By midafternoon, the July day had turned hot, but inside the O’Connor house, it was much cooler. The curtains were drawn against the heat but also to block the prying eyes of any reporters who might return. The doors were all locked. Annie lay on the living room sofa staring up at the ceiling, where a solitary fly moved in fits and starts across the textured plaster. She wondered why it didn’t simply use its wings. If she had wings, she’d do nothing but fly.
Maria came from the kitchen. “I’ve made sandwiches.”
“Not hungry,” Annie said, still watching the insect on the ceiling.
“You have to eat.”
“What’s the point?”
“It will be a very long time before this thing in your brain kills you. In the meantime, you should do all you can for your body. And your spirit.”
“What if it’s not this tumor that kills me?”
Maria knelt on the carpet next to the sofa. “What else then?”
“Whoever tried to get into the house last night. Maybe whoever fired that shot this morning.”
“That was meant for Waaboo.”
“If you say so.”
“Everybody says so.” Maria reached out and stroked Annie’s arm gently.
“I’ve been thinking about anger,” Annie said.
“Yours?”
“Anyone’s. If I could strike out at God for giving me this cancer, I would. Viciously.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Oh, but it is. This anger inside me is sometimes worse than the pain of the headaches. So maybe if I were Adrian Lewis, I’d be sorely tempted to take revenge on whoever it was that got me fired.”
“That wasn’t just you.”
“No, but he sure seemed focused on me. Before I blacked out yesterday, I saw nothing but hate in his eyes.”
“If you really saw him.”
Annie smiled, but without humor. “Like everyone else, you think I just hallucinated.”
“I am only saying it’s a possibility. You’ve seen things before. And remember, the deputy told us that man had been fired. He should not have been there.”
“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t. And someone was sure eager to get into the house last night when I was alone here.”
“You are not alone now.”
Annie peered deeply into Maria’s dark eyes. “What would you do if someone tried to kill me?”
“That is not a thing I think about.”
“Think about it now. What if whoever fired that shot broke into the house right now, what would you do?”
“I would cover you with my body to protect you.” Maria leaned down and kissed her.
Now Annie’s smile was real. “I’m sure you would.” She slowly sat up. “I want to talk to Henry.”
“We shouldn’t leave.”
“It’s broad daylight. I’m not going to let Adrian Lewis or anyone else keep me caged up here. I’m going to Crow Point.”
“To what end?”
“Maybe an exorcism.”
“What?”
“This anger. This hopelessness. This fear. This hell that’s inside me now.”
“You think your friend can remove all that?” Maria shook her head. “You expect too much of him, I think. And of yourself.”
“Doing anything is better than doing nothing. Are you coming?”
“As your father said, we should travel as a pack. You go nowhere without me.”
There was a plaque hanging on the kitchen wall that Cork had made from a slice of sanded and varnished black walnut. It had several hooks on which all the O’Connors hung their vehicle keys. When he took off with Marsha Dross that day, Annie’s father had left his Expedition parked in the driveway and the key hanging from the plaque. Annie took the key and left a note of explanation.
In the heat of the day, the street was empty. The Expedition was like an oven, and Annie drove at first with the windows down. After the intruder in the night and the shooter that morning, she was hypervigilant, keeping an eye to her rearview mirror for anyone who might be following. She saw no one. After a while, she raised the windows and let the air conditioner do its work.
“It is not so humid here as home,” Maria said. “But it is just as hot.”
“Feeling homesick?” Annie asked.
“We have many problems, but it is still my home. You have never felt homesick in Guatemala?”
“Sometimes. But I’ve had you for comfort.”
“And here, I have you,” Maria said. She gazed out her window as they headed away from Aurora and north up the shore of Iron Lake, which was dotted with summer homes and resort cabins. “What is winter like?”
“Cold. Snowy. Quiet. Most of the places you see are empty in winter.”
“I would like to see the snow someday.”
“You can if you stay.”
Maria said, “We have not talked about going back. What will you do after your brother’s wedding?”
“I don’t know.” Annie took her eyes off the road and looked at Maria. “If I stay, will you?”
Maria’s gaze swung away from the lake, which showed itself in blue flashes through the trees. She smiled lovingly at Annie. “Donde tú vayas, yo iré.”
“Whither thou goest, I will go,” Annie translated. “I feel the same way.”
“Then we still have much to talk about,” Maria said. “But first, let’s see about this exorcism of yours.”
The moment they broke from the trees and stepped into the meadow on Crow Point, Annie saw Waaboo running toward them through the tall grass and wildflowers. He wore shorts but no shoes or shirt, and his skin was the tan of deer hide.
“He said you were coming,” Waaboo told them breathlessly.
“Who?” Annie asked.
“Mishomis.”
Annie smiled. The old Mide was well known for this bit of what seemed like second sight. He’d explained it to Annie once, saying simply, “The woods speak of visitors. I listen.”
They followed Waaboo back to the old man’s cabin. Jenny was with him, inside the simple one-room structure. It had been a long time since Annie had actually been in Meloux’s cabin, but she wasn’t surprised to see that it hadn’t changed. A deer-prong pipe still hung on a wall, along with a pair of ancient snowshoes and a page from an old Skelly calendar with an illustration of a pretty young woman in short shorts showing a lot of bare skin as she bent under the hood of a sedan to check the oil. Annie had never asked Meloux why he hung on to that calendar page, but she knew there had to be a reason. There was also a gun rack that cradled a rifle as old as Meloux.
“Just like you said,” Waaboo blurted when they entered.
“Boozhoo,” the old man said in greeting.
“Boozhoo, Henry,” Annie said.
“Will you sit?” The old man held his hand toward the two empty chairs at his table.
“Where’s Prophet?” Annie asked.
“Making cornbread,” Jenny said.
“He makes the best cornbread,” Waaboo said eagerly.
“Prophet is many things, including a good baker. What is it you need from me?” Henry asked, his eyes on Annie.
Annie looked at Jenny. “Would you and Waaboo go with Maria to pick some wildflowers for us? They would look lovely on the table back home.”
Jenny rose and reached out her hand to her son. “Come on, Waaboo. Let’s educate Maria.”
When she was alone with Meloux, Annie said, “I’m dying, Henry.”
“I know, and I cannot change that.”
“I’m dying and I’m full of rage because of it.”
“Sometimes it is not an easy thing to die.”
“Sometimes?”
“To die is to yield completely to what is unknown. Some approach death with fear, some with anger.”
“Does anyone ever approach with an open heart?” she said bitterly.
“Yes.”
“How?”
He reached out and took her young hand in his ancient one. She felt the warmth of his palm, the calming effect of its press. “There is a single thread that runs through us all and connects us to the Creator. In birth, that thread draws our life spirit from the heart of the Creator. In death, the thread draws our spirit back into the Creator’s heart. It is the same for every living thing.”
“The heart of the Creator.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure I believe in God anymore.”
“Maria,” he said simply.
She looked at him without understanding.
“Is she not proof of the love of the Creator?”
It was true. Annie had lost everything, including her belief in God. But she had not lost Maria. Her love was still there.
“I don’t want to leave her, Henry. That’s the hardest thing.”
“When you begin your journey on the Path of Souls, she will be there. And you will be there waiting when it is time for her to take the same journey.”
“How do you know, Henry? What makes you so sure?”
“Belief, like love, is a choice. It makes all the difference between approaching death with fear and anger or approaching death with the peaceful heart.” Henry still held her hand. With his other, he made a wide, sweeping gesture that included the glistening blue of Iron Lake and the wildflowers of the meadow on Crow Point and the vast, deep woods beyond. “All that Kitchimanidoo has created is connected. In life and in death. And for the heart that believes, there is only beauty, here and in what comes after.”
“How do I believe, Henry?”
“You choose.”
“It’s that easy?”
“I did not say it was easy. But I promise that it will make all the difference.”
A shadow darkened the doorway. Annie looked up and saw Prophet standing there, huge and implacable. The air that came in around him carried the good aroma of baked cornbread.
“Boozhoo, Annie,” he said.
He entered, bent to Meloux, and whispered something in the old man’s ear. Meloux nodded, and Prophet stepped to the gun rack on the wall. He took down Meloux’s old firearm, then opened a tin can on a shelf and took out several bullets.
“What’s going on?” Annie asked.
Meloux said, “You and Maria are not my only visitors.”