One Day in a Small-Town Desert, chapter 17, page 4

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Vata Kılímí set down her teacup, the tea untouched. It was the prefect temperature, but she couldn’t drink. Instead, she laced her fingers together and placed her hands on the table. The creases of her knuckles still held dog blood, dried and black.

How could she have let her husband go off into the desert with the blonde girl and the comatose Zhíno? Pí‘oro was completely unprotected out there. He should have stayed in the chapel. No one had ever been in the chapel without their permission, without them showing the visitor the entrance. No one would ever be in the chapel without their permission . . . unless Ríko caved to the constabulary’s demands for a search warrant. No matter how hidden, an entrance can be found if you look hard enough.

She unlaced her fingers and reached for the teacup, tapping the thin, ceramic handle with a short fingernail. Abruptly, she stood. The wood chair’s feet stuttered on the vinyl floor.

She had to clear the chapel of evidence of the sacrifices. Ríko couldn’t stop the constabulary forever. If they discovered the sacrifices, it would mean the end of her mission. It would mean the end of her family’s multi-generation worship of Névazhíno. She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t let the government win. For her mother and her grandmother and all the relations before them, Vata had to hide, disguise, or destroy the ceremonial knives, the braziers, the altar, and the chapel itself.

Vata hurried across the front room, her deerskin slippers shushing on the carpet. The police were gathering in the driveway--hopefully for a search of the desert, but she’d certainly have little warning when they came to search her house.

If only Pí‘oro were there, he’d have the chapel cleaned up in no time. He was so strong, he’d have all the knives buried and all the walls painted in twenty minutes or so. How was she ever going to manage without him?

Breathing hard, she shuffled across the entryway tiles.

Why had he left? It was so unlike him, to put someone else’s needs ahead of his own--without coercion, that was. It was almost as if Zhíno was making the decisions, not Pí‘oro. When they were simultaneously healed, could Zhíno’s spirit have relocated? Could Zhíno have taken over Pí‘oro’s body? It would explain why the young man lay comatose, but Vata had never heard of such a thing in her life.

A hand on the wall, she turned the corner in the hallway.

She racked her memory. Her mother had never mentioned possessions, had she? It was seeming more and more that her mother had not known as much as it had appeared at the time.

In a sacrifice, the recipient gets the energy, but the animal’s spirit is released for Névazhíno and Pétíso. Vata’s mother had never explained the possibility of a healing without a sacrifice, much less two at once. The teachings never covered dual healings of any kind.

Anything was possible.

Vata opened the linen closet door, released the latch in the shelves, and pushed the shelf door into the chapel. The braziers flickered, sputtering slightly, but all else was as quiet and still as a tomb.

She was in uncharted territory. She had to trust her instincts, and her instincts told her something was wrong with her husband. Her instincts told her that he wasn’t in control of his own body. Her instincts told her she’d have to fight to get him back.

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