“They are,” Amy said. “You told us that much yourself.”
“Yes, but as long as Lucas comes to places of light, he is safe. The hold is broken for a short time, and that weakens it.”
“So what are you saying?” I asked.
“I’m saying you need to be very careful. If Knight gets any idea that you have found a measure of safety, of light, you will be in great danger.”
“Oh good,” I said. “I thought you meant I had something to worry about.”
Amy took my hand and squeezed it. Sally regarded both of us with concern.
“He may use the power he has now to imprison you, or worse. Dark shamans are soul stealers. You risk everything if you continue.”
“Why don’t I just disappear then? Take off. Split. Boogie.”
“You can’t,” she said. “You know the truth. You know that the power of Him Standing can be brought into this world. If it is not through you, Knight will find someone else.”
“Because I’m common. A dime a dozen, like he said.”
Sally took both of my hands in hers and cradled them. She looked at the ground for a while. When she looked back up at me, she was crying.
“You are not common, Lucas. You are special. That’s why Knight values you. You carry a gift. You are able to see the essence of things, their spirit. That kind of vision is not an everyday kind. But there are others. Knight will be drawn to their energy just as he was drawn to yours. Their fate will be the same.”
“What fate is that?” Amy asked quietly.
There was a long beat of silence. We could hear traffic on the street, the birds in the trees, the wind. Sally raised her face and looked up at the sky.
“This world and the dream world are full,” she said. “What is taken from one must be replaced by something of the other. There must always be a balance.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “When the spirit of Him Standing enters this world, your spirit, or whoever Knight finds to do the work, will take his place. It will be imprisoned in the dream world forever.”
“Oh my god,” Amy said. “In limbo.”
Sally could only shake her head.
* * *
That night I had a powerful dream. It started normal enough. But then it changed into something so sharp and real, I could still taste and feel everything about it when I woke up. I was walking across a wide prairie. The wind was blowing, and the sky was filled with clouds. They flew like giant sailing ships across the ocean of the sky. There were a few thousand buffalo grazing in the distance. I could smell them.
It was getting close to sunset. The western sky was on fire with so many colors, it was blinding. There was a fire in a small canyon. I could smell meat roasting. I could hear the wood crackling. I was suddenly very hungry, and I walked toward the fire. There was a man there wrapped in a blanket and poking at the fire with a stick.
As I got nearer, he turned to face me. I stopped dead in my tracks. Nothing moved in the dream then. There were no sounds and no smells. There was only the face of the man at the fire. My grandfather.
“Come sit, Grandson,” he said. “I have been waiting for you. This buffalo roast is nearly ready.”
I felt as though I floated to the fire. I couldn’t feel my feet moving. When I got there, he waved me to a seat across from him and handed me a wooden cup filled with tea. It was Sally’s tea. He smiled at me.
“How can you be here?” I asked.
“It is the dream world, Grandson. All things are possible here.”
“My dreams have been scary.”
“I know. But there are two sides, just as there are in your world.”
“Light and dark,” I said.
He nodded.
“In all things there must be balance. There are always two sides. Two faces.” He looked at me solemnly as he spoke, and I realized for the first time in a long time how much I missed him.
He turned to the fire to tend to the meat. When he looked at me again, he was a young man. Then I watched as his face aged back to the one I remembered.
“Two faces, Grandson,” he said. “To everything.”
When I woke up, I knew exactly what I had to do.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The next time Knight saw me, I was in horrible shape. I hadn’t eaten. Hadn’t washed. I was still wearing the same clothes he’d last seen me in. The bones jutted out from under my skin, which was yellow and sickly-looking. My eyes were red. They bulged like a madman’s in a very haggard, worn face. I could hear the rattle of my breath in my chest. In spite of this, he smiled when he saw me.
“The work goes well, I see,” he said. He was dressed in a black tuxedo with a black shirt. His shoes gleamed with a glossy sheen. His black cane rested on his thigh when he sat down to look at me.
“May I see it?”
“No!” I shouted and stood up quickly. I waved a fist in the air. “No one can lay eyes on this before it is finished. No one can see the doorway but me.”
“My, my. You have been getting on, haven’t you?” Knight said.
“I dream all the time,” I said. “The vision gets clearer and clearer, and I can’t stop working.”
“Good. Good,” he said. “You’re under the spell of it.”
“Yeah,” I said and slumped back into my chair facing the work table. “He’s so strong, so powerful. His face is incredible.”
“He was a leader like no other. He was a magician. He could do things never seen before or since.”
“A black shaman,” I mumbled.
“That’s what the fearful called him. What they call those of us who follow his teachings.”
“He admires you,” I said. I was staring at the cloth that covered the mask. I didn’t blink. I stared and didn’t move. I could feel him watching me.
“Does he now? And why would that be, Lucas?”
“No one has ever tried to call him forward before. No one has ever thought it was possible. No one was ever a grand wizard like you.”
“Well, I am truly honored to be held in such esteem,” he said.
I turned to look at him. My face poured sweat, and I wiped at my eyes with a sleeve. I sat back in my chair with my legs spread wide. My hands dangled between my knees. My mouth hung open and my eyelids were half closed.
“He wants to live in you,” I mumbled. A thin line of drool leaked from my lips.
“In me? I expected his power to reside in the mask.”
There was a sudden chill in the room. It crept out from the walls, and we could see our breath. The lights flickered. They grew dim. The shadows in the corners seemed to move toward us. I could see Knight growing anxious. When I spoke again, the voice that came out of me was hollow. I didn’t recognize it, even though I could feel my lips moving. “The boy was a poor choice. He is weak. He has no knowledge. There is no power in him.”
“Master?” Knight asked. He leaned in to peer at my face.
“Whom else did you expect? The boy’s hands have opened the doorway. It is as you wished to be.”
“When, Master? When will you step through?”
“He inscribes a spell within the wood. The spell is the source of my power. It is the source of your own. The mask will contain it. Whoever wears the mask owns the power. When it is finished, I will come.”
“Does he know? Does he have any clue to what we do?” Knight asked.
“Look at him. Does he look like one who has any wisdom?”
Knight studied me. He stared for a long moment, then waved a hand slowly in front of my eyes. I did not blink. I was locked in a trance. The only motion from my body was a twitching and another slide of drool from my mouth.
“He is not here,�
� Knight said.
“He will not be. His dreams are my dreams. I send them to him. Even when he is awake, I send them. He lives in them now. This is how I give him the words to the spell he carves into the wood. He does not know anything.”
“You’re sure?”
There was a sudden roaring in the room. It was like the howl of an animal. But it was also like the screams of a horde of people in agony. It flew around the room in a circle. It echoed off every wall. It gained speed and volume. It became a tornado. Cupboard doors flew open. The closet door smashed against the wall, and the windows rattled in their frames. The lights went out, then flickered back to life. The room was a mess. The roaring died down.
Knight’s face showed amazement. He looked at me where I dangled in the air, my arms hanging limply at my side. Then I spun in a slow, lazy circle, just as he had done. It seemed to take forever. Finally I was set down in my chair, and my head slumped forward onto my chest. Then my head snapped up again, and I stared hard at Knight. He cringed a little in his seat.
“You dare to question me?” The voice that came from me was savage.
Time seemed to stop.
“Who you are is because of me. What you know is what I have taught. Your power is my power. Do I need to convince you of this? Do you doubt who has power here?” The voice was huge and thundered in the room.
“No, Master,” Knight said quietly. “I do not doubt you.”
“Then leave me be. Let the boy finish what he has begun. I will summon you when the time is right.”
“Yes, Master,” Knight said and stood up.
He looked at me. I was slumped back in the chair. I heard him close the door, and then everything was silent. It was a long time before I could get back to the carving again.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I’d never learned to speak Ojibway. By the time I was born, our lives had changed. The old ways were dying out. Most of the people around me when I was a kid spoke English. Anytime I heard someone say something in our language, it always sounded weird to me. Even on the playground and in the games we played as kids, we always yelled at each other in English. So I never got used to it. It was always something I kinda meant to learn when I had the time. I just never found that time.
So carving words into the inside of the mask was hard. But it was hard for two other reasons, as well. The first was that they came while I was in dream time. The second was that there were a lot of them. It took a lot to carve them into the wood. And they weren’t what I’d call words at all. They were symbols. They were these little scratchings and hen pecks that looked like things a kid would do.
I lost time. I disappeared. I bent to the wood with my chisel and knives, and the night would vanish. I don’t know where I went. All I knew was that when I came out of it, I was tired. I could barely sit up in my chair. Now when I collapsed into my bed and slept, I slept without dreams. I just sank into it.
Most times it was noon or later when I came to. Once I got my feet under me, I made my way to Amy’s. The place of light. The first time she saw me, she was shocked.
“My god, Lucas,” she gasped. “What’s happening to you?”
“I’m finishing the mask,” I said.
“But your face. And your body. It looks as though it’s eating you up.”
“Feels like it too,” I said. “What have you been doing?”
“Sally’s been teaching me,” she said.
“Teaching you what?”
“Stuff about our ceremonies. Things I never knew about how our people understood the universe.”
“Secret stuff?” I asked.
She studied me for a long moment.
“No,” she said finally. “Only stuff that we forget to ask about. I know that, living in the city, I forget about stuff like that.”
“Me too,” I said. “This whole thing’s like a big giant puzzle to me, and I feel like somebody stole some of the most important pieces.”
“Me too. It scares me, but it thrills me at the same time.”
“How?” I asked.
“Well, it’s kinda like you said—someone stole some of the important pieces. I feel like this is showing me what parts of my own puzzle I’ve been missing.”
I looked out the window to think over what she had said. I felt better. I felt real. I felt safe, like the old lady had said I would. I let that feeling wash over me and fill me. When I looked at her again, I smiled.
“I never knew how incomplete I felt,” I said and took her hand. “I dreamt of my grandfather. We sat together just like in the old days. I think he meant to give me those pieces, but he was gone before he had the chance. After that, nothing really seemed to matter anymore, and I left it all and came here. Now I know how much I walked away from.”
“Does it make you sad?” she asked quietly.
“Yeah, “I said. “Angry too.”
“At yourself?”
“Not so much, but some at me for wasting it.”
“You’re not wasting it. You’re carrying on your grandfather’s gift. You’re bringing it to a whole new group of people.”
“I guess,” I said. “But is that enough, you think? Does working without a foundation matter in the end?”
“It does if you bring your heart to it,” Amy said. “You do that. It’s what makes you great.”
She smiled. I stood up and walked to her and gave her a hug. We held on to each other for a good long time without speaking.
“There’s a secret I need to tell you,” I whispered in her ear.
“Does Sally know?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “She does.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sally found a spot for me to give the mask to Knight. She said it needed to be a place that held good energy. It had to be a place that was peaceful. Most important, it had to be a place that he had never been before. It had to be a place of light that didn’t look like one. When I told her I had finished the mask, she found the spot in less than a day.
I left a note with directions for Knight in my room. The three of us went to the spot to wait for him. It was at a bend in the river about three miles beyond the city limits.
“In the old days this was a gathering place,” Sally said. She was wearing a pale buckskin dress with fringes, a plain red cloth head band and plain moccasins without beadwork. She looked like a grandmother. “The good hearts would gather here for ceremonies. When the city grew, it never seemed able to reach this place. It spread out in other directions but not in this one.”
“No one knew its history?” Amy asked.
“Some could get it sometimes,” Sally said. “But sacred places tell their story by feeling.”
“Is that how you found this place?” I asked. “Or have you been here before?”
“It called to me,” she said and smiled. “When I sent out good thoughts for a safe place for you to offer the mask, I felt this place. It was easy to find.”
There were thick bushes around a clearing in the trees. The grass was about knee-high. The wind made a soft whisper as it moved through the leaves and the grass. The river gurgled at the far edge of the clearing. We could hear birdsong and the splashes of fish jumping. It felt like we were in a place that existed beyond time.
Sally directed me to press the grass flat with my feet in a circle in the middle of the clearing. I was carrying the mask in a big canvas sack, and she told me to set it on the ground in the middle of the circle I had made.
“When he comes, make him ask for it,” she said. “He has to make a request for power.”
When I’d finished, Sally and Amy picked out a spot in the bushes where they could not be seen. I was left alone in the clearing to wait for Knight.
It didn’t take long.
He just appeared. On
e minute I was alone, the next he was there. There was the hint of a smile on his face. He wore black denim and cowboy boots. His hat was a neat little black bowler.
“I must admit, Lucas, I like the back-to-nature touch,” he said. “It’s fitting. Very noble-savage and all that.”
“Well, after all this work, I need some fresh air,” I said.
He pointed to the sack at my feet.
“That’s it then?”
“Yes. I think you’ll like the handiwork.”
“Oh, it’s more than mere handiwork, Lucas. It’s magic.”
“Magic takes a lot of work,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, stroking his chin. “Some-times it does. May I see it?”
“Excuse me,” I said.
He tilted his head and grinned at me.
“How quaint. The artist struggles to let go of his creation. His baby.”
“Something like that.”
“Well, okay. Lucas, may I have the mask?”
“Sure,” I said, smiling. “It was yours all the time. I made it for you.”
I bent to retrieve the mask from the canvas sack. I caught a glimpse of Amy and Sally staring out at me from a break in the bushes. They were lying flat on the ground, watching. The fact that Knight did not know they were there gave me hope. He was not all-powerful. When I stood up, I held the mask behind my back.
“It didn’t turn out the way I thought it would,” I said.
“True art never does, does it?” Knight asked. He took a step closer to me, his hand outstretched.
“I suppose not,” I replied. “But I never figured on carving this.” I pulled the mask out from behind my back and held it out to him. It was a perfect copy of my own face, but I’d painted it black with three red wavy lines down the right side.
Knight’s mouth dropped open. He took very slow steps toward me, and his hand shook a little as he neared the mask. I felt the wind stop. Everything went silent. The air grew thicker, heavier. I could hear the rustle of the grass with every step he took.
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