I looked at them pleadingly, the anxiety and strange nervousness in my chest growing stronger by the second. Gran and Grandpa both stared back at me in confusion. They shared a look that worried me, then Grandpa looked at me again.
“You say…in all your visions you seeeverythingfrom Naphele’s point of view?”
“Uh, well, yeah,” I said, glancing back and forth between them. “That’s how it always is.”
“You see everything as if you’re looking through Naphele’s eyes?” Gran asked.
I’d never explicitly told themhowthe visions looked, simply what I’d seen. I was unsure why they were acting weird.
“Yes. Why is that strange?” I said.
“The sight doesn’t work like that,” Grandpa said. “My grandmother and her sister both had the gift, along with my father. It’s supposed to be you standing there, watching what happens. An outside observer.”
I frowned, recalling that first vision of Naphele being murdered. That had been the way he described, but everything after became more and moremeinside of her.
“What does that mean then?” I asked.
Gran shot Grandpa another look before leaning forward and taking my hands. “Dear, have you ever thought about reincarnation?”
God, was I ever going to get away fromthissubject?
“I have,” I admitted, then decided to tell them the whole story. Starting from the beginning and ending with the ritual Rainier had helped me go through that proved I wasnotNaphele. When I was done, they actually looked more concerned than before.
“I know the ritual,” Gran said. “It’sveryold. I saw it a couple of times as a girl. You say the red stone glowed when you were done?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding sadly. “Rainier said that meant the answer was no. That I wasn’t the reincarnation of Naphele.”
“Question,” Gran said. “Was this ceremony done before orafteryou’d learned to shift?”
“Kind of neither,” I said. “I shifted for the very first time as I was coming out of the vision. Why? What does that matter?”
“The answer may not have been correct if the vision began without you being fully connected to your inner wolf,” she explained. “That is part of you. An integral part. It might very well be the thing that connects you to Naphele. We could do it again and see if there’s a change. Would you like to try? I remember how it goes.”
The moment she said that, the anxiety and worry that had been building within me abated a fraction, making me less stressed and more at ease. Was this what needed to happen? A tremor of both unease and excitement shuddered through my chest. What if…
“We can try. Let me go to Rainier’s cabin and see if I can find the stuff he used.”
Before either of them could respond, I was out the door. An urgency pushed me onward, desperate and insistent.
Thankfully, the people who were using the cabin weren’t there, and I rushed in after my knocks went unanswered. I searched through drawers and cupboards, finally finding the pouch in Rainier’s closet. Gripping it tightly, I rushed back to my grandparents.
“I got it,” I cried as I entered the cabin.
“Let’s give it a go,” Gran said, ushering me and Grandpa to the fireplace. I handed her the small bag of mushrooms, spices, and stones, and gave the sheet of ancient paper to Grandpa.
“I’m a little rusty,” Gran said, “but I think I remember how this goes. It was once the best way to do this, but it’s fallen out of favor over the years.”
I watched, more intently this time than last, as she heated the pot and began to put together the concoction.
“Honey, can you grab a knife from the kitchen?” she asked my grandfather.
He did as asked. With a bizarre sense of déjà vu, Gran went about everything exactly as Rainier had. She cut my palm while Grandpa recited the foreign words. The strange smell of the brew filled the room, and that disconcerting sensation of sound being muffled settled over me. It was working. My heart thundered, sending pulses of blood rushing through my body, and the steadyshush-shushof my heartbeat was audible to my own ears.
Finally, Gran held the smoking pot toward me. “Breathe deep.”
I sucked in a huge lungful of the bitter brew, the warmth of the smoke welling in my chest. Grandpa was still chanting, but his voice had grown distant. When I could no longer hold my breath, I let it out, and that familiar flash of lightning burst across my vision. My grandparents vanished, replaced by?—
A wolf.She stood several feet in front of me, gazing at me with yellow eyes. Her dark fur was marked with streaks of light brown. I stood in my own wolf form, trembling with fear and excitement. I knew who this was. Naphele.
