Shaman's Moon

by Sarah Dreher

  “Neither do I,” Stoner said. “It feels as if something’s missing in her.”

  The others were standing now. Elizabeth went on quickly. “It’s possible that she’s voluntarily given away a part of her soul. She denied it at our initial interview, but she might not even be aware of it on this plane. I have to ask you this: despite your apprehension, if it becomes necessary for you to participate in this, will you?”

  “Yes,” Stoner said without thinking, and felt a surge of light-headedness. “Do you think it would make a difference?”

  “I think… no, I know it would.”

  “But I don’t understand…”

  The French doors opened. Elizabeth stood and went toward them with a smile. Stoner got up and opened her arms to embrace her aunt.

  They were all hungry, even Marylou, who refused to eat anything but Dragon and Phoenix and cherry pie, but ate enough of that to sink a battleship.

  Aunt Hermione seemed a little better, though really not much. Distracted, maybe, and expending some effort to appear less troubled than she was. She chattered on about what a wonderful experience it had all been, and how colorful the Lower World was, describing the animals and the scenery and the people she’d met, and how Spider had approached each. She must have thought she was getting away with it, fooling them.

  From the I-won’t-commit-myself-at-this-point looks on all their faces, she wasn’t fooling them one bit.

  Elizabeth described her Journey to the Upper World, her meetings with her Spirit Guides. She told amusing stories, like the brief consultation with the ancient Native American chief who presented himself to her as a healer and diagnostician of pet problems. He informed her that her cat was entering middle age—which would last a very long time, no need for alarm—but would really prefer to be called by only one name, thank you very much. It was more consistent, but especially more dignified. He requested that he be addressed as “Charles.”

  “Charles?” Marylou said, and pointed to where he lay in the middle of the sofa while they hugged the ends to give him room. “That animal thinks he’s a Charles? As in the Prince of Wales, no doubt. If you ask me, he’s a Charlie if anything.”

  Charles got up from his sleeping spot and crawled into Marylou’s lap and promptly went back to sleep.

  “Hey,” Gwen said, “he likes you. You two must be on the same wavelength.”

  “It’s hearing that name that he likes,” Marylou said. “Trust me, there is no special affinity between Charlie and me.”

  Charles woke, climbed up Marylou’s chest, giving her cheek a sniff and a lick as he went by, and draped himself across her shoulder.

  “Somehow,” Elizabeth said with a laugh, “I have the feeling we should stick with ‘Geddown’.”

  She was avoiding the real issue, Stoner thought, and wondered if she should intervene. She decided it would be safer to trust in Elizabeth’s sense of timing and discretion.

  “The problem is,” Elizabeth began over coffee, “I really can’t feel that this retrieval is complete.” She cleared her throat and looked uncomfortable, then covered it over. “There are a number of things that aren’t cleared up yet. I’m not concerned. Soul parts return at their own pace, and sometimes the change is quite subtle. So, Hermione, I suggest you try to stay tuned in to your spirit. I’m sure that’s not hard for you… and let me know right away if you feel anything. For better or worse.”

  Aunt Hermione merely smiled agreeably.

  “The rest of you, if you notice any change in her, bring it to her attention.”

  They all nodded like obedient school children. Even Grace, who would usually have more than a few suggestions to make at a time like this.

  She’s really worried, Stoner thought. Well, guess what, Grace. You have never been less alone in your life.

  “Meanwhile,” Elizabeth went on, “we might be thinking about other things we can do, on the remote chance that we need to do more.” She was trying to sound casual and matter-of-fact, like a dentist saying if you don’t like the taste of Colgate, try Crest. “I’ll check with my Guides again, to see if they have suggestions. If any of you were visited by Power Animals during the retrieval, see if you can connect with them—for your own benefit, of course—but ask if they have any thoughts for us.”

  Stoner sat upright. She suddenly remembered a bit of dream, from just now. The old, wild burro who had met her in the Southwest, during a trip into what Elizabeth could probably call Non-Ordinary Reality. For herself, Stoner preferred to think of it as a hallucination superimposed on some rather peculiar doings.

  She hadn’t thought of the burro in a couple of years. Funny that it would show up now. But, of course, there was all this talk of Power Animals, and this sort of spooky setting… not too surprising she’d warp back to that other strange place.

  Sure, that was it.

  Elizabeth was looking at her in a waiting kind of way.

  “Sorry,” Stoner said. “I was thinking of something irrelevant.”

  “Okay,” Elizabeth addressed them all but gave Stoner a penetrating look, “if anything does occur to you—if anything occurs at all—please let me know right away.” She sat down, and it was clear the session had ended.

  “I want to add one thing,” Aunt Hermione said, getting to her feet with barely-disguised effort. “I appreciate all of you being here, caring about me.” Her eyes filled. “It’s very touching to have such good friends.” Her voice dropped in tone and volume. “Very, very touching.” She stared at the floor for a moment. “Now,” she said briskly, “let’s see what we want to do with all this leftover food. Elizabeth gets first choice, then Grace, then the rest of us. Marylou, you get to pick last.”

  Marylou snorted, and everything was apparently back to normal.

  He forced himself to wait for them out in the open, on their front porch, like a normal person. At least there were no ghosts here, not in the middle of the day. But his tee-shirt stuck to him like damp skin, fear sweat had seeped out of every pore. Back in ’Nam, the Cong would have smelled him in an instant. They were real good at smelling fear.

  All day he’d been edgy, even before he’d decided to try to act sane. Edgy the way the maples get edgy before a storm, turning their leaves upside down. Beaten down edgy, like animals going flat and silent except for their twitching ears. And, like the trees and the animals, he didn’t know if the storm would be good or bad for him, just that it was coming.

  He’d spent last night outside the Mogwye’s house. If anything was going to attack his friends, he thought it would come from there. It had tried. He could see its effort, a kind of shimmer surrounding the house. But it couldn’t get out. There must be something very powerful around, to keep the shimmer all tied up like that.

  Cutter put the brakes on his thoughts and backed up a little. “His friends,” he’d called them. Friends. The word made a funny taste in his mouth, a little like sand, a little like honey. He got down from the porch and found a patch of bare dirt and a twig and wrote it in the ground. Friends.

  Seeing it written out like that, right there on Mother Earth, made it real. Friends. He had friends. Several friends. Not just people who were kind to him because he was crazy and pathetic, but friends who asked him for help. Who thought he could help. Who knew he would try to help.

  He knelt down in front of the word and just looked at it. And looked at it. And looked at it.

  Then, glancing around to be sure no one was watching, he added in very, very small letters, “+ me.”

  That was too much. Quickly, he rubbed out the words, before anyone could see and get angry.

  But that couldn’t change the fact that he’d seen them. He could rub them out of the dirt, but he couldn’t rub them out of his mind. He let his thoughts drift over to them. “Friends + me.”

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt those words. Long before he went away to war and didn’t quite come back. Tentatively, he let a thread of Now go back and touch a thread of Then.
r />   Fear and joy filled him, so big and so alive he had to cry.

  By the time the car pulled up he had taken himself in hand. That was what his father used to call it, taking yourself in hand. “Take yourself in hand, boy,” his father used to say. Still, he had to grab the edge of the porch with one hand to keep from running.

  It was only the old lady and the new one and Stoner. He’d expected Marylou to be with them. Marylou would be like a flak jacket, might not save your life but it would soften the blow.

  His fear jacked itself up to terror.

  Stoner got to him first. He was glad of that. “She’ll be along in a minute,” she said quickly. “They stopped at the grocery store.”

  “I ought to go. I’m not real clean.” It was the only thing he could think of.

  “You’re fine by me,” Stoner said. She turned to her aunt and Grace. “This is Aunt Hermione’s friend, Grace D’Addario.”

  He couldn’t run now if he wanted to. He’d turned to stone. Legs, arms, and tongue. All stone. Looked on the face of Medusa, he thought. But she wasn’t deadly like Medusa. She was beautiful, and the energy that flowed around her was all the colors of the rainbow.

  Stoner had turned to the woman. “And this is our friend Cutter.”

  She’d used the word.

  He stopped breathing.

  Grace was looking at him, her eyes soft and reassuring. “Well, Cutter.”

  He ought to shake hands. But he couldn’t. It would make everything so big it’d kill him.

  He only nodded. “Ma’am.”

  “They fucked you up quite royally, didn’t they?” Grace asked. She knew the problem. He felt himself relax a little. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said. He liked the way she said “fucked up.” She knew what it meant, not like the docs at the VA who only said it because they heard the guys saying it and wanted to sound like they were one of them. They meant well, most of them, but they didn’t know shit from sunbeams.

  “I don’t suppose there’s anything anyone can do,” Grace said.

  “No, Ma’am.”

  Grace studied him, pulling on her lower lip, deep in thought. “Well, then,” she said at last, “I imagine you’re waiting to find out what you’re supposed to do with it.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Nothing yet?”

  He shook his head.

  “It’ll come.” She turned to the others. “Nothing is ever wasted in Spirit. There’s a reason for the things Cutter has endured. He’s being prepared.”

  “That’s right,” Cutter said, hearing what he’d always suspected himself. Which was why he hadn’t hung himself years ago.

  “Have you seen the Beast?” Grace asked him.

  “Yes, Ma’am.” A long-remembered feeling filled his chest. A feeling of safety and awe, and something like humor.

  “Once you’ve seen the Beast,” Grace explained, “you have to go insane or die. The Buddha recognized that, and I suspect the Christ did, too.” She gave a little impatient-at-herself snort. “Listen to me, pontificating like the Pope, the old bastard.”

  Cutter found he could move and speak. “How’d it go?” he asked.

  Stoner’s eyes shifted to the ground. Aunt Hermione’s eyes shifted inward. “We really don’t know yet,” Grace said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He was too filled with emotion to stay, emotions of every size and color, all in motion, overwhelming.

  “Marylou can fill you in if you like,” Stoner said. She’d noticed his paleness and guessed claustrophobia had set in. “We have to get this stuff in the fridge. Want to come in with us, or should I tell her to meet you later?”

  “Later,” he said with a sigh of gratitude, and moved to go.

  As he passed her, Grace leaned down and kissed his forehead. “Blessed be, Cutter.”

  “Same to you, Ma’am.”

  Hermione was glad they’d eaten so much at Elizabeth’s. She didn’t think she could stay awake long enough for dinner.

  Grace offered to stay over a couple of days, but Hermione told her she had things to do for the Solstice. Besides, Grace was High Priestess of her own coven, and shouldn’t disappoint them on one of the highest Holy Days of the year. There was no way Grace could argue with that. She knew things hadn’t gone particularly well at the soul retrieval. But they still had hope that something might come along in a few days, the way Elizabeth had said.

  “Do you really believe that?” Hermione asked her, a little sarcastically.

  “No.”

  “Grace, what am I going to do?”

  Her friend and lover looked at her gently. “I don’t know. There’s something behind all this, there always is. But it’s being kept veiled. It has to do with you, of course, since you’re the target. And you must have entered into the contract Between.”

  “I must have,” Hermione agreed.

  “If it’s one of those puzzle games you’re so fond of, you certainly picked a doozie.”

  “I certainly did,” Hermione said with a wry smile. “I don’t need the whole answer right now, I just wish I could figure out the next move.”

  Grace stuffed the rest of her clothing into her overnight bag. “You know Spirit never lets you go over the edge.”

  “True. But sometimes Spirit has a really uncomfortable idea of what constitutes the edge.”

  “Well,” Grace said as she closed her suitcase and glanced around the room. “I guess that’s it. You know I’ve forgotten something, but I’ll get it next time out. What time’s your Sabbat?”

  “Eight.”

  “Good. Mine’s at nine. I’ll go O.O.B., as the young ones say, and drop in on yours.”

  “And I’ll astral travel, as we old ones say, to yours at ten.” She stood at the entrance to the guest room and felt helpless.

  Grace put one hand behind her neck and drew her forward and kissed her for a long time. “It’s going to be fine, Angel. I know it. Blessed be.”

  With Grace gone, the emptiness was sudden and nearly tangible. She almost wished she’d never come.

  She ought to go to bed now, even though it was still light. If she just stretched out for a while, maybe she’d feel better. But her clothes were uncomfortable and she didn’t have the strength to undress. She stared at her bookshelf. Nothing interested her.

  They were all so optimistic, those writers. Or maybe you couldn’t get a book published if it wasn’t optimistic. Maybe the public wouldn’t read anything down-beat. Nobody wanted to hear bad news. Nobody wanted to hear about reality.

  If it was true, what they were implying, that the key to this lay with Stoner, then she was sunk. Because she could not, would not involve her where she didn’t want to be involved. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair. And that, friends, was what reality was all about.

  The people who loved you most dearly couldn’t always save you. It wasn’t their fault, it was just how it was. Being human meant being limited, period. If you wanted everything to be possible, go incarnate as Wonder Woman.

  It was stifling, this humanness. Old legs couldn’t run, very young legs couldn’t support. The loving old lost their loved ones, the loving young couldn’t contain it. Over and over and over, lifetime after lifetime until there just wasn’t any magic left any more.

  The thing that saved you from complete despair was the return ticket, the stub you carried for the day you’d had enough. Many people thought terrible things would happen to you if you used it before your “time.” That was wrong. What happened was that you woke up and wondered just what had been all that terrible, and jumped right in to do it all again.

  Still, maybe it was time to get up and leave this particular movie.

  The possibility perked her up a little. A little. Not enough to take the return ticket out of her pocket. Only enough to start to think about how she could cash it in.

  A soft tap at the door. “Aunt Hermione.”

  Hermione groaned to herself. Not now. “Come on in,” she said.

  Stoner looked pale and
sheepish. “Did Grace leave?”

  “About an hour ago.” Hermione sat up. “I was taking a little rest.”

  “I’m sorry.” She started to go.

  “Wait, Stoner.” Hermione patted the bed beside her. “Come sit with me.” She took her niece’s hand. “We haven’t had much time together lately.”

  “I know,” Stoner said, stroking the back of her aunt’s hand. “I’ve been preoccupied.”

  “So have I.”

  “I’ve missed you.”

  “Me, too. Cherry pie is not an adequate substitute for you.”

  Stoner smiled a little. “I want you to know, I’m not jealous of Grace any more.”

  “I’m glad,” Hermione said. “It’s such a painful emotion.”

  “You really love each other, don’t you?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  Stoner thought silently for a moment. “Aunt Hermione, who is she?”

  “A very old soul,” her aunt said. She looked a little sad. “I suspect this may be her final incarnation on this plane.”

  “I’m sorry. That must be hard.”

  “I try to reassure myself that some day I’ll get where she’s going, and we’ll be together again. Meanwhile, it’s bittersweet. But I’m glad I had the chance to meet her.” She got up and began folding her laundry and putting it in her bureau drawers.

  Stoner went to the window. Marylou and Cutter sat at the edge of the trees, watching the sun set. “I almost envy Cutter,” she said. “He may be insane, but he knows he’s insane. He accepts himself as insane. He doesn’t torture himself trying to figure it out.”

  “And Marylou,” her aunt added. “She’s sane and knows it, and doesn’t waste her time wondering.” She went to stand beside Stoner. “They make kind of a nice couple, don’t they?”