Page 86 of Demon and the Raven

“I felt its breath.”

“Or you thought you did. The mind in general is very powerful, and yours even more so. Couldn’t you have imagined its breath on you?”

“Isn’t it far more likely that it did happen than that it didn’t?”

“Hard to say.”

“From where you were, didn’t you see it nearly get me?”

“But that’s the thing—can I trust my own eyes?”

I shook my head. “No. It was there.”

“And you know this how?”

“Because of the deer.”

“Explain.”

“The two deer in the cemetery saved me. They diverted it. If the monster wasn’t really there, then why did the deer interfere? And why did a whole herd of them guard us during the drive?”

“Oh, that’s right.” He deflated a bit.

“You wanted it to be an illusion.”

He sighed. “It would explain everything so neatly.”

“It would, but the more likely explanation is that they started out as mud, were changed into creatures, and were then returned to mud by my spell.”

“It didn’t work instantly, though. The spell, I mean.”

“No, it didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because whatever gave them life is very powerful.”

“Yeah, but so was your…what is the proper word?”

“Amalgam.”

“Well, your amalgam was really powerful. They were mud before they were hit by the truck.”

“Yes.”

“You should be pleased it worked.”

“I am, but if we’re right and those things were golems, crafted from the earth and made to attack us, that is very powerful magic as well.”

“That’s a horrifying thought.”

“Also, from the little I know about golems, if those things touched us, it would be deadly.”

“Which is why the deer in the graveyard kept them away from you, as well as all of them next to the car, creating a barrier.”

“Yes.”

“If the monsters were bad and the deer good”—he squeezed my hand—“where did the deer come from?”