The key here was, you had to be dead to reach this place.
Funny. He’d always thought he’d be looking death straight in the face when his time came. Instead, he’d been taken down by a coward’s blow from behind.
It was his own damn fault.
He should have stayed on track. He should never have let himself get involved in a war that wasn’t going to happen anyway. He should have realized that the ghost buffalo couldn’t cause any damage if they crossed over to the world of the living, and let the fairy courts and buffalo sort it out between themselves.
It didn’t help that nobody else had seen it, either. Not Tatiana or Jack. Not Ayabe. Not even Raven. None of them.
Only that slip of a shadow of Christy’s had her eyes open wide enough to actually see what was going on.
Being distracted as he’d been was no excuse, but what he should have done was forget the buffalo and concentrate on his own business. Family business. The kinds of things that buffalo war chiefs and fairy queens didn’t care about and certainly wouldn’t lend a helping hand to fix because they were too busy creating endless crises of their own.
But it was too late now. He wasn’t going to see either Cassie or Jilly again. Wasn’t going to hunt with Honey, carouse with Jack, shoot a game of pool at Jimmy’s, or have any more arguments with old Jack Whiteduck back on the rez.
That wheel had turned all the way to the end and let him off here.
He turned around in a slow circle, trying to decide where to go. Heading for the water seemed like a good bet. At least it would be a start. Trouble was, he just couldn’t pinpoint where it was. It sounded like it was coming from all around him.
Maybe it was. Maybe he was on an island.
Then he heard something else—the scuffle of a footstep in the dirt. He faced that direction and then there was Minisino, stepping out of the mist.
“Which one of them killed you?” Joe asked him.
The buffalo war chief stopped and studied him without expression for a long moment.
“The big fat black man,” he said finally. “Picked me up with one hand and gave me a shake that broke my neck.”
“Raven.”
Minisino nodded.
The thought that Lucius would avenge him surprised Joe, considering how everything Joe did seemed to annoy him.
“I thought it’d be Jack,” he said.
“The coyote? He tried.”
“You didn’t hurt him, I hope.”
“Didn’t really get a chance.”
“Good.” Joe waited a beat, then added, “So was this the outcome you were looking to have?”
He couldn’t help the dig. Hell, the buffalo’s stupidity had gotten him killed, so Joe felt he was entitled to say pretty much anything he damn well felt like saying.
Minisino glared at him. “Things would have gone just fine if you and your friends had minded your own business.”
“What makes you think it wasn’t our business?”
“You’re a half-breed, but I don’t remember hearing that there was any cerva or fairy blood in that mix.”
“See, that’s where you screwed up,” Joe told him. “You have no respect for anybody but yourself. If you had half the heart you think you do, you’d understand that everything that happens is everybody’s business. You see something wrong, you do something about it. You don’t turn and walk away.”
“What the hell do you think I was doing? Cerva were being killed. I was going to stop it.”
“You know you can’t lie in this place, don’t you?” Joe said.
“I’m not—”
Joe shook his head. “No, don’t even try. Christiana had it right. You just wanted to be the big shot in the campfire stories. Anything you did was for the sake of power. To be looked up to. To be remembered. Tatiana cares more about those poor dead cerva than you ever did.”
“You think you know all the answers, don’t you?”
“No, just a few of the little ones.”
Minisino shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You died with me today. Maybe you’ve got some big scary spirit power hiding there inside your half-breed body, but in the end it didn’t do you any more good than my army did me. I can still count the coup for your death.”
Big scary spirit power? Joe thought. What the hell was he talking about?
But all he said was, “I don’t think a coward’s blow from behind counts as taking coup.”
“Who cares? You’re still dead.”
Minisino turned away then.
“I’ll see you in the hunting grounds,” he said over his shoulder. “And when I do, I’ll kill you again.” He paused long enough to give Joe a grin. “Maybe that’s what eternal bliss means. I get to kill little pissants like you, over and over and over again.”
And then he disappeared into the fog.
Joe listened to him go. There was the sound of footsteps. Then something being dragged on the dirt. A splash. A creak of wood. More water splashing, this time against something hollow. Then nothing.
He’d launched a canoe. Joe realized. And now he was paddling off into the next turn of his wheel.
He waited a moment, then set off in the direction Minisino had taken. When he came to the place where water met land, he still couldn’t see either. But he did see the bow of a second canoe.
This one was his, he supposed.
He touched the rough cedar of its side, but he didn’t launch the craft. He had no intention of stepping on any new wheel just yet. That mystery could wait. He had unfinished business with the living. He wasn’t sure if he could interact with them—some spirits could, some couldn’t—but he had to at least see them one more time. Cassie and Jilly. Jack. Honey.
He turned and retraced his steps through the mist. Twenty paces later, he stepped in water and only just stopped himself from losing his balance and falling in.
Maybe this was an island. Except . . .
He reached forward and there it was. The bow of a canoe. It was either the same one he’d just left behind, or so similar it might as well be.
He turned and set off a third time, and again after twenty paces or so, he was stopped by water and found a cedar canoe.
Interesting.
If there was one thing Joe had a knack for, it was finding things. His sense of direction—whether in the world Raven had made or the otherworlds—was uncanny. It was like he had a compass hardwired into his brain. He never got lost.
But here . . .
He smiled. Well, life was complicated. Why should death be any different?
He looked through the mist, over the water. There was nothing to see. No sound came to him except for the water. Lapping against the shore by his feet. Washing softly against the end of the canoe that was in the water.
He backed off a few steps and sat cross-legged on the ground. Taking out his tobacco pouch, he rolled himself a cigarette. He tossed a pinch of tobacco to each of the four directions, then lit the cigarette and repeated the offerings with the smoke.
Half-breed, the buffalo war chief had called him. Like it was an insult.
Funny how some people took this idea of racial purity so seriously. Like everybody’s spirit wasn’t pulled out of that same pot of Raven’s, back in the long ago. No matter how different people looked—cousin, human, fairy—inside they were all the same. It was only what you did with the spirit that made a difference.
Big heart or sour twist.
Generous spirit or miser.
You had a choice.
But you had to make that choice, or the circumstances around you would make it for you. People would decide for you.
He remembered when he first came to the Kickaha rez. When asked his clan, he’d say Red Dog, after his mother’s, a clan of gangly rez dogs, but they’d hear Crow. He had the blood of both, only the elders—the aunts and old Jack Whiteduck, who’d been the new young shaman back then—focused on the Crow and likened it to the tribe’s guardian spirits. Except when they said crow, they mea
nt corbae, because crow in the old Kickaha language translated into any kind of blackbird or jay: crow, raven, rook, blue jay, grackle. All the corbae cousins. The guardian spirits of the Kickaha.
That was the way of the world. People met you and they either looked for how you were similar to them, and welcomed you into their circle, or focused on how you were different, so that all you could be was a stranger at best, an enemy at worst.
Trouble was, if you didn’t have a clear enough idea about your own identity, you could become what the people around you decided you were.
Good man, bad man.
Crazy man, brave man, thief.
Living man, dead one.
Right now, he was lying on that plain where the buffalo had gathered. Head probably bleeding from the blow he’d taken from Minisino’s club. Not breathing.
They were going to say he was dead.
If enough of them believed it, it could come true.
Or at least stay true.
But it didn’t have to be that way.
Because that was the part of this holding ground that wasn’t talked about as much. Sure, spirits stayed here for a time before they either moved on, or returned to haunt what they’d left behind. But it was a place of more possibilities than the next turn on the wheel or the ghost road.
Supposedly, you could also find your way back into your own body. Have a second chance on your old wheel. All you had to do was get back.
It should be a piece of cake, for an old crow dog with his talents.
Trouble was, Joe didn’t have the first idea where to go.
Every direction looked, sounded, smelled the same.
Every direction led back to water and the canoe that would take him on.
“What do you say, spirits?” he asked the mist. “Is there one of you out there willing to lend me a hand in this? Or have you decided that this part of my story’s well and truly done?”
There was no reply, but he hadn’t really expected one.
It looked like this was something you were supposed to figure out on your own.
Grey
My ears are still ringing from Raven’s summoning cry when a pair of crows appear in the sky above us. They come spiralling down at a dizzying speed and change into a pair of teenage girls just before they touch the ground. I’m impressed with their balance. Neither of them so much as stumbles in her landing.
As soon as they touch the ground they turn to Raven and start jabbering away, the two voices intermingling so that it seems like it’s only one person talking.
“We didn’t kill them.”
“Not even one.”
“I know we didn’t try to stop them.”
“But you never said stop them.”
“You never said anything.”
“You just said find the bogans.”
“You never said what to do when they were found.”
“And you know crow boys.”
“They can be all sharp beaks and talons.”
“So they’re all dead dead dead.”
“Veryvery dead.”
“And in lots of little pieces.”
Raven holds up a hand, and the pair immediately fall silent.
“Crow girls,” Jack says from beside me, his voice soft, the tone implying that it’s a big mistake.
I glance at him, but he only shrugs.
Raven points to where Cassie’s holding Joe.
“I need you to fix this,” he said.
The crow girls look at Joe’s body, and they seem surprised.
“Who did this?” one of them asks.
Raven jerks a thumb in the direction of Minisino’s body.
The other girl shakes her head. “A little buffalo man killed Joe?”
Her—sister? It must be, they look so similar. She nods and says, “How did a little buffalo man get so powerful?”
It’s odd the way they keep referring to Minisino as little. The pair of them are so skinny and small themselves. If Minisino were alive and standing, he’d be twice their height.
“He didn’t,” Raven says. “He struck Joe down from behind.”
I’ve been finding myself agreeing with Jack. Why has Raven brought in a couple of little girls to help us with this? But when he tells them how Joe died, something changes in their eyes. They go dark and old and more dangerous than anything I’ve ever seen before. And then I remember a story that’s sometimes added to the one about the beginning time, about how a pair of crows were already here in the long ago, watching Raven make the world.
“If we bring Joe back,” one of them says, “what will he do?”
The other one nods. “Will he go all Jack Daw on us and start a clan feud with the buffalo?”
“I don’t know,” Raven says. “It’s Joe. Anything could happen. But right now I need you to heal him.”
The girls nod. They study Joe’s body for a long moment, then start to talk in tandem again.
“We’d like to,” one of them says.
“But it’s too late.”
“He’s already gone on.”
“Into the mists.”
Raven’s frown isn’t one I’d want directed at me.
“Can’t you go and bring him back?” he asks.
One of the crow girls nods. “But you’ll have to kill us to do that.”
“It’s true,” the other says.
“But we don’t mind.”
“We’ve never been dead before.”
One of them drops a switchblade from the sleeve of her jacket and thumbs it open with a loud snikt. She flips the knife so that she’s holding it by the tip of the blade and offers it to Raven.
Raven shakes his head and turns to Cassie.
“I can’t ask that of them,” he says.
The girl then offers the blade to Cassie, but before Cassie can say anything, Anwatan steps up.
“Nobody else has to die,” she says. “Not when I’m already dead. Just tell me how to find him, and I’ll go.”
Jilly
Before Del even knows what I’m doing, I reach out.
Out and out and out.
Away from this world inside my head.
I’m making another once upon a time.
Once upon a time, there were two sisters and whatever one felt, the other did, too.
That’s a good start.
Once upon a time, there were two sisters and whatever one felt, the other did, too, so when one of them called to the other, she always heard, and she always came. No matter how far away she was. No matter what.
And just like that—here in the world inside my head, in the house from hell where Raylene and I grew up—she’s here with us. My little sister. His, too.
She appears with her back to me, facing Del.
“The fu—” she starts.
Except then she sees that Del’s already lifting the shotgun. So she does what Raylene always does. Acts, without thinking. Instinct.
She steps right up to him, knocks the barrel of the shotgun aside, and drives her knee into his groin. He drops the shotgun, and it vanishes before it hits the ground. She shoves him back. Her hand goes into the pocket of the jacket she’s wearing and comes out with a flick-knife that she snaps open.
But she doesn’t have to use it.
Del stays where he’s fallen, staring at her with confused, scared eyes.
“She’s not supposed to be here,” he says. “I’m in charge here. I’m in charge!”
“In your dreams,” Raylene tells him.
Then she finally turns and sees me leaning against the wall. She backs up so that she can keep an eye on Del, but still see me.
“Hey,” I say.
She shakes her head. “Christ, you look like hell.”
That’s Raylene for you. Always the diplomat.
There was a time when we looked enough alike that we could be mistaken for each other. But that was before the accident. We don’t stand at all the same anymore. And she’s done something new with her hair. It’s sho
rt and she’s had it straightened. It looks good on her and I say as much.
“Yeah, yeah,” she tells me, but she smiles to take the sting out of it. “I’m a regular prom queen. You mind telling me where we are? Because I’ve got an idea, and I don’t much care for it.”
“It’s the old house,” I confirm.
“And we’re here with that piece of crap because . . . ?”
She indicates Del with the blade of her knife.
“It’s a long story,” I say.
“Well, considering I was sleeping peacefully in my bed a few minutes ago, so I’m probably dreaming now, I’d guess we have all the time in the world.”
I nod. “Just a sec’. I want to try something.”
When I reached out for Raylene and brought her here, I could feel myself tapping into the essence of this place—the way that Del does, I guess, to make the things he does happen. So I try it again.
Once upon a time . . .
Once upon a time, there was a girl who looked Broken, but she’d always left out milk and honeycakes for the good spirits, and so one day they took pity on her and made her whole again.
“Whoa,” Raylene says.
I smile and straighten up from the wall. I’m like I was when I first entered the otherworld what feels like centuries ago. Has it only been a day? But I’m unbroken again. Twenty-something and strong. If we had a mirror, I’m sure that Raylene and I would look almost the same except for our hair.
“Nice trick,” she says. “I take it we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
I shake my head. “No, we’re definitely in Oz. Or at least the Carter version of Oz.”
“I’m still waiting on that explanation,” she says.
“I know. Just let me do one more thing.”
I look at Del.
Once upon a time, I think, there was an evil brother who made life miserable for his sisters. But one day they defeated him and whenever he had a bad thought after that, leather cords appeared and bound him hand to foot so that he couldn’t move and do anybody any harm.