Read Him Standing for Free Online

said.
    â€œProbably a lot like this room,” Amy said. “She seems like a very rustic person.”
    The woman groaned. Amy laid the cloth on her forehead and took her hand. I saw the old woman squeeze it. I could see the blue of her veins through her light-brown skin. Her skin was papery and brittle-looking. Slowly she came back to herself. Her eyes fluttered and then opened, and she looked at Amy.
    â€œYou found me,” she said.
    â€œYes,” Amy said. “It wasn’t hard. The Internet and all.”
    â€œA whole other kind of magic,” she said, and then she looked over at me. She didn’t panic. Instead, she gazed at me steadily. “I’m Sally Whitebird.”
    â€œAmy One Sky. And this is Lucas Smoke. He’s my boyfriend, like I told you at the market.”
    â€œHe did not follow you here,” she said.
    â€œWho?” I asked.
    â€œHim Standing,” she said. “Or his agent.” Amy held the water glass to Sally Whitebird’s mouth, and she took a small sip. Then she lay back against the pillows and closed her eyes. Amy looked at me with a worried expression. I whirled one finger around my ear, and she frowned at me.
    â€œYou were really scared at the market,” Amy said. “You thought Lucas was someone else.”
    Sally groaned and put her forearm over her eyes. She breathed deeply and steadily for a few moments.
    â€œHe was there. I saw him in your face.” She turned to me and looked at me with clear, dark eyes. “His shadow was all around you.”
    â€œBut he’s not here right now?” I asked.
    â€œNo. You’ve been to a place of light.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?” Amy asked.
    â€œThe dark shamans do not like light. It robs them of their energy.”
    â€œWe were at Amy’s,” I said.
    â€œA place of light?” she asked and blinked.
    â€œYeah,” I said. “It always has been for me. I like it there. Different from where I live.”
    â€œHe cannot venture there. It is a strong place. Like here. Dark medicine cannot enter here. There is too much shining, good energy.”
    â€œThat’s why you’re not afraid of me now?” I asked.
    â€œYes,” she replied. “I was scared at the door. But not now. Now I see that things have come to their proper place.”
    â€œWe don’t understand any of this,” Amy said. “Our lives have actually been really strange this last little while.”
    â€œHe is trying to return,” Sally said. “He has been gone for generations, and I once thought that no one knew of him anymore, that he existed only as a legend.”
    â€œBring a legend to life,” I said.
    â€œWhat?” Sally asked. She struggled to sit upright, and Amy reached out to help her. She was so small, her feet barely reached the floor.
    I told her about Gareth Knight. I told her about his challenge on the boardwalk and about the big lump of money he gave me. She listened intently. So I told her about my grandfather, and how he’d passed his carving skills on to me. I told her about the trick with the knife that I could do. Then I told her about Knight’s directions for me to dream and carve a spirit mask to bring a legend back to life.
    â€œOnly I never saw a legend. I only ever saw the face. A painted face.”
    â€œBlack. With three wavy red lines down one side. The right side,” Sally whispered.
    â€œYes. Does that mean something?”
    â€œIt is not the heart side,” Sally said. “It means he does not feel like we do. His emotions are blocked. He is a weaver of dark magic.”
    â€œAnd Gareth Knight?” Amy asked. “How does he fit into this?”
    â€œA man dressed in black is the agent of the dark shaman. He is a summoner, a follower of Him Standing’s medicine way. He is a shaman himself but without the great power of Him Standing. He wants the spirit of the dark shaman to