I raise my eyebrows.

“I’ve always been kind of an eye-for-an-eye guy,” Jack tells me. “It’s pretty much hardwired into me. Plus, I think it’s time these damn aganesha were reminded of a few of the rules we have around here.”

“What happened to not judging people by their tribes or clans?”

Jack smiles at me, a dark coyote smile.

“Assholes come in every size, shape, and colour,” he says, “and I purely don’t have any patience for them when they hurt anybody but themselves. It’s that simple. I like Walker. I liked his daughter. There’s plenty of deer out there who aren’t of the People, and you can’t tell me these little assholes with their hunting freak on couldn’t tell the difference. So these bogans have just become my unfinished business, too.”

“Glad to have you on board,” I tell him.

“Can you track the ones that did it? Because the one thing I don’t want to do is start a war by bringing justice to the wrong gang of bogans.”

I shake my head. “But I’ll know them when I see them.”

“Maybe I can get their scent, back at the crossroads where you ran into them.”

“It’s worth a try,” I say.

I give the mourners below one last look, tip a finger to my brow, then turn away. Jack’s at my side as we disappear under the boughs of the tall pine trees.

Jilly

Once upon a time . . .

I’m having a weird dream. It reminds me of when I was in the hospital, right after the accident. When I was even more of a Broken Girl than I am now.

But back then, in amidst my pain and helplessness, I finally learned to cross over into the otherworld. Not for real, like Joe does, walking in his body. But like Sophie used to do, projecting my . . . I don’t know exactly what. My soul? My spirit? Whatever it was, something crossed over from this world to the other while my body lay broken in a hospital bed. I crossed over, and when I was in the otherworld, it was as real to me as this world. I felt the full range of physical sensations. Better yet, I could walk. I could draw. It was as though the accident had never happened.

And not only that, I was young again, too.