Winter Prey

Chapter 46

Chapter 46

In her bedroom, the door safely closed, Kymbria laid her right hand on her spirit bundle. Nodinens was still so traumatized and weak from her experience with the windigo that she couldn't even keep her eyes open through one cup of coffee. She and Scarlet were now safely ensconced in the bedroom Nodinens was using, Kymbria's bedroom. The room where she and Caleb -

Continuing to hold the spirit bundle tightly, she drew on her memories of what Adam taught her so long ago.

The condition for entering the Land of Souls is peace of heart. The prayer we use for that is the most important one I will ever teach you.

Kymbria banished everything from her mind and recited:

"Mino-dae/aeshowishinaung

Tchi mino-inaudiziwinaungaen

Fill our spirits with good

Upright then may be our lives

Nanaukinumowidauh matchi-dae/aewin

Zhaugootchitumowidauh matchi-dodumowin

Defend our hearts against evil.

Against evil prevail."

Then she took a deep breath and stepped into the doeskin dress and moccasins. Moments later, she zipped up the snowsuit and finished dressing for her journey.

The sliding glass doors opened soundlessly, and she closed them behind her and waded through waist-deep snow around the cabin to the rear of the garage.

Inside the garage, she found a flashlight kept there and shielded the light with her body as she filled one of the two remaining snowmobiles with gas. She pushed it out the back door of the garage. Starting it up there wasn't an option. Nodinens would be outside and catch her in an instant. She would put off the elderly woman's worry as long as possible. She groaned and managed to jockey the machine down the road, with the help of the downhill slant. Hopefully, she was far enough away to go unheard. It fired up with the first turn of the key.

Bless you, Pete, my brother, for your attention to our safety in these hard winters up here.

~~~

A half-hour later, Kymbria halted the snowmobile on the edge of the woods. As she had told Caleb, the journey across land was shorter than on the convoluted roads. Ahead, the trail ran through an open space, a swampy meadow in the summertime. Diamond bright pinprick stars gushed across the black night sky overhead, spilling into and out of the Milky Way, Big Dipper and other constellations. The full moon actually intensified the cold, the bright light so dazzling it outlined the landscape and snow-shrouded trees to the point where they appeared brittle. No snug-in-its-burrow animal had yet ventured out to track the spotless snow with prints.

The clothing kept the cold at bay, at least, the cold from the below-zero temperature. The other cold - the iciness that had descended on her several times over the past few days, the inner sense of fear and barely restrained panic - accompanied her.

It had all come down to this. She could ignore her destiny no longer. Niona had managed to avoid being a part of the legend that had played out for generations, but Kymbria couldn't keep letting things pile up in her life, one conflict on top of another unresolved.

I guess this damned windigo is the straw that threatens to break my back, she mused as she stared through the deceptively beautiful night. It seemed inconceivable that danger could lurk beneath all that splendor. Yet Mother Nature's playground was anything but serene and peaceful. Life and death struggles played out every minute.