Read Online Raven Speak (9781442402492) by Diane Lee Wilson - Free Book Online Page B

But not at her, she realized—at something cupped in the palm of the stranger. While she stared, thickly, trying to get her mind to work, the hand extended toward her; the palm opened. On it lay a nut-brown barley cake.
    In a flash she had it inside her mouth, her tongue swelling with water, her eyes brimming with unexpected tears. A rich oily flavor permeated the cake; it tasted of the summer sun, nothing like her clan’s recent crumbly cakes stretched too far by bark and peas. And like a flash of sunlight on a clouded day, it was gone too soon.
    To her amazement, her shrunken stomach protested the thick sweet lump, and immediately vomited up the precious food. She flushed. What was wrong with her? And what would the old woman think of such ingratitude? Doubled over, breathing fast, she didn’t dare look past her own knees.
    Teetering on the edge of living, she watched with bewilderment as the woman calmly reached into the pouch slung across her shoulder. Another cake appeared and, ignoring the anguished rumblings in her stomach, Asa snatched it and devoured it in three barely restrained bites. It hurt but she held it down.
    The raven, obviously jealous, shrieked and unfurled its wings as if they were weapons. The feathers slid apart with the sound of rustling leaves. Even without the sun, their blue-black color glinted to iridescence. When the bird opened its bill to repeat its displeasure, its stub of a black tongue twitched spasmodically. The woman elbowed the creature aside to offer a third cake, and this time Asa remembered to nod a thank-you. She shoved it into her mouth with no less haste, however, and as she was plucking the crumbs from her lap, she cast a curious, upward glance at the stranger.
    The woman was old to be sure, older than any person Asa had ever seen, and the winters she carried seemed to have dragged her into a permanent stoop. That put her in the same no-neck posture as the raven at her shoulder, which wasn’t the only feature they shared. Its downward-curving bill was mimicked in her drooping nose, the fleshy point suspended like a globule of cold sap. Its beard of feathers found a likeness in the blackberry-colored scarf she’dwound round and round to her chin. But while the bird continued to strut and fret, the woman stood motionless, her clawlike fingers gripping the pouch’s leather strap with a strangulating possessiveness. Her good eye, which she fixed on Asa, was the palest of blues and nearly concealed by folds of gossamer wrinkles, though that did nothing to diminish its intimidation. Even the grotesque hollow beside it, empty of eyeball, seemed threatening. When an ocean gust whipped through the short white hairs not fastened into the woman’s braid, it haloed them around her face in a display that was nearly majestic.
    â€œWho are you?” Asa asked.
    â€œWho are
you
?” came the reply. In her voice Asa found yet another resemblance to the raven: It, too, grated as harshly as splintering wood.
    â€œAsa Coppermane.”
    A dismissive snort. “An unlikely enough name for a girl, though not a horse.”
    Rune, trying to escape the other raven’s devilment, galloped up to the bluff and pushed his way into the narrow gap. His keen senses immediately detected the barley. Brazenly he bumped his muzzle against the pouch, demanding a share.
    â€œRune!” Asa scolded even as the woman was producing one of the precious cakes and feeding it to him from her palm.
    â€œAch! He’s forgiven. The winters get longer and longer, and we old ones have to tend to each other.” Her scowl belying her genial words—which made Asa wonder if it was a permanentexpression—she pulled out yet another barley cake. Rune took it and, as he chewed, nodded his head with intense equine pleasure. The woman returned her attention to Asa. “I’ve heard of you.”
    â€œOf
me
? How? Where do you live?”
    A storm cloud seemed to skid across