As Barry finished pouring the sacred water over the crystals, Skye closed her eyes and concentrated. She could feel her totem animal forming. The very air around her crackled with power; her animal's presence so strong she could almost see it.

Barry nudged her and she opened one eye, then the other, focusing on the small animal in front of her husband. "You are absolutely kidding me, Barry." She snorted with disgust. "A rabbit?"

~*~

Rhonda Pareti put her coffee mug on her desk. She had just enough time to upload her schedule before her first appointment of the day. She synched her pocket calendar to the desktop program, glancing at the screen to see the name of her first client.

Rhonda nearly jumped out of her chair when she saw Sutton: Barry and Skye. She exhaled heavily and glared at the screen. A practical joke was only funny the first time. It wasn't fair to block out a time slot that could go to a legitimate client instead.

The Suttons, a couple of new-age flakes who owned the crunchy-granola bookstore downtown, had come in last week with a story about animals showing up at their house. What was the word they'd used? Manifest, that was it. They said they'd manifested their totem animals. Whatever that was.

Of course, the Suttons wouldn't be the first mentally ill people to seek a marriage counselor, but Rhonda knew from the start she was being put on. This couple didn't need a marriage counselor. They were as united as Siamese twins, completely supporting each other's story that animals had suddenly winked into existence in their home. It had only grown more bizarre when they said they'd manifested the wrong animals.

Rhonda peeked out into the reception area. Skye Sutton came through the door, followed closely by her husband. Barry looked exactly the same as he had the week before: graying, shoulder-length hair, flannel shirt over t-shirt over faded, black jeans. Skye, however, had changed herself from a peaceful hippie into something predatory. Gone were the flowing skirt and leather sandals. Her long, blonde hair no longer flew free, but was twisted into a severe knot at the back of her head. Her tailored suit, pointy pumps and flawless make-up wouldn't look out of place on Wall Street. The Suttons each held a plastic crate, the kind used to take cats to the vet. The crate in Skye's hand was snarling.

Rhonda put on her therapist face. "Mr. and Mrs. Sutton, how are you? And what do we have here?" She bent down for a closer look. Barry's cage held a small, white rabbit, of the magician and top hat variety. Skye's cage bucked in her hand as the animal inside fought to get out. Rhonda stepped back. It wasn't a skunk, was it? No, she remembered what the Suttons had said at their last appointment. It was a badger. The Suttons had really gone all-out for this. Anyone could buy a rabbit at a pet shop, but where in the world did someone get a badger?

Rhonda flashed a professional half-smile at her clients. "If you'll just follow me into my office, we can begin."

~*~

Barry was beginning to think that visiting a marriage counselor was a bad idea. Worse, even, than manifesting the totem animals in the first place. Of course, manifesting them had been Skye's idea. After living with the animals for ten days, the marriage counselor had been his. They'd come without the animals the first time, and Skye had been upset that the counselor didn't seem to believe them. But Barry didn't blame Dr. Pareti. When the badger and rabbit had shown up in their basement, he'd hardly believed it himself.

"So why did you assume your totem animal was a bear?" Dr. Pareti was saying.

"I don't know," Barry said. "I've always had an affinity for bears. When I was a kid, I had teddy bears by the dozen. And I always gravitated toward bears at the zoo." The cage on his lap shifted as the rabbit moved. He folded his arms protectively around it. "Even my name is Bear-y. I just assumed that's what I'd manifest."

"And what would you have done with a bear?" Dr. Pareti asked. "You can't keep a bear in a cage like a rabbit."

Barry opened his mouth to respond, but Skye jumped in first. "It wasn't supposed to be like that. They weren't supposed to physically manifest. We were supposed to feel them on a deep, intuitive level—maybe even see them—but they weren't supposed to take up residence in our house."

"So now you have these pets—"

"They aren't pets!" Barry and Skye said at the same time.

"But you house them, you feed them . . ."

"Just cornmeal," Barry said softly.

"That's what they eat? Even the badger?"

"They don't exactly eat it. They absorb the spiritual energy they need from it, leaving the physical form untouched." Barry didn't understand the metaphysics of it all, but the books said that this was the way to feed totem animals. Even if these were real, it seemed to be working.

Dr. Pareti peered at the rabbit, as if looking for signs of malnutrition. "Do they excrete pure energy too?" She smirked. "I mean, it would certainly cut down on how often you had to clean the cage."

Skye's badger growled and spit. She put the cage on the floor and gripped the chair's armrests. "Look, Dr. Pareti, if you're not going to take this seriously, why are we here?"

"You tell me. Why are you here?" Skye started to talk, but Dr. Pareti held up a hand to stop her. "Let's start with you, Barry."

Barry slumped in his chair. How to make her understand? Their lives had been perfect before the ritual. "We're both children of divorce," he began. "My parents broke up when I was five, and Skye's when she was seven. I guess in some ways we're trying to recreate what we never had. Our friends call us throw-backs, like Donna Reed or something, but it wasn't like that." He hugged his rabbit's cage tighter. "I really like owning my own business, being my own boss, making a good living for the family. And Skye really likes housekeeping. At least, she says she does. Or ... I guess ... she did. Lately, we've been eating a lot of take-out." He shook his head. "Anyway, Skye works part-time at the bookstore. On Sunday afternoons, we clean the house together. We garden together in the summer and shovel snow together in the winter. Everything was ... peaceful."

Next to him, Skye rolled her eyes and sighed. "Boring, you mean."

"He's finished." Skye said. "Aren't you?"

Barry looked from one woman to the other. "I guess so."

"Good," Skye said. "Now, let me tell you what's really going on here."

Barry sat up straighter. That's what he thought he was doing, but maybe Skye could explain it better.

"I'm coming into my destiny," Skye said. "Lately, I've been a lot more expressive and outgoing, and Barry can't handle it. He takes the whole thing personally, as if I'm emasculating him or something. All we do now is fight."

"Can you give me an example?" Dr. Pareti asked.

"Okay, like yesterday. I was busy all day at the store. I'm putting together an intuitive painting workshop, and I was on the phone all day. Plus I'm taking an herbal class at night, and I didn't want to be late. So I ordered Chinese food for dinner. Sesame beef and General's chicken. Nothing wrong with that, is there? But Barry has to give me a huge hard time about it." She lowered her voice to imitate Barry's soft baritone. "Too much meat, not enough vegetables."

"You know too much meat upsets my digestive system," Barry said.

"Since when?"

"Since forever!" Barry frowned. Had it been forever? He remembered visiting Whole Foods market, stocking up on organic beef and free-range poultry. That seemed like another lifetime. He turned to Skye for confirmation. She would know.

"How is your sex life?" Dr. Pareti asked.

Barry whipped his head around. "What?"

"To some couples, verbal sparring is a kind of passionate foreplay."

Barry shook his head. This was more than sparring. And while it might be foreplay for Skye, Barry often felt like she would devour him, and not just in bed.

He never should have let Skye talk him into manifesting their totem animals. He'd gone over the ritual a dozen times since then, retracing their steps, trying to figure out what they'd done wrong. Was it the water? The candles? No, they'd done it perfectly. Too perfectly. Skye had insisted on using the sacred crystals energized by Sophia Keenawah herself. Sophia had done a workshop at the bookstore last solstice, and ever since then, it was all Skye could talk about. She had always been a spiritual seeker, drawing on whatever tradition promised the answer to her current problems, and the totem animal ritual must have seemed irresistible.

Barry was more cautious. He wanted to read all the available literature before committing. His employees had taken to scanning books during their breaks, pulling references for him. Armand, especially, was intrigued by the whole concept. Armand worked so hard pushing the idea, Barry had started to suspect Skye of paying him off.

He looked down at his lap, the rabbit sleeping peacefully in its cage. Now the poor fellow was trapped in this world, where he had no business being.

"Bottom-line it for me, Dr. Pareti," Skye said. "What are we going to do?"

Dr. Pareti folded her hands on her desk. "So you no longer want these pets—"

"They aren't pets!" Skye and Barry chorused.

"My apologies. But if these animals are making you so unhappy, why not just get rid of them?"

"How?" Skye asked. "They are not of this world. You can't kill them by conventional means."

Barry bolted upright in his chair. Had she tried?

"Neither one of you is Native American, correct?" Dr. Pareti asked. "I mean, you didn't grow up with these beliefs."

Skye crossed her arms and thrust her chin out. "Mother nature gives all her children the same gifts."

"Right," Dr. Pareti said slowly. "Can't you just send them back where they came from? If they came here because of your belief in them, why not stop believing in them? Won't they go away?"

Skye snorted. "Like not imagining a pink elephant?"

~*~

Barry signed the UPS slip at the back door and thanked the driver, who unloaded three boxes of new books from his dolly. Barry called Armand from the front of the store to help unpack them. Armand hoisted two of the heavy boxes, leaving Barry to struggle with the third and smallest one. They walked past the back office, where Skye was working, setting the boxes near the front register.

Armand sliced one open and began sorting books onto the shelving cart, mumbling categories to himself. "Yoga, self-help, goddess studies, Buddhism, yoga, yoga, yoga." He looked up. "Why so much yoga? That section is way overloaded."

"Earth to Barry. What's with you lately, man?"

"What do you mean?" Barry's nose was itching again. He rubbed it with his palm.

"I mean you and Skye, ever since you did that animal thing, you're like two different people." Armand flipped a book face-up and added it to the cart. "Skye's pretty cool. It seems like she's coming out from under your shadow and stuff, but you—"

"Skye was never in my shadow!" Barry heard his voice slip into the upper ranges. He was astounded at how whiny he sounded. He took a breath. "Skye is co-owner of this store. She arranges all the programs, from the tarot readings to the drumming circles to the Reiki classes. I consult her on everything."

Barry lifted out book after book, not seeing the titles. Skye said that their marriage was boring. He would have said "content." But now he wondered, was contentment just something to fall back on when the passion ran out?

From the office, Barry could hear Skye jabbering at the phone, her heels clicking on the floor as she paced. "Things are so different at my house now," Barry told Armand. "I mean, ever since Skye manifested a badger, she's been so busy."

Armand gave him a knowing look. "Too busy to give you some, huh? No wonder you're so distracted."

"That's not it," Barry said. "Lately she wants it all the time."

"Then what's your problem, man? If I had a wife that looked half as good as yours, I'd be the happiest man on this plane of existence."

Barry simply shook his head. He straightened the spines of two paperbacks that were in danger of falling off the cart. "If you think it's so great, you should manifest your own totem animal."

Armand looked toward the office, where Skye stood at the door, lifting her arms over her head in a satisfied stretch. He looked back at Barry. "I just might."

~*~

Skye fried herself a hamburger while Barry put together a salad: an uneasy truce about meat consumption. Barry turned on the kitchen fan to evacuate the smell of hot grease.

"You know what we have to do, don't you?" Skye said suddenly.

"What?"

"We have to stop giving them the cornmeal."

Barry glanced reflexively at the three-pound bag of organic cornmeal he'd bought at Whole Foods. The sacred cornmeal had to be fresh. Barry had been changing it twice a day.

"Don't you see?" Skye said. "If you want guests to stay, you feed them. If you don't feed them, eventually, they'll leave."

"Do you think it will work?"

~*~

Three days, and they knew.

By the time Barry came home, Skye had already wrestled the badger back into her cage, cleaned up the blood, and left six frantic messages on Sophia Keenawah's answering machine. She even considered calling that worthless marriage counselor, but what could Dr. Pareti do? The situation was hopeless.

Skye's knees weakened and she sank down on the top step to the basement, resting her chin in her hands. After all she'd done—had tried to do. She'd been furious when the badger had first appeared. How could she possibly have an affinity with a creature like that? An ugly, ill-tempered weasel. And with it came a hunger for everything: food, water, sex, noise, motion. At first she'd thought she was going crazy, running around the house in manic episodes, then collapsing in exhaustion, only to get up and start all over again. But she soon learned how to harness this newfound energy. Yesterday she'd dusted the entire house, run two miles on the treadmill, eaten a huge lunch, taken a nap, reorganized the pantry, made dinner, did dishes, mopped the kitchen floor, and was still on time for her herb class. She was finally seeing the benevolent wisdom of the cosmos in sending her the badger. She was even getting along better with Barry. But today—

She started as the back door opened. Barry. Oh, Goddess, what would he say? She swiped at fresh tears.

"There you are," Barry said. "I feel great. Best day I've had in ages. I think I'm getting my energy back. I blazed through payroll, and even had time to straighten up the shelf of yoga books before coming home."

Skye swallowed a sob. "Oh, Barry, I am so sorry. I never meant for this to happen."

"What happened?" He sat beside her on the steps and took her hand. "Honey, what's wrong?"

"I was trying to help, and I made it worse. Can you ever forgive me?"

"For what?"

Skye took a shuddering breath. "It's Burt."

"Who's Burt?"

"Your rabbit. I named your rabbit Burt. He needed a name, and—"

"I suppose the badger is Ernie? Well, I guess it would have to be short for Ernestine."

Skye nodded sadly.

Barry grinned. "That's cute. I like it."

"You don't understand!" Skye wailed. "Ernie ate Burt!"

"What?" Barry shot to his feet and started down the stairs. "They were in separate cages! How could—"

Skye grabbed his arm. "I thought if they spent some time together, they would become friends, and they wouldn't fight and we wouldn't fight—"

"You left a badger and a rabbit alone together? What did you think would happen?"

"The damned beast has been feeding on the spiritual essence of cornmeal! I thought it was a vegetarian!"

~*~

He'd repeated the ritual with Armand exactly as he'd done with Skye, so what was the problem? Were the crystals used up? The water impure? He'd energized the water under a full moon himself. He'd done everything exactly the same. He sighed. Nothing to do now but wait. Perhaps his nervous pacing was distracting Armand. He sat next to his friend, forcing his mind to calm. Only years of meditation practice allowed him to still his racing thoughts. He concentrated on sending positive vibrations to Armand.

Armand's even breathing changed to the heavy pant of exertion as a transparent image flickered in front of him. Barry put his hand on Armand's shoulder, willing the other man to manifest his animal. The image gradually came into focus as Armand worked. Four legs. Brown. Hairy. Was it another badger? Barry felt a stab of betrayal at the thought that Armand was somehow Skye's soulmate. Then the image cleared and he saw that it was not a badger at all. Although the body was similar, this animal was bigger and browner, with a bushier tail and nasty-looking teeth. "Yes!" he shouted. "You've done it, Armand!"

"What did I do?" Armand opened his eyes just as the animal solidified into physical form, bolting straight at him. Armand jumped to his feet, skidding to the side as the animal crashed into the wall behind him. It soon regained its feet, springing for Armand, hissing and snarling.

Armand leapt up on the sofa, rolling off the back with his totem animal right behind him. They ran around the room, the animal's sharp claws clattering on the floor as it snarled and spit. "Help me, Barry!" Armand shouted. "Grab it!"

Barry chased the brown blur around Ernie's cage, spilling cornmeal as he went.

"Catch it, Barry! Kill it! Do something!" Armand kicked it with a booted foot and dove around the sofa again. Barry charged forward, grabbing for the fast-moving animal. He missed as it feinted left and moved right. By the time Barry circled the sofa, Armand was cornered. Barry grabbed the hissing ball of fur by the back of the neck and threw it into Burt's empty cage, slamming and locking the door.

Armand sank down onto the sofa, gasping for air. "What is that thing?"

Barry looked into the cage. He knew exactly what it was. He'd gone to the University of Michigan and had seen a thousand stylized drawings. "It's a wolverine. An honest-to-Goddess wolverine. Way to go, Armand!" Barry held up his hand for a high-five. Armand did not return it.

"You're leaving?" Barry followed his friend to the foot of the stairs. "What about your wolverine?"

Armand whirled and faced him, inches from his face. "You mean your wolverine, man. I don't want anything to do with that—that—rodent!" He marched up the stairs.

Barry turned back to the basement, looking from one cage to the other. There was really only one solution, perhaps the one he'd been hoping for all along. He rushed to his tool chest in the corner and grabbed a pair of heavy work gloves. He wasn't sure if he could reach into the cage without being bitten, but ever since Ernie had eaten Burt, Barry had become bold. Before he could change his mind, he had Ernie out of her cage and in his arms. The badger fought him all the way across the room, perhaps sensing her fate. In one motion he opened the other cage, shoved the badger inside with the wolverine, and locked the door.

Barry took the steps two at a time, grabbing Skye's arm and pulling her behind him. He slammed the door at the top of the stairs. Below, he could hear the howling and fighting as the small cage was slammed around.

"What is going on here?" Skye demanded. "Armand left all in a huff, saying something about a wolverine."

"That's right," Barry said. "It's in our basement right now."

"You mean Ernie is down there with a wolverine?" Skye put her hand on the doorknob.

Below them, the howling abruptly stopped. Skye's eyes widened. "No!" She yelled. "How could you?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Barry shouted back.

He kissed her.

Skye struggled against him, but he held her firmly, arms curved around her body, his desire for her all-consuming. Skye slowly relaxed and kissed him back, breathing heavily as their lips parted.

Below them, all was quiet in the basement.

Skye sighed against Barry's chest. "What are we going to do?" she wailed.

"Shhh," said Barry. "You'll wake the baby."

Skye looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Baby?"

"Well, it's not a pet."

"Definitely not a pet. It's a wolverine."

"It's ours now," Barry said. "To take care of forever."

"Our spiritual offspring?"

"Exactly."

Skye giggled. "What should we name this one? Elmo?"

"How about Oscar?" Barry kissed her again. It was even better than the first time.