“Waaboo has a gift. We can’t protect him forever.”

“I’ll protect him as long as I can.”

“So will I. I won’t let anything happen to our son, I swear to you. And if he can help stop others from being hurt, from being killed, shouldn’t we do all we can to guide him in that way?”

Jenny lowered her head, and her body seemed to lose spirit, as if she were a balloon emptying of air. “I’m just afraid, Daniel.”

“To be afraid is to be human,” Meloux said gently.

Jenny lifted her head. “Are you ever afraid, Henry?”

The old man smiled. “There is not much that stands between me and the Path of Souls now, not much that I fear for myself. But I am sometimes afraid for those who still have a long journey ahead of them.”

“Like Waaboo.”

“And many others. They will need courage, which is something I cannot give them because courage comes from within. The best I can do is help them find it in themselves.”

“Courage? In a boy of seven?”

“He has already shown that he has a brave heart. Did he not return to the place of the maji-manidoog?”

“If you remember, he refused to set foot in that blueberry patch again.”

“He may make a different choice this time. And is that choice not his to make?”

“I won’t force him, Jenny, I promise,” Daniel said. “But can I at least ask him?”

“Don’t you remember how afraid he was that someone might know about him, what he sees?”

“I love him. He’s my son, too. I would die before I’d let anyone hurt him.”

Jenny stared at Daniel, and her eyes were knives. “I may hate you for this.”

Daniel felt a crack go all the way across his heart. “I know,” he said.

CHAPTER 24

There were injuries at the Spirit Crossing protest, and Maria stayed with Rainy to help. Stephen took Annie back to Aurora, a drive of just over an hour. The whole way, Annie struggled to understand what had happened at Spirit Crossing. Had she really seen the man named Lewis or had she imagined him? Hallucinations had sometimes been a part of the episodes of her blinding headaches. If the encounter was real, what was the source of the hatred she’d seen in him? Was it directed at her, or was it just a part of some larger pool of violent emotion stirred up by the protests?

“You’re awfully quiet,” Stephen said. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Annie said, a little too quickly. “Sorry you had to take me home. I know you’d rather be at Spirit Crossing, helping there.”

“Family first,” Stephen said. “I’ll drop you off, then go back to see what I can do. So, what’s going on, Annie? What is it with these episodes, as you call them?”

“Nothing. A reaction to some medication I’m taking,” she said, lying.

“What medication?”

“It wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

“What’s it for?”

“Something I picked up in Guatemala.”

“Is it serious?”

“Let’s talk about something else. What do you think he’s up to?”

“Who?”

“Lewis.”

“He’s pissed. We got him fired. Well, we didn’t. That was his own stupid doing. Guys like that, they screw up, then blame everyone but themselves.”

“He looked more than just pissed, Stephen. He looked ready to kill.”

“If that’s true, it’s a good thing we’re getting you away from there.”

“But if he was the one in the truck outside our house last night, we might not be safe there. If murder is in his heart, we might not be safe anywhere.”

She saw how he looked at her, as if her fear was overblown, a paranoid speculation.

“When I was in Guatemala,” she explained, “there wasn’t any safety at home. Gangs, soldiers, you name it could burst through your door at any moment.”

“Did they break down your door?”

“No, but I saw it happen to others.”

“And it made you afraid.” He said this as if he’d diagnosed her current fear.

“Actually I wasn’t afraid. At least not for me. I was afraid for all the vulnerable people. We marched, Stephen. Once we walked right up to a line of soldiers with their rifles pointed at us.”

“You never mentioned that in any of your emails.”

“I didn’t want you to worry about me. So…” She put a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry about me now.”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t worry about whatever this medication that you won’t talk about is for?”

“You worry about your wedding. I’ll worry about my health.”

It was late afternoon when they turned down Gooseberry Lane, the trees casting long shadows over the lawns. The street was empty of media vans.

“Looks like the vultures finally gave up waiting for one of us to come home,” Stephen said. “That or they got a lead on some other lurid story and flew off to harass someone else.”

Stephen saw Annie inside the house. “Lock the doors after I’m gone. And you might want to keep the phone unplugged in case the vultures keep calling.”

She said she would.