Windigo Thrall

by Cate Culpepper

  “Elena, you were right. I’m listening to this message with wiser ears than yours.” Pat lifted Elena’s dark curls free of her collar and smoothed them across her shoulders. “You were right about a lot of things. You’re amazing, my friend, but this isn’t your story. It’s Maggie’s and mine, from Native people. It’s our past. You brought us insights from a different culture, but now you have to trust ours.”

  Pat turned Elena gently to face her. She took Elena’s hand and held it against her own heart, and in spite of her fear, Becca felt the thrum of Pat’s pulse in her own palm. “Elena, I need you to watch my ass in all this. Because I have no real earthly fucking idea what’s going to happen.”

  Elena blinked up at Pat. She glanced at Grady, then began buttoning the front of Pat’s long coat. “You have the cojones of a grizzly bear, little sister.” Elena patted her face. “Don’t worry. We’ll have your back.”

  “Oh yes? Will we?” Becca was ready to return directly to the mass psychosis theory. “Are we having Pat’s back before or after Jo’s bonfire?”

  Blowing snow churned past the windows, and the night air filled with howling winds. They moved together, forming a tight circle in front of the fire, and Becca was comforted in spite of herself. They didn’t hug or tousle each other’s hair, and no one gazed adoringly at anyone else. She felt them drawing strength and courage from each other more simply than that; their presence was enough.

  “It sounds like things are kicking up out there.” Pat snugged her gloves around her wrists. “We need to move now.”

  “Pat.” Grady’s gaze was on the floor. “How do we know this isn’t exactly how the Windigo operates? That Canadian Cree, Swift Runner, who cannibalized his family…how do we know he didn’t lure his son outside with some crazy diversion, just like this?”

  Uncertainty flickered across Pat’s face. It was an unsettling moment, and Becca was already unsettled to the point of nausea.

  “Look, maybe I don’t get this plan,” Maggie said slowly. “This Cannibal Woman thing, how her story is supposed to help us. But, Grady, I don’t think Pat and I can stop you guys, if you go for each other again. Sooner or later—”

  “Maggie.” Becca never interrupted anyone, ever. “Maggie, you told us yourself that this Windigo only attacks its victims outside. Now you’re thinking it’s a good idea to drag Jo out there in this blizzard and boil her like an egg?”

  The wind had become a blizzard in full fury. Ice crystals of snow pattered against the glass windowpanes in angry bursts.

  “Becca, don’t you get it?” A pleading note entered Maggie’s tone. “You need this almost as much as Jo does. So do they.” She jerked her chin at Grady and Elena. “If we stay in here, how long will it be before you lose yourselves entirely? Selly said the Witiko changes the family in ways that drive the cursed one into a killing rage. Isn’t that what we just saw?”

  “Jealousy, pride.” Elena closed her eyes. “You’re right, little sister. This monster is corrupting our spirits in ways that can only end in bloodshed.”

  “We might be drifting from the point,” Becca said loudly. “The point being―”

  “Pardon me.” Jo put her hand on Becca’s shoulder. Becca had stepped forward when she barked at Maggie, but now she stepped back. Jo looked down at her narrowly, with a kind of courtly reproof. “I appreciate the sentiment, Becca, but this isn’t your decision to make. I want this thing out of me, and I’m going with Pat. The rest of you can come or not.”

  “Nope,” Pat said at once. “All of us or none of us, Jo.”

  “Joanne…” Becca said.

  Jo winked at her. “Find some cojones, Rebecca.”

  No one spoke while the wind raged and battered the cabin.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Jo rolled her eyes and stalked toward the front door.

  Becca caught up with Jo, and the others followed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Pat led them blindly. It was impossible to see through the churning vortex of wind and snow, but Pat knew the lay of the land well enough to have a fix on their direction. She imagined the sinister moon breathing overhead, looking down on six tiny, moving dots on a field of white, huddled together for warmth.

  “Pat!” Maggie shouted to be heard over the wind. “Jesus, that sky…”

  The heavy cloudbank above them couldn’t possibly be more dense, save for the circle that emitted the green moonlight. But farther northeast, just over the horizon, a roiling blackness had appeared, darker even than the night. And it was coming closer, and moving fast.

  Minnesota and the snow-choked, barren planes of Canada, the lonely places, lay northeast of Mt. Rainier. If this interesting geographical reality occurred to anyone other than Pat, they had no breath to discuss it. The snow was knee-deep, even thigh-deep in some places, and the ground was uneven. Pat had to kick powerfully to break a path, and the others had to focus on following her.

  “Jo, how are you?” Elena shouted.

  “Still fine, thank you,” Jo called back. “Though I believe we called a moratorium on asking me that.”

  The metal trough swam into view ahead. Set on a small rise, it was only half-submerged in snow, a white drift cresting one of its slanting sides.

  “Maggie!” Pat guided her to one end of the trough, and then kicked through the drift to its opposite end. They faced each other over its length, blinking furiously to clear their eyes of swirling sleet. The rest of them clustered along its sides.

  “You want me on that?” Jo pointed at the mound of solid snow filling the steel rectangle. She looked ready to vault over the side and plant herself on it at Pat’s word.

  “Not yet.” Pat looked up toward the rolling sea of black above the trees. “Maggie? Grab on.”

  Pat grasped the extended bar on one end of the trough in her gloved hands, and after a moment of hesitation, Maggie took hold of the bar at the other end.

  “Sewa,” Pat called to Maggie, “look at me.”

  They faced each other over the trough, and a quick vision came to Pat, the briefest glimpse into a realm Elena must inhabit daily. In the empty air above the trough, she saw a tall man with long, dark hair swirl into being. A young woman hovered with him, looking up into his eyes. He touched the woman’s face, then handed her a small cloth pouch. She held it to her heart.

  “Wh-wh-who are they?” Becca stammered, just as the ethereal figures melted into the freezing air.

  “Who were they?” Grady echoed, through wildly chattering teeth. Pat saw they were all gaping at the now-empty space above the trough, but she returned her gaze to Maggie, and wondered if these visitors had chimed a deeply resonant note of recognition in her as well.

  Without fanfare or flashing lights or special effects of any kind, the snow in the trough began to melt.

  The entire white surface sank a visible inch immediately, and then steam started to boil up in the frigid air. Grady and Elena, Becca and Jo stepped back in astonishment, but Pat and Maggie kept their hold on the swiftly warming steel bars.

  “Pat!” Elena’s call was urgent. “Are you being burned?”

  “No. We’re okay.” Pat spoke for Maggie as well, who looked as bedazzled as the rest of them.

  The sour green light of the moon began to fade, an ancient overhead eye closing in displeasure, and a bitter howling entered the wind.

  The wind of the Spirit of the Lonely Places was composed of the death rattle of tribes lost to winter famine. Elena said she had first heard it in the trees as they drove toward Mt. Rainier. Pat had heard that wretched moaning in the recording of Selly Abequa. The mournful wail was rising again, and whatever rode on its back was coming fast now.

  The sides of the trough began to pulse with a subtle light, a mild gold glow. The rest of the snow filling it melted in a wet swirl, still steaming mightily.

  “Hey!” Becca grabbed the sleeve of Jo’s parka. “No way are you diving into that!”

  “Wait.” Grady stepped to the trough and pulled off her glove. She
held her hand just above the misting surface of the water, then patted it gingerly. Elena hissed, but Grady shook her head. “No, it’s all right.” She dipped her hand beneath the surface. “Hot, but bearable.”

  “Can I take it?” Jo asked Grady shortly.

  “I think so.”

  Jo began unfastening her parka. She yelled at Pat, “You actually expect me to disrobe?”

  Pat’s shoulders hunched as an abrupt swell of the wind sent a harrowing and bereft quailing through her. “No time! Maggie, don’t let go! Jo—move.”

  Jo stole an arm around Becca, pulled her close and kissed her, and the insane, entirely genuine passion of the moment hit Pat hard. Then Jo lifted one leg over the glowing edge of the trough.

  Elena stopped her. “Jo. I’m coming with you.”

  “What?” Grady sputtered.

  “No woman should endure such a healing alone.” Elena turned to Pat, pleading. “And I need this healing as much as our sister, here. Pat, I feel this.”

  Pat raised her voice to be heard over the grieving wind. “My grandmother said each of us has part of the answer. Go on, Elena.”

  Elena shook off her jacket and dropped it, then yanked one glove free and pulled the silver ring from her third finger. She pressed into Grady’s hand and touched her face. Then she turned and vaulted nimbly into the trough.

  Hot water splashed Pat and Maggie to their waists, and Elena uttered a series of curses in Spanish as she settled into a seated position at one end of the trough. She waved reassurance, not to Grady but to Becca, as Jo climbed in and joined her in the steaming water.

  The trough was deep, submerging Jo and Elena to their chests. Jo sat back against Elena, who wrapped both arms around her, bracing her. Jo clung to either side of the steel rim with both hands.

  “Hot,” Jo said clearly, her eyes clenched shut. “But do it, go on.”

  “Maybe we should take up the places Elena had us take in the living room,” Pat called above the shrieking gale. “Becca, you’re over here next to—”

  “Right, like you could stop me!” Becca was already kicking her way to Jo’s side.

  “Grady, you stand there. You’re our witness.” Pat kept both hands around the steel bar, and Grady backed reluctantly away from them to stand to one side. The wind grew ferocious, and the sky darkened entirely. They were plunged into blackness broken only by the mild glow of the trough.

  “What now?” Maggie’s eyes were enormous. “Pat, it’s starting to hurt them!”

  Elena arched her back and hissed in pain, and it wasn’t hard to imagine how it felt to submerge very cold hands and feet in very hot water. The stinging of blood racing to the surface of the skin had to be excruciating.

  “This ain’t doing it.” Grady threw Pat a look of pure defiance and moved. She threw herself on her knees beside the trough and grabbed Elena’s hand.

  And apparently that did it, the joining of all six women around the steaming water again, because it abruptly began to boil. The surface roiled around Elena and Jo in great bursting bubbles.

  “Jo?” Becca gasped.

  “It’s all right.” Jo was breathing in deep pants. “It’s no h-hotter.”

  Pat waited in unbearable limbo for anything to happen—for Jo’s ice heart to melt in the churning water, for a gruesome demon to descend out of the gale, for the mountain to open and swallow them whole. The piercing wind slapped them, and they leaned in helplessly toward one another.

  “Pat?” Maggie cried.

  “Hold on, babe.” Grady gripped Elena’s hand hard, and Elena closed her eyes and rested her head against it, her lips moving in prayer.

  “Pat!” Maggie screamed again. She was staring over Pat’s shoulder, and as one, they turned to follow her horrified gaze.

  It skittered like a spider over the top of the distant hill, an immense creature, towering above the tallest trees. The Windigo ran upright, all long, emaciated limbs and withered ribcage.

  “J-Jesus.” Becca’s stunned whisper was lost in the chaos. “I thought it was a f-fucking metaphor…”

  There was nothing ephemeral in the Cannibal Beast that scuttled swiftly down toward them with desperate speed. The monster had the head of a deer, and its broad antlers rocked as it sniffed the air hungrily. The Windigo was starvation made animate, with the crazed, greedy red eyes of utter famine, and those eyes were pinned on Jo.

  “The mask!” Maggie’s voice rang clarion-strong. For that moment, she was the mother of this clan, and she must be obeyed. “Becca, use the mask!”

  Becca groped in the pocket of her jacket.

  The towering near-skeleton was close enough now that its stench reached them even through the wind, a rank, foul musk, the scent of the cursed smoke from Selly Abequa’s pipe.

  Becca drew out the small Makah mask and slammed it down on Jo’s chest with a fierce cry.

  The pine oval ignited at once into sparking flame and sank deeply into Jo’s breast. She thrashed convulsively in the water, and they screamed like terrified children.

  The Windigo swept down on them, blanketing them in impossible cold. Ravenous need sparked briefly through Pat’s blood, a killing need, a horrible craving that obliterated friendship and love and all her humanity.

  Jo’s body, and Elena’s, glowed a deep gold-red in the boiling water. On either side of the trough, the same light flared briefly in the center of Grady’s chest, then Becca’s.

  The Windigo’s prolonged, cheated howl cracked the air, and then it melted into thin air and was gone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Then the sun came up.

  The sun didn’t exactly come up, it was just there, serene and shining in the crystalline teal sky overhead.

  This immediate transition to daylight and balmy weather wasn’t as reassuring as one might imagine. The sudden silencing of that relentless wind made Maggie fear she’d gone deaf, and the sunlight was painfully dazzling after too many wretched hours of darkness.

  They straightened out of their hunch and shared a moment of pop-eyed silence. Pat let go of the trough and turned in a quick circle, scanning the trees and the sky for any sign of their monster. They were alone. Mt. Rainier ruled over the valley again, stately and silent in the afternoon sun.

  “Hoochie-mama!” Jo clambered awkwardly to her feet in the steel trough, sloshing the several inches of water that remained in it. “Now it’s so frigging cold!”

  “Hoochie-mama?” Grinning wildly, Maggie took Jo’s arm and helped her over the rim. “Seriously?”

  “It just came out,” Jo mumbled.

  “Hey.” Grady was still kneeling beside the trough, clenching Elena’s hand. “Let’s get you out of there too.”

  Elena let Grady help her stand, but protested when she began to lift her bodily out of the trough. “Oh yes, Grady, by all means, throw out your back, I am perfectly capable of―” She broke off as Grady set her on her feet and pulled her close. “Ah. Never mind,” she mumbled into Grady’s shoulder. “This is a very good idea.”

  “Are you safe? Are you sane?” Becca demanded, kicking through the snow to Jo. “Are you whole? Are you well? Jesus, I’m Horton talking to a Who!”

  Jo steadied Becca’s flailing arms. “I believe I’m fine again, thank you.”

  They couldn’t stop blinking at each other.

  “This looks like a burn.” Grady touched a red patch on Elena’s throat gently. “From the water?”

  Elena nodded, feeling her throat. “I think we’re cooked, Jo and me, but we’re not too badly boiled. Nothing a little aloe won’t cure. I want my ring back now please, Grady.”

  “Here you go, love.” Grady slipped the silver ring from her pocket and slid it on Elena’s finger.

  Their gasping breath steamed freely in the crisp air. Maggie didn’t consider it Windigo-freezing anymore, but it was still a brisk January day at the foot of Mt. Rainier. The trough was simply a trough again, sans glowing light. The only surreal note came from the sudden chiming of music through the ai
r, the faint melody of “Season of the Witch.”

  Grady looked around. “Is that…?”

  “Sí, sí,” Elena sighed. “It is my hoochie-mama.”

  Grady crunched through the snow to Elena’s jacket and brought it to her. Elena took her cell out of its pocket and opened it.

  “Hello, Mamá, we are fine, call you soon, good-bye.” Elena pressed a key firmly to switch her phone off, and Becca rested her head on Maggie’s arm and tittered in frazzled amusement.

  Grady slipped Elena’s jacket over her shoulders. “Wow. It’s two o’clock, Monday afternoon. Just as it should be.”

  “Now that’s a lovely sight.” Becca nodded toward the cabin in the distance. Power restored, it was lit from within with humming light, and Maggie could almost hear its large rooms warming with welcome heat. Becca slid her arm through Jo’s. “You guys are soaking wet. We need to get you in out of this cold.”

  Pat hadn’t spoken, and it had taken her this long to make her way around the trough to Maggie. She put her hands on Maggie’s shoulders and turned her. Then she tipped her chin and kissed her, in front of Rainier and Elena’s Goddess and everyone. Maggie smiled at her, and they kissed again, long and slow and sweet.

  “Please, Patricia.” Jo was already on her way back to the cabin. “Get a room.”

  They followed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Two hours later, Jo was on the cabin’s front veranda, blissfully ensconced in the hot tub with Becca and Grady. The clear water bubbled merrily and predictably, behaving itself, providing nigh onto perfect ecstasy for those immersed in it.

  “You need to join us, Maggie,” Grady drawled.

  “No, thanks.” Maggie patted Grady’s head, which rested on the cushioned lip of the tub. “This thing is too full of Seattle lesbians. I’ll get a private soak in later.”

  “You and Smokey Bear?” Becca simpered coyly, chin-deep in the water. “Woo-hoo.”

  “Please,” Jo sighed, her long length languid beside Becca. “Don’t start with the lascivious woo-hooing. You should hear Becca with her girlfriends, Maggie. The air turns purple when they get going.”