“Why do you call me that?”
He is attacking her now.
I feel the panic take hold of me for a moment. Panic, I’ve found, causes the astral consciousness to retreat to the physical body, ending the psychic experience. Onawa calms me, though.
Be at peace, Spirit Warrior. Look into my eyes.
I do. I focus completely on her huge green eyes, so fierce and wild, but at the same time calming and wise.
The Healer will buy you time.
“Healer? Aimee?”
She is not alone. Her allies are weak, but together they will prevail for a while. You must be prepared to return to them.
“Tell me.”
Your body will be purified by heat, but will your mind be pure?
I can only look at her.
You must put aside your arrogance, Spirit Warrior. It is not you who will free your cousin.
“The Great Spirit. Through me?”
You are learning. This dark spirit will attack you. It will know things about you. It will say things that are true and things that are not true. It will speak of things that have happened and things that may happen. You must ignore it. You will not speak to the dark spirit except to command it to leave.
“I understand,” I say.
If you do, you will find your destiny today, Spirit Warrior.
“Alan?”
The new voice is female, soft and weak. I turn away from Onawa to find a woman standing next to me. She is nearly transparent, and the form I see is like an old lady’s scarf being pulled by the wind. She is literally ragged and rippling around the edges.
She looks so familiar. Then I realize who she is: Aimee’s mom.
“She needs you, Alan,” the ghostly woman says. “Please help my baby. He’s coming back. He shouldn’t be here …” The wind rips her to shreds, and she flutters away into the world of unseen traffic.
Sit on my back, Spirit Warrior.
“What?” I don’t get it. Onawa is speaking to me now. Okay. But … did she just tell me to get on her back?
I must take you somewhere. Sit on my back.
“Where?”
She doesn’t answer. She only looks at me with those huge, patient green eyes. In a daze, I throw a leg over Onawa’s back and grab hold of her neck. Where is she taking me? She leaps forward, and I can feel her muscles tensing and relaxing as she races through the darkness that has no floor, ceiling, or walls, moving faster than I ever could, moving faster than sound, faster than the night.
There’s a tunnel of light ahead and we race toward it. The round doorway grows bigger and bigger, and then we explode through it and into light.
We have left the Spirit World, but we are still spirits. Now, however, we are standing in a familiar location in the physical world. I look at my body sitting cross-legged in the sweat lodge. My hair is damp and hanging over my glistening shoulders. Sweat runs off my body. The air is humid. I slide off Onawa’s back and stand over my body. Somehow, as a spirit, I can stand in the low-roofed sweat lodge; Onawa, while still seeming huge, also fits in the low structure.
Enter your flesh, focus your mind on the Great Spirit, and go to meet your enemy. Your cousin and the Healer need you now.
Onawa fades away like Aimee’s mother did back in the dark place. I give my body one more look, wondering for a minute how I’m supposed to do this, then just jump at it as if I’m making a tackle.
I fall over on my side, suddenly heavy with flesh and muscle and bone. I push myself up and sweat runs into my eyes. I wipe it away and get to my knees. Reaching outside the flap of the lodge, I grab my clothes and pull them on.
“I’m coming, Aimee. Hold on …”
It looks like an Oklahoma tornado has torn through the hallway upstairs. There’s not a picture frame left on the wall. The furniture Aimee and Courtney moved from Court’s bedroom is shattered into hundreds of pieces. Courtney’s clothes are torn and strewn up and down the hallway. Along both walls are deep scratches that dig all the way through the plaster. Worse, though, is the sight of Court’s bedroom door. It’s gone. Only a few jagged splinters hang on the brass hinges in the doorframe. Pieces of the door are in the hallway, and I know there will be a lot more inside.
I want to run. I want to run to Aimee.
But I can’t. I walk slowly. I remain calm. I remain focused.
“He’s coming back, Aimee. He’s coming back! He—” Courtney seems to choke on her own voice. Then another voice speaks, a deep, cracked, evil voice. His voice. “Come on, you bastard boy. Come meet your destiny.”
I step into the doorway. It’s a shocking scene and shakes me to the core, but somehow I keep my composure. Courtney is tied to the posts of her bed. There are socks wrapped around her wrists to keep the ropes from chafing. She’s still wearing her shoes and socks, white pieces of rope knotted around her ankles.
“We’ve been waiting for you, boy,” Courtney says with the demon’s voice.
Where’s Aimee? For a moment I can’t find her.
“She’s got a boo-boo.” The thing on the bed cackles at its own joke. Aimee—my Aimee—is slumped against the wall, a long splintery piece of wood protruding from her right arm, just a few inches below the shoulder. Her face is pale and drained, and she’s so weak. I kneel beside her and take the hand of her injured arm. Her green eyes meet mine.
“We collapsed on the floor. He lost energy for a bit and I only barely got her tied to the bed, and then …” She trails off as if speaking all that so rapidly wore her out.
“I met your mother, Aimee.”
Her eyes light just a little.
“This will hurt. Go clean it, then wrap it in a towel, okay? We’ll get you to the hospital when this is over.”
She gives the slightest nod, and I take the splinter in my left hand, steadying her arm with my right. “Great Spirit, let it be your will this doesn’t hurt her too much.”
Slow and steady, I pull the shard of wood from her arm. Her beautiful, tired face winces, scrunching up in pain, and then the splinter is out. I toss it aside. Her arm is bleeding, but the blood is not spurting. No major veins or arteries were hit. I guide her out of the room. I watch as she stumbles into the bathroom, then I turn to Courtney.
“Impressive,” the thing on the bed says. “But you won’t pull me out of this girl like you pulled the splinter out of your whore.”
“No, I won’t,” I answer.
Do not speak to it! Onawa’s voice roars through my head.
“Courtney! I know you can hear me. You have to fight this thing. Fight him, Courtney. You told me you want this evil spirit to leave you alone. Fight him now.”
He growls something inarticulate and inhuman as I take a step toward the bed. Courtney’s body begins thrashing wildly, and I’m afraid for a minute that the ropes won’t hold, that the wooden bedposts will break off, that I won’t be strong enough.
“GET AWAY!”
I reach for her.
“Please don’t, Alan.”
I stop. The voice is Courtney’s—almost. I study her face for a minute. It’s a raw, red mess of leaking sores. Her eyes burn with a feverish light, and she smiles a wicked, evil smile that isn’t hers at all.
My fingertips make contact with her side. Her mouth opens wide, wide, wider than it should ever open, and she makes a sound that no human could possibly make. It’s a low-pitched shriek that builds and builds, thudding at my brain like a jackhammer. The River Man makes her turn away from me. Her arms strain against the ropes. I sit on the bed and press my left hand to her back, under her heart.
I close my eyes and focus.
You are a tool of one who is greater.
“Great Spirit, if it is your will, send this dark spirit out of my cousin. Fill me and use me to do your will.”
Keep praying.
The thing growls like a caged, angry bear.
I repeat my prayer.
The thing speaks again. “You can’t fight me. You are nothing. Your father left becaus
e he knew you would be worthless.”
“Shut up!” I scream at the thing.
Do not speak to it!
The River Man laughs at me, a low, rumbling chuckle that is very out of place coming from my little female cousin.
“Do you know the things she used to do with Blake?” he asks.
“Great Spirit, I am weak,” I call out. “I can’t do this. You have to do it. If it is your will, send this dark spirit out of my cousin. Fill me and use me to do your will!”
The River Man screams again. I repeat the prayer, saying it over and over while the thing inside my cousin thrashes and fights me. Again and again I say it, until the words run together. No, they are not running together. I am speaking another language.
It’s the language from my Navajo CDs.
It is the language of my ancestors.
Of my father.
My hand is cold where it’s touching Courtney’s back, as if something is crawling from her flesh into mine.
Bring it to us.
I’m not sure what Onawa means at first, but then I remember the dark place with all the spirits moving through it. Slowly I close my hand, keeping the fist pressed against Courtney’s back. The cold spreads up my arm like ice, freezing my blood. I know if I open my eyes I will see my skin turning hard and blue.
Bring it to us now.
I concentrate on remembering that dark place where I spoke with Onawa. Then I am suddenly traveling. I am outside of my body again, but I’m not alone.
The River Man is there, in my grasp, struggling against me. He is a slippery shadow, squirming like a snake. He looks at me with black eyes that are somehow even blacker than the shadow that is his body.
“Don’t do it, boy,” he says in a soft, hissing voice. “Anything you want, I can give it to you. Football. I can make you the best ever. The best of anything. I can make you a king of men.”
I never stop moving somehow. I’m not walking. It’s more like a fast glide, kind of like flying, but not in a stretched-out Superman way. I don’t answer the beast in my hand.
He stretches himself out again, then coils his long, clammy body around my arm until his face is near my ear. “Anything you want, Alan. Anything.”
My mind betrays me. I think of Oklahoma, of football, of Aimee sitting in the stands of Memorial Stadium in Norman, cheering for me as I score touchdowns for the Oklahoma Sooners.
“Yesss,” the River Man hisses. “Even that. Just say you want me. It will be yours.”
Where is Onawa? Why won’t she speak to me?
“She’s left you. She is afraid, Alan. She made you fight me, but she’s afraid to help you. She knows I’m too strong.”
I stop moving. I search the darkness, looking for Onawa’s glowing green eyes. What kind of spirit guide abandons her charge when he needs her most?
“She is useless. Useless and weak, Alan. Together, though, we are strong. Take me back. Let’s go back.”
He’s pulling at me, dragging me back the way we came, back toward Courtney.
“No!” I manage to pull back. My arm is so cold. The freezing sensation has moved up to my shoulder, spreading across my chest, moving toward my heart. I know if it gets to my heart, the River Man will have me, too. “No.” My voice is weak.
The River Man chuckles again. We begin sliding back toward Courtney.
“Onawa … where are you?” I beg. “Aimee …”
Suddenly a blast of heat bursts within me. It’s like a sun has exploded inside me, burning me in a good way, driving the cold out of my chest.
“I’m here, Alan.”
It’s Aimee’s voice, but she isn’t here. Not here in the dark place. She’s back in Courtney’s bedroom.
She’s put her healing hands on my body, adding her strength to mine.
“Great Spirit! I bring you this dark thing that you made for reasons I can’t know,” I yell into the darkness. “If it is your will, take it away from me and my family and friends and never let it bother this place again.”
And there, finally, standing before me with her beautiful glowing eyes, is Onawa, my spirit guide. Her cougar mouth is smiling at me.
You have done well, Spirit Warrior, she says. Give him to me. She opens her mouth, and it’s like her head splits apart. Between her teeth is only light, a light so bright it should be blinding, but somehow it isn’t.
I reach forward. The River Man is still in my fist, but he’s fighting, squirming and screaming and cursing and trying to make promises he can’t keep. I push my fist between Onawa’s long, sharp teeth, into her throat as far as I can reach, until my shoulder is pressed against her muzzle.
Inside her body I can see the River Man, a thing of writhing shadow, expanding around my arm, confined within Onawa. He glares at me, spitting and cursing, and then I release him and pull my arm free. Onawa closes her mouth.
The Great Spirit is pleased with you, but now the dark spirits will plague you until you go to join your ancestors.
“Who are my ancestors?” I ask. “Who is my father?”
There will come a time for that answer, Spirit Warrior. For now, know that it is not a man’s ancestors who define who the man is. It is what he does for himself.
I’m so tired. I feel so weak.
Onawa is still talking. Every man has a destiny, Spirit Warrior—but each man must decide if he will accept it.
I feel like I’m falling. I reach forward and my hand finds Onawa’s head. I lean against her. Sag against her, really.
Your body is near death. The dark one’s poison was very deep.
“I’m dying?”
Look behind me.
I somehow find the strength to raise my head. I see a light, like the mouth of a tunnel, behind Onawa. “What is it?” I ask.
The next world. It is where spirits go when the flesh dies.
When the flesh … dies?
We move slowly toward the light.
• 25 •
AIMEE
All my life I’ve wanted to save people, to be a hero kind of person. All my life I’ve wished that I could’ve stopped my mom from going out to that river, that I could’ve kept her alive.
But I failed.
The moment I step back into the bedroom and smell the decay, I realize I’ve failed again. I never should have left him alone to fight. I never should have tried to find gauze to take care of my arm.
“Alan!” I yell his name like that will help, like it is magic or a prayer.
But his name is just a name, and my yelling it doesn’t keep him from being collapsed on the bed with the thing that’s taken over Courtney. His hand is beneath her back. His other arm is thrown sideways, parallel to her leg. He’s breathing, but only just. His mouth twitches. He’s fighting him. He’s fighting the River Man somehow.
I run to him, to them. The entire house shakes. The floor seems to buck. The walls sway. He’s trying to make it fall on us, I think. He’s trying to ruin it all.
When I get to the bed, Court’s eyes flash open. It is not Court inside them. It’s something wicked. It is something that is so evil it could never understand the light.
Court’s mouth moves and says one word: “Mine.”
Anger surges inside me. “Oh, no way, baby. Not on my watch.”
It almost makes me laugh. Not on my watch.
I lunge forward, placing my hands on Alan’s broad back. He doesn’t move. Something in the hallway crashes to the floor. The studs in the walls creak.
“Alan.” I say his name, trying to make it into something magic. But that’s not how it works. The something magic is in me. I am so tired, but I will myself to focus. My hands tingle with power. It’s the power of light. I whisper the words, “I’m here, Alan.”
He doesn’t move.
I push the panic away. I force the pain away. Pieces of door are slamming toward us again, whirling around us. One strikes Alan in the shoulder. One hits me in the leg. I keep focused. The light surges. My hands shake with it. It’s draining m
e, draining everything from me, and I don’t care. I just want Alan back. I don’t want to fail again. Something shifts in the room. Courtney’s eyes soften, fluttering closed as if she’s exhausted. It still smells rank—like feces and death, but something is gone. Alan stops moving.
He’s gone.
I turn him over, check for a heartbeat. Nothing. No pulse. His chest isn’t moving.
“Aim?” Court’s voice comes from the bed, weak and scared.
“I’m here, Court,” I say. I put both hands on Alan’s chest. “Stay with me. Please, please, stay with me.”
I shove all the power I have toward him. Hopefully it isn’t too late. He can’t die. He can’t. He can’t die.
Every single cell of me pushes light to him, begging God that he doesn’t die.
“Please,” I plead. “Please …”
There’s nothing. He doesn’t move. The lump in my throat widens so that I can’t swallow. I refuse to look away. I grab his head. My fingers lace into his hair and I whisper his name.
He gasps and opens his eyes. They are his eyes, just his, nobody else’s. Blinking hard, he smiles.
“Aimee?” he whispers. He grabs my hair like he’s making sure I’m real.
I smile. I’m so weak from saving him that it’s hard for me to not fall on top of him, but I don’t. My hands are shaking as they move to his face.
“You came back?” I ask, matching his whisper with my own.
“For you.” He wets his lips. His voice is hoarse, like he’s been yelling. “For you.”
I lean down. Our lips touch and it is sweet, so sweet.
Courtney croaks in a kind of laryngitis-style voice, “Guys. Could you stop making out and untie me because … you know … it’s a little on the weird side of kinky, the whole tied-up thing. And … I …?”
I laugh and pull away from Alan. I’m tired from bringing Alan back, but just seeing Courtney there rejuvenates me a little. Her face is clear. Her hair’s a total mess, but her eyes are Courtney eyes, kind, a little sarcastic, but good.
“Oh,” I say, and start working at the knots on her hands. My arm hurts from the movement, but I don’t care. “Oh, Court, you’re so beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” She shakes her head. I free one hand and start working on the other. “Think we should take a pic?”