blew the smoke away from Cree, toward the hall door.
'My one vice,' she apologized. 'Down to five a day. And never in the infirmary, God forbid.' Another deep suck that made the ember spark, and then her gaze wandered cautiously from the floor to meet Cree's. 'I was wondering what kind of psychologist you are.'
'I got my Ph. D. in clinical psychology from Duke.'
'But you specialize…'
'Didn't Julieta tell you my focus?'
'She's the boss. She tells me only what she thinks I need to hear. I guess I didn't need to hear the details this time.'
'It's hard to explain, Lynn. There's really no name for my field of specialty.'
'Not 'parapsychologist'? On the Internet, that's the term that seems to come up.' Lynn blew another gout of smoke toward the door and with an air of apology swished at it with one hand. 'I did a search on you this evening.'
'Does that bother you?'
'I can't decide. The strictly orthodox professional in me disapproves. But Tommy… it's baffling. I can't imagine what's going on with him.'
'Any thoughts you want to share?'
She startled Cree with a direct bolt of her blue-bronze gaze, then tapped ash into the foil tray before answering. 'Did you know I was married to a Navajo? Sixteen years. My Vern died fifteen years ago.' She hesitated, clearly stumbling over that obstinate fact without meaning to.
'I'm sorry, Lynn.'
'Yeah. Well,' the nurse said reflexively.
'I know that 'yeah, well.'' Cree smiled. 'I lost my husband, too.'
The look Lynn returned had a surprised, grateful quality to it. But it lasted only an instant before she half shook her head, refusing the sympathy or resisting the impulse to remember. A drag on her cigarette seemed to help her find her train of thought again. 'It took a few years for his family to accept me, a white Midwestern girl, but eventually I got to know them pretty well. The older people told stories about this kind of thing… Once we went to a Way sung for one of his nephews. The boy had started having what a mainstream doctor would've diagnosed as grand mal seizures. The Hand-Trembler said he had a ghost in him. That he had offended an ancestor. The family hired a Singer to do the Evil Way.'
'Do you believe it? About the ghost?'
'It's completely at odds with my medical training…'
' But-' Cree prompted.
Lynn smiled crookedly. 'But after the Way, his symptoms were much less extreme.'
Cree smiled with her. Despite her unease, she found herself intrigued by this odd, tense, smart, apologetic woman whose aura glinted with the sharp silver flashes of well-concealed anger.
'I guess I'm credulous enough to be curious what a parapsychologist would do about Tommy,' Lynn continued. 'I was also very impressed with the way you handled him when we were playing cards-responsive but not condescendingly sympathetic. I admire that. Refreshingly unlike our beloved but distinctly overindulgent principal. He respects you now, you could tell by the way he opened up to you during softball. That'll help.' She took a last, long drag on her cigarette, blew out a blue-gray plume, stabbed out the butt. Obviously a practiced clandestine smoker, she folded the ashtray like a clam around the remains and returned it to her pocket. 'That is, if the doctors at Ketteridge or his grandparents let you work with him.'
Despite Lynn's efforts to disperse the smoke, the acrid stink rasped in Cree's lungs. She got up to look again at the drawings over the bed. In the brighter light, the skill of the rendering was more apparent: The old man looked alive.
'You've worked here for, what, two years?'
'Three.'
'So you must know her pretty well. Julieta.' The old man seemed to be looking over Cree's shoulder, as if watching Lynn on the other side of the room.
'In some ways, maybe.'
'She's a remarkable person, isn't she?'
A hesitation. 'She certainly is.'
'I mean, she's dynamic, she's intelligent, she's beautiful enough to turn any woman green, she's passionate-'
'She is all that and much more.'
Cree gave it a beat, and then suggested casually, ' But-?'
'But nothing. And I'm not that easy, Dr. Black. Please don't be sly with me.'
Cree felt caught out. Her head was hurting again, putting her off her stride, and the hovering layer of cigarette smoke was a distracting irritant.
'Your tone seemed to qualify your praise, that's all. I was wondering why.'
'She's great. She's my boss. No qualification.'
Cree let it go, pretending to give the next drawing a close inspection. 'So, okay, ghosts of ancestors can cause things like this. What else can? What's the story on Skinwalkers? Are there really such things-evil Navajo magicians, people capable of changing into animals? Do people still believe any of that?'
'Around white people, Vern always said it was nonsense. Superstition.'
'And what did he say when he wasn't around white people? What did the old people say?' Cree half turned and jumped to find that Lynn had come silently up close to her again, standing just behind her shoulder. She moved a step away.
'Sideways comments,' the nurse said quietly. 'Warnings with their eyes not to talk about it. Once Vern bought a wolfskin from a pawnshop in Gallup-kind of a joke, just to show how above it he was, something we'd put in front of our woodstove. But there'd been some Navajos from our town at the pawnshop, and they recognized him. The next day, that's how fast gossip travels on the rez, three of Vern's uncles came to our house. A delegation from the family. Said he should burn it. Said people were talking about him, they'd get the wrong idea. Of course it was crap-a real Navajo Wolf wouldn't buy his skin at a Gallup pawnshop!'
'Did he burn it?' Claustrophobic, Cree sidled another step away.
'Yes, as a matter of fact.' Standing where Cree had just been, the nurse pretended to look over Tommy's drawings. 'Why? What does a modern parapsychologist think of old superstitions?'
'This one thinks there's usually some wisdom there.'
'You're thinking there's a… spirit inhabiting Tommy, aren't you? That he's possessed. Is that what you are? An exorcist?'
Cree would have preferred not to discuss it with Lynn, not yet. But there was no denying the obvious. 'No, I'm not an exorcist. I don't believe the popular idea of possession, Lynn. I'm skeptical of the idea of purely evil beings. In my experience, paranormal entities are neither more nor less wicked than living humans. I wouldn't assume this thing has malevolent intentions. It may be just lost or scared or desperate. Or lonely.'
Lynn Pierce cocked her head, puzzled. 'Am I being obtuse in some way? Because you saw him attack Julieta. And he stabbed himself repeatedly tonight.' She winced as she rubbed her forearm and went on. 'In fact, I have a confession to make. Something I didn't tell anyone, but I'll tell you.' She unbuttoned the cuff of her jacket, tugged back the sleeve, then rolled the sleeve of her blouse. Cree gasped at the sight of the half circles of scabs and the surrounding penumbra of marbled green bruising. 'From last week. I didn't tell Julieta because she's so… invested in Tommy. I didn't want her to worry.' Lynn held up the arm and rotated it, looking at the wounds with satisfaction, as if admiring a suntan.
'Do you have any idea why she might be so 'invested' in him? Him particularly?'
Again, Lynn cocked her head. 'Why do I keep getting the feeling you're trying to tempt me into indiscretions? Or maybe I'm just being paranoid. That must be it. But.' She raised the wounded arm again and pinned Cree with her gaze. 'You didn't answer me. Still convinced it's harmless?'
The bites were upsetting, and Cree needed a moment to think about what they implied. She moved farther away from Lynn, around Tommy's bed to one of the windows, where she leaned her pounding forehead gingerly against the pane and cupped her hands around her eyes to look outside. All she could see was the rectangle of bare
