Shaman Rises

“What did he say?”

Gary shoved a hand through his white hair. He had a headful of it, but it needed washing or brushing or some kind of attention, because it looked thinner than usual. So did he, for that matter. “He said...hell, Jo, I don’t know. He said somethin’ about the stag and sagebrush—”

I shot a look at Morrison, whose eyebrows were raised. “Call Dad. Find out what sage has to do with anything.”

“He’s in the car, Walker. He shouldn’t talk while driving.”

“Call him anyway, please. Go on, Gary.”

“And he said somethin’ about bending time to come to her when the stag called, an’ he said...hell, Jo,” Gary said again. It wasn’t, I thought, that he didn’t remember, so much as, as I had discovered time and again, it was hard to talk about magic. People loved stories about it, and liked to imagine maybe it was real, but faced with real magic in their lives, a reticence cropped up even when everybody listening knew the truth. I gripped his shoulders and nodded, encouraging him, and after a minute he went on. “He said we’d been waitin’ for the very end so we could make our move, like we’d talked about. An’ he said she was beyond my reach, but that she always had been as long as I’d known him. An’...an’ he said he’d guide her to her resting place when it was all over.”

A tiny thump of hope squeezed the air out of my lungs. It escaped as a laugh, almost without sound. “And she went into the light, is that what you said before? She actually literally went into the light, that was the last you saw of her?”

“Yeah.” Gary gave a smile, thin and watery, but a smile. “Yeah, Horns said she’d gone into the light an’ he figured that wasn’t the fate the Master’d been plannin’ for her at all, so it made it kinda bearable. Except...” He looked back at his wife, then at me, all humor gone and his gray eyes hollow. “C’mon, Jo,” he said, as quietly as I’d ever heard him speak. “Who’re we kiddin, doll? What’re the chances that’s really Annie lyin’ there?”

Morrison glanced up sharply, relief and admiration in his expression. My lungs emptied again, this time with a blow-to-the-gut rush, because although it was what I’d been dreading telling him, I didn’t want Gary to have thought of it himself. It was too sad and too cynical, and far too likely, when I wanted like crazy to pull off some kind of fairy-tale ending.

But the fact that he’d thought of it made it a little easier to draw a deep breath and admit “Not good” aloud. “I hope like hell it is, Gary, but...”

He nodded. A nurse came in to check Annie’s blood pressure, stopped short at seeing a crowd in the room and said in an excellent, hackle-raising warning tone, “Visiting hours aren’t until—”

“This’s my granddaughter and her partner,” Gary said flatly. “They’re family. They stay.”

The nurse was old enough to have the authority age brings, but Gary’s tone and greater age apparently trumped hers. She stiffened from the core out, then gave one sharp nod and went about her business. Morrison, who wasn’t exactly uncomfortable with authority, and I, who often had problems with it, both stood still as hunted mice until she left, pretending if we didn’t move she wouldn’t notice us again.

Gary’s big shoulders rolled down in apology after she was gone. “Sorry ’bout that.”

“For preemptively adopting me? I’m okay with it.” I hugged him again and he grunted, casting a look at Morrison. I caught a glimpse of Morrison’s smile before he said, “Partner works for me. Holliday’s going to have to adapt.”

To my surprise and pleasure, Gary gave a huff of laughter. “Diff’rent kind of partner. ’Sides, Joanie quit the day job, so Holliday’s gonna have to adapt anyway.”

He was still calling me Joanie, which meant he was really not okay. Gary had never called me Joanie, always Jo, unless I was undergoing some sort of major emotional meltdown. Unless, as it turned out, he was undergoing some sort of major emotional meltdown. I didn’t think he even knew he was doing it. I put on my best smile, which was pretty wry. “Yeah. Billy is going to kill me for quitting without even warning him. I’m hoping he’ll have cooled down in the two weeks he hasn’t seen me.”

“Him and Melinda came by yesterday,” Gary said. “He’s worried, not mad. Worried about a lotta things.”

Including, no doubt, Annie Muldoon’s reappearance on the scene. I nodded, then lifted my chin a little. “Go on, go sit back down, or go get a drink of water if you want. I’ll do everything I can, Gary. You know I w—”

A doctor swept in imperiously and glowered at us all. “Mr. Muldoon, I understand we have some more family visiting. It’s already well past visiting hours and we don’t normally allow more than one family member at a time—”

“My dead wife turned up again outta nowhere and you’re tellin’ me my granddaughter ain’t supposed to be here? I’m an old man, Erickson, and I’m tired. You need to talk to anybody from here on out, you talk to my granddaughter, Joanne Walker. Jo, this’s Dr. Pat Erickson. Erickson, this’s Jo’s partner, Mike. If Jo ain’t here, you talk to him.” Like a cranky bear just out of hibernation, Gary lumbered back to Annie’s bedside and sat.

Dr. Pat Erickson was about forty-five, with expertly dyed auburn hair and a long nose. She was about six feet tall, just like I was, and I bet she was accustomed to people deferring to her because of her height, if nothing else. So was I, so there was a possibility of an interesting-in-the-Chinese-sense dynamic raising its ugly head, but after a few long seconds of sizing me up, Dr. Erickson sighed. “I’m sorry for the confusion with your grandmother, Ms. Walker. May I speak to you outside for a moment?”

My jaw flapped. Erickson herded me into the hall while I collected my wits and, once we were there, apologized again. “Hospital records get lost,” she said unhappily. “People do not. Ms. Walker, can you explain any of this? The only thing that makes sense is that she’s been in private care for the past four and a half years, but there are no records of it, and clearly your grandfather has no recollection of that....”

“You’re right. She has been in private care.” If my suspicions were right, it had been very, very private care, and there would never be any real-world explanations for it. I stared at the bridge of her nose, hoping I was giving the impression of looking sincerely into her eyes as I struggled to pull together a story she might accept. “She, um. We...weren’t aware of it. I know that sounds impossible, but it appears that a...humanitarian organization...has been caring for her. They...prefer to remain anonymous, so they can select the people they wish to help without...their doors being beaten down by needy applicants. They specialize in providing long-term life support to patients on the verge of death. Apparently my grandmother...had arranged that if she became very ill, they were to take her away at the point of death. She didn’t want us to know, because she felt our lives would better be able to go on, the healing process would be able to proceed, if we believed she was...really dead. It was only when she was returned to the hospital that we were...notified that this had taken place.” I was going to give myself an award for fast talking. Maybe Erickson’s long nose had inspired me, Pinocchio-like.

Confused relief flashed across the doctor’s features. She wanted to believe me, because it gave the medical professionals who had lost Annie Muldoon a way out. Besides, I was almost telling the truth. Or I thought I was, anyway, and that helped sell the story. Erickson’s only protest was, “But your grandfather didn’t mention any of this...”

“He’s had a very hard few days, Doctor. In his position I don’t think I’d have tried to explain it, either.”

Erickson’s shoulders relaxed a fractional amount. “No, I suppose not. Ms. Walker, I understand private organizations wanting to remain anonymous, but it would be enormously helpful if we could receive their medical records for Mrs. Muldoon. If they’ve released her to standard care they must believe there’s some hope or change in her diagnosis. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t admit her through regular channels, though. I don’t understand how they could avoid it. We do not have people simply walk in and claim a bed, Ms. Walker.”

“I’ll see if I can get answers for you,” was probably the most useless promise I’d ever made, but Dr. Erickson seemed grateful for it. She shook my hand and let me go back into Annie’s room, where Morrison was standing over Gary like a protective gargoyle.

“Sagebrush is used in shamanic healing to help clear the lungs,” Morrison offered as I sat across from them. “Your father says good luck.”

“Lungs, of course. Emphysema, or something that presents as it. And the sickness is still right there.” I put my hand above her chest, not quite touching her, and added, “Tell him thanks,” even though Morrison was obviously no longer on the phone with Dad.

Gary stirred, everything about his actions heavy and hopeless. “Everything okay with the doctor, Jo?”

“Yeah.” I told them the story I’d given Erickson, ending with her supposition that the mysterious private carer had concluded something had changed and that was why Annie had been returned to a public hospital. I took her hand as I spoke, letting my consciousness sink more toward investigating her health than the discussion we were having.

It didn’t take healing magic to feel her fragility. Paperlike skin lay against knobbly bones, no excess flesh to pad them. Her breathing remained perfectly steady, but a machine was doing most of it for her, so that wasn’t surprising. The heart monitor beeped, such a familiar sound from film and television that I hadn’t even heard it until I was sitting quietly and listening. An oxygen monitor was taped to one finger, weighting not just her hand, but her whole self: it seemed like she was so light and fragile that without that inconvenient piece of plastic she might float away. She had a strange scent, the hospital’s antiseptic cleanliness lying over a deeper, earthier smell. It should probably have been the smell of death and decay, but it brought to mind cool green growing places, and mist beading on leaves. I knew that scent: I’d been to the place that birthed it.

For all that it had only been a moment since I’d stopped speaking, I was still startled when Gary asked, “Is the doc right? Did somethin’ change?”

“Yeah. Me. I’m ready now.” I pressed my eyes shut and put my forehead against Annie’s hand a moment before looking up again, meeting Gary’s eyes, glancing at Morrison, basically trying to establish myself as calm, cool and in control. “I wasn’t, when she got sick. I didn’t know you, and even if I had, I could never have helped. Not back then.”

“I nearly called you about a million times, anyway.” Gary’s mouth thinned, fair acknowledgment of the twist his life had evidently taken. At this stage, I was used to my own past not being quite as I remembered. Weirdly, that didn’t make it any easier to know Gary’s wasn’t what he remembered, either. “It ain’t normal, Jo, remembering things two ways.”

“Sure it is. Cernunnos apparently does it all the time.”

That got a laugh out of the old man, which was worth everything to me. I smiled, then spread my fingers beneath Annie’s hand. “Anyway, you didn’t need to call me back then, because you had Cernunnos in your pocket. Gary, I want you to think about everything he said to you. Did he ever say she was dead?”

“He said she’d gone into the light, doll. He said he was gonna take her to her resting place. He said...” Gary trailed off, unwilling to reiterate the list again.

I couldn’t blame him, but he hadn’t repeated a couple of the things I thought were important. “And he said he’d bent time to come to her, and that he couldn’t take you where she’d gone, right? Gary, did you go back to Tir na nOg after that?”

“No, I di—” Gary sat bolt upright, looking like himself for the first time since we’d arrived. “What’re you sayin’, Jo? Did Horns lie to me?”

“I think he might’ve gone a long way to avoid lying to you, actually. Gary, her aura, it’s blazing green, like his. Not as bright. I can look at it without going blind, but it’s the same color. It’s like Suzanne’s, not quite human. I don’t think she died, Gary. I think he took her to Tir na nOg to rest until he could get her to me.”

“Jo, give it to me straight. What’re you sayin’?”

“I’m saying that if I’m right, this really is Annie. And I can heal her.”

Chapter Three (#ub10e58da-f658-5391-a41b-f6b6bf8d2c59)

Morrison’s gaze went flat. It took everything I had not to make pleading eyes at him, and instead to keep my attention on Gary. I knew, I knew I shouldn’t have said that aloud, and if I was wrong I was never going to forgive myself. Morrison wasn’t ever going to forgive me, either.

The complete stillness in Gary’s face, the utter cessation of expectation, of hope, of fear, of anything, somehow said that he would forgive me if I was wrong, and that was almost worse than the alternative. I tried to keep my voice steady. “I could be wrong, Gary. I might be wrong. But Cernunnos wouldn’t have brought her to me if he didn’t think there was a chance. And that means either...” I swallowed. “Either it’s her and I’ve got a chance, or Cernunnos is corrupt and we’re all screwed and have been since the beginning. I choose not to believe that. Gary, with your permission...I’ll try.”

“No way I could say no, doll. Whaddaya need us to do?”

“Just keep the doctors off my back. I don’t know how long this is going to take. Morrison...” I gave him a pained, apologetic look, and some of his anger faded. “Will you drum me under? And do you think we can move Annie’s bed far enough away from the wall that I can build a power circle around her?”

“That’s not going to go over well.” Whether he meant moving the bed or drumming up a power circle in a hospital room, I wasn’t sure, but between the three of us we did edge Annie’s bed several inches away from the wall, then rotated it about thirty degrees so it aligned east-west. I squeezed between the wall and the bed, for once not self-conscious about greeting the cardinal directions aloud and asking them to be the points of my power circle. I guessed that meant I was getting better about ritual.