The thought of the dark thing made him close his eyes tight to try and push it out of his head. He couldn’t bear the memory of its fingers reaching for him. The dirty, scary fingers that had been wrapped so tightly round his father. He concentrated hard on ordinary things, things that would stop him thinking about the darkness and about … Bart.

Too late. From under his tightly shut eyes, tears found their way between the long thick lashes and rolled onto his cheek. Why Bart? His beloved, barking, loyal, handsome Bart. He would never bury his face in that warm fur again. Never run laughing after the big animal as it bounded over the lawn and jumped the fence. He opened his eyes and his little mouth was set in a hard straight line. That dark thing would pay for what it did to Bart. It would pay dearly, and he and his Dad would do it together.

Somewhere in his heart Billy Hunt wished he could still be a child. He wanted his Dad to come in and tuck the comforter under the edge of the bed like he used to, and tell him those dumb stories about when he played hockey that would make Billy laugh.

But Eagle Robe had told him he needed to be a man now and he knew it was true. His Mom had listened and cried again when he told her some of the stuff he’d heard when he walked with Eagle Robe. Not everything of course. She was white. He knew that was different somehow, that it would stop her understanding. It didn’t make her better or worse, just different. But this was Kinchuinick business, and Eagle Robe had said she knew some of this stuff in her head but not in her heart. Billy didn’t care. Her heart was good to the core, and he loved her so much he just wanted her to stop hurting. So he’d tried to stop that hurt by telling her the truth.

Maybe she hadn’t believed it. It must have sounded pretty crazy. But she’d gone all pale and quiet when he talked about the Isksaksin and he thought that maybe she knew he was telling the truth. So what? He loved his Mom and Dad, and he knew now his Dad loved him too. That was all that mattered.

He wiped the tears from his cheek and took a deep breath. Yes, he would be a man for now. The dark thing would be the one to cry next. It would cry plenty.

It was in there, very deep. He probed around in his mind and touched that soft thick area of consciousness that he had forgotten. It was like a layer of peat, that place. Skills and secrets laid down in Sam’s head by Calvin over all those years when they prayed and conjured and explored the spirit world together.