Thunderbird Falls

license?!”

It began to dawn on Faye that she had perhaps made a tactical error. “Well, I—it wasn’t so hard—”

“You drove my1969 Mustang WITHOUT PERMISSION AND WITHOUT A DRIVER’S LICENSE?”

Faye shrank in on herself and squeaked, “I’m sorry.” Then her eyebrows wrinkled down and she straightened up a little. “How’d you know I didn’t have a driver’s license?”

“BECAUSE I’M A COP!” I thundered. “Now GIVE ME MY KEYS!”

She handed them over and I stomped outside like the wrath of God. Faye followed me at what she judged to be a safe distance, not knowing that if there was so much as a scratch or a dent, or a whisper of timing being off, that the next county wouldn’t be a safe distance. The nextcountry might not be a safe distance.

Perhaps I was a little unreasonable on the subject of Petite, but I was literally the only one who’d driven her since I got her when I was sixteen. She was a junker I’d rescued from somebody’s barn, and I’d put more time, energy, and love into that car than anything else in my entire life. I’d rebuilt her from the bottom up. Her engine had been in remarkably good shape, with fewer than fifty thousand miles on it. It was creeping toward a hundred now and I had a storage locker full of parts and plans to rebuild it from scratch. Her bucket seats were black and I’d hand-sewn the leather, replacing entire panels when they were damaged. The paint job was custom and entirely my own work. The driver’s seat was set to my specifications and nobody had ever moved it except me. Petite was mybaby. She’d gotten wracked up badly back in January and it’d taken most of the intervening five months and a lot of money to get her back into shape. I wouldn’t have let God himself drive Petite, much less some twenty-year-old chickadee with no driver’s license.

Who must have had a hell of a time driving it, because she hadn’t, in fact, moved the driver’s seat, and my legs were a good six inches longer than hers. I started Petite up and she rumbled to life without complaint or suspicious sounds. I glowered at Faye. “You get a stay of execution. Don’t ever,ever drive my car again without permission.” Poor Petite had already had a very bad year, and I was more paranoid than usual about her. Faye looked on the verge of tears. I was too bent out of shape to apologize.

“I’m sorry,” Faye warbled. “I just thought you’d want it here. I thought it’d be safer than the park.”

I ground my teeth together. She had a point. “You have a point.” Grr. “Just…don’t do that again, okay?”

“I won’t.” She sniffled. I suddenly felt like the Big Bad Wolf, so I put Petite in Drive and roared out of Faye’s parking lot with unnecessary but satisfactory noise.

CHAPTER 19

I went into my garden still pissing vinegar. In the greater scheme of things, Faye’d done the right thing, moving Petite away from University Row and the out-of-control frat houses in the area. That, however, was reason, and I was in no mood to listen to it.

My garden reflected that, wind howling through it and whipping up low, heavy clouds into a boil. I stomped around, kicking at the edge of my pond and swearing when wind-induced waves splashed over my feet. In response, the skies opened up and deluged me with cold, pelting rain that stung my skin.

“It’s summertime!” I bellowed at the clouds. “It’s not supposed to rain in Seattle in the summer!”

The rain intensified. Thunder rumbled beneath the clouds, ominous and low. I tilted my face up, eyes closed against the stinging drops, and watched the garden flash bright with the crack of lightning. My clothes were drenched through, stuck to my body. The wind changed into lonely frustrated sobs that struggled to rip the tiny leaves from the branches of my trees. I felt them clinging stubbornly, refusing against all good sense to give up purchase. The ground beneath me softened and began to drink down the water that pounded against it. The grass needed it. Maybe the concrete garden walls needed it, too, a hard strike of rain to work away the mortar that held them in place. I remembered Gary’s untamed garden, wondering if it had walls at all.

I stood there in the rain, pretending it was that, and not tears, running down my face.

By the time Judy showed up it’d stopped raining. I sat on a bench with my head on my knees, arms wrapped around my shins. The air smelled fresh and clean, and with my eyes closed I could feel the grass growing, thankful for the rainfall.

For the first time, I felt her arrival. It was subtle, like slipping between shadows. I thought of the snake and said, “Hello,” without lifting my head. “I don’t think I’ve said thanks for putting up with me, so thanks.”

A little silence answered me before Judy said, “You’re welcome,” in a mild voice meant to disguise startlement. “How is your friend Colin?”

I shook my head against my knees. “I haven’t had time to go see him yet.”

I felt, rather than saw, Judy’s nod. “You took part in a great magic last night.”

“Ah yes. Always an excuse.” I lifted my head and rubbed my eyes. My vision was bizarre again, even inside my own garden. The edges of everything were faded just badly enough to be a distraction. I spent a few seconds trying to straighten it out, like I was clearing dust away from a windshield, but nothing happened and I gave up. If my own maintenance was this poor, how did anybody expect me to make the world a better place? “Accept,” I said to myself.

“Hmm?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Just reminding myself of something.” Judy studied me for a moment, her eyes bright and black as the raven’s. Then she nodded, striking her hands together sharply.

“Are you ready?”

“I doubt it, but let’s go anyway. What’s the deal today? Can I talk to Virissong again?”

She went still. “No. He’s begun his journey between worlds. Contacting him would require more energy than you have available.”

“You mean it’d kill me.”

“Yes.”

My eyebrows went up and I pursed my lips. “Right. Didn’t want to talk to him anyway.” Judy went into motion again, smiling, and I gave her a half smile in return. I didn’t know what I’d say even if I could talk to him. It wasn’t as if he’d say no if I asked,Is this all really a good idea?

Judy came to sit down on my bench, took in my expression, and chose the one opposite me instead. I relaxed a little. “Today,” she said, “I want to explore the nature of sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice?” That didn’t sound good. Amusement curved Judy’s mouth.

“I’ve never been able to think of a better way to describe it. Think about it, Joanne. What is change but sacrificing the old way to the new? Isn’t that the nature of what you are?”

I rolled back on my sit-bones, absorbing the questions and the concept with genuine surprise. “I guess so,” I said after a minute of honest consideration. “I’m incrediblybad at it, but yeah, I guess so.” Wow. What an idea. Somehow it gave me a little more of a grasp on what I’d become.

Why sacrifice was an easier concept to come to terms with than healing, I neither knew nor much wanted to know. I was still taking baby steps as far as gut-level acceptance was concerned, even when the world was pushing me to take giant leaps for the good of mankind. Healing was hard.Let’s go shopping! I thought irreverently, then snorted laughter. Judy’s eyebrows lifted curiously and I waved my hand, dismissing my humor as I settled in to have a think about sacrifice.

Healingwas hard. It fell outside the realm of logic and sense that I preferred to deal with. Not entirely: I did expect paper cuts and broken bones to heal up, given time, and for worse ailments to at least have a chance at being beaten back. But the wholesale version I was supposed to embrace—the entire precept ofchange upon which shamanism was built—was pretty much beyond my ken, and was entirely beyond what I was comfortable with. People and things didn’t heal because they wanted to. They healed because nature dictated it, and in more drastic cases, because of the right use of medication and care. I thought of chemotherapy patients, and could acknowledge without flinching that very often, people made dramatic sacrifices in order to achieve the end result of health.

Somewhere very deep inside me, where I didn’t think Judy could catch it, I thought of a tiny baby girl sacrificing herself for her brother’s strength, and a scared teenager sacrificing her own confused love for the boy’s