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“You’re right, he was handsome.”
Donja frowned. “Lying is just as bad,” and though she tried to be serious, they both laughed.
“What address did he give you?” Malaya asked.
Donja passed it to her, eyes on a huge ship traversing the locks. Makayla scanned it while they walked. “Wow, this is in the territorial district. That’s probably fifty miles the other side of the big Soo.”
“Can’t be helped. I’ve got to find a Midewiwin who can cast protective spells.”
“Spells?” Makayla simpered. “That sounds like a witchdoctor.”
“It’s a medicine man,” Donja scowled.
“Do you really believe in this stuff?”
“My grandma believed, that’s good enough for me.”
~~~
Forty-eight miles past the Canadian Soo, Donja, with the windows down and the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s, ‘Bad Blood’ all but drowned by road noise, sipped Mountain Dew while Makayla sang along.
“Could you change that CD?” Donja asked. “How about The Cure?”
“No problem,” Makayla said.
“You’re starting to like my music, aren’t you?” Donja teased.
“Hmm, some.”
Passing a road sign which was the first she had seen in the last twenty miles, Donja braked hard on the two-lane asphalt, tires squealing. She flipped the stick into reverse and backed up on the deserted road, then glanced to the address given by the professor.
“This has got to be it.”
She turned right on to the dirt road with a plume of dust flying behind. She drove for endless miles through forested land, not a house in sight. Frustrated, she was just about to abandon the quest when she saw a mailbox. She glanced at the address on the notepad, then pulled into a dirt drive which was only about ten feet long. She got out as Makayla slammed her door and came around the front of the Mustang. “Is this the right address?”
“Yep, this is it.”
“So, where’s the house?” she asked suspiciously.
“There,” Donja said pointing to a beat out path with horse hooves and motorcycle tracks in the sandy sod. “That’s got to be the way.”
They followed the cow trail into a thick forest.
“Donja, there are bears in these woods,” Makayla breathed nervously. “We better go back.”
“Just hold on,” Donja said climbing a sandy hill. “There it is!” she pointed.
Makayla joined her side and observed a small rundown shack with a rusted tin roof.
“Come on,” Donja said, trudging in the sand. They crossed a crude bridge crafted of logs over a babbling brook and meandered through a spruce-filled meadow. Nearing the dilapidated shack, Donja saw horses grazing. Suddenly, an old yellow dog came running out barking an alarm.
“I don’t like this,” Makayla frowned.
“Let’s just check it out.”
Nearing the structure with the windows covered in plastic, the old dog ran around them in circles, yapping. Donja saw an elderly man, obviously of Indian descent standing in the doorway. His hair was long and gray, his skin wrinkled and loose with dark eyes and bushy brows in need of a trim.
“I’m Donja Bellanger,” she said as a young man, perhaps twenty came from around the house, dressed in jeans and a dirty white T-shirt with a motorcycle helmet in his hand.
