Black Tarn never seemed to want to share her "secrets," even the lore all werewolves must know, but you have listened to her mystical ramblings over the years.
You force yourself to think carefully, which is never easy for a werewolf, constantly besieged by Rage. What has Black Tarn babbled about over the years when she should have been teaching you the spirit ways? The rite she used to enter the Umbra called for a reflective surface. The icicle is no more, and you don't think the van's foggy mirrors will work, either. You head out of the garden, into the woods behind the recycling center, and try to remember more about the rite. But all you can think about is the cold. A healthy werewolf can heal from almost anything, but you feel the cold seeping into your bones. You try to think about the spirit world, but the only thing that comes to mind as your head throbs and the cold wind howls is what Scarper calls entering the Umbra.
Stepping sideways. Black Tarn always sneered at the term. "Flippant," she said. But as you walk into the woods, you find yourself beside a narrow frozen river. No snow covers it, and the reflected stars shine in its depths. You move laterally along the bank, and something huge comes into view, blotting out the stars.
Beaver, the spirit of this place, visible among the pale stars and the glittering ice.
Beaver floats in slumber, tumbling slowly like a civilization-ending asteroid, rimed with frost and glittering with starlight. Trails wind through the frozen river made of stars or spirits or ice. A canine shape slips along one of them, a flickering black shadow, then disappears.
Your fingers touch the ice. You're off the Map now, close to the Umbra, but not there yet.
"Beaver, wake up!" I pound the ice. I need him to help me enter the Umbra, and I can't awaken him with the proper rites because I don't know them.
"Black Tarn, where are you?" I know she's on the other side, deeply attuned to this spirit-realm. I reach into the ice, hoping to feel her hand.
We're doing this to cure Clay. And the first step is looking around for what infected him. Do I see anything unclean on the other side of the ice?
I wait in silence for Beaver or Black Tarn to help. Here I really do feel like a cub, and I'll follow my elders' advice.
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