Spiritwalk (18 page)

“So we have to wait until she rises again tonight?”

Esmeralda shook her head. “We wait until we’re born again.” Or at least Emma would. Present as she was in her corporeal form, Esmeralda didn’t know what would become of herself in this place.

“You go on without me then,” Emma said.

“You’re not listening—I said we’re both staying here. It’s no longer in our hands now.”

“Esmeralda, I don’t want you to sacrifice your life just because of my mistakes.”

“I made my choice,” Esmeralda said. “Just as you made yours.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about the time limit right away?”

“You had to come with me because
you
wanted to—not out of some sense of allegiance to me or anyone else—and I couldn’t leave without you. I accepted that when I chose to come.”

Emma sank to her knees by the riverbank, not caring that she knelt in mud. “I’ve really done it this time, haven’t I? Only now I’ve dragged you down with me.”

“Emma, I wanted to come. I told you, I had something to learn on this journey as well.”

“Only trouble is, whatever we’ve learned, we’ve both learned it too late.”

Esmeralda sat on the grass near where Emma knelt. “At least we’re together,” she said. “I don’t regret coming. I’ve missed you, Emma.”

“I’ve missed you, too. I...” She broke off, head cocked as though she heard something.

“What is it?”

“Listen.”

Then Esmeralda heard it, too. Drumming. So faint as to be almost inaudible.

“Spirit drumming,” she said.

Emma nodded. “But not just any spirit drumming—can’t you hear it? Something’s calling to us.”

Esmeralda’s winds stirred as hope lifted inside her. “The old man,” she said. “It has to be him. The shaman in the glade who brought Grandmother Toad to me.”

“He brought her to me as well,” Emma said. “I was too scared to go on the path by myself, but then she came to help me. Can you understand what he’s saying?”

Esmeralda shook her head.

“I can,” Emma said. “The wood of his drum’s translating it for me. It’s saying, ’Follow me home, lost spirits.’”

“I don’t know. Grandmother Toad said—”

“Who’s giving up now?” Emma asked. “We can at least try, can’t we? Come on, Esmeralda. Get in the canoe.”

Esmeralda looked at the river, where the mists now lay so thick that it was impossible to see more than a few yards into them. She let her winds rise up to sweep the heavy haze away, but they made no difference. If anything, the mists deepened.

“You get in the front,” Emma said, “and I’ll steer.”

Esmeralda could sense the familiarity of the drumming, hear the old man’s voice in its faint tone, but she could perceive no sense of direction from it. Yet if Emma could...

She got into the bow of the canoe. Emma shoved off and jumped aboard, the canoe swaying dangerously, then slowly settling in the water. They each took a paddle and dipped them in the river’s still water, propelling the craft forward.

In moments the mists had swallowed them, so thick now that Emma couldn’t see her companion anymore. But she could hear the drum. Its sound cast a thread that she held firmly with her mind. She was determined to follow it home. Esmeralda had shown her the importance of persevering, by her selfless loyalty as much as by her logic.

But now the water grew rougher. From a calm, slow-moving surface, it became abruptly violent. The canoe lurched in the turbulence. Sudden eddies spun them in circles, huge jutting rocks rose up out of nowhere. Esmeralda pushed the canoe away from the rocks with her paddle until the paddle snapped. Water sprayed over them and it was all Emma could do to steer a clear way. Then a wave, bigger than any other, rose up in front of them, lunging at them like a behemoth exploding from the mists.

“Esmeralda!” Emma cried.

As the wave crashed down upon them she threw herself forward to grip her friend’s hand; then they were washed out of the canoe and dropped into a spinning maelstrom of dark rushing water. Emma held on to Esmeralda’s hand with a strength born of desperation. She fought the urge to breathe in a lungful of water, and concentrated on finding the thread of drumming once more. She knew it was still there, sounding inside her on a spirit level for all that its physical presence had long since been drowned by the violence of the sudden storm on the river. When she finally snared it, she held on to it just as desperately as she did Esmeralda’s hand.

Imagining it to be a fishing line, she hauled them along its length, away from the river’s depths, away into the outer spirit realms to where an old man was drumming their rescue.

4

The creature struck, moving like lightning, but fear lent Judy the speed to dodge the full impact of its blow. Still, its glancing force was enough to make her lose her balance and go stumbling toward the pine. The leather of her jacket burned where the creature’s saliva had touched it—the heat searing her skin. Off-balance as well from the impetus of his swing, the creature recovered only moments after Judy.

She was running for the barrier, hand outstretched to wipe away the ribbon supporting it, when the creature brought her down. The stink of burning leather arose again, followed by a reeking wave of the creature’s heavy body odor. The force of its grip on either arm hurt as much as the heat that was now burning through her jacket to sear her skin.

The creature started to turn her over, but then its weight suddenly left her body.

She rolled free to see that Blue had jumped down from the branch and pulled the creature off, heaving it to one side. She scrabbled out of the way as it rose to its feet to face Blue. She reached the barrier, finding it by feel. Using the elbow of her jacket, she broke the solidity of the phosphorescent ribbon. When she tried the barrier again, it was gone.

“Got something!” she heard someone call on the far side of the glade—Hacker or Ernie, she wasn’t sure which and she didn’t have time to go look.

“Over here!” she cried and then she went after the shotgun.

Behind her, the creature charged Blue. It came at him, arms widespread to clasp him in a bear hug. Blue dodged, moving fast, but the creature was faster. It caught Blue by one arm and threw him toward the trunk of the pine.

Blue hit hard, the sleeve of his jacket burning, his arm feeling like it was on fire, head ringing. The creature spat at him and he dodged the saliva, hearing its burning hiss as it splattered on the bark beside his head. As the creature charged him again, he rose to meet its attack.

Judy arrived with the shotgun, but the two combatants were too close to each other now for her to chance a shot. All she could do was stand helplessly by as they grappled.

5

Emma allowed her mind to focus on only two things: the grip she had of Esmeralda’s hand and the thread of drumming that was their only chance of escaping Epanggishimuk now that Grandmother Toad’s protection was withdrawn with the setting of the moon in the Outer World. She followed the thread, drawing them out of the maelstrom of the river to the flat rock of an island that jutted from its turbulent waters.

Waves crashed against the shore, rising high, but not high enough to wash them off. Esmeralda’s winds blew them back. They lay on the hard stone like a pair of bedraggled cats, gasping for breath. The mists thickened around them, making an impenetrable wall of haze.

“Where... where are we?” Esmeralda asked as she finally caught her breath.

She had lost her shoes in the water, but worse, she’d lost her shoulder bag with its fetishes and charms. She sat up and peeled off her socks, sticking them in the pockets of her borrowed jacket.

“We haven’t left the inner realms,” Emma said.

“The drumming?”

“I can still hear it—but it’s faint.”

Esmeralda looked out at the mists. Waves continued to crash against the rocks, spraying them. What little they could see of the river beyond the rock was a storm of spinning waters.

“We’ll have to go back in the river,” she said. “We have to cross it to get out.”

Emma nodded dully. Her head ached from the strain of bringing them this far on the threads of the drumming. But the longer they sat here, the fainter the drumming grew.

“I’m not giving up,” she said.

Esmeralda smiled at her. “That’s the Emma I remember—welcome back.”

Emma wrung the water from her hair, but a new wave rose up and the spray that wasn’t driven back by Esmeralda’s winds soaked her again.

“Time to go,” she said.

They helped each other stand and stood with their arms around each other’s waists to keep their balance. The thread of drumming sounded suddenly louder, but then Emma realized that it was coming out of the mist. A new drumming. Not the thread that had been leading them home.

“Esmeralda...” she began, but she didn’t need to speak.

The heads of two enormous serpents rose out of the water. They had huge eyes, round as moons. One was black, the roof of its head capped with antlers. The other was white, its brow smooth. The new sound of the spirit drums that accompanied the creatures joined the rhythm of the drumming that they had been following.

“Mishiginebek,” Emma breathed. The drumming whispered the name of the serpents to her. Mishiginebek lived to punish those who mocked the manitou, who used their medicine for evil, by devouring their souls after death.

I’ve mocked the spirits, Emma thought. I refused to believe in them, refused to accept their reality.

The great beasts watched them with unblinking gazes, unmoved by the storm of waters from which they rose. Emma shuddered at the forked tongues that flickered from their mouths. She could already feel the convulsive motion of their throats, drawing Esmeralda and her down into their bellies....

Esmeralda stepped forward, drawing Emma with her.

“No,” Emma protested.

“They’re here to help us,” Esmeralda said. “Don’t you see? The shaman sent them.”

And then Emma saw an image of the old medicine man in each of their eyes. She couldn’t read the sign language his hands were shaping, but the drumming told her what Esmeralda could read. The serpents were his patrons, as the Black Duck was his totem. They had come, summoned by his water drum to help them.

Emma turned away to look at her companion; then the two of them held hands and jumped into the roaring waters.

6

When the creature spat at Blue’s face, Judy thought her heart would stop. But Blue turned his head just enough so that the gob of saliva went by his ear. His cheek and hair smoked from its accompanying spray. The pain was enough to lend him the strength to wrench himself free. Judy brought up the shotgun, now that she had a clear shot, but suddenly Ernie was there, his tire iron upraised, then flashing down.

It bit into the creature’s head with a wet popping sound, breaking through the bone of the creature’s skull. Blood sprayed and the creature dropped to its knees. Before it could rise, Hacker was there as well and the two men each hit the creature again. When they stood back, it lay still on the ground between them. Judy stepped forward and fired a shot into its chest for good measure.

“Jesus, Jesus,” Ernie was saying, staring down at the thing. “What the fuck is it?”

Blue wiped the side of his head with a sleeve of his jacket and stepped slowly forward. His cheek was pocked with red burns.

“It’s dead,” he said flatly. “That’s all it is.”

“Are there more of them?” Hacker asked.

“There were the last time.”

“Great.”

But Blue wasn’t listening anymore. He turned his back on the dead creature and went on down the hollow to where Emma lay on the gray stone. Judy fed another shell into the shotgun and trailed along behind him. When she reached the stone, Blue was trying to wipe the glowing symbols from Emma’s face. Whatever they had been painted on with wouldn’t come off.

“God, she’s so still,” Judy said.

“Is she dead?” Hacker asked, coming up behind her.

Blue shook his head numbly. “Jesus, man. I just don’t know.”

He put his head to her chest and heard the faint sound of a heartbeat.

“She’s alive!”

He started to gather her up in his arms.

“Should you be moving her like that?” Ernie asked.

Blue just looked at him like he was crazy. “We’ve got to get her to a hospital,” he said.

He hoisted her up, but then Judy touched his arm.

“Look,” she said, pointing to just beyond the stone.

A pair of pale shapes stood there, ill-defined so that their features couldn’t be made out, but human shapes all the same.

7

The serpents bore them out of the river, up into the sky to where the mists were deepest. The spirit drums spoke like thunder all around them. As their bodies were borne by the twin beasts, they lost all sense of physical awareness and seemed to be drifting in a gray place. For their spirits, motion had ceased. The trees of a ghostly forest rose all around them. Seated directly before them was the old shaman. He, too, seemed to be made of mist. He looked up at them, ghostly hands leaving the skin of his water drum.

Welcome
,
manitou
, he signed to them.

As she took in their surroundings, Esmeralda’s thoughts turned to the Weirdin that she’d read in Jamie’s study. Three old bones, drawn from their bag. A future told in their carved faces. That moment seemed like a hundred years ago now. But she could still see them as though they lay in her palm.

The Forest. A place of testing an unknown peril.

She and Emma had been tested and known peril tonight.

The Acorn, or Hazelnut. For hidden wisdom and friendship.

They’d both found wisdom and deepened their friendship.

And the last bone? She looked at the old shaman.

Among certain tribes a man did not speak his own name, so she couldn’t ask their benefactor his, and there was no third party present to speak it for him. But there was still one Weirdin unaccounted for, and she thought she knew now both its meaning and their benefactor’s name.

She let go of Emma’s hand and faced the shaman. Extending her arms, she waved her hands in imitation of the beating of wings, palms down, fingers outstretched. Then she brought her right hand near her nose, curving it slightly to suggest a bird’s beak.