It’s so weird. The woman’s just lying there face up, like she’s laid out in an invisible floating coffin, arms folded across her chest. Then her features come into view and I almost jump off the edge to get to her.
Si’tala grabs my arm. “You can’t fly,” she says.
“But that’s my friend Aggie.”
“I know.”
“You said we’re in my mind,” I tell her. “Well, in my mind I can fly.”
“We’re not just in your mind,” she says. “We’re in a part of the otherworld that echoes your mind. The laws of physics still apply here.”
I point out toward Aggie. “Oh yeah? Then how come she’s floating?”
And that doesn’t even start to address the question of what the hell Aggie’s doing here, when she’s supposed to be in the hospital. I look closer and see that under her folded hands, Aggie’s blouse is red with blood. This is making my head start to hurt again.
“Well?” I ask.
When I tear my gaze away from Aggie to see why Si’tala isn’t answering me, I find the raven woman staring up into the sky. It takes me a moment to figure out what she’s looking at, but finally, I see that there’s a speck up there. I assume it’s a bird until I realize that it’s another body dropping rapidly toward us.
My first thought is, where the hell is it falling from? My second is, if it hits this mountaintop, it’s going to make a horrible mess. It sure as hell won’t survive—if whoever the hell it is isn’t already dead.
If we’re in my mind, shouldn’t I be able to do something? Will it to stop and float gently down to where Si’tala and I are standing? Maybe float out there beside Aggie?
But I can’t do a damned thing.
I remember what Si’tala told me.
We’re not just in your mind. We’re in a part of the otherworld that echoes your mind. The laws of physics still apply here.
I might as well try to catch the moon between my fingers for all the help I can be.
I put my hands on Si’tala’s shoulders. “Do something,” I tell her.
She regards me calmly. “Do what?”
“I don’t know. You’re the ma’inawo. Make some magic.”
She studies me for a long moment that seems even longer because all I can think of is that poor bugger dropping out of the sky.
“Fine,” she finally says.
I stumble back from her as a pair of enormous wings explode from her back. Loose feathers cloud the air all around us. Then she throws herself off the mountaintop. A slow turn brings her below Aggie’s floating body before she darts up, heading on a trajectory that will take her directly into the path of the other body that’s plummeting down.
With everything I’ve experienced these past couple of days, this is still an amazing sight. My chest goes tight with emotions that I can’t begin to articulate.
This is what angels look like, I realize, as I watch her rise higher and higher on those sunlit wings.