The javelina spirit chuckled. “FatherAguirre. I suppose that makes me a grandmother. Yes.”
“Is he—”
“Oh, my son is fine. Smarting a bit from a talk we had, but it was long overdue.” Javelina nodded her head toward the battle. “And it appears that your friends are winning.”
Selena jerked her attention back. The writhing shadow of Snake-Eater seemed much smaller now, as if it was diminishing into the distance. Both the striped god and Old Man Rattlesnake stood off to the side, panting. Scorpion stood a little apart, hands folded, waiting.
With a sudden scream, the clawed shadow broke away. Two dogs, one dark, one light, gave chase. Selena stood, arrested. She recognizedthat scream, that call of infinite sorrow and loneliness that had troubled the desert.Not a fox after all ...
DJ Raven—she could not seem to stop thinking of them asDJ—was suddenly standing by her side, inspecting new rents in their Nirvana T-shirt.
“You just can’t get these anymore,” they said mournfully. “Not the real thing.”
“I’m sorry,” said Selena automatically.
“I begrudge nothing for a fan.” They nodded to Javelina. “Madam.”
“Raven.”
“Is this it?” asked Selena wonderingly. “Did we win?”
“More or less.” DJ Raven poked a finger through a hole that looked like a stab wound, though the flesh underneath was unmarred. “Snake-Eater won’t venture out of his home ground for quite some time.”
“There is nothing most spirits hate more than looking like a fool,” Javelina agreed. “Present company excluded.”
DJ Raven grinned. “Someone has to be the fool.”
“It’s usually Coyote.”
“We take turns.”
Selena looked around. The circle around the fire seemed empty now, as if the other spirits, having seen the outcome, had left. Old Man Rattlesnake and the striped god too were fading away.
“Wait!” Selena said, as Scorpion began to do the same.
Small and pale and fragile-looking, the scorpion spirit turned toward her, blinking myopically. “Yes?”
“Thank you,” said Selena. “I never thought, when I was rescuing the ... the little ones ...”
Scorpion smiled. “It was a small kindness you did,” they said. “But you and I are both small creatures, are we not? So the kindnesses feel larger.”
“I think you are much larger than I am,” Selena said.
“Compared to the size of the world, we are both very small indeed,” Scorpion said, and then curled inward and became a tiny white creature that scurried into the darkness.
Selena was still looking after the spirit when two dogs came trotting out of the darkness, tongues hanging out, looking enormously pleased with themselves.
“He’s been chased out,” said Yellow Dog cheerfully.
“Then ...” Selena looked around the world, black bushes and silver sand and glittering alien stars. “Are we done? Can we go home?”
“Mmm,” said DJ Raven. “Notquiteyet, I’m afraid.”
“You still walked into Snake-Eater’s home ground like fools,” said Javelina tartly. “And you’ll have to walk out by yourselves. If you can.”
Selena felt her eyes go wide. “You mean—”
“Best get started is what I mean,” Javelina said, and put her hand on Selena’s chest andshovedher out of the world.
