Shifter Overdrive

  “Yes.”

  We packed up the car for a day trip and left an unhappy Morgan with Patty. We pulled into Mona’s front driveway just after noon. Orange leaves fell from the aspen trees around the compound of cabins, mobile homes and tipis. I’d never met a shaman before or been to a shaman’s land.

  A little elderly woman came trudging out from the mobile home to greet Nathanial.

  “You got any more of that…”

  “Oh yes, here Mona.” He ducked into the back seat and pulled out a box of chocolates.

  “Okay you two, come with me.”

  We followed her into her mobile home. The smell of drying herbs and candle wax filled the comfortable space. A soap opera flickered on the TV screen. She frowned and pressed the off button on her remote. Mona busied herself in the kitchen making tea that she handed to us, then sat down at the kitchen table and waved for us to join her.

  “So you got a ghost problem? Too much unrest at your ranch, Nate. The dead need to be buried.”

  She looked me up and down and stared into my eyes. “You’ve got to reclaim what’s yours, girl. Don’t let it go slipping off into the wind. Don’t be ashamed of yourself.”

  “I’m not,” I objected.

  “You are. You’re ashamed deep in the core. It’s in the pit of your stomach like some festering old meat you can’t digest. You’ve got to find what you lost and get it back.”

  “What did I lose?”

  “How am I supposed to know? I didn’t lose it.”

  I sighed and crossed my arms.

  “I can give you a temporary fix for your problems.” She pulled a cardboard box from the counter nearby and lifted out a tightly bundled clump of white sage. She muttered over it, her eyelids fluttering as she sang. Her eyes popped open, and she stared at us.

  “The two of you are going to have to do this together. Take this sage, lite it and blow out the flame. Get it smoking really good. Then you go around all the walls of your house. Every room. Every closet. You say, ‘Great spirit watch over us,’ and clap your hands into each corner. Then go all the way around the outside of the house doing the same, but pour salt as you go. That will keep the negative spirits out.”

  “And this is only temporary?” I asked.

  “It will last until it doesn’t. You need to find what you’ve lost, girl. I can’t do that for you.”

  We took the sage and drove back home. I felt more confused and afraid than ever. At least Mona had given us a fighting chance. By the time we arrived back at home, it was late in the day. Smudging the entire house without everyone thinking we were nuts was going to be a challenge.

  We walked into the kitchen to find Patty and Penny making fried chicken. The smell of cooking grease and crispy chicken made my mouth water. Morgan sat in the living room watching cartoons. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she didn’t get up to hug either of us.

  “We have some things to attend to. You might smell smoke in your rooms later. But don’t be alarmed,” said Nathanial. They looked at us as if we’d cracked. Morgan continued to ignore us both.

  We walked up to Morgan’s room first and lit the sage. I did the chant and waved the wand while Nathanial clapped into the corners after me. We did the same with his office, the second-floor bathroom, my bedroom, and the guest room. Then we went downstairs to Patty and Penny’s rooms.

  Penny’s room was a pigsty. It was the messiest room I’d ever seen, and I’d lived with college boys. I never would have expected Penny to be a slob. We pushed into the room to the best of our ability and smudged the space with the wand, said the chant, and clapped into the corners. We did the same with Patty’s much cleaner bedroom.

  Once that was finished, we did the library and parlor. I waited on the porch while Nathanial grabbed a bag of salt from the pantry in the kitchen. We slowly walked around the house with the sage, chanting, clapping, and pouring the salt.

  When we joined Patty and Morgan for dinner, they looked at us as if we’d lost our minds. It couldn’t be helped. We had to do it. We sat in the living room with Morgan and watched TV. Sitting in the warmth of her father’s lap with me by their side, won back her smile before bedtime. We put Morgan to bed and completed the ritual in the kitchen. Once we’d finished the kitchen, we went upstairs to Nathanial’s room and continued the ritual up there.

  “I’m going to get a crowbar to open the turret,” he said leaving me alone in the room. Memories from the night before jarred my mind as I stood alone in the very spot it had happened. My head pounded. I put my hands to my temples and squeezed my eyes closed. A high-pitched hum buzzed in my brain. Cold sweat trickled down my sides. Nathanial was back after a few moments with the long steel tool in his hands. I turned to him. He looked like an avenging warrior with his weapon.

  He pulled the dresser away from the wall and pounded the crowbar into the thin drywall. I stood in the doorway watching him hack at the sealed entrance, covering the floor with chunks of drywall and a thin layer of white powder.

  He cleared away a rectangular section of wall, revealing a black void. Putting down his tools, he went to a cabinet and took out a flashlight. Nathanial beckoned me to follow him through the opening as he disappeared into darkness. I went in behind him, smelling the musty scent of old building and dry dust. A silky cobweb touched my face, and I batted at it until it fell away. Disgusted and nervous, I followed Nathanial up a narrow staircase.

  The stairs creaked under our weight as we climbed. The flashlight pierced the total blackness of the confined space. At the top of the stairs was a closed trapdoor. Dusty spider webs broke as Nathanial pushed it open. Behind the trapdoor, moonlight streamed down the hallway.

  We climbed the last few steps out into the turret- a large balcony at the top of the house. From the turret, we could see the entire ranch. The view was so breathtaking; I almost forgot why we had come.

  We continued the ritual, hoping it would protect us.

  The morning after Nathanial and Jane opened the turret, he cleaned up the drywall from his bedroom floor, avoiding getting grief from Penny. He put it in a plastic bag and brought it downstairs to throw out in the kitchen.

  He found Jane and Morgan reading on the sofa in the family room. Morgan’s little-girl voice recited the words of her book, and Jane looked up at him as he entered the room.

  Jane had been so terrified by Owen’s ghost. If he was honest with himself, so was he. Short of moving everyone out of the house and running away, there wasn’t anything else he could do. He wouldn’t give Owen the satisfaction of scaring him away.

  The contractors would be finishing the roof installation today, and the old kitchen would be getting torn out. He wanted to get them away from the house for a few hours.

  “Are you girls up for going out to the Miller house today? We can pound out some cabinets.”

  “Yay,” said Morgan bouncing out of Jane’s lap and over to him.

  “Sure, why not,” said Jane. She seemed distant and worried.

  They drove over to the Miller house, and pulled into the driveway alongside the roofers’ van and the contractors’ truck. They piled out of the car and walked toward the house. The new roof was coming along nicely. He looked over at Jane, and she shrugged.

  They walked inside and found the other contractors already removing the old linoleum. He told them he wanted to let Morgan and Jane swing the sledgehammer and break stuff. They laughed and handed the sledgehammer to little Morgan. She took the heavy instrument with a broad smile and gleaming eyes. Nathanial slipped goggles over her black hair, and helped her swing the sledgehammer into the lower cabinets. It thudded and bounced off without leaving a dent. He grabbed a pair of goggles himself, and helped Morgan swing again, with greater force. This time they punched a big hole in the door. Morgan squealed with glee. After the first hole, she grew bored and ran outside to play.

  Nathanial handed Jane the goggles and sledgehammer. She balanced the handle of the sledgehammer between her legs as she put the goggles
on her face. Nathanial couldn’t help admiring the sight of the long, stiff handle between her soft thighs. She pulled on a pair of gloves and hefted the heavy sledge in her delicate hands. She gritted her teeth and brought the thing down with all her strength into the countertop. It cracked the thin laminate and plummeted through the cabinet frame. Determination colored her face as she set her mouth and swung the sledgehammer again and again. She growled angrily as she beat the cabinets into splinters.

  All three men stood staring as she finally finished with her demolition. The upper cabinets hung by a nail. The lower ones had been beaten to a pulp. She panted, her breasts heaving under her tight hooded sweatshirt. Her hair was wild about her goggled face. Everyone was silent for a moment, and then all the men cheered. She brushed her hair out of her face, removed the goggles and gloves, and handed everything back.

  “That felt good,” she said, panting.

  As the days and weeks passed, they continued working on the house. New tile was laid in the kitchen and bathroom. The roof was finished. The cabinets arrived and were installed. They fitted the sinks and countertops. Each day, they went out to the site to inspect the progress and lend a hand in the labor.

  Things seemed normal enough as the days wore on. They didn’t speak of the ghost again, but they also didn’t attempt to make love. They would pass each other in the hallways and exchange a fleeting smile. They would hold hands while they watched the cattle mow the fall grass in the pasture. Jane teased him, but they remained chaste.

  The full moon was fast approaching, and Nathanial still hadn’t found a solution for his curse. Mona’s temporary fix for the ghost problem held. He had no idea for how long. He was no closer to understanding than last month.

  He had concluded that Owen had something to do with his werewolfism, that he had somehow cursed Nathanial and the ranch all those years ago. Owen had raped Melody, but she felt as if she was under a spell. If Owen could do that, what else could he do?

  Time was running out. The beast inside Nathanial howled to be set free. It howled to be given his prize. It howled for Jane, and the full moon was coming.

  Chapter 14

  “The weather says it’s going to dip below freezing tonight,” said Patty, looking out the window over the lake.

  I hadn’t been paying attention to things like weather reports or news since arriving in Montana. Work on the house had distracted me from everything, including Owen’s ghost. He hadn’t been back, in my waking or in my dreams.

  I went to look out the window over the landscape. Only a few orange leaves clung to the aspens. The solid swath of the mountainside remained evergreen, but the sky was gray and heavy. It was the day before Halloween.

  “Should we bring in the rest of the vegetables?”

  “Would you?”

  “Sure.”

  “You can get Daisy to help you. She won’t have much to do with most of the hunters gone until next week. There are some baskets in the greenhouse. Daisy knows where they are.”

  “Alright. I’ll get Morgan to help.”

  I’d taken to giving Morgan the weekends off. She was around somewhere. I pulled on a jacket and headed out the side door toward the stables.

  Daisy was brushing down Tannin, the horse who had thrown me. Ever since my fall and the realization that Melody had died in the same way, the sight of a horse made me shiver.

  “Hey,” Daisy said, smiling broadly. “Did you come to get back on the horse?”

  “Hell no,” I said laughing. I knew the expression about getting right back on a horse if it threw you, but that wasn’t going to happen for me. “I wanted to ask if you could help me harvest the rest of the garden. Patty says the temperature is going to drop so we need to bring everything in now.”

  “Sure. That sound fun.” Daisy came out of the stall and put the brush back in the tack room. Her long blonde hair hung in a loose braid down her slender back.

  “Patty said the baskets are in the greenhouse.”

  “Yep,” said Daisy as we walked out of the stable.

  “Have you seen Morgan?”

  “Morgan’s in the chicken coop gathering eggs.”

  We walked over to the coop and peered through the chicken wire. Morgan’s black hair hung in tangles around her shoulders and over her blue sweater. She cooed at the chickens as she pressed her hand under its breast to retrieve a large brown egg.

  “Hey Morgan, do you want to come help harvest the garden?”

  “It isn’t Halloween yet.” She frowned and put the egg gently in her basket.”

  “Patty says it’s going to get cold, so we have to bring it in now. Besides, Halloween is tomorrow.”

  She followed us out of the coop and down the path toward the greenhouse. It lay behind the hunters lodge, a long plexiglass structure with a fan at one end. Inside, rows of young vegetables grew from containers. Full-spectrum lights hung over the tables providing additional light in the shortening days. In the greenhouse, it seemed like spring. Green tomatoes and young bell peppers hung heavily on branches. Strawberries ripened under leafy bushes of green. In a separate room beyond the vegetables was Nathanial’s orchid hothouse. I thought of the orchid that arrived on my windowsill the morning I came home from the hospital, and my heart glowed.

  Daisy retrieved several baskets from the large tool closet and set them and some hand tools into a wheelbarrow. She pushed the wheelbarrow out of the greenhouse, and we walked around the hunters lodge and into the garden where the last of the fall vegetables clung to life.

  “Alright,” said Daisy, “We’re going to need to dig up the rest of the potatoes and carrots. Those squash over there can go into the baskets, but the pumpkins will need a wheelbarrow. We’ve got to pick the Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, and kale. You two up for this?”

  “Of course,” said Morgan, crossing her arms over her chest. I, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure. I’d never harvested a garden. The closest I’d been to gardening was going to the farmers market for gourmet cheese.

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll dig up the potatoes. Morgan, you snip the kale with these shears. You okay with these?”

  “Yes…,” she said taking them from Daisy’s hand. Morgan went to the rows of green and red leaves and carefully began cutting the stalks and placing them in her basket.

  “Jane, why don’t you pick those cabbages? Use my knife. The stems can be a pain, but just keep working at it. You'll get through.” She handed me a hunting knife that she carried in a holster at her waist. I took it and looked at it suspiciously. It wasn’t shaped like a kitchen knife. The back of the blade curved over the tip, and it had a bone handle.

  “What do you think?” asked Daisy, noticing I was staring at the knife. “My boyfriend bought the blade, and Clive helped me set it in an elk antler.” She spoke about the knife the way girls back in St. Louis talked about their engagement rings.

  “It’s amazing,” I said hefting it. “Are you sure I should use it to cut cabbage?”

  She made a dismissive noise with her lips and waved me onto my task. I took a basket from the wheelbarrow and went to bent over a huge cabbage plant. The thing was as wide as my arm span. I dug through the outer leaves and found the cabbage head. Reaching into the shadows, I felt for the stem and began to saw. After a moment, the firm cabbage head burst free. I picked it up triumphantly, expecting applause from the others, but they were busy at work of their own.

  Daisy had a short pitchfork she used to dig into the potato mounds. She pulled up the dark tubers and placed them on the bottom of the wheelbarrow. Morgan already had a basket full of kale and took it and her eggs back to the house. I went to my second cabbage plant and bent over it. Daisy looked over at me after Morgan left and leaned on her pitchfork.

  “So. I’ve seen you holding hands with Nate. What’s that all about?”

  “It’s nothing. We're kind of dating.”

  “I’ll be god damned. I knew it the minute I saw you.”

  “No.”
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  “Yeah. Look at you. So pretty and elegant with your thick, red hair.”

  I snorted; the laughter in my belly came out too fast. No one had ever called me elegant before.

  “So are you two, you know?” She winked at me very obviously.

  I pursed my lips and rolled my eyes to the side.

  “Okay, none of my business,” she said, putting her hands up in the air in surrender.

  “I sighed. “Well, no we haven’t.”

  “You don’t sound too happy about that. Old Nate’s holding out on you; I can see it.”

  I sucked air down my throat loudly and then laughed. “It’s complicated. We have some serious shit to deal with.”

  “How? You’ve only been here a month.”

  “Like I said, it’s complicated.”

  “Okay. I get it. But you guys do make a cute couple. Do you think it’s, you know, serious?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it really,” I lied.

  Morgan came skipping back to the garden with her vegetable basket and went about snipping the Brussels sprouts.

  Daisy pointed at Morgan and mouthed, “Does she know.”

  “Yes, she knows,” I said.

  “Who knows what?” asked Morgan.

  “About me and your dad.”

  “Yeah, they’re going to get married.”

  I grunted and leaned back over the cabbage. I was done talking about it. We weren’t going to be able to get married, or even have sex if we didn’t permanently eradicate Owen’s spirit. He might have gone into hiding, but he was still here. I could feel him all around me.

  I looked out onto the lake over the garden fence. A breeze made the silver water ripple in the hazy gray light of late afternoon. A shiver went up my spine. He was always near me. Always watching. Always waiting.

  Only one day left before the full moon. He’d promised Morgan to take her down to the community center for the Halloween party. Everyone in the house was going, except Penny. With all the hunters gone, his employees were eager for some fun.