The only harm he did was to batter her ears constantly with questions about the Vale, about the Shepherd, about the Wisdom’s and the Great Monster. He battered her about Coaxtl, too, but she would say nothing of the big cat, even to Dr. Luzon.
During the day, mile after mile of snow sped past the snocle’s wind bubblesnowy hills, snowy plains, snowy valleys, snowy hills again. They sped past half-frozen rivers and slushy places they had to detour around, through forests and over land too high for forest to grow, past rabbit tracks and moose tracks and the tracks of horses. She wondered if these horses wore horns, like one she had glimpsed long ago. At first, it was exciting to travel over land so fast, but the excitement soon paled when she realized how quickly she was returning to the one place she did not want to be!
Nights were bad because that’s when the questions began, so that she had the Shepherd’s teachings ringing in her ears as she fell asleep, just as she always had in the Vale
Only one piece of knowledge made all bearable, something only she knew, that just behind the hill, or hunkered down in a nearby bush, or back in the trees, or watching from the rim of a valley, a lone clouded shape vigilantly followed and stood guard at night. And when she woke at night sweating in her new warm winter clothing, she would hear a purr inside her mind, from out of the darkness, and the song of Coaxtl would lull her to sleep again.
Sleep, youngling
Sleep and dream
Of when your eyes will open
Sleep, youngling
Sleep and dream
Of the day when your tail will he long
Sleep and dream
Sleep and dream
Safe in the Home you’ll be throbbed into slumber
Safe in the Home you’ll be crooned to all day
Sleep, youngling
Sleep and dream
At twilight we two will go hunting.
When this happened, sometimes the bad dreams did not return; sometimes she woke without fearing the daylight.
Such a night had passed before the day when they reached the Vale. Panic rose and choked off her breath as she looked down into the Vale, which now was muddy, but without water, and with a new coat of ice and snow.