The rawhide flap covering it moves to the wind gusts, bil owing out and in as if blown by bel ows fanning a fire.
I listen. The soft pad of bare feet approaching. I jump to my feet. Frey, startled, does, too.
“You heard it?” he whispers. “I thought it was my imagination.”
Not imagination. Someone is walking around outsde. .
someone or something.
The vampire erupts, bursting the fragile shel of humanity instinctively at the threat. I touch Frey’s chest, growl, “Stay here.”
Then I’m sliding out of the door, sticking close to the wal s of the hogan, a shadow among shadows, a beast among beasts.
I see him, working his way around the hogan, slowly, careful y. Not barefoot. Moccasins on his feet. His smel is familiar. I draw the vampire back enough to appear human before I confront him. His back is to me.
“George?”
His shoulders twitch involuntarily and he whirls around. He releases a sharp breath. “Shit, Anna, you scared me.”
“What are you doing here?”
Frey steps out. “What’s wrong?”
I see now what prompts Frey’s question. George’s face is ashen in the dark, a pale specter, drawn and anxious. He’s dressed in buckskin pants and tan vest. He shifts uneasily under Frey’s intense stare.
Frey grabs his shoulders. “What’s happened?”
George closes his eyes, inhales slowly. “It’s Sarah.”
“Sarah?”
George puts his hands on Frey’s shoulders now, pul s him close. “
CHAPTER 24
FREY LETS HIS HANDS DROP TO HIS SIDES. “WHAT do you mean? What kind of accident?”
George tightens his grip on Frey’s shoulders. “Sarah. And Mary. Coming back from the tribal council. Their truck went off the road. Sarah must have been driving too fast. It flipped.
Neither was wearing a seat belt.”
I watch Frey try to process what George is tel ing him. His body is so stil, his face so expressionless, it scares me. I step closer, drop my voice to a hoarse whisper, asking the question I know Frey is afraid to ask. “What about John-John?”
Frey looks at me, drawing a shaky breath.
George never takes his eyes from Frey. “John-John wasn’t with them. He’s al right. Did you hear me? John- John is home with my wife.”
Frey’s stony expression final y breaks. I sense his pain.
His jaw quivers, his eyes widen, brows draw together with the effort to keep from howling. His body shudders, racked with emotions he has no words to express.
I know what he’s feeling. I’ve felt it myself.
I don’t know how to console him. I do the only thing I can think of. I step between Frey and George and wrap my own arms around my friend’s trembling body.
“What do we need to do?” I ask George, holding Frey tight, supporting him as he leans into me.
“The four who are to prepare the bodies are with them now. They are friends of Sarah’s and wil take care of the ritual bathing. Daniel wil have to choose what items are to be buried with them and how they are to be dressed. He wil also have to choose where they are to be buried.”
From his answers, it is obvious the Navajo have very specific burial customs. No outside police. No funeral homes or embalming. “How long do we have?”
5^Burial wil take place four days from now. Do you wish to return to Sarah’s? I wil bring John-John to his father when he awakens. Daniel should be the one who breaks the news.”
I nod that I understand. “I’l get him to Sarah’s. Thank you.”
George lifts his hand in silent salute and walks toward his car, parked next to the Jeep behind the hogan. Only when he’s driven away and Frey and I are alone do I remember — I never found out what was decided at the council.
Right now, it doesn’t seem important.
Frey doesn’t say a word. Not when I get him settled in the Jeep, not when I return from packing our things out of the hogan. For once, I’m glad I’m not privy to his thoughts. The pain would be intolerable. He may not have been close to Sarah now, but she was John-John’s mother and that alone is a powerful connection.
I manage to find my way from the hogan to Sarah’s house
— more vampire instinct and senses than anything else. I don’t turn the Jeep’s lights on; I can navigate far better in the dark by picking up our scent and watching for our tire tracks in the dirt.
How different retracing this path. John-John’s laugh echoes in my head. Yesterday he was happy.
The house is dark when we pul up. This time, no welcoming flute to greet a new day. It’s almost daybreak but the sky is leaden and heavy with impending rain.
I go in first, turn on lights. Not because we need light to see, but in an effort to chase away the gloom.
It doesn’t work.
When Frey comes up the steps, I know he feels the same thing I do. The house has lost its spirit. The quiet, the emptiness press in on us.
Only John-John wil be able to make it a place of life again.
And I doubt that wil happen for a while.
Frey sinks into the couch. Buries his face in his hands. But stil no tears. No release.
I sit on the coffee table in front of him. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Some food?”
He rouses a little, drops his hands, meets my eyes. “No.
Thanks. Just sit here with me, wil you, until John-John comes?”
I move next him. We sit there side by side, not touching, but closer in spirit than we’ve ever been.
After a while, Frey stirs. “At least John-John’s home has been spared.”
I swivel to look at him. “Spared? What do you mean?”
Frey’s voice is husky, devoid of emotion. “It’s the Navajo way. If Sarah and Mary had died at home, their parents would have most likely had the place burned to the ground.”
“John-John’s home?”
“The belief is that after death, one goes to the underworld.
To protect against the deceased returning to the world of the living, no contact must be made with the body and that includes the place they died. The place would be destroyed.”
I’m trying to process how such a belief could stil be considered relevant in the twenty-first century when I’m hit with the implications of something else Frey said.
“Sarah and Mary — their parents live here on the reservation?”
Frey nods. “I only hope they al ow me to take part in the burial. While we weren’t married in the eyes of the state, when Sarah told them she was going to have a baby, they insisted we go through a traditional Navajo ceremony. In the eyes of the tribe, I am her husband. In their eyes, I deserted her and my son to live outside.”
A worm of uneasiness twists in my gut. “What’s going to happen to John-John? Wil they insist he stay here with them? Wil you al ow it?”
Frey presses the palms of his hands against his eyes. “I can’t think about that now. I can hardly bear the thought that I’m going to have to tel him his mother and aunt are gone.
How am I going to do it?”
