Dreamwalker (Stormwalker #5)(80)

The baby quieted. She sniffled, snuggling into her father’s arms as though realizing that here was her protector.

“I am keeping her,” Pete said, looking straight at my grandmother. “I will raise her and teach her. If you do not want her living here, I will go away.”

He stood in place like the mountain behind him, a single monolith glowing softly under the rising sun. Strong, immovable, unchanging.

I think I loved him at that moment more than I’d ever loved him before.

My grandmother heaved a long sigh. “Best come inside. It’s cold. I’ll find her some milk.”

Pete, after a moment’s hesitation, followed her into the house. Aunt Nat stood aside as he passed, as though fearing to come too near him and the baby. Finally, they disappeared inside, and Aunt Nat shut the door.

Before I could move, the world changed, not with the wavering undulations of a movie, but in a brilliant flash.

It was winter, the ground dusted with snow. A cold wind blew, nothing blocking its path. My father emerged in a flannel shirt and fleece-lined jacket, a cowboy hat jammed down hard on his head so the wind wouldn’t take it.

Something crashed inside the house, and then came my grandmother’s voice. “Janet Begay!”

The door burst open. A small child rushed out, her tiny legs covered in thick winter pants, she just pulling on a hooded jacket. “Daddy!” She ran after my father, small legs pumping.

Grandmother appeared in the doorway. “Get back in here! Let him go!”

The child continued running after her father. Pete stopped, turned, and looked down at her, his face softening.

Grandmother stood in the doorway, fists on her hips. Pete looked at Grandmother, looked at the little girl, and made his choice. He held his hand out to his daughter without a word.

Small Janet grabbed the lifeline, trotting alongside him. When Pete paused to open the gate to the sheep pen, Janet planted her feet and leaned far to the side, using Pete’s hand as her anchor.

As always, I thought, tears in my eyes. My father, my protector.

Pete lifted me and carried me into the pens, me perching on his shoulder. My grandmother, in the doorway, shook her head, and ducked into the house.

I leaned back into the shadows, cold now, and turned to the older version of my grandmother. “Why are you showing me all this?”

“Me?” Grandmother asked in surprise. “I’m showing you nothing. This is your dreamwalking. If you are here, then this is something you needed to see.”

“The mirror confessed it sent me into the dreaming, just before it knocked me out,” I said, half to myself. “Why is it showing me this?”

“How should I know? I’m not an expert on magic mirrors. I don’t like them—annoying things. But they are good at reflecting. This one is reflecting things from your past, specific things. The why of it is up to you.”

The fact that the mirror had instigated the dreaming had floored me. To keep me safe, it had bleated before I’d fallen unconscious. Whenever I had been out, it was true, Mick had been right there by my side. Emmett had come nowhere near me—even Emmett must have known it was futile.

Maya, when she’d been thrust into the dreaming with me—I’d carried a mirror shard at the jail, which must have zapped her too—had been watched over by Nash. Drake, with Gabrielle in the dark near my saloon, protected by Gabrielle.

I remembered that careening myself into Nash in my second dream hadn’t woken me up as I’d thought it would. Probably because I hadn’t been spelled—I’d been sucked into a reality made by the magic mirror. The mirror had been gone in that dream—because it could not be inside itself? Or had it simply reflected the fact that Cassandra had moved it in the waking world?

Why had it thought I’d be safer in my dreams? Safe from Emmett reaching me with his magic? Or safe because I’d learn what he could do and how to fight him?

I had no answers, although I’d take the mirror by its frame when I woke up and shake it until it coughed up everything.

“Thanks,” I told my grandmother. I waved vaguely at the front door. “And thanks for letting Dad keep me. You could have stopped him.”

“I know.” Grandmother looked uncomfortable. “I was afraid to. I was afraid that whatever demon had got its claws into him would destroy him if I sent you away. I didn’t understand what you were or what had happened to him. Easier for me to find out if you stayed where I could keep an eye on you.”

I studied her, then I smiled, my heart lightening. “You did it from kindness, Grandmother. You didn’t want to upset Dad. You love him too much. Admit it.”

Grandmother scowled at me, and I began to laugh. She so hated getting caught being nice.