COMING BACK UP THE STEPS to Kirsten’s apartment with a new blender under one arm, the other wrapped tightly around the waist of a paper grocery bag full of cruciferous greens, Cheyenne felt better about the future. No matter how bad it got, no matter how fast or slow it went, she was here. Essex followed, less assured.
An early-afternoon break in the clouds dappled the landing. They passed through streams of white sun, into the spotlight, out of it and offstage in the bright gray over and over until they reached the door. Stepping into the apartment, they were plunged into total darkness. Spheres of brown and amber appeared around candles, blue-lit faces, pale yellow tables, counters, mail, and a vase of flowers. They had walked into an eighteenth-century painting.
The woman coming toward her in the haze was Alice, a co-founder of the coven.
“Let your eyes adjust,” she said.
Cheyenne blinked and saw several other coven members. The room wasn’t dark. It was only the contrast. The women had pulled the shades for some sort of hippie ritual. She felt a flash of annoyance. They meant well. She lowered the blender to the floor just as Alice enfolded her in her arms.
“Look at you,” she said. She kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry this is happening, baby.”
“I need to put the groceries down,” said Cheyenne. Crossing to the counter she gave the other women a nod. “Is she lying down?”
Two of the women exchanged glances.
Cheyenne took the kale and dandelion greens out of the bag and set them on the counter.
“Can someone please turn on the lights?” said Cheyenne.
No one moved.
Cheyenne, frustrated, came around the counter island and stalked down the hall to the bedroom door, but Essex got there first.
“Let’s just go slow,” he said.
She could see Kirsten behind him. The lights were out but a thick aromatherapy candle burned next to the bed. She was lying down. Margaret stood in the corner. The air smelled like oranges but also something sour and metallic Cheyenne couldn’t place. Essex moved aside so she could see. She could feel others gathering behind her.
Kirsten still lay under an electric blanket she’d had for years. Her hair was braided into thin black twine, ending in the finest of paintbrush tips at her breast. Her eyes were closed. Cheyenne had never seen her mother’s face that color. Not ashen like nausea, not flushed like when she had the flu, but an entirely new color made of other colors, unmixed, unnameable. Violet hues, tinted complex grays, a wash of indigo tempered with gunmetal and slate. A trace of white like the weathered, dingy fur of an old wolf, barely visible in the purpling skin, highlighting the brow bones, the crest of the cheek, the chin: This is what she saw.
Cheyenne stepped into the room.
Cheyenne reached over to a switch on the wall and flipped on the overheads. Sallow light from the compact fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling fixture spared nothing. The dresser was not an altar with tea lights and flowers, it was a particleboard box with two drawers and a scarf thrown over it. Her mother’s skin was not all the rainbow colors of titanium but a flat purple-gray. Stains on the carpet from previous tenants covered the floor. Lampshades pilled with dust.
Essex turned off the lights.
“I think this may be how she wanted it,” he said.
The candle, senseless, danced.
“But I’m back,” said Cheyenne. “I said I’d be here and I am.”
She heard one of the women behind her start to cry. A wave of fear then a quick shock of rage went through her. Cheyenne took a few steps into the room. She stopped. There was a noise. She listened. Soft crashing waves looped quietly nearby. She looked around for the source and saw a phone facedown on the floor by the dresser. Margaret motioned for her to come closer. Still in the corner, half in shadow, her face was unreadable. Cheyenne walked around to where Kirsten was. The bed had no frame. Even with a box spring it barely came up to the lower part of Cheyenne’s thighs. She looked down at the body of her mother.
“But I’m here.”
She sounded like a child even to herself.
Raising her gaze, she saw Essex on the other side of the bed with his eyes full of tears. Dreamlike. So unlike any dream. She got on her knees and examined her mother’s face. All those features she had mistaken for Livy’s, or for hers, they belonged to Kirsten alone. Sovereign all along.
Cheyenne ran her fingers lightly across the pads of her thumbs to feel herself and could not. She reached out to the body slowly, moving through space, a little girl waking her mother from a nap, she touched Kirsten’s neck and recoiled.
“My god she’s still warm. Call 911.”
“It’s the blanket,” said Margaret.
Cheyenne got up quickly and Margaret put out her hand.
“Honey,” she said, “it’s the blanket. It’s still on.”
Essex found the cord and switched it off.
“Did you do this?” Cheyenne asked.
Margaret’s hand was now on her forearm.
“Did you do this?”
“This is what she asked me to do,” she said.
“She wouldn’t do that.” Cheyenne’s voice was sharp and raised. “Did you do this?” she demanded.
Essex looked at Margaret. “Was she in a lot of pain?”
Margaret nodded.
“Get out,” Cheyenne said.
Margaret gave a short sob and caught her breath.
“Get out!” Cheyenne screamed.
The candle by the bed flickered.
I came back. I came back. I said I would and I did. I’m here.
When Essex returned, the candle beside the bed was guttering. He asked one of the members of the coven to bring another from the living room and she came back with two. One, she put on the altar, the second she handed to Essex. Essex came around beside Cheyenne. She had entwined her fingers in her mother’s hair and laid her face on the bed by her hip.
He set the candle down and went to blow the other out.
“Don’t touch it,” said Cheyenne. She raised her head. One cheek, pink from the draining heat of the blanket. “Don’t you dare.”
Kirsten had lit the candle with her own hands. It still burned. She was still here.