After Obsession by Carrie Jones, Steven E. Wedel Page B

canvas tent and created a little sweat lodge—as best I could—inside the tent. I sat in it for the first morning, still not eating. After the sweat lodge experience, which was really intense, I read all the prayers to the Great Spirit I’d found in books and on the Internet.
    That night I chewed a small piece of the peyote I’d also bought on the Internet. Three days without food, a morning in a sweat lodge, then chewing peyote. Yeah, who wouldn’t have visions? If it wasn’t for the things now in my medicine pouch, I might have believed what I saw were only hallucinations.
    That’s where Onawa came to me. Different totem animals represent different things. The cougar is supposed to be a leader, conscious of its own strength, and a messenger between humans and gods or spirits. People with a cougar totem are supposed to have those traits, too. I’m not sure I do.
    My medicine pouch bumps my chest as I climb a short rise into thicker trees. It is so quiet here. Very still. The ground is soft and springy with old pine needles. The air is moist and heavy. The only sound is my own feet moving me forward. I top the rise and look down a gentle slope filled with more trees. At the bottom I can see the sparkle of water. It has to be a river. I make my way down the hill until I come out of the trees onto the bank of the river. It’s slow here, but looks pretty deep. I’ve seen the ocean when we were driving around; this must feed into it.
    “What I wouldn’t give for a canoe right now,” I mutter. My voice seems alien here, just like I seem alien here, but the thing is, I really like the river and the trees. Still, it wasn’t just the football issue that made me angry about moving here. It was also my dad. I know that he’s never tried to find me, but moving here? It makes it seem like I’ll never find him, either.
    I make my way back up the hill, out of the woods and onto the street. The evening is getting dark. Lights are on in the houses between the end of the road and Aunt Lisa’s. As I get closer, I see that Courtney has turned on her bedroom light. Then I stop. There’s a shape silhouetted in her window.
    It’s a man.
    A big man.
    All I can see is a tall, broad-shouldered black shape on the other side of her thin pink curtains. The shape seems to be looking out the window. Looking at me.
    I sprint for the house, throw open the door, and fly up the stairs. I hesitate at Courtney’s door, then grab the knob and fling it open. It smells like roadkill baked in the sun. Courtney’s on her bed. She jumps up when I rush in. She tries to hide a book behind her as she starts screaming at me.
    “What the hell are you doing? Get out! Get out of my room!”
    She’s completely alone.
    “I thought I saw somebody in here,” I say. “A man. I thought—”
    “Get! Out! Now!”
    I leave. I close the door and go to my own room, where I throw myself on the bed. “Psycho bitch from hell,” I tell the ceiling.
    There was no man in her room. Just her, the smell of decay, her girly stuff, and some book she didn’t want me to see.
    I get off the bed and go to my stacks of boxes and start unpacking the things I brought with me from home. My real home. A few minutes later my cell phone rings. It’s the first call I’ve had since moving up here. I still have an Oklahoma number, of course. The ringtone is Danzig’s “Mother,” which means it’s Mom calling me.
    “Come outside,” she says when I answer.
    Headlights flash through the windows as a vehicle turns into the driveway. They’re followed by a second set. I could look out, but I don’t. I just go downstairs and out the front door, and there’s Mom and Aunt Lisa beaming at me in front of a sweet 1972 Ford F-150 pickup that appears to be in cherry condition.
    “If you like it, he said I can bring your money tomorrow,” Mom says. She’s almost bouncing. “Lisa called and he e-mailed us some pictures and I knew it was perfect for you.”
    I make myself stop and