Thunderbird Falls

“Hot chocolate with mint,” he said, still firmly. “Wash your face again and I’ll buy you one.”

A little bubble of happiness burst through my misery. I shuffled forward to turn the cold water on again, splashing it over my face, and reached blindly for a dry paper towel, which Billy put into my hand. “You’re a good friend,” I said into the towel.

“I just know your comfort food hot buttons,” he said, pleased with himself. “Come on, Joanie. It’ll be okay.”

Billy was right. Just going outside did me some good, even if it was ninety-three degrees and about equal humidity. I felt sorry for the protesters down at the Seattle Center, and wondered how the little girl was doing.

I ended up with an Italian soda, because it was way too warm out for hot chocolate, but the very normal act of getting a drink and getting back on my beat did a lot to restore my equilibrium. I had a tentative teacher, which would make Coyote happy, and snakes were good juju. The Internet said so, and if you couldn’t believe the Internet, who could you believe?

The rest of the day was blessedly normal, except I was so grungy and sticky with sweat by the time work was over I called Gary and told him not to have dinner until eight. He said, “Aw, damn, and me with the microwave heatin’ up already,” which kept a grin on my face until I arrived on his doorstep, newly showered and wearing as little as humanly possible. For me, that meant a strappy tank top with one of those built-in bra thingies and a pair of shorts that I considered to be cut daringly short, although I had nothing on Daisy Duke. Gary arched an eyebrow and gave me a grin that was better than words, even if he was seventy-three years old. I momentarily wished I had long hair so I could fluff it. Then reality kicked in: if I’d had long hair, I’d have cut it off by now in an attempt to cool down, so it didn’t really matter.

The house didn’t smell like he’d been cooking. I kicked my sandals off and padded through the living room into the kitchen, where cold cuts and crackers and fruit and a pasta salad were arranged rather elegantly on a platter. I stole a piece of ham, wrapped it around some cheese, and nibbled. “You do this yourself or you buy it?”

I could all but hear the old man’s offended look as he came in behind me. “Did it myself. Donno about you, but I think it’s too hot to cook or eat hot food. I got salmon in the freezer, but you’re gonna have to wait till the heat breaks.”

I grinned over my shoulder at him and picked up the platter to bring it out to the living room. There were picture windows that went all the way up to a vaulted ceiling overlooking an expansive front yard full of lilacs and other flowering things I couldn’t identify. There was enough actual lawn that the kids next door tended to spill out onto it, having water balloon fights as they hid behind the hedges. Gary and Annie had owned the place since about 1965, though he’d been living in an apartment, having the place modernized and refurbished when I met him. Between that and the endlessly climbing real estate value in Seattle, I couldn’t imagine what the market value of the place was now. Gary could probably retire rich, if he wanted to move out. Or retire.

“Lemonade or water?” Gary asked from the kitchen. My mouth puckered up at the very idea of lemonade, so I requested it happily as I put the food platter on the coffee table. The furniture was leather, but there were hand-sewn quilts thrown over everything, so a person could sit down in the armchair without sticking to it. I did, and Gary came out of the kitchen with a jug, two glasses, and a finger pointed at me accusingly. “Get outta my chair, kid.”

I laughed like a guilty five-year-old and squirmed out of Gary’s chair to kick back on the couch. “I had to try.”

He snorted and sat down, pouring juice into glasses that clinked with just a couple of ice cubes. “You always try. Arright, Jo, so what’s going on now? I go away for a few weeks and miss all the good stuff?”

“Only you would think it’s the good stuff.” I squished farther into the couch and, between bites of crackers and meat, told him about my day. Six months ago Gary’d thought I was a hundred percent insane when I climbed in his cab in search of a woman I’d seen from an airplane. By the end of that same morning I’d come back from the dead and he was determined to stick with me on the logic that I was the most interesting thing that’d happened to him in years. Things I could barely handle, like the very idea of the power that’d awakened inside me, he took in stride, shrugging off improbability with easy axioms about old dogs needing to learn new tricks, or they’d just up and die. By that standard, I suspected I’d been dead for half my life already.

“You think she’s right?” Gary asked, bushy eyebrows elevated as I finished. “About the heat wave being somethin’ you did?”

“Gary, if I thought I could affect global weather patterns, I would go home and hide under the bed for the rest of my life.” I stared gloomily at the pasta salad, my appetite suddenly gone. Gary noticed and harrumphed.

“So you think she’s right.”

I sighed and sank a few inches farther into the couch. The quilt slid down over my shoulder, blocking most of my view of Gary. I felt like a Kilroy, peeking over it at him. “So what do I do?”

Gary gave me an incredulous look that made me want to pull the quilt all the way up so it covered me entirely. “You fix it, Jo. You go listen to this dame and you learn what you gotta do to fix it.”

I pushed the quilt back up over the arm of the couch and reached for my salad again, picking at it without enthusiasm. “I hate it when you’re right.”

Gary beamed. “You got a lotta hate going on, then, darlin’. No point in bein’ an old dog if you can’t be right.”

A wheeze of a laugh erupted up through my throat, quick jolts that were more like a cough than laughter, but a grin spread across my face. “Yeah, yeah yeah. All right, fine. Be that way. I’ll show you.”

“You will?”

“Yeah.” I got up from the couch, heading for the kitchen again. “I’m going to eat all your ice cream. So there.”

“What makes you think I’ve got any?”

“You’ve always got ice cream.” I pulled open the freezer and took out a carton. “Gary! It’s rocky road. You know I don’t like rocky road!”

I heard him kick the footrest up on his chair, and when I looked over my shoulder he had his arms folded behind his head, expression smug as a cat’s. “Now who showed who? Get me a bowl, wouldya? And if you dump it on my head like you’re thinkin’ about,” he added a minute later as I came out with his bowl of ice cream, “I won’t tell you where that raspberry-chocolate stuff you like is hidden.”

I stopped with the bowl tilted at a precarious angle and stared down at him. He grinned up at me genially. “Youth and good looks are no match for old age and treachery, doll. Who wins?”

“You do, you old goat.”

Gary’s grin expanded exponentially. “Garage freezer.”

I went out, trying not to laugh as I grumbled dire imprecations loudly enough for him to hear me. Gary’s chortles followed me all the way into the garage.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Friday, June 17, 5:58 a.m.

6:00 a.m. two mornings in a row was more than any civilized person should have to bear. Or me, for that matter. I sat at the edge of my garden’s pond, not looking behind me. I could feel Judy, ten steps away, standing in the middle of the very short lawn. The grass looked, if anything, worse than it had the day before. Clouds hung thick and low over the cliffs that made up the northern boundary of the garden, full of the promise of rain. I felt like that myself, on the edge of overflowing with tears. It bothered me that I still felt that fragile after spending the evening at Gary’s and eating an entire pint of chocolate-raspberry swirl ice cream.

Judy sat down beside me on the pond shore, close enough that I could feel the warmth of her skin next to mine. I leaned away semiconsciously, the clouds above darkening with displeasure. I might need a teacher, but that didn’t mean she had to come barging into my personal space.

“Where does the power come from?” she asked in a light, lilting tone. It reminded me of my neighbor’s cat, which habitually sat beside the sink and stared at the faucet while she washed dishes. When she turned the water off, he would thrust his head beneath the faucet, as if trying to figure out where the water came from.

“Everywhere,” I said, able to answer Judy, if not the cat. “Every living thing carries power within itself. A shaman is a conduit, a focus, for that power. We can use what’s given to us to affect changes. To heal. That’s what we’re supposed to do, is heal.”

“At least you’ve learned something.” She didn’t sound particularly pleased.

“Go me.” I waved an imaginary flag. Judy’s gaze slid sideways toward me, then away again.

“Asking you what your spirit animals are would be rude,” Judy said. The implication that I should tell her anyway was clear, but instead I scowled at the water and shrugged.

“Haven’t got any.” I glanced at Judy, whose stare all but bore a hole into my head. “What?”

“You have no spirit animals? You’ve never done a quest for one?” Her expression was indecipherable.

“I’ve done a couple. Nothing came to me, or whatever’s supposed to happen.” It irritated me that my halfhearted attempts to summon a spirit animal felt like failures. The truth was I wanted my cake and to eat it, too. I didn’t want to admit any of this shamanic nonsense was real, but I also wanted to be able to snap my fingers and make it so. I was pretty sure I’d thwarted my own questing experiments with the mental equivalent of concrete bunkers of disbelief.

“Is this really so hard for you to resolve?” Judy asked. “You’ve been a part of these other realities. Why do you reject them so fiercely?”

“No sense in being Irish if you can’t be thick,” I muttered. It was a cop-out answer, but it made Judy’s mouth quirk.

“Maybe we can wear some of that thickness away. I can guide your search for spirit animals, if you think it might help.”

I mumbled so incoherently even I didn’t know what I was trying to say. Judy’s smile broadened. “I’ll take that as a yes.” She opened her hands, a skin drum appearing in them. “I’ll drum us under,” she said. “Are you ready?”

It was different.

The drumbeat rang in my blood, tasting like copper. I ran up a mountainside, nimble as a goat, leaping from one stone to another without hesitation or fear. The sky above was pale, washed-out blue, so thin a sparkle of stars shone through it.

To the west I saw a glint in the sky, gold sheering through the paleness like godslight.

The air was rarefied, burning my lungs as I swallowed down deep breaths. I crossed some unseeable barrier as I climbed, and snow began gleaming in cold soft spots around me. I kicked it up in puffs and slid through it as I scrambled higher.

The shadow of a bird passed over me, blue against the snow. I squinted up into the sky, but the bird was gone again.

I couldn’t see or feel Judy anywhere, and wondered if she’d managed to come on this journey with me at all. My hands were hot, excitement pounding through them. I touched the frozen ground as I clambered upward, leaving steaming prints deep in the snow.

A sharp, almost sheer cliff face rose up in front of me. I dug my hands into the snow, pulling myself up, my breath whisked away in little clouds of heat. Ice stung my palms and drops of sweat rolled out of my hair and into my eyes. I lost track of time, inching up the cliff. My arms burned, fingers splaying wide in search of handholds, and then I folded my hand over a distinct edge. Panting with triumph, I swung my leg up and hauled myself onto the top of the mountain. I stayed on my hands and knees, head hanging down while I wheezed, then pushed myself to my feet, bracing myself on my thighs.

There was nothing on the other side of the mountain.

The world fell away, straight and featureless into pale blue sky. Clouds drifted miles below me, and rushing wind made my hair stand up straight from my face. I leaned into it, trusting the strength of the wind to keep me from plummeting off the edge of the world.

About a million miles below me, an eagle, gold as sunrise, rose and fell on the updrafts. I tilted farther into the wind, trying to catch my breath as it was ripped away from me. The eagle shadowed in and out of distant clouds, lighting them from within with its own golden strength. It twisted, playing in the updrafts, then folded its wings and dove out of sight, a predator dropping beyond the edge of the world.

The wind stopped.

I pitched forward with one fruitless flail of my arms. The mountain face zipped past me, streaks of granite dark behind me, miles of sky in front of me. I spread my arms and legs, swallowing against panic and sickness, trying to slow my fall. I couldn’t see land below me, only blue that faded into stars.

Wind slammed into me again, so hard it drove me upward a few feet before I began to fall again. Another updraft tossed me higher, then cut out from under me so fast I screamed, leaving my stomach yards above me. It happened again, then again, buffeting me through the sky like a feather.

I was flying.

A giddy laugh erupted from my throat as I banked into the wind and soared, always losing sky. I rolled onto my back, looking for the top of the mountain, already so far away it seemed to go on forever. I arched my back, spilling upside-down through the sky, eyes closed against the rush of air.

Talons pinched closed around my outstretched arms.

I opened my eyes to the brilliance of the golden eagle’s belly above me. Its belly alone was wider than I was tall, and tilting my head to squint at its length made me feel like a doll in the hands of a child. The wings, stretched to their fullest, were so broad that the tips faded into invisibility from my vantage point, and the feathers looked as if they’d been deliberately crafted of the purest gold. Even its down was etched in distinct soft threads.

Eagle. The thought came to me with embarrassing clarity. Not even I, deliberately unaware of Native American mythology, could fail to recognize the incredible animal that had caught me. Creator, destroyer, all-around magnificent totem creature, so far beyond the ordinary I cringed at myself again. I’d thought a thunderbird was a lousy eagle?

The thunderbird screamed, a high sweet sound that could have been rage or pleasure. Its claws snapped up to its belly, flinging me out of its talons with bone-jarring strength. I flew upwards for a few disconcerting seconds, flipping end over end through the cold sky.

Then its beak crushed my ribs and we fell through the air, the thunderbird tearing me apart and eating me.

The drumbeat was steady and calm. My eyes popped open to a gibbous moon, hanging low and fat in the carmine sky. There were jungles, thick and lush, heavy green vines hanging against black tree trunks, and the air smelled of rich earth and old rot. There was no sign of the mountain or the pale blue sky that went on forever, and certainly no thunderbird. I shook myself, turning and staring around in confusion. I remembered some pain, and more fear, and the blackness that was the inside of the thunderbird’s belly, but—

“How’d I get here?”

Judy stepped up to my side, smiling. “It can be confusing for someone else to lead the spirit journey. You’ll get used to it, and then you’ll learn to do it on your own. As we traveled down I asked for those who were willing to guide you to join us. These are those who have answered my call on your behalf.”

She lifted her right hand. A copperhead snake, eyes bright and black, wound up around her arm and opened his mouth wide to me. “The strengths that snakes have I share with you,” he said. Its s’s were sibilant and hissed, stretched out long enough to make chills rise on my arms.

“Thank you.” I didn’t want a snake guide. My whole feeling about snakes was very mixed, after the encounter in the Dead Zone. I couldn’t think of a polite way to say that, though.

The snake flicked his tongue at me and twisted his way up to Judy’s shoulder, piling himself into tall coils there. As I watched, he changed, head growing rounder, shoulders appearing. Wings sprouted, a chest and spindly legs shaping out of the coils. His darting tongue stretched and became glossy and hard, until a raven perched on Judy’s shoulder, only its bright eyes the same as the snake’s. The raven stretched his throat and cawed, a sound of raucous music, before he cocked his head and stared at me one-eyed. “The strengths that ravens have, I share with you,” he said.

I found myself smiling. “Thank you. You’re beautiful,” I added impulsively. He puffed out his feathers, preening with satisfaction, then leaped off Judy’s shoulder, wings fanning out to encompass the shadows dropped by the enormous moon.

Darkness swept up into him, broadening his chest and lengthening his body. His wings buckled forward, becoming legs, his tail feathers extending into long black hairs. His neck elongated again, face shattering from a bird’s delicacy to the fine weight of a horse’s head. He snapped his tail over his sides as if brushing off a coating of dust, and pranced a time or two with his front feet, before inclining his head. His forelock fell over bright black eyes. Looking for all the world like an impatient kid, he tossed his head before saying, “The strengths that horses have, I share with you.”

“Thank you,” I said a third time, then, searching for some appropriate response, asked, “How can I honor you?”

The horse snorted and stomped his feet again, two solid thumps into the dark ground. From one hoof print, the snake coiled up again, winding itself around the horse’s leg. From the other, the raven exploded forth in a flurry of feathers and cawing, then winged around to settle on the horse’s head, between his ears. “How may I honor you all,” I amended hastily, “for sharing your gifts with me.”

“By heeding the words of your teacher,” the snake suggested.

“By seeking truth.” The raven gave the snake a one-eyed look, then turned it on me. I felt inexplicably guilty. No, not inexplicably: I could explic it perfectly well. I just didn’t like to.

“By accepting.” The horse’s voice had a raw tenor to it that shivered down my spine, making me cold despite the jungle heat. Hairs stood up on my arms, making me shiver a second time. I met the horse’s eyes for a few seconds, feeling exposed and vulnerable under its black gaze.

Months earlier, there’d been a moment of clarity, a moment when I’d understood that as a shaman, I could make a real difference in the world. The confidence had slipped away almost immediately when the conflict with Cernunnos had ended, and I’d let it. The world was simpler without the responsibility I’d taken on, and not believing was easy when there weren’t otherworldly monsters to fight every day. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and struggling to remember the certainty that had filled my bones and my breath for a few hours.

I couldn’t. It was a struggle, like trying to bring a face to mind clearly. Instead of holding it, I could only grasp at the edges, knowing I’d had it and lost it again. Every time I tried, it slipped farther away, until my hands were shaking from a wholly different exertion.

“Can you tell me?” I asked, my voice small as I opened my eyes again. “Can you tell me how many times I’ll have to remind myself, or relearn what I can do, before I believe it without question?”

The raven made a derisive sound, a sort of trill that seemed to come from behind his eyes. “To be without question is to be dead.”

“Thanks,” I said, equilibrium temporarily restored by wryness. “Very reassuring.”

“Every day,” the horse said. “Until the hour comes when your first breath tells you the aches of the world and your first exhalation heals them, every morning you’ll have to fight to believe.” He inclined his head, making the raven grip his forelock and spread his wings to keep from sliding off. “Your nature is not that of an easy believer, but that’s not a flaw. It only means that when you accept the truth—” He snorted, tossing his head with very horselike amusement.

“That wild horses won’t be able to drag me from it?” I asked, smiling a little.

“Even so,” the horse agreed. The raven cawed, clearly irritated at having been outclevered. I looked down at the snake, wound around the horse’s leg, and sighed as I kneeled.

“What about you?” I asked him. “Do you have an answer for me?”

He stuck his tongue out at me. “Ssstudy. Your mind is closed to the possibility that this is real, even when you live it. Ssstudy will help open those doorsss. Then you will not look back, only forward, and you will go with strength. Heed your teacher. Heed your elders. Heed your ssspirits. When faith wavers, look to the things that have crossed over with you.”

An electronic beeping broke through the last of the snake’s words, an ugly counterpoint to the drum that still thumped in the background. “It’s time to go back,” Judy said. “We’ll meet again tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you,” I said, more to the spirit animals than to the woman who’d brought them to me. “I’ll try to remember what you said and honor your words and advice.”

“Honor your alarm clock,” the raven suggested, and I opened my eyes to find out I was already late for work.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I’d bite my own tongue off before admitting it to Morrison, but I actually sort of liked being a beat cop. Motor oil was good for the soul and all, but the truth is that as a mechanic I didn’t get out much. The only time I saw a new face was when there was a new hire, and let’s not even talk about the exercise regime I didn’t follow. I’d lost twelve pounds since I’d been stuck on patrol duty, and I felt like She Who Was Not To Be Messed With as a result.

The North Precinct covered a huge area, thirty-two square miles above and around the University of Washington. It ran the gamut of neighborhoods, from very nice to very bad, and I’d walked more of them than I’d ever dreamed possible. I had two favorite beats: the first was through some bad sections of Aurora, which was nobody’s sensible idea of a favorite beat. Still, it passed under the no-longer-guttering streetlight that had started me down the path I was on now. Given my usual bad temper about the whole shamanism business, I wasn’t sure why I was drawn back to the place that kicked it off. Moth to flame, I guessed. Either that or the less flattering “humans are stupid,” but I thought maybe I’d stick with the metaphor.

The other one I liked was University Avenue. I lived on its far north end, and working that beat always seemed like something of a reward, like I was keeping my very own personal neighborhood safe from hooligans.

I imagine every big city has at least one drag strip like the Ave. To my mind, University Bookstore was its linchpin. Spreading out from it on either side were restaurants and storefronts ranging from burger joints to tofu houses and from The Gap to bohemian, incense-filled shops filled with Indian imports. Young people—I observed them that way, like I was hitching along with a walker—spilled out of coffee shops to sit under sun-faded umbrella tables, chatting up every topic from Kant to Britney.

Police patrol was heavy along the Ave, increasing every fall when new students arrived to wreak havoc on unsuspecting Seattle. It used to be that any undercover cop could score the drug of her choice on the Ave. It was a matter of departmental pride that these days it was widely acknowledged that there was too much heat to risk turning a little illegal profit. The Ave was a battle against chaos, and for once, order was winning.

I usually got a friendly nod or two from store owners, particularly the restaurants I frequented. When I’d first begun patrol duty, I’d had to argue extensively with Mrs. Li, owner of my favorite Chinese place, who was convinced that all that walking would wear me away to a stick. She kept trying to give me “a little snack”—usually enough to feed two for a day—on the house, to keep my strength up. I finally convinced her that as a police officer I couldn’t take what she offered without compromising myself, and she retaliated by feeding me twice as much when I came in to the shop off-duty.