Speak of the Devil

by Shari Shattuck

  They all began, and soon the room was filled with a rich vibration that emanated from their chests, and without thinking or trying, they fell into a pattern of breathing in rotation so that there was no break in the chant.

  Though most everyone had closed their eyes and fallen into a kind of meditation, Joshua kept his open and on his mother. She had stopped chanting with them, and he watched her body sway and he knew she was searching for the energies around them and the colors that represented them.

  And then she began to chant again, but with a different note, leading them all to change their tone, to slide into a different kind of harmony, and he remembered something she had said: “It’s as though, their whole lives, they’ve had a melody playing inside them, and it’s been discordant, out of tune, but it’s what they are—not what they are made of, but what they’ve been made into—and they have to change the tune, if that makes any sense.” And he wondered if she was trying to change this melody. Then suddenly she tensed, her body went rigid, and with a cry she sliced at the air in front of her as though separating herself from something, from them.

  And then she was falling, slumping forward as though all the life had left her body, and Joshua felt as if he were watching her from a distance, while she slid, deeper and deeper into a fathomless, indigo sky.

  Chapter 64

  “Mom!” Joshua called out. “You promised you wouldn’t!”

  Sterling and Luke were next to him before he realized they had moved. Together, they lifted Greer and carried her to a heavily cushioned daybed in the corner.

  Whitney’s face was white. “What’s happened to her?”

  “I think that at the last minute she took all the energy from herself,” Joshua said. “I think she was trying to protect us.”

  “But what’s wrong with her?” Joy’s voice was tremulous.

  “I’m not sure.” Joshua tried to think about what had happened to him. “It’s kind of like, when you give too much energy, your body pays the price. When I helped Simon, I felt like I’d run a marathon with no water and I was just exhausted. But that was nothing compared to this. Mom!” he shouted, grasping her shoulders and giving her a little shake. “Wake up!”

  Joshua was beginning to feel a desperation rise up inside of him, but Sterling derailed it immediately.

  “She knows what she’s doing, Joshua. And one thing I know for sure: She wouldn’t willingly leave you, no matter what. So let’s think, let’s stay focused. We all just felt something happen that we couldn’t see, but we helped do it, so we can help now.”

  “But I don’t know how!” Joshua cried. “I need her to tell me!”

  Luke was on his feet, starting for the stairway, but Whitney stopped him with a question. “Where are you going?”»

  He turned back and said simply, “To bail R.J. out of prison.”

  He disappeared, and as they listened to his boots on the stairs, everyone turned to look at Whitney for some explanation. She realized that they were waiting for her to enlighten them, so she said, “R.J. is a fully indoctrinated medicine man. He’ll know what to do.”

  It took Luke almost all night to get back with R.J. During that time, there had been many arguments about whether or not to take Greer to the hospital. On the pro side were Leah, Joy, and sometimes Jenny; on the other were Joshua, who knew that there was nothing they could do for her there, Whitney and Dario, who both trusted in Greer’s ability, and Sterling, who fluctuated between the two.

  Throughout this time, Greer lay as if she were dead and nothing they could do would rouse her, but she was breathing deeply and slowly, and her heartbeat seemed strong. They all moved in and out of the room, nervously making coffee, speaking in quiet voices about the many things that Greer had done, to reassure themselves that this too would come out all right.

  Occasionally one of them would go outside and peer up at the sky. Though it remained heavy with clouds, no raindrops fell.

  When R.J. came through the door, he walked quickly to where Greer lay, and kneeling down, he put his ear against her chest. Then he closed his eyes and took a slow, steady breath. “She’s in the sleep of death,” he said. “She’s gone beyond waking; she’s given too much strength.”

  “What does that mean?” Joshua demanded.

  R.J. fixed his onyx eyes on Joshua, and they glowed with both anger and compassion. “It means that she used her energy to protect us all, and now we have to give her some of our energy back. Call everyone in.”

  Joshua went to gather everyone, and when he returned, he was annoyed to see that Luke and R.J. had moved his mother’s inert form onto a pile of blankets in the center of the room. But she looked so drained of life that he couldn’t find it in himself to refuse anything that might help her.

  “Everyone join in a circle around her. Sit down,” R.J. instructed. As they did, he opened a leather bag draped over one shoulder and took out two objects. “I brought with me the wing of an owl because it is grandmother owl who protects all the creatures, and I know that much of Greer’s efforts are on behalf of those creatures. The rattle is for snake energy, which is powerful medicine; it represents overcoming death, dying, and living again.”

  “What do we have to do?” Joy asked softly.

  R.J. never took his eyes from Greer’s face. “You’re already doing it.”

  As they watched, and hoped, and prayed, the gray light of dawn began to change the mood of the room, lending it an ethereal quality in the place between what was and the infinite possibilities of what could be. Joshua sensed, as he had many times before, the unnerving knowledge of every potential reality meeting at this place.

  R.J. began to chant, and Luke and Whitney picked it up. Watching with his heart chilled by fear, Joshua felt Joy take his hand and squeeze it gently. Gratefully, he held on tight. R.J. was waving the wing slowly back and forth over Greer, and the wind from it was moving the hair around her otherwise motionless face.

  For a long while, there were only the quiet dawning light, thick with gray, heavily filtered by the smoke and clouds; the intoning of voices; and the measured breathing of the group of loving friends. Then, from far away, a new sound levered its way into Joshua’s awareness: a thin, pattering sound. And with the vague sense that he recognized the sound from long ago, he turned slowly and looked at the window.

  When he spoke, it was with a croaking amazement. “It’s raining.”

  Everyone turned quickly to see, registering the sound themselves, smiling and laughing.

  But R.J. stayed focused on Greer, and as the rain increased in volume and healing relief, he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “The rain has come to wake you. Come out and see the rain.”

  And Greer opened her eyes. They fluttered once, looked around at all her friends and their varied expressions of relief and joy, and then closed again as she listened luxuriously to the patter of raindrops dripping from the pines that sheltered her home. A hint of a smile graced her exhausted face.

  “I saw her,” she whispered weakly to R.J. “Grandmother owl. She thanked me.”

  R.J. smiled down at her. “I knew she would. Rest now.”

  As though those words were all the permission she needed, Greer turned her head to one side and slipped into a deep, healing sleep as the rain came down.

  Chapter 65

  It rained for three days. It rained with a firm thumping as comforting as chicken potpie. It rained tears of relief for the families of the firefighters who saw their loved ones safely home. It rained until the ground squelched joyfully underfoot and the fires were slowed and then silenced, until all that was left was a sooty, black mud punctuated by groping stumps of trees and remnants of shrubs, bare and textured.

  While it rained, Greer slept, waking only to take a light meal of soup or toast as she smiled at her friends with sleepy eyes.

  While it rained, Leah went to visit Sheldon in the hospital. She found the courage to look at his heavily bandaged legs without wincing, to meet his frightened eyes with conv
iction and honesty. Some of the courage she borrowed from Weston, who went with her. She offered her help and her home, though she would have been surprised to know that it was her heart that convinced the old man to let her take his grandson into her care. His lungs had been scorched and he could only speak a few words, but those were these: “Love him like he is your own.” And Leah cried tears of gratefulness and then stayed close as Tyler visited his grampa, and she was there to comfort and reassure him afterward, pulling him into her lap and kissing his head as she rocked him slowly and told him that everything was going to be all right. He believed her because she was telling the truth. Giving away so much strength was making Leah stronger than she had ever felt before. Her segmented heart was fusing back together.

  While it rained, Joy stayed with Joshua. They watched over Greer, or they spent time together in the kitchen, talking softly of everything. Their hands met often and clasped, and soon their lips found each other too. At last the intimacy they had felt for so long was released from the shadows of past violence and stepped out into the dappled, silvery light filtering through the streaks of rain on the windows of the kitchen, where a young couple embraced with tender affection and no regrets.

  While it rained, Simon found the courage to talk to his aunt, to tell her that he was sorry, and to thank her for standing by him and caring. He did not use those words—he did not have them yet—but he did his best, something that was new to him. And each time he tried and was accepted, he grew braver until, on the day he left the hospital, he was able to embrace his eight-year-old cousin with the affection of a young man unfettered by self-doubt or a view of the world through cold bars of fear. He had come into the hospital a soul lost and isolated; he went home with a family.

  While it rained, Detective Sheridan identified the remains of a body found in the fire as those of Lamont Martinez. There would be no trial, no further investigation, no need of proof and evidence. Nature had delivered her own inevitable justice.

  On the fourth day Greer got up just as dawn was breaking and felt life singing through her body. The rain had stopped, and she went out onto the patio and breathed in the moist, vibrant air around her. Brimming with gratitude, she stood for a few moments and felt the bliss of being alive and a part of the whole.

  Later that morning Joshua hiked up past the ridges beyond his house, past the waterfall that was trickling slowly for the first time in months, past the oak forest that had been spared deep in the canyon, and came at last over the highest ridge onto a grisly sight.

  Before him stretched miles of destruction and acres of blackness. The lovely hillsides had been scorched and scarred. Yet, as he looked more closely, he began to see small spots of white on the earth; they were everywhere. At first he thought they were the white dust of charcoal, but as he walked forward and stooped to investigate, he saw to his amazement that the ground was decorated with thousands of tiny spiderwebs, and even as he watched, he could see more spiders floating in on long silver wisps. They had been the first to come back.

  The sound of something heavy in the brush behind him made Joshua spin around. There, only a few yards away, was a buck. The magnificent animal stood and studied him with that wary mixture of distrust and regal detachment. Joshua caught his breath and remained motionless. They regarded each other for a full minute until the buck turned his head, surveying the blackened landscape before him, and then he walked with measured calm back into the regenerating green.

  “Wow,” whispered Joshua, and all the chill emptiness that he had felt as he took in the devastation flew out of him and his chest felt as though it had been struck by a strong shaft of sunlight on a summer afternoon. Turning again to the miniscule life of the spiders, it came to him why the web and the spider image had been important. The spiders were the first to return, spinning their nets and catching the insects and starting again the cycle of life from the ground up. Their tiny, white-lace creations on their backgrounds of black velvet were the first visible steps in the rebuilding of a community. Beneath them the seeds released by the fire and nurtured by the ash and rain would regenerate, the small animals that had survived would return, and working together, they would re-create the balance. It would take the whole community, all connected by the vast, unseen web, to grow again into a healthy forest. And as Joshua watched, he understood that the people who shared this environment were just another fragile strand of the huge, precarious, magnificent web.

  Turning back toward home, he knew that he, like all people, had a choice: to strengthen that web, or to tear it down.

  Joshua knew his choice, and now he also felt a new direction for his life. He had been given a gift, and he would not throw it away or deny it. He would use it to help others to recognize the strands of the web that they could not see but that to him shone like silver bands of light. He would share his vision of the connections between people and the earth, and he would help them see the filaments of love that bind us to others, whether they stand before us, or somewhere near yet just beyond our sight.