Page 54 of Outside the Veil
“It sounds like just a story to me. Talks about the shaman and the wendigo both becoming gigantic and raging back and forth across the forest. He wins, but it doesn’t say how.”
“Pity.” Finn sank down to sit cross-legged on the floor, his head on Diego’s thigh. “Do you know any shamans?”
“No.”
For a few minutes, Finn picked at carpet threads in silence. “We should speak to the wise woman. On the little far-speaker, the…phone. We could do this, yes?”
“Who are you talking about,cariño?” Diego murmured, only half listening.
“Tia Carmen.”
“Oh. You think she’s a…” Diego let the question trail off. The herbs, the calm acceptance, the little charms of bones and feathers in her apartment suddenly made him uncertain.
He called, and she answered on the second ring.
“Tia Carmen, estás una bruja?”
“Sí, por supuesto,Santiago. But why would you ask such a thing now? You have always known I believed in the old ways.”
“Yes, but I always thought it was just old customs, old superstitions. I never thought of you as a…witch. Finn calls you the wise woman.”
“Your Finn has his eyes open. What’s happened,querido? Something is not right, I think.”
He told her everything without hesitation, things he would have thought insanity or at least fantastic lies a month before. She listened in silence without skepticism or questions.
“Pobre niño. I hoped you would have some peace up there,” she said on a little sigh when he had finished.
“So did I.”
“Does Finn know how to use the phone now?”
“Yes, he’s figured it out. Why?”
“Let me speak to him, please.”
Diego hesitated in confusion then held out the phone. “Tia Carmen wants to talk to you.”
“Ah, good.” Finn took it. “Good morning, dear lady, how do you fare in that monstrous poisoned village?” He paused to listen. “Oh, yes. As you said. And it was wonderful. He’s quite…”
His voice trailed off as he left the room for a more private conversation. Diego’s ears burned. He didn’t want to know.
Finn’s voice soon grew louder and more agitated, though, impossible not to overhear. “Yes, yes, I thought of that! And so has he! I can’t allow it— No, I know. There has to— Pardon? It might be. Perhaps.”
His voice subsided and Diego lost his half of the conversation again. When Finn returned, the phone beeped its off-the-hook warning. “Take it, please, my hero. Gods. Why is it screaming at me? Have I hurt it?”
“No, you just need to learn to turn it off now.” Diego did, but the absence of noise failed to ease Finn’s anguished look. “What did she say?”
“Naught of any importance.”
“Finn, please.”
“She said such a terrible hunger creates a void in the universe and it must be filled. She says it is the only way to defeat the thing. I told her I cannot, by gods, I will not sacrifice you to the thing. She said she understood but nevertheless, the hunger, the empty place, must be filled.” Finn flung himself down beside Diego, head in his hands.
“Cariño, don’t get so upset.” Diego stroked his hair. “Maybe she meant something else.”
“What else? We hold the beast’s mouth open and pour sand in to fill it? There is no ‘else’! And it will not have you!” Finn surged to his feet again and began to pace the house, muttering to himself.
After an hour, Diego intercepted him in the upstairs hall. “Stop. Just stop. All this stomping around is giving me a headache.” He wrapped his arms around Finn and rested his head on his chest. “Come sit with me. Have something to eat. Hurling epithets at the problem doesn’t seem to help you think any better.”
