Lutha heard me gasp and came to stand beside me.
“What is it, Saluez?”
I was so surprised, I spoke without thinking. “I just saw him, the outlander ghost!”
“You mean … Bernesohn Famber?” she asked in an incredulous voice.
“See, see,” I said, pointing. “Look, there he is again. The one with the twisted shoulders.”
She stared out, turned to me, and stared again. “I see a Kachis with twisted shoulders, Saluez.”
“That’s him! That’s how we know him. He, too, had twisted shoulders.”
Only then, I realized what I had said.
I clung to her. “Don’t tell,” I begged. “Please. Don’t tell the men that the Kachis are the spirits of our departed! I’m not supposed to talk about it!”
She pressed my lips with her fingers, a soft pressure through the fabric of my veil. “Shhh. I won’t, if you don’t want me to, but you must tell me, Saluez. I need to know. When someone here on Dinadh … goes, he comes back as a ghost?”
“When people’s bodies don’t work anymore, their spirits depart the human bodies and find Kachis bodies. We invite them to return to us. We promise to feed them and care for them. The Kachis were made by the Gracious One, just for this purpose, to hold our spirits. And they do come back, where we can see them, and they live for many, many years, staying with us, enjoying the lives of their children and grandchildren, eating, coming to our … taking part in our lives.”
“All of your people who … die, Saluez?”
She didn’t understand! “But we don’t die. Don’t you see! We don’t die, not anymore. No. We just change our forms, that’s all. From human form into Kachis form, but we know who we are, we are still alive.”
She mused a long time. “I see,” she said at last. “So your mother is out there somewhere, Saluez?”
I could not answer her. She should not have asked that. I turned my face from her and went to my place to sleep.
Halach, songfather of Cochim-Mahn, finished his salute to Lady Day, took the three ritual steps into her light, then fastened his robe and looked around for his breakfast. Someone should have come with it from the hive the moment he sang, “Go forth!”
He grumbled, his belly grumbling with him, missing Saluez. She had never been late with his breakfast. Shuddering, he put the thought aside. It was forbidden to think these things. One could not think kindly of someone who had doubted, who had had heretical ideas. And she had, had doubted, had fallen away from grace, otherwise … otherwise she would not be down below with the other veiled doubters and recalcitrants. Lady Day had smitten them, and Weaving Woman had made dark patterns of them, and the Gracious One had turned his back upon them. Praise to the deities who knew the inner hearts of women, darker and more devious than those of men!
Shalumn hastily approached, bearing a bowl and ewer. He held out his hands for the ritual washing. Then Shalumn handed him his food bowl and politely turned away, looking out over the canyon.
He forgave her tardiness with his first bite.
“Only a little time until Tahs-uppi,” he remarked. “Would you like to see the ceremony?”
She was very still. What ailed her? He spared her a curious glance before returning to his meal.
“I am better suited to my duty here, songfather.”
Was she refusing to attend? For the goddesses’ sakes, he hadn’t been suggesting anything improper. Surely she didn’t think …
He made the matter clearer. “Hazini will be accompanying me, along with her father. I thought you might be company for her.”
She didn’t look at him. “Thank you, songfather. It is a kind thought. But I am better suited to my duty here.”
He put down the bowl and stared. “What is it, Shalumn? Something is troubling you.”
“Nothing one may speak of, songfather.”
He dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. “One may speak of anything to a songfather.”
She confronted him, her eyes filled with tears. “I fear Saluez has gone into shadow, songfather.”