Fire And Ash

by Nia Davenport

  “Then why just appear to Daniella and not try to kill her too? And why appear in Trey’s skin instead of as a wolf like he did with the rest of his victims?” Derek asks.

  “We don’t know that it appeared as a wolf to them at first. Maybe it appeared as something else or someone else—whatever it needed to to lure them into a trap. Camille doesn’t strike me as the type who would get out of her car to attempt to change a flat tire on the side of the road. It’s more likely she would call someone and wait for help inside of it. And why would Trey just wander off into the trees by himself? Cordero said skinwalkers can shapeshift into the skin of whatever they have previously killed. It might be that the wolf is just the default form it shifts into to make its kills. ”

  “Then why appear to us as just a wolf?” Derek asks.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it never meant to lure and then kill us. Cordero said skinwalkers are powerful Navajo priests who use their powers for evil. Those powers could include them being able to sense other supernatural things and its aim was to eliminate the potential threat we posed.”

  Derek’s already dark eyes grow darker with the shadows that move behind them. “We need to figure out how to kill the fucker like yesterday.”

  “I agree,” I say. “But unfortunately unless you have another way we can figure that out we’re going to have to wait until Daniella can visit her grandmother at Bellhaven on Friday. And even then we might turn up empty handed. There’s no guarantee that she knows of a way or that if she does it will actually work.”

  “I’m coming with you. In case you thought you were going with her by yourself.”

  Actually, I did. It was something I could do without him thank you very much. But the set of his jaw and the dare to tell him that he isn’t in his eyes leaves very little room for me to say that.

  Old instincts prick and I open my mouth to tell him he doesn’t need to come simply out of principle alone.

  “Ash, it’s not up for debate. You’re not running around with someone a skinwalker is targeting by yourself.”

  “I can take care of myself,” I snap. My ego sufficiently bruised. We both know I am far from some damsel that needs looking after or saving.

  “I know that,” he grits out. “But I will feel better if I come.”

  I glare at him and he looks back at me unmoved.

  His eyes say I’m going. Either that or you’re not.

  I snort. My eyes say Want to bet? And you can’t tell me what to do? I.Am.Going.With.Out.You.

  It’s his turn to snort. “You can try,” he says breaking our silent argument.

  I am about to tell him exactly where he can shove that sentiment when Cassie speaks up from beside us.

  “Ash,” says quietly. “Let Derek go with you.”

  I cannot exactly name what it is, but there is something in her voice that makes me agree.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Spirit Walk

  I hear heavy footsteps, I hear a voice, I hear shouting. I bury my head beneath the blanket. The shouting is coming from the same source that it usually does. My parents. They are fighting again. The footsteps thud down the stairs. A door slams and tires screech out of the driveway. Lighter footsteps pad down the stairs sometime later. They wake me up and I want to go to my mother now that we are alone again. Kiss the sadness off her face that I know will be there, just like I’ll do with Dad when he comes home again before the sun rises. I love both of my parents and I don’t blame either of them for their constant fighting. Even at six I understand that they are different people, moving in different directions, with different desires. Mom is not a hunter. She knew the life she was signing up for when she married Dad, but she can no longer bear the weight of it. She hasn’t been able to for two years now. Not since my cousins’ mother, her closest friend, was killed on a hunt in the park. She doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Dad or to me someday. But Dad has sworn a duty and Mom doesn’t understand why he feels so compelled to uphold it. She often yells at him that if he loves us he will leave. Dad yells back that he can’t. I wait for the footsteps to come back up the stairs. When they never do, I assume that she is sitting in the leather recliner, staring bleakly into nothingness with swollen, puffy eyes. I go in search of her and the recliner is empty. Our back door sits ajar. Our back door is never ajar. It and the front door and the basement door are always triple bolted. Especially at night when only her and I are inside. Something crawls over me warning me against going into the backyard. It whispers to go back upstairs and get back into bed. I ignore it because I know my mother is beyond that door and go outside anyway. I see something. Something that I know I shouldn’t be seeing. But my brain can’t make sense of the image. It’s fuzzy and shrouded in darkness. Then the darkness envelopes the entire scene and everything starts over from the beginning. I hear footsteps, I hear a voice, I hear shouting.

  The nightmare plays over and over again the entire night after weeks of being absent.

  I toss and turn in a restless sleep that leaves me feeling like I didn’t just sleep for eight hours when I wake up for school Friday morning. I run off of fumes as I go through the motions of my day on autopilot. I barely register what Mrs. Peters is saying about the imagery Langston Hughes uses in his poem Night Funeral in Harlem, I have no idea what Mr. Bronte says is the difference between Newton’s three laws of motion, Hamilton assigns me a detention for Monday because I fall asleep in his class and when I lean my head on Derek’s shoulder to rest my eyes for a couple of minutes I end up sleeping all through lunch. The second half of my day is worst than the first. By the time the dismissal bell rings at the end of 7th period it takes every ounce of strength I possess to force myself to my feet.

  Cassie takes the Mustang home and Derek drives my car to Bellhaven following behind Daniella.

  ******

  “My Little Bluebird!” A silver haired woman who looks to be in her fifties but springs up from her seat by the window with the oomph of a teenager greets Daniella.

  She blushes at the use of the nickname in front of us. “Hi Nana.”

  Daniella’s grandmother pulls her into a hug then kisses her on the cheek. “You brought friends today.” She smiles and Derek and me. “Please have a seat,” she motions to a pair of chairs beside her neatly made bed. “There’s only two so you’ll have to stand young man. Though I’m sure you don’t mind. You look like a proper gentleman to me.” She winks at Derek and when he smiles back her eyes come alive with merriment.

  “This is Ash and Derek,” Daniella introduces us.

  Her grandmother smiles at Derek again but peers at me. She studies me intently and I uncomfortably shift my weight from one foot to the other under her stare. It feels as if she is looking through me instead of at me.

  “Your spirit looks…drained,” she finally says after a prolonged silence. “Are you alright dear?”

  My spirit? I’m sure I do look drained after the night I had but to say my spirit appears drained is an odd way of putting it.

  “I’m alright,” I tell her. “I just had kind of a restless night.”

  She continues to look at me in that too intent way and I wish she would stop. “Vivid dreams can often drain us of more energy than the most strenuous of waking activities do. Care to tell me about yours?”

  “I would prefer not to ma’am. It’s kind of personal,” I tell her in as respectful and polite of a tone as I can.

  “Nana, my friends came with me to ask you a question. About skinwalkers.”

  Her attention diverts to Daniella. She doesn’t seem at all surprised by what she says. “I sensed why you would be coming today and I have the answer that you seek. But first I insist that your friend Ash tells me of the dream that she started dreaming ten, almost eleven years ago. Is that about right dear?”

  I take in a sharp, startled breath. I don’t know how to respond. How can this woman I have never met before possibly know the exact number of years ago the nightmare started?

  “I would
prefer-“

  Daniella’s grandmother cuts me off with a sympathetic smile. “I know what you would prefer dear, but I insist that you put your preferences aside. I am one of the only few left who can give you the information that you seek and if you wish to know it then I require your dream as payment.”

  “But your granddaughter-“

  “I know the danger my granddaughter is in,” the old woman cuts me off again. “But the knowledge of how to kill a skinwalker isn’t something that can be freely given. There are old rules I must abide by. The knowledge comes at a price and the cost of it to the three of you is you telling me of your dream.”

  I finally accept the chair she’d offered me, not sitting but sinking into it. I’ve never told the dream to anyone. Even at six I felt foolish and weak for the memory plaguing me as it did. At sixteen I feel even more so. And now Daniella’s grandmother is asking me to tell it in a room full of people. It isn’t Derek who I mind hearing it. It’s Daniella and her grandmother. I don’t know them and it is so personal.

  Derek moves next to me and squeezes my hand. “Ash, we need to know how to kill one,” he tells me gently.

  I inhale deeply and hold my breath for a beat. When I exhale I don’t think about the words I am saying, I just let them come out with the breath.

  Daniella’s grandmother takes the hand Derek isn’t holding when I am done. “Dear, it sounds as if this recurring dream consisting of the memory of that night has plagued you all these years is trying to tell you something. The darkness and the cyclical loop it plays are not unusual when a memory of events has been altered or repressed in someway. Often the darkness is masking the portion that is being repressed and the fact that it keeps reoccurring means that your spirit is trying to force your mind to recall what the darkness is blocking out. Until you do, it will keep plaguing you.”

  “No. I see darkness because I fainted when I found my mother,” I say.

  Daniella’s grandmother’s voice remains the same even and soothing tone. “Indulge an old woman if you will Ash and go on a spirit walk with me? It’s the last thing I ask and then I swear to tell you what you seek.”

  “What does that even mean?” I regard her wearily.

  She squeezes my hand gently. “It only requires that you take both of my hands and close your eyes. I and Daniella will do the rest. No harm will come to you, I swear it.”

  “I’m not worried about being harmed,” I say defensively.

  She shoots Derek a look. “No, but he is.” She holds Derek’s gaze. After a moment he nods and drops my hand.

  “May I?” She holds out her left hand for me to take.

  What the hell, I think. What can it hurt and we need to know how to kill the skinwalker.

  I place my hand in hers. “Now what?” I ask.

  “Close your eyes, remember the events of that night just as you dream them, and simply breathe.”

  I do as she requests. I hear Daniella begin to chant words I do not know. As she does the memory becomes more than me just thinking about it. It takes form in front of my eyes and I get the feeling that my consciousness is being pulled into it. Everything I sense around me— Daniella’s voice, Derek’s breathing, and the feel of her grandmother’s hands grasping mine—it all fades away.

  I hear heavy footsteps, I hear a voice, I hear shouting. I bury my head beneath the blanket. The shouting is coming from the same source that it usually does. My parents. They are fighting again. The footsteps thud down the stairs. A door slams and tires screech out of the driveway. Lighter footsteps pad down the stairs sometime later. They wake me up and I want to go to my mother now that we are alone again. Kiss the sadness off her face that I know will be there, just like I’ll do with Dad when he comes home again before the sun rises. I love both of my parents and I don’t blame either of them for their constant fighting. Even at six I understand that they are different people, moving in different directions, with different desires. Mom is not a hunter. She knew the life she was signing up for when she married Dad, but she can no longer bear the weight of it. She hasn’t been able to for two years now. Not since my cousins’ mother, her closest friend, was killed on a hunt in the park. She doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Dad or to me someday. But Dad has sworn a duty and Mom doesn’t understand why he feels so compelled to uphold it. She often yells at him that if he loves us he will leave. Dad yells back that he can’t. I wait for the footsteps to come back up the stairs. When they never do, I assume that she is sitting in the leather recliner, staring bleakly into nothingness with swollen, puffy eyes. I go in search of her and the recliner is empty. Our back door sits ajar. Our back door is never ajar. It and the front door and the basement door are always triple bolted. Especially at night when only her and I are inside. Something crawls over me warning me against going into the backyard. It whispers to go back upstairs and get back into bed. I ignore it because I know my mother is beyond that door and go outside anyway. I see something. Something that I know I shouldn’t be seeing. But my brain can’t make sense of the image. It’s fuzzy and shrouded in darkness. Then the darkness envelopes the entire scene but everything doesn’t start over again.

  The darkness remains in front of me. I stare at it.

  “Look through the darkness,” I hear Daniella’s grandmother’s voice say.

  “I am,” I tell her.

  “No you’re not. You’re looking at it. Look through it. See what it is clouding. See what it was put in place for you not to see.”

  “How do I do that?” I ask frustrated.

  “Force it away. Destroy it.”

  I continue to look at the darkness in front of me. I imagine I am looking through it, but that doesn’t work. It remains. Then out of pure instinct I do something I’ve never done before. I reach out a hand to touch it. I feel silly for even thinking it will work, but when I do a ripple effect is created in the center of the darkness. I snatch my hand back in surprise. Then after a moment, I reach out and touch it again.

  “Destroy it,” I hear Daniella’s grandmother’s voice again.

  What would I destroy something with, I think. I imagine one of the silver knives Aunt Farrah gave me. It materializes in my grip. My hand shakes as I raise it, bringing it level with the center of the darkness in front of me. I thrust it into its center because that’s how I would destroy anything else. When I do the darkness splinters apart and falls around me like shattered glass.

  I see what I have never remembered seeing nearly eleven years ago. My brain unscrambles the image that I saw that night. It is my grandfather. I walk outside right as he snaps her neck. She falls to the ground and he remains standing over her. He looks up to see me staring back at him. He starts towards me and the six year old Ash is frozen with terror. When he reaches me, he places a hand on my forehead and then everything goes dark.

  I open my eyes with a gasp. I’m back in the cramped patient room at Bellhaven.

  At first I feel numb and then a dozen emotions at once explode inside of me. I want to rage and cry and yell and shriek and tear something about all at the same time. But I don’t do any of that. I can fall apart later. I was taught how to compartmentalize my feelings and block everything else out under pressure to focus on the task at hand by the very man we now need to kill.

  “Derek,” I say without an ounce of any one of the emotions raging inside of me. “I know who the skinwalker is. My grandfather became it the night he killed my mother.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  An Eternity In Hell

  When I go home I go directly to my grandfather’s office. He is sitting behind his large wooden desk scribbling something on the page of a book.

  “Granddad,” I say as I walk into the room. “Do you have a minute?”

  He looks up at me and motions for me to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk.

  “What is it?” I bite my tongue against what I really want to say. Instead I put on a mask that looks ashamed, almost fearful of reproach. It is what he wi
ll expect to see. He has drilled into me that to be weak is to be ashamed.

  “It’s actually…um…well I’ve never told you this before but…there is this dream I started having after Mom died. I’ve had it sporadically since. I had it again last night…and well…there was a part to it that I’ve never dreamed before…I saw… things that are worse than what really happened. And I am really freaked out by them…I needed to talk to someone…and…I didn’t know who else to tell.”

  “Things like what Ashley,” he says in a controlled voice that betrays nothing.

  I look away from him. I keep my eyes trained on the book he was writing in as I speak. “Things that…things that can’t be real…because…you would never hurt Mom…but dreaming them have shaken me all the same.”

  My grandfather scoffs at me. It is meant to make me feel all of two inches tall for the things I just said. If I’d said these things to him yesterday, it might have worked.

  “Stop being a child Ashley. Pull yourself together and go back to acting like a Jacobs is supposed to. I trained you better than this. You sound weak right now and Jacobs are not weak. Jacobs are strong. It is in our DNA to be.”

  “Yes sir,” I say sufficiently chastised then get up from the chair and leave the office at my dismissal.

  After everyone else in our house goes to sleep I remain awake waiting for the noise that will draw my attention to the window beside my bed.

  A little after midnight it comes. I see my mother standing in our backyard. She looks as real and as alive as she did when I was six. She looks up at me and I look back at her. I know it isn’t real. That it isn’t really her outside, but still I allow myself to pretend for a second that it is.