Unraveled Visions (A Shaman Mystery) by Nina Milton Read Free Book Online

corner of his mouth.
    I’ve known my animal guide for over four years. He started by appearing in my dreams, then in the real world, or the apparent world, as my shaman teacher, Wolfsbane, likes to call it. I saw Tarka the Otter lying on top a pile of books in a charity shop and had to buy it. I saw a stuffed otter at the nursing home where I worked. And before I knew it I had otter postcards, soft toys, and ornaments all round my bedroom at Gloria’s house. By then I was studying the arts and skills of the shaman with Wolfsbane and was working with my otter in the otherworld.
    Trendle is so cute and playful I sometimes have to remind myself that he’s actually a higher being than me, presenting himself as a river otter so that I can see and understand him. I would not venture into the otherworld without Trendle, because it can be a dangerous place. Enter unwisely and you can return confused by misinformation or befuddled by wicked dreams. The otherworld can turn you to madness, there’s no question, I’ve seen it happen. Shamans need to be stable, grounded people or they can end up hanging by the neck from their own banisters. That’s why I love my veggie garden. It keeps my feet literally on the earth.
    “What is your desire?”
    My desire. The first rule of the otherworld; know why you’re entering.
    “I am here to journey for Drea. Except … she only half agreed. Didn’t she? I had the feeling she wasn’t keen on the whole process, but my instincts … my instincts … ” I took a breath. “Will I even be able to enter her otherworld?”
    Trendle scrabbled close to my ear. “How Drea’s world feels, and what we find there, will tell us whether she wants us in it.”
    My stomach screwed into a ball of trepidation. However happy she insisted she was, I didn’t think Drea’s spirit world would be nice to visit. “Which path?”
    “This one.”
    Trendle extended his scratchy forepaws, closing my eyes. I felt the temperature change; cool on my cheeks and arms. I opened my eyes.
    I was in an ice temple. The whiteness forced me to squint. Every wall glittered. The vaulted ceiling, high as an abbey, gleamed with sheer, wet gloss. Icicles hung down like slender stalactites. A single drip from the end of one landed on my forehead, making me jump with a shot of freezing pain. I looked down. My bare feet were standing on solid ice. Its bitterness struck my soles.
    “This is a cold-blooded place.” I gazed round, seeking out something that might be a gift for Drea; a single symbol that I could offer her. There was nothing but the sheen of frozen white. “Trendle? Is it this something to do with winter, or thaw? Is that what I offer Drea?”
    Trendle didn’t reply. He was too busy showing off, skating across the ice, his legs splayed, trying out figures of eight while I shivered. If I wanted to get out of here, I’d have to look for answers myself.
    On the far side of the ice room was a ledge that ran the length of the wall. A girl lay curled on her side away from me, a single knitted blanket over her. Even in this otherworld, I couldn’t help thinking that was a dangerous thing to do, to lie along a block of ice.
    “Drea?”
    She didn’t move. The cold had put her into a sort of suspended animation. I skidded over the ice floor. Something blocked my way. It was a serpent. It had come from nowhere, taking shape in front of me, rearing up until it balanced on a final coil of tail. There was so much of it that its head touched the ice ceiling. Seconds later it had curved its body down towards me. Our eyes locked gaze.
    The snake was as thick as my waist and the colour of green slime, with darker and lighter blotches down its scales. Its bulbous head was a dangerous yellow and from its mouth a tongue flicked, black and forked into two sharp points, millimetres from my face. Every fibre inside me screamed. I had entered a dreadful place and this was a dreadful being. Trendle had skated off on some wild otter