by Sarah Dreher
Cutter ran up her heels and bounced her off the wall again.
They sprawled on the ground, twisted together.
“What the hell was that thing?” Stoner asked.
He seemed as bewildered as she was. “I dunno. It was never here before.”
Stoner dragged herself to her feet and brushed dirt from her jeans. “What do we do...?” She glanced up.
Someone was standing on the other side of the wall. A woman, and all too familiar.
“Mogwye,” Stoner said.
“Brilliant,” Mogwye said sarcastically. “What do you do for an encore?”
“I figured you were behind this.”
“Not me. Look to yourself...” She paused for emphasis. “Dear.”
Stoner was too angry to try to understand the subtleties. “I don’t know what you have against Aunt Hermione, and I don’t care. That woman would never hurt anyone and I know you would because you already have. So I’m telling you to stop it right now.”
That little tirade had worn her out. She thought it might be nice to sit down.
“Your aunt is a lovely person and an asset to the coven,” Mogwye said. “It’s a privilege to know her.”
The woman actually sounded sincere.
“Then why are you doing this to her? What’s your problem? Is it me? Have I done something to offend you? Tell me what it is and be done with it. Call it off. For God’s sake, this isn’t doing anyone any good.”
More of her energy left her. She really, really wanted to sit down.
Mogwye grinned. A tight, nearly-clenched-teeth grin. It made her smile look black, as though there was nothing inside her but infinite darkness. “My sweet Stoner. You are such an ass.” She drew out the final ‘ss,’ making a snake’s hiss of it.
“You know what? I don’t much care.” She turned her back on the woman, to focus her attention on Cutter.
Except that Cutter wasn’t there.
“Looking for something?” Mogwye asked.
Stoner ignored her.
Think about what to do. Plan. Chances are Mogwye controls the wall...
“Very good,” Mogwye said, reading her mind. “Care to try a two-hundred dollar category?”
“Mind your own business,” Stoner muttered.
“Oh, I think this is my business. Very much so.”
What was it Elizabeth had said? Bargain. Fight.
Mogwye sighed heavily.
Stoner had to sit down before she fell down. She could barely keep her eyes open.
Hand-to-hand combat out of question, since she couldn’t even get up, much less reach the woman through the wall.
Damn it, Cutter, where are you?
“Cutter’s gone home,” Mogwye said. “It’s just you and me. Your move.”
“Look,” Stoner said, trying to sound reasonable, “all I want is my aunt’s health. Certainly that can’t be any threat to you.”
Mogwye pursed her lips. “No threat.”
“Just that little piece of her soul. That’s all we want. You don’t need it. What good would it do you? A tiny piece of someone else’s soul. What in the world would you do with that?”
“Remains to be seen,” Mogwye said. “Maybe hang it on my tree at Christmas.”
“Yes, I figured you for a Christian. Because of the clothes.”
Mogwye laughed.
“Unless the church has changed a lot, I don’t think Christians consider soul stealing a very Christian thing to do.”
“Stop this nonsense and figure it out.”
That was caustic.
“I’ll give you a hint,” said Mogwye. “Nobody can steal your soul unless you give it away.”
“Aunt Hermione would never do that.”
The woman shook her head sadly, and Stoner really wanted to lie down.
She’s draining my energy, the way she did at the potluck. I can’t fight that.
It seemed as if the fog was growing a little thicker on her side of the wall.
“Right again,” Mogwye said. “On both counts. And when that fog gets thick enough… well, you just won’t have any choices any more. If you get my drift.”
She got it.
“Out loud,” Mogwye snapped. “Say it out loud.”
She felt her mouth forced open, her tongue forming the words. “I get your drift.”
“Excellent.” Mogwye crossed her arms and looked at her sadly. “You should have paid more attention to your aunt. See how much my powers do for me?”
“They don’t do much for your personality,” Stoner said.
“I’m not so bad, once you get to know me.”
This seemed like a good time for a Power Animal. She gathered all her strength to a single point and called out. Power Animal. Burro. Anyone, help!
“Spirit doesn’t go in there,” Mogwye said. “Didn’t you notice?”
She hadn’t, but now that it had been brought to her attention... The air was utterly lifeless. Not even a psychic eddy could change the energy. If there had ever been any spirit in there, it had abandoned the place. The way it abandoned places where unspeakably terrible things had happened.
The fog thickened.
Stoner felt desperate. Time was running out for Aunt Hermione. Maybe it already had run out. Maybe for herself, too. She had to stall for time, to figure this out.
Figure what out? She didn’t know where to start. All she knew was, she was in a totally strange place, where the only rule of nature that worked was gravity.
“Listen,” she pleaded, tears filling her eyes. “I’ll give you anything you want for her soul. Anything.”
“Ah,” said Mogwye. “Let’s make a deal. Okay, if the price is right.”
Game show talk. This had to be hell.
“You can have a piece of my soul. In exchange.”
“That dried up old thing? What would I use it for? Scrubbing out the sink?”
“It’s a decent soul,” Stoner said pettishly.
“An empty soul. A soul that wants to die.”
“I don’t want to die.”
“But you don’t want to live. Do you?”
She didn’t have an answer to that. Because, whatever she thought consciously, she was here in the place where you went when you wanted to die.
“Maybe part of me, but—”
“I certainly don’t blame you,” Mogwye said. “Your life looks flat to me, flat as a balloon with the air sucked out of it.”
“It feels that way, sometimes.” Perhaps she could trick her with the truth, play for sympathy. Assuming the woman was capable of sympathy. “But that doesn’t mean—”
“Doesn’t it? Are you telling me you like to feel flat?”
“Of course not, but—”
“Then what do you want?”
“I don’t know.” She tried to think and her brain turned to pebbles.
“Come on, come on,” Mogwye said sharply. “Answer the question.”
Stoner tried to search through the rubble of her thoughts. “I... I don’t even remember the question.”
“Useless. Absolutely useless.” Mogwye turned away in disgust.
“Look, I—”
Mogwye dismissed her with a flap of her hand.
“Okay, I give up.” Tears escaped her eyes and trickled down her face. She didn’t care. “We can play this game forever and it’ll take us nowhere. Just tell me, what do I have to do to get out of here?”
“Say ‘please.’”
Anything to humor her. “Please,” she said.
Mogwye laughed and started to walk off.
The rage she’d been holding, so tightly in check she didn’t even know it was there, erupted.
God damn you, she thought, all her consciousness clear and focused as only rage can make it, DON’T YOU DARE WALK AWAY FROM ME.
Mogwye stumbled and nearly lost her balance.
Stoner was shocked. Did I do that?
The woman took a shaky step toward her.
THAT’S FAR ENOUGH.
> Mogwye stopped.
She’s playing with me, Stoner thought. This is a trick. SIT!
“Not on your life,” the woman said. “I’m not your pet poodle.”
So it really was a trick. Stoner felt her brief moment of optimism fade away.
And the fog grew thicker.
Mogwye narrowed her eyes to slits and seemed to withdraw into herself. She took a deep breath, held it, and let go suddenly.
Stoner felt her strength flush away like water.
“That’s where arrogance’ll get you.”
She could see the woman gearing up for another blast.
She tried to duck, but there was nowhere to go.
This jolt sent her flat onto the ground again.
Damn it, she couldn’t let it end like this. To die in the fog with no company but a nasty old woman in a Baptist collar.
But what could she do?
She glanced over at Mogwye, who had her eyes shut, recharging her batteries.
Well, enemy or not, she was the only teacher in town.
Stoner let her vision fuzz, the way Aunt Hermione told her to when she wanted to pick up something intuitively.
She felt Mogwye bring her consciousness to a tiny point, and center it first on the crown of her head as she drew in a breath, then on her solar plexus as she exhaled.
Stoner tried it. It gave her a real jolt, kind of like espresso first thing in the morning.
Mogwye took another breath and held it, narrowing her focus and aiming it in Stoner’s direction.
Incoming, Stoner thought. She hugged the ground.
This time the energy drained out of her very cells.
“Don’t fool around with experts,” Mogwye said.
All right, make her think she’s done me in, so she won’t prepare herself.
She lay on her stomach, as still as she possibly could. My Power Animal should have been a possum, she thought, and concentrated. Breathe in through the top of the head. Out through the solar plexus.
She could feel herself returning to three dimensions. She pretended to be numbed.
“When you see Hermione again, if you see her again, tell her not to send a girl to do a woman’s job next time.”
Stoner took a deep breath, focused, and let her have it.
The woman dropped to the ground like a wet towel tossed on the bathroom floor.
Yes!
The fog made it hard to breathe. But she had to be ready, to hit her harder this time, hard enough to knock her out.
She took a breath.
Mogwye looked up, confused.
Don’t rush it.
She took another breath.
Mogwye rubbed her forehead.
And another breath.
Mogwye swiveled her head in Stoner’s direction. Turned her gaze inward.
“Geronimo!” Stoner shouted, and fired a SCUD missile of energy directly at the woman’s forehead.
Mogwye went down, and this time she wasn’t moving.
Maybe I killed her, Stoner thought. Anxiety crawled up her spine.
And just what did you think she had planned for you?
Stoner got up and felt for the wall.
It wasn’t there.
“Tell your people,” she said as she stepped over Mogwye’s limp body, “next time don’t send dirty laundry to do a witch’s job.”
Mogwye twitched.
Stoner didn’t look back.
Trees ringed the clearing where she stood. Familiar trees. Live trees. Trees whose name she knew. Oak and maple and beech. Pine and sycamore. Hop hornbeam and basswood and sassafras.
An oriole had built its nest in a willow, and sang its ear-shattering song.
Stoner thought it was the most beautiful music she’d ever heard.
From the distance came a soft, cadenced thumping that could only be Burro’s hooves.
Over here, she called.
Patience, he called back.
While she waited, she made a bouquet of the freshest grasses she could find. The sky was blue and bright. Fluffy clouds were edged with silver so brilliant she had to shield her vision against the glare.
She closed her eyes and tried to take it all in through her pores. The warmth, the freshness, the sheer joy of the place. She listened to Burro’s footsteps. To the whispered flutter of birds’ wings. To the miniscule ‘tick’ of an insect against tree bark.
There was running water nearby. The dreaming sound of it calmed her.
All the things around her were speaking. To themselves, to one another. To her. One by one, she focused in on each and listened for its message.
The stream told her this moment was only a drop in the flowing of time. This moment, already gone, would dissolve and flow back into time and return some day. Because time didn’t have a beginning or an end, it merely was.
The oriole told her to stop worrying so much and get on about her business. My motto? said Oriole, Que será, será. Carpe diem. Seize the day.
Clover let her in on the fact that clover was Burro’s all-time favorite treat, and begged to be eaten. A distant relative invited Stoner to pluck a few of her petals and suck the sweet nectar from the base of them.
It was the most miraculous taste she’d ever experienced.
Burro appeared at last, taking his own time. She greeted him with grasses and clover, and while he ate told him what she’d been through and done since she’d left him.
When she’d finished, she realized she’d been talking his furry ears off. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I was running off at the mouth.”
Burro thought her a smile. ’S okay. You Shamans love stories. Especially your own.
She was surprised at how much the word pleased her. “That’s very flattering, but I’m not a Shaman. Probably won’t ever be one.”
Not a bad life. Plenty exciting.
“Too exciting.”
More exciting than the travel game.
“True. But I’m not ready for a career change.”
You like those Native people. Shamans meet a lot of them.
“I’ve noticed that,” Stoner said. “Is there a reason?”
It’s what those people do. Go between one world and another. They claim the Great Spirit picked them for it. Even your bad-tempered friend Siyamtiwa.
“What about you...?” She hesitated, reluctant to call him an animal in case it was a term of disrespect.
Animals? It’s okay to call us that. You guys thought it up in the first place. Wordy bunch, if you ask me.
Stoner smiled. “Do you get to go back and forth a lot?”
If we’re told. We do what we’re told. He chewed thoughtfully. Guess that’s why they call us jackasses.
“You’re not a jackass,” she said indignantly.
Am too. Look it up. He snorted and shook his head and blew air out through his nose. Thank you for the snack. Time to hit the road.
The trees were beginning to take on a different look. Not strange, but brighter, their green leaves and brown and gray trunks more intense. The ground had softened and gentled underneath her feet, as if she were walking on moss.
No astroturf here, I’ll bet.
Burro flicked his tail. Don’t even mention that stuff. Did you ever get a mouthful of it?
“Never. I’m not likely to, either.”
Good plan.
Somewhere in the distance she could hear shouts and laughter. And a radio playing.
“Is that where we’re going?”
It’s off the trail, but we can drop over if you like.
“I don’t know. I’m a little worried about the time.”
Still thinking in Ordinary Reality time. He sighed and belched. You’re right. You’re not ready to be a Shaman. We have all the time you want.
“But Aunt Hermione…”
She’ll keep. That old lady’s been making her own time for hundreds of incarnations. He nudged her off the path only he could see and toward the voices.
“You know,” Stoner
said, “it’s kind of strange. I mean, Aunt Hermione’s been around so many times. You’d think she’d be ready to go on to the next level or whatever.”
She could. Any time she wants. She likes your particular world. Likes people. Must be related to us jackasses.
Stoner laughed. “Well, we’re grateful for her foolishness. Don’t you like people?”
Depends. There’s good ones and bad ones. He nudged her with his shoulder. If you ever decide to come back as an animal, don’t be a useful one. Being useful to humans is one pain in the neck. He trudged along silently for a minute, thinking. House pet, that’s where the soft life is. ’Course, you could draw the short straw there, too.
She could make out the voices on the radio. An announcer, with a background of crowd noises. The kind of sound that only comes with a professional baseball game.
“That’s strange,” she said. “Do you mind if we check it out?”
I live to serve, said Burro.
Climbing a hill, she looked down on the largest Boy Scout Camporee anyone could possibly imagine. The tents stretched for miles, to the horizon and beyond. Young men scurried about below, building cooking fires, hanging out their laundry. Others lounged under palm trees or pine trees or against sand dunes.
The odd thing was, they were all in costume. Some wore US Government issue, Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force, representatives of any branch of service from revolutionary times to the present. Others were dressed in World War II Nazi and Japanese uniforms. There were Roman Legionnaires and Knights from the Crusades, African Tribal Warriors in straw and feathers, and hundreds of others she didn’t recognize. Some were just plain naked, which made them even more frightening. A few women wandered among them, or sat in small groups at the entrances to tents sewing or chatting. All races, all colors.
And all young.
“What is this?” Stoner asked Burro.
They call it the Warriors’ Camp.
“But there are so many of them.”
Been a lot of wars.
“Hey!” It was a familiar voice. “You got out okay.”
“Cutter.”
He had cleaned himself up and changed into fatigues and a newly-laundered t-shirt. “You gonna hang around?”
“I don’t know. We have things to do. What are you doing here?”
“I live here. Come on, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
They went down the hill in the direction of the radio. Words came into focus. Names. Ashburn and Hamner and Connie Mack Stadium.
