Eileen Wilks: Humon Error

Two of the Delacroix brothers sat at the table with Benedict—Nate and Stephen. Sheila and her brother sat there, too. The rest were standing around, except for Arjenie, who was pacing.

“. . . as if you’d throw fire in a barn. And at a living being.” She flung those words at Hershey, who looked sheepish and muttered, “She’s really mad.”

“I didn’t think Arjenie even had a temper,” Sheila said. “I’ve never seen her lose it before.”

“People kept grabbing her,” Benedict explained. “She doesn’t like that.”

Stephen slanted him a quizzical look. “Maybe that isn’t the only reason.”

“And you,” Arjenie said, stopping to glare at Clay. “Never mind if it was reasonable to draw on Benedict or not. Why did you even have a gun? You don’t wear a gun. You never wear a gun.”

Clay exchanged a look with Robin, then sighed. “Nate had a disturbing dream.”

Arjenie frowned at Nate, who was sitting beside Benedict. “What kind of dream?”

“One with lots of blood.” The man shrugged. “Not that I expect it to be literally true, but it’s one of the strongest sendings I’ve received. The overwhelming sense was that trouble was coming. Danger.”

Benedict turned to him. “Precog?”

Nate nodded. “Not a strong Gift, so my hunches aren’t always reliable. But when I do have a prescient dream, it’s likely to be accurate. Not in terms of the dream’s contents—my unconscious seems to make those up to fit the feeling, so I don’t know that blood will literally be involved. But the feeling is reliable.”

Arjenie crossed her arms. “And you all assumed that trouble coming meant Benedict?”

Ambrose protested, “Not all of us. I didn’t know anything about Nate’s dream, much less that Big Brother”—he cocked an eyebrow at Clay—“was packing heat.”

“Arjenie,” Benedict said, “it’s all right. I am dangerous.”

She shook her head. “Not to them.”

Robin sighed. “Ambrose, we didn’t tell anyone about Nate’s dream because we hoped to avoid scaring everyone. Arjenie, I understand that you’re upset, but you aren’t thinking. Clay carried the gun because of Nate’s dream, not because of Benedict. We didn’t expect trouble from any particular direction. We simply wanted to be ready.”

Ready? And yet they’d allowed members of the family to ride or wander all over their acreage. Benedict shook his head. Either Robin wasn’t being honest about where they thought the threat lay, or these people did not understand security at all.

Robin’s revelation set off a new round of talk. Some wanted to know the details of Ambrose’s dream. Others remembered other dreams he’d had and how they hadn’t played out the way anyone expected but had fit events perfectly . . . in hindsight.

That’s how precognition usually worked, from what Benedict understood. He did know one precog who was phenomenally accurate. His hunches were more reliable than many people’s observed facts, and when he did—rarely—have a prescient dream, it was both literal and accurate. But most precogs weren’t like that. On the whole, the Gift seemed more trouble and confusion than help.

Robin didn’t contribute to the speculation, he noticed. She went to the refrigerator and started pulling out things—carrots, onions, celery. She asked Nate to get her a jar of tomatoes from the pantry, and would Clay taste the broth from the stewing meat to see if a bit more thyme was needed?

Nate went for the tomatoes. Clay gave Robin a knowing smile, a kiss, and told her to “give me that knife, woman, and don’t mess with my soup.” Within minutes, and with only the tiniest of nudges, Carmen and Clay were cutting up vegetables, Nate was showing Carmen’s brother—Benedict couldn’t remember his name—something in the living room, and Gary had headed to the basement to check on the kids. Hershey began rolling out a pie crust he’d taken from the refrigerator while Sheila and Ambrose peeled and sliced apples.

The chatter didn’t stop, but it was more general now. Robin collected Arjenie with a glance. The two women came to the table.

Stephen smiled up at Robin. “I think all the chores are taken. You’ll have to be direct.”

“Directly speaking, then—go away.”

Stephen chuckled and rose. “Good luck,” he told Benedict, and wandered over to snatch a piece of carrot.

Benedict had already concluded that Robin was the one in charge here, though in that oddly indirect way humans seemed to like. Or maybe they didn’t notice. Though Stephen had noticed, and Benedict suspected Clay knew exactly what his wife was doing. He wasn’t sure about the others.

Arjenie sat beside Benedict and squeezed his hand. “I’m pretty sure Aunt Robin intends to interrogate you.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Robin said, sliding into a chair across from him. “But we do need to talk. We need to figure out what happened, why it happened, and how it might relate to the danger Ambrose sensed.”

“I was forced into the Change. My subjective impression is that this was intentional—that I was shoved. Normally, that would be impossible for any being save my Rho to do.” He considered that a moment. “Possibly my Lu Nuncio could force the Change on me, but he’s never tried, so I can’t say for sure.”

“But you’re certain it wasn’t your Rho who did this.”

“Quite certain.” There was no mistaking the feel of the mantle enforcing the Rho’s will. Robin, of course, didn’t know about mantles. No human did, save for their own female children, who were clan; the Rhejes, of course; and those Chosen by the Lady. He looked at Arjenie— his Chosen—a bright bloom of happiness opening inside him.

“Well, that’s reassuring.”

Benedict looked back at Robin. “That my Rho didn’t force the Change?”

She smiled. Robin Delacroix was a round sort of woman—round cheeks in a heart-shaped face, rounded body tucked neatly into jeans and a soft pink sweater. Her nose was just shy of pug, her eyes brown and warm. She was the shortest person in the room. “I was referring to the wonderfully gooey look on your face when you look at Arjenie.”

Gooey? No one had ever called him . . . gooey.

“But that’s not what we need to discuss. Not right now, anyway. Why did you think the intruder in the barn was Coyote? By which,” she added, “we’ve been assuming you meant the Coyote of Native legend and lore. The Trickster.”

“That Coyote, yes. I smelled him.”

“How would you know what he smells like?”

He was silent a moment. “It is traditional among my mother’s people not to speak of certain experiences.”

“Are you talking about a spirit quest?” Her eyes widened. “Do you mean that Coyote is your spirit guide?”

“No!” What an appalling thought. “No, but . . . it is possible, on a spirit quest, to meet more than one Power.”

“This spirit quest must have taken place many years ago.”

“Yes.”

“I know your sense of smell is much more acute than mine. However, I can’t help thinking that to recognize a particular scent, after so many years, would be difficult. Rather like me recognizing a particular shade of purple that I saw once, in my youth.”

“What if you had never seen the color purple in your life, and then you did? Only once, however. Many years pass, and then one day you saw purple again. Would recognize it?”

Her eyebrows lifted. “This scent is that distinctive?”

“Scents are distinctive in ways that vision doesn’t approach. Coyote’s scent . . .” Like a coyote, of course, the very essence of coyote, which included the meaty musk of a predator . . . but also sage and sand and wind, sun-baked earth and beetles, and the thin, clear singing of stars through air cold enough to make your eyes water . . . “There is nothing like it.”