Tricked

with your past is try to grow out of it.
    Darren’s crew gave the body a wide berth as they walked down to their trucks, some of them already talking on cell phones, calling the police and perhaps family members.
    » Can you see it? « Granuaile asked, one hand absently petting Oberon. » The ch ’áádii ? «
    » Let me check. « I flipped on my faerie specs and looked at the space above Darren’s body. What I saw made me shudder. It reminded me uncomfortably of my dreams.
    » Atticus, what is it? Can you see it? «
    » Yeah. Sit down, I’ll bind your sight to mine. «
    She sat cross-legged on the ground next to Oberon, and I concentrated on her aura until I could isolate the threads of her consciousness. Choosing the ones that represented her sight, I bound them to mine, and she breathed in sharply as her vision was wrenched from her perspective to mine. Then she scrambled backward, crablike, once she saw the ch’áádii .
    » Gah! That thing—it looks evil! « she cried.
    » I know, « I said. An inky cloud—funnel-shaped and with a pair of pale, blank eyes that faced us consistently—swirled counterclockwise over Darren’s body. It was unnerving to see such steady regard in the midst of that restless motion.
    » But he seemed like such a nice guy, « Granuaile said. » How could that have been inside him? «
    » We all have our dark sides. «
    » You mean I have something like that inside me? That will float above my body when I die? «
    » Not unless you believe it will. That which is immortal in us all must express itself somehow when we die. He believed in ch’áádii , and thus you see it here. «
    » That is so fucked up. «
    » Eh, let’s not be so quick to judge. It’s not that bad. The way he saw it—the way the Navajos see it—the good parts of him were already in harmony with the universe, see? Much of their spiritual lives are spent trying to achieve that which is hózh , or spiritually balanced and beautiful—and isn’t that what we all want, regardless of what we call it? This remnant is nothing but the shadow of his baser nature. Contrast that with some people who send their entire souls to a plane where they are tortured and burned for eternity. You could judge that if you wanted, but it would be nothing compared to how they judged themselves. «
    Granuaile sat in silence for a while, digesting this. She’d never confronted anything so concrete in her philosophy classes. Frank Chischilly came over and stood next to her but didn’t say anything. He could see we were studying Darren’s body. When next she spoke, Granuaile’s voice was sad and subdued. » What are we going to do about him? «
    » You’re going to sit there, « I replied. » I am going to see if I can help this ch’áádii disperse a bit quicker, send him on to his peace. We cannot wait for it to disperse on its own—I don’t know the half-life of things like this, anyway. «
    » What? Hey, « Frank protested, spurred to speech by my intrusion on his territory. » You can see the ch’áád ii ? «
    Granuaile spoke over him. » You’re going to unbind it somehow? «
    » Not with any spell. I’m merely going to give it a taste of cold iron. « I took a few steps forward and the ch’áádii shifted, eyeing my approach.
    » Hey, Mr. Collins, you’d better not get too close. Don’t touch him, « Frank warned. » If you do, the ch’áádii might take it as an invitation to enter your body. «
    » I won’t, « I assured him. Careful not to touch Darren’s body at all, I extended my fist directly toward the ch’áádii . The blank white eyes locked on my arm. Wispy tendrils of soot reached out, wrapping themselves sinuously about my hand and forearm. I felt them; they were damp and freezing and suffused with pollution. I could well believe that something like this, once inside a person, could cause an incurable disease. But those tendrils lost their solidity in the next second, vaporizing as the cold iron in my aura sundered the magic holding it together. It attacked me more fiercely, realizing that I was harming it somehow, but it was silent and spooky and cold. In less than a minute, all that was left of Darren Yazzie’s dark side dispersed into the morning sun.
    » That was good, « Granuaile declared. » Without that hanging over him, he seems more at peace now. «
    » He is, « I said. » Frank, his c h’áádii is gone. We can move him safely. «
    » I can see it’s gone, « he said. » Though I’m