CHAPTER 14

Sunday, June 19, 6:00 a.m.

I wasn’t early. I wasn’t late, either, but I wasn’t early. My garden was as hazy as I was, fog rolling through it. The trees were all budded with brand-new leaves, visible if I looked straight at them and a green, unfocused blur if I looked away even a fraction of an inch. On the one hand, the whole new life symbolism of the budding branches seemed like a good one. On the other, it seemed likely that the blooming trees were more going for the fuzzy greenness than making a statement about my psychic preparedness for a new day. I yawned so hard my eyes teared up and I toppled over on my side. Judy sniffed in disapproval this time. “The weariness of the body should be left behind, Joanne.”

“You’ll have to teach me how to do that.” I pushed myself upright again, still yawning until my vision sparkled and blurred. “And what is this with Joanne, Joanne, Joanne all the time. Everybody’s all formal.” I’d gotten used to Gary calling me Jo, a name I never thought I’d like. For a few seconds an image of my father glittered in my tears: watchful almond eyes with neither patience nor humor in them. He called me Jo, like he wanted a boy if he wanted a child at all.

I blinked away tears and visions alike. Judy’s eyebrows were lifted. “Is there something else you’d rather be called?”

I studied her for a few seconds, gauging my response to that and to her. “No. Joanne’s fine.” Even Joanie, which most people called me, seemed a little more personal than I wanted to get with Judy just yet. “Let’s get started. There’s a lot to do this morning.”

Judy smiled. “So there is. Is there someone specific you’d like to do a spirit quest for?”

“A couple people. Do I have to tell you who?” My recalcitrance surprised me, but it surprised Judy more. Her eyebrows darted up again.

“Not if you don’t want to. It’ll make it harder for me to help guide you.”

I held my breath, staring at her for a while. “All right. One of them’s a kid named Colin. He’s a cancer patient, a friend of mine’s brother.” Friend. I’d known Garth two days and doubted I’d ever see him again after the solstice. If that constituted a friend, I needed a lot of work on my interpersonal relationships.

Not that that was really much of a surprise.

“And the other?”

I found myself holding my breath again. “Let’s start with Colin. He’s pretty sick.” Gary was my friend, and I felt a gut-deep reluctance to invite Judy along to guide me to finding a spirit animal for him. I’d screwed up all on my own with Gary, as far as I was concerned. I was going to find a way to help him on my own, too. It wasn’t the right shamanistic spirit, but despite that, it felt right. My heart hurt, tiny sharp beats that made breathing hard. I shook my head, an attempt at literally shaking the feeling off. “Colin first.”

I was getting good at plunging into the Lower World. This time I went through my little garden pond, too impatient to take a slow burrow through the earth. Cold gray water surrounded me, my lungs burning although I knew if I needed to I could draw a breath and not drown. Doing so seemed like cheating somehow. I thought the price of gasping to the surface was only the first step I should take toward finding a healing place.

I burst up through the earth, rich loam splattering every which way, as if it were water. I planted my hands in the dirt, treating it like a lakeshore, and pulled myself out of the ground, neither wet nor mud-encrusted. Maybe, just maybe, I was getting a little better at this. Judy appeared at my side, having taken a different path to the Lower World, and nodded with what I thought might be faint approval.

This time I didn’t need to be told to draw a power circle. The sun was already high, burning very close to us in the red sky. I greeted it without even feeling ridiculous, and bowed in each direction, asking for guidance and protection in my quest. Judy settled down beside me in the circle, looking pleased.

“It’s not unlike doing a search for yourself,” she said as I sat down. “But rather than asking for the spirits to come and guide you, think of your friend Colin. Ask for the help of any who will come. Focus on him.” She lifted a drum I hadn’t seen her carrying and began to beat a rhythmic tang. I took a deep breath and let my eyes close, wondering if there was a difference between sleeping and trances in the Lower World.

The too-close sun bore a bright spot through my closed eyes, making my eyelids burn a brighter crimson than the sky. I built an image of Colin around that brilliance, turning the whiteness into his fair hair and remembering the hollowness of his eyes beneath it. The darkness around the image felt cloying and sticky, as if his sickness affected the picture I had in my mind. It was uncomfortable, like picking my feet up and slogging through tar, but I’d made a promise. More, I wanted to help him. Maybe needed to.

Please. Making a word of the need startled me.He’s just a kid, and his strength is almost gone. If there’s anyone who’s willing to lend him your strength, I’ll guide you to him. He’s a good kid. I felt the heat of tears press through my eyelashes and swallowed against them.Please, I said again, then drew a sharp breath, trying to settle my thoughts into silence.

Not thinking was harder than it sounded. Judy’s drum helped, the beat mixing with my heartbeat and filling my blood with hope. The sunspot in my eyelids drifted up, then away, telling me that time passed. Comforting blackness wrapped around me, the drum as its pulse. The thickness of the dark stayed with me, until I couldn’t feel myself breathing anymore. I took a deeper breath, trying to make my lungs and ribs expand so much that I couldn’t help but feel them, and instead I lost Colin’s image from my mind. Retrieving it was slow work, pulling it from the sticky darkness piece by piece.

I didn’t know why I opened my eyes: nothing that I could sense on any physical level had changed. But I did, and found a massive serpent coiled inside the power circle, its blunt nose mere inches from my hooked one. It had the same bright black eyes as its predecessor, watching me with deadly calm. My heart lurched, making a pit of sickness in my stomach.

“You ssseek,” it murmured. “I anssswer.”

Did it have to be a snake? I tried to keep the thought stuffed deep in my brain where no one, particularly the snake, could hear it. Its flat expression didn’t change and I let out a relieved breath. “Thank you.”Snakes are a symbol of healing, I reminded myself.This is a goodsign. I kept that thought stuffed deep in my brain, too. “Judy?” My voice had only the slightest quaver to it. I was proud of myself. “How come it’sinside the circle?”

“To bring its power back to your friend, it has to become a part of you,” Judy said with a trace of impatience. “You’re a conduit, Joanne. How on earth did you manage to make it this far with so little education?”

Heat crept up my cheeks. Iknew shamans were conduits. I’d invited the snake in to the power circle with my thoughts. How else did I expect to guide it to Colin? “Sorry,” I muttered, still scarlet. “I knew that.”

To the snake, I said, “I’m not with the one who needs your help. Will you let me carry you to him?” I put out an arm, trying not to notice the goose bumps that shivered up my skin as I made the offer. The snake ducked its head, flicking its tongue over the fine hairs on my arm. Then it shot forward, putting its head over my shoulder. I gathered it up as carefully as I could, settling its weight over both my shoulders. It slithered down my right arm, coiling around it, and as I lifted its tail, that coiled around me, too. The thing was at least as tall as I was, powerful muscles bunching and releasing against my skin. I fought down terror for a few seconds, trying desperately to remind myself that it was there to help. Its weight was enough that I considered stopping for the day right there, and simply heading back to the real world so I could deliver the snake’s strength to Colin.