She just knew she had this desperate need for . . . something . . . but she couldn’t figure out what it was. She only knew that other people couldn’t give it to her. She had to find a way to heal herself, to fill her own needs. Maybe then she could make a meaningful connection outside of herself.
When she realized that the therapy didn’t seem to be leading anywhere, she had terminated the sessions. Then she got accepted into med school, and she and Justin divorced. Now she lived in her ivory tower. As far as she could tell the attempt at counseling had been a complete failure.
The painting she was trying to work on was a failure as well. No matter how she tried she couldn’t replicate the impression from her dream.
She lifted the canvas from the easel and set it against one wall to dry. Then she took up sketchpad and pencils, hoping that the change in medium might help her convey some of the delicacy that she could see so clearly with her mind’s eye.
As she worked, an old memory shook itself out of a dark recess in her mind. She paused to let it solidify.
She had always drawn as a child. As soon as her fingers were big enough to clutch a crayon she would draw, over and over again, people in cages.
It became an elaborate secret project over the years. The people acquired names and personalities. They had rooms in their prisons. She would draw crude beds, chairs, bookcases, kitchens, all behind bars. They were her people, and she would never let them go.
Over time, she had stopped with that obsession but she had never spoken of it to anyone, and she’d always destroyed the pictures with a hot sense of shame. What kind of monster was she to daydream about caged people?
Seven. Her breathing hitched. She had always drawn seven people.
How could she have forgotten that?
She sketched, her movements slow as she struggled past the adult’s acquired finesse to approximate something of the child’s crudity as she worked to recapture the details from years ago. A simple triangle of an ankle-length dress, the long sleeves, the curl of hair . . . she hesitated at the hem of the dress and her forehead wrinkled. If she remembered right, she had never drawn hands or feet.
Her college counselor would have had a field day with that imagery. She shut the sketchbook with a sharp slap.
Chapter Four
THE DAY WAS filled with blades.
The thin spring sunlight knifed through budding leaves on trees. Sharp yellow light and green shadows surrounded the old woman as she tore slender shoots of weeds from the garden bed by her front door. She regarded the dark and light that dappled her gnarled hands, savoring the fugitive promise in the sunlit warmth even as a frigid wind blew off the lake and tore through her battered jacket with invisible talons.
Breathing deep, she lifted her face and sat back on her heels. The serrated wind held a hint of moisture from the vast, restless body of nearby water, the trace of perfume from early wildflowers, the scent of pine and damp loam, and news.
She cocked her head. Using senses and skills alien to the elderly human female she appeared to be, she attuned to the patterns of energy swirling around her. Then she started down the path in the woods toward the small bay where Lake Michigan lapped at a pebbled shore.
She stood waiting at the pier when a battered, sturdy motorboat chugged into view and coasted to a gentle stop. The boat carried two dark-haired occupants who bore a clear family resemblance to each other, their indigenous ancestry revealed in the strong, broad angles of their faces.
A handsome, slim boy-man sat at the motor’s helm. A much older man hunched on the floor of the boat, his dark, graying hair pulled into an unruly ponytail. He leaned against the young man’s legs, wrapped in blankets against the slicing wind.
The old woman studied the pair, her wrinkled face impassive. A miasma of intense grief hung over the pair. She had never seen the boy before. Usually the older man piloted the boat, his eyes squinting against the smoke of a cigarette that hung perpetually from one corner of his mouth.
Now the older man huddled under his blankets, his normal rich copper skin a pallid gray. His lips were a cyanotic shade of blue.
“Jerry,” she said in greeting.
“Grandmother,” the older man whispered. It was a title of respect, not ancestry.
Aside from Michael, Jerry and Jerry’s son Nicholas, no one else knew how to find her home. Clearly Jerry should be in a hospital, but instead he had risked his life to come here, so the news he had brought was urgent and important enough to warrant such a sacrifice.
She jerked her chin toward his companion. “He one of your boys?”
“Grandson,” Jerry gasped. “Name’s Jamie. Figured it was past time I showed him how to get here.”
She studied Jamie. He wore his hair long and pulled back in a ponytail, and leather and silver bracelets on each wrist. His hair gleamed black like a raven’s wing, and he had the same rich copper skin as his grandfather, along with the same strong, proud features, only his were molded with a sensuality that Jerry’s did not have. Those large, dark eyes and full, shaped lips must have come from his mother. He was older than he appeared at first glance, perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three. Tall and rangy, his body had yet to finish filling out the promise of power in those wide shoulders.
Jerry had to have had good reasons to teach Jamie the way to her home. That meant he trusted his grandson. It also meant he would have given the boy other sacred teachings as well, old, secret ways that were passed down to only a select few. Jerry was grooming Jamie to take his place when he died. But just because he trusted his grandson, that didn’t mean that she would without questioning. Jamie would have to pass her own scrutiny before she would let him leave this place with the knowledge of how to return.
As she considered the boy, he held a bundle out to her, the whites of his wide eyes gleaming. His grandfather Jerry’s skin carried an unhealthy pallor, but the boy’s face was whitened underneath the copper hue, and smudged with tears. The package he offered was wrapped in a length of protective red cotton cloth and tied with undyed twine.
The old woman looked at it for a long moment. She knew what was wrapped inside. The packet was a traditional petition to a native elder for help. It would hold tobacco, and white sage, and whatever cash they could afford to scrape together. If she took it, she undertook a sacred obligation.
She did not take it. Instead, she asked the boy, “Can you carry him up the path to the cabin?”
Jamie nodded. His outstretched hand, and mouth, visibly shook.
She steeled herself against the heartbreak in that mute entreaty. “Then help him up.” She looked at her old friend Jerry, who was an elder himself in a nearby Ojibwa community. “You know I can’t make you any promises, but of course I’ll do what I can.”
He nodded. “Thank you.”
She pulled herself up the path’s incline toward her cabin as the boy gathered his grandfather up in his arms and followed. Behind her, Jerry gave Jamie hoarse-voiced instructions. “After you get me up to the house, you’ll give thanks for our safe trip, down by the boat. Do it proper. Offer tobacco.”
The boy’s voice was deeper than she expected and raw with emotion. “Yes, sir.”
She had held off asking for as long as she could. When she could no longer wait, she asked without turning, “Who died?”
Stricken silence fell. In the end it was the boy who answered. His voice choked with tears, he said, “My uncle Nicholas.”
Oh no. No.
The news bowed her at the waist. She had known before the boy had said it. She hadn’t wanted to. She had hoped otherwise until it was said.
Jerry’s hoarse whisper: “Put me down. Go to her.”
She put up one age-bruised gnarled hand. “No,” she said. “Leave me be.”
More silence. After a moment she could straighten and stand upright. She continued up the path. They followed.
Inside, the boy laid his grandfather on the couch in front of the empty fireplace and helped him out of a worn flan
nel-lined jean jacket. At her order, the boy set a fire to warm the room. She grunted as she sat down on the sturdy cedar coffee table in front of Jerry. Their gazes met, grim and grieving at the implications unfolding from their loss.
“You don’t talk,” she told him, sticking a crooked forefinger under his nose. As firelight began to dance in the room, she said over her shoulder to the boy, “Tell me what happened.”
The boy came to kneel on the floor beside his grandfather’s head. He stroked Jerry’s hair, his head bowed as he told her what they knew.
They didn’t know much at this early stage, but they knew enough.
Nicholas Crow, a former Green Beret and the head of the Secret Security detail assigned to guard the President of the United States, had been killed in an apparent robbery late last night while off-duty outside a restaurant. He had been stabbed multiple times, and his throat cut. Given his abilities and his position, Nicholas’s murder would get an aggressive investigation conducted at the highest level, while White House security had rocketed to red alert. The President had chosen to remove to Camp David for the week. None of it had been in the news.
“He was the only one we had among our people who was even close to being in the right position,” Jerry whispered. “My fine brave boy. There is no one else.”
“I told you, hush,” she said. Her own voice was clogged with tears she did not have time to shed.
She didn’t ally with very many humans anymore, and Nicholas had been one of the most important human allies she had ever had. She and Jerry had personally seen to his training, since he was a young boy. Losing him now was a terrible blow, not only for the sake of the strong, bright man Nicholas had been, but also for what it said about their enemy’s knowledge and intentions.
Setting that aside for the moment, she rested a hand on Jerry’s chest and concentrated. Grief and stress, along with too many years of heavy smoking, meant that his heart was in serious trouble.
A cold, quiet part of her mind assessed the damage. She had a limited capacity for healing. Over the years, she had done what she could to boost Jerry’s heart, but time and aging had taken an inevitable toll.
She could do it again. She could heal him. It was, just barely, within her ability. But it would take a prodigious amount of energy that she didn’t dare expend on him. Not right now. She could not afford it.
Her friendship with Jerry had spanned decades. He knew secrets few other humans had ever been entrusted with, and still her answer must be no.
She withdrew her hand. She told both him and the boy, “I have a tincture that will help this.”
She told them the truth, such as it was. The tincture would ease his symptoms and make him more comfortable, but it wouldn’t heal him. If she sent them away at this point, Jerry would most likely die before the boy could get him to a hospital. Airlifting him was out of the question. She could not allow the authorities to know of this place.
The relief that lightened both their faces was a scourge.
She pushed heavily to her feet and said to the boy, “Come with me. I’ll tell you how to dose him as I mix it up. Then you’ll put him in the corner bedroom. When you’ve seen him settled and comfortable, you can bring in firewood. We’ll need to keep the cabin warm. That will be your job.”
“Yes, Grandmother,” the boy whispered, his eyes lowered.
She went to her worktable. The boy followed. She prepared the tincture and gave the instructions to his downbent head. She got heartily sick of looking at the part in his glossy black hair, until her patience broke. She demanded, “Are you paying attention?”
He lifted his head. He was trembling all over. His widened eyes shone with grief and awe, and an exalted terror. “I’m so honored to listen to anything you wish to say, PtesanWi.”
PtesanWi. White Buffalo Calf Woman.
Her scourge deepened at the obvious worship in his eyes. She snapped, “Don’t call me that.”
“But Grandpa said you are the ancient one who gave the chanunpa, the sacred pipe, to the People,” he whispered. His trembling increased. “You’re our savior. You taught us the sacred rituals, and how we can connect and speak to Spirit—”
She had always taken the long view. A very long time ago, so long ago, the time was shrouded in human legend, she had taught the First Nations how to see and connect with the spirit realm in the hope of giving them some protection from her old enemy, the Deceiver. But mostly she had taught them in the hope that they might prove useful to her one day in this interminable war.
Now, so many centuries later, she reaped a bloody harvest from all that she had sown. She did not deserve this boy’s reverence. She deserved to be shot.
“Overwrought fool,” she said. She grabbed his hand and slapped the small brown bottle of tincture into it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Go tend your grandfather. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your mouth shut. If you must call me anything at all, you call me Astra. Nothing more. Do you hear?”
“Yes Grandmother,” the boy breathed, clutching the medicine. The worship in his eyes did not dim, not by as much as a single watt. “Thank you, Grandmother.”
Thus she watched as another noble child threw himself into her service, much as his dead uncle had. And she knew she would use this child too, if she had to, even if it killed him.
The cabin was stifling. She went outside to let the wind slice at her.
A day of blades.
An invisible presence gusted into the clearing. It said, Grandmother.
She closed her eyes, sighed and braced herself.
What word do you bring me? She asked the question as the presence had spoken, silently, in a way that no ordinary human would be capable of hearing.
Invisible fingers plucked at her jacket, her slacks, and touched wispy tendrils of her hair. I’ve been many places today and seen many things.
The children of air had a mercurial curiosity for all manner of things. Existing half in the physical realm and half in the psychic realm, some were creatures of light, while others were darker and more predatory. Because their energies were often slight and subtle, they could be easily overlooked. If one took enough patience with them, they made excellent, if somewhat erratic, spies.
They also had a tendency to flightiness. She reached for calm and exhaled gentleness and affection. The gust of breeze that curled around her warmed with pleasure.
She said, It has been a good day for you, hasn’t it? What about those things for which you searched?
The breeze seemed to hesitate in its constant swirling.
She injected a stern note in the gentleness. I need to know what you discovered, child. There is no protection for either of us in pretending they do not exist.
The wind spirit pulled back.
Pain, it admitted at last. Pain, dreams and confusion. The dark ones hunt. They spill blood for sport as they look for the one who was lost. They are laughing and confident. They are sure they will find her soon.
She knew of the dreams and confusion. The strength in them haunted her rest, but her lips thinned at the news of the dark hunt and the spilling of blood. She put one hand on a nearby tree and leaned on it. The tree poured its upright greening strength into her, a lavish and generous gift.
Thank you, she said to the tree. She stroked the bark.
Grandmother, the tree replied.
She straightened. So it began again, with a blood hunt, and with a good man’s murder, and his father, a faithful friend, condemned to a slow, painful death. She had had years to prepare, yet she still felt grief and a sharp upsurge of fear and dread.
Her distress agitated the wind spirit. It curled upon itself in jerky slashing movements. She held out a hand and projected calm. Did you find the lost one?
No, Grandmother, the spirit replied. But neither have they, yet.
She hadn’t expected any other reply. Still she tasted disappointment. What of the warrior?
He hunts as well, the spirit whisp
ered as it curled around her again. He sends you his greeting, and a warning to be prepared.
Yes. She drew her jacket closer around her and forced herself to ask, And do you have any news of the Deceiver?
Where the dark ones are, he is always nearby, the spirit answered. But I dared not look too closely for his location.
You were wise. Like her, the Deceiver did not overlook subtle changes in spirit energies. One whiff of the spirit’s presence, one hint of its mission, and he would rip apart its delicate essence with a careless thought. Thank you, child.
Grandmother.
She sent the spirit on its way and limped the rest of the short way to the bench by the cabin’s door.
She had been born once into this world, ages and ages ago, and she refused to give up her memories and pass into the oblivion that was death. She was too afraid to let go, to allow herself to forget. Now this body she wore had been sustained far beyond what a normal human lifespan should be, and it felt heavy and worn to the bone with carrying her for so long.
The green living things around her, the strength of the land itself, had sustained her for countless years. The strength was abundant and given to her freely, but she wondered now if it could possibly be enough.
“I’m tired,” she whispered.
She sank onto the bench and put her wrinkled face into her hands. A fox slipped out of the forest’s edge and came to curl around her ankles. She reached down and stroked one large, anxious ear.
And so the nightmare began again. They sought, all of them, to push through a veil. They did not know what was on the other side, only that they must fight each other and push, even to the end of their existence if they must.
She was so tired and afraid. She did not know if she had the strength for another week of living, let alone another battle.
Even though the sun shone she huddled into herself.
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