She wondered if she would ever lose that. She couldn't be sure, especially now. Findo Gask was a powerful and intrusive presence, and his intent was to undo everything in her life. To take her life, she corrected herself quickly, if he could find a way to do so. She looked off across the river, where smoke from fireplace chimneys lifted in the air like streamers. It was the John Ross factor again. Every time she connected with him, her life changed in a way she hadn't imagined was possible. It would do so again this time. It was foolish to believe otherwise.
She shook her head at the enormity of this admission. It would crush her if she tried to accept its weight all at once. She would have to shoulder it a little at a time, and not let herself be overwhelmed. Maybe then she could manage to carry it.
The wind gusted hard and quick down the road, sending a stinging spray of ice needles against her skin and down her throat. The cold was raw and sharp, but it made her feel alive. Despondent over the death of Ray Childress and angered by her confrontation with Findo Gask, she felt exhilarated nevertheless. It was in her nature to feel positive, to pull herself up by her emotional bootstraps. But it was her symbiotic relationship with the park as well. There was that link between them, that tie that transcended every life change she had experienced in her twenty-nine years.
Maybe, she mused hopefully, she could save her connection with the park this time, too. Even with the changes she knew she must undergo. Even with the return of John Ross.
She crossed the bridge where the road split off and curved down to the bayou and to the caves where the feeders lived, making instead for the summit of the cliffs and the turnaround. The parking area was empty, and the snow stretched away into the trees, undisturbed and pristine. In the shadowed evergreens, a handful of feeders crouched, their flat, empty eyes watchful. They had no particular interest in her now, but that could change in a heartbeat.
She found the gap in the cemetery fence that had opened two years ago and not yet been repaired, and she squeezed herself through. Riverside's tombstones and monuments stretched away before her, their bumpy, rolling acres dissected by roads that meandered in long, looping ribbons through clusters of old hardwoods and shaggy conifers. The roads were plowed, and she trudged to the nearest and followed it on toward the edge of the bluffs. The wind had picked up, and the snowflakes were falling more quickly, beginning to form a curtain against the gray backdrop of failing light. It would be dark by four o'clock, the evening settling in early during the winter solstice, the days gone short and the nights made long. She pulled up her collar and picked up her pace.
When she reached the plots of her grandparents and of her mother, she knelt in the snow before them. Snow layered the rough-cut tops of the marble and the well-tended grounds beneath, but the vertical surface of the stone was clear and legible. She read the names to herself in silence. robert roosevelt FREEMARK. EVELYN OPAL FREEMARK. CAITLIN ANNE freemark. Her grandparents and her mother, laid to rest in a tree-shaded spot that overlooked the river. One day she would be there, too. She wondered if she would see them then. If she did, she wondered how it would feel.
"Kind of a cold day for paying your respects to the dead," a voice from behind her remarked.
From her kneeling position, she glanced over her shoulder at Two Bears. He stood a few paces back, beefy arms folded over his big chest. Snowflakes spotted his braided black hair and his ribbed army sweater. One arm encircled his bedroll and gripped his rucksack, which hung down against his camouflage pants and heavy boots. For as little clothing as he wore, he did not seem cold.
"Don't you ever wear a coat?" she asked, swiveling slightly without rising.
He shrugged. "When it gets cold enough, I do. What brings you to visit the spirits of your ancestors, little bird's Nest? Are you lonesome for the dead?"
"For Gran and Old Bob, I am. I think of them all the time. I remember how good they made me feel when they were around. I miss them most at Christmas, when family is so important." She cocked her head, reflecting. "I miss my mother, too, but in a different way. I never knew her. I guess I miss her for that."
He came forward a few paces. "I miss my people in the same way."
"You haven't found them yet, I guess."
He shook his head. "Haven't looked all that hard. Calling up the spirits of the dead takes a certain amount of preparation. It takes effort. It requires a suspension of the present and a step across the Void into the future. It means that we must meet halfway between life and death." He looked out across the river. "No one lives on that ground. Only visitors come there."
She came to her feet and brushed the snow from her knees. "I took your suggestion. I tried talking with the gypsy morph. It didn't work. He wouldn't talk back. He just stared at me— when he bothered looking at me at all. I sat up with him last night for several hours, and I couldn't get a word out of him."
"Be patient. He is just a child. Less than thirty days old. Think of what he has seen, how he must feel about life. He has been hunted since birth."
"But he asked for me!" she snapped impatiently. "He came here to find me!"
Two Bears shifted his weight. "Perhaps the next step requires more time and effort. Perhaps the next step doesn't come so easily."
"But if he would just tell me—"
"Perhaps he is, and you are not listening."
She stared at him. "What does that mean? He doesn't talk!" Then she blinked in recognition. "Oh. You mean he might be trying to communicate in some other way?"
Two Bears smiled. "I'm only a shaman, little bird's Nest, not a prophet. I'm a Sinnissippi Indian who is homeless and tribeless and tired of being both. I give advice that feels right to me, but I cannot say what will work. Trust your own judgment in this. You still have your magic, don't you?"
Her mouth tightened reproachfully. "You know I do. But my magic is a toy, all but that part that comprises Wraith and belonged to my father. You're not trying to tell me I should use that?"
He shook his head. "You are too quick to dismiss your abilities and to disparage your strengths. Think a moment. You have survived much. You have accomplished much. You are made more powerful by having done so. You should remember that."
A smile quirked at the corners of her mouth. "Isn't it enough that I remember to speak your name? O'olish Amaneh. I say it every time I feel weak or frightened or too much alone. I use it like a talisman."
The copper face warmed, and the big man nodded approvingly. "I can feel it when you do so. In here." He tapped his chest. "When you speak my name, you give me strength as well. You remember me, so that I will not be forgotten."
"Well, I don't know that it does much good, but if you think so, I'm glad." She sighed and exhaled a cloud of frosty air. "I better be getting back." She glanced skyward. "It's getting dark fast."
They stood together without speaking over the graves of her family, flakes of snow swirling about them in gusts of wind, the dark distant tree trunks and pale flat headstones fading into a deepening white curtain.
"A lot of snow will fall tonight," Two Bears said in his deep, soft voice. His black eyes fixed her. "Might be a good time to think about the journeys you have taken in your life. Might be a good time to think back over the roads you have traveled down."
She did not want to ask him why he was suggesting this. She did not think she wanted to know. She did not believe he would tell her anyway.
"Good-bye, little bird's Nest," he said, backing off a step into the white. "Hurry home."
"Good-bye, O'olish Amaneh," she replied. She started away, then turned back. "I'll see you later."