Written in Stone (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

determine how it will be spent.
    —C ARL S ANDBURG
    O livia was rooted to the ground, hypnotized by the girl’s dark brown eyes and the lulling cadence of her storyteller voice.
    “‘If Man bothers me I will rattle my tail until he leaves me alone,’ said Diamond Snake.” The girl began to shake a rain stick, creating a sound like a snake’s rattle. “‘And if he doesn’t leave me alone, I will ssssstrike!’” She leapt forward in a low crouch, thrusting the hand with the rain stick toward the audience. Several people jumped back, startled, and then covered up their embarrassment with a chuckle. Haviland issued a low growl, but Olivia stilled his disquiet by placing her palm on his head.
    Next, the girl pulled a scarf from inside the sleeve of her dress. The thin strip of material was made of red, black, and yellow stripes and looked like a coral snake.
    “The Grand Council asked the third snake, ‘How will you let the People know you are poisonous?’”
    Raising the scarf above her head, she let it wriggle between her clenched fists. It rippled and undulated like a real serpent. “‘If Man does not take my colors as a sign of danger, then I will ssssstrike!’” She whipped the scarf toward the audience. A little girl screamed and pressed her face against her mother’s belly.
    Olivia suspected many of the Lumbee gathered around the stage had heard the tale before. Yet they listened on tenterhooks, their gazes never leaving the face of the captivating storyteller.
    “The fourth snake lived by the shores of the water. When he opened his white mouth, it was a sign to leave him alone.” From behind her back, the girl drew forth a gray snake puppet with an oversized head. “‘If Man does not heed these signs, I will sssstrike!’” She drew the puppet’s mouth open, revealing a set of deadly looking fangs.
    The tips of the fangs had been covered with glitter glue, and when the girl pivoted the mask so that the cottonmouth’s unhinged jaw caught the light, the upper fangs appeared to be slick with venom.
    Olivia saw the glistening fangs and shuddered. Without warning, she was once again in Munin’s shack, studying the strange old woman over the rim of a chipped pottery mug. That image quickly dissolved and was replaced by a picture of Munin’s bloated body half submerged in the stream behind her house. In her mind’s eye, Olivia searched the imaginary scene for the snake, but she refused to believe a reptile had killed Munin. She thought it much more likely that someone had carried the snake’s poison in a syringe, tiptoeing through the quiet forest with the stealth of a leopard.
    An overpowering scent of cloves brought Olivia out of her reverie. She turned to find Willis standing to her right.
    “That’s Talley, my sister,” he whispered reverently. “She’s good, isn’t she?”
    Olivia nodded. She wanted to ask Willis a dozen questions. Most importantly, she wanted to know why Talley bore a resemblance to Munin—a woman he claimed not to know. But the question could wait, for Olivia was unwilling to break his sister’s spell.
    Onstage, Talley finished her story by showing how glad Vine was to have given her poison away to the four snakes. “Now she could play with the People again!” Talley began to dance about the stage, lifting a vine made of artificial plants and green glitter into the air. She wrapped it around her body and waltzed in circles, her face filled with joy.
    “The People were not like the newcomers from across the Great Water!” she shouted proudly. “The newcomers were mean to Vine and to the snakes. But the People were kind and gentle. They respected the poison in these creatures and knew that if they listened to the warnings, they would not get hurt.”
    Tally placed the vine on the stage where she had already laid the symbols of the four snakes. Carefully, she picked her way around them. She moved slowly, soundlessly, until she came to stand in the center once again. She raised her hands to the sky, thanked the Creator, and wished the crowd a day of peace and harmony.
    After the applause died down and the crowd began to disperse, Olivia drew in a deep breath of clove-scented air. “Is that you I’m smelling, Willis?”
    He looked chagrined. “Yeah. I smoked a clove cigarette. Never had one before and I wasn’t wild about it, but I left my Camel Lights in the truck, so I went ahead and tried it.”
    “I smoked like a fiend when I was your age, but I had