“Thanks. I appreciate it.” He paused. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble between you and Rowe. I’m sorry.”
“He’ll be fine.” She shrugged, then headed toward the stairs and motioned for him to follow. “He loves you like a brother and wants to protect you.”
“I may need him if it comes down to a fight to free Waapake,” he said as they stopped outside of her and Rowe’s closed bedroom. “I can’t bear to lose my coyote. I’d sacrifice my honor to get him back. Chuquilatague said there’s a lesson Waapake must teach both me and Unole. He’s already taught me so much. Let’s pray it won’t be his last.”
Before they parted, Jancie reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze, though he couldn’t tell whether her gesture indicated optimism or sympathy.
Fresh grief slithered down his spine and curdled his stomach as he dropped into bed. He lay awake listening to tree branches scratching against the window pane. The sound reminded him of the great willow, and Unole. He needed to speak with her, even if just to hear her lovely voice, to help him remain calm. Clinging to the hope that they could talk through the willow tomorrow, he welcomed sleep.
Chapter Fourteen: Winds of Change
The window above where Unole studied rattled, shaking in the wind like a percussion instrument. Chimes hanging from the porch ceiling added a soft melody. The breeze begged to be joined, sung to, harmonized with. However, she couldn’t hear it well enough through the glass, or perhaps through the expansive aura her father exuded while meditating. Unable to focus on her lessons, she crept across a corner of the sitting room where Elogi’s honking nose snored in time with Father’s rhythmic chanting. Considering their din, it was no wonder Unole couldn’t engage with the wind. Coat and scarf in hand, she slipped from the cabin and shut the door behind her with the slightest click.
A few steps across the lawn, she spread her arms wide, welcoming the midday warmth. The wind danced amid golden rays, twining hints of springtime into the length of her braid and fringe of her scarf. Is this euphoria because Keir is thinking about me? Tempted to find out, she wanted to explore the forest where the wind spoke more freely. Houses and roads inhibited all of nature’s songs. She glanced over her shoulder at the cabin—closed tight and still enchanted.
Elogi hadn’t discovered her absence yet but would soon. Unole missed the freedom her illness had stolen. Since her close call with death, it seemed like the entire tribe, or at least all of her father’s clients, mothered her. She watched for every chance to regain control from Elogi’s smothering protection. Day by day, Unole strengthened and Elogi moderated but not fast enough to suit Unole.
She scurried along the trail toward the stream, where the wind had carried Keir’s fears to her during Waapake’s abduction. Ahead, current rushed the streambed’s corridor, traveling upon the sharpened wind. One puff that bounced from a trunk seemed to whisper Unole’s name or at least its first syllable—was it her imagination? She cupped an ear upstream. A long, drawled “o” encircled her with a kittenish, spiraling breeze. Then a louder “lee” swept the entire bank and ruffled a patch of white petals: Keir was calling to her.
She hurried to the display, the same place she’d spotted the single windflower before. Now at least a dozen blossoms pushed toward the sun—all since Keir and she walked these woods together. She kneeled and enjoyed her namesake flower, smiling at what was a sign of his goodness. Softened by today’s wind and sun, the earth squished beneath the knee of her jeans. The stain brought no worries, not when her world was springing back to life.
She rose and lifted an arm, palm open to catch a passing breeze. With a twirl of her fingers, she sent it back the way it had come, carrying her song with Keir’s name repeated in the melody.
Although she could have sung his name for hours—it gave her such joy—she listened for his reply. His reliance on the great willow to harness his words to the wind’s voice required longer.
During the interim, she dipped her fingers into the water. Fish and amphibians wriggled toward her, possibly drawn from their winter torpor with the happy tunes.
She also kept alert to the threat of Adara’s north wind, though no dark notes struck Unole’s ears nor any frigid gust iced her cheeks. It was the witch woman’s badger form that concerned Unole more. When in the glade before with Keir, the magic of human shifters confounded her, perhaps because the wind’s voice more easily commanded her attention. She did her best, checking and rechecking the shadowed brush along the banks.
Hindered by the limits of her own powers, she wished she’d learned how to track like a trapper or hunter. Only if the witch woman’s magic wafted to Unole, would she become aware. Or if a badger came close enough to hiss at her. Maybe take a nip at her like Adara had when they’d met last September before Unole’s illness.
A fresh breeze tossed her braid around, carrying Keir’s reply, more spoken than sung, in ragged notes translated by the tree’s spirit. “Glad to hear you. I miss you.”
She gulped too much air and almost burst with eagerness to respond. But when he continued, and his notes rose to an edgy pitch, she sputtered the breath out without a message. He’s in trouble.
“Adara will not release him. She saw our kiss and is jealous.”
Unole’s gaze raked the surrounding brush. Can Adara read the wind and gain access to his message? Few could unless, like Keir, aided by of a matriarch willow.
His words flowed faster, more urgent. “She threatens to smear my name, my honor. Unless—”
Breath whooshed from Unole, and her voice churned ripples atop the current. “I stand with you, always. As one.”
Several tense and empty moments followed. Unable to bide longer, she sang another line. “Let me be your path of peace to help you win Waapake’s freedom.”
Again, she waited, but this time took no joy in the splendor of spring. Silence settled across the streambed. No wind. No response. She rolled river pebbles under her boot, back and forth faster and faster, matching the acceleration of her pulse. She sucked air deep into her lungs and forced out a louder intonation of the same song. “Please hear me. I will gladly be your path of peace that you may hold to so you can free Waapake.”
She pressed a hand to a tree trunk to steady herself, her breath shallow, eyes fixed upstream.
On the far bank, the undergrowth rustled. She shifted her gaze to the noise. But nothing emerged.
Still no reply came from Keir. She dug her nails dug into the tree’s bark.
Too far for her to help with anything but a bit of song, Keir faced serious problems.
Why would Adara do those unspeakable things—imprison an innocent coyote and seek to malign an honorable man, the man I care for—now, after all I’ve done for that witch woman?
She blinked at the sunlit sky, seeing the Coyote Stars with only her heart, and selected one special star. She asked Great Coyote to let it sparkle with her favorite color, the purple of spring crocuses, to shine on Keir and help him when she could not. Though the magical protection was small, her love was great.
She dropped to her knees and recited a lesson she’d revisited more than once since her encounter with death. “I wonder in both life and love, for they last such short times. I open my heart to the unknown, though it may bring me fear or pain.” She shivered. The prayer gripped her with a new and deeper meaning. Her heart cracked as she stammered the last line, “I believe the Creator will guide me, for there are rewards to gather from the winds of change.”
Chapter Fifteen: The Lesson
Slunk low in the passenger seat, Keir waited for dusk, patience eluding him. He squirmed, bothered again by a cramp in his thigh. To surveil the Tabard house, he and Aggie had chosen her green Nash sedan. Though it barely functioned, having been stored in a barn for decades, Adara likely wouldn’t recognize the car; Aggie acquired it when she moved to the coven last October, after Adara vanished.
According to the Coven Council, adherence to a lifestyle from the time of the coven’s founding suppo
sedly helped isolate members from new ways that might adversely affect their witchcraft. However, the uniqueness of the relic cars they must drive allowed everyone to easily identify the drivers. Secrets were hard to keep—Keir didn’t know how he and Adara managed to hide theirs for more than four years. Even his best friends hadn’t known. He readjusted the position of his aching leg. If only he’d never fallen into temptation in the first place. What a sucker he’d been.
The tedious fading of sunlight left Keir too much time alone with his shame. At first, he and Aggie had attempted whispered, idle conversation. That soon became strained, both of them preoccupied with unspoken worry for Waapake. Keir’s past mistakes pursued him, grief and guilt burrowing into his nerves, jolting him with blame for Waapake’s suffering and possible death. To hold onto a shred of sanity, Keir forced the thoughts away, clinging to visions of Unole and the gentle tone of her song.
That afternoon, from where he’d sat under the great willow, she’d prompted him to accept her peace as his own, use it in the battle he faced. Recalling how he’d not been able to acknowledge her offer, he balled a hand into a fist.
Earlier that afternoon at the bend in Owls Tail Creek, Aggie stood guard, while Keir sat beneath the great willow’s bower. His fingers entwined several twigs, supple from the first flow of spring sap. As he talked with Unole, the sap tingled against his skin, oscillated blood in his veins, read the message in his heart and translated it to rhythm that floated atop the wind. Awestruck by magic he’d never witnessed, their communication was as unique as Unole. Another reason he admired and wanted her. Not knowing how to control the transmission, all of his longing spilled unfettered into the tree and swept southward before he could stop it. What if his desire had been too much, too soon, and frightened her?
Keir quickly formed a more purposeful message, rather than the ambling giddiness he just sent. He focused on the new complication with Adara, how she knew of his interest in Unole and their kiss at the reservation. Armed with that information, she now threatened to ruin his name, end his career in the coven, and kill Waapake. The sap fluctuated with his warring emotions. The willow’s branches swayed and kicked up a powerful wind, stirring the current beneath.
Seconds later, Unole’s pointed reply reverberated through each of the willow’s branches as she volunteered to be the path of peace he could use to stop Adara.
As Unole’s notes faded, Rowe’s and Jancie’s voices joined Aggie’s outside the great willow’s canopy. Rowe parted the low-hanging branches.
Not only had his entrance disrupted Keir’s concentration, the sap ceased vibrating against his hand, the wind stilled, and the creek’s burbling current quieted to a trickle. No matter how he tried to convey, thank you for your path of peace, to Unole, he could not. Repeated attempts, after Rowe exited the willow’s spread, yielded nothing. Keir swallowed hard and surveyed the sluggish streambed. He didn’t want to leave her hanging but what choice did he have? At least he’d managed to send some sort of positive message, albeit blathering infatuation.
Now, waiting in the car parked down the road from Adara’s, he replayed the scene, unable to account for the sudden curtailment of their dialog. Gathering darkness saved him from that confusion but thrust him into a similar yet more dangerous dilemma: how to speak with Waapake.
Keir faced Aggie, who stared blank-faced into the distance as if engaged in mental preparation. “Ready?” His question startled her into action.
She inhaled sharply. “I think so.” In one swift motion, she lifted her wand, its tips vibrating and amber stone aglow. The three ends contained gifts from three magical beings: her grandmother’s enchanted amber, the matriarch sycamore Nannan’s power, and Waapake’s hair infused with the power of all coyotes. “Fully operational.”
“Good. We’ll need it. Let’s make this quick and not get caught.” He pushed open his door and cut across the road to where snowplows had crusted forest underbrush beneath piles of snowpack.
She followed and they crouched, stalking toward the Tabard property. Using the tall boundary hedge as cover, he turned and continued toward the side of the house. When the back-porch gable came into view, he moved dense branches aside until he spotted the cellar door. For a moment, he prepared his mind, let it drift to Unole and the peace she wore easily like an article of clothing—even after facing a serious illness and her mother’s death. A sense of calm stroked his cheek, softening the sharp edges of his mind. Could he hang onto that with what lay ahead, yards away?
He needed more, a stronger link to Unole, and looked to the sky. Is she looking at the same Milky Way of Coyote Stars right now? One star with a purple-blue brilliance, along the ribbon of hundreds, twinkled brighter than the rest—maybe the Great Coyote would guide them tonight. If so, he hoped for useful instruction rather than a hard lesson.
He gulped a steadying breath and glanced at Aggie.
Though not shaking, her fingers white-knuckled the wand’s base as she extended it. She reminded him of Unole. Only a year younger, Aggie also possessed plenty of strength.
Keir again parted the hedge foliage. On his signal, she threaded the wand into the space, then held back the branches at one side, while he grasped the wand’s tip laced with Waapake’s fur.
Keir closed his eyes and began a mental journey toward to his familiar. He started by slipping into the ground beneath him. Into the soil he dropped, down, down, clawing for the bush’s roots. He entered a wide one so his path into the branches would be straight and swift.
Once there, in line with their plan, Aggie’s power glowed like a beacon, guiding him to the location where her wand contacted a bush limb.
He made an easy jump to the wand itself and hurried deep within the coyote portion. Waapake’s hairs resonated. Keir spread his hands onto points along each hair, marking them with his own power. Then, the hard part—more waiting.
Waapake must now respond. Keir perched on the terminal end of one strand shaking with Aggie’s power. Selected for their stiffness, rugged guard hairs had been threaded into wormholes along the wand’s wood. The quaking, unforgiving surface beat against his legs, punishing his already cramped thigh.
After a few minutes, he grasped the scaly hair with his hands to lessen the strain on his legs. He wondered how Aggie endured this extended output of her energy. She was one of the strongest young witches he knew; he didn’t doubt her magic or personal stamina. But fear of the unknown snaked seductively through his body, tempting him to believe Adara could and would do anything to thwart him, including attack Aggie.
Palms bruised and legs rubbery with fatigue, Keir couldn’t withstand. He shifted to dismount the hair. His scraped hands stung, oozing blood. One foot had just touched down onto the wand’s wood when he sensed Waapake’s aura, weak at first but building.
With a new burst of strength, Keir regripped and reestablished his seat.
Waapake’s essence shoved Keir backward and covered him in happiness—as if the coyote’s tongue licked his entire body.
Despite the need to remain quiet and avoid detection, a laugh built from low on Keir’s diaphragm and would not be stifled. When the joy of their reunion at last subsided, he transmitted a crucial message along the magical bond. “Keep yourself safe. Call to the Coyote Stars—they are our allies. I will come tonight at the cellar door. Is Adara home?”
A wail reverberated along the hair where Keir sat. Howled syllables twisted and morphed. “Food was provided, but she did not appear.”
“Be watchful. I am coming.” Keir slid off and raced back through the wand, scanning wildly for entry to the bush. He took the nearest branch, hoping it was the same he’d used to enter. It was not—his memory had failed him or Aggie had moved. With too many possible reasons and too little time, he chose not to retrace his path. Instead, he wound forward around many curves and angles, some so tight he barely squeezed past. At the junction of trunk and roots, he couldn’t locate the wide, straight root from before.
His mind labored
to return as fast as possible from the underground. In the real world, his body coiled to spring into rescue mode. The wild, out-of-body experience disoriented Keir.
He thought he heard a coyote howl.
The mournful cry persisted and Keir ran headlong into a knobby growth, where a bent and narrow root blocked his path.
Was the cry the Great Coyote teaching him the lesson? Now—while in process of journeying? It was all Keir could do to reconnect his mind and body.
Keir rubbed the side of his head and banged shoulder. He righted himself and retraced his steps to the last junction where he’d made a wrong turn.
The wailing surged again with renewed intensity.
He found the correct route and raced full speed through the large root tunnel.
Was one animal or many crying out? Were they the coyote ancestors who’d visited him during his last journey on Aggie’s wand?
He surged from the soil and sprang back within the housing of his own body, immediately focused on what his ears perceived—a single coyote—Waapake.
The forlorn cry pierced Keir’s heart. He had to save him. “Wait here,” he said to Aggie, then shouldered between a cleft in the hedge. Peering all around, he saw no movement, no lights shining from the house windows. He levered through the bush and darted across the driveway to the cellar door.
Footsteps sounded from behind. He dropped into cover of the outside cellar stairwell and checked back.
Aggie traversed the drive, gravel crunching under her feet.
Keir waved, then turned, descending the steps to the basement door. His coyote’s wail pierced the metal, the knob resonating like a tuning fork against his palm. As he rattled the locked door, Aggie came alongside.
He recited an opening spell, and she touched her wand to the lock. It gave way and he opened the door. Unable to see in the basement’s total darkness, he hesitated.
Witch's Windsong (Coon Hollow Coven Tales Book 5) Page 12