taking their souls. Paul… he spoke with… ghosts, and that’s what they told him. That’s what they had done to my father. That’s what they were going to do to us. I don’t know what they do with the souls, Cass, but our men… we should have killed them. I should have. Put them out of their misery.” He finally looks at me, eyes so full of agony that I have to force myself not to look away. “Except I didn’t have the courage.”
“Oh.” The urge to curl into myself is overwhelming. I know the depth of failure he feels, the knowledge that life will never be the same again because every time you close your eyes, the people you failed are there, staring straight at you-not with accusation, but with sadness, with regret that they chose the wrong one. But I won’t give in-not without a fight. I sit up straight, put on a mask that says
Bran grimaces and looks up to the sky. He can’t stop crying, no matter how hard he tries.
“What a pussy,” Cedar mutters.
And then, just like that, Bran launches himself at Cedar. Helen screams as they roll toward her, kicking and biting and fighting like bears. I yell at them to stop, but they don’t hear me. Battle-frenzy has taken them. Cedar lands a good, hard punch to Bran’s kidneys, but Bran doesn’t even seem to feel it. A growl rises from his throat. He twists, pinning Cedar in the dirt, and then his hands are around Cedar’s throat, choking the life right out of him.
I grab Bran’s shoulders and try to pull him away, but he shakes me off. Cedar is gagging and wheezing as he claws at Bran’s hands.
“Stop it!” I scream. “You’re going to kill him! Stop it!”
Bran ignores me. Cedar’s face turns purple as he tries to punch Bran, but each punch is weaker than the last. His eyes bulge in his head. He opens his mouth, gasping for air.
“Bran,” I say, crouching beside him. “You’ve got to stop. That’s Cedar you’re killing. Listen to me. Come back. Bran, please come back.” I set my forehead against his shoulder and whisper to him. “Please. Come back. You have to come back.”
I feel him shudder, and when I look up, he’s watching me as if seeing me for the first time. Slowly he releases his grasp on Cedar’s neck, leaving brilliant red welts that mark the outline of his fingers. Cedar wheezes and spits as he tries to breathe.
“He deserves to die,” Bran says. “I saw what he did to my father. I know what he’ll do to Paul.” His voice sounds like the wind.
“But it’s just Cedar, Bran. Not the man who hurt you.” I take one of his hands and hold it in mine. “It’s just Cedar.”
Cedar lies there on the ground, staring at us. He doesn’t move. “Yeah, it’s just me, man,” he croaks. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Bran drops his chin to his chest, panting. I close my eyes and see things swirling around him, things I’ve never seen before. His kingfisher is barely attached to him and there are other things now-sea wolves, for one, but not the healthy black-and-white orcas we saw in the ocean. These are depraved creatures, bloody and mutilated- monsters. And I must get them away from Bran before they take him, too.
My hand finds one of the strings at my neck and I pull my pouch, the one holding the sisiutl’s pearls, over my head. “Wear this,” I say, closing his fingers around it. “I want to give you a little sisiutl medicine, just for a while, just until you’ve found yours again.”
Bran just stares at the pouch, so I take it and string it around his neck. “There,” I say, patting it against his chest. “They can’t come for you, and if they do, sisiutl will eat them.” I smile, hoping he will too, and I’m rewarded with a quiet chuckle.
“Thanks,” Bran says as he gets to his feet. I’m not sure he believes me.
Cedar pushes himself away and creeps back to his seat in the shadows.
“I’m so sorry, Cass,” Bran says. I’ve never seen him look so lost, so uncertain.
“Apologize to Cedar,” I say. “He’s the one you attacked.”
Bran shakes his head, as if what I’ve said isn’t true, but he goes to where Cedar sits, crouches, and offers him his hand. “I’m sorry, man. So sorry.”
Cedar grunts something I can’t hear and after a tense moment, I see a hand extend from the shadows to take Bran’s. They sit there, hand in hand, until Bran nods and releases Cedar’s grasp. “Thanks, man,” he says.
He waits a second, takes a deep breath, and then moves back to sit beside his father. “They took my father’s totem,” he says. “He was a bear. Now he’s not. That’s what they did with all the men, except Paul and me. They were saving us for the man who fragments souls-that’s what they called it-and when Paul came back, he told me about the exchange. He gave up his totem, Cass- gave it to my father so he could come back to this world. The others? They’re all lost. That’s what Paul said. Lost.”
“They took Paul’s shade?” I whisper.
“No,” Bran says as his eyes change to storm clouds. “I don’t know what that man said to him, but Paul gave his totem up. Willingly. He came back afterward to tell me to tell you. He said he didn’t need it anymore, so he was giving his to my father to replace the one he lost. He said to tell you not to look for him. Not to try. He said he’s beyond help now. Beyond hope.”
I edge closer to the fire, hoping its warmth will ease the chill that’s seeping into my heart. Paul chose to stay. What could this man have said to make him want to stay?
But I can’t think about that now. Something’s changed with Bran’s father. His breath is coming in short, shallow gasps, as if our words have unleashed something from the spirit world and it’s begun to steal him away.
I take sage from my medicine kit, but before I set it on the fire, I look at Helen, and then Bran. “This isn’t going to be easy,” I say. “I’ll need you guys to watch over me while I’m gone.”
Helen creeps closer and sets a hand on my back. “We can do that, Cass. Don’t you worry.” She smiles. “We’ll be your anchors.”
Bran nods. “I know you can do it.”
I try to smile, but my lips quiver and all I can manage is to clench my teeth together. I hope they’re right, because if I can’t find Bran’s father, I might not come back either.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Every bit of me has been scraped thin. I can’t cross into spirit like this. I’ll be fodder for whatever’s hunting me, for now I realize that’s what’s going on-the wolves I’ve seen in the spirit world are tied to the man who has taken Paul. I’m going to face him down, that man-there’s no doubt about that, but I’ll do it on my terms, not his.
Helen looks up as I stand and dust my hands on my filthy pants. “Where are you going?” she asks, wide-eyed with fear.
“Out.” I duck out into the slanting downpour before she can stop me. Rain soaks me to the skin in an instant, but I don’t care. I open my arms wide and run, run as fast as I can down toward the crabbed pine forest where the burial ground sleeps, where platforms with old bones watch the sky. I have no idea where I’m going. All I know is that I must run, and the faster I run, the faster I will find myself because that’s what I’ve been looking for all along. That’s the one thing I need before I cross into spirit to find Bran’s father.
I run until my pulse screams in my ears and my lungs cry out for breath. I run until my legs ache and sand blisters my soles. I run until sky and earth become one and until the storm blows through me and past me and over me. And then I drop to my knees, turn my face to the sky, and let the rain wash me clean.
Above me, the clouds shift back and forth, rubbing together, and a low rumble comes from the east. A flash of light, and an answering rumble, and another flash. The skies are alive. When I was very little, my father would say the gods were bowling whenever I was frightened by a thunderstorm, but now, what I know is this: The gods don’t bowl. They dance. They writhe and twist and meld together until positive and negative become something more,
