darkness again.
It felt different this time. The darkness behind my eyelids was cool and slick, like black water. I could hear my heartbeat more clearly than Judy’s drum, and my breathing was easier. My ribs creaked as I inhaled, and I enjoyed the sensation. I knew Gary a lot better. Maybe that was why it was so much easier.
Focusing on Gary took less distinct concentration. I was able to remember the funny gray eyes and bushy eyebrows, the deep-set wrinkles and the shock of white hair and the strong white teeth without carefully rebuilding the image in my mind every few seconds. The width of his shoulders, which, if they’d lessened with age, made me wonder how big a man he’d been in his youth, and the carpe diem strength that made me feel like a piker in my own life.
Mostly, though, what I held on to as I put a second call out into the void wasn’t physical. It was his heart, the periodic gruffness that overlaid tremendous caring and the steady thrum of his soul, the V-8 engine that charged him.
Tiny floating spots of brightness began appearing behind my eyelids, little explosive fireworks. They danced around, staying at a safe distance, which made me wonder how I could tell distance in the space between my eyes and their lids. They—the lights were a
Half a dozen of the lights erupted, leaping toward me from out of the darkness. I twitched, keeping my eyes closed. Behind my eyelids, animals warred playfully with each other, glowing from within as they jumped and pounced and batted at one another. A wolf stretched into downward-facing-dog, baring his teeth and wagging his tail frantically at a bear that lifted a heavy paw in mock warning. They charged one another, hitting in a spray of fireworks that shot blue and gold through the backs of my eyes, so bright it hurt. I let out a startled yell, flinging my arm over my eyes, which didn’t help at all.
A thick-shouldered ram lowered his head and charged a lion who sat lashing his tail and watching the goings-on with interest. The ram crashed into its shoulder, sending both animals head over heels. The lion roared, a sound like laughter, and together the two creatures rolled into the still-sparring bear and wolf. Another volley of sparks ensued, as crackly and noisy and bright as a static-filled blanket on a dark winter night. An eagle joined the fray, winging down out of the blackness behind my eyelids to slam into the rolling, chortling mess of animals, its claws curled harmlessly into fists as it battered the others with its wings. Below all of them, a badger erupted up from the darkness, making me laugh out loud. It scrambled up the bear’s hide, clearly wanting a chance at the eagle.
Distantly, I heard Judy’s drum falter when I laughed, but my own heartbeat was strong, and the spirit animals rumbling to see who got to help Gary made me feel tremendously better. I took a breath, about to speak to them, when I felt a bump against my foot. It wasn’t the same physical ponderousness that had made me open my eyes when the snake appeared. It felt more like the arrival of these spirit animals, a shower of sparks that lit different parts of my body. I looked down to discover a tortoise waiting patiently at my toes. I crouched, smiling as the other animals continued their playful war. The tortoise blinked slowly at me, and it was everything I could do to keep from picking it up and hugging it. I had the idea tortoises weren’t big on hugs. “Thank you,” I whispered to it. It bobbed its head and put one of its front feet on mine, which I took as an invitation to pick it up, carefully.
My hand touched the shining patterns on its shell, and light slammed into me so hard I lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 15
The first thing I noticed was my head hurt so badly it felt like the top was coming off. Blood pounded in my temples hard enough to make me put stacked odds on being upside-down, but I was afraid to open my eyes and find out. Light seared into me from all sides. I was pretty sure if I opened my eyes, I’d discover that my bones would be dark shapes in my lit-up flesh. The air I breathed was hot, much hotter than the Lower World air, and tasted of dryness. Sand, I thought, and my eyes opened without consulting me on the matter.
At first there was nothing to see, just whiteness so intense it made my eyes try to turn around and crawl into my head. Tears streamed down my forehead and into my hair. I was almost certain I heard sizzling as they beaded and hit the ground somewhere below me. Crushing my eyes closed didn’t help any: the light smashed right through my eyelids as if they weren’t even there, prying out all the imagined places of shadow where my vision was trying to hide. I peeled my lashes open in the tiniest squint I could manage.
The light didn’t recede, but after a dozen head-pounding heartbeats my vision adjusted very slightly. It took a long time to get my eyes all the way open. By the time I had, I could feel sunburn setting into my skin, so deep it felt like my bones were burning.
The sky was white with heat, cloudless and stretching to approximately forever, where it ran into a horizon as blindingly white as the ground below me. The sun was too close and much too hot. If it hadn’t been for the fact my hands were tied behind my back, I’d have thought I could touch it.
I was trussed up like a chicken for Sunday dinner. My ankles were bound together and I hung upside-down from what appeared to be the only tree in Creation. It was about twelve feet tall and so extremely dead that I was astounded its bleached branches could hold my weight. The ground, crystals of sand too tired from the weight of the sun to even glisten, lay about six inches above my head. There were tiny indentations directly below me where my tears had hit and evaporated.
“Help?” My throat was already dry and parched. I swallowed nervously, squinting to eye the sun and the horizon. If it was anything like at home, the distance between the two suggested I’d be dead long before night came. I wriggled around in my ropes, earning myself burns on my ankles and wrists, and a slight swing to change the monotony of just hanging there.
Start with what I knew. I closed my eyes, not that it did any good against the light, to help myself focus.
I knew I was hanging upside-down on the verge of horrible death by dehydration, according to the backs of my eyelids. “Goddamn it,” I croaked, and opened my eyes again to stare at the expanses of white. One baked crystal gleamed at me. I wondered briefly if it was salt, not sand. Because that made it all better somehow.
My vision started doing interesting things, swimming in and out as it tried to make depth out of featureless grains of sand. I listened for my heartbeat; last time I’d been in a desert of the mind, I’d been dying and my heartbeat was a painfully slow drum. But no: it was bumping along steadily, pounding in my ears and now making me notice the headache all over again. That was probably a good sign.
One of the fundamental concepts of shamanism was choice: choosing to believe, choosing to heal, choosing to accept. Once, choosing to accept something that someone else had forced on me had allowed me the power to change it and escape. I let my eyes close again and began the task of acceptance.
It turned out hanging upside-down from a bleached tree in the desert wasn’t the best place to start on the
