River Marked (Mercy Thompson #6)(18)

"Eventually, there are only tent poles, and I am walking by them, crying, sobbing, with snot dripping from my nose--the whole wretched business though I don't know what I am grieving for."

"How old were you?" Adam asked.

"That was after Bryan died," I answered. "Just after, I think." Just talking about what I'd seen rattled me, my jaw vibrating as if I were cold, though Adam was warm and solid against me. He was real, but somehow that long-ago vision was real, too. "So fourteen or thereabouts."

Telling Adam was almost like living through it again. The emotions had been real and powerful, maybe the most real thing about the whole vision.

"Finally, I came up to this car--an old Model T Ford buried up to its axles. It was so sad, I could feel its sorrow weighing down my heart, distracting me from whatever had caused me to cry in the first place. I put my hands on it, but there was no way to dig it out or fix it. I explained that to the car, as if it could understand what I was saying because I felt as though it could. I told it I was sorry I couldn't do more. "Then, under my fingers it began to vibrate, shaking until I couldn't hold it anymore. I had to close my eyes against the sand it stirred up, and when I opened them, I was alone in a forest."

I remembered how frightened I had been in the forest. My pulse picked up, and goose bumps covered my forearms. The forest should have been a relief from the dead grayness I'd been in. The forest had been my second home--but the forest of my vision had hidden watchers, dangerous watchers who didn't approve of me.

"It was a dark forest. Although all the trees were conifers, they'd formed a thick canopy over the top of me--like in a rain forest. I could feel that I was watched, but no matter how hard I looked, I never saw them. My watchers followed me as I walked. Eventually, I started running, and I panicked like a rabbit. It seemed as though I ran for hours. Every time I slowed down, I could feel them closing in on me. So I didn't slow down." Remembered fear had me sweating, and the muscles on the back of my neck were tight. "I never saw anything while I ran. Never knew what was chasing me. I just knew I was the prey in this race. I knew absolutely that if they caught me, I was dead.

"I looked over my shoulder as I ran full tilt through the forest, and my foot caught a downed tree. I tumbled down a hill and landed at the foot of a La-Z-Boy."

"A what?" Adam asked.

"I told you it was weird. A La-Z-Boy, one of those big recliners. This one had a big tag on it that said `La-Z-Boy.' It should have felt out of place in the forest, but instead it was I who didn't belong." The recliner had been orange and blue plaid. Ugly.

"At first all I saw was the chair, then I could tell it was occupied by a tall, handsome Indian man who looked not at all impressed by me."

Funny. I could remember the color of the chair as if I'd just been staring at it, but I couldn't really remember the Indian man's face or what he was wearing. I don't think I noticed anything except his eyes.

"I got to my feet. My jeans were torn, my shirt was ripped, and there was a long, painful scratch on my side. There were sticks in my hair. I felt as if I were someplace I didn't belong, somewhere no one wanted me. I raised my chin and met his gaze, eye to eye, though I knew in my heart it was a stupid thing to do." The panic had been gone, replaced by a hollow emptiness that felt like nothing could ever fill it.

Adam's hand tightened on my shoulder.

"As soon as I began the stare-down, a fox, a lynx, and a bear came out of the woods. A huge bird that looked like a giant eagle dropped out of the sky, and they all stared at me, but I kept my eyes on the man in the chair."

It had been unexplainably horrible, knowing that I did not belong in that forest with the Indian man and the animals. I was an outsider, alone.

"Steady," murmured Adam.

"The man finally said, `Who are you who walks in my forest, half-breed?' I could tell he didn't mean that he wanted to know my name. He wanted to know what I was." I couldn't explain it right. "The essence of the person I was."

"What did you tell him?" Adam asked.

"I told him that I was coyote." I cleared my throat. "He stood up. And up. He was a lot taller than I was, as tall as the trees around us and somehow more real than they were. I know that's an odd visual picture, but it was just the way it was. Without dropping my gaze, he said, `I am Coyote.' He sounded pretty offended."

I sucked in a breath. "I probably should have given him my name. It wasn't the right answer-- but it wouldn't have been the wrong one, either. So I said, `Okay. You can be Coyote. But I am a coyote.' He considered my answer, then he bent down to whisper in my ear." I felt stupid about this last.

"What did he say?"

"He said, `Okay. You can be a coyote, too. But you're a silly little thing, and I am a silly old thing.' And then I woke up."

"Do you know what it meant?" Adam asked.

I laughed and shook my head.

"That's a lie," he whispered, pulling me closer.

"It meant that I'm not Indian enough," I told him. "I don't belong anywhere."

He burned another hot dog while we sat together and watched the flames.

"I think you're wrong," he told me, finally. "It didn't sound like Coyote was rejecting you."

"He was talking about my coyote half," I said.