“We were all duped, he means,” the boy said.
A 1ittle girl said, “All but Krisuk. He wasn’t fooled.”
“Please sing,” Matthew said, trying to cut to the performance if he had to hear it to learn what they were talking about.
“You start, Krisuk,” the mother said.
The boy stood stock-still, arms at his sides, not a foot from Matthew, and began to chant in an eerie singsong style:
“One day the roof of the world fell
It killed our friends, our cousins
It killed the heir to its wisdom
For days we dug, too numb to cry.
Our world had ended.
Aijija!”
The other villagers joined in, some crying loudly, some mumbling, all reciting the nonsense words at the end of the verses as if they were expletives.
“A stranger came among us to dig
He came among us, he said, to teach
Sure he was.
Strong he was.
He knew what to do.
He knew where to dig.
The world still spoke to him,
He said.
Aijija!
He said if we followed him we could win back the world.
He said if my sister lay with him she would be one with
creation
She went with him
He said if we gave him the best pups of the litter
His team would carry the spirit of our village to the world’s
corners
And it would know us once more
We gave him the pups
He said that the planet’s orange feet carried tales against
us to other villages
He said if we were to heal, the feet must be killed.
This, to our shame, we allowed. “
And here, quite alarmingly, people began to tear their hair. All of the villagers sang the next verse loudly and lamentingly.
“To our shame we didn’t hide them
To our shame we didn’t feed them
To our shame we heard his blows
To our shame we heard their cries
To our shame we did nothing
Until only Shush
Shush the silent and swift
Survived. Shush who led us back into the world
Shush who brought our neighbors to us
Shush who left us at last
Footless in a world
Whose voice had been strangled
Whose tongue had been blown away
By the one we called
Satok shanachie.
Where is our sister now?
Gone to a bad man in a distant village.
Where are our best pups?
Starved and broken in spirit.
Where are our cats, the world’s orange feet?
No longer walking, bones except for Shush
And when our world speaks to us again as we have
Hoped and dreamed?
It screams.
Aijija.”
“Oh, dear,” Matthew said when they had finished. “And all this because of your shanachie, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said. “He took all of our best for himself and betrayed everyone.”
Matthew could scarcely keep from rubbing his hands together with glee. “Oh, that’s terrible. Terrible indeed. Right, Brother Howling?”
Howling’s lips twitched with a smile. “That’s what comes of trafficking with monsters.”
“You can say that again, mister,” the woman said. “Can you stay and eat, sir?” she asked Matthew, but he waved a negative.
“I’m sorry, dear lady, but your story distresses me so much that I really think our best course is to resume our journey and seek to bring justice to you and people like you who are taken in by those who would mislead you. I hope I can count on you to repeat your song before the council when I call on you!” he added, addressing the boy, who had sung every word in a voice unexpectedly good, loud, and clear.
“I’d be honored, sir,” the boy said, although he sounded puzzled and wary.
The villagers had to throw fresh stepping-stones and logs over the brambles for Matthew’s party to return to the helicopter. Even then, the pilot had to climb out and hack at the vines with a machete before he could free the copter’s skids. The vines were tight against the belly of the ship, strands attempting to encircle the narrow stern. Matthew thought that such fast-growing vegetation would also bear scrutiny. George, he rather thought, had some botanical knowledge. He’d send him to get a sampleif one could be contained long enough.