Read Spear Mother: A Tale of the Fourth World Page 3

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  That night, Sandrena didn't dream. Aside from the ones compelling her on this quest, she had never had true dreams, dreams as others described them, while she slept. No, all she had were memories.

  They were memories of a life she never lived.

  Her legs dangled, kicking back and forth, as she sat tensely in the rocking chair, her small hands smoothing her blue wool skirt over her knees. The details of the room were visceral and real, almost as real as if she were experiencing them at the moment: the creaking of the chair, the fibers in the rug that covered the room's wooden floor, the sunlight streaming through the glass window, broken by the swaying motion of the trees surrounding her house... it was real in a way that memories were, and that, as she understood them, dreams were not.

  Though despite that, Sandrena didn't know how these memories fit into the two lives she had lived as a woman of the Mist Clan, the only lives she had ever known outside these memories. Nothing about the memories was congruent with the events she had lived in her waking lives. Even as the memory was playing in her mind, Sandrena was aware of this. Whenever these memories came to her in her sleep, she felt like an observer, yet was affected by them as if they were happening to her. Sometimes, she couldn't even tell if her thoughts and feelings were from now, or from then. It left her feeling confused and helpless.

  Almost as helpless as she felt right then. Her mother screamed in the room next door. Sandrena wringed her hands; was something bad happening to her mom? The healer had said she would be okay, but Sandrena never liked the healer; she was old and crotchety, always clucking disapprovingly whenever Sandrena came to her with skinned knees. She stared down at her knees—which were light brown, not unlike the skin of a Shannodsman—and could almost feel the stinging ointment the healer had put on them last week. If what mom was going through was as bad as that, she wanted to run in the other room and give her whatever comfort she could.

  But she couldn't get up out of the chair. That's what dad said: no matter what, stay put in that chair. So Sandrena just rocked and fidgeted and worried all the more while her mother screamed.

  Finally, the screaming stopped, and another sound took its place, one that was different from every other kind of sound Sandrena had ever heard.

  A baby crying.

  Grinning like a fool, unable to contain herself any longer, Sandrena leapt off the rocking chair and sprinted for the room, nearly tripping on the rug as she did. The healer was in there, along with dad, and mom on the bed.

  And someone else, cradled in mom's arms.

  Sandrena crept closer, expecting a disapproving glare from her father, but his eyes were filled with something else as he stared down at the little bundle in mom's arms. Without breaking his gaze, he pulled Sandrena into a close embrace.

  Tears streamed down mom's beautiful face. "Look, Sandra," she said. "Look at your baby sister."

  Sandrena bent closer to look. And there she was: a sister. The image of the baby suddenly blurred and Sandrena's chest hurt. She wiped her eyes, still smiling, and gently took hold of the tiny hand, which gripped her finger surprisingly tightly. The baby cried, swinging her tiny fist around, shifting her head in the nook of mom's elbow, though her legs didn't seem to move.