The Shaman's Secret

by Natasha Narayan

  Tabitha. Tabby. My mother. And now others join her. A whole chorus straining into that locked room. My father, Aunt Hilda, Waldo. Boy, her eyes full of tears.

  “Don’t give up. Get out, Kit. You’re still there, fight him.”

  But no. The old Kit is not here. Me, the skinwalker. I have her mind. The shaman. The person who used to be Cecil Baker.

  This chorus inside me is nothing but an irritating mewl. I am stronger than these voices. The skinwalker is Kit Salter now. Her body is mine, and her soul. I will be Kit and thus I will escape hell and I will live forever. The tablet has cured me of the parasite inside me and the snake outside. I am strong and free.

  And so young.

  I have my whole life ahead of me. And then when I tire of Kit Salter … another body. Another ripe young body. It will be so easy.

  “Conquer him, Kit. Pity him. Touch his heart.”

  Not so easy. I have no heart. Still, I had better do it. Take that final step. Only sentimentality holds me back, and I have no time for feelings.

  I glide over to the shell of Cecil Baker as he droops in front of the altar. I see with satisfaction that my people have tied up the intruders, piling them one on top of the other. The fat lady, Hilda Salter, is on the top of the pile. Ha! She will squash the rest of them.

  Cecil stands there, frozen, gaping at them. How could I ever have called that body my own? He is repulsive. I collected beautiful things—just look at him! He was never much to look at! Why did I never leave that carcass before? I had the soul of an Apollo—was it fair that I was stuck with the body of a louse? Still, finally I have righted that error.

  Better make it quick. I raise the knife, aiming for Cecil Baker’s heart. When he is dead … Well, Cecil Baker will be dead forever and the skinwalker will be Kit Salter.

  The knife is firm between my fingers. And then—there it is again! That same small voice …

  “Pity him!”

  Another soul, pure of heart, opposing me with all its might. And that chorus, urging the rebellious soul on.

  “You can do it, Kit. He knows nothing of life or love. He is already dead. Pity him.”

  I feel the opposition surging down my nerves into my fingertips. Like gas flaring, the strike of a match in darkness.

  Panic takes over my mind. I must do it. I must do it now. Plunge the knife into the heart, feel the skin burst, the blood spurt. I must do it quick—or else …

  I plant my will in my fist and bring the knife down onto the creature. Cecil doesn’t flinch as the knife grazes his skin. I have a foretaste of victory coursing through my veins. So close! I am so close! Then that other will opposes me once again. The girl called Kit. We fight, silently, bitterly, over the knife. But she is not playing fair. She is not fighting; she is wrapping me in pity—and, worse than pity, love. She has learned to love Cyril, and through him—me.

  Our souls collide in the knife, in the handle, the shimmering silver blade. There they dance—and finally the skinwalker falters. The blade of the knife cracks and shivers into a thousand pieces, raining down on Cecil’s body and onto the earth. I—the Shaman, the Skinwalker, the Lord of All—drop the broken handle. It clatters away across the floor. I am being forced out of this fine vessel, this body of my dreams.

  “Enough, Cecil!” Kit cries. “I will not kill you. I will not free you from your soul. Far better to let you live.”

  Cecil Baker is waking from the trance. He is wobbling on his feet. His face is rigid with terror. The skinwalker is gone.

  I, Kit, fall to my knees, half sobbing, half laughing.

  I look up at the ruined man. At his cruel, old face.

  “Cecil, listen to me,” I say softly. “I am back.”

  Cecil Baker doesn’t understand me. His eyes are vacant and glassy; they stare at nothing. A puddle of drool has collected at the corner of his mouth and is starting to dribble down his chin. His hands flop by his side. At any moment he looks as if he might simply collapse. I have an inkling then of what has happened to him. It has been too much. The man has lost his mind. I walk over to him and gently push him down onto the floor. Kneeling, I make sure he is settled. It will do him good to rest.

  At this moment, when I know in my bones that Cecil Baker will no longer threaten anyone, I feel no joy. Because for a moment, locked in combat with the skinwalker, I felt, truly felt, what it was like to be that man. Locked in some arid place where you can only take—and never give. Where the only feeling is that of control, of possession. I know now that no punishment I could ever dream up would equal the hell on earth of being Cecil Baker.

  Something else has crept into my feelings for this old man. This man who has tormented me, my friends and family so long. I feel sorry for him. Images flash through my mind: Cecil playing on the swings with my nine-year-old mother. A young man in a shabby brown suit, setting out on life with his brother, Cyril. This man was once my mother’s friend.

  All around us, as I help Cecil to settle on the floor, the kachinas are fluttering, unsure what to do. I see one or two creep away, taking advantage of the rain and the shadows. Through the muffled movements and the pelting rain I hear a sharp cry. It is coming from the writhing shapes by that terrible basalt altar.

  “Kit, is it you? Please tell me you’re back.”

  “Yes, Waldo, I am back.”

  At that a burst of joy from the others.

  “The skinwalker is gone!”

  Gently placing Cecil’s arms in his lap, I rise and rejoin my friends.

  Epilogue

  I pen these few words in my little maple-timbered cabin on the SS Timbuktu. It is a fine new steamer, which is taking us across the oceans, back to Father, Oxford and afternoon tea with hot buttered scones.

  Home: green meadows, the call of larks and the spires of Oxford rising in the early-morning drizzle. How I long for it. It will refresh my spirits, after an adventure which has felt like a waking nightmare. Already, as I leave America behind, I feel uncomplicatedly happy. I am able to talk of gowns with Rachel, discussing whether the lilac crêpe or the maroon organza suits her better. With Waldo I debate the best ways to get rich quick. I can, if my head is particularly strong, even talk about stolen treasure with Aunt Hilda or cathode rays with Isaac—not that Isaac will expect me to do more than look interested and smile.

  So here we are—healthy and happy—sailing back home, the place where we know we belong. All except Waldo, that is. America has made a huge impression on him. Its energy and size draw him. He says the next century will belong to America. While I am not sure he is right—everyone knows Great Britain’s empire is the most important in the world—I admire him for seeking new challenges. Anyway, he plans to return. He has asked me, in a roundabout way, if I could see myself living in California or New York.

  To tell the truth, I am feeling a little dizzy, for Waldo has just left my cabin. He held my hand—and for a moment I thought he meant to … Well, it doesn’t matter, for every time I am with Waldo now I feel guilty. You see, when I was possessed by the skinwalker, when I struck Waldo across the face, I broke his nose. The doctors have reset it. Sadly it remains slightly twisted out of shape. My friend is still the handsomest boy I know. However, it cannot be denied that his nose does look a little odd.

  (Is it very, very wrong of me to think that we now make a less ill-matched pair? Yes, it is. I never had such an ungracious thought.)

  Luckily Waldo has forgiven me for breaking his nose. I am not sure how long this mood will last. It is in Waldo’s nature to be strong, even arrogant, and in mine to argue. I also don’t know about living in America. After all, I am only thirteen. I will have plenty of time to decide these things after I return to my father and Downside Towers. Yes, Father is determined to send me to boarding school. For the present, I have had quite enough of adventure and have decided not to fight his plans. Rachel, hopefully, will join me at the school. I will see my other friends in the long holidays.

  Now I come to the saddest part of my tale: Cecil Ba
ker. As I had understood in the Grand Canyon, his spirit was broken, his wits well and truly gone. The awful things he had done to his own mind had left him little more than a vegetable. He eats, sleeps and talks like a small child. He is as helpless as a babe. We found a hospital in a little town called Oakglade, in the sunny hills of California. We left Cecil there with his own nurse, under the care of a doctor in horn-rimmed spectacles, but far from anyone who loved him, if such a person still exists after the death of his brother.

  When we returned from the Grand Canyon to San Francisco, we had our first glad tidings. The only truly good news to come from all our adventures. It turned out that Cyril Baker had made a will. He left the whole of his vast fortune to … us!

  This confused me at first, because I believed he’d given most of his money away. Not so, it seemed; there was still a fortune he’d been unwilling to part with. Before you become too excited, imagining us millionaires, breakfasting on ices and bathing in powdered pearls, the money has been left in trust. This means solicitors are to manage the fortune till Rachel and I turn twenty-one. It isn’t, however, for us. When we come of age, we will only be trustees, able to give the money to worthy charities.

  Yes, that’s right. Your friends, Kit Salter and Rachel Ani, will take charge of this whole immense fortune. Waldo, Isaac and Aunt Hilda have not been mentioned in the will. We will be enormously powerful, able to give thousands of pounds to people who need our help. Rachel is already researching where she will spend the money. I know she intends to campaign for an end to all forms of slavery—thus righting some of the Baker brothers’ wrongs.

  I can see why Cyril Baker entrusted the care of his fortune to Rachel: she is honest to the core and will not try to steal or squander it. I was surprised, at first, that he chose to include me. Then I was handed a note by his lawyers in San Francisco.

  Dear Kit,

  By the time you read this I will be dead. I do not complain—I deserve my fate. I hope you return from the Grand Canyon with your spirit intact. I am praying for you, even from beyond the funeral pyre.

  I leave you my fortune because I believe you will have the generosity of spirit to do with great wealth what I could not. By this I mean thinking of others before yourself. I have faith in you, Kit, to do what you can to make some amends for the wounds I have left behind in this world. Because I know you to be kind and a fighter, but not an absolute angel, I have added Rachel Ani to the trustees of my fortune. It is not that I don’t have faith in you, but her clear head will curb your wildest schemes.

  My blessings from the beyond,

  Cyril Baker

  Kind and a fighter but not an absolute angel… As I read these lines my eyes welled up with tears. It seems Cyril knew me better than I’d supposed.