Cougar's Courage (Duals and Donovans: The Different) Read Online Free
Author: Teresa Noelle Roberts
to lose, she flipped the phone book to S.
Only to find a listing for Shamanic Instruction.
Probably a con artist ripping off curious normies, she thought, already dialing. She was twitching to act, to do something , even if it didn’t make sense, and calling this place seemed a fairly safe jumping point into the unknown.
Besides, the words on the page got bigger as she looked at them, turned first one color and then another until each letter was something different and the line of type was either an insane jumble of random colors or a glorious rainbow, depending on your point of view. Her grandfather’s magic always had a cartoonish quality to it, at least the minor manifestations he’d let her see, and this seemed the same flavor. Either that or her brain was misbehaving again, but she’d take the chance.
She had to do something.
Normally, she’d hang up after five or six rings without either an answer or an answering machine, thinking she’d misdialed. This time, she was more patient.
On the ninth ring, something answered with a mechanical click. Voice mail, she figured, and sure enough, it started out, “Hello, you have reached Spirit Drums New Age Shop…”
Then a man’s deep voice broke in, superimposed over the recording. “Cara, seek the cougar. Grand-mère’s waiting for you, and so am I.”
“Wait…” Cara’s tongue tripped over itself. Where is Couguar-Caché? was what she meant to ask. She got as far as “Where…” before the voice answered.
Only this time it was female and elderly and familiar. Grand-mère.
“Dream tonight, Cara, and you will find it. And maybe you’ll also find something you didn’t know you sought.”
The voice faded out, leaving the mechanical secretary saying, “…and Sundays eleven to five. See our Web site for…”
She clicked the phone down as the first stabs of another attack hit her. As the dizziness overtook her, Cara had the dim thought that if her dreams held the key to ending this feeling of helplessness, she’d face them gladly for the first time since Phil died.
Maybe since her mother died.
She didn’t dare hope she wouldn’t dream her mother’s suicide or Phil’s murder during a carjacking. She almost always did if she managed to sleep for more than an hour or two. But if she also dreamed her answer, she could face the pain.
Cara dreamed, only she knew she was dreaming.
She smelled wood smoke, cooking venison, other scents she recognized from childhood but could name less readily.
She found herself in a clearing among majestic evergreens. The snow was hip-deep, but where she walked, it faded away, filling in behind her as she passed.
Someone laughed in the distance, a rickety old-lady laugh that was still big enough to fill the clearing.
Grand-mère. Not in the city, an alien spirit-visitor, but in the woods where she belonged.
“Welcome home, Cara Many-Winters. Your mother said you’d wind up here eventually.” Cara instinctively flinched, but at the same time, she sensed she wasn’t about to see her mother dead and bloodied. Her own subconscious might do that to her, but Grand-mère wouldn’t, and even though she was dreaming, Cara felt she was speaking, in some sense, with the real Grand-mère. Just as she had been, she realized now, the other day in the squad room.
Even though Grand-mère couldn’t possibly be alive anymore.
“Did my mother see I’d manifest this power?”
Grand-mère nodded. “So did your grandparents. So did I. Even when you were an infant, we suspected it. But with shamans, you can never be sure until it happens, and by then it’s too late to move the breakables.”
She almost managed to smile at that. “Too true.”
“It’s a rough time in a shaman’s life, but we’ll work through it once you get home.”
Suddenly, she knew where she needed to go.
Even though she was pretty sure there wasn’t the same place it had been the last time she’d been in Couguar-Caché. A few days ago,
Only to find a listing for Shamanic Instruction.
Probably a con artist ripping off curious normies, she thought, already dialing. She was twitching to act, to do something , even if it didn’t make sense, and calling this place seemed a fairly safe jumping point into the unknown.
Besides, the words on the page got bigger as she looked at them, turned first one color and then another until each letter was something different and the line of type was either an insane jumble of random colors or a glorious rainbow, depending on your point of view. Her grandfather’s magic always had a cartoonish quality to it, at least the minor manifestations he’d let her see, and this seemed the same flavor. Either that or her brain was misbehaving again, but she’d take the chance.
She had to do something.
Normally, she’d hang up after five or six rings without either an answer or an answering machine, thinking she’d misdialed. This time, she was more patient.
On the ninth ring, something answered with a mechanical click. Voice mail, she figured, and sure enough, it started out, “Hello, you have reached Spirit Drums New Age Shop…”
Then a man’s deep voice broke in, superimposed over the recording. “Cara, seek the cougar. Grand-mère’s waiting for you, and so am I.”
“Wait…” Cara’s tongue tripped over itself. Where is Couguar-Caché? was what she meant to ask. She got as far as “Where…” before the voice answered.
Only this time it was female and elderly and familiar. Grand-mère.
“Dream tonight, Cara, and you will find it. And maybe you’ll also find something you didn’t know you sought.”
The voice faded out, leaving the mechanical secretary saying, “…and Sundays eleven to five. See our Web site for…”
She clicked the phone down as the first stabs of another attack hit her. As the dizziness overtook her, Cara had the dim thought that if her dreams held the key to ending this feeling of helplessness, she’d face them gladly for the first time since Phil died.
Maybe since her mother died.
She didn’t dare hope she wouldn’t dream her mother’s suicide or Phil’s murder during a carjacking. She almost always did if she managed to sleep for more than an hour or two. But if she also dreamed her answer, she could face the pain.
Cara dreamed, only she knew she was dreaming.
She smelled wood smoke, cooking venison, other scents she recognized from childhood but could name less readily.
She found herself in a clearing among majestic evergreens. The snow was hip-deep, but where she walked, it faded away, filling in behind her as she passed.
Someone laughed in the distance, a rickety old-lady laugh that was still big enough to fill the clearing.
Grand-mère. Not in the city, an alien spirit-visitor, but in the woods where she belonged.
“Welcome home, Cara Many-Winters. Your mother said you’d wind up here eventually.” Cara instinctively flinched, but at the same time, she sensed she wasn’t about to see her mother dead and bloodied. Her own subconscious might do that to her, but Grand-mère wouldn’t, and even though she was dreaming, Cara felt she was speaking, in some sense, with the real Grand-mère. Just as she had been, she realized now, the other day in the squad room.
Even though Grand-mère couldn’t possibly be alive anymore.
“Did my mother see I’d manifest this power?”
Grand-mère nodded. “So did your grandparents. So did I. Even when you were an infant, we suspected it. But with shamans, you can never be sure until it happens, and by then it’s too late to move the breakables.”
She almost managed to smile at that. “Too true.”
“It’s a rough time in a shaman’s life, but we’ll work through it once you get home.”
Suddenly, she knew where she needed to go.
Even though she was pretty sure there wasn’t the same place it had been the last time she’d been in Couguar-Caché. A few days ago,
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