“For Gran and Old Bob, I am. I think of them all the time. I remember how good they made me feel when they were around. I miss them most at Christmas, when family is so important.” She cocked her head, reflecting. “I miss my mother, too, but in a different way. I never knew her. I guess I miss her for that.”
He came forward a few paces. “I miss my people in the same way.”
“You haven’t found them yet, I guess.”
He shook his head. “Haven’t looked all that hard. Calling up the spirits of the dead takes a certain amount of preparation. It takes effort. It requires a suspension of the present and a step across the Void into the future. It means that we must meet halfway between life and death.” He looked out across the river. “No one lives on that ground. Only visitors come there.”
She came to her feet and brushed the snow from her knees. “I took your suggestion. I tried talking with the gypsy morph. It didn’t work. He wouldn’t talk back. He just stared at me— when he bothered looking at me at all. I sat up with him last night for several hours, and I couldn’t get a word out of him.”
“Be patient. He is just a child. Less than thirty days old. Think of what he has seen, how he must feel about life. He has been hunted since birth.”
“But he asked for me!” she snapped impatiently. “He came here to find me!”
Two Bears shifted his weight. “Perhaps the next step requires more time and effort. Perhaps the next step doesn’t come so easily.”
“But if he would just tell me—”
“Perhaps he is, and you are not listening.”
She stared at him. “What does that mean? He doesn’t talk!” Then she blinked in recognition. “Oh. You mean he might be trying to communicate in some other way?”
Two Bears smiled. “I’m only a shaman, little bird’s Nest, not a prophet. I’m a Sinnissippi Indian who is homeless and tribeless and tired of being both. I give advice that feels right to me, but I cannot say what will work. Trust your own judgment in this. You still have your magic, don’t you?”
Her mouth tightened reproachfully. “You know I do. But my magic is a toy, all but that part that comprises Wraith and belonged to my father. You’re not trying to tell me I should use that?”
He shook his head. “You are too quick to dismiss your abilities and to disparage your strengths. Think a moment. You have survived much. You have accomplished much. You are made more powerful by having done so. You should remember that.”
A smile quirked at the corners of her mouth. “Isn’t it enough that I remember to speak your name? O’olish Amaneh. I say it every time I feel weak or frightened or too much alone. I use it like a talisman.”
The copper face warmed, and the big man nodded approvingly. “I can feel it when you do so. In here.” He tapped his chest. “When you speak my name, you give me strength as well. You remember me, so that I will not be forgotten.”
“Well, I don’t know that it does much good, but if you think so, I’m glad.” She sighed and exhaled a cloud of frosty air. “I better be getting back.” She glanced skyward. “It’s getting dark fast.”
They stood together without speaking over the graves of her family, flakes of snow swirling about them in gusts of wind, the dark distant tree trunks and pale flat headstones fading into a deepening white curtain.
“A lot of snow will fall tonight,” Two Bears said in his deep, soft voice. His black eyes fixed her. “Might be a good time to think about the journeys you have taken in your life. Might be a good time to think back over the roads you have traveled down.”
She did not want to ask him why he was suggesting this. She did not think she wanted to know. She did not believe he would tell her anyway.
“Good-bye, little bird’s Nest,” he said, backing off a step into the white. “Hurry home.”