All good dreams must bow to the morning light.
“It is done,” Mae said. She frowned slightly and pressed a cool cloth against his forehead. “The spell is complete. Are you awake? Cedar, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” he said, from both far away and near. Something, something wasn’t right with his body. He felt, strangely, as if he were in two separate places at once. It was…disconcerting.
“Good,” Mae said. “Very good. Let me help you sit.”
She did more than help, as Cedar lost track of where up and down were located while the room seemed to swing into place around him.
There was something at his back—a pillow. And he was sitting on a blanket spread out on the floor. Next to him lay Wil. Only Wil was not in wolf form as he should be. He was once again his brother, needing a shave and a haircut, asleep and covered by a heavy blanket. Around his neck was a thin thread, and on that thread was a cross.
“What?” Cedar cleared his throat and then looked back at Mae. The room didn’t spin this time. Even though it had only been moments, he felt less split in two. “Did you break it? Mae,” he said, unable to hide the relief in his tone, “did you break the curse for both of us?”
“Temporarily,” she said offering him a cup of water, which he drained. “The spell will last a few hours. Perhaps six or seven. That means you’ll need to return to the church before dawn.”
“What happens when the spell wears off?” he asked.
“We don’t know.”
“We?”
She nodded at Father Kyne. He lay on a simple cot, breathing heavy enough Cedar could clearly hear each inhalation and exhalation. His lips were moving. Praying, Cedar realized. He was saying prayers.
He felt something cool at the hollow of his neck and touched it with his finger. He too wore a cross.
“How? What…part in this has Kyne taken? Is he holding the curse at bay?”
“He is carrying your burden,” Mae said. “As is his faith to carry the burden of his fellow man. The binding of the curse hasn’t been broken; it has been…diverted to Father Kyne. I didn’t think it would work. But he insisted to have faith. Faith in God. Faith that a Pawnee curse would rest a while with him, if invited. Faith that God would help him remain strong. So you can hunt for the children. And for the Holder tonight.”
“Wil? Why isn’t he under the curse?”
“The curse was cast on you both. It was meant for you both to carry, each brother light and darkness. We could not lift it and bind it to Father Kyne for one without needing to do so for the other.”
“Is the preacher carrying both curses? The…the weight of both?”
Mae nodded. “I have eased it some, and could only bind it to him in the most shallow of manners. Nothing bone deep. Nothing blood deep. Nothing that will twist his mind. Just…” Here she cast about for words to describe what exactly she did with magic that no other witch could do as well. “It is bound to his faith, for lack of a better way of saying it. To his will. As long as he does not waver in this task, the curse and binding will hold. But it will tire him. And when he tires, the spell will unravel.”
“Is Wil awake?”
“Yes,” a hoarse voice said from the blankets next to him. “Wil is awake. And naked. And hungry. Again.”
Cedar couldn’t help but smile. He had seen his brother too briefly over the last few months, only for the three days over the new moon each month. So this, nearly two weeks before he should have a chance to talk with him, was a welcome happenstance indeed.
“I offered to put pants on you in wolf form. You didn’t seem interested,” Cedar said.
Wil chuckled, then coughed. Mae walked over to him and handed him a cup of water.
He drank, then handed her back the cup. “Mrs. Lindson, you’re looking lovely this evening. I am sorry to catch you in my unavailables.”
“Thank you, Wiliam, but don’t worry about that. I thought we agreed you would call me Mae.”
He rubbed his hand over his eyes, scrubbing at them for a good bit. “That’s right. We did, didn’t we? My apologies, Mae.”
“None needed,” she said. “How are you feeling?”
“Human. As I prefer. Thank you. For that.” He smiled, and that charm he’d possessed since birth shone through. “Though I have a strong hankering for cinnamon. I don’t suppose there’s a stick of it anywhere around these parts? Or a dash of it in tea?”
“Might have something in my coat pocket,” Cedar said.
“Did you hear what it is we intend to do this night?” she asked as she found Cedar’s coat hanging on the chair, and rummaged in his pocket.
“I think so. The Madders are set on us hunting the Holder, because that is what the Madders are always set upon, near as I can tell.” He pushed up and sat, resting his back against the wall without a pillow to ease him. “Father Kyne is hoping we will search for the children. We’ll be looking for the children, won’t we, brother?”
He rolled his head to the side and gave Cedar a knowing look.
Cedar nodded. “Children first.” He didn’t have to add of course. After he’d suffered his own daughter’s death, he’d lost his strength to brush the pain of any child aside. If he could help, he would. “We hunt the Holder at the end of the night, if we have we have time.”
“You never disappoint,” Wil said, not unkindly.
“Put on your pants,” Cedar said. “I’ll find your boots.”
Cedar stood, and was glad there was no pain. He had expected to suffer for this respite of the curse he had carried for so many years. But this was Mae’s spell. She had yet to cause him pain.
“Your things are here, Wil. I brought them from the wagon.” Mae placed a folded stack of clothes on the blanket. “Boots are by the door. Also, this.” She handed him the small cinnamon hard candy Cedar had kept in his pocket.
“Oh…you are an angel,” Wil said as he reverently pulled on the candy’s wax wrapping and held up the disk of sugar like a man studying fine wine.
“Thank your brother. He’s the one who remembered it last town we stopped through. I’ll leave you to dressing.”
Wil popped the candy in his mouth. “God. Oh, God. This…” He closed his eyes, rolling the candy around in his mouth. “How did you know?” he sighed.
“You always want cinnamon when you’re back in your own skin.”
“True. I tried it in wolf once.” He frowned. “It was like licking a rusty pipe. Hideous. But this, this is so…so…” He just closed his eyes again, a smile across his face.
Mae walked out of the room and shut the door behind her.
Cedar stared at the door for a moment, wondering if casting the spell had fatigued or harmed her. She didn’t appear to be overly tired, but then, she often kept such things behind a calm exterior.
“Have you asked her yet?” Wil asked.
“Hmm?” Cedar said, coming out of his thoughts. “Asked her what?” He reached over for his gun belt hanging on the wall peg.
“You know what.”
Cedar did indeed. He had confessed last month in those scant hours when he and Wil could converse that he wanted to marry Mae. He had also said he didn’t know when to ask her.
“It hasn’t even been a year since her husband passed,” Cedar said, plucking up his ammunition belt. “I don’t want her to feel I’m expecting anything of her.”
“You do see the way she looks at you, don’t you?”
“Wil. There isn’t time for that now.”
“There is tonight. And I’ll have plenty of time to convince you that there is an honest woman who I’d love to share our family name with, in a brotherly way.”
“I am aware. Very aware.”
“So then, brother. Do I need to also remind you that most women won’t wait forever? Not in this quickly changing world. What if some handsome man comes along and persuades her away with his wiles?”