Shadow of Time - Book 1: (Paranormal Romance) (16 page)

“So, those drunk guys
– and the men at Safeway – and those coyotes near my house – they’re all the same three people?”

She remembered the way her attackers had moved. How much their behavior had reminded her of a pack of wolves. Actually, she knew the answer to her own question. Her
gut feeling hadn’t betrayed her, but she couldn’t quite grasp the truth.

“It’s just
too unreal,” she whispered, as Emily nodded. “I know it’s true, I know you’re right, but my brain can’t process it.”

“Why are they after Hannah?” Amber blurted out,
sounding rebellious. “What has she ever done to those monsters?”

“Usually, they choose their
victims out of revenge, or they’ve been bribed to target someone.”

Hannah collapsed back into her chair. She had absolutely no clue why anyone would want to put a spell on her, least of all a Navajo. “Have you heard about this happening before? A
biligaana
cursed by skinwalkers?”

“Can’t say I have. People are still
terrified of them on the rez, especially in backwater villages. There’s tons of stories about people being harassed by
yenaldlooshi
, and they happened quite recently. But you don’t hear a lot about this kind of thing outside Navajo Nation.”

“Can I stop it?”
Hannah’s hands balled into fists. “How do I fight them?”

“If you know who the skinwalker is, you can call out his real name when he attacks you in his coyote form. That will kill him.”

“How is she supposed to do that?” Amber threw in. “They keep shape-shifting!”

“I never said it was easy.”

Hannah refused to give up. “Okay. What else?”

“Not much
. The only other way to stop them is to shoot them with bullets dipped in white ash. That will incapacitate them for a while or even kill them sometimes. But you don’t need to be that radical. Their influence can be weakened by using certain herbal extracts.”

Emily rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a traditional medicine bundle. It was a small bag made of deer leather, with frills at the bottom
decorated with little blue and red beads. “I brought this for you. The beads have a symbolic value. The stitching on the front depicts a sandpainting used in the Evil Way Ceremony, to ban evil spirits. The pouch contains corn pollen, cedar ash and dried juniper berries. That should be enough to protect you for a while.”

“You suspected this was going on?” Hannah asked, her eyebrows arched. “Or
do you carry things like that around all the time?”

“Well, I heard you mention
ing shadows turning into coyotes during our lunch together, and that made me think. I talked to Sani and I asked him for help. He gave me advice on what to do if the problem turned out to be related to skinwalkers.”

So Emily had visited the village
hataalii
. The man who had such a big influence on Josh – the only person who knew what had happened during his vision quest. Sani, who burdened Josh too much with rituals and traditions of all kinds. She didn’t want to be helped by him – in fact, all she wanted was to separate Josh from his old
hataalii
sidekick and teach him how to communicate a little bit more with the world around him – but her options were limited. At this juncture, she could use all the help she could get.

“Thank you so much.” Hannah put the bag on the table
. When she touched it, a wonderful, tingling feeling spread through her body, so it was obvious the pouch was having a positive effect. Maybe she could put it on a cord and wear it around her neck, underneath her shirt. At any rate, she’d put it by her bed tonight, for lack of a dreamcatcher.

Emily got up. “Who wants coffee?”

Amber and Hannah raised their hands in silent unison.

While Emily was banging away
at making them drinks in the kitchen, Amber leaned into Hannah. “You know – those dreams you’re having about Josh? I can’t shake the feeling they’re trying to tell you something, but these skinwalker creeps break into your dreams and turn them into nightmares. I mean, why would a bunch of witches want to make you dream about a guy you’re in love with?”

“Beats me. I thought Josh was a recurring theme because I think about him a lot.”

Amber frowned. “But then why would it be set in the past?”

“Care to share your theory?”

Amber fidgeted with her red hair. “Well, I think you’ve experienced all the things you’re seeing for real.”

Hannah
blinked. “Huh?” she said unintelligently.

Amber hesi
tated. “Maybe you know him from a past life. Something like that. It would explain the entwined aura thing.”

“
I have to catch a breather.” Hannah rubbed her face. “One minute I have this run-off-the-mill simple little life, and the next thing I know, I’m caught up in some bizarre folklore tale featuring witches and reincarnation.”

She
got up when she heard her cell phone buzzing in the kitchen, darting inside to read the text message she’d received.

“
hey sis! u OK down there? it’s nice & hot on the rez. josh = walking around w/ a wide smile plastered to his face all day long. it’s starting to get on my nerves ;) ”

She
bit back a laugh, quickly texting back she was fine. Ben never failed to cheer her up. She suddenly missed him terribly, already regretting the fact she couldn’t tell him Em’s story about the skinwalkers. Ben was so down-to-earth he couldn’t even board a plane. If she sprung these myths about witches and black magic on him, he’d cart her off to the nearest loony bin. Still, she looked forward to seeing him again on Friday. Plus, the fact Josh seemed to be in the best of moods ever since he kissed her was touching.

When Emily and Amber
went back to the neighboring cabin to check on Ivy, Hannah made her way to the living room and dug up the leather cord from the dreamcatcher stuff Josh had given to her. He surely wouldn’t miss a small piece of string from the heap of accessories.

Wi
th careful fingers, she tied the cord around the top of the medicine bundle, putting it around her neck and underneath her clothes. It was amazing how powerful the thing was – she felt strong, and so completely different compared to this morning, even if she now knew that evil witches were after her. Their spell had made her feel anxious, suppressing her natural instinct to fight. But now she was ready for battle. Sani’s remedy was doing its job perfectly.

12.

That night, there were no dreams. At least no dreams Hannah could remember. She woke up without the usual headache – as a precaution, she’d just taken a homeopathic sedative Emily had given her – and stretched her legs and arms. The kitchen door slammed shut in the next room, so Emily had probably just left for work.

“Hannah?” she suddenly heard Amber’
s voice through the door. “You awake yet?”

“Yeah, only just.”
She got up and stepped into the kitchen, where she found Amber sitting at the table.

“Did you have a good night’s sleep?”
the neighbor girl asked.

“Yup. Smooth sailing. No nightmares.” She
grinned at Amber. “So, you girls made any plans to meet up later?”

“
We’re just going to hang out tonight,” Amber replied, clearly trying to assume a carefully neutral tone. “ I’ll be staying here for the next couple days. My parents are taking Ivy to Window Rock, but I don’t mind lounging around here.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re skipping a trip to Window Rock so you can bum around with us? You are
so in love,” Hannah established dryly. 

Amber couldn’t help giggling.
“Okay, guilty as charged. There’s just something about Navajo people, you know?

“So, what do your parents think of Em?”

“Oh, they love her. I can tell.”

“Y
ou told them that you two are an item?”

“Don’t have to. They’re not blind.” Amber got up from the breakfast table. “By the way,
I have to go. I promised I’d spend some time with them before they’re off to Window Rock at noon. See you tonight, okay?”

“Say hi to your family
from me,” Hannah called after her.

As soon as she
’d scarfed down her breakfast, Hannah went into Ben’s bedroom to drag out his laptop and USB modem again. This was going to be expensive, but fortunately, Ben would only see the bills after he got home. She just had to know more about the history of Navajo Nation, now that she was slowly starting to believe she’d dreamed about real past events.

After doing
a Google search on ‘Navajo History’ she clicked on a few links that looked interesting. “The Long Walk,” she mumbled to herself, scrolling through a page filled with details about the cruel transportation of Navajo natives to a reservation in the east of the country, at which they were forced to walk for days without pause. It had happened just after the Civil War. Before that, Mexicans had still been active in Navajo territory. Hannah pulled the laptop closer when her eyes fell on a description of Mexicans stealing people to turn them into slaves – entire villages had been ransacked, women and children abducted to serve in the mines. The website featured some scans of black-and-white photographs of soldiers wearing uniforms that looked strikingly familiar. Her heart started thumping even louder when she saw some old pictures of Navajo villages built just after the Navajo people’s release from the reservation in the east. The houses looked exactly the same as in her dreams. Octagonal, low constructions with dark clay on the outside.

Oh my God.
So now she knew. It wasn’t just her imagination, and those skinwalkers were probably not making her dream about the past either. If this was true – if she really knew Josh from a past lifetime – shouldn’t she tell him?

She cringed.
Not the most brilliant of ideas right now. They’d just shared a few kisses together – hardly the right moment to claim they’d already shared an entire life together. Josh would probably think she was a sucker for predestination and get out while he still could.

Still, she couldn’t let things rest. Even though Amber and Emily tried to distract her by taking her out
that afternoon and keeping quiet about the skinwalker curse, she couldn’t stop thinking about her – now absent – dreams about the past.

On Friday morning, she finally decided to go back to the Page library and bury herself in history books. If that didn’t help, she could ask Nick for help. After all, he’d been reading up on Navajo history a lot.

“You’re all set for a day trip to remember?” Emily asked dryly, when Hannah clomped out of her bedroom with a shoulder bag crammed full of notebooks, pens and a big bottle of water.

“Yeah, I’m off to the library.
I want to read up on Navajo history, now that my dreams about the past have stopped.”

“Ah
. Because of the reincarnation hypothesis,” Emily nodded. They’d talked about it last night, Amber playing the part of talk show host, making her case for her past-life theory.

“
Well, yeah. I really want to find out whether all those images I’ve been seeing are real memories. Maybe not the most exciting trip ever, but hey.”

“Why don’t you just take Be
n’s laptop to Grassroots?” Amber asked. “They have free WiFi there. Seems a lot easier than perusing books in the library.”

“Are you kidding? Ben’s laptop is carbon-dated. There’s no WiFi
adapter on that thing,” Hannah complained. “He hasn’t bought new stuff in
years
. He’d rather wait till things disintegrate before he replaces anything.”

Emily suppressed a giggle. “Poor you. Well then, the library it is.”

The three girls cleaned up the kitchen. Emily and Amber went on a trip to Water Hole Canyon, while Hannah drove off to Page Library to plow her way through piles of books, seated on the very same couch where she’d met Nick the week before. Her cell phone was switched off. She’d called her mother in Alaska – who was staying with their aunt for the summer – for a quick chat, but now it was time to leave the modern world behind for a while.

The hours flew by.
Hannah completely lost herself in the nineteenth-century history of the reservation and the Diné people. She was so focused on her books that she forgot to have lunch altogether. When she finally switched on her phone again and read a text from Ben saying they were on their way back, she felt weak with hunger. The good thing was that she had ten pages of notes. All the info she’d gathered in the library made her head spin. The more she’d learned about Diné history, the more she’d gotten convinced she really was seeing images from the past in her dreams. The descriptions of the tumultuous time period between 1800 and 1840 on Navajo soil exactly matched her dream experience – she’d lived an unsafe, troublesome and dangerous life.

On her way back to
the Datsun, Hannah’s stomach no longer twisted with hunger pangs, but with nerves. She’d see Josh again, and last time they spoke he’d said he needed time. How would he react to her after three days of separation?

Heart in throat, she drove
back to the log cabins and bit her lip when she saw the empty driveway. Okay, so they weren’t back yet. No problem – she was in dire need of a fresh shower and some serious lunch anyway.

After showering, Hannah settled on the porch steps with a book.
Her heart sped up to a hum when at three o’clock sharp, she could hear the Chevy’s engine rumbling in the distance.

Josh
parked the car on the drive and turned down the volume on the radio to shut up Ben, who was singing along.

“Hey, sis!” Ben bounded out of the car and up the porch steps. His nose was sunburned, and his
blonde hair had gotten even lighter in the past few days. “You still alive?”

“Barely. I was bored to death without having you guys around
, obviously.”

As Ben hugged her tight,
Hannah was acutely aware of Josh turning off the engine, locking the car door and approaching the steps leading up to the porch. When her brother let go of her and popped open one of the beer cans on the table, Josh sidled up to her. A blush crept up her face as she gazed into his dark brown eyes.

“Hey,
shan díín
,” he said softly, a gentle smile on his face.

“H-hey,” she stammered. “How
– how have you been?”

Just great
. The desire pulsing through her veins was turning her into a monosyllabic, stuttering idiot again. Hannah wished she could fling herself into Josh’s arms and get a hug from him, too. A long and intense one. But Ben was sitting right here – it’d be downright embarrassing to have Ben bear witness to a prolonged ‘My Best Buddy is Groping My Sister’ show. Or the other way around. So far, Josh wasn’t making a move.

“We
had a good time,” Josh said. “The weather was great, no flash floods, and we visited all the sites I wanted to show to Nick. Mission ‘Promote the Rez’ accomplished.”

Ben and Josh went on
to tell Hannah about their hike on the reservation. Hannah told Ben a convenient lie about dropping by the police station. She also told her brother she hadn’t suffered from nightmares any more after he left on Wednesday, but of course she couldn’t tell him why.

“
Good to hear.” Ben patted her on the shoulder, giving her a warm smile.

Hannah
flinched. Damn, she felt awful, having to keep things from him. She wished she could tell him about the skinwalker curse, but there was no point freaking him out or being put into a straitjacket before the barbecue had even started.

“Wonderful.” Jo
sh chimed in. “But I’m still going to help you make a dreamcatcher. I haven’t forgotten.”

It was strange to see him again. Strange, because somehow it
felt as though Wednesday morning had never happened. Josh sat across from her, a little ways away from her, and he didn’t try to hold her hand or scoot closer. He’d said he needed time – and she was willing to give him what he asked for – but still. She felt a bit betrayed by the polite distance he was keeping. Now it
really
felt like she was his big sister. She was actually happy she could flee to the kitchen and prepare the burgers and salad when Josh and Ben got up to fire up the barbecue.

Hannah
set the microwave to defrost the burgers, then rummaged through the fridge to pull out the ingredients for a niçoise salad. Cutting the onions was a horrible job – she always cried her eyes out, no matter how sharp the knife or how quickly she turned on the tap. With a grunt, Hannah tried to rub the tears from her cheeks with the back of one hand.

“Hannah?” a voice
piped up behind her.

She saw
Josh stepping into the kitchen through a blur of tears. He moved up next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Are you crying?” he asked gingerly.

Her heart melted
into a puddle when she heard the worry in his voice.

“Yes. It’s that onion.
” She pointed an accusing finger at the cutting board.

Josh
started to laugh. “Don’t tell me. What did that onion do to you?” he asked, all fired-up. “Did it call you names? Hit you? Don’t be afraid, I’ll protect you.”

Hannah bit back an inane giggle. “Nutcase,” she blurted out, rubbing the tears from her eyes.

“Crybaby,” he teased.

Hannah
bit her lip. His teasing called for a smart comeback, but the look in his brown eyes suddenly made her forget all her vocabulary. Silently, Josh pulled her closer, using one thumb to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “There,” he said. His fingers brushed her upper lip, where a single tear had landed. Hannah stared at him speechlessly, her breath hitching in her throat. Josh pushed her up against the kitchen counter and looked at her longingly.

“I
really missed you,” he whispered.

Hannah’s heart
almost exploded with love. “I missed you too,” she mumbled.

Josh lowered his head and lightly kissed her
brow. Her heart stopped when his hands slid down to her hips and he kissed her again, on her mouth this time, hungrily. She closed her eyes and pressed her lips against his mouth with a soft groan, suddenly wanting him so much it ached.

Before Josh could deepen the kiss, Ben stomp
ed into the kitchen. “Where are those burgers? Oh, here they are,” he muttered, yanking the microwave open.

“Sorry,” Josh said, turning around. Hannah turned beet red.

“No problem,” Ben replied with a smirk. “Don’t mind me. I’m not here.”

“Come on, I’ll help you grill the burgers,” Josh offered. He let go of Hannah, but not before planting a feather kiss on her mouth, grinning boyishly. She stared at him
as he walked away from her, her eyes roving over his muscular arms and broad shoulders. Completely dazzled, she went back to cutting the onions and mixing the salad.  Wow. She suddenly felt a
lot
better.

When she came outside
with a bowl of salad, Ben asked her to keep an eye on the burgers as he and Josh unpacked the camping gear. Barbecue tongs in hand, Hannah’s mind drifted as she stared at the beautiful red mountains on the other side of Lake Powell. Maybe she should go camping on the rez as well. Emily could join her, or Ben – or Josh. She wouldn’t mind pitching a tent with him and get all close and personal inside it. She smiled dazedly, still not entirely able to believe her luck. For once, she was experiencing a pleasant vision.