Chapter Nine
Old Cherokee tradition laid the dead to rest by sunset the day they died, or the day after, and had someone remain with the bodies to make sure sorcerers didn’t steal the soul in the meantime. My recollection was that as a teen I had thought it was a supremely bullshit, embarrassing, hokey-dokey ritual that no one with any grip on the modern era would admit to participating, never mind actually believing, in. And to be fair, most people didn’t. That was why it was tradition, not modern practice. On the other hand, there were people who kept to the old traditions, and I was pretty certain at least some of the dead would be among them.
Besides, the forced perspective of the past year made me reconsider my stance to a significant degree. Now I not only didn’t think it was bullshit, but since the elders’ bodies wouldn’t have gotten back to town until just before sunset, far too late to bury them, I was also incredibly grateful that there would be someone watching over them. Even if it was just an undertaker, that would be good, but I had hopes that there might be a genuine vigil. I was pretty certain the bodies didn’t have any souls left to steal—recovering those souls by taking out the Executioner was going to be my job—but it was good to know they’d be observed and shielded from further desecration.
I supposed one very powerful medicine man might keep all seven of them safe, but it seemed more likely to me that if anybody was taking the old rituals seriously, that there would be at least seven: one for each body. I wasn’t surprised, when I got back to town myself, that there were far more than seven gathering for a vigil. Cherokee was a small community, and seven deaths was a lot to take in at once. A slow stream of vehicles drove down toward the high school. There was a natural amphitheater up in Cherokee County itself, where this kind of tragedy would be dealt with on a deeper, community-wide level later. But for tonight, the high school became the default location for large gatherings, just like it would be in many other small towns. I followed the taillights and parked my rented Impala on the outskirts of the lot, where it wouldn’t be boxed in, should I need to make a quick exit.
I stopped cold at the school doors, not because of horrific teenage memories, but because the last time I’d been in a high school, it, too, had been the source and gathering place of a tragedy. That had been the same day my shamanic powers had reawakened, and a bunch of teens had been murdered by a lunatic demigod. The terrible silence in the school had struck me: the murmur of shocked voices, the barely echoing footsteps in the halls, the arms around one another, and the blank helplessness sketched on the faces of children were all echoed in the devastated community now entering Cherokee High. It wasn’t something I particularly wanted to immerse myself in again, especially since I’d had more connection to some of the victims here. Not much more, maybe, but a little.
“Come on, Joanne.” Sheriff Lester Lee passed by, putting just enough hitch in his step to let me fall in beside him.
I did so, shoving my hands in my pockets and not quite seeing the hopelessly familiar, totally changed halls around me. “I thought you’d be in there already. I’m late.”
“I was filling out incident reports. The medical examiner has the bodies right now. She’ll be bringing them in later, after the autopsies. She won’t find anything, will she?”
“I don’t think so. Is there someone, a medicine man, someone, with them?”
“Of course. Is it going to be important?”
“I hope not.”
Les nodded, accepting that, and I had a surreal moment of wondering whether this was what life would be like if everyone took the mystical and magical as matter-of-fact. It wasn’t that I thought everybody in the Qualla would take it seriously, but I’d met more people here in the past twelve hours who were accepting of magic than I’d met in the past year. Most of the time I found myself stuttering around explanations that didn’t matter anyway, because people made up their own stories as soon as the magic faded. Les, however, was calm, cool, collected, and obviously not going to put this out of his mind. “Grandpa says you saved his bacon up there on the mountain today. Twice.”
“Only once. He was out of the power circle when this happened, either way. If I hadn’t been there, he certainly wouldn’t ha...” It finally struck me that Les was obliquely saying “Thank you,” and that arguing over the details was not gracious. I cleared my throat. “You’re welcome. He’s welcome. I’m glad I was there. I just wish...” I made a useless little gesture as we entered the gym, where hundreds of people were gathered.
I stopped and smiled in spite of myself. There was a cohesive look to the people gathered, a certain similarity of facial shapes, of skin tones, that I hadn’t seen for a while. Seattle’s Native American population was a lot smaller than the area’s historical settlements could account for. I’d unconsciously missed seeing a solid representation of the Native element, and seeing it again made me happy.
It also made me aware that while I’d resented being paler-skinned than so many of my classmates when I was a teen, as an adult it was clear to me that the thing that had really made me stand out was my bad attitude. There were people in the gym who looked like they’d walked straight out of three hundred years ago, but there were as many whose lighter skin had a sun-warmed ruddiness to it, or who had African influence in their genetics. Every single one of us still laid legitimate claim to Cherokee heritage. Too bad I’d been such a punk when I was a kid, and too bad I already knew time travel wouldn’t fix it if it could.
“You all right, Joanne?” Les, who’d gone on ahead, noticed I wasn’t at his side and turned back. “It’s all right, you know. You can come on in. Nobody’s going to blame you.”
“That wasn’t it.” Though it was a perfectly reasonable fear, now that he’d reminded me of it. I caught up again and we made our way through the throng to find Les Senior on his way into the music room that lay across the hall from the gym.
“This is where we will watch over them until morning. There are too many eyes in the gym now. Too much anger and hurt that a sorcerer could steal and use. The elders and the medicine men will take turns shepherding the dead and counseling the living. It would be good to have a Walkingstick sit with us,” he said to me as we went into the music room.
I blinked around at the room, mumbling about how it had hardly changed as a method of trying not to show my surprise at the invitation. Both Lesters waited with a degree of patience that told me I wasn’t fooling anyone, so I cleared my throat, then nodded. “Sure, yeah. I mean, I’d be honored. It should be Dad, not me, but...yeah. If you’re sure. Not everybody’s going to like it.”
The wrinkled corners of Les Senior’s mouth quirked upward. “They don’t have to. There are some advantages to a people who still at least pretend to respect their elders. Can you make this room a safe place?”
That, I was much more confident about. I nodded. “In fact, if we’ve got the time and some chalk dust, maybe, we could build a protective circle around the whole school. It wouldn’t hurt any of us to have that sense of security, not after today. Grandpa Les, I’m—”
“It was not your fault.” He didn’t do the same talk-to-the-hand gesture Carrie had used earlier, but the tone of voice was very similar. My throat tightened and tears burned in my eyes at the reminder. It barely seemed possible Carrie was dead, even if I’d seen her fall.