Winter Prey

Chapter 35

Chapter 35

"I'm begging you, Kymbria," Niona pleaded. "Don't go back up there! Something will happen to you."

"Don't you understand? This thing is killing our people. Damn it, eating them!"

Niona choked on a sob, but said, "It wasn't our business before."

"Our business? Because it was only Marten Clan getting killed?"

"Yes...no...oh, god, Kymbria. It's too dangerous for you."

Sympathy for her mother filled Kymbria, and she took Niona's hands. Her mother appeared to have aged twenty years, her face ravaged with stress and anguish, her dark-circled eyes standing out on her lined face. In her grasp, she could feel Niona's hands tremble.

"It has to stop, Mom," she said in a soft voice. "Maybe this is the path I'm being led on, since no one before me has had the guts to face this thing. Remember what Adam said. The spirits sometimes direct our paths."

"Evil spirits can do that, also," Niona insisted. "Please. Just do this for me. Wait another day or so, until we see if Keoman wakes up. We need to talk to him...tell him what I told you."

Kymbria sighed and dropped her grasp. "Even if Keoman wakes up, it will be a long time before he's cognizant enough to talk to us. That thing took Nodinens, Mom. I have to go. See if there's anything I can do to save her before...before it...eats her."

Niona reached for her this time, her desperate grip digging into Kymbria's upper arms. "You've got other things to handle. What about Risa?"

Kymbria forced herself to tolerate the pain from Niona's hold. "Being the type of mother that Risa needs is part of what this is all about," she said in a stern but quiet voice. "I can't not face up to my responsibilities."

"Damn it, Risa is a responsibility, too! More than that! And you're my daughter! I have a right to tell you when you're wrong. Kymbria. Darling, I want to be here for you."

Kymbria loosened Niona's hands and held them again in hers. "You are, Mom. And no matter what happens, I want you to know that I love you and appreciate you. For now, you need to support me on this and take care of Risa while I'm gone. The windigo has focused on me for some reason." She frowned. "Did it...is that why you're so frightened of it yourself? Besides knowing how it came to be a monster? Did it try to contact you at some point?"

"Yes," Niona admitted after a brief hesitation. "That's why I don't want you up there during its waking period. One time - the only time - it appeared while I was out snowshoeing. I...was pregnant with you at the time, about three months along."

Kymbria gasped. "Does anyone else know?"

"No! No, I never told anyone. No one."

"What did it want?"

"I don't know, and I didn't want to know back then."

"Mom, this might be important. Did it try to talk to you?"

Niona sighed in deep surrender as she pulled free and sank down on a kitchen table chair. Kymbria waited impatiently through the delay as her mother closed her eyes and bit her lip, instinctively knowing that pushing Niona now might halt this breakthrough.

"It...it wasn't really words," her mother finally said in a nearly inaudible whisper. "It was an attempt at mind control, to try to make me have some sympathy for it." Her voice rose and she locked gazes with Kymbria. "But it's evil. There is nothing sympathetic about that beast!"

"It left you with enough questions in your mind that you researched the tribal history. Traced our lineage back," Kymbria stated.

"It...it screamed a name into my mind. Nimiwin. I wanted to know who she was. But the woman didn't have anything to do with that beast. She was the wife of a Grand Midé. Cingusi. A powerful one, of the Marten Clan! I told you all this last night."

"There's got to be some connection, Mom. That's the only clue anyone's uncovered in all these years."

"It doesn't connect to you."

"Maybe it does. You were carrying me when it came to you."

"No! That's got nothing to do with it! Please, please, don't go back up there. If nothing else, think of your own mental state. You're not strong enough to face this thing. You've never seen it. You can't imagine how powerful it is."

Kymbria brushed a soft kiss on her mother's cheek, then placed an index finger on Niona's lips when she opened her mouth for another entreaty. A tear escaped Niona's lashes, and Kymbria wiped it away with a thumb as she dropped her hand.

"It has to be this way, Mom," she whispered. Turning away, she walked down the hallway to Risa's room, where she had placed her daughter in the crib after assuring herself the windigo had given up. Her daughter lay on her back, eyes drooping as she struggled to decide whether to wake from her short nap or linger in dreamland a while longer. On a braided rug beside the crib, Scarlet opened her eyes and thumped her tail. Kymbria hesitated, not picking Risa up. Risa spied her mother, though, and chortled, waving her chubby arms and clenching and unclenching her fists as she begged, "Mam!", one of the few words she knew.

Kymbria snuggled her daughter into her arms and buried her nose in the soft, baby-powder-smelling skin on her neck. She breathed in, capturing every nuance of this child, including her weight and pleasant heft in her arms. Risa grasped a handful of hair and tugged. Kymbria flinched for a second in pain, then pulled back with a chuckle as she untangled the tiny fingers.

"Mama loves you, sweetheart," she said.

Risa's glee filled Kymbria with a warmth that threatened to forestall her plans to leave. Her oh-so-smart daughter understood, even though her own vocabulary development was only in the beginning throes.

Would she ever hear Risa say Mam again?

With a gulp for courage, Kymbria stiffened her shoulders and smiled. "Gamma's waiting to feed you, sweetheart. You ready to eat?"

"Ga-ga-ga," was all Risa could manage, but Kymbria knew who she meant. Risa shared her love equally between the two most important women in her life.

Which will be so important to her if something happens to me, Kymbria continued silently. Scarlet trailing, she detoured through her own bedroom and retrieved her already-packed suitcase. Rolling it behind her, she carried Risa into the kitchen, where Niona waited.

Silently, she handed Risa over as Niona struggled to hide her emotions so her grandchild wouldn't pick up on them. With one last stroke on Risa's rosy cheek, Kymbria walked to the door. She turned to find her mother's ravaged gaze on her, Risa starting to frown and fret as she caught Niona's mood.

"Mom," Kymbria cautioned.

"Be safe," Niona whispered, then turned away to reach into the cabinet where they kept Risa's little jars of baby food for when they didn't want to go to the trouble of feeding her something they had prepared themselves.

Kymbria walked through the connecting door to the garage on the side of the house. Just before she closed the door, she heard one anguished cry behind her, quickly cut off in favor of cooing to Risa. She didn't turn back. She opened the rear door of the SUV, tossed her suitcase on the backseat, then waited until the setter scrambled in before she shut the door with a click of finality that echoed her decision.