The Unquiet Grave

Chapter Three

I had half expected my sleep to be broken and full of nightmares. Instead, I remained in a state of blissful unconsciousness until well into the afternoon, when a cat jumped from the back of the couch directly onto my bladder and jarred me awake.

I was drinking my second cup of coffee when the drumming started upstairs and the scents of cedar and sweetgrass wafted down. Timber had commenced his investigations, then. Trying  not to let the steady, pulsing rhythm carry me away, I wondered if Timber were right about my living with half a soul. Probably. Souls were a shaman’s business, after all.

It would be so easy to succumb to the pull of my powers. Reaching out last night had taken less thought than breathing. And it had felt so good. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if just this once…

Then I thought of the shining figure on the hill, the fire, the shuffling feet and the walls closing in, and shook my head. No. I couldn’t risk it. The consequences my returning to a magical life would be too severe.

I had never told Timber why I had stopped using my powers. Maybe I should. Maybe it would help him understand.

As I thought of my husband, the drumming ceased. I heard a door open, then close. Timber trudged down the stairs, looking weary. When he saw me, his face did not light up. But he sat on the couch beside me and took my hand. His clothes smelled faintly of incense and sweat.

“I’m not getting anything,” he told me. “Caitlin, I need you.”

I hated to disappoint him. I did it anyway.

“No,” I said.

“For feck's sake, Caitlin! This is the first time in five years I’ve asked ye for anything!”

“No,” I repeated.

For a moment I thought he would shake me, and I half wished he would. Then he threw my hand into my lap and stalked back upstairs without another word. After a while, the drumming started up again.

Timber didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.

 Monday, I rose an hour earlier than I was accustomed to do, which is to say before Timber left for his job as foreman on the site of a new custom home construction project on one of the mesas outside town. I hesitated over going downstairs and seeing him off. I didn’t want to hear any more about how much he needed my abilities. Even more, I didn’t want to find he was still upset with me. But when I finally screwed up my courage and ventured downstairs, I found he had gotten over his fit of pique. He flashed me a wide smile and swept me off my feet for a kiss that denied we had ever had any difference of opinion at all.

When he released me, I stumbled to the coffeemaker and poured myself a cup. I stared into it balefully while leaning on the counter. Even without ghosts, mornings were not my best time.

Timber glanced at the clock on the stove. I already knew that if he was still home it couldn’t be too much after seven; I didn’t want to know the details.

“You’re up early.” He finished putting his breakfast things in the dishwasher and started it running.

“It does happen.” Taking a swallow of coffee, I leaned on the kitchen counter to watch him put his lunch together. At one time I had made a point of getting up when he did to make his lunch and breakfast, but after a couple of weeks suffering my morning temper he’d informed me he’d rather do it himself.

“Any special plans?”

I tried not to read too much into his question, though his voice held an insinuating note I didn’t much like.

“No.” The back door stood open; I wandered over to it and stuck my head out. “Maybe pull some more weeds before it gets too hot.” In the arid western summer, that meant before ten a.m.; with my tendency to sleep late, more often than not the weeding didn’t get done until evening, if at all.