Windigo Thrall

by Cate Culpepper

  She let herself back into the cabin, and made her way through the silent room to sit beside Grady again. She tipped her chin so she could examine the butterfly tape sealing the cut on her brow.

  “Bueno. No more seeping, but you will have a nice bruise. How many fingers am I holding up?”

  Grady glanced down at Elena’s other hand, which was curled around her knee, and smiled. “I see no fingers, Curandera Montalvo.”

  “Then I have healed you, Professor Gringa.” Elena patted Grady’s face.

  “I wonder what time it is. Coming up on midnight, you think?”

  “Yes, about that.” Elena rolled her head on her neck, trying to ease the grip hours of tension had on her muscles. “The night is passing very slowly.”

  “As long as it passes.”

  Theirs was one of three islands of murmured conversations, each at the edges of the wash of light from the fireplace. Pat and Maggie stood talking quietly near the kitchen. Becca sat on the deep couch next to Jo, whose hands were still bound behind her, a precaution Pat refused to lift.

  “You were right, Elena,” Grady said. “Jo didn’t go after Becca with that poker, or after me. She didn’t even look at either of us. She went straight for you.”

  “And it’s lucky for me that you can move faster than a chubby Latina.” Elena remembered poor Jo’s white face flashing above her, the iron lifted over her shoulder. Then Grady’s lean form streaking between them, grappling with Jo. “You may have saved my life, querida.”

  She felt Grady’s hands slip beneath the fleece collar of her jacket to knead the tight muscles at the base of her neck, and she purred thanks. Her gaze was drawn again to one of the side windows of the living room. Elena had stood there only that afternoon, tracing a design onto the frosted glass while the others yammered nonsense about the storm. The image she had drawn on the pane was almost visible from this angle, but that had to be Elena’s imagination; it would have faded hours ago.

  “But why you, babe?” Grady’s voice coaxed Elena’s attention back to her. “We’ve all been worried about Jo taking a bite out of Becca, and she and I are still prickly, at best. I wouldn’t think she’d have it in for you.”

  “Jo has nothing against me, Grady.” Elena tried to quell a flare of impatience. “It was not Jo who attacked me, but the Cannibal Beast that has infested her body. Of course the Windigo would not go for you or Becca first. What does it care if you are fucking Jo’s wife? But it sees a real threat in me. It knows I can truly harm it.”

  Grady’s fingers had stilled on her shoulders and Elena saw stunned denial rising in her eyes. She replayed what she had just said in her mind and touched Grady’s face in dismay.

  “Querida, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say such a thing. I don’t know where—”

  “Hey? Excuse me.” Pat came up behind their sofa and rested both hands on it. “I’m sorry to break in, but I think it’s time we came together again.”

  *

  Pat didn’t like interrupting Grady and Elena when they were so intent on each other, but she couldn’t shake a sense that their time was running short. She waited while Maggie settled on the floor in front of the warm hearth.

  “Deputy Daka?” Becca used Pat’s title without malice, but she sat protectively close to Jo in the deep sofa. “About these hand restraints. Really? It’s been three hours.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t remove them, Becca.”

  Jo grimaced and shifted in the plush cushions. “At least let me move to an armchair, Pat. I’m uncomfortable.”

  “You can get out of an armchair too quickly.” Pat regarded her, not without sympathy. “We can do it, but I’d have to tie your ankles as well. Your call.”

  With her hands bound behind her, her broad shoulders covered by a blanket, Jo reminded Pat of a captive warrior, subdued but still dangerous. She glanced at Becca, and the resentment drained from her features. “You’re right. I’ll stay here.”

  Pat nodded. She waited for Grady to take the lead, but she looked distracted, unsettled as she watched the fire, and finally, Pat began.

  “Since none of us seem real sleepy, at this point…” Pat paused, hoping for rueful smiles, but saw only grim agreement. “I thought we should talk about what to do if the cavalry doesn’t show up in the morning. I ski pretty well, and Maggie says she does too. Anyone else?”

  “I can’t even inner tube,” Elena sighed, and Becca shook her head.

  “I skied when I lived up here.” Grady took Elena’s hand. “But I’m not leaving Elena.” They exchanged a long look, and Grady kissed the back of her hand.

  Pat hooked her thumbs in her pockets. “Well, if we have to, Maggie and I can try to reach a working radio to get help, once it gets light. Or we can try starting the snowmobiles in the back shed—”

  “Oh, please, Pat, the snowmobiles won’t start,” Becca snorted. “You’ve really never read The Shining?” She rubbed her face and tittered weakly into her hands. “I’m sorry, guys. I think I’m getting a little slaphappy.”

  “You need rest, Becca.” Jo scowled at her. “You hardly slept last night, and this afternoon…”

  Jo trailed off, and Pat figured they were all remembering how Becca’s nap had been interrupted.

  “Anyway,” Elena said, “Pat’s truck won’t start, the generator won’t start, none of our toys work. We have no reason to hope these snowmobiles will be any different.”

  “Maybe we should try to heat some soup over this fire,” Becca said. “I’ll need calories if we’re going to plot an escape.” She picked up the large bowl Jo had piled with chips, but it was almost empty. She held out a few fragments to Jo. “Here, poor thing. Trussed up like this, you can’t even wrestle us for crumbs.”

  Jo turned her head. “Please. I couldn’t possibly.”

  “You feeling sick, Jo?” Maggie was watching her.

  “I’m just not hungry.”

  “That’s funny. You were plenty hungry earlier today.”

  “What is it, hija?” Elena asked. “Tell us what you’re thinking.”

  Maggie glanced at Pat, and her features took on the indifferent cast of someone who didn’t expect to be believed. “It’s just that it happened that way with Selly too. First, she acted like she was starving. She ate everything in sight, a lot more than her share. Then, nothing.”

  “When we met Selly yesterday, she looked like she was badly malnourished.” Grady was finally engaged again, to Pat’s relief. “I was afraid she had some wasting disease.”

  “Well, like Selly told you, doctors checked her out,” Maggie said. “She was very old, but there was no disease.”

  “She just stopped eating?” Becca glanced at Jo uneasily, then at Maggie. “I remember Selly’s room was stocked with food.”

  “Yeah, we tried to force meals on her for months.” A flicker of regret crossed Maggie’s face, and grudging affection. “She hardly touched any of it, not even after we brought her out here.”

  Elena shook her head. “Just because your abuela wouldn’t eat, Maggie, doesn’t mean she wasn’t hungry.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Maggie blinked at Elena. “You’re right about that.”

  “Jo, I’ve noticed you keep swallowing.” Elena’s voice was kind. “Are you sure you don’t feel ill?”

  Pat looked at Jo, who was staring into the flames with her jaw clenched.

  “Your mouth is watering, isn’t it?” Maggie asked. “I’d say you’re feeling damn ravenous, Jo. What are you hungry for?”

  “I don’t know. What difference does it make?” Jo snapped. “Forgive me, Maggie, but I can’t believe I share much in common with Selly Abequa, or your entire family. From what you’ve told us, Selly’s odd eating habits came on over a course of months. I only met the woman yesterday.”

  Maggie’s face flushed. “Maybe whatever came after Selly is a lot closer now. Closer to you, now.”

  “Jo.” Grady rested her elbows on her knees and addressed Jo respectfully. “Listen to what we’v
e been telling you about rituals, and how powerfully they can sway us. Yes, it’s only been one day since we inhaled that smoke, but one hell of a long, stressful day—”

  “Grady?” Pat wasn’t given to interruption, but it was necessary. “One thing we should learn from the Abequas. They relied on this young woman, and they trusted her.” She nodded at Maggie. “In spite of her youth, Maggie was the main caretaker for her family. I think we should listen to what she’s telling us.”

  A smile flickered across Maggie’s lips as the shadowed room grew quiet.

  “You’re right, Pat.” Becca gave Maggie a contrite look. “You probably know more about all this than any of us, honey, and I’m sorry if we haven’t listened very well. Maybe it’s time we stopped dumping your butt in the snow long enough to pay attention.”

  “I’m good with that.” Maggie stared into the crackling flames. “I don’t know where to start, though. I still hardly believe any of this shit myself.”

  “With your family stories, Maggie.” Pat found she couldn’t sit; she didn’t want to relax her vigil over the others even as far as bending her knees. “Tell us what the Abequas, and the Chippewa, know about this Windigo.”

  Maggie nodded, but she didn’t speak right away. Pat watched her face age in the reflected firelight. “Darkness is important to the Witiko. So is bitter cold. We call it the Spirit of the Lonely Places, the Cannibal Beast, and it travels on the wind. It always attacks at night, and it always draws its victims outside to die.”

  Pat shivered, seeing it. A reeling chase through a wind-blown, freezing midnight, ending in bloody death. In murder. Her own face felt chapped from the searing cold.

  “It draws them outside?” Jo shifted stiffly in the deep cushions. “What about that Cree family Grady mentioned? I’m not dismissing what you’re telling us, Maggie, honestly. But on the drive to your compound, Grady told us about a man who killed and cannibalized his entire family. He blamed his crimes on the Windigo. And weren’t their remains all found inside his cabin?”

  “Not the first victim.” Grady frowned. “The article said Swift Runner chased his son outside, into a blizzard. He killed him there, then returned to the family’s cabin and murdered the others. And ate them,” she added unnecessarily.

  “The killings all happened in one night, I bet.” Maggie sounded on surer ground. “Selly and the other elders were all real clear on that. The Windigo comes and goes before dawn. Which is only about six hours away, I hope.”

  “And that awful wind died away a long time ago.” Becca adjusted the blanket around Jo’s shoulders. “But it’s still just as cold out there. Our moral so far is, no one goes outside.” She looked at Pat pointedly. “Not to try to jump-start dead snowmobiles. Not for any reason.”

  “What about the moon, Maggie?” Elena gestured toward the faint moonlight leaking through a side window. “Pat says she’s never seen one like this over her mountain.”

  “Sorry.” Maggie shrugged. “Except for that weird green light, that’s just Snow Moon to me, what most people called it, a big winter full moon. Well, my family called it Famine Moon. Obvious reasons.”

  Pat shook her head. “Snow Moon doesn’t rise until February. I don’t know any name for what’s out there.” She walked to a window and looked out at the strange orb that gleamed through the circular break in the cloud cover. It was foreign, alien, an insult to the mountain’s night sky that had always brought Pat peace. If it had an odor, it would be a sour, rank smell. This moon was too old, and she didn’t know how to explain that to the others, or to herself.

  “It may not be February, but I’m not sure time is the same for us now, in this place.” Elena drifted her fingers through her hair. “In this bad hour, this mala hora. This is the moon that rises the night of the Windigo, and that’s what’s important to know.”

  Pat realized they were all gazing at the painting over the fireplace; at the eerie green light the moon now spilled over the snowbound cabin.

  “The Windigo has a heart of ice,” Maggie said to the flames.

  “Elena…heard this too,” Grady said. “That its very center is ice.”

  “Well, maybe we can take some comfort in that.” Jo smiled, and Pat could see her effort to ease their tension. “At least I’m not cold. The rest of you look a lot chillier than—”

  “Selly was never cold, either.” Maggie traced a line on the stone hearth. “Jo, when we were outside with you, a few hours ago, I thought Pat and I were going to freeze to death on the spot, it was so bitter out there. Steam gushed out of our mouths whenever we breathed, or talked. But not you, Jo. Your breath was invisible. Ice is your natural state now.”

  Jo stared at her, and silence fell over them again. “Becca?”

  “Yes, honey.” Becca smoothed her hand over Jo’s chest, as if wondering at its warmth and hoping this belied Maggie’s words.

  “Do you remember the first time I kissed you?” Jo spoke to Becca quietly, as if they were the only ones in the room. “You had to teach me how to kiss you well. How to touch my lips lightly against yours, how to let my passion blend into that lightness. Do you remember?”

  “I remember,” Becca whispered.

  “You taught me how to cherish your body, as well. Sometimes I want you so badly I ache with it.”

  Pat stood still, her eyes on the floor. She had never heard such intimacy in Jo’s voice before, never knew such language existed in her.

  “Becca, I’ll die before I hurt you again.”

  “Mention dying one more time.” Becca took Jo’s chin in her hand, but gently. “And I’ll have Pat stuff a sock in your mouth. I mean it. Hush, love.”

  Becca laid her head on Jo’s chest and wrapped her arm around her waist, her eyes closing wearily. Jo rested her lips in Becca’s hair. Elena and Grady curled themselves together on the other couch. The stillness lingered, and for now it felt good, just having them all here safe in one room.

  Pat looked at Maggie and raised her eyebrows. Maggie shrugged, the slight lifting of one shoulder that was already dear. Pat had asked Maggie if she had anything more to tell them, Maggie had answered that she had no more to offer right now. The whole exchange was silent, their communication clear and easy.

  Pat shifted in order to feel the weight of the pistol in her belt holster. She brushed her thumb over the prayer stick in her pocket and kept watch.

  *

  Maggie lifted her head from her arms and looked around blearily. She must have fallen asleep, lulled by the warmth of the hearth, but probably not for long. The fire was still high and crackled brightly, shedding its gold light through their circle.

  Pat had finally settled into an armchair, her head resting against its back, her eyes closed. Grady and Elena were still in each other’s arms on one couch, motionless except for the slow lift of their breathing. Jo had managed to half-recline on the other sofa, and Becca was curled against her side.

  Maggie’s gaze was caught by a low, pulsing light from one of the side windows in a far corner of the large room. She tried to focus on it, but it faded, and Maggie let it fade. She had no urge to seek out any more mysteries tonight. She was too tired.

  Pat Daka was another mystery. Maggie studied her handsome face, her first opportunity to do so openly, without Pat looking back. Her lips thrummed again with the memory of that sudden kiss, the moment when the cold, dark truck warmed around them into blissful comfort.

  “Who is Sewa?” she whispered to Pat, who of course slept on.

  Maggie rubbed her burning eyes and looked at the others. From babyhood on, she had always slept in rooms crowded with other people, except on those lucky nights she escaped to the bed of one lover or another. Sitting here on the floor, Maggie had the least comfortable spot of all of these strangers. She didn’t understand why this felt like a good thing, waking up among these particular women.

  And the next time, Maggie told herself as she rested her head back on her arms, the next time I open my eyes, it’ll be morning. I’ll have
a hellish crick in my neck, but the night will be over, and when I open my eyes…I’ll see all of them again. I’ll see her again.

  Maggie slept, and dreamed about the Chippewa woman and the brave who chased her through the night trees. She ran with them through the snow-choked forest of Minnesota, buffeted by the raging wind, cringing beneath Snow Moon.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Morning came. The sun didn’t rise.

  “No,” Becca told the window quietly.

  She was talking to the sky beyond the glass pane, the sky that stubbornly refused to lighten, despite her outrage and against all natural law. The sun rose late and set early this time of year, but Jesus, it never simply refused to appear at all. It was still jet-black out there, the air dead and still.

  She heard the others behind her, moving restlessly through the large room. She remembered Maggie had a wristwatch, the only timepiece that seemed to be working.

  Grady’s voice. “Maggie, what time is—”

  “It’s fifteen minutes later than the last time someone asked me that,” Maggie growled. “It’s coming up on noon.”

  “No,” Becca whispered to the darkness again. They had to get Jo out of here.

  Pat was making her as comfortable as possible. Jo had been helped up, walked around. She was spared the indignity of personal assistance with urinating in the bathtub, but Pat had bound her wrists behind her again when she came out. Jo had been offered food, which she had refused. Now she sat in the deep sofa, her head resting against its back, staring at the high ceiling.

  Becca closed her eyes, shutting out the freakish night and indulging in a childlike hope that when she opened her eyes again, the world would have come to its senses. A faint scent of fresh herbs reached her, and she knew it was Elena sliding her arm lightly across her shoulders.

  “It’s too cold here, away from the fire.” Elena pressed her shoulders gently, staring with her into the blackness. “Too cold to be thinking frightening thoughts, by yourself.”