Helen knew better. Raven had taught her the signs, the herbs, what to look for in a person's spirit, and how to talk to haints. He had added native ways to the ways Helen's Irish grandmother had taught, and Helen took pride in how she kept the little community safe.
Dr. McCoy was introducing something new. It felt like a spirit, but it wasn't. It was a thing that walked in the night, not meaning harm, perhaps, but things like that always caused trouble. It made the baby ill, and the little boy would follow soon. Helen liked Robby. He brought her flowers, and chattered incessantly, not expecting an answer. It was endearing.
Raven thought it was something from the Old World, something alien here. It left footprints. It dropped worm-infested clots of earth, and it traveled quick and light, down the silvery moonpath. Raven feared it, though it was not aware of him.
"Yet," he said, kneeling at the top of Baldy. "Things like this often do become aware of us, the living, and when they do, they resent our life. This must stop."
Problem was, Helen had no idea how to stop it. Or rather, she knew, but it hurt that she had to. The thing that visited the McCoys was wrong, but inside it was still the glimmer of Elayne. She wanted to love her family, and Helen pitied her.
She stopped at home to make roast-beef sandwiches, piling the meat on liberally, and stuffed the sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly, and fruit into a bag. For the baby, she picked up some vitamin drops. The thing was haunting his life out of him, but vitamins never hurt.
"That's not music. That's a calling."
Bill grinned, showing all three of his teeth. "What's he calling?"
"You'll know when it gets here, I reckon." The spirits were stirred up. Something in McCoy's music reached across, touched them in their other world, and they didn't much like it.
Daddy was right. He'd quit looking for what ailed the baby. Doctors, even doctors who couldn't practice anymore, never did that. They dogged a problem until it coughed up an answer. But Mark didn't even seem concerned about the child now.
Helen was. The baby's body was healthy, but his spirit was spotted and stained. Something ailed his soul. His crying was less frequent, weaker, and he slept too much. Something was drawing the life right out of him.
Helen hated to lose a patient, even more than her father did. She'd only lost one, when she was just learning to deal with her peculiar gifts. Raven, bless him, had stepped in to guide her before she lost more, but that baby had died. Mrs. Haney had other children later, but you never forget your first child.
Raven knew Helen for what she was, right at the start. "There's one in every generation," he told her. "Watch the babies every twenty-five years, and you find your wise one, one born knowing." He'd watched from the side for her entire childhood, meaning no harm, though Daddy was wary. Raven lost her mother when Helen was born, when Dr. Highwater was out of town, and he'd never trusted the old Indian since.
Stilling the Dead
A Helen Highwater Story
