LITMIR.BIZ

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He did, after he took a laden breath.

      “Students were forbidden to speak their native languages. We had to learn English, to read and write. To memorize Bible verses. They forced us to say the Lord’s Prayer.” He made a troubled face. “But the environment wasn’t merciful. I was punished many times.”

      Her heart went out to him. “Why?”

      “Because I didn’t like being told that the Indian way of life was inferior and that only ‘bad’ Indians retained their culture. I didn’t understand how this could be so if the white man’s God had created all men equal.”

      Allie believed in Christianity. But she followed Native ways, too. Her father had practiced two faiths. But not her mother. Yvonne had feigned a disinterest in religion, in the battle between good and evil, when all along, she’d been a witch.

      “The Chiricahua adults didn’t stay in Florida for very long,” he said. “They were relocated to Alabama, where many of them died.”

      “From illnesses?”

      He nodded. “But my parents didn’t take ill.”

      “They survived?”

      “My mother did. My father shot himself. Other warriors did this, too. They couldn’t cope with captivity.”

      Stunned, Allie fell silent. Raven’s father had committed suicide. Like her father.

      “I was in the boarding school when it happened.” He frowned, his eyes reflecting his pain. “I was hundreds of miles away from my grieving mother.”

      “I’m sorry.” She wanted to touch him, to hold him, but he was still keeping his distance.

      He kept talking, telling his story. “The Chiricahua prisoners spent five years in Alabama, then they were sent to Fort Sill, a military reservation in Oklahoma.”

      “Is that where you lived after you finished boarding school? Is that where my great-grandmother cursed you?”

      “Yes,” he said, and began to describe the night Zinna had destroyed his life.

      Alone, with dusk coloring the sky, Raven stood in a watermelon field, his boots hard and heavy on the ground. He glanced at the carefully cultivated rows. The planting had just begun, and this was his favorite time of year.

      He stopped to breathe in the spring air. At Fort Sill, the government had built houses for the Apache and put them to work, farming and raising cattle. But this wasn’t new to Raven. Farming was in his blood. His family had always grown their own food, even before the government had dictated their lives.

      He knelt to touch a seedling. He had lived at Fort Sill since he was eighteen. He was thirty now, and he remained a prisoner of war, a man who barely remembered what it was like to be free.

      He stood up, leaving the seedling to fare on its own. Some of the white men Raven had encountered over the years were cruel. But some were kind. He didn’t hate them. He had learned to live in their world. But even so, he had begun to wear his hair long again. It was his rebellion, his way of taking back what had been stolen from him.

      The brightest spot in his life was Vanessa. She was his Apache wife, a small-boned woman with sun-warmed skin, long eyelashes and a teasing smile. He loved her with his entire heart. They had been married for eleven years, but they had no children. It was their greatest pain, their biggest disappointment. Someday they hoped Usen would bless them with sons and daughters.

      He gazed at the sky. Darkness was beginning to fall. It was time for him to return to his house, to eat the meal Vanessa would have waiting for him. She never scolded him for working late, for remaining in the field after dusk, even though she worried that it was dangerous.

      Because of the witch.

      The one who had vowed to destroy him.

      He took a familiar path with scattered trees. He walked with a strong, steady step. It was bad enough being under military custody. He wouldn’t allow a dead witch to control him, too.

      Zinna had died several months ago. She had contracted an illness that had gone untreated. There was not a shaman among the Chiricahua who had been willing to heal her. Everyone knew she was a witch. She had been feared, and shunned, among the people.

      He kept walking. By now, the moon was half full, creating diffused light and casting shadows. He stepped on a twig that snapped beneath his foot, but he didn’t flinch.

      Not until a small voice stopped him. “Raven.”

      He spun around and saw a young girl. She held a lighted candle, and the flame illuminated her face. She was a haunting child, strangely pretty, with hollow cheeks and hair that coiled around her shoulders. He recognized her as Zinna’s nine-year-old daughter, Sorrel.

      “Where are you going?” she asked.

      “Home,” he said.

      “To your wife?”

      “Yes.”

      “To fornicate with her?”

      Stunned, he could only stare. Children were supposed to be innocent, yet this one was rude and abrasive.

      “My mother wanted to fornicate with you,” she said. “It was you she craved, not my father.”

      Raven didn’t respond. Zinna’s love spells hadn’t worked on him. So she’d bewitched Sorrel’s father instead.

      “Do you know what Mother did to get her revenge?” A wicked smile twisted Sorrel’s lips. “She stopped you from having children. She hexed your wedding night and made your wife barren.”

      The pain, the horror of her words, clenched his stomach. He’d heard of ceremonies that made women sterile. But they weren’t witchcraft ceremonies. Some women chose to do them because they didn’t want children.

      But Vanessa wanted babies, and he’d never associated her inability to conceive with any kind of ceremony, least of all witchcraft.

      He narrowed his gaze at Zinna’s offspring. She was still smiling, still reveling in her mother’s deed. He wanted to crush this young girl, to stomp her to the ground.

      “Go home,” he spat. “Get away from me.”

      She laughed at his ire, enjoying her devious game.

      He turned his back on her, then resumed walking. She persisted, following him, skipping along the way, making his blood run cold.

      An owl hooted, and Sorrel dogged his heels. “Listen, Raven. Do you hear that? Mother is talking to me.”

      He increased his pace. He didn’t doubt her claim. When a witch died, he or she became an owl.

      The bird hooted again, its voice terrorizing the night.

      Zinna’s daughter gloated. “Mother says she is going to destroy you.”

      “She vowed to do that a long time ago.”

      “And now she has the power to make good on her promise. She is stronger in death than she was in life.”

      “I don’t care.” But he did. Deep down, he was afraid, especially when the moon slipped behind a tree and everything went black. He could no longer see the path in front of him.

      He nearly stumbled on something beneath his boot. And when he looked up, Sorrel stood in front of him, holding the candle.

      On her shoulder was an owl.

      Zinna.

      Sorrel smiled and nuzzled the feathers that tufted around the creature’s foot.

      Mother and daughter.

      Raven tried to run, but he couldn’t move. His limbs had been paralyzed. Was this what the Chiricahua called ghost sickness? Was this the first symptom?

      He stood like a scarecrow, and the owl’s yellow eyes burned

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