C.E. Murphy - Thunderbird Falls

“So you looked for something else?” I ventured. Garth nodded, dangling his hands between his knees.

“Mom couldn’t handle Colin being sick again. She split a while ago, so even trying to hang together with family didn’t work. Dad and me live about five minutes from here. So yeah, it’s how come I got involved in the Craft.” He studied his hands, while I bit my tongue from asking, you got involved in the Craft because you live five minutes from here ? “I thought maybe…well, the Goddess is supposed to do magic, right?” Garth went on. “Witches and everything. I thought maybe…”

“Maybe magic could help.” I put my fingertips over my eyes and rubbed. “It’s not really that simple, Garth.”

“I found that out. I was gonna give up, but then I heard Virissong, see? In the coven, I heard him talking to me. He said that when he came back and was strong again, he could heal the earth, and heal my brother, too.”

“Virissong isn’t a god, Garth.”

“I think he’s an aspect of the god.”

“The God?” I pointed upward.

“That God and the god and the goddess are all one and the same. It’s just kind of hard to see it with modern religious trappings.” He sounded like he’d learned it by rote and believed it to the core of his being. “But Colin’s getting worse. I know the solstice is soon and Virissong will come then, but—” He broke off, took a deep breath, and spoke very quickly: “But you have real power. We all felt it. I hoped maybe you could help Colin hang on just a little longer.” The breath whooshed out of him and his shoulders deflated as he curved in on himself.

“Jesus, Garth.” I leaned over, putting my head on my knees.

If I let myself—and I had been careful, on some level, not to—I could feel the hospital behind me. Not just the hospital, but each individual, patients and doctors alike, interns and nurses, newborns and the dying. Sometimes they were one and the same. I could feel places in them that needed healing, sometimes physical, very often psychological. There was too much for me to heal at once, even if those who were in need would allow me to try, and not all of them would. Young doctors, determined to prove that they could hack the harsh realities of the medical world, wouldn’t let someone like me near them, for a multitude of reasons. Skepticism was only the easiest; a fear of showing weakness was the worst.

I wondered for the first time if I’d always avoided hospitals because I caught some sense of the meteoric emotional highs and lows, even before I was rudely awakened to a world that wasn’t quite like the physical one I was comfortable with. Tuning into that sensation didn’t even require any particular supernatural skill or belief. Hospitals carried a lot of psychic whammy.

“I’ll try to help him, Garth,” I said to my knees. There wasn’t really any question about it from the moment I stepped into Colin’s room. I could shrug off responsibility to the faceless masses for months at a time, as I’d less-than-admirably proven already. Individuals, though, in need of help, aching for it with every breath, even if they couldn’t ask for it out loud—I wasn’t a monster, and I was a long way from being that hard. “I can’t promise anything,” I said, lifting my head. “Okay? I can’t promise anything. But I can try.”

“Thank you.” Garth’s voice cracked and he crashed his shoulder against mine as he leaned over to hug me. “Thank you. I know you can help him. I think that’s part of why Virissong called you to the coven. He knew you could help Colin hang on just a little while longer. Until he comes to help everyone.”

I felt very old as I hugged Garth back. I knew Virissong wasn’t a god any more than I was, but he didn’t seem to want to hear it. Maybe some things just had to be taken on faith.

“Go on,” I said, giving Garth a little shove. “I’ll see you at the meeting tonight. I’ve got to think about how I’m going to do this.” My inability to know how to heal Gary only seemed enormously compounded when facing something as invasive as a cancer. There had to be a way to do it. If I’d spent the past several months studying, I’d probably know what it was.

“Okay.” Garth climbed to his feet, nodding, and wobbled down the steps, leaving me alone to my planning.

I didn’t really need to plan. I had Gary’s spirit quest to do in a matter of minutes; making it home in time would be a crunch. A bit of memory floated through my mind, something about traditional shamans using sleep deprivation as a tool to enter their trances. That was good: in my current state, one or two deep breaths ought to put me under. I watched Garth walk away, then pushed to my feet. For once I had a clear path to follow and no qualms about following it. I went to find Petite.

Sunday, June 19, 6:00 a.m.

I wasn’t early. I wasn’t late, either, but I wasn’t early. My garden was as hazy as I was, fog rolling through it. The trees were all budded with brand-new leaves, visible if I looked straight at them and a green, unfocused blur if I looked away even a fraction of an inch. On the one hand, the whole new life symbolism of the budding branches seemed like a good one. On the other, it seemed likely that the blooming trees were more going for the fuzzy greenness than making a statement about my psychic preparedness for a new day. I yawned so hard my eyes teared up and I toppled over on my side. Judy sniffed in disapproval this time. “The weariness of the body should be left behind, Joanne.”

“You’ll have to teach me how to do that.” I pushed myself upright again, still yawning until my vision sparkled and blurred. “And what is this with Joanne, Joanne, Joanne all the time. Everybody’s all formal.” I’d gotten used to Gary calling me Jo, a name I never thought I’d like. For a few seconds an image of my father glittered in my tears: watchful almond eyes with neither patience nor humor in them. He called me Jo, like he wanted a boy if he wanted a child at all.

I blinked away tears and visions alike. Judy’s eyebrows were lifted. “Is there something else you’d rather be called?”

I studied her for a few seconds, gauging my response to that and to her. “No. Joanne’s fine.” Even Joanie, which most people called me, seemed a little more personal than I wanted to get with Judy just yet. “Let’s get started. There’s a lot to do this morning.”

Judy smiled. “So there is. Is there someone specific you’d like to do a spirit quest for?”

“A couple people. Do I have to tell you who?” My recalcitrance surprised me, but it surprised Judy more. Her eyebrows darted up again.

“Not if you don’t want to. It’ll make it harder for me to help guide you.”

I held my breath, staring at her for a while. “All right. One of them’s a kid named Colin. He’s a cancer patient, a friend of mine’s brother.” Friend. I’d known Garth two days and doubted I’d ever see him again after the solstice. If that constituted a friend, I needed a lot of work on my interpersonal relationships.

Not that that was really much of a surprise.

“And the other?”

I found myself holding my breath again. “Let’s start with Colin. He’s pretty sick.” Gary was my friend, and I felt a gut-deep reluctance to invite Judy along to guide me to finding a spirit animal for him. I’d screwed up all on my own with Gary, as far as I was concerned. I was going to find a way to help him on my own, too. It wasn’t the right shamanistic spirit, but despite that, it felt right. My heart hurt, tiny sharp beats that made breathing hard. I shook my head, an attempt at literally shaking the feeling off. “Colin first.”