C.E. Murphy - Mountain Echoes

He shook his head once. “That’s all you, Joanne. Your grandmother never broke the speed limit in her life. I don’t know where you got the daredevil streak.”

“You’re telling me you never sped on all those trips across the country?”

He slid a perplexed glance at me. “With my daughter in the car? No. There was never any hurry great enough to risk you.”

And the hits just kept on coming. I tipped my chin up and stared at the sky, absorbing that. Then I reversed my gaze, sighing at the view again. “You know you can’t save her, Dad.”

“I know I shouldn’t. It could change everything. But don’t tell me you’re happy with the way things turned out, Joanne. You’ve hated me since you were a teenager.”

Air whuffed out of me. “Hated you. No. I just couldn’t figure out what the fuck I had to do to make you love me. Your daughter, so disappointing you decided to call her by a boy’s name.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Come on, Dad. I mean, it was pretty clear you didn’t want to be saddled with me in the first place, but the point kind of got driven home when Aidan said you were teaching him. Sorry I wasn’t born with a penis, Dad. So glad you got a grandkid who was.”

“Joanne, I was trying to protect you—”

“Yeah. By keeping us moving all the time. By not telling me about my heritage. By letting me get so fucked in the head that I did the stupidest things possible to try to get attention. From you, from anybody, whatever the hell. Good job, Dad. Banner job.”

Dad, through his teeth, said, “I started teaching Aidan because I’d realized how badly I’d done by you. I thought I was protecting you, Joanne, and for the love of God, I didn’t call you Jo because I wanted a boy. I thought it made it you and me against the world, Big Joe and Little Jo—”

“That’s what I thought until you started looking at me like I was a stranger!”

“You were growin’ up and no matter what I did you kept recognizin’ more and more about the shamanism I was practicin’! If I was lookin’ at you like you were a stranger it was le tr i cause I was tryin’ ta figure out how to keep you out of it!”

Having grown up with it, I almost never actually heard my father’s North Carolina accent, but when his temper got up, it got thicker, until he was almost indecipherable. The same thing happened to me if I got pissed enough, and I was fast approaching that level of anger now. “Like I said, banner goddamned job, Dad! You—”

“And then you said we were comin’ back here, hell or high water, back to where your grandmother died, and I knew I’d lost you—”

“I was thirteen years old, Dad, you don’t lose somebody when they’re thirteen years old unless you goddamned well give up on them! ”

The rest of the argument was shattered by the Pontiac screaming around the corner, a fallen angel in pursuit.

All the what-ifs fell away. I didn’t think, I just reacted. I threw a wall of magic up between the Pontiac and the angel—it could not be an angel, fallen or otherwise, but it sure as hell looked like one, with black-soot wings spread wider than the road and a beautiful face scored by misery and despair—I threw magic, and the angel smacked against it at full speed.

Smacked against and burst through, almost all at once. The strength I was so proud of was utterly meaningless by comparison to its. Dad gasped, “Kolona Ayeliski,” and the Cherokee language Renee had revived translated it— Raven Mocker.

Even I knew about Raven Mocker. He was one of those legends I’d sarcastically dismissed as a teen determined to turn her back on all things Cherokee. He was a demon, a monster, a fallen angel, sure. Something from the Lower World that disguised himself as a creature from the Upper, pretending to provide spiritual guidance and safety while sucking the soul out of his victims. Raven Mocker was the specific thing that vigil-keepers were keeping vigil against, when they watched over the bodies of the dead.

He was not a daylight monster, and there was no way in hell he should be chasing my grandmother down the road at deadly speeds. I gathered strength again to throw another wall up, or to catch him with a net, anything to at least slow him down so the Pontiac could slow down, too. I waited for a straight stretch, a place where Grandmother would have time to apply the brakes without going flying off the mountainside, and I dug deep, getting ready to throw everything I had between her and the Raven Mocker.

Shields as strong as my own wrapped me, muffling my power, and rebounding it back into me when I let it go. An echo banged around my head, magic left with nowhere else to go, and I staggered a few inches. Dad caught my shoulders, steadying me, and I recognized the steady, implacable touch of his magic as what was shielding me. “What the hell!”

“Who do you think Kolona Ayeliski is, Joanne? Who do you think your mother was trying to protect you from when she brought you to me? He must have been waiting here for some sign we’d returned. We just gave it to him. We stepped through time and landed where we weren’t supposed to be. If I had agreed to go into town with your grandmother....”

Any hold I had on my magic dissipated. “She obviously knew he was chasing her,” I said dully. “And he must not have known we weren’t—I wasn’t—in the car. She...”

She leaned on the gas pedal, the Pontiac picking up incredible speed on the straight stretch. There was another curve up ahead, a hairpin bend.

Grandmot="-l, theher never hit the brakes as she approached the bend. Dad closed his eyes, unable to watch as the car soared went off the narrow road, briefly and beautifully unbowing to gravity’s call. It sailed farther than I imagined possible. I stood in Dad’s grip, unable to take my own gaze away until it fell from my line of sight and the first scream of metal sounded. Then my own eyes closed, and Morrison was there to hold both of us up.

We skipped forward through time.

I knew where we were before I even opened my eyes. It was the smell, the faint scent of antiseptic, that sharp astringency in dry air that hospitals never quite manage to erase. I hated that smell, and I said, “No. No. Get me out of here. Get me out of here, I can’t do this again,” without ever opening my eyes. My heart was sick in my chest, pounding so hard I thought I would throw up. “Get me out of here, Daddy. Get us out of here now. Please. Please. I don’t want to see. Not again. Please get me out of here, Daddy. Please.” Tears squeezed through my lashes and left hot streaks on my face, but I would not open my eyes.

I heard the men catch their breath as they figured out where we were. I was sobbing by then. We were in a hospital ward and there were two very small babies nearby, and there was only enough life in the both of them for one. Morrison caught me, holding on hard as I thrashed against him, the words tearing at my throat. “Get me out of here, get me out of here, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it I hate it I hate it I hate it get me out of here please please please get me out of here I can’t I can’t I can’t not now why weren’t you here!”

I tore myself out of Morrison’s arms and hit Dad as hard as I could. “You’re a healer, you’re a goddamned healer, why weren’t you here to save her, why weren’t you here? ”

And my father, terribly, whispered, “I was.”

My eyes flew open. Beyond Dad-now I saw Dad-then, standing outside the ward windows, his hands clenching and opening with impotence. It wasn’t the distance, I knew it wasn’t the distance, they would let him in, he was their grandfather, and besides, I didn’t believe for a minute he couldn’t affect a healing from a mere few yards away. Not when the babies were so fresh and new, with no expectations placed on the world. Dad could do it. He could do it.