Mac carried Zoe to the Sohappy dining table and set her down on a blue padded chair. Blood dripped out of the ripped jeans and pooled on the white linoleum underneath her. Wild eyed, her gaze darted around the room, and she shook like a leaf in a storm. 

"I'm so sorry, Z. I swear, I thought you were right behind me the whole time." Takota rubbed his temples in an effort to relieve the headache that throbbed with each pulse of his heart.  

"It's okay, Takota." Zoe didn't look at him, she always looked him in the eye unless she had something to hide or was lying. He would give anything to go back in time and make sure she was behind him the whole way home. The guilt he felt over this would haunt him for the next few days or until she truly forgave him. 

The rocking chair in the corner gently swayed as the ghostly form of a gray-haired woman sat there, knitting a scarf or small blanket, Takota wasn't sure which. "You should not have gone into the forest tonight, Hatali," she said in her broken English. 

"I know, grandmother, but mom was in trouble," Takota thought at her. 

"Ste ye hah is a trickster and would've killed both of you if you hadn't run when I told you to." 

Her words further unnerved him. In all the years she's been one of his guides, she's never led him astray. But right now, he wished she would keep her thoughts to herself, so he could focus on his best friend and her injury. 

"Here." Dyani handed everyone a dry towel and quickly wrapped her long hair up in one of them. 

Takota smelled the lavender detergent as he wiped the drips of water from his face and hair. It didn't bring him comfort like it used to. 

Zoe scrunched her face in pain as his mother dabbed at her injured leg with a wet washcloth. He stared at the growing puddle of blood and tried to swallow his guilt away. She wasn't the one who usually got injured, that was his job. Seeing his best friend in pain was more upsetting than if it happened to him. 

Mac reemerged from the kitchen with four mugs of steaming coffee. He handed one to Takota and set the rest on the table before taking a seat across from Zoe and Dyani. He was quiet as a mouse, but his presence filled the room, pushing negativity away like a lighthouse on a stormy shoreline. 

The black liquid was hot and bitter on his tongue, but Takota appreciated how it chased the cold away. Warming him from the inside out. 

"Did you break anything, Z?" he asked as his mother applied disinfectant to the wound. 

"I don't think so, but my jeans are a lost cause." The dark liquid was still near the rim of her mug. Her fingers were white and appeared small wrapped around its clay circumference. 

Takota grabbed a towel and sopped up the blood from the floor. 

Dyani wrapped Zoe's leg with a bandage then stood from her crouched position. "It looks like a deep puncture wound. Keep pressure on that so it clots. Once it stops bleeding, you should get cleaned up in a nice hot shower to keep infection away." 

"Thank you, Dyani. I'll be sure to do that when I return home." She looked at the clock on the wall then glanced towards the window. Shades of yellow and orange colored the early morning sky. 

Takota stood. "I'll walk you home, so the Thorntons don't wake up and worry about where you are." 

"No," Dyani said. Her dark brown eyes pinned him in place. "Mac can take Zoe home while you and I have a chat." 

"Here it comes." Grandma Sohappy chuckled. 

Mac helped Zoe from the chair and offered her his arm for support. 

"See you at school," Zoe said as she hobbled out of the house. 

"Bye, Z." 

As soon as the front door closed behind them Dyani asked, "What in the world were the two of you doing in the forest when I said to stay with the horses?" 

"The shotgun went off and then you yelled for help." 

Dyani frowned. "I most certainly didn't fire my weapon. And Mac and I, didn't leave the property until you came rushing out of the forest without Zoe." 

He rubbed his eyelids, hoping it would help clear up the white lines skewing his vision. "Both of us heard you." 

Dyani shook her head as she cleaned up the antiseptic, bandages and towels. "It must have been Ste ye hah tricking you." 

Takota didn't want to admit she was right, but he wouldn't lie either. "He was out there." 

She froze mid-step to the laundry room. "You saw him?" 

He nodded. "Yeah, I think so." 

The anger coloring her face drained, turning her ashen gray. "If you two hadn't gone up there, none of this would be happening." 

"We didn't do anything wrong." 

"You of all people know the truth, Takota. Ste ye hah is no legend, he is as real as you or I and does not allow people in his space. Not anymore." 

"I didn't realize we had gone too far until hours later, when I got sick." 

Dyani sat at the table and wrapped her hands around the mug of coffee Mac placed there earlier. "Your father--" 

"I don't want to talk about him." Takota didn't mean to snap at her, but he refused to accept his sperm donor in his life since he terrorized his mother and stained his childhood with bad memories. 

She took a drink of her beverage. "You are gifted with the sight, so was he and his father before that." 

The headache pounded harder, threatening to blind Takota with the white lines stretching across his vision.

The rocker swayed faster. "Dyani and I don't always see eye to eye, but right now we do. Don't dismiss her guidance, Hatali." 

Dyani spoke again, "Years of communing with the spirits took a toll on him. You may have been too young to realize it, but he drank to escape the visions. You should talk to him about how to deal with Ste ye hah." 

"He's probably too drunk to give me a straight answer." 

"If you won't ask him, go to the Shaman. He still lives up in the cabin." 

"Sure, I'll be like, 'hey Old Man, it's been a while. How do I get rid of Bigfoot?'" 

Ghostly laughter filled Takota's head. He scowled in the direction of the rocker to silence her. 

"This isn't a joke," Dyani snapped. "You and Zoe need to fix this before someone is harmed more than a gouged leg and split lip." 

Takota thought of Zoe's injury and his stomach rolled. He felt worse than he had yesterday morning and the idea of asking the Shaman for help added to the feeling of dread. If he didn't go, how else was he going to fix this? With a heavy sigh, he said, "Okay, mom. I will do as you ask."