C.E. Murphy - Thunderbird Falls

“ Me !” I screamed. “ I’ll be your sacrifice! Mel, the baby , they’re not part of this deal!”

I fled backward, into myself, terrified and angry. Earth encompassed me, drowning me before it erupted and spat me out. I lurched into the sky and collapsed on my back in my garden. I could smell the old dying grass, the heat that stung the air and made my little pond rancid and flat, but I still couldn’t see, not even inside myself. “Judy?” I was high-voiced and desperate, sounding like a frightened child. “Judy, everything’s going wrong. Please, I need your help.”

“Joanne.” Judy spoke from somewhere behind me. I rolled to my hands and knees and whipped around blindly.

“Judy? Judy, I can’t see. Please, I need help, everything’s going wrong.” That was me, the broken record. I was shaking too hard to even get a ghost of humor out of myself. I knelt, putting my hands out. My heartbeat slammed in my chest and in my ears, drowning me in panic. “They want me to kill Melinda, Judy, they’re insane. You have to help me stop them.”

“Joanne,” Judy repeated, calm and reassuring. I felt her hand on my shoulder and clutched at it.

“It’s all right.” She knelt before me. I was astounded how much I could sense through hearing alone, how easy it was to place her. Even the sound of my heartbeat didn’t stop me from knowing where she was. Maybe I’d turned into Matt Murdoch. Judy’s weight shifted as she put her other hand on my shoulder, pulling me closer to her. “I told you,” she murmured. “I told you much would be asked of you tonight.”

“But they’re nuts ! This is Mel , they’re nuts ! Nobody could—I can’t—not this! This is—no! No!” I shook my head violently, knocking her hands from my shoulders. “This is wrong !”

“This is the path you’ve chosen.” Her voice was soft and soothing, making the horror in my stomach bubble even more, until it lodged in my throat and gagged me. “There must be sacrifice to make change.” Her hands came to my shoulders again. I fumbled for her wrists, blindly knotting my fingers around them. My left palm ached, throbbing with every heartbeat, as if the cut traveled all the way up my arm and into my heart itself.

“No,” I whispered again, hoarsely. “This isn’t—shamanism isn’t about death. It’s life. It’s change. It’s—” I tightened my hands around her wrists, hard enough that I could feel the bones grind. My palm hurt so badly it made me want to vomit, but the pain was something to focus on besides not being able to see. “This isn’t even witchcraft.” I could taste the desperation and fear in my own gasped words. “Even I know that. Witchcraft isn’t evil, and this—this is! Judy, there’s some kind of mistake, this is evil, this is wrong !”

“No,” she said again, shaking her head. My blood went icy as I felt the motion. As though I saw a ghost of the vigorous movement. Shivers split my belly and ran down my arms, making me want to cry. I held on to her wrists more tightly. I thought I might break them from the pressure, but she didn’t complain. “It’s sacrifice,” she whispered. “You understood that, Joanne. What did the spirit animals tell you?”

“Heed,” I croaked. “Heed my—my teacher. Accept. Study.” The light that had teased me with Judy’s movements had been false; blackness swept over me again, enveloping me in soft, frightening comfort.

“Yes.” I felt her nod. Then she caressed my cheek, brushing her knuckles over the thin scar. “I’m your teacher, Joanne. You’ve come so far. You’ve learned so much in just a few days. Won’t you honor what you’ve been taught?”

My heart fluttered like a dying bird, a rapid tattoo against my ribs that sent sickness through me again in waves. “I’ve tried.” My voice was weak and tired. “I’m trying, Judy, but—”

“There are no buts!” Her voice rang out strong over mine, suddenly filled with anger. “Joanne, there are no buts. You must accept.”

I closed my eyes, as if it could somehow diminish the darkness that ate away at me. “Why do you call me that?” I asked. No, I whimpered. I had neither pride nor shame left, just the blackness encroaching on my soul.

And I felt her smile, a gentle amused thing as she touched my cheek again. “Because it’s your name, of course. What else would I call you?”

I opened my eyes again, slowly, to no glimmer of light. “But it’s not my name,” I whispered. Jesus, Joanne . I knelt there, staring blindly at my teacher. And I’d thought the coven was slow on the uptake when they didn’t chase the serpent out into the garden after me and Colin. They had nothing on me.

I felt Judy’s surprise and bewilderment, rolling off her like cool fog. I remembered fog in the North Carolina hills being like that, silent and motionless until I held still myself. Then it had life, soft edges that swept around me and made me a part of it. Judy’s startlement tried to draw me in, but it failed. I had found a line, and suddenly, embarrassingly, it seemed ridiculously obvious. “Joanne,” I whispered. “It’s not my name. And you know what?”

“Of course it’s your name.” Her voice turned sharp, and beneath the sharpness rode fear. “Don’t be absurd.”

I straightened my shoulders, my hands still tight around her wrists. “No,” I said, more strength in my words now. “No, it isn’t my name, and the thing is, Judy, so far all the good guys have known that. It’s just the bad guys I learned to protect it from.” My very first concept of shielding came back to me, dark-tinted car windows rolled up tight and safe around the center of my being, around the name that Coyote, both Big and Little, had known from the start. The name that the shamans had pulled from me easily. The name I’d protected from the banshee Blade, and the name that I’d protected, without understanding or realizing why, from my teacher. Heme and Cernunnos had learned it, but I’d been an utter neophyte then.

“Your name is Joanne Walker!”

“No. It isn’t. And I can’t accept this.” My voice grew stronger, more confident. “This is wrong, Judy. Sacrifices should be willing, if they have to be made, and this is—this is blood sacrifice, this is ritual sacrifice. This is sorcery, Judy! It’s wrong, and I won’t do it.”

“Your name is Joanne Walker, and I command you by it!”

I surged to my feet, dragging Judy with me. “My name,” I roared back, “is Siobhàn Walkingstick, and you have no power over me!”

Darkness ripped away, streamers of light bursting through my vision and tattering the shadows. Pinpoints of brilliance sparked into the back of my eyes, burning along the optical nerve and bringing understanding with them. At first all I could see was Judy, caught in my grip, furious and frightened all at once. Her eyes were hard and black, eyes I’d seen a dozen times in different places without recognizing what I saw. “I know you,” I whispered. A grin was pulling at my mouth, distorting it with wicked triumph. “Give me your name.”

“No!” Tears of fury filled her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Joa—Si—”

I tightened my grip, bearing down. Judy’s cheeks went white and her knees buckled. I brought her all the way to her knees, using my weight above her. “Your charades aren’t going to work anymore. I know you,” I repeated. “The eyes have it, isn’t that what they always say? But I didn’t see until now. Bright black eyes. Just like the spirit animals. Were they real, Virissong? Or were they your creations?” God , what a sucker I’d been! “They were yours,” I added. “The eyes, all the bright eyes. Even the snake I brought Colin. Give me your name, Virissong! I want the truth!” My anger was more for myself than my so-called teacher, but for the moment I needed it. Even an instant of doubt would undo me, especially now that I’d thrown my name at the thing that had invaded my garden. Judy held on to silence almost long enough. I set my teeth together and shook her, yelling without words.