The Summoning God: Book II of the Anasazi Mysteries by W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O’Neal Gear
Authors: W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O’Neal Gear
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for a day’s walk up or down the Prancing Spirit River. We cut them all down to heat our chambers, cook our food, and fire our pottery. Only when my people moved on did the trees dare to grow again.
My people moved on.
I did not. They left me behind, hoping I would die. I had seen five summers.
I clasp my grandmother’s ankles and drag her over the rocks that ring the pool. Her head thumps the stones, producing a dense meaty sound.
“Yes, I remember, Grandmother. I remember being terrified, starving, running from place to place searching for a scrap of food, stealing what I could. Anyone who saw me chased me away. I remember crying until I couldn’t breathe.”
I step into the pool and pull the old woman in behind me. Icy green water rises to my waist. She floats for several instants as the river swirls and eddies, then it swallows her ruined face.
I let go of her ankles and step back.
Bubbles escape her mouth and perch on the water’s surface like glistening eyeballs. Does she feel the cold liquid filling her lungs? For just a moment, I fear she might suddenly awaken and begin to struggle.
I tremble, both from weariness and from seeing her like this. In the newborn light her gray hair swims as if alive.
“I learned to hear the voices, Grandmother. Just as you told me I must. I learned to live inside my bones with them. That’s how I survived until he came for me.”
Father Sun peers over the eastern horizon, and golden light touches the pond. One by one, the bubbles burst, and in their places bloody red flowers bloom.
My eyes widen as I watch each petal unfurl in a single moment of glory before it fades and blends with the water.
I bend over until my eyes almost touch the bloody surface and whisper, “Hello? Are you down there? Can you see me? Let me in.”
… behind me.
Sandals on dirt.
The footsteps are soft, whispers barely heard. He is the blackness, the animal that has haunted me since my first memories. Like dark wings, he flaps through my nights, his touch feathery, caressing, melting the world. His long white cape sways as he kneels.
The water stirs and flickers.
I wait anxiously for a door to open, for faces to appear beneath the green surface.
I feel the other me receding, draining away into the dark hole where she lives, and I sink against the bank and wonder where the night went. The sounds of the morning are loud in my ears.
I blink at the old woman’s wide, toothless mouth gaping beneath the water. A sudden rush of bubbles explodes and she flails her arms.
“She’s alive!” I blurt.
I stare as he removes his sandals and carefully walks barefoot on the stones around the pool. He pulls his deer-bone stiletto from his belt, grabs her hair, and wades into the pool. He tows her to the middle and stabs her over and over. He stabs her so many times that I think it will never end. Five, ten times … more. Then he stops, breathing hard, and shoves her away. Before he wades out, he thoroughly washes himself off.
I tilt my head, studying her through the eyeholes of the mask. “I—I thought I knew her, Father. I thought she was the one who cast me out of my mother’s clan.”
His laughter is velvet on a spiderweb.
“Is she the one, Father?”
My souls seem to be floating above my body. I am shaking from memories that I do not actually remember, but my flesh does. I fear that if I try to move my arms and legs, they will crack and shatter into a thousand pieces. I peer intently at the corpse. “She is, isn’t she? I know her. I do. I remember her.”
He strokes the locks of long black hair that have escaped my wolf mask and fall down my naked back. I shudder and lean into his touch. The black serpent pendant he carved for me rests warmly between my breasts, cradled in the soft warmth beside the turquoise wolf, both so close to my heart.
“I wish you hadn’t brought us back here, Father. You know I hate this place. Since we arrived, I’ve heard her hissing at me every
My people moved on.
I did not. They left me behind, hoping I would die. I had seen five summers.
I clasp my grandmother’s ankles and drag her over the rocks that ring the pool. Her head thumps the stones, producing a dense meaty sound.
“Yes, I remember, Grandmother. I remember being terrified, starving, running from place to place searching for a scrap of food, stealing what I could. Anyone who saw me chased me away. I remember crying until I couldn’t breathe.”
I step into the pool and pull the old woman in behind me. Icy green water rises to my waist. She floats for several instants as the river swirls and eddies, then it swallows her ruined face.
I let go of her ankles and step back.
Bubbles escape her mouth and perch on the water’s surface like glistening eyeballs. Does she feel the cold liquid filling her lungs? For just a moment, I fear she might suddenly awaken and begin to struggle.
I tremble, both from weariness and from seeing her like this. In the newborn light her gray hair swims as if alive.
“I learned to hear the voices, Grandmother. Just as you told me I must. I learned to live inside my bones with them. That’s how I survived until he came for me.”
Father Sun peers over the eastern horizon, and golden light touches the pond. One by one, the bubbles burst, and in their places bloody red flowers bloom.
My eyes widen as I watch each petal unfurl in a single moment of glory before it fades and blends with the water.
I bend over until my eyes almost touch the bloody surface and whisper, “Hello? Are you down there? Can you see me? Let me in.”
… behind me.
Sandals on dirt.
The footsteps are soft, whispers barely heard. He is the blackness, the animal that has haunted me since my first memories. Like dark wings, he flaps through my nights, his touch feathery, caressing, melting the world. His long white cape sways as he kneels.
The water stirs and flickers.
I wait anxiously for a door to open, for faces to appear beneath the green surface.
I feel the other me receding, draining away into the dark hole where she lives, and I sink against the bank and wonder where the night went. The sounds of the morning are loud in my ears.
I blink at the old woman’s wide, toothless mouth gaping beneath the water. A sudden rush of bubbles explodes and she flails her arms.
“She’s alive!” I blurt.
I stare as he removes his sandals and carefully walks barefoot on the stones around the pool. He pulls his deer-bone stiletto from his belt, grabs her hair, and wades into the pool. He tows her to the middle and stabs her over and over. He stabs her so many times that I think it will never end. Five, ten times … more. Then he stops, breathing hard, and shoves her away. Before he wades out, he thoroughly washes himself off.
I tilt my head, studying her through the eyeholes of the mask. “I—I thought I knew her, Father. I thought she was the one who cast me out of my mother’s clan.”
His laughter is velvet on a spiderweb.
“Is she the one, Father?”
My souls seem to be floating above my body. I am shaking from memories that I do not actually remember, but my flesh does. I fear that if I try to move my arms and legs, they will crack and shatter into a thousand pieces. I peer intently at the corpse. “She is, isn’t she? I know her. I do. I remember her.”
He strokes the locks of long black hair that have escaped my wolf mask and fall down my naked back. I shudder and lean into his touch. The black serpent pendant he carved for me rests warmly between my breasts, cradled in the soft warmth beside the turquoise wolf, both so close to my heart.
“I wish you hadn’t brought us back here, Father. You know I hate this place. Since we arrived, I’ve heard her hissing at me every
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