Dark Sky scans the space where I stand, the white smoke seeps forth, and I get an odd two-faced sensation of a man that looks both hard and determined and also like strange tears are streaming down his face.

  His smoke shifts to Kai, and he hitches up his cane to kneel next to her. The white from his eyes envelops her like fog rolling over a flat lake.

  “Have strength,” he says. “It will get worse before it gets better. That is the way with ghost sickness.”

  Hosteen removes his hand from his sister, his face pained. He starts praying under his breath in Navajo, soft and rhythmic. Dark Sky pulls something from his pouch and tosses it into the fire, herbs and something else that looks like a black totem, but before I can get a good look, it’s instantly consumed, and in that same moment, I feel a wind.

  I blink.

  I’ve never felt wind in the thin place before, only the bite of being too close to the veil. This place is a weird in-between. No sensations exist here except for that awful cold—until now.

  This ghost wind rips right through the patchy frame of the summer hogan and stands the flame of the center fire pit up like a torch. But it doesn’t touch anyone or anything else in the living plane. Not even a hair stirs on Kai’s beaded forehead.

  So this Dark Sky is more than he looks. That’s fine. We can deal with this, I tell myself even as I’m nibbling at my thumbnail like it’s covered in fine Swiss chocolate.

  Dark Sky starts to sing. I understand none of it, only what I feel, and what I feel is that it’s an old song, really old. The words sound Navajo, but they’re like Navajo that’s been dug up from the deep, as if each word is blown free of dirt as he speaks it.

  I watch in horror as Dark Sky reaches directly into the fire with both hands and grabs two fistfuls of ash. He doesn’t break at all in his singing, doesn’t seem to notice the flame as he rubs the ash over his hands and then up and down his arms. What’s left, he streaks across his blind eyes like a mask.

  Sparks from the fire swirl around the hogan, the wind whips Kai’s hair around her head, and she starts to seize. I step toward her on instinct and almost walk my way right out of the thin place. Only the force of the weird wind saves me. Reminds me where I am. I hold tight to the crow.

  Dark Sky goes digging in the fire again with his black hands, longer than anyone should or could, until he pulls out the totem. When he presses it to his blind eyes, I see it’s a bear, cut roughly from some sort of glittery black rock.

  He pops the totem into his mouth and sings loudly. The bear bobs along on his tongue, and the song never breaks. I feel sick. Whenever gross body things happened in nursing school, I would always blink rapidly, sort of like covering my eyes without covering my eyes. I’m doing it now, but if the totem hurts Dark Sky at all, he doesn’t show it—no searing smoke, no burning flesh. Just a cold glitter.

  Dark Sky turns toward Kai and grabs her by both arms. Hosteen picks up the chant where Dark Sky leaves off. He doesn’t have nearly the force behind his voice, but he seems to know what he’s doing. Dark Sky lays Kai down and straddles her. She doesn’t really fight, which makes me sick all over again. He leans over her face and sucks at the totem and spits to one side. He does this again and again, like he’s sucking some unseen poison from the air above her.

  The rational part of me—the part that still has her nursing textbooks, highlighted in nine different colors, in a box under the bed—knows that a totem cannot be used to suck away a diabetic seizure. That’s not how it works.

  But when Kai’s seizure calms, and her panting slows to a cadence of normal breathing, I have to set that part aside. I have to let weird Caroline step in, the one that knows calming smoke can help, if it’s done right—at least until we can get the insulin.

  Dark Sky spits again into the fire, which is close enough to Kai’s head to make this double gross, then he nods. He takes a thumb and paints a whorl of ash on Kai’s forehead, still damp with sweat. “It is done.”

  Hosteen nearly collapses as he rushes back to his sister’s side. He reaches for her arm again but pauses.

  “You may touch her,” Dark Sky says. “She is clean. But there are a great many others who are not.”

  Hosteen does, softly squeezing her shoulder and speaking low in Navajo. This is about as brotherly as I’ve ever seen the guy—it’s a shame Kai is basically unconscious for it.

  When the wind dies down, the burn of the thin place comes back full force. A cold pinch works its way slowly into my skin like a large-gauge needle. Time to bounce.

  “We have work to do, Hosteen.” Those are the words I hear Dark Sky utter as I step away and the summer hogan is sucked back behind me.

  One step. Two. Three. Then I’m back in the A-frame.

  I let go of the crow, and my legs go all loose on me, and I sort of topple right into Grant’s arms.

  “Mom! What is it? Are you hurt?”

  He helps me upright. He’s so strong now, and wide. The thin little boy with the crow on his head is gone. It makes me a little sad.

  “He’s the real deal,” I say, sucking in the sun-warmed pine smell of the A-frame like it’s ice-cold water in the middle of a dry desert night. “Jacob Dark Sky. I don’t know what kind of deal he is, but I know he’s real. His power comes from the bell side of things,” I say. “From the crow side. Ben’s side. And it’s growing.”

  Grant taps the bell absently, eyes tracing thoughts that I can see as ripples racing through his smoke. “What about Kai?” he asks.

  “She seems okay. For now. Although how and why, I have no idea. She shouldn’t be. He stopped a hypoglycemic seizure with a totem and a whorl of ash on her forehead. None of it makes any sense.”

  The front door opens, and Owen walks through. He’s as put together as ever, his white coat crisp over a button-down and tie. But his eyes are tired, disheartened. My guess is the clinic never picked up.

  He slows his steps as he comes in. I must not look too good either. Frazzled, pale, sucking wind. Grant still has a hand on my shoulder like he’s old-lady escorting me across the street.

  “What did I miss?” he asks slowly.

  I don’t even know where to begin. I feel the steam and the heat and the ghost wind of the summer hogan still, as if it’s come back with me.

  No, wait, that’s just from the pot on the stove. The mac-n-cheese water is still boiling.

  7

  OWEN BENNET

  I’m taking off my tie and rolling up my sleeves, and Grant is watching me with one shoulder leaned against the doorframe in that unnervingly calm way of his. After a moment, I bite, reiterating myself again. “Absolutely not, Grant. Your mother and I can get in and out. You can do no such thing.”

  Grant pops an eyebrow. He was always like this, clear-eyed even as a young boy, calm and collected in situations where his peers would likely have wet themselves. He’s grown even more stoic over the past few years here. He reminds me more and more of the Navajo that way.

  “Really?” he asks flatly. “I’m the whole reason any of you are doing this at all. She’s my girlfriend. I need to see this through.”

  Caroline is in the living room, fortified with mac-n-cheese, pulling her hair back into what she calls her “phase pony,” and it’s impossibly attractive, which isn’t what I really need right now, preparing to go into the breach as we are. What’s needed is calm focus so that we can make the right decisions, just like in surgery. I need to be a lot like, well, a lot like Grant, honestly.

  Caroline checks herself in the mirror. Tightens the ponytail. Loosens the ponytail. “Honey, it’s not like that. We’re just trying to understand what this Dark Sky guy is doing here. Once we get a game plan, we’ll tackle it together. Nobody is leaving you out.”

  Grant gives her a flat look, crossing his arms. “I think that’s kind of the definition of what you’re doing. By going without me.”

  I can hear Chaco’s massive talons skittering across the roof, and I’m surprised at how relieved I feel. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him. I think Chaco will take our side. He knows better than anyone that the bell must be kept safe.

  “So let me get this straight, Mom,” Grant says, as if reading off a dinner menu. “You tell me Dark Sky pinned her down and did some sort of exorcism while she was having a seizure, and I’m not supposed to go check on her?”

  Caroline soaks the mac-n-cheese pot and purses her lips. I can tell that sounds as ridiculous to her as it does to me. The bottom line is the Bodrey place has never been safe, even before Dark Sky came around. I don’t want Grant anywhere near it. I don’t want the bell there either, but mostly, I don’t want Grant there, not until we can gather the Circle and figure out what’s happening.

  Telling Grant to hold back is hard. He’s eighteen. He holds the key to the door between worlds around his neck. We come from different places. When I was eighteen, the high point of my year was when my father gave me a nod of approval at getting into medical school. I still remember that nod. Then Caroline came into my life, and then Grant came into my life, and my heart made room for him just like it did for her. How am I supposed to tell him to stay away from his Caroline?

  Thankfully, my Caroline taps in. “All we’re asking is for you to stay here while we figure out what’s going on. Can you do that?” She looks at me.

  Grant lets out a long, slow sigh, but he moves over to the couch and sits down.

  “Alright,” I say, checking my pants for my wallet and keys before realizing neither will get me very far where I’m going. “That’s that, then. We’ll be right back.”

  I open the door and step out, holding it for Caroline like we’re just hopping over to Manuelito’s for a Christmas-style enchilada. Grant watches us from the couch, his unblinking gaze skeptical. The night wind picks up again, and I have to shield my eyes from the fine desert silt sliding across the road out front. Up on the roof, Chaco pivots himself against it, low and sleek in the moonlight.

  Tonight, I don’t need to be linked to the bird to know what he’s saying. Whatever is going on up Crooked Snake Road, it’s like the wind is running ahead of us, pulling us there.

  Chaco is telling me to watch my step.

  8

  GRANT ROMER

  After I hear the soft whoosh pop that follows Mom and Dad’s exit, I wait another ten seconds on the couch, then I get up and grab my keys. I can hear Chaco’s exasperated sigh in my mind.

  “Yeah, right,” I say. “Like you ever thought for a second I wasn’t goin’ up there too.”

  Chaco’s voice is a slow roll in my head. “They’re just trying to keep you safe, man.”

  “I’m pretty good at lookin’ out for myself. I’m not a—”

  “Not a kid anymore. Yeah, yeah. Now you’re old enough to make the really bad decisions. Congratulations.”

  I shrug on my beat-up trucker jacket and make sure the door’s locked on the way out. “Somethin’s coming. I can feel it. The bell can feel it.”

  “Something’s already here,” Chaco says, his eyes following me from the roof.

  I hop in the truck and fire it up. The lights catch the desert sand whirling down the hardpack. If I go maybe a little faster than I should, I can get to the Bodrey place in under an hour, hopefully before things start heating up.

  I pause, one hand on the gear shift. “Still can’t find Ben?” I ask.

  Chaco spreads his wings and floats erratically down to the ground. “Oh, I can find him. That’s not the problem.”

  “Where is he, then? He’s gotta know things ain’t right here.”

  Chaco’s voice is troubled. “It’s hard to explain. I still don’t really get it myself. But it’s all connected to what’s going on out back of the trading post.”

  I throw the truck into gear, and it rocks gently as a big gust skitters grit against the side facing the dark plains. “So does that mean you’re coming?”

  Chaco struts over to the truck and hops up to the open window. “Of course I’m coming. But I sure as hell ain’t flying. Tricky winds these days. A couple bad gusts, and I might end up blown halfway to Mexico.”

  He unceremoniously flops his way over my lap, buffeting me with his wings until he’s sitting shotgun. “Come to think of it, Mexico sounds pretty nice right about now.”

  I pick a stray bit of black fluff from the scruff of my jawline and let it fly out the window on the wind. “Why go to Mexico when you can go to the Bodrey trading post?”

  Chaco laughs, a funny tittering sound I’ve always loved. Another gust broadsides the truck with sand, but the engine roars back as we take off, side by side, into some sort of trouble.

  Just like old times.

  Turns out I don’t need to worry about anyone spotting my truck on Crooked Snake. I can’t get much more than halfway up the pass. Beat-up trucks and rusted-out cars are parked end to end wherever the shoulder gives them room. I recognize a lot of them from the Arroyo.

  “I think we’re better off parking near the turnoff,” Chaco says warily. “Last one in, first one out, and all that.”

  I skid to a stop and throw my truck into reverse. “All this is for Dark Sky?”

  Chaco chirrups an affirmative.

  “Who is this guy, some kind of rock star?”

  Chaco’s stony gaze follows the broken line of darkened cars as we pass, his head making little tics. “I’m getting more of a tent-revival vibe.”

  When I shut the lights off, the darkness is complete. The wind isn’t gusting anymore, but I can still hear it somehow, a soft, consistent keening like a coyote gearing up to howl.

  I get out, walk around, and pop open Chaco’s door.

  He hops up to perch on the top of the door frame, where he’s eye to eye with me. “I’m gonna scout ahead a bit while the wind is down. Fly low. See what I can see.”

  “Guess I’ll start walking.”

  Chaco puts one claw on my shoulder. “Watch out for snakes. It’s called Crooked Snake Road for a reason.”

  Chaco and I are about as close as can be, but he’s never been the touchy-feely sort, so whenever he does something like this, it kind of gets to me, in a good way. I run my thumb over the dome of his head, flush with the downy feathers of his brow. He leans into it a bit, and I realize he’s worried, really worried, about me but also about this whole production.

  That, and he knows I really don’t like snakes.

  I tap the heel of my trusty boots against the steel runner of the truck. “I’ll be all right. I got my stompers on.”

  Chaco looks unimpressed. Then again, I ain’t ever really seen any bird look impressed. He stretches his wings and takes off into the night, ten feet up in a span of wingbeats, then gone to my eye but not my mind.

  I grab my hat and start walking.

  The pass really is as crooked as it sounds. A series of switchbacks cuts through the red rock. At times, the road looks like it could take two cars. Other times, it looks more like those bottlenecks that shepherds squeeze their flocks through. I know a handful are out here. Strange to think of peaceful little sheep milling around bootleg country and munching Saragossa grass feet from pressurized stills that could blow at any minute.

  I’m about a half mile in when I hear the first snake. The rattle sounds like bones in a bean can. Before I can call out, Chaco says, “Stay cool. Stick to the middle of the road. They don’t want anything to do with you.”

  His voice knocks my heartbeat down a level or two until I find the words. “What do you mean they?”

  Chaco drops down low and buzzes me, his version of I got you, bro. Then he’s up again, out and above in a few wingbeats. I remember to breathe.

  “Let’s just say there are, uh, quite a few snakes,” Chaco says.

  Now that he’s told me, I can hear them. They scratch the bushes and shift the dirt with a sound that’s a bit like rolling up a garden hose.

  “The good news is they don’t seem to care about you,” Chaco says, passing back and over again.

  I feel a snake brush past the outer edge of my right boot and only manage to clip a scream by biting my tongue. Another slides by on my left.

  “We’re all headed to the same place,” Chaco says. “It’s like they can’t even see you. Just keep your head.”

  I try not to pick up my feet, moving through the dirt at a light shuffle for another five minutes until I can see the Bodrey trading post through a cut in the canyon. The building itself is dark and shuttered, but a torch blazes on the lip of the ridge just beyond. I’ve been up here a few times, and I know that torch marks the start of the canyon steps that take you to the Bodrey backcountry.

  I dash to the first marker and take a minute to catch my breath. The ringing in my ears is slowly replaced by another sound, rhythmic and swaggering—a chant. The singer’s voice carries even all the way up here.

  “Looks like we’re late to the party,” Chaco says.

  The glittering scene on the flat below sucks the wind from me all over again. A big summer hogan glows like a lantern, open at the sides. A campfire inside seems to dance in time with the chant. I count roughly a hundred people spread out around it. A crown of smaller pit fires rings this crowd, their smoke feeding the black of the sky. Beyond that, the dark moves, flashing every now and then with the dull glint of snakeskin.

  The bell warms in warning on my chest. Best not to look too hard into that darkness.

  “What the hell kind of Diné ceremony would call on snakes? The Diné and I have the same views on snakes. Not huge fans.”

  I can feel Chaco’s mind working like the whirring of a clock. He can tap into memories and experiences so vast and deep that if he let me in on ’em, I’d probably go crazy. Before he was with me, he was with Ben’s grandma. Safe to say he knows a thing or two about Diné ceremonies.

  “A Windway shows the power of Great Snake,” Chaco says. “But it’s in the song and the sandpainting. Not slithering through the darkness.”

 

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