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“There is no past, present, or future here. Time is irrelevant.”
“So that…” I pointed to my battered visage. “…is happening to me now?”
“Yes,” he said sadly, his voice no longer in my head. The large black wolf shook his head. “You are strong, child. You are brave.”
I looked at the helpless version of myself. “I don’t feel it.”
“Fear is not weakness. Fear keeps you alive. Weakness is a failure to act because of fear. This is not the case with you.”
Enduring my torture had been wretched, but I imagined it must have been awful to watch.
“It is.” Brother Wolf rubbed his muzzle against mine.
I forgot this wasn’t a memory for him. Just as I was beside him in theaether, I was also, for him, still in the cage.
Across the meadow, movement caught my eye. A coyote ran across the field, his body blurring and blinking as if it struggled to keep form.
“Who is that?” I asked
“A visitor.”
“To what purpose?”
“His own, I suppose. He has come in his upright form many times, but lately, he transforms into coyote when he approaches.”
I was curious how many of us could communicate with the guardians. “Is he like me? A spirit talker?”
“He has made himself one.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is not mine. I know nothing more.”
The scenery around me began to blink, to fade. The girl I’d been only a year ago disappeared. I wanted to reach out to her, to comfort her, to tell her that help was coming. She knew it was on the way.
I mean, I knew it.
I didn’t have to go back to be saved. A flickering of images staggered me. Fur, blood, exposed muscle. A curved blade used with surgical precision. The strong scent of sassafras. Someone chanted. I tried to raise my hands to my ears, but I couldn’t move. Was I paralyzed? Had they found me again? Had I been taken?
The star. The eight-point star. Not made of twigs. Not mine.
It covered the naked back of the killer. He stopped mid-slice. And pivoted slowly to stare at the place where I watched. Only, he didn’t have a face. Not a human one. Oh my God. If this was a dream, I wanted to wake up.
“Chavvah!” The rough shaking of my shoulders roused me. “Chavvah!” It was Billy Bob. He and Sunny were crouched over me, and I was on the floor blinking up at them.
I screamed as I sat up. I tried with all my might to stop picturing what I had just seen. It could have been me. “Oh, God.” I shook my head when Billy Bob tried to help me up. “His face. It was a black bear face, but it wasn’t his. Christ. He wore Mike like a second skin.”
“I know,” Sunny said.
I looked at her then and saw my own horror reflected in her eyes. I’d always thought it would be cool to have her psychic ability, but now… “How do you live with that, Sunny? How?”
My hair stuck to my sweaty cheeks, and Sunny brushed it away from my eyes with her fingers. “I get up in the morning, brush my teeth, wash my face, and maybe have breakfast.” I appreciated her efforts toward humor, but her bleak smile said how she really felt. “It’s not bad all the time. You know that, Chav.”
Billy Bob lifted me then. “No more of that,” he said.
“Agreed.” I was in no hurry to see visions or visit the spirit world again.
“Tell him about the star,” Sunny said.
