“Oh, for sweet pity’s sake,” I said in a normal enough voice that the shock of it sent racking coughs through my body. When I finally undoubled—and doubling up to cough while suspended by your feet is not something to be recommended—the coyote was watching me with his head cocked very slightly to the side. Exactly like my coyote, only much, much bigger, metaphysically speaking. “I honor you,” I grated. My throat tasted like I’d swallowed a cup full of iron filaments. It was a flavor I associated with running, and it made bile splash in my stomach.

Coyote tilted his head the other way, looking amused. I wrinkled my eyes shut, trying to think of what I’d said, and if it had been wrong. “You honor me?” I tried. “How can I honor you?” I opened one eye. Coyote still looked amused. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, what do you want? Nobody ever gave me lessons in talking to archetypes, but honestly, I respect the shit out of you and I’d really like to go home now, please.”

Coyote barked and snapped his teeth, which looked very large and very white and very much like Little Red Riding Jo should stay far away from them. I swore I could hear the dried earth crackling and breaking apart when he snapped his teeth together. “I’ve already been eaten once recently. You don’t have to do it again. Really.” I cranked my head up, wondering if the thunderbird might fall out of the sky and rescue me.

It didn’t. I let my head drop back down and sighed. At least with Coyote for company I’d regained some equilibrium. “What do you want from me?” I asked again, more subdued.

Coyote—I was going to have to find something else to call my coyote; after this, calling him Coyote would be like calling a mountain lion “kitty”—Coyote leaned forward until my eyes crossed, and put the slope of his forehead against mine.

Fragments of memory shot through my brain, sharp as shrapnel.

Sara Buchanan’s angry eyes, blaming me for a decision that already terrified me.

A desolate garden coming to life.

A dark-haired woman with a silver choker and a ready laugh.

Dusty highway roads stretching in front and in back of us as far as I could see. My father, slender-shouldered, quiet and thoughtful, tapping out a tune against the steering wheel. I didn’t know where we were going, didn’t recognize where we might’ve been. The story of my childhood, never belonging, in a more literal sense than most lonely kids feel. A bitterness old enough to feel tired filled my throat. I turned my head away from Coyote, dry spitting the taste of resentment from my mouth.

The images blasted on, undeterred by breaking contact with Coyote.

A baby boy, his sister too small to live.

Getting off a plane in Dublin, searching for features that might be at all like mine. Not finding them, even when the mother I didn’t know touched my arm and asked, “Siobhàn?”

SIOBHÀN

I flinched so hard my whole body cramped up. My name thundered through the recesses of my mind again, echoing and slamming against the inside of my head. I doubled again, trying to twist my arms around somehow to protect myself from the huge sound. My ownname tore at me, pulling images from beneath my skin, faster, like tenterhooks with no regard for pain.

—a tunnel of darkness leading into somewhere I was afraid of, astral lights bluing the path—

—a beautiful man, high-cheek boned and grim-mouthed standing with a gun to my head—

—a horned god standing over me, sword lifted for a killing blow—

—Morrison, white with pain, shouting at me—

—Gary grinning over his shoulder at me, pulling away from the airport in his cab, apparently driving by use of the Force—

—a thin scar on my right cheek, running from my eye to just below the corner of my mouth—

—tearing across flat earth in Petite, the speedometer clocking over a hundred and forty—

—a banshee’s head held in my hand, dangling from its hair—

—bone-wearying exhaustion, like sleep had come to weigh on me with all its strength—

—a baby boy, his sister too small to live—

—a diploma, the name I’d abandoned written on it: Joanne Walkingstick—

WALKINGSTICK.

I began to scream.

—a race against the Wild Hunt—a snake’s bright black eyes, staring at me—a kiss I’d waited years to taste—a graveyard with a new marker, and me on my knees beside it—another grave—another—a bewildered child wailed and flung herself at coffin-bearing men—me, squalling and waving angry red fists in the air, a man’s brogue saying, “And there she is, our wee Siobhàn, welcome, alanna, welcome,” as he lifted me into the air—and another voice, one I knew somewhere in my bones, saying, “Already?” before my own voice, cracked with age or pain, replied, “It had to happen sometime,” and coldness settled over me—a dark-haired teenage boy, expression neutral and calm—a cauldron bubbling with the stench of death—a raven with a woman’s eyes—a mantis, preying—a baby boy, his sister too small to live!

“STOP IT!” My eyes flew open and I thrust Coyote away with everything I had, all my heart put into the rejection. He exploded in a burst of white that seared my eyeballs, pain so intense I thought I could feel the nerves sizzling and spitting into decay. I flew backward from the force of the blast, driven farther by the strength of my own pain and fury, and slammed back into the Lower World so hard I jolted over backward. The snake that encircled me lifted its head and spat with annoyance, then slithered out from under me to coil itself tall beside Judy. My eyes burned as I sat up again, holding my head and squinting at them. The light still dazzled my eyes, and the two of them were inversed, their black eyes glowing white. Judy’s skin was black and almost featureless, like shadows had come to live on it, and the snake’s scaled hide spun between purples and dark greens. I swallowed down nausea and turned my head away, looking for something that was a normal color.

The sky provided; it was deep cerulean, almost too dark for nature, but less disturbing than Judy’s shadowy skin. Only when my gaze went to the sun did I realize that it was black, too, and that in the Lower World the sky should be crimson, not blue. I pressed the heels of my hands over my eyes and shuddered. “I have to go back.” My voice still sounded parched to my own ears, and I didn’t want to look at Judy to see if her expression said I sounded odd to her, too. “…snake, will you come with me?” I didn’t know how to address it, and I didn’t want to look at its swimming patterns, either. It hissed with ill-concealed annoyance, but slithered forward and climbed up my body to wrap around my shoulders. “Thank you,” I whispered, grateful to not have to look at it. My hands pressed against my eyes were making sparks that reminded me: “Where’s—”

I didn’t finish the question before I felt the presence I was looking for. The tortoise appeared behind my eyelids again, its colors bright and proper, unlike everything around me. “There you are,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

It bobbed its head agreeably and I swallowed against sickness again. The snake wanted me to carry it on my shoulders, but the tortoise seemed satisfied to come along for the ride behind my eyelids. “Tomorrow,” I grated at Judy. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

I couldn’t close my eyes any harder, but I tried, and fell upward through my bellybutton back home.