was more a greeting, offering honor and admiration, and taking nothing in return.
It reminded me that I’d promised my black-winged spirit guide that I’d do a better job of honoring and listening to it, and that I hadn’t made any effort to lately. “Hey, Melinda?”
Her answering, “Yeah?” came from the playroom, followed by Erik’s cheery shriek as he knocked over another pile of blocks. I smiled and put my hand up, not quite touching the shimmering curve of fading magic. “Was this a keep-things-in or a keep-things-out circle?”
“Figure it out yourself, Joanne!” She sounded rather like Erik, quite cheerful and maybe a little teasing. I raspberried her without rancor and focused on the circle again. She was right. If I was a slightly more clever shaman I’d have known it without asking. Nobody’d ever accused me of brilliance, though.
Emboldened, I touched the faint residue, trying to keep an open mind to learn what it could tell me. The open mind bit was the hard part: on one level I wanted to snort at myself for imagining thin air would give me any information at all.
The circle had been for keeping things in. Certainty exploded in me, then tumbled into bits of information that seemed to rise up rather than be the product of any conscious thought. For a few heartbeats I was Melinda, greeting my goddess with gladness and an open heart. The circle’s walls were protection both for the being within and for the world without: neither was entirely meant to interact with the other in this plane. Here, in the confines of Melinda’s sanctuary, there was very little chance of outside elements attacking, and so the power circle’s purpose was to constrain the goddess so she wouldn’t warp the world around her with her presence.
Constrain was an awkward word there, implying control. But it was the constraint of a thousand-acre wildlife preserve: the creatures inside it were free to do as they pleased, with no outside interference. Melissa didn’t control her goddess, and indeed, standing there with the awareness of her power circle thrumming through me, I knew that whomever she worshipped had barely been present at all. It was, again, like the sun: it would come up and warm the earth whether someone stood to greet it or not. I was half glad and half disappointed that she hadn’t had time to answer our call at Halloween. The gods I’d met had been awe-inspiring, but they’d both been men. Meeting the female of the species would’ve been interesting. Probably in the apocryphal Chinese curse sense of the word, but interesting.
I put a little pressure against the remaining magic, then stepped over the painted lines to enter the power circle. There was no resistance; wouldn’t have been even if Melinda had been pouring strength into it. It was meant to keep things in, after all. If it was active I might not be able to get out without Mel’s help, but with nothing more than a biding memory of magic in place, I thought I could come and go as I pleased. If not, Melinda would presumably rescue me as soon as I promised to babysit her horde of children so she and Billy could have a date night.
Amused, I turned to each of the four cardinal points of the circle and offered awkward bows in each direction before kneeling in its center. “I didn’t bring any gifts,” I said aloud, trusting that Melinda either wouldn’t hear or—more likely—wouldn’t think I was batshit insane for talking to an empty room. “I wasn’t really planning on dropping in, but I remembered that I promised I’d do better, so I thought I should strike while the iron was hot.”
I wet my lips, wondering if spirit guides worked in metaphor, then wondered what the hell else they could possibly work in. “I could use some help, if you’re in the mood to provide it.” It wasn’t graceful, but at least it acknowledged that my guide was autonomous, which was a lot smarter than trying to make demands.
Once upon a time, not all that long ago, I’d have been deep inside the spirit realm talking to my mentor, Coyote, when I asked for help. Chances were he’d have been six kinds of useless, offering up little more than cryptic advice for me to sort out on my own. That was one of several million problems with being a shaman: they dealt with, and often were, tricksters who never gave straight answers to anything. But Coyote had died months ago, leaving me with achingly little wisdom and even less surety as to the path I was on. The closest thing I had to a saving grace—aside from Billy and Melinda and Gary, who were angels from on high as far as I was concerned—was somewhere in the heart of the spirit world, a raven had befriended me and become my guide. Billy was alive because of that bird, and I wondered if I’d ever really said thank you.
Stung by the thought, I closed my eyes and dropped my chin to my chest. The circle’s power lines glowed against the back of my eyelids, much more strongly than before. Sometimes the Other was like that, easier to see when I wasn’t looking in the real world. “Actually, nevermind. I can probably get through what’s going on now on my own. Let me just say thanks for last time, instead. I wish I knew how to do this properly. Do spirit ravens like shiny things as much as real ones do?” I closed my fingers around my silver necklace, smiling at the idea of a raven trying to steal it. “Maybe I’ll find you something else.”
An approving klok! echoed, the big popping noise ravens made when they were interested in or scolding something. It sounded real, like it had happened in the room instead of in my head. I opened my eyes, bemused, to find a raven standing in front of me. He tilted his head and I tilted mine the same way, mirror image to a curious bird.
He was white outlines, like he’d grown up from the power lines of Melinda’s circle. I could see individual feathers etched in shining light, and I could also see right through him, to the concrete and paint beneath us. He’d looked that way before, in the darkness of a spirit animal quest, but mostly when I’d seen him he’d looked like a proper raven, glossy black-blue and startlingly large with a ruff of sharp feathers at his throat. He preened, stretching one translucent wing out to its full length, then tucked it back in and peered at me.
At a loss for what else to do, I extended a hand and said, “Hello, Mister Raven,” and only afterward considered the possibility that not everyone called animals “mister,” or worse, that my guide might somehow be offended by the human appellation. I frequently greeted animals that way, though, and evidently he didn’t mind, because he hopped forward, said klok! again, and nipped the sleeve of my sweater until the copper bracelet I wore was exposed.
He bit that even harder, hooked beak bouncing off beaten metal and scraping into the etched animals that encircled it. I pulled back, squelching the urge to thwap his beak. “Hey. That’s mine. No eating it, even if it is shiny. I’ll bring you tinsel or something, next time.” What possible use a spirit raven could have for tinsel or, in fact, any tangible object, I didn’t know, but at least I now had it confirmed that he liked shiny things. He went quaarrk and settled back, tilting his head again, so I tentatively scratched him under the beak, like he was a cat. His quark was softer this time and I smiled before mumbling, “So, thank you, anyway. For helping me with Billy. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
For a bird, he looked remarkably self-satisfied. I chuckled and rubbed his jaw harder, and he leaned into it, making little raveny sounds of contentment. I felt my own shoulders relax and only just then realized how tired I was. 2:30 A.M. wakeup calls were not my friend. I exhaled a long breath, and half-consciously watched it bead on the air like frost.
It wafted over my raven, making him sparkle briefly, and when it passed, he looked like a normal raven, gleaming black with bright eyes. He hopped into my lap and we both watched the remnants of my breath extend over the lines of Melinda’s power circle. Shadows made of light shifted in the paint, then drifted up, reaching for the matching circle above me. When they touched, brilliance flared, then faded again, leaving me feeling rather safe and warm and cozy in a wreath of active power.
“Ah,” I said a bit distantly. “Reached one of those altered states of being, have I? This is nicer than being hit on the head.” There were dozens of ways to reach
