Jeanne Stein - Crossroads

That must be the lodge she spoke of when she took off with Mary. “How long do you think she’l be gone?”

“She has a half-day tour lined up so it’l be a while.”

“How did you ever convince her to leave John-John with us?”

“Wasn’t easy.” Frey shakes his head. “I had to promise not to leave you alone with him. And to tel her why you’ve come

— to seek out the shaman who can restore human life.”

“Does she know about him?”

“Al Navajo know of him. But she’s never seen him and she has no knowledge of anyone here ever seeking him out. She thinks he’s so reclusive, being granted an audience is next to impossible. If he isn’t dead.”

“Dead? Great.” Stil, why would Chael send me here if the shaman was dead?

I look up to find Frey studying me. “What do we do next?

How do we arrange to meet the tribal elders?”

“Sarah wil make the contact for us.”

“Sarah? Why would she do that?”

Frey snorts. “Easy. The quicker we meet with the elders, the quicker we get the hel out of here.”

There’s a lul while Frey and I retreat into our own thoughts.

There’s so much I want to know about Frey and Sarah and that cute little guy asleep in the bedroom. I’m not sure how to broach the subject, so I just ask bluntly, “Why did Sarah run away?”

Frey looks at me with weary eyes, as if he’s been expecting the question. He pushes away from the table.

“Let’s go outside. If uskes up, I don’t want him to overhear.

He’s had enough of that today.”

We go to the front porch, Frey closing the front door careful y behind us, and take a seat on the porch steps.

“Sarah was studying to be a teacher. She wanted to get her degree, come back to the reservation and teach at the Indian school. She was proud of her heritage, proud of her blood. When we met, at a party, we were attracted to each other right off. The Navajo say we were struck by the thunderbolt.” He grimaces and smiles as if it suddenly self-conscious. “I can’t believe I said that out loud. Go ahead.

Laugh. I know how stupid and immature that sounds.”

“Stupid? No. If anything, it sounds very romantic.” What I don’t add is that I think it happened to me, too. With Stephen.

Frey pats my arm. “Be careful what you wish for. She told me her plans. She knew mine. I never had any il usion that I could be content on a reservation — I’d spent a couple of summers volunteering on a Chappiquiddic reservation — just as she could never imagine being content anywhere else.

We came to the mutual agreement that we would enjoy our time for the two months she was in Boston. When the new semester started, we’d go our separate ways. When summer rol ed around again, if I wanted to get in touch, I’d do it.”

“But she got pregnant.”

“She got pregnant. We’d taken precautions, but you know how that goes.” He pressed fingertips against his eyes. “At first she wanted to get rid of the baby. Frankly, I didn’t protest. But to the Navajo, life is sacred. When it came down to doing it, she couldn’t bring herself to have an abortion.

That was when I knew I had to tel her the truth about me.”

“The truth about being a shifter? Or the truth about being a Keeper?”

“Both.”

“I imagine she didn’t mind the Keeper part so much.”

Frey’s short laugh is humorless and bitter. “No. The Navajo have their own traditions passed down from generation to generation. My position of Keeper of the Secrets is not so different from that of a medicine man or shaman. We are both responsible for the accumulated knowledge of our people. With the Navajo, the knowledge is passed on verbal y. With us, the supernatural community, it’s passed on in written works. She understood that. Even admired it, I think.”

“But as a Navajo, isn’t another of those traditions belief in shape-shifters? I don’t understand why she would have such a dramatic reaction.”

Frey turns his face away, looks out over the yard and beyond. I fol ow his gaze. This is a landscape as foreign to a San Diegan as the dark side of the moon. Beautiful in its color and dramatic scope but lonely and unwelcoming to those who don’t belong. I understand how Frey knew he couldn’t spend his life here.

He releases a long breath. “It’s different. I’m not Navajo.

My ability to shift is not a gift from the gods, it’s a genetic trick of nature. Or at least that’s how Sarah sees it. And the possibility that I could pass that gene onto our child, that he might have no choice but to undergo a painful and dangerous transformation every month in order to survive was too much for her. She hated me for keeping such a huge secret.”

“But you didn’t intend to have a child together. It was an accident.”

“An accident that never would have happened had she known what I was. She’s made that very clear.>

“Is John-John a shifter?”

“There’s a fifty-fifty chance he wil be. We won’t know until he reaches puberty.”

“Ah. That’s what Sarah meant when she said she would bring him to you when the time was right.”

Frey nods. “As if I’d wait that long. We’re going to have to work something out. I won’t be a stranger to my own kid.”

My thoughts turn to John-John. When I became vampire, the life I knew as a mortal ceased to exist. I had to learn to control the animal side of me so I could cling to the human side. I wasn’t ready to give up my family and friends so it was a constant balancing act. I handled it because I was an adult.

What happens to a child who learns at nine or ten that he’s not like everybody else? Those years are difficult enough.

This isn’t just bad skin or raging hormones. This is learning you’re fucking supernatural. I can’t imagine the trauma.

“I know this is none of my business, Frey. But don’t you think you should start preparing John-John? Just in case?”

He shoots me one of those “duh” looks. “Any thoughts how we might do that? Should I start showing him picture books of animals and say, ‘Oh, by the way, you may turn into that bear one day. But don’t worry about it. It might not happen at al and if it does, it won’t happen for a few years yet.’ ”

His sarcasm doesn’t faze me. I throw it right back at him.

“So, smart-ass, is that how you learned you were a shape-shifter?”

“It wasn’t the same. Both my parents were shifters. There was never any doubt that I’d be one, too. They prepared me because it was a part of our everyday life. It’s not a part of John-John’s.”

“It’s not something you can ignore, either. Sarah must realize that.”

“She doesn’t want to think about it. Which is why she’s hiding out here. If she doesn’t have to see me, she can pretend I don’t exist and John-John is just a normal kid who wil someday inherit the mantle of Keeper. It’s al she can handle.”

Another mystery solved — Mary’s comment about Sarah feeling safe here. Safe meaning away from Frey and the constant reminder that John-John may inherit more from his father than a title.

I wish I could offer Frey some words of wisdom, but I’ve got nothing. I’m not sure how I’d handle the situation if I were in his place. The only thing I do know is I wouldn’t be a drop-in visitor in my kid’s life, no matter how much resistance I faced.

After a moment, I ask, “So what do we do now?”

Frey sweeps a hand to encompass the scenery. “When John-John wakes up from his nap, we’l take a ride. Sarah made arrangements for us to stay overnight not far from here. We’l drive out and drop our stuff off.”

I didn’t think before now that we would need a place to stay. Stupid, considering Sarah’s smal house and the animosity between her and Frey. Obviously, we couldn’t stay with them.