Thunderbird Falls

—Morrison, white with pain, shouting at me—

—Gary grinning over his shoulder at me, pulling away from the airport in his cab, apparently driving by use of the Force—

—a thin scar on my right cheek, running from my eye to just below the corner of my mouth—

—tearing across flat earth in Petite, the speedometer clocking over a hundred and forty—

—a banshee’s head held in my hand, dangling from its hair—

—bone-wearying exhaustion, like sleep had come to weigh on me with all its strength—

—a baby boy, his sister too small to live—

—a diploma, the name I’d abandoned written on it: Joanne Walkingstick—

WALKINGSTICK.

I began to scream.

—a race against the Wild Hunt—a snake’s bright black eyes, staring at me—a kiss I’d waited years to taste—a graveyard with a new marker, and me on my knees beside it—another grave—another—a bewildered child wailed and flung herself at coffin-bearing men—me, squalling and waving angry red fists in the air, a man’s brogue saying, “And there she is, our wee Siobhàn, welcome, alanna, welcome,” as he lifted me into the air—and another voice, one I knew somewhere in my bones, saying, “Already?” before my own voice, cracked with age or pain, replied, “It had to happen sometime,” and coldness settled over me— a dark-haired teenage boy, expression neutral and calm—a cauldron bubbling with the stench of death—a raven with a woman’s eyes—a mantis, preying—a baby boy, his sister too small to live!

“STOP IT!” My eyes flew open and I thrust Coyote away with everything I had, all my heart put into the rejection. He exploded in a burst of white that seared my eyeballs, pain so intense I thought I could feel the nerves sizzling and spitting into decay. I flew backward from the force of the blast, driven farther by the strength of my own pain and fury, and slammed back into the Lower World so hard I jolted over backward. The snake that encircled me lifted its head and spat with annoyance, then slithered out from under me to coil itself tall beside Judy. My eyes burned as I sat up again, holding my head and squinting at them. The light still dazzled my eyes, and the two of them were inversed, their black eyes glowing white. Judy’s skin was black and almost featureless, like shadows had come to live on it, and the snake’s scaled hide spun between purples and dark greens. I swallowed down nausea and turned my head away, looking for something that was a normal color.

The sky provided; it was deep cerulean, almost too dark for nature, but less disturbing than Judy’s shadowy skin. Only when my gaze went to the sun did I realize that it was black, too, and that in the Lower World the sky should be crimson, not blue. I pressed the heels of my hands over my eyes and shuddered. “I have to go back.” My voice still sounded parched to my own ears, and I didn’t want to look at Judy to see if her expression said I sounded odd to her, too. “…snake, will you come with me?” I didn’t know how to address it, and I didn’t want to look at its swimming patterns, either. It hissed with ill-concealed annoyance, but slithered forward and climbed up my body to wrap around my shoulders. “Thank you,” I whispered, grateful to not have to look at it. My hands pressed against my eyes were making sparks that reminded me: “Where’s—”

I didn’t finish the question before I felt the presence I was looking for. The tortoise appeared behind my eyelids again, its colors bright and proper, unlike everything around me. “There you are,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

It bobbed its head agreeably and I swallowed against sickness again. The snake wanted me to carry it on my shoulders, but the tortoise seemed satisfied to come along for the ride behind my eyelids. “Tomorrow,” I grated at Judy. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

I couldn’t close my eyes any harder, but I tried, and fell upward through my bellybutton back home.

CHAPTER 16

The snake wasn’t actually coiled around my shoulders when I opened my eyes in my dark living room. I could feel its weight, but my fingers brushed my arms as I folded them around myself, not meeting any scaly resistance. My head hurt. Myskin hurt; I tested it with my fingertips, trying to feel heat. There wasn’t any, but the papery dryness of sunburn was there. I got up and walked through darkness to turn the shower on, not bothering with the lights. The single window in the bathroom was curtained, but enough morning light leaked through the shade to keep me from killing myself as I stepped into the tub.

The hot water was too hot. I turned it down again, then again, until it was lukewarm and cooled my skin. I felt vaguely sick to my stomach, more exhaustion than genuine illness, and wondered what time it was. Maybe I could nap before work.

No, I couldn’t. I groaned and put my face against the shower wall. The tile was cold, shocking my cheekbone. I groaned again, in appreciation, and turned around to lean against the tile, letting cool water run down my front.I felt sunburned, all over, my skin too thin and too hot. I wondered if I had any aloe vera, and then I slept for a while, standing there with my feet lodged against the far edge of the tub so I wouldn’t fall down.

I woke up when the lukewarm water turned cold, with no sense of how much time had passed. Last time I’d done that—and the fraction of my brain still capable of thought decided it was a bad sign that there was a last time for falling asleep in the shower—Coyote had visited me. My coyote. Not this time. A sudden surge of energy hit me and I jolted out of the tub, grabbing a towel in the semidark and scrubbing it over my face.

Then I sat on the toilet and whimpered for a while until my sunburned skin stopped protesting the rough abuse from the towel. Getting dressed was going to hurt. But I had to. Even if I called in sick to work, which Morrison wouldn’t believe because it was going to be another beautiful day, I still had to deliver the spirit guides to Colin and Gary. And if I was going to get dressed at all, I might as well go to work instead of calling in with the Blue Sky Flu.

The red numbers on my clock flared an inversed blue when I wobbled into my bedroom: 9:37. I flipped the light on and it went black in my eyes before reasserting itself in the more normal yellow-white bulb light. I rubbed my eyes gingerly and went to find my uniform. Coyote’s little explosion trick was leaving a mark.

Halfway through getting dressed I noticed my skin wasn’t visibly sunburned. It stillfelt burned: I kept involuntarily flinching away from cloth brushing my skin, and the idea of putting on a vest made my head pound even harder. I glanced at the clock again; a quarter to ten. I had forty-five minutes to get to work. I might be able to tear by and visit Colin, who was the sicker of the two. Maybe I could see Gary at lunch. Either way, I wasn’t going to be left with enough time to plop down on my bed and see if I could get rid of the ache of sunburn with the idea of a new paint job, or the funky vision with a little windshield wiper fluid. It could wait till tonight. I could suffer until then. I went back into the bathroom, drank three glasses of water, put my contacts in, and determined that my reflection was haggard, horrible, and not in the least sunburned. It didn’t seem fair somehow.

The phone rang on my way out the door. My stomach seized up and I ran back, snatching it out of the cradle. A woman demanded, “Are you alive?”

“What?” God, my voice sounded as dreadful as it had in the desert. I cleared it and tried again. “I mean, yes.”

“This is Phoebe. You were supposed to be here fifty minutes ago. Fencing lesson?”

“Oh. Oh, God. I’m sorry. Last night got kind of weird.” I felt the snake’s weight slither around my shoulders, settling more comfortably. That was just so totally not cool I couldn’t even begin to express it. The tortoise was much more circumspect. I knew he was there somewhere, waiting for me to need him. I liked that a lot more than the slithery snake. “I just got home. I’m on my way to work. I completely spaced it.”

“Everything okay?” I could hear the frown in her voice.

“Yeah. More or less. Look, I’ve really got to go, so I’ll call you back and reschedule later, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. I just wanted to be sure you were okay.”

I wondered what she’d say if I said, “Sure, fine, except the sunburn that isn’t there, the lack of sleep, the thirty-pound snake on my shoulders, and the way the lights keep imploding their color.” Fortunately for both of us,