Thunder Moon

by Lori Handeland

  My face must have revealed my confusion, because he continued with a laugh in his voice, if not his eyes. “You know, dinner, a movie, maybe a walk beneath the moon?”

  “Sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “I thought it might. Tomorrow night?”

  I nodded. I couldn’t believe we were standing in my pond, discussing dinner and a movie while naked. Talk about back assward.

  Walker stared up at the towering hills, navy blue against the indigo night. “I’d like to see Blood Mountain sometime. Have you been there?”

  “My great-grandmother used to take me.”

  His gaze lowered. “Why?”

  “It’s beautiful. We had a picnic.”

  Waterfalls and hiking trails surrounded the peak. We’d eaten on the banks of Lake Winfield Scott. It was one of my fondest memories.

  But we hadn’t gone there just to eat in the sun. According to her, Blood Mountain was sacred. Our ancestors had once worshipped it. On Blood Mountain the greatest of magic was born. She’d done some awesome things there, things I’d never told anyone about.

  “The history books claim the mountain was named because of a battle between the Cherokee and the Creek.”

  “People still find arrowheads,” I said. Though no one had been able to decide for certain what year the battle had occurred.

  “The Cherokee won.”

  “Of course.”

  He smiled. “And the Creek gave them Blood Mountain. It’s a holy place.”

  A spooky place, that’s for sure. I’d often wondered if the blood that had been spilled there had turned the very earth and the air of that mountain into something otherworldly.

  “Usually the Cherokee revere the highest point,” Ian continued, “like Brasstown Bald, so it’s odd they took such a shine to Blood Mountain.”

  “Not really.” I thought of the way the light hit the lichen and rhododendron, turning the mountain the shade of freshly spilled blood.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing. It’s a great place. Lots of hiking trails. Neat-o.”

  Ian lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  A sudden and disturbing thought muscled into my head. “I left my phone at the house.”

  The whole town could have gone up in flames while I’d been banging the new doctor. That would play great during the next election.

  “I have to go.”

  Ian tugged on my hand, and I glanced at him. “You have every right to a life, Grace. That’s one thing I learned—though a little too late for Susan.”

  “That was her name?”

  He appeared startled he’d said it out loud. “Yes. I shouldn’t talk about her so much.”

  “Yeah, you’ve been a real chatterbox on the subject.”

  “Feels like it.”

  “I don’t mind, Ian. You obviously loved her; you lost her; you miss her.”

  “Obviously,” he murmured, then dived into the creek and swam away.

  * * *

  I offered Ian the use of my shower, but he seemed in a sudden hurry to leave.

  His taillights disappeared down the drive; then the sound of his tires rolling faster and faster across the pavement of the highway that led to town drifted on the wind. Despite our supposed “date” tomorrow night, I wondered if I’d ever set eyes on him again.

  I shrugged it off. I was used to seeing men’s taillights. So why did it seem so much worse this time?

  Because I’d felt something, just as he’d said. A kinship. Perhaps just the shared heritage and the interest in our past, maybe more. Did it matter? I had a full life—a busy job, a friend or two, a community. I didn’t need Ian Walker any more than he needed me.

  Inside, I checked all my phones and messages.

  Relieved to find nothing that couldn’t be handled tomorrow, I headed for the shower, but before I got there a slight scratch at the back door drew my attention. I glanced out the window, didn’t see anyone, shrugged, and turned away.

  Scritch.

  Not wanting to meet whatever was out there while I was stark naked, I grabbed some jeans and a tank top from the clean pile atop the dryer, found my gun where I’d left it in the junk drawer, loaded it, and slowly opened the door.

  The wolf sat right on my porch.

  I tightened my finger on the trigger. The animal tilted its head, unconcerned. Since a stick had passed right through it, I had no doubt a bullet would do the same. Then again, if it was ethereal how had it scratched on the door?

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  The beast tilted its head in the other direction. There was something about the eyes that disturbed me. They weren’t human; they didn’t seem crazed or evil, but they did seem familiar.

  “Do I know you?”

  Yip!

  Was it one yip for yes and two for no or the other way around?

  The wolf got to its feet and I lifted the barrel of the gun, which had dipped a bit as I tried to figure this out. Spirit wolf or not, I didn’t plan to let the thing jump me without trying to stop it. However, the animal whirled and trotted down the steps, pausing at the bottom to peer over its shoulder as if waiting. The beast then ran a few feet toward the woods and waited.

  I considered the Lassie-like behavior. “You want me to follow you?”

  Yip.

  I was starting to think one was for yes.

  According to Ian, a wolf was a messenger from the spirit world. If so, I really wanted that message.

  The animal whined, scratched at the ground, trotted to the tree line, then halfway back again.

  I slipped my feet into the sandals on the porch, shut the back door, and followed my messenger into the mountains.

  Chapter 12

  The wolf led me through thick towering spruce, so close together the silver light of the moon barely penetrated their branches. I glanced back, but the trees had already swallowed the white gabled roof of my house. I did see a few of the bats that I couldn’t seem to oust from the attic flitting in front of the moon.

  The night had cooled, but the air was muggy, hard to breathe, especially when we continued on for the better part of an hour.

  I’d been this way before. My great-grandmother had lived at the foot of the mountain, preferring a remote cabin to putting up with my father, whom she’d never had much use for.

  According to Rose, men were good for two things: providing children and hunting. Other than that, they could go to the Devil. I guess it was lucky for them both that my great-grandfather had died young. I didn’t think Rose had ever been easy to live with.

  At first I wondered if we were going to her cabin— maybe someone was squatting. Why such a minor offense would warrant a messenger from the Darkening Land I had no idea, but when I took a step in that direction the wolf growled and kept on what appeared to be a straight arrow to someplace else.

  My mind began to wander. Where were we and why? What possible message could there be for me up here where the mist began?

  The sudden silence made me pause. I looked ahead, to the side, even behind me, but the wolf was gone. I rubbed my sweating palm against my thigh and took a better grip on the gun. This suddenly smelled very much like a trap.

  The wind lifted my hair, which had dried once again into stiff-straight hanks, and slapped them against my face. The trees rattled like dry bones, and dead needles tumbled from the sky like spruce-scented rain. The underbrush moved, first here, then there. Ah hell, everywhere. I turned a slow circle, searching the darkness, twitching at every slinking shadow.

  Something flew across the moon—a bat, a bird, a beast? I glanced up, but it was already gone, and when I lowered my head a human-shaped silhouette emerged from the night.

  An old woman, bent but still strong, her hair long and black, with strands of silver lit by the moon. Clothed in what appeared to be traditional Cherokee dress, a sleeveless shift made of deer hide, belted at the waist and ending at midthigh, complemented by a knitted underskirt with beaded fringe tha
t fell to the ankles. Her feet were covered in soft moccasins to the knees.

  I was again reminded of those who had disappeared into these mountains during the removal, hiding so well from the white soldiers that to this day no one had ever found them.

  The woman lifted her head, and the outline of her face was familiar. “Grandmother?”

  “Gracie?”

  The voice wasn’t hers. How could it be?

  “Quatie.” I stowed the gun and hurried forward to help the woman who’d been my great-grandmother’s best friend. “What are you doing out here in the dark?”

  Quatie was a full-blooded Cherokee, very rare in this day and age. She’d lived in Lake Bluff her entire life, as had her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother before her. She knew every tree, every trail, every stream and hill. But she was old, arthritic, and half-blind.

  I took her arm. She was thinner than I remembered and less steady on her feet than I liked.

  “I could ask the same of you,” she said.

  My gaze flicked to the trees. “Did you see a wolf?”

  Her laughter was more of a cackle before it turned into a long hacking cough. I supported her until she was able to straighten, then speak. “Messenger?”

  I wasn’t surprised that Quatie knew what a wolf meant. The surprise would be if she hadn’t.

  “What did she come to tell you?” Quatie asked.

  “She?”

  “Who would bother to come all the way back from the Darkening Land with a message for you?”

  “E-li-si,” I whispered.

  Quatie patted me on the arm. “What did she say?”

  “The wolf’s supposed to talk?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve never seen one.”

  “What do you know about them?”

  “Only what my own grandmother told me. A messenger from the Darkening Land is not of this world. Once their message is delivered, they will return to the west. Until you understand what she wants you to know, expect visits from your e-li-si.”

  Now that I had a hint of who the messenger was, I had a pretty good idea of the message.

  The wolf had first appeared on the night of the Thunder Moon, when magic happened, and she had shown up not far from here. Grandmother and Quatie had been friends. Quatie was obviously ill, fading. She needed help, and Grandmother had come to make sure I gave it to her. She’d led me to Quatie and then disappeared. I doubted I’d see the wolf again.

  Which was fine with me. Messenger wolves were spooky, even if they were Grandma in disguise. Too Little Red Riding Hood for my comfort.

  “I’ll walk you home,” I said.

  “No need, child. I come out here every night for a little exercise before bed.”

  I frowned. What if she fell and broke a hip? She could be on the ground for days, weeks, before anyone found her. We might not have wolves, but we had bears. They’d love to come across a crippled little old lady buffet in the forest.

  “Don’t you have any relatives who could stay with you?” Despite her protest, I walked with her in the direction of her cabin.

  “Why would anyone want to stay with me out here?” She patted my arm again. “And I’m not leaving. The place belonged to my own great-grandmother. My children are in their seventies, their children in their fifties.” She waved an arthritic hand as if to say, And so on. “No one wants to spend time with an old woman who has no indoor plumbing.”

  “I do,” I said.

  “No, you don’t.”

  She appeared almost scared, or maybe just embarrassed. I was the one who should be embarrassed. My great-grandmother had asked me to check on Quatie, and I’d done a shit-poor job. No wonder my e-li-si had come from the Darkening Land in the guise of a wolf. I was lucky she hadn’t ripped me limb from limb. If a spirit wolf even could.

  We reached Quatie’s cabin. Though the building lacked certain amenities, like plumbing and a furnace, it possessed a good foundation, a solid roof, and weathered log walls, which had been chinked recently. The place appeared cozy, friendly, warm.

  I caught a whiff of tobacco. Had Quatie walked into the woods to smoke? Why, when she lived alone? Perhaps she’d been performing a ritual. Many of the Cherokee spells involved blowing smoke to the four directions.

  I didn’t ask what she’d been doing. Some spells were secret, known only to the one who’d invented or inherited them. These were sacred and could be ruined just by talking about them.

  The place was the same as I remembered—one room that served as a bedroom, sitting room, and kitchen. What more did Quatie really need? Scattered across every surface were papers scrawled dark with the Cherokee alphabet.

  Quatie and my great-grandmother had always conversed in Cherokee and written everything that needed to be written the same. They’d both been terrified that the language would be lost.

  “Quatie, could you teach me Cherokee?”

  That would kill two birds with one stone; I’d learn the language and I’d be able to keep an eye on her.

  “No, Gracie.”

  I blinked, stunned. I hadn’t expected her to refuse.

  “My eyes are going. I can barely read the books. My hand shakes too much to write anymore, and I’m just too tired and impatient to teach.”

  “Oh,” I said, my voice faint with disappointment.

  “You know more than you think. From the day you were born, Rose spoke to you in our language. If you let yourself, you will remember.”

  I had my doubts, but I nodded anyway.

  “I’d better get back,” I said. “Let you sleep.”

  “I don’t sleep much anymore, but I think I will lie down. That walk nearly did me in.”

  “Maybe you should take it a little easier. What if you fell out there?”

  “Then I fall.”

  “And if you fall and die?”

  “Better to die against the earth, beneath my brother the moon and a hundred thousand nakwisis, than to fade away hidden from the sun.”

  “Nakwisis,” I said softly. “Stars.”

  “You do remember.”

  I wasn’t sure if I remembered or if I’d just figured it out from the context. Regardless, I liked how knowing the word made me feel. As if I’d connected to my past and in doing so made possible a brighter future.

  “You’re taking good care of her papers, aren’t you?” Quatie asked.

  “Of course.” They were irreplaceable—in both emotional value and ancient lore.

  “They’re in a safe place?”

  “Very.”

  I thought of the false bottom in the right-hand drawer of my father’s desk—the one I’d only learned about from his lawyer after he’d died. In it I’d found all the pictures of my mother that had disappeared soon after she’d died. Now the photos were in my bedroom and my great-grandmother’s papers were in the drawer.

  “I’ll come back in a few days,” I said. “Is there anything you’d like me to bring for you?”

  “I hear there’s a new doctor in town.”

  The gossip grapevine never ceased to amaze me. The proof of its far-reaching voice also soothed my guilt just a little. If Quatie was getting the news that quickly, then she was in contact with townsfolk other than me, and if there’d been anything seriously wrong up here, I’d have heard about it just as fast.

  “There is a new doctor.”

  “He knows the old ways?”

  “So he says.”

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  “Are you ill?”

  Her lips quirked. “Child, I’m old.”

  “You’ve never seen a doctor before.” Or at least I didn’t think she had.

  “Rose took care of me. Her cures were all I needed. But since she’s been gone, I’ve just made do. I’d like to hear what this young man has to say.”

  “I’m sure that could be arranged. I’ll bring him with me the next time I come.”

  Quatie’s eyes brightened. “He’ll come here?”

  “Of course.” There w
as no way Ian would make an arthritic old woman come to see him. I didn’t know him well, but I knew that much.

  “That would be lovely.”

  “No problem.”

  Quatie shifted in her chair and her mouth tightened with pain.

  “You’re sure you’re going to be all right?”

  “I’ll be fine, Gracie, and my great-great-granddaughter is coming soon.”

  “Really? When?”

  She glanced out the window. “Hard to say.”

  I had the feeling there was no great-great-granddaughter, or at least not one who was coming to visit. Quatie just didn’t want to burden me.

  I’d come back in a few days with Ian. Who knows? Maybe that would be all it would take to keep Grandmother in the Darkening Land and off my back porch.

  Chapter 13

  I returned to my house without incident. No wolf in the woods. No bats in the belfry. No messages on my voice mail. A good night.

  Nevertheless, I slept badly—my dreams full of Ian Walker’s body entwined with mine, wolves howling somewhere in the darkness, and the whisper of words in Cherokee that I could almost, but not quite, understand.

  The shriek of a diving bird woke me to a misty dawn. I sat straight up in bed clutching my chest, my breathing too hard and fast, so that at first I didn’t realize the shriek was nothing more sinister than my phone.

  I snatched it up. “McDaniel.”

  “Having trouble with the wildlife again, Sheriff?”

  I recognized the voice at once because it made the hairs on the back of my neck lift like the ruff of a dog. “Dr. Hanover, what an unpleasant surprise.”

  Malachi had been right. If I waited too long to contact the Jäager-Suchers, they’d just contact me. Or worse, show up.

  “Are you in town?” I asked.

  “If I were in town, I’d knock on your door, or perhaps break it in.”

  She could, too. Dr. Elise Hanover was both a virologist and a werewolf.

  According to everyone who knew her, she was “different,” a werewolf that wasn’t evil, as long as she took her medicine—a serum she’d devised to keep the blood-lust at bay. Though she was able to cure some of those afflicted with lycanthropy, she’d never been able to cure herself. I would have felt sorry for her if she didn’t irritate me at every opportunity.