The wind cants across my face, bringing the scent of water, evergreens, the earth. Sawyer’s scent but the mountain’s, too. Is he here or isn’t he?
Then I catch a hint of smoke. My eyes search the darkness, but no telltale glow appears. I breathe in. Not a forest fire, not even a campfire, but cigarette smoke.
“I know you’re there.”
A match is struck; the flare of a flame draws my eyes. For only an instant before the tiny fire goes out I see the shadow.
Of a wolf.
Though Sawyer can turn into many beasts, the wolf is his spirit animal. Perhaps, now that he is a spirit, a wolf is the only form he has.
The scent of cigarette smoke continues to waft my way. I breathe it in like a lifetime smoker on her second year of abstinence.
I assumed Sawyer had been smoking since the Mayans discovered tobacco. He probably showed them where to find it. So I’m not surprised that even in death, he’s got a cigarette.
A tiny orange glow draws my eyes to the forest. I don’t think, I run, but before I get there it’s gone. So is Sawyer, if he was ever there at all.
In the distance the low buzz of a motor begins. My chest suddenly feels heavy, as if something is weighing it down, perhaps despair. Every time Sawyer disappears, it reminds me of the day he died. Because right after I killed him he went poof.
He’d been dead and then he’d been gone. No body. No ashes. No Sawyer.
I turn back to the lake. Reflected on the surface are clouds in the shape of a wolf, yet when I look up the clouds are as nonexistent as Sawyer appears to be.
“Where are you?” I shout.
“Everywhere.”
The voice comes from right behind me. I spin. Again there is nothing but smoke.
“Am I dreamwalking?”
“The dead don’t dream, Phoenix.”
“Don’t call me that.”
He always had, and I never minded. Until I met my mother, heard him call her the same thing, discovered they’d once been lovers and then he’d had to kill her.
His sigh is the wind with just a hint of rain. “What should I call you? Lizzy?”
“You really want to call me Lizzy?” Jimmy’s the only one who’s ever called me that.
The mountain rumbles beneath my feet. Guess not.
“If this isn’t dreamwalking, what is it?”
“Just a dream . . . Elizabeth.”
The name stirs my hair as if Sawyer himself is touching it. Teachers, librarians, social workers, lawyers, cops—people who don’t know me and don’t want to—call me Elizabeth. But Sawyer knows me. I think, sometimes, better than anyone. When he murmurs Elizabeth I like it.
“So”—I trail my fingertips over my hair where I imagine he has—“you’re only in my head?”
“Where else would you like me to be?”
I can feel his heat against my back, as if he’s right here with me. I lean into him and the heat, the pressure, intensify. He feels so there. But if I turn, if I try to see him, he’ll be gone. Instead I close my eyes and wish that he’d hold me.
I haven’t realized how alone I’ve felt with Sawyer gone from this earth. It isn’t as if we were lovers in the true sense of the word. I don’t think Sawyer can love—at least not anymore—and I only discovered my love for him when his death brought me his magic.
Skinwalkers are both witch and shape-shifter. The shifting comes at birth; the magic comes later—when the skinwalker murders someone he loves.
Sawyer obtained his by killing my mother. I, in turn, received more power than I knew what to do with by killing him.
I can bring up a storm, control the lightning, toss people across the room with a flick of one hand, and more. But what that more is . . . I have no idea. Just because I’ve taken the magic doesn’t mean I know how to use it, or even what powers I have. With Sawyer dead, I needed to talk to another skinwalker for more reasons than one.
His arms come around me, and his lips brush my neck. Sawyer has always told me he can’t read minds, just faces, and mine is easy. Does he understand from my expression what I crave? Perhaps he just craves it, too.
My head lolls against his shoulder. If he isn’t really here, then this isn’t really happening. I don’t care. If this is a dream, I’ll make it a good one.
I imagine myself naked, and I am. Then I lower my hands and rest them on top of his at my waist. I feel the warmth of his skin, the spike of his bones, the movements of the muscles when I raise his hands and show him what I want him to do with them.
Together we cup my breasts, lift them to the moon like an offering. He needs no encouragement to stroke the nipples, to tease the tips with just a slight hint of nail.
I shiver despite the heat of the night, the heat of him, shuddering when his hair tumbles over my collarbone, cascading across my skin, smooth and fragrant as summer showers. The lake laps against the shore, the soothing sound a startling contrast to the turmoil within.