Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5) - Allyson James Page 0,85

had—one breath in, one breath out, then darkness.

***

I awoke to someone poking me with a stick.

I cracked open my eyes to see my familiar bedroom in Many Farms, dawn light eking in through the windows to cast shadows on the painted white ceiling above me. Grandmother stood next to the bed, tapping me with the end of her cane.

When I’d lived in Many Farms, Grandmother hadn’t used a cane. She’d acquired that after I’d gone off to college in Flagstaff, and she’d developed bad arthritis in the joints of her left leg. Any suggestion of knee or hip replacement surgery had been met with a vehement negative—Grandmother had a horror of general anesthesia. She’d succumbed to have her gall bladder out long ago and vowed to never go under again.

“What am I doing here?” I asked, my tongue feeling thick. Already the details of what had happened in the bathroom were growing dim.

“That is a good question. I ask the same one for myself.” Grandmother spoke in the Diné language, and for the moment, I couldn’t remember English anyway. “Get up. I have something to show you.”

I heaved myself out of bed. I was still in Mick’s long T-shirt I’d pulled on at the hotel, and I looked around for jeans to put on under it, but found nothing. I noticed that the room was barren, holding the bed and an old kitchen chair, nothing else. Not the bedroom I’d softened and made mine, which Gabrielle had taken over.

“Where’s all my stuff?”

“Not here yet,” Grandmother said. She looked at me in disapproval. “Your garment will have to suffice. We must leave. Now.”

I didn’t question her. When Grandmother spoke in that tone, I moved.

She led me out of the house through a back door at the end of the hall, one that was seldom used. It opened to an empty space near a storage shed. For a long time, no step had been attached here—the door had sat above the foot-high wooden foundation.

Forgetting that, I stepped out into nothingness and flailed until I landed in the dirt. Grandmother didn’t comment, only waited for me to climb to my feet and help her down.

She beckoned to me. We skirted the house around to the back, where the old sheep pens were. Grandmother took me down the length of the house and around the far corner, then stopped, easing back into the shadows.

My dad’s old truck rattled up the dirt drive and pulled to a halt in front of the house. The sun, barely touching the horizon, lit up the dents in the dusty pickup—I’d bought my dad a new truck when I’d started making money from my photography. Pete Begay slid stiffly out of the driver’s seat, as though ending a long journey, and moved to the passenger side.

I was struck by how young he looked. Dad’s face was smooth and handsome, his black braid holding no trace of gray, his movements, in spite of him apparently driving for hours, lithe.

He opened the passenger door and pulled out a bundle, which cried out.

My heart beat thickly. I started forward and was pulled back by the spindly hand of my grandmother.

The door to the house banged open. A younger version of Grandmother bounded out without her cane, followed by my aunt Natalie, who looked as young as Dad.

“What is that?” Grandmother demanded, pointing to the mound of blankets my father held. The squalling rose to ear-splitting levels.

Aunt Nat put her hands on her ample hips. “Pete, what the hell are you doing with a baby?”

“Whose baby?” Grandmother asked sharply. She sniffed, then drew herself up. “Where did you find it? Why did you bring it here?”

My dad looked exhausted, bewildered, defeated, and grief-stricken as the child in his arms continued to cry. Grandmother reached out her hands. “Give it here.”

“No.” My father backed away. “She is mine.” He squared his shoulders, and for the first time in his life, faced down the women of his household. “This is my daughter. I have brought her home.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

My mouth went dry, and I wanted to start bawling along with the baby. My dad and my grandmother squared off, she a shaman with old magics, my father with determination and love in his eyes. My grandmother came forward, Dad watching her in trepidation, but he stood his ground.

Grandmother reached him and peered into the bundle. She studied the baby the barest instant before she took a sharp breath. “It stinks of evil. Peter, what have you