shook his head again. The mask—the skin—felt warm in his hands. “My brother killed me. I remember Leopard’s claws at my chest.” His nails began to slide out from their beds, sharpening and narrowing. “Mattie is dead. Leopard lives.”
Leopard bounded into the night, briefly pursued by the square of firelight from Priest’s door.
* * * *
Mother did not allow much standing water in Her worlds, preferring her people to use driplines for drinking and farming. No one ever washed in water. Still, there were usually a few bamboo-lined pools which sheltered fish and fat, fearless frogs. Waterhunting was forbidden to men and animals alike. Those few who rediscovered it in every generation felt the sting of Mother’s punishment most severely.
Mattie sat undisturbed in shade of the bamboo canebrake at the edge of one such pool, regarding his reflection in the calm water.
One fang had broken on the door of his family’s cabin. When he heard Juna screaming within, Leopard had fled the scene of his childhood. Her fear shrieked in his nostrils far louder than in his ears. Back in his own form Mattie hadn’t the heart since to look himself in his child’s face. Leopard came and sat within his head more and more often.
You are not me, said Leopard from the water below.
You should be Benno, Mattie answered himself. I never wanted to kill. Him or anyone.
I stalk the edges, haunt the night, give the people the gift of Fear. Fear, like Death, is one of Mother’s greatest servants. Disturbed by faint ripples, the reflection appeared to sigh. She does not grant such servants bodies of their own lest they contest Her power.
So stalk. Wind stirred. Mattie’s ears, now furred and tufted, brought him the sound of fan ducts high above beyond the daylit grid of Motherlights. Strange, he thought, that such magnificent ears should play servant to Leopard’s nose.
Fear serves best when transient, said Leopard. It should be unfamiliar. Have no face.
Fear had the face of Benno. Until I killed him.
Leopard was silent for a while, staring up from the water into the trees. Finally he shifted from within the pool, coughed, said, You killed only Benno. Fear still lives, granting boundaries to Mother’s people. Every day you do not return home those boundaries loosen further.
Then Leopard was gone. Mattie’s reflection was broken by a fat frog, which peeped at him before diving to swim into the shadows at the edge of the pool.
* * * *
Mattie walked on two feet into his parents’ cabin. Mumma and Papa were out, tilling he supposed. Juna sat wrapped in a blanket and staring at her teacher in the wall. Mattie felt naked without his Leopard nose to wrap him in the maps of scent, but he kept the warm mask firmly under one arm.
“Juna.” His voice was hoarse from disuse.
She turned, blanket dropping from one dirty shoulder. “Mattie!” Juna jumped up from the floor and ran to hug him. He swept her in his arms, realizing as he did that he was taller and stronger than he had been the night Benno died.
Had it only been a few weeks?
“Mattie…” she said, smiling. “Are you back? Are you come to live among us?”
“Yes,” Mattie smiled. “It is over. I shall kill Leopard as he killed Benno and be your brother once again.”
“Agnes.” Juna’s brown eyes welled over a pout. “He killed Agnes, too.”
“Leopard will die for your sheep as well,” laughed Mattie. Inside his mind, Leopard growled.
* * * *
The only thing Mother hated more than waterhunting was fire. Heat could be used as a tool or for cooking, but men were sometimes slain outright for keeping open flames. There were too many dangers. Only Priest had leave to have a fire, and it stayed inside his Lodge. So Mattie went to the Lodge.
Priest was out, doubtless doddering on some errand. The animal hide blocking his Lodge door was a stronger barrier to most than the stoutest latch, but Mattie had lost all fear since the night Leopard killed him. He pushed through into the Lodge. His fingernails left furrows in the hide.
It was as before, crowded, close, warm. The fire pit seemed cold at first. Squatting next to it, Mattie could see the coals cooking in the ashes below. He set the mask down next to him. Leopard’s skin twitched as it left his fingers. He searched for something to blow on the fire. Every child knew airflow brought oxygen that fed flame. A large bellows lay close to hand. Mattie grabbed it, began working the coals.
“Yes, Inspector, he is taking to it. At his own pace.”
Priest’s voice came through the door. Mattie pushed the bellows back where he had found them and scuttled into the hanging junk along the wall behind. The door skin lifted and Priest limped through, followed by a tall, unnaturally pale man in tight-fitting clothes.
“Neuron paths seem to be asserting?” asked Inspector. The seams in his garments were almost invisible.
“He had little problem with the initial transformation. It is in his bloodline. The stress of events served as an admirable trigger.”
Mattie realized that Leopard’s skin still lay next to the fire pit. It was virtually at the feet of Priest and Inspector.
“We are concerned about his youth.” Inspector made notes on a small handslate.
Priest shrugged. “Only time will answer for that. The boy is large enough. Spirit matters far more. All of my sister’s children are well supplied with that.”
Inspector glanced down. He nudged Leopard’s skin with his booted foot, clearing his throat with a significant glance around the Lodge. Priest looked down, then back at Inspector.
“Time, Inspector…we all grow into what we are.”
Mattie bounded out from the debris where he had been sheltering. He dove between Inspector and Priest and grabbed the skin. “Get back, both of you,” he yelled. They both stepped back, Priest’s limp forgotten in the moment.
“It ends here,” growled Mattie. He threw the skin into the fire pit. The mask flipped as it fell, twisting like a cat to settle over the coals. Flames burst upward, carrying a smell of burning hair so strong Mattie gagged. He turned in triumph to Priest and Inspector to meet the horror in their eyes.
It wasn’t there. Only pity.
“It’s much easier to give it away again if you haven’t had to grow it yourself,” said Priest with sorrow.
“Mother’s people will have the gift of Fear,” added Inspector.
Mattie snarled and bolted through the hide curtain, dropping to all fours when he reached the path outside.
* * * *
Leopard waited inside his reflection at the pool. The frogs slept as Mattie stared through the hair growing across his face into Leopard’s eyes. Leopard seemed filled with pity, too.
The
