~~~
The evening of the twentieth was finally noticeably colder than the past weeks of rain. While the news indicated a current temperature at 6:00PM of about fifty degrees, Daniel’s own thermometer outside the back door was reading in the lower forties. Rain was almost constant, but fortunately not in torrents. Having spent the afternoon doing the same as he had for the past eight days yielded no results and no satisfaction that would permit him to sleep well either. He’d asked the sheriff’s station again for a status with no other leads. Rachel’s father had finally called them twice in the past week, but when Daniel inquired to the sheriffs why none of Rachel’s family had come up to investigate he got the same explanation that he was expecting a little too much of her Native American culture to expect they would think or respond the same way he did. In essence he was told that the sheriff’s department approached the missing person’s case the same way Rachel’s own family likely did: either she will be found safe and they will be grateful, or she won’t and they will continue to be remorseful. Daniel didn’t trust the evaluation from the sheriff and couldn’t imagine a parent would just sit around waiting for news.
Between Mr. Johnson’s muted reaction and casualness about beginning work, Rachel’s family remaining fairly non-communicative, the sheriffs, and most of all the entire town of Woodland Hills that seemed to have permanently gone to bed during the storm Daniel was getting edgy. He felt the presence of the water shaman constantly pressing upon him. It was hard to turn off the lights because the darkness would rush in upon him so quickly and forcefully, even during the day, that it felt like he was being constricted.
“You can’t beat yourself up about it forever, you know Mr. Tremon? It’s not your fault. I’m sure if she loves you and she’s okay she’ll be back as soon as she can,” the female deputy he last spoke to had told him.
It was little consolation and actually seemed offensive. They all think she’s my lover! he thought to himself. But the truth was, aside from the signs Dan recognized, there wasn’t really a whole lot of sign of struggle. The doors had been locked from the inside, though the sheriffs clearly did not believe that once they arrived. Even with the truck left behind it was felt that with Rachel’s recent departure from the Mesa Verde staff and no solid employment elsewhere yet that she likely just wanted to disappear.
The good that came of the twentieth was the conversation about Rachel’s family. He’d been reminded that the creature seemed intertwined with the cliff dwellers and perhaps later the pueblo building and Hopi Indians as well. Something sparked in his head after he’d hung up and poked around on the internet a little more about shamans, prayer sticks and cursed lands. He recognized that perhaps he was not seeing his role in the right manner. He was the only one, aside from Rachel, that had put two and two together and figured out what the shadow was, as best as he could determine anyway. And, he was probably the only one left who’d made contact with the shaman too.
By 7:00PM Daniel had setup burning prayer sticks about the house and on the porch and back steps. He’d taken the last few up to the attic where he believed Rachel was abducted. Having spent many hours looking into Native American traditions as well as other spiritual means of defending against the water shaman he decided to hedge his bets.
Daniel took out a mat he’d had tucked in his mud-room closet and laid it on the floor of the attic space. It was dark with the single bulb on and it was very cold. But he knelt down and faced the window in the dormer. The prayer sticks in the attic continued to smoke lightly. In front of him Dan placed a small bowl from the kitchen and then dumped the contents of a small potpourri kit one of his neighbors had given him as a house warming gift when he first moved in. He pressed one of the prayer sticks into the sweet smelling items until they started to smoke as well. By the time he’d returned the prayer stick to its container at his side the rose petals and other items started a small flame and he knew it wouldn’t last long. A cross on a necklace he’d had buried in his junk drawer in the nightstand by his bed had also been hung from the dormer window latch. He had also thought about trying to get ahold of some holy water but knew that would be a very unlikely scenario as the closest Catholic church was many, many miles up the freeway and it was already late on the eve of the Winter Solstice. His motley collection of artifacts would have to do.
With a glance around the attic once more, Daniel folded his fingers together before him. He pressed his hands to his chin and thought for a moment and then let them drop into his lap while he spoke.
“Dear God…or whoever may be on our side up there.
I need some help.
I don’t think You intended for Rachel to be taken, and I feel like I need to do something to get her back safe.
Can You help me find her…
And help me find a way to get rid of this water shaman.”
For a moment he listened. The window and then the roof above him started reverberating with the sound of hail pelting the surfaces. He hesitated to conclude his prayer with an “Amen” and so he waited out the storm. Soon the sound became a roar on the exposed sections of roof trusses and he had to open his eyes. Somehow the light bulb seemed considerably more dim, and then lightning struck the foothills in view from the dormer. It was only a half second later when the strike bounced around the room and shook the window.
Still Dan waited. He wasn’t sure what else he should say but he was determined he wasn’t going to quit until he’d heard some sort of answer that might help.
Lightning struck three more times in rapid succession. Then the rush of hail seemed to move along the mountain range past his home. The noise slowly returned to a rinsing of water upon the roof and in many ways it became relaxing. Running water in the rain spouts and the soft white noise on the house were actually soothing him with familiarity.
“God…please help me know where to go,” he added in a whisper.
Lowering his head, Daniel closed his eyes once again. Instantly an image of his surroundings came to his mind as though his eyes were still open. In the dormer a watery visage of Rachel cowered before him. He felt the residual presence of the shadow in the same moment he turned his head and saw the water shaman approaching her from the stairwell hole to his right. He advanced upon her, and then Daniel switched positions in his vision. He became the one cowering in the corner under the book shelf as the shadow hunched over him and reached out.
The shaman’s shadowy hands closed about his shoulders gripping him and its face suddenly flickered with the angry flit of candle flame light upon it, bathing the face in horrid reds and yellows among the shadows. He could see the creature was grinning and his eyes were wide. The man-thing seemed at once much more human than Daniel had thought, and at the same time a wildly crazed demonic soul. War paint in dark reds and inkish black marked his brow and cheek bones as well as his chin. Upon his head was a band with dark protruding shapes rising above and falling below to hang alongside his face. In that moment Daniel knew that if he gave in to the shaman he would kill Dan. So he resisted. He turned his face and attempted to put his arms up in front of him. Then the vision went dark, as if Dan had blacked out, but only momentarily.
When his eyes cleared and the vision continued he was being held at arms’ length by the throat. He tried to look down as best as he could and the shaman’s face was there grinning at him again. It turned and looked out the dormer window into the distance. Daniel too was able turn his head and higher up on the hillside was a small light flickering violently in the rain. It had the warmth but the inconsistency of a camp fire.
Then Dan found himself standing at the dormer, hands upon the book shelf and looking out the window. He glanced around the room again checking for the shaman but he was gone. His gaze returned to the light on the hill and suddenly, as it had when he first had his vision of traveling south two weeks earlier, the view moved quickly along towards the fire light. The homes of Woodland Hills
quickly flew beneath him, rain spattering upon their mostly asphalt roofs. Yet there were no lights, no smoke from chimneys. The town was deadly quiet except for the patter of heavy rain. Still the sound of the rain, non-violent or threatening as it had been at times when the shaman tried to make his presence known, was affirming and strengthening.
Following the town the vision quickly moved into the maples, oaks and pines above the town. His view slowly descended into the forest as it yet progressed. Not far from the town above the last road after it had changed from tarmac to dirt and then failed completely his traveling vision began picking up the pace dodging in and out of stands of trees. A small stream crisscrossed his path before him on the forest floor. The trees grew thicker and he had the sensation of the earthy smell he loved so much. Rachel! he thought.
As his movement took him further up the mountain, occasionally dipping between small vales and depressions and up over rises and ridges the little stream had cut in the landscape the light of the fire ahead grew and he knew he was closing on its location.
Finally, after several minutes the flight slowed down and he stood at the edge of a spring, the source of the stream he’d been loosely following upwards. Above the spring was a rocky outcropping and the fire burned brightly there above his head. He could not see the clearing there but he knew, he knew, that Rachel was there.
“Rachel!” he called out.
Daniel stepped around the spring water’s edge and approached the moderate climb to the north side of the rocky outcrop above it. As he did so the sky above the clearing, still above his reach and view, turned bright with the light of a full moon directly overhead. The rain had stopped, and only runoff from the leaves fell from trees in the ring around the area. It was tranquil and Dan felt energy flowing into him. He quickly placed his hands upon a rock at shoulder height, planted a foot on another and tested its slippery hold.
He called again, “Ray? Rachel? Are you up there?”
As he was about the heft himself up the first step of a short climb he felt a warm hand rest on his shoulder. Turning his head he saw the old Native American in his hat and cowboy shirt smiling friendly.
“You aren’t ready to go up there yet, son.”
Dropping his foot and swinging his arm down to his side again, Dan asked as he would plead with a parent for instruction, “Is she up there?”
The old man smiled and nodded. “She is, but you are not ready yet.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Fight him for her release,” the man said. As Dan glanced away to the rocky edge and back again the old man had changed to Daniel’s own dopple-ganger as he had in the two other visions.
“Fight him,” the other said.
Dan stepped back from the climb and looked about at the trees above and the moon.
“Why doesn’t she answer me?” he asked, turning to face the vision of the old Indian who had returned in place of Daniel’s reflection again.
“She is frightened,” he responded.
Clouds began closing in on the opening above the clearing. Rain drizzled into Daniels face and the moon was hidden again.
“She is trapped by her fear and has given in to the ancient one. She can only hear his voice now,” the raspy old man’s words fell.
“Ancient one,” Daniel whispered.
Then it was dark.