When he entered, he found Jimmy on the phone.
“Richard, he just walked in.”
Jimmy handed George the phone. “It’s your son.”
He’s going to put me back in Golden Summer, George thought, and took the phone.
“Daddy? It’s Richard.” His son’s voice had taken on a sort of lilt from so many years in Paris.
“How are you, son? How’s Paris?” George pronounced it Pear-eee.
“Daddy, one of Melissa’s boys has gone missing.”
Granddaddy! Help me!
“Cal? Donny?”
“Donny. They were camping in Louisiana. He’s been missing since sometime late Monday night.”
And you’re just calling me now? George thought angrily. But he kept silent—he knew why. Instead, he said, “How is Melissa?”
“She’s a wreck. Marty and I think you should come down.”
“Is Delphine there, because…”
“Dad, this is your daughter and your grandson. If there’s any way you can be here, you should.”
“You’re right, son. I’ll book the next flight I can.”
“Let me give you my number and Marty’s. Call us when you’ve scheduled a flight, and we’ll pick you up.”
George took down the numbers. “Tell Melissa…tell her I love her.”
“I will, Daddy. Get down here.”
George clicked off and looked at Jimmy. “Donny’s missing.”
“Where?” Jimmy asked, but he already knew the answer.
“Louisiana, some goddamn camping trip.” George shook his head. “I’ve gotta catch a flight.”
“I’d like to go with you, George.”
“You’re still recovering,” George countered. “Besides, you’re supposed to go to Boston.”
“I can postpone that trip, George. Donny missing is more important.”
“He’s a kid, and he wandered off, Hiawatha. No need to call in the cavalry…or war party, in your case. They’ll probably find him before I’ve claimed my luggage.”
“You’re probably right, but I’d still like to go.”
George was going to tell him he should stay home when something occurred to him. “Just why are you so intent on going?”
“I had a vision,” Jimmy admitted.
“I knew it! Something goes wrong and that buzzard-god of yours is at the root of it.”
“Raven seems to have no part in this—at least, not yet.”
“What did you see?” George demanded.
“It’s really not…”
“Donny—is he all right?” George asked, his voice breaking a little.
“I don’t know,” Jimmy said sadly. “But I haven’t seen anything that convinces me he’s not.”
George nodded. He was silent for a moment, and Jimmy was alarmed at how old he looked.
“I’d be grateful if you’d come,” George said. “My family can be…complicated.”
“I’ll call Thomas. Do you want to go ahead and find a flight, or do you want me to?”
“Let me do it,” George said. “You’d probably set us up with box lunches of shaved fish and whale blubber.”
Jimmy laughed at that. “I’ve never actually tasted whale blubber.”
“Well, you won’t on this trip, either, Nanook. Make your call.”
—
While George booked their flight, Jimmy called his son.
“Dad! Molly was just asking about you.”
“Hello, Thomas. I’m afraid I have to postpone my visit.”
“Are you all right?” Thomas asked.
“Yes, but one of George’s grandchildren has gone missing.”
“That’s terrible! Is there anything we can do?”
Jimmy felt a wave of gratitude. He and his son had grown closer since the events of last year.
“I don’t think so—their whole family is gathering, I just want to provide some moral support for George.”
“You’re a good friend, Dad.”
Jimmy heard another voice speak to Thomas. “Just a minute, Dad.”
Jimmy waited and Thomas came back on the line. “Dad, Molly wants to speak to you. She’s pretty insistent.”
“It’s fine, Thomas, put her on.”
Molly came on, a little breathless as children her age often seemed to be. “Yak’éi yagiyee, Grampa,” she said.
Her pronunciation was so good! “And good day to you, ‘Kots’èen’.” Ever since he had told her his uncle Will had called him “mouse,” she had pleaded with him to do the same with her. He had tried calling her “little princess” or “warrior girl,” but she wanted the same nickname he had had.
“Grampa, be careful, okay?”
He thought that was a strange thing for her to say. “I will, Molly.”
“But be extra careful, Grampa—that mean alligator doesn’t play fair.”
Jimmy felt his skin prickle with gooseflesh. Keeping his voice calm, he said, “What alligator, ‘Kots’èen’?”
She sighed with an eight-year-old’s exasperation. “You know, the white one, the mean one. He’s mad at you.”
But I’m going to Louisiana like he wanted, Jimmy thought. To her he said, “How do you know this, Molly?”
“From dreams,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I dream all the time.”
Jimmy was surprised. Thomas had never believed their legends and had shown none of the gifts that Uncle Will had seen in Jimmy.
“I’ll be extra careful for you, Molly-Mouse.”
She giggled. “Okay. Bye, Grampa. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said, and she hung up. He had wanted her to give the phone back to Thomas, but what else was there to say? He really couldn’t rearrange his trip until Donny was found.
Dead and rotting, maybe…the crabs will take what the gators don’t want.
Jimmy pushed that thought away. He had had plenty of experience with children lost in the wilderness. A childhood friend named Cody Oleyana had come down with a fever and wandered off in the middle of the night. Many felt he had been lured away by a kushtaka, a demon, but others thought he was just out of his head with illness. Regardless, they found him ten miles from the village, dressed only in undershorts and frozen solid. Wolves had taken most of a leg and left a ragged hole in his abdomen.
Lost children in the elements usually did not fare well.
Jimmy sighed, glad that Molly was safe in Boston and Bobby Slater in Los Angeles—as for Donny Watters, he prayed that the gods who looked after lost little boys would see George’s grandson safely home.
Chapter 5
ATCHAFALAYA SWAMP, LOUISIANA
Donny had never felt so exhausted. He kept praying his moms would wake him up, tell him to wash up for breakfast. Then he would just lie in bed for another minute or so, thanking God and Jesus and every angel in Heaven that he was in his own bed—or at least the bed in that stupid tent trailer.
He had cried at first, but Trang advised him not to. Professor Foxfire wanted the children to walk in order, the last lured away the last in line. Trang was a Vietnamese girl in front of him, and she had been part of the group for six months. Learning that she had been out here that long and had never been found made him start crying even harder, and she had slapped him. Angry, Donny had instinctively raised his fist, but his moms told him boys never hit girls. Not ever. Trang then told him that Professor Foxfire loved crying. He fed on it, reveled in it. If you were crying, he did everything he could to make your suffering worse.
“Crying is like crack to him,” Trang said.
Donny was the last in a line of children linked with some bond of Spanish moss that seemed stronger than rope, maybe even steel.
He thought there were about fifteen or twenty of them. It was hard to tell because the first ten or so were ghost children. They had been there the longest, and some were the merest suggestion of form, all gossamer and moonlight.
Donny thought they looked like they were made out of cobwebs and luminous paint,
some kind of CGI creation that was horribly real.
After the ghost children came the live kids, who were either solid like him and Trang or starting to turn transparent like the ghost children.
Donny trudged along, trying to step where Trang had stepped, her smaller footprints filling with water as she walked, and he followed.
He tried not to look out in the water, where the giant ghost alligator paralleled their progress. Even the ghost children were afraid of him because he could eat flesh or ghost with equal delight.
But there were worse things behind him to keep them moving.
One was a frail blond boy named Ethan. He had been in the swamp for a year now, and his clothes were ragged and soiled. He used to be the strongest of them, Trang had told Donny, then he had struck Professor Foxfire in the face before running off.
She told Donny that Professor Foxfire’s face seemed to morph into a giant, roiling mass of black widows before re-forming into that hateful countenance.
Ethan had run, but he hadn’t gotten far.
Now he hauled the bones of the ghost children.
The girl ahead of Trang, an African-American girl named Prue, told her that Professor Foxfire used to pick up the dead bones himself. Some he made into flutes, others he kept in a special room in his home, far, far out in the swamp.
But now Ethan had to haul them. Worse, the Professor said Ethan would never be a ghost child. “When you’re a ghost,” Professor Foxfire said, “nothing hurts anymore. You don’t need food or water or sleep. You just play all day.”
The ghost children certainly seemed to have more energy than the live kids, but the idea of being a ghost horrified Donny, who had read a few scary books on the subject.
But Ethan was just going to get older and older, growing and turning into an old man while his burden of bones got larger and heavier.
“When he cannot carry them anymore, I will feed him to my pets,” said Professor Foxfire, laughing. “Oh, what a sour and stringy meal they will have!”
It was the pets that were the worst, Donny thought. Even worse than Professor Foxfire, who you could pretend was a man even though he probably wasn’t. Trang said he was made of spiders, after all.
But his pets…they were definitely monsters.
Two were alligators but ghosts like the ghost kids. They looked a lot like a regular gator, except they were huge and ghosts, meaning they were blue and you could see through them. The other seemed to be an actual dinosaur or maybe the ghost of a dinosaur—sort of like a mosasaur, but with legs instead of flippers. Mosasaurs were his favorite dinosaur because they looked so badass. This thing was both ginormous and hideous, with skin like that of a python, only covered with blister-like growths and hundreds of old scars. He could hear it breathing somewhere behind them. Worse, he could smell it from here and it stank, some weird combination of burning tires, urine, and rotting meat. It was a horrible smell, and the reason why he wasn’t sure if it was a ghost or not. Could such a hideous thing still be alive today?
He thought about these things a bit, but then he would scratch himself on thorns or step in a puddle slicked over with algae and get that crap all over himself, and he would be shaken out of such reverie.
He was dirty and sweaty and tired. He wanted to go home!
Chapter 6
TRAVELING
George found them a flight on United leaving at 5 P.M. that would arrive in Lafayette, Louisiana, eight hours later.
George had booked them in business class, which he had been told was comparable to first class in comfort. There was no appreciable difference that Jimmy could see. His seat leaned back slightly, and his long legs were still cramped. George, being shorter and slighter, had an easier time of it.
George saw Jimmy wince as he settled into his seat.
“You gotta get that checked, old man,” George said with concern.
“I told you, I’ll get Thomas to look at it. But the doctor at the clinic said they couldn’t find anything.”
“That idiot couldn’t find his own ass with two hands and a flashlight,” George groused.
Jimmy sighed and George frowned. He looked out the window as they got settled, hoping to think of a cheerful topic.
“Look, Cochise, a friendly face,” George said, pointing to the smiling Inuit on the tail of an Alaska Air 747.
Jimmy shook his head and George cackled. “Come on, you’re part Eskimo, aren’t you?”
“People prefer the term ‘Inuit’ these days, George. And yes, my great-grandfather was Inuit. It caused quite a stir, from what I’m told.”
Now George shook his head. “I had no idea that your people were such bigots,” he said with mock sadness.
Jimmy, thinking he was being sincere, shrugged. “Sometimes I think being small-minded is part of the human condition.”
George wasn’t sure how to respond to that and just went quiet.
They took off without incident and began their journey southeast to Houston, where they would have a brief layover.
Jimmy closed his eyes, fearful of what they might be heading into, and troubled he had no counsel except the visit from Dabo Muu.
That mean alligator doesn’t play fair.
That was for sure, he thought, and with that he was asleep.
George looked over at him, both anxious to share some things with his best friend and dreading it, as well. But Jimmy was asleep, and George knew he probably needed the rest.
Christ on a pony, he looks terrible. I should let him sleep, George thought.
And what if he sleeps the whole flight?
Maybe that would be for the best, thought George. He wasn’t sure Jimmy would think so much of him when he told him some of the secrets he had been keeping.
—
Jimmy looked out of the window and saw the wing. This was odd, because their seats were nowhere near the wing. Then he noticed that his uncle Will was sitting out there. He looked comfortable because he was sitting in his favorite chair, a raggedy old overstuffed thing that Jimmy’s mother had threatened time and time again to throw out. He was smoking his pipe and blowing elaborate smoke rings.
Uncle Will saw him and waved. He motioned that Jimmy should come out. Jimmy knew he was dreaming but wondered how he might get out of the plane. Then he found himself on the wing, walking easily even though clouds streaked by and the jet noise was very loud.
Uncle Will motioned to a wooden chair that had appeared next to his and Jimmy sat down.
As Jimmy did, the jet noise faded into the background until it was a low drone, like the hum of an outboard engine far out on the water.
“Smoke?” asked Uncle Will, holding a small pouch.
Jimmy shook his head. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring you any tobacco or treats, Uncle.”
Uncle Will waved him off. “I still have plenty from our last visit. It is a good smoke, thank you.”
“I’ve been trying to contact you,” Jimmy said.
Uncle Will nodded. “Lots of interference around your house these days,” he said. “Here the winds are scrubbing the ether, but I don’t have much time.”
“Dabo Muu came to see me.”
Uncle Will grunted, then spit.
“Molly says he’s dangerous,” Jimmy said, not sure why he felt compelled to share that.
Uncle Will laughed. “That one! She sure loves you, boy. She’s always calling out to me on your behalf. Sometimes it’s hard to sleep, she’s so loud.”
Jimmy looked at him.
“Powerful,” Uncle Will amended.
“I’m surprised,” Jimmy said, “Thomas has none of these gifts.”
“Neither did your mother or father,” Uncle Will said. “Raven likes his presents to skip a generation sometimes.”
“How can I protect her? She lives so far away.”
“Teach her when you can. Sooner or later, Mouse, we all have our trials.”
“I saw George, he was…withered and horrible.”
Uncle Will nodded. “Som
ething there, but I don’t know what. You tread lightly, Mouse.”
“I have tried summoning Raven, but he will not come.”
“You know how mercurial that bastard can be, Jimmy.”
Jimmy nodded. He sighed, weary.
“I don’t think Raven is going to be much help this time, Mouse. Too many forces from too many beliefs—it all gets tangled up and knotted. Raven likes puzzles, but he doesn’t want to get snared in some disagreement between beings he has no commerce with.”
“Is there anything you can tell me, Uncle Will?”
“You did me proud last time, Mouse. You need to know that, ultimately, whether you succeed or fail is not because of aid from me or some Trickster, and it’s not dependent on the trappings of being a shaman—those are just a lens, a way to focus the mind and heart of the practitioner. You have moved beyond such things.”
Uncle Will stood, the wind like a gentle breeze through his long dark hair. “I have to go, Mouse.”
“Please stay,” Jimmy said, standing and wincing.
Uncle Will pointed at Jimmy’s knees with his pipe. “Why didn’t you tell me about that?”
Jimmy shrugged. “Getting old, Uncle, it happens.”
Uncle Will looked at him. “Make some devil’s club tea.”
“It’s just arthritis,” Jimmy said, “I’ll take some Tylenol.”
Uncle Will shook his head. “Devil’s club tea. Don’t make me come back and knock some sense into you.”
Jimmy nodded and hugged his uncle. He closed his eyes, taking in the feel and scent of the old man who had been a second father to him.
He opened his eyes, and he was back in his seat on the plane.
George looked at him. “Can’t sleep?”
“What?”
“I thought you were going to take a nap,” George explained. “You barely had your eyes closed.”
Jimmy nodded. He could still smell the tobacco and leather scents he had always associated with Uncle Will.
“You okay, Injun Joe?” George asked.
“Just had a visit with my uncle,” Jimmy answered.
“Here? Was he sitting in your lap?”
“Out on the wing,” Jimmy said, as if this were very natural.
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