“You don’t talk,” she told him, sticking a crooked forefinger under his nose. As firelight began to dance in the room, she said over her shoulder to the boy, “Tell me what happened.”
The boy came to kneel on the floor beside his grandfather’s head. He stroked Jerry’s hair, his head bowed as he told her what they knew.
They didn’t know much at this early stage, but they knew enough.
Nicholas Crow, a former Green Beret and the head of the Secret Security detail assigned to guard the President of the United States, had been killed in an apparent robbery late last night while off-duty outside a restaurant. He had been stabbed multiple times, and his throat cut. Given his abilities and his position, Nicholas’s murder would get an aggressive investigation conducted at the highest level, while White House security had rocketed to red alert. The President had chosen to remove to Camp David for the week. None of it had been in the news.
“He was the only one we had among our people who was even close to being in the right position,” Jerry whispered. “My fine brave boy. There is no one else.”
“I told you, hush,” she said. Her own voice was clogged with tears she did not have time to shed.
She didn’t ally with very many humans anymore, and Nicholas had been one of the most important human allies she had ever had. She and Jerry had personally seen to his training, since he was a young boy. Losing him now was a terrible blow, not only for the sake of the strong, bright man Nicholas had been, but also for what it said about their enemy’s knowledge and intentions.
Setting that aside for the moment, she rested a hand on Jerry’s chest and concentrated. Grief and stress, along with too many years of heavy smoking, meant that his heart was in serious trouble.
A cold, quiet part of her mind assessed the damage. She had a limited capacity for healing. Over the years, she had done what she could to boost Jerry’s heart, but time and aging had taken an inevitable toll.
She could do it again. She could heal him. It was, just barely, within her ability. But it would take a prodigious amount of energy that she didn’t dare expend on him. Not right now. She could not afford it.
Her friendship with Jerry had spanned decades. He knew secrets few other humans had ever been entrusted with, and still her answer must be no.
She withdrew her hand. She told both him and the boy, “I have a tincture that will help this.”
She told them the truth, such as it was. The tincture would ease his symptoms and make him more comfortable, but it wouldn’t heal him. If she sent them away at this point, Jerry would most likely die before the boy could get him to a hospital. Airlifting him was out of the question. She could not allow the authorities to know of this place.
The relief that lightened both their faces was a scourge.
She pushed heavily to her feet and said to the boy, “Come with me. I’ll tell you how to dose him as I mix it up. Then you’ll put him in the corner bedroom. When you’ve seen him settled and comfortable, you can bring in firewood. We’ll need to keep the cabin warm. That will be your job.”
“Yes, Grandmother,” the boy whispered, his eyes lowered.
She went to her worktable. The boy followed. She prepared the tincture and gave the instructions to his downbent head. She got heartily sick of looking at the part in his glossy black hair, until her patience broke. She demanded, “Are you paying attention?”
He lifted his head. He was trembling all over. His widened eyes shone with grief and awe, and an exalted terror. “I’m so honored to listen to anything you wish to say, PtesanWi.”
PtesanWi. White Buffalo Calf Woman.
Her scourge deepened at the obvious worship in his eyes. She snapped, “Don’t call me that.”
“But Grandpa said you are the ancient one who gave the chanunpa, the sacred pipe, to the People,” he whispered. His trembling increased. “You’re our savior. You taught us the sacred rituals, and how we can connect and speak to Spirit—”
She had always taken the long view. A very long time ago, so long ago, the time was shrouded in human legend, she had taught the First Nations how to see and connect with the spirit realm in the hope of giving them some protection from her old enemy, the Deceiver. But mostly she had taught them in the hope that they might prove useful to her one day in this interminable war.
Now, so many centuries later, she reaped a bloody harvest from all that she had sown. She did not deserve this boy’s reverence. She deserved to be shot.
“Overwrought fool,” she said. She grabbed his hand and slapped the small brown bottle of tincture into it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Go tend your grandfather. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your mouth shut. If you must call me anything at all, you call me Astra. Nothing more. Do you hear?”
“Yes Grandmother,” the boy breathed, clutching the medicine. The worship in his eyes did not dim, not by as much as a single watt. “Thank you, Grandmother.”
Thus she watched as another noble child threw himself into her service, much as his dead uncle had. And she knew she would use this child too, if she had to, even if it killed him.
The cabin was stifling. She went outside to let the wind slice at her.
A day of blades.
An invisible presence gusted into the clearing. It said, Grandmother.
She closed her eyes, sighed and braced herself.
What word do you bring me? She asked the question as the presence had spoken, silently, in a way that no ordinary human would be capable of hearing.
Invisible fingers plucked at her jacket, her slacks, and touched wispy tendrils of her hair. I’ve been many places today and seen many things.
The children of air had a mercurial curiosity for all manner of things. Existing half in the physical realm and half in the psychic realm, some were creatures of light, while others were darker and more predatory. Because their energies were often slight and subtle, they could be easily overlooked. If one took enough patience with them, they made excellent, if somewhat erratic, spies.
They also had a tendency to flightiness. She reached for calm and exhaled gentleness and affection. The gust of breeze that curled around her warmed with pleasure.
She said, It has been a good day for you, hasn’t it? What about those things for which you searched?
The breeze seemed to hesitate in its constant swirling.
She injected a stern note in the gentleness. I need to know what you discovered, child. There is no protection for either of us in pretending they do not exist.
The wind spirit pulled back.
Pain, it admitted at last. Pain, dreams and confusion. The dark ones hunt. They spill blood for sport as they look for the one who was lost. They are laughing and confident. They are sure they will find her soon.
She knew of the dreams and confusion. The strength in them haunted her rest, but her lips thinned at the news of the dark hunt and the spilling of blood. She put one hand on a nearby tree and leaned on it. The tree poured its upright greening strength into her, a lavish and generous gift.
Thank you, she said to the tree. She stroked the bark.
Grandmother, the tree replied.
She straightened. So it began again, with a blood hunt, and with a good man’s murder, and his father, a faithful friend, condemned to a slow, painful death. She had had years to prepare, yet she still felt grief and a sharp upsurge of fear and dread.
Her distress agitated the wind spirit. It curled upon itself in jerky slashing movements. She held out a hand and projected calm. Did you find the lost one?
No, Grandmother, the spirit replied. But neither have they, yet.
She hadn’t expected any other reply. Still she tasted disappointment. What of the warrior?
He hunts as well, the spirit whispered as it curled around her again. He sends yo
u his greeting, and a warning to be prepared.
Yes. She drew her jacket closer around her and forced herself to ask, And do you have any news of the Deceiver?
Where the dark ones are, he is always nearby, the spirit answered. But I dared not look too closely for his location.
You were wise. Like her, the Deceiver did not overlook subtle changes in spirit energies. One whiff of the spirit’s presence, one hint of its mission, and he would rip apart its delicate essence with a careless thought. Thank you, child.
Grandmother.
She sent the spirit on its way and limped the rest of the short way to the bench by the cabin’s door.
She had been born once into this world, ages and ages ago, and she refused to give up her memories and pass into the oblivion that was death. She was too afraid to let go, to allow herself to forget. Now this body she wore had been sustained far beyond what a normal human lifespan should be, and it felt heavy and worn to the bone with carrying her for so long.
The green living things around her, the strength of the land itself, had sustained her for countless years. The strength was abundant and given to her freely, but she wondered now if it could possibly be enough.
“I’m tired,” she whispered.
She sank onto the bench and put her wrinkled face into her hands. A fox slipped out of the forest’s edge and came to curl around her ankles. She reached down and stroked one large, anxious ear.
And so the nightmare began again. They sought, all of them, to push through a veil. They did not know what was on the other side, only that they must fight each other and push, even to the end of their existence if they must.
She was so tired and afraid. She did not know if she had the strength for another week of living, let alone another battle.
Even though the sun shone she huddled into herself.
May God forgive her.
She doubted that anybody else would.
Chapter Five
MARY’S OLD HOUSE was near the south side of the river. The community hospital where she worked was on the north side.
The city of St. Joseph lay at the mouth of the St. Joseph River. Benton Harbor was just on the other side of the river. Together they were locally known as the Twin Cities, but their only congruence was geographical. They were far from identical.
St. Joe had a predominately white population with a median household income that held its own with other parts of the Midwest. It had all the usual amenities and attractions of a smaller lakeside city. In a location that was easily accessible from much of northern Indiana, the city was also close enough for those in Chicago who were affluent enough to own weekend homes and determined enough to make the commute.
Minutes away, just north across a bridge, Benton Harbor had a predominantly black population, with a median household income that was well under twenty thousand.
Mary had to commute daily across the divide to get to work, but she did not have to make that trip today. After shutting the door on her painting studio, she took another cup of coffee to the bathroom and showered. As the coffee sat on the sink and cooled to a drinkable temperature, she stood under jetting hot water and let the heat soak away the tension that had built up in her shoulders and neck. Then she soaped her hair and body, feeling the protrusions and angles of bone under the fluid shift of skin.
Did she really look all bones and nerves? Her appetite had dropped off sharply over the last month or two. Drying quickly, she wrapped her hair in the towel and rubbed fog off the mirror over the sink.
Like her hair, her skin also hinted at a mixed-race heritage in her family’s past. Her natural complexion was a rich shade of honey. Large blue cat eyes looked back at her from a face that had always been thin but had now turned sharp. Cheekbones, nose and jaw were pronounced. Only her lips had retained their original fullness.
She glared as she watched those lips shape silent words.
What’s the matter with you?
As she considered her reflection, she thought about changing her mind and going with Justin to see Tony. As soon as the thought occurred, she rejected it. She didn’t need another doctor to tell her what she already knew. Whatever her problems were, they weren’t physical in origin.
She went into her bedroom, which was as cluttered as the rest of the cottage, and she dragged on a pair of jeans and a light cotton sweater. After braiding her damp hair off her face, she slipped on tennis shoes and grabbed her jacket and purse. She paused to tape a note to her front door.
Gone in search of cigarettes and a penis. Bring Baxter by any time on Friday. M. Man.
Then she read what she wrote and sighed. It wasn’t funny. She didn’t seem to have any real humor in her today, and she needed to stop trying to fake it.
She left the note anyway, climbed into her Toyota Camry and backed out of her driveway. Just before she pulled onto the street, she slammed on the brakes and sat chewing her lip in indecision.
Justin was going to be pissed. Well, piss on him for trying to control her behavior. He’d wait around a while then go away and try to argue with her later. She scowled, double-checked the street and pulled out.
The day had brightened into a beautiful May afternoon with puffy cumulous clouds swimming in an azure sky. The wind was still chilly but the sun was shining, so the interior of the car soon grew hot. She rolled her window down partway, and a breeze gusted in to ruffle her jacket and hair. Since she was broke, she drove to a nearby bank and used an ATM to withdraw a hundred dollars.
Conscious of the haunted, bony face that had looked out at her from the bathroom mirror, she stopped at the nearest drive-thru and ordered a large chocolate shake and a bottle of water. She threw the bottle of water in the passenger seat and jabbed a straw into the lid of her shake. Sucking hard on the straw, she turned on impulse onto Highway 31 and took it south.
She wasn’t aware until much later how such simple desires and decisions were the first steps along a path of action that helped to save her life.
* * *
THREE QUARTERS OF a chocolate shake and half of a U2 album later, Mary crossed the southern state border into Indiana. After she had graduated, married Justin and moved to St. Joseph, she had rarely made the journey to either the Notre Dame University campus or its neighboring city of South Bend. As a result she had grown unfamiliar with the exits off the 31 Bypass. She took a guess and picked the wrong exit.
She realized her mistake as she drove into South Bend itself. She would have to travel back north and east through the city to get to the Notre Dame campus. The route would take longer, but she had the afternoon to kill anyway. With a shrug she committed herself to the city streets, driving at an unhurried pace through an unfamiliar part of town.
While she waited at a red light she noticed a wooden sign in front of a charming ramshackle Victorian house: PSYCHIC CONSULTATIONS. TAROT READINGS. WALK-INS WELCOME. The sign looked hand-painted. The ghost of beautiful detail lurked in the curvature of the lettering, which matched the house’s deep pink gingerbread trim. Now the sign was old and battered.
The spring wind, still erratic, blew sharp and hard into her open window. It tugged an unruly lock of hair loose from her braid. Reaching up, she tucked the lock behind her ear.
A little voice whispered, Stop and see.
Her tongue came between her teeth as she considered. She’d never had a tarot reading before. Aside from any amusement factor, if science didn’t have an acceptable cure for her, what might superstition offer?
By the time the stoplight had changed she had made up her mind. She pulled into the small parking lot beside the house, walked up the narrow sidewalk to the front door, checked the hours posted and stepped inside to the sound of a tinkle from an old-fashioned bell.
The breeze gusted in with her, and she had to struggle to shut the door behind her. Then she turned and took in a
shabby, spacious foyer and a large open front room decorated with an eclectic mix of modern and antique furniture. To her left a massive staircase curved up to a second floor. A dusty but otherwise magnificent antique chandelier hung from the high ceiling. She gawked at it.
At her entrance a woman rose from the couch in the front room and set aside a book. The woman smiled and walked toward Mary, who blinked and readjusted her expectations. She had expected something that was either exotic or tacky, or an unfortunate combination of both, but this woman was plump, comfortable-looking and middle-aged.
“Good afternoon,” the woman said, offering a freckled hand that sparkled with QVC bling.
Mary shook the other woman’s hand, with an instinctive liking for her direct friendly gaze. “Hi, I just saw your sign and decided to stop,” Mary said. “I was wondering if you had time for a consultation or a tarot reading or whatever it is you do, but of course I understand if you don’t since I don’t have an appointment. Really, this was just an impulse thing—”
Stupid, she meant to say. Off-the-wall, loose-cannon, embarrassing, about-to-do-something-you’ll-regret stupid.
Before she could talk herself out the door, the woman interrupted with a cheerful smile. “I certainly do have time. Business is slow today. This is the first nice afternoon we’ve had in weeks and everybody’s gone outside. My name’s Gretchen.”
Gretchen the psychic. A hiccup of laughter exploded in Mary’s nose.
She clapped a hand over her mouth and turned it into a barking cough. What the hell’s the matter with you, she thought. Be a grown-up.
She managed to say, “I’m Mary.”
“Please come in and have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.” Gretchen gestured to the living room area.
Mary chose an overstuffed armchair. The soft-cushioned chair tried to swallow her. Good thing it didn’t have teeth or it could have done some major damage. Nervousness kept her perched on the edge of the seat. She noted Gretchen’s quick glance at her erect posture, and she tried to relax.