The Spirit Keeper

by Luznicky Garrett, Melissa

  “What did you do to me?” I screamed, my back arching against the mattress. “Make it stop! Make her stop!”

  I tried to leap from my bed, but Adrian was faster. He pushed through the others and pinned my shoulders against the mattress so that I couldn’t move.

  “Stay still!” he yelled. “Don’t fight it!”

  “I trusted you!” I screamed at him, struggling to break free and refusing to go down without a fight. “I trusted you!”

  The heat in my body was focused, raw and brutal in its intensity. The building pressure in my head was excruciating, and I could taste blood running down the back of my throat as the tiny vessels in my nose broke. I saw the horrified look on Adrian’s face, and he whipped around to yell over his shoulder, “Somebody, help me!”

  I bucked against Adrian, even as David forced his weight against me, too. “Get off me! Let me go! You lied to me!”

  But my struggling was useless. The more I fought, the harder they restrained me. I gave up within minutes, too exhausted to keep struggling. Instead, I searched out Meg and found her leaning against the door frame, her hand to her mouth and her face blanched with fear.

  “Help me, Meg!” I cried, desperation thick in my voice. But Meg could only stare back, too stunned to answer.

  I thrashed one last time against the combined weight of Adrian’s and David’s bodies and screamed as loudly as I’d ever screamed before. I imagined my insides vaporizing with the intense heat ripping its way through my body.

  But just as the pain climaxed and I opened my mouth for one final shriek of terror before plunging into death, relief rushed through me—calm and cool and refreshing, as though the fire in my veins had been suddenly doused with icy water.

  The cry stuck in my throat and I lay still, breathing heavily. I felt abruptly and inexplicably well, apart from the blood still trickling from my nose. It was as if I’d woken up from some horrible nightmare only to discover that I really was okay.

  “It’s over now,” Shyla said, breaking the silence. The only sound was the quiet shuffling of her feet against carpet as she left the room.

  Adrian finally let go of me as David pressed a tissue against my nose. I glared at them both. “What the hell was that?” I said, my voice muffled as I tried to stop the bleeding. They looked at each other, too stunned to say anything.

  “How do you feel?” Meg asked. Her entire body was trembling.

  I let out my breath in a concentrated stream of air as I reached a shaking hand to my head. “The pain is gone,” I said, more than a little astonished.

  Meg pressed the back of her hand to my cheeks and then to my forehead. “Her skin is cool,” she said, speaking to the others.

  And then the realization of the healing seemed to hit Meg all at once. She collapsed at my side and buried her face into my neck. “Thank you! Thank you!” she cried. She kissed my cheeks and hands, pressing them against her face.

  Adrian and David shook each other’s hands, and then David pulled Adrian into an awkward hug.

  “I guess it took me almost dying to get the two of you to warm up to each other,” I said, smiling at the sight of them.

  “Well, you know,” David said with a shrug.

  I attempted to sit up, but my body failed me. I slumped against the bed, momentarily panicked that whatever Shyla had done hadn’t worked, after all.

  “I can’t move,” I said.

  “You’re just weak,” Meg said. “You’ve been stuck in this bed since Saturday, and it’s already Tuesday. I’ sure all you need is a shower and a bit of food in you.”

  The mention of a shower made me suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that I hadn’t had one in days. Those things, while minor in comparison to almost dying, made me intensely self-conscious with Adrian in the room. I pulled Meg’s hand to get her to lean in close.

  “I look and feel disgusting,” I whispered, covering my mouth so I wouldn’t blow Meg away with my foul breath. “Adrian must think I’m revolting.”

  Meg laughed with the ease of her worry. She turned to the others. “If you don’t mind,” she said.

  Adrian was reluctant to leave at first, and I shied away from him and pulled the sheet over my head. “I don’t want you to see me like this,” I said.

  He only laughed and patted me on the head through the blanket.

  David came by then and tugged at the sheet, and I peeked at him over the hem. “I thought I was going to go crazy,” he said. “I was so scared we were going to lose you. After your mom . . . I don’t know what I would have done.”

  Compassion won out over embarrassment, and I pulled him to me in a fierce hug. “But I’m okay now,” I said. “I promise.”

  He straightened and gave me a stoic nod before leaving.

  When we were alone at last, Meg helped me sit up in bed, holding my arm to make sure I wasn’t going to black out. Only after I had promised her a dozen times that I truly and honestly felt fine did she leave my side to find me a fresh change of clothes.

  “Wait right there,” she said then, hurrying from the room.

  A moment later, I heard the rush of water in the bathroom and then the spray of the showerhead. Meg returned, wiping her wet hands against her legs. “A hot shower will make you feel much better.”

  She slipped an arm around my waist and helped me to my feet. Then she led me down the hall to the bathroom, which had filled with an invigorating steam. “Can you manage?”

  “I really am okay, Meg, despite how hideous I must look. Whatever Shyla did, it worked.”

  The crease in her brow deepened momentarily, but then she let out her breath and nodded.

  Since I had made the mistake of looking in the mirror once before, I avoided doing so again. Instead, I undressed quickly and stepped into the spray of hot water. The combination of the heat and steam caused me to go immediately lightheaded, so I sat down and let the water run over my head and down my back. I pulled my legs to my chest and rested my forehead against my knees. Only then did I allow myself to contemplate what had just happened.

  The only word I could think of to describe any of it was “strange,” but that fell remarkably short of what it really was. I had just lived through one of the single-most traumatic events of my life, and I’d walked away with nothing more than a bloody nose to show for it. I splashed my face with water, scrubbing away the disgusting, crusty blood from my nostrils, and watched remnants of pink swirl down the drain.

  None of it made any sense. I didn’t even know the appropriate response for this kind of thing or how to compartmentalize what had occurred.

  There was a knock at the door, and Meg asked if everything was okay. I called out that I really was fine and that she should stop worrying already.

  Physically I was well, or as well as I could be under the circumstances. But I also felt altered in a way I couldn’t quite explain or understand. Maybe what had happened had changed me in some permanent way. Probably I would never be the same person I had been when I woke up Saturday morning.

  The water was getting cold, so I nudged the tap all the way to hot, hoping there was still enough to finish my shower. Once I had scrubbed my skin red and raw, I wrapped a towel around myself and meticulously brushed the fuzz from my teeth and tongue. I dressed quickly and fixed a band in my hair, grateful the extra length was gone. Finally, I had nothing left to do but face everyone.

  They were seated in the living room, including a woman I didn’t recognize. She looked vaguely familiar, though, and mildly uncomfortable, like she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. There was a definite tension in the air, and not much talking was going on. I hung back watching them for a few moments, and it was David who finally noticed me. He shot out of his seat, and they all turned to stare.

  “What’s going on?” I said with a nervous laugh.

  Meg cleared her throat and gestured to the woman I didn’t know. “This is Imogene, Adrian and Shyla’s grandmother. She’s also an old friend of the family.”

  “
Old is right,” Imogene said, tapping her silver head and seeming to relax a little.

  She was a squat woman with a round face and hair cropped so short it looked like a fine layer of snow had settled on top of her head. She got up and took my hand, patting it.

  “It’s nice to see you again after all these years. I only wish it could have been under better circumstances. You’ve grown into a very beautiful young lady.”

  I smiled at Imogene, momentarily wondering when we could have possibly met before, even as my gaze drifted to Shyla. As soon as our eyes met, she came to stand before me and took a deep breath.

  “I owe you an explanation,” she said.

  Chapter 13

  “Sit down,” Imogene said, still holding my hand. “Please.”

  She ushered me to the couch, and I reluctantly took a seat next to her. Adrian was on my other side, and I took a small amount of comfort from his presence as he squeezed my other hand. My mouth began to water at the sight of the sandwiches laid out on the coffee table before us, and yet I was too nervous to eat. I noticed no one else was eating, either.

  Shyla was watching me with dark, focused eyes, and I struggled to hold her gaze. Judging by the tension in the room and by the way no one was really talking, I had this horrible feeling that what had happened in my bedroom was just the beginning. I began to tap my foot out of nervous reflex, wishing I could fast-forward through this day.

  The warm hand on my knee startled me. “Be still,” Adrian whispered in my ear. I took a deep breath and willed my body to settle.

  Shyla’s eyes cut to her grandmother, and Imogene answered the look with a slight inclination of her snowy head. Then Shyla stood, hands fisted at her sides, and cleared her throat.

  “I want to apologize for the horrible mistake I made the other day in the woods.” She lowered her eyes, and her fingers clenched and unclenched. “You have to believe I never meant to hurt Sarah.”

  After the space of a few heartbeats, she raised her eyes again and looked at everyone in turn, saving me for last.

  “I could apologize for the rest of my life, and still that wouldn’t be enough,” she said to me. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just that, I’ve always had a bit of a short fuse.”

  Adrian snorted at this, and Shyla narrowed her eyes at him before continuing.

  “What I did to you, it’s something that happened in the heat of the moment. It was a total lapse in judgment,” she said with a self-deprecatory shake of the head. “And if I could turn back time and make it so that it never happened—”

  “What’s done is done. Sarah is here with us now because of what you did to bring her back,” Meg said, giving Shyla the forgiveness she was so obviously looking for.

  I crooked my brow in an unspoken question and looked at David, wondering if he could so easily forgive Shyla, but all he did was cross his arms over his chest and sit back in his chair.

  “Right,” Shyla said, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear before sitting down. She took a shuddering breath and opened her eyes wide, as through standing on a great abyss.

  “As the current Spirit Keeper of our tribe,” she said, “it was within my ability to call on our Spirit Leader and ask for Her help in healing Sarah.”

  At the mention of my name, everyone’s head swiveled in my direction. I shrank from their focused gazes, embarrassed by the weight of the sudden attention.

  “My tribe might have given up on me a long time ago,” Shyla said softly, shaking her head, “but I have never given up on the Spirit Leader. Nor has Katori given up on me.”

  Then she lifted her head high and spoke more loudly. “Katori showed the extent of her mercy and compassion when she answered my prayer.”

  “Thanks be to the Spirit and Her Keeper,” Imogene intoned, which prompted an automatic response from everyone else, with the exception of myself. I looked around at them, feeling like an outcast even in my own home. I realized then there was a lot I didn’t know, least of all the customs and rituals that Meg and David had given up, but not entirely forgotten.

  Shyla nodded and took another breath. “What I did to Sarah . . . well, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I’ve never done anything like that before. I was just so mad. At everything. At everybody.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Adrian said. “You’ve already admitted to your anger issues. Get on with it.”

  Shyla dug her fingers into the arms of the chair but didn’t respond to Adrian.

  “I know getting angry doesn’t justify my actions,” she said, “but that’s my only defense. And I truly had no idea that whatever I did would affect you like that.”

  Her face took on a horrified expression. “I didn’t realize so much evil was in me.”

  She paused to wipe away a stray tear that had begun to work its way down her cheek. “When I finally went home and Adrian told me how sick you were, I wanted to kill myself. Of course, I was pretty sure Adrian was going to take care of that for me.”

  She laughed and sniffed loudly, at which point Meg handed her one of the paper napkins so she could dry her eyes and blow her nose.

  “I was mortified,” she went on after a moment. “I mean, I’d done some awful things before with my powers when I was younger and not so in control, but never anything like that.”

  “Remember the time you set the living room rug on fire?” Adrian said, chuckling under his breath. “Dad had a major conniption.”

  “Of course I remember,” Shyla snapped. “My butt was sore for days after that.” She sighed then and looked at me. “Setting fires is a talent of mine,” she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

  “Where did you go?” Meg said, generously changing the direction of the conversation.

  “I got in my car and just drove around.” Shyla rolled her eyes and laughed. “I completely blew my gas budget for the month, but I ended up down by the lake. When I got tired, I climbed in the back seat and fell asleep. I knew Gran would be worried about me, so I finally called home and told her where I was and what had happened. She said that Adrian had already told her everything and that we would figure out how to fix it together. I just had to come home.”

  Shyla sighed then, her entire body shaking as her breath shuddered out. “I’ve been Spirit Keeper for nearly my whole life, certainly for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been resentful of the power inside me, because nothing good ever seems to come of it.”

  Imogene huffed and shifted her weight in the chair. “I hate to say it, but you’re just as stubborn as your father. One of the reasons I took you in to my care was so you could learn how to control your powers, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  Imogene touched my hand. “I was Spirit Keeper many years ago. I passed the power to my daughter, Aida, because of her strength of character and compassion. Of course, Aida passed the magic on to Shyla.”

  “I never wanted these powers!” Shyla said, her voice rising in anger.

  “If you didn’t want them,” I said to Shyla, “why didn’t you give them away to someone else?”

  “Don’t think I didn’t try,” she said, leveling her gaze at me.

  When Imogene saw the confused expression on my face, she touched my hand again. “You can’t give the power away to just anyone,” she said. “The power is the embodiment of the Spirit Leader, Katori. It is Herself who ultimately chooses the next Keeper. The person is more or less a guide . . . a human vessel, if you will. And once Katori has made Her choice, she doesn’t surrender Her hold so easily.”

  She turned back to Shyla then. “As wrong as some in the tribe thought it was for your mother to breathe that magic into your body, it was meant to be. Katori chose you.”

  “Lucky me,” Shyla said through gritted teeth.

  Shyla then closed her eyes, and it was several moments before she spoke again. “When I went home, I did what Gran said. I prayed for our Spirit Leader’s guidance. I asked how I could heal Sarah, and Her answer came as a Conditional Blessing.”

  Meg jerk
ed as though someone had poked her with a hot iron. “A Conditional Blessing?” She closed her eyes and bowed her head, slowly shaking it back and forth.

  “What’s a Conditional Blessing?” I said, picking up on her anxiety.

  Shyla didn’t answer. Instead, she picked up her glass of water and took a small sip. She eyed me over the rim, and I could feel beads of sweat begin to break out across my forehead. Somehow I didn’t think I really wanted to know the answer to that question.

  “There has been only one other person in the history of our tribe to receive a Conditional Blessing,” Imogene said.

  “You’re talking about Melody,” David said.

  “Yes.”

  “But what is a Conditional Blessing,” I said, impatient to understand.

  Imogene steepled her fingers, turning her body on the couch to look at me. “In essence, a Conditional Blessing is a free pass. Well, not exactly a free pass. Rather, it’s a blessing that comes with a caveat—a certain cost to the recipient. Melody’s Conditional Blessing was that she could give up her baby and continue to live on the reservation among her own people, mistakes forgiven, or keep her child but be banished from the tribe.”

  “That’s so unfair!” I said, outraged on behalf of my dead mother.

  Imogene raised her brow at my vehemence. “You weren’t the only one to think so, Sarah. That Conditional Blessing fractured our tribe. There were many who thought just as you do. They didn’t understand how Katori, who’d always been portrayed as a loving and gentle and very wise woman, could ever cast such a harsh judgment against one of Her children. It was a very confusing time for the people of our tribe.

  “Nevertheless,” Imogene went on, “it was a Conditional Blessing issued by the Spirit Leader. Carried out by the Council, it was a binding law. To break it meant to go against the tribe and the word of Katori.”

  Her eyes cut to me again, and her voice turned soft. “There was never any doubt which path your mother would choose. Some in the tribe were sad to see her go, but they were also relieved that she took the fear of the unknown with her. As far as they were concerned, they had washed their hands of any lingering danger, and Melody still got what she wanted.”