Cold Fire (Spiritwalker 2)

As my heart stuttered, Kofi whistled, then bent to rearrange the baskets as an older woman came out to examine the fruit. He turned his whistle to a merry tune, while Kayleigh dumped the bucket into the rubbish wagon as if she had just this moment come out.

The woman scolded her. “Get on then, maku. Yee’s so slow. Housekeeper say yee have not even finished the grates yet today.”

Kayleigh went in just as the wagon’s driver came out munching on a roll. Between bites, the wagoner engaged in a peppershot round of casual batey team gossip with Kofi: so many Blues, Greens, Barracudas, Cajayas, Anolis, Rays, and Guinchos that my head reeled. After the older woman picked through the fruit, Kofi trundled off. I shadowed him along the jetty to the Passaporte market, where he delivered the cart to a compound whose family rented out transport. By the way they treated Kofi, he seemed to be a son of the house.

Aunty Djeneba looked up when I came in, nose wrinkling as if I’d brought a whiff of rubbish. “Yee was gone so long I sent Luce out to look for yee. Never could she find yee.”

My parents had drowned when I was six. My father had left behind his journals, which I had read over and over again, but there were only five words I remembered my mother saying to me:

Tell no one. Not ever.

My expression must have changed, for Aunty set aside the bread she was slapping into shape and came over to me. “Is yee well, gal?”

“Do you suppose I’m tired, or is it just the heat?”

Yet I was tired, after my duel with Keer. A nap with one of the toddlers tucked alongside refreshed me, and I went down as the early regulars came in to start on their ginger beer. Vai appeared with a net bag of guava. After getting Aunty’s permission, he distributed them to the children before sitting at a table and smiling at me until I sat down opposite.

“Papaya is good for the digestion,” he said, cutting in half a large yellow-orange fruit to reveal round black seeds clustered moistly in orange flesh. “Aunty said you were tired.”

I could not decide whether he was irritating or sweet. “You’ll share it with me?”

“Of course.” He scooped out the seeds, took a bite with evident pleasure, then handed me the spoon.

I could never resist food. “It’s delicious! Vai…”

He looked a question, but did not ask it.

“I should have said something sooner. The sandals are comfortable and sturdy. Luce scolded me into accepting them. Thank you. But she says they weren’t cheap.”

He scraped seeds out of the other half of the papaya, his mouth turned in a faintly mocking grimace. “If you spent the coin I have become accustomed to on clothing, you would have thought them inexpensive.”

The confession made me smile. Blessed Tanit knew it was not in my nature to struggle alone, for I had always had Bee. I wanted to give him something in return for the sandals. “The truth is, I went to see about sending a letter to Beatrice in Adurnam. To let her know where I am.”

“Because she does not know where you are.”

A masked face glimmered where the light sliced down through the trellis roof and across the table. Mumbling, I forced out the words. “‘Because she does not know where you are.’”

He sat in surprised silence. Then he handed me a spoon laden with moist papaya and watched as I savored it. “I must suppose your cousin’s whereabouts have something to do with the spirit world and your bound tongue. Well. I won’t press you. But meanwhile, Catherine, you must be cautious about traveling around Expedition. I heard a rumor today that the wardens are on the lookout for two salters, both women, who escaped Salt Island.”

The sun’s angle shifted, and the vise was released from my tongue. “That’s a rumor I should think the wardens wouldn’t want to get out.”

“Exactly. There would be panic. And anger. Because everyone knows the wardens look the other way if a person who was bitten and healed has the right connections or enough money. While poor people, and maku, take their chances. The people of Expedition are very angry, and the Council fears their anger.”

“What is this ‘Assembly’?”

o;I wonder what other services the cacica demanded of him.”

“That’s very rude.”

“Rude? She have taken more than twenty husbands, and sent eight to they deaths.”

“I won’t gossip, for it is wrong to do so. There was another thing I overheard. The Commissioner was talking to one of his deputies. Two salters, both women, escaped from Salt Island. The wardens fear riots if the news leaks out.”

As my heart stuttered, Kofi whistled, then bent to rearrange the baskets as an older woman came out to examine the fruit. He turned his whistle to a merry tune, while Kayleigh dumped the bucket into the rubbish wagon as if she had just this moment come out.

The woman scolded her. “Get on then, maku. Yee’s so slow. Housekeeper say yee have not even finished the grates yet today.”

Kayleigh went in just as the wagon’s driver came out munching on a roll. Between bites, the wagoner engaged in a peppershot round of casual batey team gossip with Kofi: so many Blues, Greens, Barracudas, Cajayas, Anolis, Rays, and Guinchos that my head reeled. After the older woman picked through the fruit, Kofi trundled off. I shadowed him along the jetty to the Passaporte market, where he delivered the cart to a compound whose family rented out transport. By the way they treated Kofi, he seemed to be a son of the house.