Unole took his place. With one hand on the coyote, the other on Keir’s shoulder, she sang a prayer in her native tongue. He didn’t know the words, yet the meaning was clear. Her soprano filled the room, replacing the musty shadows with both sadness and hope, a farewell from reality but also a happy reunion in the spirit world.
A loud knocking sounded at the outer basement door. Rowe unbolted the latch and let Tall Sam and several others enter. Distant voices indicated more had arrived.
When Keir heard his name shouted in an offensive manner, he tuned out all other jeers. He turned from the group and cradled Waapake’s muzzle to his chest where a lump tightened in his throat. He longed for their reunion in the unseen world. Why hasn’t your spirit come to me? Where are you? He rocked back and forth, trying to recall possible missed signs or vaporous forms.
After death, familiars routinely made contact with their owners to say goodbye. Some couldn’t bear the parting and returned in new animal forms. He’d assisted many witches with reconnecting to those reincarnations, every time a joyful homecoming. Keir passed his hands along Waapake’s body, checking for spiritual remains. Empty, without a trace. This wasn’t normal—what had happened? Had Waapake’s spirit been so tortured in passing that he now wandered lost?
Bile from Keir’s stomach rose into his throat. He looked to where Adara stood.
While even her friends’ faces revealed sad eyes filled with compassion, hers pierced him with cold contempt.
He handed Waapake’s body to Unole’s open arms and moved from the cage. His skin prickled as adrenaline surged. He strode to the center of the room and faced Adara. “What did you do to his spirit?”
Conversations around the room silenced as she stepped closer and drew out each hurtful word. “That is a question you need to ask your dear friend Rowe.”
“A spirit will only be displaced, left lost, after facing horrific death. What did you do to Waapake?” His hatred spilled out, hotter, louder.
For a moment she grimaced, her mouth in an ugly twist as if she’d tasted something bitter in his accusation. Then, she leaned forward and spewed a laugh in his face. “I hope there’s room at the reservation for both you and Rowe.”
“You’ve hurt too many. Your distorted sense of right and wrong only justifies your selfishness.”
“Two little boys always so righteous, helping others, everyone except Adara. Now their reputations have soured. No one will want their help, especially not Adara.”
“Adara, stop!” Unole pleaded. “This will only bring pain.”
“Unole, shut up. I owe you nothing. I repaid my debt.”
Before Unole would exit the cage, Adara slammed the door in her face.
Keir spun to the cage and yanked at the immoveable door, his stomach roiling, palm filling with white power.
Unole reached fingers through the bars overtop his fist of gathering power and quenched the flames. Eyes damp, she begged, “No. Use the medicine now. But only for good.”
Keir protected her with his body as he turned back to Adara.
The vile woman lifted a hand, nails ablaze, and thunder cracked outside.
His physical body tensed, desperate to exact revenge. Keir couldn’t tell if his heart and mind were open enough. Clinging to the hope of internal peace, he wished no harm to come to Adara and recited Chuquilatague’s spell:
Bring me your soul. I am a black owl of the night.
Your name is Night. I hunt your heart.
Adara slashed through the air, unleashing her storm. Lightning jagged down the cord of the overhead pendant light. The bulb popped with a shower of sparks.
Keir feared Unole’s metal cage was her next strike. Determined to complete the incantation, he projected his voice louder than the claps of thunder:
Bring me your soul. I am a brown owl of the night.
Your name is Night. I hunt your heart.
Adara’s lips quivered, shoulders tightened, despite the power glowing red at her fingertips.
The strength of the medicine shook through Keir, like a surge of adrenaline that made him dizzy and strong at the same time. He laced his fingers through the cage bars, to hold Unole’s hand, and persevered:
Bring me your soul. I am a yellow owl of the night.
Your name is Night. I hunt your heart.
“Stop!” Adara moaned, her voice shrill, face ashen, but Keir persisted through the final couplet, afraid the medicine would overtake his conscious mind.
Bring me your soul. I am a white owl of the night.
Your name is Night. I have your heart.
Elbows tight to her sides, Adara slunk to the floor, tears rolling down her cheeks. She waved a hand to open the cage door, and Unole crawled to where Keir sat. Adara whimpered to no one in particular, “I am so very sorry. I have done so much wrong. I killed Waapake with oleander poison.” Curled into herself, sobs shook her body as she cried against her hands.
All watched, but no one moved to comfort her, not even Sibeal. The magic was of a sort not seen before in the Hollow—apparently not in New Wish either, by the way Aggie gaped, her shoulder pressed into Rowe’s.
Adara wailed, lamenting a host of wrongdoings—a complete change of character, as though her very soul had transformed.
The only one in the room seemingly able to speak, Unole said to Keir, “Now, Waapake’s soul should be free. You might be able to use the dreamcatcher to contact his spirit. Or ask Great Coyote. He will know what happened to Waapake if the Milky Way is still present. Maybe the purple star I bade to …” Shockingly carefree, she rambled on, but Keir failed to comprehend, transfixed by the conversion happening before him.
At once worried the incantation had affected Unole as well—he spun to face her. But she only smiled at him as she had at the stream. Nothing seemed unusual other than whatever worried her had cleared.
Aggie’s scream split the room.
A silver blade in Adara’s hand glinted with light shining from the open door. Her other hand clutched the neckline of her dress, embers at her nail-tips singeing the fabric.
Rowe, already standing, lunged for her as Keir jumped to his feet.
Adara sliced a gash across her own throat, blood splattering everywhere.
Keir pressed a hand to the wound, but his actions were useless. Red spurted from between his fingers, hot and throbbing with her erratic pulse. He cried, “Call for help!”
Others echoed his request inside and out.
Logan must have already placed the call. He moved closer, answering questions into the phone, “She’s in and out of conscious. Yes, still breathing.” Her blood stained both Keir’s and Rowe’s arms, shirt fronts, pant legs.
Rowe tore off his jacket and pressed it against the gaping wound. Within moments, red bled through the fabric.
Adara’s eyes fluttered open, tiny slits. Her voice sputtered, hoarse and dry, “Tell Unole I’m sorry. I can’t live with all the guilt.”
Yells grew louder outside. Hopefully the ambulance had arrived.
“Hang on. I think the medics are here.” Keir tried to sound calm, reassuring. Despite all the loathing, he never wished for her to die. He had performed Chuquilatague’s medicine as directed—unless his perceptions were unreliable. His teacher would never have recommended this outcome. Had Keir done something wrong?
He smoothed her hair, matted with blood and recalled the earlier remembrance of his dress shirts ruined with her crimson lipstick—a gruesome foretelling sign.
The ambulance was too late. Adara’s last breath slipped from her lips, and her body sagged lifeless.
A woman’s voice—Jancie’s—yelled through the open basement door, “Keir, come out here. It’s Unole—she’s … dead.”
Chapter Twenty-two: The Grave
Keir raced up the stairs and overtook Jancie. Near where Unole lay on the driveway, a pair of medics were putting their equipment away and opening a sheet to cover her.
“What happened?” he blurted and attempted to kneel besi
de Unole, but was motioned back by the female medic.
“I’m sorry, the area must be kept clear as a crime scene,” she said in a polite but firm tone. “This young woman’s death needs to be investigated.”
Logan, standing close with Aggie, countered, “I’m the high priest of this coven, and my word supersedes local law enforcement. I authorize the okay for Keir to have a moment.”
Both medics quietly moved aside.
Keir dropped to his knees and cradled Unole’s hand.
Through sobs, Aggie choked, “Right after Adara cut herself, Unole ran out and I followed. She only made it this far before she collapsed. She coughed and wheezed, her body convulsing. Jancie got here right after Unole fell and started CPR.”
“Did that help?” he asked Jancie.
“At first, yes. With my help, we could detect a pulse, but only for a few minutes.”
He touched a hand to Unole’s still-warm but pale cheek. Fresh pain seized his chest; the loss was too great. He’d accepted that Waapake would likely die before him, the lifespan of a kept coyote only twelve or so years, though he was only five. But Unole was Keir’s future; he imagined his life ahead with her. With the swiftness of a falling axe, death cleaved away all hope and replaced it with suffering. Impossible to fight, he gave way to grief. His tears left a damp trail as they fell on the silk of her blouse.
She had begged him repeatedly to not kill Adara. Is this the outcome Unole expected? That her own life would be taken? How was that possible? He bent low and whispered near her ear, “If your spirit can hear me, know that Adara’s final words were to you. She was sorry that she couldn’t live with the guilt.”
A breath whooshed into Keir’s lungs. Repeating Adara’s message, it took on new meaning. Chuquilatague’s incantation, good medicine, had cleared Adara of evil. Evil that allowed her to live with her wrongdoings, justified hurting others, had been her protection. Her armor gone, a lifetime of guilt pummeled her, drove her to take her life to avoid the pain. In that final act, her suicide, Adara knew Unole would die as well and apologized—possibly hoping for forgiveness.
What Keir didn’t know was how the two women had been connected. He ran through details of conversations for possible clues. Unole had saved Adara’s life. Sometime after that, Unole had become ill and faced death herself. Yet, nothing linked her life to Adara’s. Or Adara’s death to hers.
A hand on his shoulder pulled him away from his internal struggle. One of the medics, a middle-aged woman with kindness in her eyes, asked, “Whenever you’re ready, we need to take the body. No rush.”
Keir nodded and took hold of Unole’s hand as he sat back. He couldn’t let go; this goodbye was years—decades—too soon.
Though immobile, unable to move on, Keir noticed a gurney wheel past carrying the shrouded body of Adara. To the morgue. Both bodies would be housed in the same facility. Keir cringed. Spirits usually clung to their corporeal bodies for hours, days, a week, before finding their afterlives. Whether intentional or not, Adara caused grievous harm to others during her death—and could still cause more hurt afterward. Or might the two women’s spirits be compassionate toward one another? What had linked them in life? That question burned hotter than a sabbat bonfire in his mind.
He gently rested Unole’s hand upon her chest and rose, though his eyes didn’t see. Images blurred past him too fast. He took a stumbling step and an arm caught him.
“Let me take you home.” A dark head of hair came into view. Rowe’s deep voice registered. “I’ve put Waapake’s body in my backseat.”
Keir allowed Rowe to guide him. Each step seemed leaden. Even in the midday light, colors in the environment around him were dim, and the air smelled bitter, as if something was missing. A few breaths later, he realized why. Unole’s perfume, her white flowers, had scented the air around him for a long time: a beautiful standard against which nothing could compare.
Seated in his office desk chair, Keir swilled coffee, willing it to assuage his shock for at least a few minutes while he made a call. He dialed Chuquilatague’s number.
The clairvoyant shaman hadn’t even waited for Keir to utter a hello before he said, “I was expecting to hear from you.”
He slapped his forehead and stammered. “How?”
“Great Coyote told me he taught both you and Unole your second and hardest lesson. Each of you met it with courage and pure hearts.”
Keir dragged his hand over his eyes. “I don’t think you understand what happened.”
“I know my daughter has died.”
Shock strangled Keir’s tongue for several moments before he uttered, “With all due respect, I don’t see how that is an accomplishment.”
“It may not be for you—depends upon how you proceed with the next lesson. But I trust my Little Windflower. She will make the experience, the lesson, into something as grand as the first blossom of springtime.”
“Another lesson? How could she? She’s … gone. Are you—” Keir bit his tongue to block a string of confused accusations, which would violate the decorum expected while communicating with his teacher.
“Yes, one last lesson. Be watchful. It will come,” Chuquilatague said, his voice resolute and calm. Keir had learned early in his training to never doubt his teacher, but this guidance defied logic. Had the old man’s mind slipped into senility?
Unable to continue on their current topic, Keir turned to what he’d initially dreaded with a new measure of relief. “There is the matter of burial. I can arrange to have Unole’s body shipped home. What do you wish?”
“After the holiday of Imbolc and its full moon in two days’ time, call me again. I will look forward to your call and have an answer.”
“What are we waiting for?” Keir blurted though Chuquilatague had already disconnected. Keir stared at the phone in his hand.
Despite the thick gray clouds, the late afternoon sun did its best to warm the earth. Keir sliced the frozen ground underneath his apple tree. The newly-sharpened blade Tall Sam had provided sunk a few inches. At least more than his own dull shovels, which Rowe and Sam used to turn the softer soil beneath. Half an hour later, they had fashioned a grave Keir deemed suitable for Waapake.
After they rested from their toils, and Keir finished gathering items he wanted to remain forever with Waapake’s spirit, they rejoined under the apple tree at sunset. Logan and Aggie were also present, and Jancie arrived last—though she stayed beside Aggie rather than Rowe.
Logan and Rowe lowered Waapake’s body, wrapped in a white sheet, into the grave, his head facing south toward his birthplace on the reservation.
Keir knelt and placed the old bucket, filled with his coyote’s treasured toys, beside his front paws. He remained in a crouch, while Aggie sang a verse of her own:
You’re no longer by our sides,
But there’s no need to weep;
You’ve left sweet memories,
We’ll be overjoyed to keep.
If loneliness brings us sorrow and dismay,
We won’t despair long, for you’re just a memory away.
Her song was so similar to Unole’s message, Keir couldn’t help but cry.
When she sang the lines once more, Jancie joined her. Though neither possessed Unole’s vocal talent, together they sounded like angels come to alleviate Keir’s heavy heart.
His lungs accepted a deep, expansive breath. He considered the dreamcatcher in his hand, whether to include it in the grave as part of his farewell. When the girls’ reached their final line, he followed the lyrics to a memory: Waapake, as a pup, slept underneath the protective web.
Maybe Unole hadn’t been babbling with fear when she urged him to use it to communicate with Waapake. Keir pocketed the dreamcatcher, stepped aside, and allowed Rowe and Logan to fill the grave.
Chapter Twenty-three: The Veil Lifts
A strong breeze rattled Keir’s window pane, but that wasn’t what kept him awake. He’d not slept, half watching for either Waapake’s spirit to come a
round or whatever ambiguous sign might indicate the start of Great Coyote’s last lesson.
Since Chuquilatague’s view of his daughter’s death had been deranged, Keir was less hopeful about the latter. He whole-heartedly accepted the presence of a spirit world, had dedicated his career to working with that realm. However, to be glad for a loved one to pass, and so young, was unthinkable. He stared at the ceiling, pondering what meaning he must’ve missed in his teacher’s typically cryptic guidance. Does he find pleasure in making me figure out his meaning? Or is the discovery process an expected part of my training?
Weary from wrestling with the unknowable, he rose and pulled on sweats, a parka, and boots and trekked to the apple tree. He sat on his mother’s bench, letting his eyes rest upon Waapake’s grave.
So many deaths that came too soon should have—could have—been avoided. If only he had … he clenched his eyes shut to cut off the thought. According to Chuquilatague’s analysis of the Great Coyote’s previous lesson, Keir had done nothing to cause Adara’s or Unole’s deaths. Did he accept that? Could he?
He looked up at the Coyote Stars of the Milky Way. The purple Unole had set to watch over him remained bright as ever, twinkling like Venus and just as quiet. He needed answers. Where is the last damned lesson?
The way that Adara died haunted him. He’d always considered her his polar opposite. Rather, she carried as much self-blame as he did, but coped by hiding it—even from herself—beneath a veil of evil. Underneath, she was no different than he. She’d shouldered her burden until she couldn’t continue on. He shuddered, fearing the same fate awaited him.
Unole had made him promise to use her father’s medicine. Why? He recalled the terror in her eyes—she knew Adara’s death would mean an end to her own life. She must also have known what Adara’s true nature would be like without her dark veil. Unole wanted him to view the parallel to his own struggles. She chanced death to allow him that insight. Her selflessness blossomed new love within his heart.
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