Grey Magic Stoner McTavish Mysteries 3 – Sarah Dreher

Gwen asked. “They were friends. Close. Like sisters. But I haven’t seen her since I was a kid, and she was old then.” “She’s very old now,” Stoner said. “She’s always been very, very old.” Laura Yazzie began to look a little frightened. ”What did she tell you?” “To keep Stell away from the reservation, or she’d die.” Laura crumpled her paper cup and hurled it angrily into the wastebasket.

“Damn it!” ”What’s wrong?” Laura rubbed at her forehead. “Leave me out of this, okay? That’s behind me.” “I don’t…” Stoner began. “Look. I grew up on that reservation. Grew up afraid to close my eyes at night, or leave the hogan after dark because there might be ghosts or sorcerers out there. Grew up believing in nature spirits, and healing with chants and sings.

Then they sent me to the white schools, and they taught me to laugh at that stuff. Half the time I was afraid, and half the time I was ashamed. Jerked around between the white world and the reservation. They really know how to mess up a kid’s head.”

She was silent for a moment, gazing out the window to where the desert stretched on forever. “I knew I had to get out,” she said at last. “Get out or go under. Mary Beale had gotten out, back when it was a lot harder than it is now. I thought, if I could walk in Mary Beale’s path…” “Excuse me,” Gwen said, “but who’s Mary Beale?” Laura Yazzie shrugged. “Just a reservation Indian. Just another poor, miserable redskin trying to make it in the world.

But Mary Beale did it. She got her nursing certificate, and her college degree, and she made it through graduate school. And now she has respect, and she doesn’t worry about ghosts and sorcerers.” She turned back to the window. “Mary Beale says you can get away from it,” she said in a low voice.

“But it comes back. It always comes back.” ”What comes back? Stoner asked. “I don’t want to be involved in this,” Laura said, ignoring her question. “I don’t know anything about Ya Ya sickness. I don’t live here any more. I don’t belong here any more.

This is a summer job, that’s all.” ”Where do you live, then?” Gwen asked. “Montreal. I’m working on my doctoral dissertation. At McGill.” “I see,” Gwen said. “And you take this job for tuition money; am I right?” “Right. I have a marketable skill. Big deal.”

Copyright © 1987, by Sarah Dreher All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher. Published by New Victoria Publishers, Hereford AZ, 85615 Cover design by Ginger Brown Author photo by Susan Wilson Third Edition, ePub 2015 Authors note The mysticism portrayed in this book was inspired by my readings of Hopi legends and myths. It is not intended to be an accurate description of Hopi beliefs, but to express my deep respect for a way of life from which we have much to learn.

If I have given offense, it is out of ignorance, not intent. May we all, one day, cross the rainbow together. ISBN 0-934678-11-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dreher. Sarah. Gray magic / by Sarah Dreher. — 2nd ed. p. cm. ISBN 0-934678-11-1 : $9.95 1. McTavish. Stoner (Fictitious character)–Fiction. 2. Women detectives–United States–Fiction. 3. Indians of North America- Fiction. 4.

Lesbians–United States–Fiction. I. Title. PS3554.R36G7 1993 813′.54–dc20 93-33332 CIP for Kaye Alleman ONE Talavai, Dawn Spirit, spilled mercury across the sleeping desert. It eddied around mesas, lapped the humped crests of bread-loaf buttes, flowed like the tide down shallow, parched arroyos, and caressed the base of the Sacred Mountains. The air was cool, silent. One by one, the Star People withdrew into the morning twilight.

The ruined pueblo lay in silhouette against purple velvet, a clutter of sandstone and adobe walls, fashioned of earth, returning to earth. Birds nested on naked spruce beams. Deer mice hid grain and pinyon seeds among ancient pottery shards. Door and window holes gazed unseeing into the plaza, and snakes made nests in the abandoned kiva. The old woman who now called herself Siyamtiwa rubbed the chill from her aching fingers and squinted toward the south. Long Mesa, below and in the distance, caught the first rays of sun that arrowed between the twin peaks of Tewa Mountain.

Smoke from the breakfast fire at Spirit Wells Trading Post rose in a feathery column. A battered and rusted pick-up truck chugged along the dirt road that rambled through the Navajo Reservation, bringing the mail to the Hopi Cultural Center. An ordinary August morning.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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