Witch's Windsong

by Marsha A. Moore

  Aggie pulled up the sleeve of her corduroy parka and examined a golden beryl tied to her wrist with a leather thong.

  Keir inched closer. “Waapake’s mother’s stone. Is her spirit speaking to you?”

  “Yes. Even before you called, I saw flashes of light inside. Brighter now that I’m here; Mother Coyote’s spirit is sparking about something, but that’s all I can tell.”

  “May I?” Keir asked. When she nodded, he cupped a palm around the pulsating stone and closed his eyes. Pinpricks of yellow light flashed in his mind, too small to reveal anything.

  He touched his other hand to one of his amulets, a silver phoenix—his power animal—and appealed to it: Please help me know what Waapake’s mother is communicating. He waited a few seconds but received no response. How could he expect otherwise? Faced with a crisis and no time for decorum, he hadn’t bothered—couldn’t calm himself enough—to enter the Lower World realm, where the bird resided, before making his request. The lights flickered in the perimeter of his mental vision, and he ground his teeth. He’d taken shamanic journeys with the phoenix hundreds of times. Why now, in this time of need, did it fail him? He released his hand from Aggie with a sigh. “I can’t read it.”

  Rowe clapped him on the back. “It’s okay. We’ll find him. Let’s get organized.”

  “At least the job will be easier now that the freezing fog has stopped.” Logan looked into each of their faces while securing his note-taking supplies. “Let’s split up. Aggie with me at the creek, and Jancie and Rowe, you two look around here and in the adjacent woods. Keir, which group do you want to join?”

  “I’ll stay close to Aggie since she has a connection to Waapake’s mother.” Keir slipped into his parka and pulled on his knit cap. “I appreciate the help.”

  Logan put on his own coat, not bothering with the zipper. As if reminding himself, he said, “It’s a cold morning. Dress for it. And keep your cell phones handy. Once we’ve searched our starting points, we’ll move toward each other. My staff members have been notified. They’ll join us, if needed, to extend the search.”

  As they departed, Jancie touched Aggie’s arm. “I have thermoses of coffee in the car. Let me give you one.”

  While his friends finished preparations, Keir unlocked his garage and gave the large door a shove, in case Rowe and Jancie needed to look inside. Before Keir could take a seat in the back of Logan’s car, he had to move aside miscellaneous folders, papers, sacks, and articles of foul-smelling clothing. The trash didn’t faze Keir; a close proximity to the window was all he needed.

  During the drive, his eyes chased every slight movement. Eyes gritty from a sleepless night complicated his attempts to avoid blinking. With the fog lifted, both the fauna and breeze sprang to life. There was no sign of his coyote, unless his sight failed him or Waapake lay wounded, motionless. Keir recalled the mantra.

  The coffee he’d consumed while waiting for his friends to arrive left him wired, even more impatient. His leg muscles twitched, ready to scavenge the ravine, and his eyes strained to ravage the slopes. Waapake’s fine and will be home soon.

  Once Logan parked at the side of the road above the creek, Keir bolted from the car. He avoided the trail and cut a path through the brush.

  The others separated and entered the ravine far to the north and south.

  If Waapake had been injured, he’d keep under cover. Yet a voice in the back of Keir’s mind told him that wouldn’t matter; if he passed within a hundred yards, the coyote would be sprinting toward his master, drawn by both scent and the thread of combined power that connected them. But what if that bond failed? Had been destroyed through accident or wanton attack? Could Waapake locate him by smell alone?

  Keir called for the coyote. The same loop of questions replayed till he blocked it with another shout. And another. His cries and the questions blurred, and an inseparable cycle overtook his mind. He gritted his teeth and forcibly latched onto the first word of the mantra. He took a stride through a thicket, then silently said the next word. Stride, word, stride, word. Until the word home from the mantra scraped his throat as if he’d screamed it aloud.

  Through the din, he heard Logan’s baritone commanding Waapake to show himself, Aggie’s soft voice appealing to the sycamores to use their network of interconnected roots to find the missing coyote.

  Still, the word home remained lodged. Tinged with connotation Keir couldn’t face, he fought against it, swallowed hard to displace the concept. A hazy but familiar image gripped him. To escape its grip, he invited a rush of adrenaline, increasing his pace to a run—until gravity sent him careening along a dangerous decline plated with ice. His hiking boots skidded ahead of him. He fell backward, landing in a wad of damp weed stubble with one leg mashed beneath his weight.

  Ahead stood the majestic willow. Its skirt of branches swept to and fro across the ice-covered stream as if in disbelief, wanting another dance and sweet kiss with the water—the woman in the willow had known Waapake was in danger; would she know where he was? Keir had to ask her.

  He rubbed a bruise on the side of his knee and sunk to a one-legged kneeling position. The throbbing prevented him from standing. With his mental shields weakened by the pain, the word home rallied another charge. He grasped the trunk of a spindly sapling swaying along with him. The full-on image that had chased him down the slick slope now hit with ferocious clarity—his father lying dead on the lawn. Even though it’d been six years, Keir’s grief remained fresh; many times, he’d tried to free himself of the burden, begging his power animal to take it away. Blame clung to his soul like a vulture gnawing on carrion.

  In the moment he’d stepped away to gather roofing shingles from yards away, his world changed forever. His father counted on Keir to be there holding the ladder. The bone-shattering scream still reverberated inside his ears. In the mental tableau, he shot toward the scream to watch his father freefall from the third floor and smack the ground with a life-wrenching thud.

  The concerned face of a woman appeared and escorted Keir back to the present. Aggie’s clear blue eyes crinkled as they peered into his. “Are you okay?” She took hold of his upper arm to offer support. “Did you fall?”

  Keir sucked in a lungful of air, his face slick with sweat. “Um, yeah. I twisted my knee. I don’t think it’s broken, though. Did you find Waapake?”

  “No. I crossed and checked on the other side. Logan’s still over there. But look!” She pulled up her sleeve to reveal the gem. “It’s flashing brighter.”

  “Oh. Let’s hope it’s a message.” Like before, he covered the gem and called upon his power animal’s assistance, this time from its favored Lower World Realm, where Keir mentally took a seat upon a nearby limestone boulder.

  In his journey, the phoenix flapped its wings wildly, then vanished behind a flare of yellow light blinding Keir’s inner eye. The force that assaulted him wasn’t his power animal, nor the spirit of Waapake’s mother—pain from his knee shot to his gut, rendering his bowels watery. He struggled to look away from Aggie’s beryl but could not.

  The piercing light claimed his thoughts, abducted him far back to a place he didn’t ever want to revisit. A blonde teenage girl lay with hands folded over a bouquet of pink sweetheart roses resting upon her chest. Molly’s favorite flower. The same type he’d purchased for her years ago as his date to the Winter Solstice school dance, a month before they’d broken up. Actually, before he’d ended things. Despite support from Rowe and Logan at his side, when Keir approached her coffin, her mother’s stare sliced through him; she pinned him with blame for her daughter’s suicide, left him forever wondering how he might have prevented Molly’s death.

  Keir blinked rapidly to dispel the vision, which thankfully relented, only to morph into the face of his mother the final time he’d seen her—before they lowered her into the grave. So young, at age seven and an only child, he clamped onto his father’s hand and bit his lip to withhold waves of rising sobs. His mother had the same tow-headed hai
r that Keir did as a baby, before it eventually turned black like his father’s. Her soft locks caught the sunshine peeking from behind a cloud—sunlight sent to restore her life. At that moment, men closed her casket, shut her off from what might’ve saved her. He flinched and a hand gripped hard onto his—if only he’d stopped them, let the sun save her.

  Something shook his hand. “Keir, what did you see? Is it Waapake?” Aggie’s gentle voice guided him back to reality. He opened his eyes upon her face.

  “No.” He coughed, ridding himself of the vision’s clinging fragments. “But the reading told me what I needed to know.” Whatever odious force had spoken, be it guardian or foe, he knew he could not endure the same path of guilt he’d walked with Molly and his parents.

  Aggie tilted her head as if to question.

  “I will not lose Waapake. I can’t lose him.”

  Chapter Four: The Dreamcatcher

  With his injured leg elevated on a pillow, Keir lay covered on his sitting room couch, plagued by a dull headache after the long night. He needed sleep but stared into space, unable to drop his guard, his restless mind sorting through methods to contact the spirit world and understand what had happened to Waapake. Though a bag of ice numbed the swollen knee, his rattled nerves impeded his shamanic journeying. His friends had eased his physical ailments before they left. His inner turmoil refusing that comfort, he wadded up the blanket, his fists tense and trembling.

  The muffled clatter of pots and pans reminded him Jancie remained behind to clean up breakfast dishes, while Logan, Rowe and Aggie had gone to meet with Logan’s staff to expand their search for Waapake.

  A sunray parted the dark green velvet drapes and blinded Keir. He jerked his torso upright and reached for the drape but paused. Hanging from the latch of the tall window, the old dreamcatcher’s white web glistened and stirred Keir’s treasured memories.

  Waapake had been a pup and unaccustomed to being indoors; the slightest sweeping sound of branches against a window upset his sleep. To help impart calm and peaceful dreams, Keir crafted the magical apparatus and hung it above his favorite leather couch, where he wished to nap with his restless familiar. Keir’s job often required him to work during the night, when spiritual and astral energies could be heard clearer in the relative stillness. Chuquilatague, the Cherokee shaman, had taught Keir the value of short sleep sessions to keep the mind alert and receptive, always ready and reliable to serve those in need.

  After fashioning a hoop of wet willow wood, Keir had stretched a web of animal sinew tied to seven points. That significant number represented both the cub’s age of seven months but also the teachings of the seven grandfathers Keir hoped to impart to his familiar: wisdom, love, respect, bravery, honesty, humility, and truth. From the lower curve, he hung a wooden bead, painted blue to evoke tranquility, and a feather.

  The catcher had worked to attract all sorts of Waapake’s dreams into the web. When bad dreams came, they were caught in the webbing, where the growing light of day caused them to vaporize and perish. Good dreams, knowing the way through the web’s center, slid down the feather to the pup sleeping below on the couch.

  The sweetness of those memories drove a stake deep into Keir’s heart. Steely tension gridded his brow. As he started to close the drape, the dreamcatcher’s bead spun. Odors of damp fur turned his head, expecting to see Waapake nearby. The feather brushed Keir’s cheek with the rough, wet slurp of his coyote’s tongue. Despite missing the familiar, hope washed over Keir. He clung to the positive energy and reached for the catcher.

  He caressed the smoothness of the hoop; he sensed he must return to the great willow at Owls’ Tail Creek, the tree that had donated the wood. Something there might help him find Waapake. Would the unseen woman offer more knowledge? Or had Keir overlooked some other clue? For guidance, he studied the sunlight playing upon the straps of sinew.

  The metal clank of the front door’s striker interrupted his meditation. He eased his swollen knee over the edge of the couch and stood slowly to test his balance.

  Jancie whisked from the kitchen and through the dining room on her way toward the door. “I’ll answer that.”

  “No, I can get it,” Keir protested and took a too-large stride that he paid for with a wobbling, painful limp.

  She hesitated and hung close, watching, while he braced his weight against every piece of furniture, doorway, and chair-rail woodwork trim he passed.

  Nearing the door, he was grateful his magical striker Tenskwatawa advised the caller, “Have patience. The master of the house has encountered a slight injury, but he’s on the way.”

  When at last Keir managed to pull open the massive oak door, he met Tall Sam’s head crooked downward. His apprehensive, brown eyes jumped over Keir. The farmer tore his worn cap off and clutched it with thick-fingered, calloused hands. “I was wonderin’ if you’d made headway with the snuff tin my pappy favors. I know you said you’d try to work on it on your trek to the creek last night. But Shaman Keir, if you’re not up to—”

  “I’m well enough. Just twisted my knee. Please come in.” Keir leaned aside, using the wall for support, and beckoned the man.

  “Well, if you’re fit.” He loped into the foyer, his angular frame and outdoorsy Carhartt jacket in stark contrast to the crystal chandelier above him.

  “Hello, Sam. Good to see you.” Jancie drew near and offered Keir an arm.

  “I can manage, but would you please bring the snuffbox from the pocket of my parka?” Jaw set, Keir limped unassisted into the outer parlor where he received clients.

  “I can do that.” She addressed the guest, “Sam, would you like some coffee or tea?”

  The farmer’s lanky frame hunched more than usual, arms bent forward, as if ready to catch Keir. Sam peered at her from beneath hooded brows. “Yes, ma’am. Coffee would be appreciated.”

  She scurried to the kitchen.

  Although Keir’s large Victorian estate home was registered a well-preserved historical home, he enjoyed sharing it. Its grandeur, softened by the patina of use, was far more welcoming than the sterile office space in the Coven Council building where he began his practice.

  Holding tight to the arm of an overstuffed club chair, he lowered his weight, then dropped with a groan when the injured knee bent. The chair’s supple-but-worn leather accommodated more easily to his stiffness than what the desk chair might have offered. His toes, clad only in socks, dug into the Turkish wool rug’s pile and braced against nagging throbs of dull pain.

  While Keir settled himself, on the opposite side of a small table, Tall Sam drew his flat lips to a grimace, in apparent empathy, as he perched uneasily on a ladderback chair. In comparison to even Keir’s healthy joint, Sam’s knobby knees poked high above the level of his hips like the gangly limbs of a grasshopper. Too-short trouser legs exposed weather-dry skin above his socks.

  Jancie slipped in and delivered the beverages and snuffbox.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Sam’s hand dwarfed the large mug.

  Exiting the room, she called over her shoulder, “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

  “Thanks, Jancie.” Keir ran a thumb across the snuffbox lid—but was blocked from detecting what, if any, spirit-presence remained.

  Sam addressed Keir. “I appreciate you takin’ time to help us. Grandpa Clement’s spirit is uneasy, been keepin’ us up nights with his moanin’.”

  “I did work on this but haven’t had time to check the results. If you’ll allow me a minute.” As a matter of ethics, Keir needed to be certain it was safe for Clement’s spirit to reenter. Keir cupped the tin in his palm. To focus on whatever energies might remain after he’d freed the unwanted badger’s spirit to the wind, he closed his eyes and cleared away most of his extraneous thoughts—all except interruptions from the periodic throb coursing through his knee, a reflexive mental path he couldn’t ignore. He steadied the joint against the base of the chair’s arm, which at least allowed a longer span between waves of pain.
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br />   When the next assault abated, he began his shamanic journey. He imagined his body tiny and dropping deep into the Earth’s surface at a tin mine. From there, he intention was to stream with those elements into the actual article resting in his hand. But during the initial rush away from the mine, a figure of a badger distracted him, sent him off course where he smacked against an impenetrable wall, dense as granite. His thoughts, still in free-flow, splattered in all directions along the hard surface.

  The wall morphed into the backdrop for a firing squad and he faced execution. Artillery fired a barrage of images at him: faces of his parents and girlfriend under the pallor of death. He attempted to block the visions, not answer them with responding thoughts—the fusillade proved too great; sticky jaundice-yellow blame flooded every mental escape route. He struggled to retreat, even wished for the next throb of physical pain from his knee to propel him from this hell. Striving for an exit, he dropped into a quagmire of guilt—a trap, where he fell easy prey for visual spears depicting his coyote lying mangled from torturous death.

  Only Keir’s injured knee could save him from this purgatory. He inched his free hand forward. With his perceptions diminished during the meditation, he could only sense the presence of support underlying his hand. When that ceased, he presumed he’d reached the terminal point of his thigh—the swollen knee. He swallowed hard to free as many of his faculties as possible from the snare of guilt, then dug fingers hard into the joint. A rush of excruciating pain liberated him, flashed him back to the real world. He snapped his eyes open, gulping lungfuls of air as he clutched the chair arms—the pain was real and welcome.

  His conscience hissed, Guilt is real, too. You cannot hide.

  A remembered voice of his mentor chided him, “You must never deny the world of non-ordinary reality, the world of hidden things.