A Beast Among Gods (The Mac Tire Chronicles) by Garnet Davenport (have you read this book .TXT) 📕

went ahead and indulged. Ray started to beat on the drums in a rhythmic beat. He started to chant, the tones beautiful and hypnotic.

My ogre was unhappy with the heat, and my mac tire was gone. He wasn’t there at all anymore to be that constant positive when it came to my anger. Memories of all the deaths that I was at the center of flashed through my mind. Seeing my mother dead on the floor of the motel room and my grandmother I had just met beside her. Diane and John in the barn at their farm house. The first place I had felt safe, that was until my father found me. The night that Jamie was killed. I had never thought about my sexuality until I had met Jamie. I loved him. He was not only my best friend but my first love. Then my second, Lucy and the only little girl who will have me wrapped around her little finger.

I felt the emotions building. It was almost as if they were trying to climb out of me to speak to me. They were pulling at my skin, tearing through me to get out, and needing to be seen. A dizziness came over me, but before it could get too far, I stood, stumbled from where I was, and left the lodge as I lifted the cloth and stumbled butt naked into the forest.

We love you, Striker.

A whisper touched my skin on the back of my neck from behind me.

I turned, my head snapping around, looking for whomever was following me.

“Who’s there?”

I was pushed to the ground from behind. I turned and looked around. There was nobody there.

“Hello?” I said, standing.

However, as I turned around in a circle, a strange green, mossy fog rolled along the ground.

“Is someone there?” I asked, my senses on guard.

It’s okay. Let it out.

I turned around and around in circles, trying to find anything that indicated I wasn’t alone. But nothing was there. I waited, opening up my hearing to see if I could hear someone or something around me.

A gust of wind came from behind me, and with that, I felt hands on my shoulders. I jerked around to find nothing there.

Someone was messing with me. They had to be messing with me. I felt hands on me. Familiar hands.

Striker.

Her voice was just how I remembered it.

“Mom?” I whispered.

Let it out.

I heard with a light touch to my cheek.

Let it out.

I opened my mouth and let out the most painful roar I’d ever heard come from anyone not dying. I dropped to the ground and let myself feel the pain I locked away one right after another. Tears were streaming down my face, and I felt a loss from deep inside.

“Striker?”

I heard Ray’s voice from beside me and then his masculine hand rested on my shoulder.

“You are here with people who care about you. It is time to come from your spiritual journey.”

My eyes opened, and I was still inside the lodge. The smoke was starting to clear, and the other men were starting to stand to leave from the lodge. They were dripping in their own sweat, and a couple of them seemed more content than before they entered. What I had to come to terms with was the fact that I never left the lodge. Whatever it was that happened to me, I had been in the sweat lodge the entire time. They had come to me—the spirits—my mother had come to me to tell me to release my anger and to find what? Peace?

➣ Chapter 23

Finding My Zen

“What just happened?” I asked Ray as he gave me water.

“You, my friend, have experienced a spiritual awakening. What happened is your own, but you seemed to be drawn into it as if it were right beside you. That is a deep personal experience, and you should definitely think about what you were shown. It has great meaning.”

“My mother,” I said with a gruff, sore throat.

“Was that the pain I heard in you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Your soul has been hurt. I can see the dark inside of you. You should let it out, so you can work through your anger and sadness.”

I heard what he had said. I wasn’t ready just to move on from my anger that has kept me from so many people in my life. I went back to my tent for the night and got ready for bed.

***

I spent nearly six months there with Ray. Dozens of treatments in the sweat lodge. Ray had said it would take time. But every time I go into the sweat lodge, my ogre tries to take over, and I can’t get through it without a hallucination.

The last night I spent there with Ray, he took me to the side and told me about a place in South America. Brazil to be exact. There was a man there that might be able to help me. His name was Alvar Cavalcante. Ray called him a guru. Someone that would be able to tell me why.

“Why do you think this Alvar person can help me?” I asked.

“He’s got a unique way of seeing things. He’s also got really great hearing,” Ray said.

“And good hearing is supposed to help me.”

“It’s how he uses his hearing that helps. Trust me on this.”

“I don’t have any reason not to trust you. I can leave tomorrow.”

“Good. I’ll call Alvar and tell him to expect you.”

“Thank you, Ray. You’ve been a really good friend to me.”

“You’ve been really good free labor,” he retorted.

“Don’t be mad I want to leave.”

“I’m not mad. I’m sad. I’ve got to find someone else to help set up for treatments and cook. And I’ll miss your bacon.”

I chuckled. “Blame Jean for teaching me how to make that bacon.”

“Oh, I do.” He was quiet for a moment while he looked thoughtful about his next words. “I know you’ve only reached out to them once since you’ve been here.