by Tom Deitz
She nodded, even as she straightened from unpacking the first grocery bag.
“You know who this kid is, don’t you?”
Again she nodded, but just as she was about to speak, a commotion to the northwest heralded Brock’s return. He fairly stumbled into the clearing, his cacophonous arrival markedly in contrast to the stealth with which he had departed. His pale face was flushed and sweaty, his hair wild. Scratches showed vivid red along his sides where he’d evidently encountered a patch of wait-a-minute vines. “What’s the deal?” he gasped, then fixed Calvin with a scowl. “What’s wrong?”
Once again Calvin indicated the paper. Brock padded over to peer around his arm, while Sandy stared over his opposite shoulder, wiping her brow. “Recognize him?” Calvin asked for the second time in a minute.
Brock squinted—the light was bright, as the sun neared the zenith. “I dunno, he looks kinda familiar…” Then: “Oh, yeah, sure! It’s that guy we met last summer, back when we were messed up with that Spearfinger sh—I mean crap.”
“That’s him,” Calvin affirmed. “And he’s missing.”
“A little too coincidentally,” Sandy added.
Calvin looked at her intently, then back at the paper.
The Willacoochee Witness was a weekly rag, published on Saturdays, thus the information they confronted was already two days old at minimum. But this way, at least, they could get a sense of the whole tale, not frustrating fragments acquired piecemeal.
“Read on,” Sandy urged.
Calvin did—aloud, mostly for Brock’s benefit—and so that he wouldn’t get in a hurry and miss something important himself.
LOCAL BOY MISSING, FEARED DROWNED
By Raymond Bryan Stepp
Whidden— The Whidden Police announced yesterday morning that they had launched an intensive search throughout the entire tri-county area for fifteen-year-old Donald Lawrence Scott, called Don or Don Larry by his friends. According to police, the boy’s mother, Liza-Bet Scott-Richards, missed him when she attempted to call him to breakfast Friday morning. Since then, investigators have little to go on, the main item of note being the discovery of ritual paraphernalia near one of the boy’s favorite campsites on Iodine Creek roughly a mile northeast of his mother’s rural home. Analysis of this material indicates that the boy had practiced some sort of divining ritual of probable Native American origin, a fact borne out by evidence found at the scene, notably the presence of several volumes on Native American religion. Mrs. Richards confirmed that her son had become interested in the occult in the year since the death of his longtime friend, Michael Chadwick, and of his sister, Allison Scott, adding that Scott had recently learned that Chadwick’s grandfather had been a full-blooded Cherokee.
Police now believe the boy drowned while pursuing some aspect of this ritual, possibly the rite known as “going-to-water,” a supposition borne out by the discovery of his clothing, and of his footprints leading down to the edge of Iodine Creek but not returning. There was no sign of a struggle, police say, and they have all but ruled out suicide. Divers have checked Iodine Creek for almost half a mile downstream, and have dragged it, to no avail.
Scott, a rising sophomore at Whidden High School, is described by his classmates as a quiet boy, friendly, but withdrawn and moody after the death of his friend.
He is fifteen years old, five feet three inches tall, and weighs one hundred fourteen pounds. He has short, dark brown hair, gray-green eyes, and a crescent-shaped birthmark on his left side just below the ribs. He also has an appendicitis scar, and is presumed to be wearing borrowed or stolen clothing, perhaps not fitting him well. Anyone having information is encouraged to contact the Willacoochee County Sheriff’s department or dial 911.
“Jesus,” Brock breathed, his face, if possible, even whiter than normal.
Calvin crumpled the paper and flung it to the ground, then kicked at the nearest log savagely. “Dammit!” he spat. “Goddammit! Why’d he do it? Why couldn’t the little son-of-a-bitch be more careful?”
“Cal—” Brock began tentatively.
Calvin spun on him. “You!” he snapped, pointing first at the boy, then at the paper. “Yeah, you! Brock! That could’ve been you so easy, boy. That could have goddamned been you! See what comes of foolin’ around with magic? That kid did—and look where it got him!”
A puzzled look crossed Brock’s features. Then: “But how do you know it was magic?”
“Because I know!” Calvin gritted. “I know that kid, and I know what he was into: weird stuff, just like you. Shoot, if nothin’ else this oughta teach you once and for all how dangerous this business is.”
“But how—?”
“Because my cousin saw his ghost two nights after he vanished!” Calvin told them wearily. “I’d been seein’ my dad’s ghost for a while, Brock. And then I started seein’ him with another shape, which I finally figured out was the ghost of that Michael Chadwick boy Spearfinger killed. Only that didn’t quite make sense, ’cause as far as I knew he wasn’t an Indian. ‘Cept now we find out that he was part Cherokee. And then…” He paused, gulped. “Night before last my cousin saw my dad’s ghost—I’d told him about it, and he’s open-minded—and he saw another, too, just not very well. But he also thought he saw a third, which makes sense if Don Scott was in the Ghost Country himself.”
Brock looked incredulous, even as Sandy looked troubled. “The Ghost Country?”
Calvin nodded. “Tsusginai, in Ununhiyi, the Darkening Land. The Cherokee dead go there, apparently—maybe until they’re reincarnated, or something. And evidently those of mixed blood do too, sometimes. The problem is that…my cousin says that somebody who dies without all their parts—like my dad and Michael and Allison did—can’t be granted admission to the Ghostland, so they become uneasy and start hauntin’ folks. Plus, ghosts get lonely and start wantin’ their loved ones with ’em.”
Sandy looked thoughtful. “And the paper said Don had gotten into divination. I bet…he was trying to contact Michael’s spirit, and—”
“And got him!” Calvin finished for her. “I bet Don found some kind of ritual for that in one of those books that article mentioned, and tried it—and Michael came: poor, lonely Michael without his liver or his best friend. And Don, half crazy and probably half in shock, went with him.”
“But Michael was dead!” Brock protested. “Why would Don look for him?”
“Maybe…to make peace with him?” Sandy suggested slowly, looking at Calvin. “From what you said, those guys were real close. If one died, and the other had to watch but couldn’t help him—”
“He’d feel guilty as hell,” Calvin groaned. “I should’ve thought of that! I should’ve come down here and seen how the kid was actually doin’, instead of relyin’ on reports.”
“Don’t start that,” Sandy warned. “You start guilt-tripping yourself, you’ll wind up like he did—’cause I bet that’s what he did: guilt-tripped himself.”
Calvin felt suddenly very old. “Yeah, and I can just guess that the closer to the one-year anniversary it got, the worse Don felt. Shoot, he had to have been goin’ crazy. He might even have been seein’ ghosts, same as I was. Only I was wary and strong and suspicious. He saw what he wanted and…”
“You mean Don’s…dead, too?” Brock gulped.
Calvin shrugged. “Hard to say. If he is, it’s not in any conventional way, unless he actually…died, if that makes any sense. But it sounds to me more like he was just physically transported to wherever Mike is. He’s…stuck, I guess, can’t go on ’cause he’s not dead, can’t come back ’cause they won’t let him—or he doesn’t want to return.”
“Awful,” Sandy muttered under her breath.
“Yeah,” Calvin agreed. “And I bet I know how he did it, too! Except—Jesus, but I wish I knew what books he used. I’ve got some ideas, but who knows what weird little local libraries like the one down here might have?”
“You could check,” Sandy observed matter-of-factly.
> Calvin glared at her. “Sure, and have people conveniently remember all those murders last summer, just about the time that weird Indian boy started hangin’ round! No way I’m gonna attract that kind of attention again.”
“But I could,” Sandy countered practically. “Or Brock.”
“Maybe,” Calvin grunted.
“But,” Brock said in a small voice, “what about…you and me?”
Calvin rounded on him. “You still wanta do that, after this?”
The boy scowled darkly. “After what? A newspaper article and a bunch of wild guesses? What’s that got to do with anything?”
Calvin was practically speechless with frustration. “You’re really gonna hold me to it, huh?”
Brock shrugged, but his eyes were fearless. “I guess I am.”
Calvin could only grimace helplessly.
“So what do we do?” Sandy asked carefully.
“What we do,” Calvin replied, thumping down on the ground—which reminded him a little too pointedly of the state of his ribs, “is first of all confirm my suspicion. In the meantime”—he looked at Brock—”put on some clothes. The ’skeeters’ll eat you alive if you give ’em half a chance.”
Brock was pacing about the clearing, his face a mix of emotions: concern and anxiety and real fear, blended with anger and frustration. Calvin glared at him. “Cool it!” he snapped. “I’m gonna go through with it. In fact”—he levered himself upright— “what I was gonna teach you may actually prove useful, so come on, snap to. You’re fixin’ to get some hands-on experience.”
Brock froze with his shirt in hand, suddenly all intense interest. “I am?”
Calvin nodded. “I’d intended to teach you the finding ritual anyway—even though it now looks more dangerous than I thought it was. But you can still use it. Besides, it’ll take you a while to assemble the equipment to do it yourself, and I’m not gonna give you mine, nor lend it. Maybe by then some of this will have sunk in, and you’ll have learned some sense.”
“You sound like an old man!” Brock muttered, disgusted.
“I feel like an old man, right now,” Calvin told him. “Now, do you wanta learn, or not? As soon as it’s noon, I’m gonna try to confirm where Don is. You’re free to watch—you both are, though Sandy’s seen it done enough it should bore her silly. But if you’re interested, Brock, I’ll explain as I go along.”
“Sure,” Brock said, after a pause. “Sorry I was a jerk.”
Calvin shrugged. “We all are, sometimes.” That said, he picked up a twig and sketched a cross-in-circle in the earth by the fire. “Okay then: you know what that design there is?”
“You called it a Power Wheel. I’ve seen you use ’em before.”
“And will again, probably. But do you know what they represent?”
“I give.”
“The world, and the four directions which define the world, and the four powers that control those directions, and about a zillion other things. It’s a common image in most mythologies.”
“That why you’ve got one tattooed on your butt?”
In spite of himself, Calvin blushed. “I’ve got one on my butt ’cause I was young and stupid and irreverent one time. I wanted a tattoo, so folks would think I was cool, and I wanted it hidden, so they’d think I was mysterious, and I wanted it weird so I could feel smarter’n everybody else. But then I found out what it really meant, and came to believe that, and—well, I’m just as glad it’s fadin’ now.”
Brock looked as if he would like to ask a question, but didn’t.
“Now as I was sayin’,” Calvin continued, “most rituals are properly begun with an invocation to the quarters, each of which has a ruling color and about a zillion gods and/or animals in corresponding colors, each of which has sovereignty over something or other—it’s too complex to go into here and not relevant to what we’re doin’ anyway. East is red, for instance, probably ’cause of the sunrise. North is blue, which makes no sense to me ’cause south is white, and you’d think north would be ’cause of snow, and—”
“And north used to be black,” a voice interrupted from the undergrowth behind them. “It changed.”
Calvin looked up, startled. For an instant he thought Sandy had spoken, since the voice had been female. But a check showed her as perplexed as he. Abruptly, he was on his feet—just as a woman walked calmly into the campsite.
Calvin blinked—they all did—but he…recognized her! It was—he didn’t know her name, but it was the woman from the anetsa game, the one who’d hung around with…Snakeeyes! Already wired, Calvin felt his pulse rate shoot up another few notches. “You—!”
“Hello’s a more common greeting,” the woman said calmly. “Or hi there, or perhaps…siyu!”
Calvin did not reply, but his concentration widened enough for him to note that she was wearing jeans, somewhat torn and muddy, boots not unlike his own, and a red cambric shirt under a multicolored vest. She also sported a knife at her waist and a small backpack. Her eyes looked tired, as if she hadn’t slept in a while.
“I’m not your enemy—Edahi,” the woman went on with a weariness that both matched her expression and suggested she had already resigned herself to the opposite assumption.
“A name’s a dangerous thing,” Calvin replied carefully. “Yours might be good to know right now.”
The woman smiled. “How ’bout Okacha?”
Calvin puzzled over it for a moment. “Okacha?”
“Creek for ‘wildcat.’”
Well, that certainly hit her dead on, Calvin acknowledged, what with that short-cut hair, those enormous dark eyes, and the way she moved. Sandy, he noted, was watching him at least as closely as she was the newcomer. He expected Brock’s brows to collide any second.
Okacha was ignoring them. She paced to where the Power Wheel lay scratched into the sand and inspected it for a moment. “You won’t find him that way,” she sighed. “He’s not in this World, and we both know which way the Ghost Country lies. But if you’ll help me, maybe I’ll help you.”
Calvin could only stare as the woman stood waiting for an answer.
Chapter XIII: Coosa, and More Imminent Legends
“Excuse me,” Sandy inserted, her voice low, cool, and perfectly controlled but full of implicit threat. “I hate to be rude—but who, exactly, are you?”
The female stranger—Okacha—stared at her speculatively: an odd expression, combining recognition of comradeship and acknowledgment of potential rival. “Sorry,” she replied wearily. “I’m really tired—and when I get like that I kinda tend to forget that just ’cause I know who somebody is, that person doesn’t automatically know who I am. I’m Okacha—like I said.” She extended her right hand.
Sandy took it warily, shook it perfunctorily—and did not break eye contact. “But that’s not who you are.”
Calvin and Brock exchanged resigned glances. At least their pecking order was unambiguous.
Okacha studied Sandy for a long moment, her small, full lips drawn to a thin, grim line. “No,” she sighed at last, “that’s definitely not who I am.”
“I saw you at the game,” Calvin broke in, mostly for Sandy’s benefit, since Brock, by his expression, was more concerned with the arrival of yet another interruption of his quest for magic. “You were with that…tall guy,” Calvin continued, so Okacha would know he was at least partly onto her.
“Not with him,” she shot back firmly but without hostility. “I was in his presence, but definitely not with him.”
Calvin raised an eyebrow. “Sorry.”
“You’ll understand when I tell…what I have to tell.”
“So shoot,” Calvin replied, trying to mask major-league edginess with a veneer of cool. “Grab a log and make yourself at home.” He left her to it and resumed his familiar place between the roots of the live oak, leaning against the trunk. He found Sandy’s hand surreptitiously. Brock thumped down to the right, nearer the creek, and commenced drawing designs in the sand with a stick.
Okacha folded her legs under her and sat opposite; her back very straight, her face still and composed. “Do you remember the Legend of Coosa?” she asked carefully.
Calvin’s interest level immediately kicked up another notch. “That’s the one about the girl who goes down to the river for water—or to bathe, or whatever—right? And while she’s there, she meets a mysterious man, or else one of the underwater panthers, and—”
“Hang on!” Brock interrupted pointedly, looking up. “What the hell is an underwater panther?”
Calvin hesitated, waiting for their visitor to reply. This was, after all, supposed to be her story.
Okacha gnawed her lip thoughtfully. Then: “Lots of folks say they’re monsters,” she began. “But that’s ’cause they live underwater—in deep rivers and lakes. And since those are traditionally gates to the Underworld, some folks”—she glanced at Calvin— “just automatically assume that anything that comes from such a place is by default a creature of the Underworld itself and therefore chaotic or crazy, if not actually evil. Actually…well, they’re just themselves, good and bad by turns, like other people. As to what they look like…well, my people—the Creeks—were wrong in thinking of them as being monsters. Actually, the Tunica hit ’em a lot closer: think of ’em as like werewolves, sort of—were-panthers, rather. They can look like men—and usually do when they’re on land. But in the water they’re like big cougars or panther or mountain lions, except that their paws are larger—and webbed. All of which is gettin’ away from the story—which I’ll take over, if you don’t mind.”
Calvin shrugged expansively. “Be my guest.”