Free It Sleeps in Me by Kathleen O’Neal Gear Page A

looking for me .
    She entered her house and stood for a moment in the cool
hallway, listening. Rockfish must be away. The silence pressed against her ears like huge hands.
    Though her mother had always insisted that her slaves live in this house, Sora had sent them away the first day she’d become the chieftess. They lived in slaves’ quarters out on the lakeshore, came when she asked for them, and left when she ordered them to. This house was the only place on earth where she had any privacy. She wanted to keep it that way.
    Sora walked into the temple. The low flames of the Eternal Fire cast a soft, flickering light over the enormous figure of Black Falcon that hung on the wall.
    It took a few moments for her to realize that a special offering lay on the altar at Black Falcon’s feet: a necklace of copper hands connected by a leather thong. From the palm of each hand, wide-open eyes, embossed by a master copper worker, stared out at her. A circle of disembodied eyes.
    Every time they’d argued, Flint had left her a gift in this very spot. It was his way of apologizing without having to say the words.
    As her heartbeat increased to slam against her ribs, she had the terrifying sensation that he was here, very close by.
    Sora glanced around the temple. Nothing moved except the shadows cast on the walls by the flames.
    She climbed the altar steps and went to touch the necklace. It was warm. Had it just been pulled from around someone’s throat and placed here?
    The door curtain behind her whispered.
    “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he called softly.
    Sora swung around. He must have been waiting in the council chamber across the hall. “Skinner, I told you to leave me alone.”
    The shark’s teeth on his buckskin shirt flashed as he walked toward her. “Yes, today you did, but last night you said you would give up everything for me, including your husband. I’m here, Sora. I want you as much as you want me.”

    “Leave. Now!”
    His gaze focused on the fists she’d clenched at her sides, then moved to the necklace on the altar behind her. “I made that for you the day I died. I had to bring it to you myself.”
    “You are not Flint! Stop pretending to be!”
    “Please, please, listen to me,” he pleaded. “From the instant my souls seeped from my body—”
    “Skinner, I beg you not to say these things! If you feel this way, then just tell me and we’ll—”
    “I knew I had to see you before I traveled to the Land of the Dead. There are so many things I must tell you.”
    She stepped backward, almost into the Eternal Fire. Maybe it was his reflection-soul? I’m insane. I should run to a priest and ask his advice. “Then you’re not Flint’s shadow-soul?”
    So much hope filled her voice she could barely stand to hear it herself.
    A sad look came over his handsome face. “How does a person tell, Sora? Please, I need you to help me figure this out.”
    He made a helpless gesture with his hand and turned slightly away from her. As he stood in profile, his solitary eye squinted as though in confusion.
    She said, “Can you tell me what happened at the end? What’s the last thing you remember?”
    “Skinner started sobbing and gasping for breath and I … I knew.”
    “You knew what?”
    “I knew I was dead.”
    Hearing him say it made her ache as though she’d just received the news for the first time. “And then?”
    He clutched the fabric over his heart. “A deep sense of gratitude went through me, and I realized it wasn’t me feeling it.”
    “You mean, Skinner was feeling grateful? That—that you were dead?”

    “No, I think he knew my soul had slipped inside him. He could feel me there, and didn’t mind. In fact, he seemed deeply relieved.”
    Breathlessly, she asked, “Did he tell you that?”
    “Yes. Later. Now, we talk often.”
    She edged around the circumference of the fire pit. His one eye followed her. He knew she was getting ready to bolt.
    “You’re toying with me,