AN ANCESTOR’S WRATH That night the ancestors sent Stopmouth many bad dreams. He was a criminal, they informed him, who’d stolen his flesh from the Tribe to run off with a woman who despised him. ‘You’re just a savage; a potential rapist.’ He tried to block out their voices, but Mother was among them, and his half-remembered father. ‘If Indrani hates us who are the marrow of your bones, your flesh, your heart, then what must she think of you?’ He opened his eyes, praying desperately that the night had finally ended. But darkness still reigned under the trees with the patter of Roofsweat playing softly on the branches. He wasn’t the only one visited by nightmares: big Rockface was sobbing in his sleep. How terrible to lose your whole family all in one go. During the day Rockface smiled and joked and blustered. Yet sometimes it didn’t seem real to Stopmouth and he worried about the man. Many in similar situations had simply volunteered. But not Rockface. His whole chest shivered with grief, his deep voice now so childlike.
