The last light warms the rocks. Below the ridge, the town lights its lanterns and sets the plain ablaze with wavering motes of yellow.
The Weird Sister rubs her hand over the coyote skull, feeling the tiny grooves in the grain of the bone. A little locus of power concentrates there. Cold. Like an icicle in the desert that never melts.
It will do. Something moves at her shoulder. Something she can never quite see, no matter how quick she turns her head.
She knows what it is. Or she thinks she does. But she doesn’t know its name and so she had no power over it. But she can feel it getting hungry.
The town. So sleepy. So remote.
The Weird Sister feels a cold exhalation on her neck, and the creek of ancient flesh widening into a smile.
Paddy Dobson
31st May 2022