"I know we shouldn't do this," she says again.

She sucks in her lips a little bit and totally changes the topic. She tends to do this, I've noticed. Her brain jumps around. "Do you think the River Man is him, that first guy, Emulus Black?"

"No." I say it without hesitation, which surprises her and me. "Some places attract evil. Some things in nature have evil souls, just like people. Maybe this is an evil river spirit."

"Like a nymph, but a man?" Her breath is warm and sweet-smelling and I want to keep breathing it into my body as soon as it comes out of hers.

"Yeah, I guess."

"So, this thing has maybe been here forever?"

"Maybe. Maybe somebody called it from somewhere else and bound it to the river. Maybe it just found the river, found people here, and stayed."

"It seems like it's affecting everyone. People are cranky, fighting. It's like some sort of virus of evil, you know?" She shakes her head and sighs. "What can we do?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" I say. "That'd be easiest. Just turn it all over to someone else, someone who knows what he's doing."

"What's the other option?" Aimee asks. Her eyes, so close, are huge and green, like a meadow filled with sunshine. "Can we make it leave Courtney alone? Can we make it go away completely, so it won't ever hurt anyone else?"

"I don't know." I explain to her about the stages of possession.

"The acne?" she asks.

I nod. "It's the obsession stage, and it seems to be getting stronger. Yesterday, I think she was totally possessed for a little while when she threw the door open. Then she pa.s.sed out. Maybe the spirit was exhausted. It spent all its energy possessing her before she had submitted to that stage, really. That's why she was able to be so normal the rest of the day. The thing wasn't strong enough to hara.s.s her anymore."

"And now? What happened today? Is she completely possessed?"

"I don't think so. She's normal sometimes. Once the possession is complete, she won't be herself at all. Ever."

"Will ... will he kill her then?"

"I don't know. He might just use her to spread his evil for a long time. Or maybe not ...," I say. We talk for a second about how it seems to be affecting other people, too, sort of bringing out their worst traits somehow, making them meaner. It's not as full-on as it is with Courtney, but people are being arrested for domestic violence, people are getting in fights at school. Good people, Aimee says. People who have never been in trouble before. She thinks this might even be why her brother and grandfather are having such intense moments of crankiness lately, why her dad's not been coming home as much, why Blake freaked out.

"What can we do?" she asks, nestling in against me.

"You remember I told you I was scared?"

"Yes." She sounds so serious.

"I've been thinking that maybe there's a reason I'm here. You know, maybe it's more than Mom wanting to move in with her sister. Maybe the Great Spirit sent me here to fight this thing."

"That's deep, Alan."

"Yeah. Maybe it's all bull. Maybe I'm being, I don't know, arrogant, thinking I can fight this thing."

"Can you?"

"I really don't know. I've never done anything like this. It's not like all members of Native American nations are mysterious, magical shamans ..."

I tell her my whole story. I tell her what I've always known and how much I really don't understand. "I'm just a half-breed b.a.s.t.a.r.d who can't even get a tribal ID card. The little bit I know about Ghost Sickness, the ghost dance, medicine, and all that is from the Internet and books, and no self-respecting one of us would ever publish the really important stuff."

"Your guide, though," Aimee says. "She called you Spirit Warrior."

"Yeah, but wouldn't I need training?"

"Maybe it's a calling," she says. "You know, something that's innate in your nature and just comes forward when you need it."

"That sounds too easy."

"What exactly does it mean, 'spirit warrior'? Is it like an exorcist?"

"I think it's more," I answer. "Like a shaman. You know, everything from making charms to doing exorcisms. But ... I don't know. Who am I to do any of that?"

"If you were going to try to do something, what would it be?"

I can't help but smile at her psychological tactic. "If I tell you what I would try if I really was a shaman, then you'll just tell me I should try it."

"Caught me, didn't you?" she asks, smiling back at me.

"Yeah. Nice one, Miss Avery. Going Dr. Phil on me."

"So, what would you do? If, of course, you were going to try something?"

I think about it. "A few things, I guess. When I burned the sage incense last night, the scratching stopped and she went to sleep. I think we should do a smudging in Aunt Lisa's house."

"Smudging?"

"It's-" I stop and pull back a little to see all of her face. She looks serious, but I feel self-conscious. "You're okay with this? I mean, it might seem kind of hokey if you don't believe in it."

"Alan, I've seen my best friend turn into some kind of monster. She threw you-yes, threw you, a great big football player who saved a lot of games for his team in Oklahoma, according to your hometown newspaper-she threw you across the cafeteria today. That was not Courtney Tucker. Yes, I believe."

"Okay. So we're on the same page here," I say. It still takes all of my strength to keep from kissing her. She wriggles around until she's lying on the tree house floor, her face beneath mine.

"Yes," she says coyly. "Same page. What is smudging?"

"You take a bundle of dried sage, light it on fire, and you walk through the house with it and fan the smoke around with feathers. I think they have to be owl feathers. And you pray to the Great Spirit, asking him to bless the house and drive away any evil spirits."

"Is that it? Will that work?"

"I don't know." I hang my head a little. "I keep saying that, huh? I don't know. I really don't. But I think smudging will not be enough. At best, it might buy us some time, give us a few days for something else. Something more extreme."

"What?"

"Exorcism."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

She looks up at me in a very serious way, and I wish I could give her some deep philosophical words promising that I can do it and that everyone will be okay afterward, that life will go on like it should. Instead, I can only smile at her like a guy trying to hide the fact that he's just torn his ACL.

"How do you do that?" she asks.

I can't bring myself to say "I don't know" again. I clear my throat. "I'll have to do some more research. There may be certain prayers that have to be used. I think I have to fast and do a sweat lodge first so that I can be purified."

She grins up at me. "So you'll be pure, like new snow? Are you pure, Alan Parson?"

G.o.d, she's beautiful.

"What's that?" she asks.

We both lie there completely still for a minute. Far away there's a noise like a truck barreling up the street. But it's no truck. We both know it. Her hand trembles. My heart hiccups in my chest. Still, we sit up to face it. Looking out the A-frame of the tree house, we can see a cloud of old leaves and dirt moving toward us up the street ahead of a strong and completely unnaturally focused wind.

"We should get down," I urge. Loose hair lashes across my cheek.

"Not on the ladder."

I lean over the edge. No, we can't get caught clinging to the side of the tree. I turn around and lunge for Aimee, grabbing hold of her and covering her as best I can with my body as a wave of leaves and trash crashes into one end of the tree house. She screams beneath me. The wind is so strong I'm afraid it will get under us and throw us out of the tree house.

"Onawa!" I yell into the wind. "Great Spirit, protect us."

The wind finds a voice. It roars around us, swirling in the tight confines of the tree house so that the wood groans and stretches. Some boards are splintering around the edges. The tree rocks madly, like a frenzied fan at a Slayer concert. Inside my head, the voice of the wind is screaming at me, challenging me.

The tree house echoes with demonic laughter. It fades as the wind rushes out the opposite end from the one it entered and flies off down the slope toward the river. Sticks and pebbles litter the floor. Dry autumn leaves and a ragged bit of newspaper flutter and collapse around us like dying birds.

Under me, Aimee is sobbing. I push myself off her, but pull her close against me. She clings to me, crying. I want to cry, too. That was d.a.m.n scary.

My cell phone rings. I take my arms from around Aimee and fish it out of my jeans pocket. It's Mom's ringtone.

"This is my mom," I say. "She'll tell us that Courtney is better. She's resting."

Aimee nods. "I know. We were wrong. It's like he recharges from her now, gets all his energy out of her and then uses it up doing crazy stuff, and then sucks it all out of her again."

Not a good thought. I hit the b.u.t.ton to accept the call.

"Alan, where are you?" Mom asks.

"I'm at Aimee's."

"Who?"

"Aimee. Courtney's friend."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Mom." Almost shaken out of a tree house by an evil spirit, but otherwise fine. "How's Courtney?"

"She's resting. Finally." Mom sounds very tired.

I look at Aimee. She heard and nods at me.

"She settled down all of a sudden, didn't she?" I ask.

"Ye-es. How did you know?"

"You won't get mad?" She doesn't say anything. "Mom, I don't think Courtney has a tumor, or any kind of disease. I think it's something else. I think there's a ghost or something bothering-"

"Alan, please. Please. Just don't. I've let you read what you want, let you pretend you're some Native American, even let you wear that disgusting bag around your neck, but you can't ... This isn't about you, Alan."

Aimee looks very, very sorry and I know she heard every word.

"Okay." It's all I can say.

"I swear, Alan," Mom goes on. "You think, what? She's possessed? Like in the movies?"

"I guess not." I swallow down the anger bubbling up my throat.

"Don't you dare mention that to Lisa. You understand me?"

"Yeah. I understand."

"If you're okay, I'm going to stay here for a while," Mom says. "Lisa is still frantic and almost exhausted. The doctors are talking about giving her a sedative, too. That's what they did with Courtney. They pumped the poor girl full of tranquilizers. It took a long time for them to work, though."

"Was she cussing at everyone?"

"Alan," she warns.

"Just asking."

"This isn't a game."

"I know, Mom. I know it isn't a game."

"I don't know when they'll let Courtney go home. If they keep her overnight, and I can only imagine they will, Lisa wants to stay here. You might need to come get me."

"I will. Bye."

I put the phone back in my pocket.

"Sorry," Aimee offers. I wave it away like it's nothing, but she knows. She grabs my hand and holds it tight in both of her little hands. Touching her doesn't make me feel like I'm getting shocked anymore, or like I'm seeing visions; instead it's just warmth, a healing kind of warmth. I remember what she told me about dreams that evening we first talked on the phone.

"You see things, don't you? Things that have happened or that will happen in the future?"

"Sometimes." There's fear in her voice. That doesn't comfort me.

"What do you see for Courtney? How about me? Us?"

She shakes her head. "I can't. I see bad things, but nothing ... nothing solid. Just threats. So far."