Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5)(28)

“What would you have done? Worried and wept, and nothing more.”

“I don’t weep,” Grandmother snapped. “Now, we’re hungry. And guests. We want our supper.”

Elena shook her head. “I’m done with service for the night.” She looked at my grandmother’s stubborn face and heaved a sigh. “Sit down—I will see what can be thrown together.”

She departed, her head high. Both women looked a bit smug, as though each considered she’d won the argument. They argued, I knew, solely because they enjoyed it. In truth, Elena and Grandmother had become close friends.

“Guests?” I asked Gina as Grandmother followed Elena into the kitchen. Grandmother would never sit quietly while Elena worked. She’d try to take over, they’d yell at each other some more, then they’d settle into a truce.

“It is a long trip for your grandmother,” Gina said.

Grandmother would never admit that, and she’d be incensed if she knew Gina had said such a thing. I agreed with Gina, but the hotel was full. There was another motel in the town of Magellan itself, two miles away, but it was a standard motel, full of bikers, RVers, and New Agers. Grandmother wouldn’t like it.

Cassandra, who’d returned to the main desk, said, “We have plenty of room. How many nights would you like to stay?”

I glanced at her in surprise, but Cassandra didn’t change expression. She gave Gina her welcoming and efficient look then greeted them in perfect Diné. Gina gave her a nod in return, answering. My father said nothing, but he looked impressed. Few outsiders tried to learn our language or succeeded in doing it. Cassandra, of course, was perfect at everything.

I surrendered. “This is Cassandra Bryson, the manager. Anything you need, just ask her.”

“I’ll stay in the attic,” Gabrielle said, her hands in her back pockets. “I like it up there. Why didn’t you tell us you were so sick, Janet?” She gave me a look full of sorrow.

“Because I was unconscious,” I said, spreading my hands. “Hard for me to pick up the phone.”

“Micky should have told us.” Gabrielle’s pout was exaggerated, but I could see that my father and Gina agreed.

“He didn’t want you worried.” Or here, hovering. “Take it up with him.”

“Oh, I will,” Gabrielle said with a dark look.

My father, too polite to stare at me like Gina and Gabrielle were doing, moved to look at the black-and-white photographs I’d taken of Canyon de Chelly, Chocolate Falls on the Hopi reservation, the Homol’ovi ruins, Chevelon Canyon, Sunset Crater, and the woods up in the White Mountains. I’d wanted to return to Chaco to photograph the lonely, ghostly ruins there, but after our battle this past summer, I wanted the place to simmer down before I went back. The auras of Chaco drove me crazy, and I’d need Mick with me to keep me sane.

Dad looked over my photos with a touch a pride—he loved that I had an artistic bent. He moved on to the sculpture of the coyote near the staircase, done in polished black stone.

“Jamison,” Dad said, resting a hand on it.

My closest friend from my teenage years, Jamison Kee, had sculpted the statue for me. He was a Changer, able to take the form of a mountain lion. He also was a shaman and a storyteller, with a gorgeous, liquid voice. He’d given me the statue for my hotel when I’d opened it.

“He sees well,” Dad went on, giving the statue a pat.

I warmed, glad he liked it. Dad didn’t praise just anything.

The kitchen door was slapped open. Grandmother stood in the doorway and beckoned to me. “Janet.”

Hiding a sigh, I went to her. She turned around and walked back into the kitchen, expecting me to follow.

Elena was busy at the stove. She and Grandmother apparently had reached truce stage, because Grandmother returned to chopping mushrooms at Elena’s side. A bowl of carrots waited their turn next to the mushrooms.

Grandmother spoke without looking up from the chopping board. “I didn’t like to say while your father could hear, but you should go out and check the vortex. In case his presence triggers something.”

I went cold. The joy of seeing my father had made me forget about the other part of his life—his connection to my mother.

My dear mother was a goddess from Beneath, who’d been able to possess women when she’d come out through the gates and walk this earth. She hadn’t been able to travel far from the vortex in the bodies she possessed, but she had been close enough to ensnare my father one evening when he’d stopped in Holbrook. As a younger man, he’d been more prone to traveling across the Navajo lands and a little outside them.