I looked at the cave wall, at the shadows swaying with exhaustion. The beat of the drum filled me, slow and sonorous, echoing through my soul home.
Warmth settled onto me. Fur tickled me. On the wall of dancing shadows, I saw myself as the cat rested on me, a cured skin, with fur still on, ears pointed, tufts curling out. Pelt brushed my sides. My legs. We sa . . . bobcat. My face. The overlay of cat face, above my own.
Edoda settled a necklace of claws, bones, and fierce teeth over my head onto my shoulders. “Reach inside,” Edoda murmured. “Breathe inside. Into we sa, into the snake within.” The snake of the bobcat, the snake of my first shift, my first change. The snake of the double helix of DNA in the skin of the cat . . . Magic tingled along my sides, into my fingers as I slid down, inside the bobcat pelt. Dreaming. Floating in grayness.
For a moment, I remembered the gray place where Bruiser and the thing that was not Soul, but was like her, fought. I had seen her species playing in the black waters near Chauvin. I remembered the energies and the energy of the blade of steel, wielded by Bruiser. But before I could put it all together, I was pulled back into the memory.
Beneath the drumbeat, I saw the snake resting below the surface, encapsulated in every cell of the hunter cat, in its teeth and bones, in the dried bits of its hardened marrow. A snake, holding all that we sa was. The awareness of where the cat and I differed. Where we were the same. And how easy it would be to shift from my shape into the bobcat. So simple.
As simple as bringing steel with me into the place of the change, as Bruiser had done. This was important. I struggled to fight free of the ancient dream memory, but again it held me. Sucked me down into the past.
My first beast. My first shift. In the memory, I let go. I melted, taking the shape of bobcat. Pain, like spokes of the white man’s wheels, radiated out, cutting me. The shadows on the stone walls merged and glittered, gray and dark and light. All color bled out of the night. The shadow was a young cat with a short stubby tail.
The past and the present merged too. And I understood. If I brought white man’s steel into my cave home, I could cut the silver chain and free Beast from Leo. Freeing her, I could free myself from Leo.
I was back in the dream, the past and the old memories dissolved around me, falling like notes of the flute echoing in the distance through the cavern. In human form, I stood facing the pile of shadows. And I realized that Beast was there too. Tlvdatsi, but more than simply the form of mountain lion. This was the soul of Beast that I had pulled into my soul home when I was in we sa form, and stealing the kill of a bigger cat—when I had stolen both the living body of my attacker and her life-force to save my own life. This was darkest black magic among my people. But I could undo the evil I had done.
I could cut the silver chain. I could free myself from Leo. And I could free Beast. With the same steel blade, I could cut her out of me. Standing in my soul home, I could see how it would be done. Like cutting through the joints of prey, separating us, I could incise her from me, undoing the terrible sin that brought her soul inside with me. I could set her free forever. Forever.
I could be what nature intended—skinwalker. I could silence the second voice that clawed and tore at me, that demanded her way. I could cut her out.
In the dream Beast hissed and bared killing teeth. She said, Jane and tlvdatsi are I/we. Jane and Puma concolor are Beast. Together Jane and Beast are more than Jane or Beast alone.
I studied her, trying to read her body language, trying to understand what she was saying. Her eyes glowed yellow and fierce and her claws extruded, piercing the floor of the niche. Simultaneously, I felt them pierce my mind, painful and cutting, holding me in place like prey. Don’t you want to be free? I asked her, flinching away, only to be caught by the claws and held down.
Freedom is death now, she said, her breath hot on my face. Freedom was lost to me/us long ago. Long before last litter. Long before Jane became human again. Now I alone am no more. We have become we/us, I/we. Together.
We’ve . . . merged, I thought. Become one thing. And if I cut you free anyway?
I will die. And Jane will be killer only. She blinked at me, her eyes closing and reopening slowly. Beast . . . wants to live.
Sucking a breath, I woke. Gasping. Shuddering. And I met Aggie One Feather’s eyes across the dying embers of the fire. “Your eyes glow with pain and excitement,” she said softly. “You have learned something.”
“Yeah. I have.” My eyes burned, as if I had forgotten to blink, and they had dried out. “Yeah,” I said again, breathing as if I had run for miles. If I wanted, I could be a skinwalker only, a shape-changer with only one soul, and no Beast soul, no big-cat fighting to be in charge of my future and my life.