Winter Lost

“Call me Asibikaashi,” she invited with a grin that briefly displayed her teeth. “Grandmother Spider. Or just Grandmother.”

“Oh, Grandmother, what big teeth you have,” I murmured, realizing only after I spoke that I was still a little woozy.

She grinned again. “Oh, no. I am no wolf. The big bad wolf is your mate.” She made a sound of appreciation, and I remembered she’d seen him naked when she had destroyed the hungry ghost. It hadn’t bothered me at the time. “A fine mate for Coyote’s daughter.”

She frowned a little and shook her head. “Such a smart boy.”

“Adam?” I asked.

“Him, too,” she said. “But I am thinking of that troublemaker, my old friend, your papa. I did not see his hand in this—and I should have. I knew you were one of his the first time I saw you.”

She perceived my confusion, because she laughed. “Oh, I have no doubt that you and I are both here for reasons that have nothing to do with putting off Ragnarok.” She gave me a sharp look, shook her head, and said, “All right. I am here for reasons that have nothing to do with that. You are pinch-hitting for your brother.”

“Did you just use a baseball analogy?” I asked.

She tapped her cheek just below her eye and said, “These old eyes see, these old ears hear.”

She stood up, taking a firm grip on my arm—much firmer than anyone of her apparent age should have been capable of. With a tug, she had me scrambling off the bed.

“Come now, child,” she said. “We have much to discuss.” She glanced at the dead body on the floor. “And better places to discuss it.”

She let me go and urged me out of the room.

“Clothes?” I suggested.

Grandmother Spider made a dismissive noise. “No one will see. We are still in our pocket outside of time.”

I might have argued with her, but I didn’t see any of our luggage lying around. Probably it was still in our original room. Being a shapeshifter meant I didn’t really care about being fully dressed anyway.

I trotted after Grandmother Spider as she made a straight line through the main hall of the lodge, the big windows framing the darkness outside. For a small old person, she was quick.

I wasn’t really surprised when she led us outside and down the path to the lake and the hot tubs. That’s when I decided I did care about being naked.

“I thought we were in a pocket out of time,” I said, my bare feet sliding on the icy path. “Shouldn’t that mean we don’t have to put up with wind and snow? Doesn’t this stupid blizzard need time for it to move?”

She laughed, a warm, youthful sound, and took my arm again. Nothing magical happened except that I didn’t fall on my butt when my foot slipped on my next step. I don’t know whether she knew I was about to fall and stopped it—or if my start when she touched me made me slip in the first place.

“The frost giant’s touch is more difficult to evade than that,” she said. “It’s a pocket, not a slice. If we can move, so also can the storm.”

She paused, closed her eyes, and lifted her face to the wind with evident enjoyment. “Ah, one doesn’t encounter a storm like this every day.”

I knew what she meant. Part of me gloried in the power of the wind and snow—I thought of Adam’s wolf dancing in the snow before he ran off to play guide for me driving the SUV.

The rest of me was tired, naked, and cold.

“Come on,” I said grumpily. “Let’s get in a hot tub before my toes turn black and fall off.”

This time there were no lights, no fire, just the steam rising from the water and the filled tubs and the snow blowing over the lake. Grandmother Spider led me past the modern tubs to the far corner where a short set of stone stairs led down to the surface of the lake.

Native stone had been used to lay out a pool in the corner of the lake. It felt like a secret, tucked to the side of the platform where the lodge amenities held court. Grandmother Spider put a bare foot in the water, took it out again, and said something in a Native tongue that I did not understand, though I felt like my skin might pick out the meaning had I been less tired.

A faint, cool white plane of light traveled from one side of the little pond, reminding me of nothing so much as the light beam from a photocopier as it reads a paper. Grandmother Spider put her foot in again, then nodded her head and stepped aside.

“Get in, get in. You’re making me cold just looking at you,” she scolded.

As I waded into the waist-high water, she took off her clothing and set it aside, well out of reach of the water, though the snow blowing past began accumulating as soon as she turned her back.

“Tell me,” she said, finding a seat along the edge that allowed the water to cover her up to her chin, “about how you ended up this damaged. There are not many things that can rip open both your soul and your magic.”

She frowned at me. “That’s not really the right word for it, either, is it? Not magic—but the source of your magic.”