Bentley Little - The Summoning

Her grandmother had spoken up immediately, before she'd even had time to tell her what he'd said. "Tell him he is now one of the seven."

"But I thought you said--"

Her grandmother frowned. "Things have changed." "He says his wife and daughter are missing." "I know. Tell him this..."

"Your wife and daughter are fine," Sue translated, and though she sensed the falsity in her grandmother's words, she tried not to convey that in her speech to him. "She said she does not know where they are, but they are safe. They sensed danger and protected themselves from it, going into hiding, and they are afraid to show themselves. They will be okay."

The look of relief on Rich's face told her that he had believed her, and as she looked at him, she understood how people came to believe in fortune-tellers and palm readers. They believed because they wanted to believe. It was easier to accept the reassuring words of others than face the truth yourself. She'd wanted to ask her grandmother what she knew about Corrie and Anna, and how she knew, but she did not. It was one thing to translate. It was quite another to knowingly lie.

There was pain in her own chest now as she thought of Rich's daughter.

Had something happened to the girl? She hoped with all of her heart that nothing had. She'd only known Anna for a short time, but she liked her and cared for her, felt almost as though she was a baby sister. She stared at Rich. She knew what he was going through. She recalled how she'd felt the other day when they'd been searching for John, when she'd thought the cup hug/rngs/might have taken him.

She hoped both Anna and Corrie were all right Rich looked up from the couch, met her eyes, and she looked quickly away.

She thought John should be at this meeting too, but for once her grandmother had sided with her parents and said no. He was too weak, too young. As far as she was concerned, his trial by fire had earned him a place here, but her grandmother had not agreed.

Influenced.

The word scared her. '

"We went out to Pee Wee's today," Robert said slowly. i "Went through his stuff."

Pee Wee. Another empty spot within her. There had been so many deaths lately. She wondered if at some point she would not be able to deal with any more of them, if an emotional wall would go up to protect her and keep her from feeling each loss so profoundly. Or if her emotions would just keep on taking hits as her battered psyche spiraled downward.

"Did he finish the baht gwa?" her grandmother asked.

Sue translated.

"One of them," Robert said. "The other's halfway done. They're both out in my car." '

Sue translated again, and the look that fell over her grandmother's face caused them all to fall silent. The old woman did not speak for a moment. ""Tell them to bring be seven of us. If you go, there will be eight. Someone the baht gwa inside," she finally said to Sue. Her voice was will die. We may die anyway, but if there are eight it will not as strong as before, and there was a slight quaver in be certain.

Is saving face worth the cost of a life?" it, though she was obviously trying to pretend as though

"No," he admitted. nothing had changed. "You and your father get the

"John needs you here. You must protect him." spears."

During this exchange, the other men watched them,

Sue and her father walked through the kitchen and uncertain of what was being said, not knowing if it was a into the laundry room to gather up the willow branches conference or an argument. Now her grandmother they'd sharpened earlier, while Robert and Woods went handed Robert the final spear. outside and brought in two oversize mirrors wrapped in

"For Mr. Buford," Sue translated. blankets. The two men unwrapped the blankets on the

Robert looked at the sharpened sticks. "Will we sue floor, revealing one octagon mirror the size of a small teed?" he asked Sue. "Does she know that? Can she tell us if we'll get the .. cup hugirngsi?" coffee table and another mirror, slightly larger, that was

"We will succeed," her grandmother said, and chills something between a pentagon and a hexagon, raced down Sue's arms. Her grandmother was lying.

Her grandmother looked at the baht gnoa, said nothing,

She felt it. She knew it.

She took the spears and gave one to Robert, one to Rich, one to the coroner, one to the FBI agent.

Di Lo Ling Gum.

She looked into the old woman's eyes, looked away,

"Hold on to these," Sue translated. "Until tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" frightened.

"We will succeed," Sue said. She tried to make her

Sue's pulse sped up as she translated her grandmother's words into English. "Tomorrow we will know." voice strong, enthusiastic, but she was not sure if any of

"She said there were supposed to be seven of us. the men believed her.

Who are the other three?"

They nodded.

Sue repeated the question, and her grandmother responded with only a few terse syllables. "She is," Sue said. tired!

""AndRobertme. frowned And Mr. "Buford look up. After everyone was gone and the house locked up, Sue took a shower. She felt dirty.

Unclean and uncomfortable.

"That's what she says."

"I must go also," her father suddenly announced in And the water on her skin felt soothing and good. She got out of the shower, dried herself, then put on a maxi

Cantonese. "I must right the cup hugirngsi. "' pad and panties before pulling on her pajamas.

"You cannot," her grandmother replied. "You must re main here and protect your family."

God, she hated having her period. She'd read some

"I cannot let women go out and do men's work while where that women were luckier than men because they stay here and do woman's work." were multi orgasmic but she thought she would gladly give

"It's the twentieth century," Sue told him. that up if she didn't have to suffer each month. Men were

Her grandmother turned to face him. "There are to really the lucky ones; they didn't have to go through this.

She had never gotten a sex lecture from her mother Or from her father, for that matter. It was simply some thing that was not discussed by the family. If she hadn' seen Carr/e and hadn't talked about it with her friend she would not even have known what to expect, she would not have been prepared for her period. She would have thought she was suffering from internal bleeding or something the first time it came.

Well, that wasn't precisely true. Menstruation had been discussed in seventh grade health class. But the discussions in class about menstruation and sex had been technical and scientific, so vague in practical application that she'd really learned nothing from them. The real fac of sex, the physical, go ly part of it, she'd had learn from her friends and, later, from the books she repdtiously read in the library.

She opened the bathroom door, and a cloud of steam escaped into the hallway. She glanced toward her parent" room at the end of the hall, saw her mother sitting on top of the bed, brushing her hair.

Why would her grandmother lie?

That bothered her. She had been so sure of everythin until now, so certain that her grandmother would tell them exactly what to do, they would do it, the cup g/rngsi would be destroyed, and everyone would live ha pily ever after. But she recalled now that her grant mother's only other encounter with a cup hugrngsi had been as a small child, and that everything she might have learned about stm-stm gwaig'wai, the supernatural, in Cm ton was probably only. theoretical. For all Sue knew, she might be making this up as she went along, acting entirel on instinct.

She remembered that the cup hugirngsi couldn't cro,. running water.

But had killed Aaron and Cheri in the river.

She reached her bedroom. The door was closed. She distinctly remembered having left it open before going in to take her shower. She frowned, turned the knob, pushed the door open.