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Mae moved the geodes and other crystals from the closet in the girls’ bedroom to her own room again. Having gotten what they craved, reconnection with their mama, the twins might not try to play psychic anymore, but they would need all the closet space. Hubert was shipping a couple of boxes of their clothes and favorite books and toys. They would live with her until Christmas.
Returning to Brook and Stream’s room—Mae had stopped thinking of it as the spare room or guest room—she began making up the bed, recalling the twins discovering the rocks and wanting to know about them. Her gift of the Sight had been a breaking-point issue between her and Hubert, and now he was grateful for it. She stuffed a pillow into its case, and a thought jammed in her mind the way the pillow choked its way into the cotton covering.
What if the twins had run off while Mae and Hubert were still married? Not that they would have. They’d been happy. But what if they’d been the ones to get lost in the woods on Jim and Sallie’s land and not Mae’s drunken first husband? What if they, not Mack, had been the cue for using her long-hidden gift? Her whole life would have been different.
Or would it? Tylerton would still have rejected her. Sallie still would have found a psychic daughter-in-law bad for her image while running for mayor. But Hubert would have been on Mae’s side. And then what? It was hard to picture herself still in Tylerton or still married, and yet things could have turned out that way.
She crammed another pillow into a case and unfolded the light bedspread. No blankets yet, not until December. When the twins would go home to Hubert, and maybe Jen. Maybe just Hubert. He had to be going through hell right now, struggling in his third marriage and facing the longest separation from his children in his life. Mae’s fantasy had been to have Brook and Stream stay longer than a few weeks, but not under such painful circumstances. It was like the full impact of her and Hubert’s divorce hadn’t hit them until he married Jen.
And now they were traveling with Jamie. Mae tried not to think about all the things that could go wrong. He was conscientious about his driving, but between his distractibility, anxiety, and insomnia, it was a miracle he’d never had an accident on the road so far.
Her phone rang, and her thoughts immediately shot to that possibility. She ran to the living room to answer.
The caller was Don Gross. She’d been eager to hear back from him. While Don made some opening small talk, asking her how school was going, she went out on the new back deck and pulled the chaise longue into the slim patch of shade near the house, assuring him school was hard but good. Then Don asked how Jamie was doing.
Mae wished she knew. “Something’s not right. He doesn’t talk much lately. He puts the young’uns on the phone and—”
“Your children are with him?
“Sorry, of course you don’t know about that.” Mae related the twins’ escapade. “They should be here tomorrow night. Thank goodness.”
“And Yeshi Ngarongsha’s retreat starts the next day. That’s pushing it. Jamie will be exhausted.”
“I know. His tour took a lot out of him. I hope he gets some actual retreat experiences, not just a lot of Sierra stress.”
“That’s what I called about. Sierra. I tried to go to her support group and she wouldn’t let me.”
“But she has an ad in The Reporter, and it sounds like people can just show up.”
“I made the mistake of calling first, to prepare her to accept me. I said my back was getting worse, and I was rethinking what she’d said about causing your illness and wondering if she was right. But she said I would ‘give off the vibration of the medical system and suppress the healing process.’ ”
“Seriously? Maybe I’m not sensitive to it. My mama’s a nurse. But I didn’t get that feeling around you. Maybe there’s some other reason she doesn’t want a doctor there.”
“I thought the same thing. Or some reason she doesn’t want me, personally, to be there. It’s like she’s hiding something, and that’s suspect when she’s got vulnerable people turning to her for support.”
“From what Kate said—she’s my friend who checked it out earlier—most of the people didn’t sound exactly vulnerable. More like well-off, independent people who made a weird choice. Only this lady named Posey seemed kind of weak and naive.”
“She ...” He paused so long Mae imagined she could hear him thinking. Had he started to say something about Posey? Did he know her? Was she his patient? He wouldn’t talk about her if she was, but her connection with Sierra would concern him. He finally continued, “All sick people are vulnerable. Anyone with something worse than a cold feels a little bit powerless. Or completely powerless. Sierra may be offering them a way to feel empowered, claiming they can heal themselves.”
“One of my healing clients is going to the retreat. I helped him quit smoking, and he hopes she can teach him to heal his emphysema. I could ask him what he thinks, once it’s started.”
“Heal his emphysema?” Don made a noise of exasperation. “Is the retreat sold out?”
“I have no idea. That would be a bummer for Jamie, to have only a few people, but he hasn’t mentioned the numbers.”
Don was silent. “I’m looking it up.” Another pause. “It’s sold out now. Get me four people who aren’t going to believe what Sierra says. They’ll have to share rooms at the spa. I booked one for myself and two for your recommended participants. Bought the last five spaces in the retreat.”
“Oh my god. That’s ... expensive.”
“I’m the rare man whose divorce saved him money. You wouldn’t believe the fees I used to pay in that gated community. I’ve downsized a lot. I can swing it.”
He was going above and beyond anything Mae would have asked of him. Posey had to be his patient.
Mae asked, “Why so many people?” Then, before Don could answer, the reason hit her. “Oh, I think I get it. You don’t let any—I don’t want to call them suckers, but it’s the only word I can think of—you don’t let more suckers in. And you’ll all ask her questions or test her. Like Kate wanted to, but there’ll be five of you.”
“Yes, that’s my strategy, such as it is. If Sierra’s exploiting people, we could expose her. I hadn’t thought of keeping ‘suckers’ from getting sucked in, but that’s good.”
“I’d like to ask Bernadette Pena to attend, except Sierra would freak out if she knows her name from her column. If she didn’t want you, she sure wouldn’t want Bernadette.”
“But I paid and registered. Dr. Pena can call herself anything she wants.”
“I hope she’ll want to do this. You just spent a ton of money. I wish I could be there myself, but I’ll have my kids, and Sierra wouldn’t want me any more than she wanted you.”
“Your job is to help me fill those spaces.”
“Y’all will have to be careful not to spoil the Tibetan healing part.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll call Yeshi and find out what parts of the retreat are his and which are hers.”
“Thanks. I’ll let you know if I find people who’ll go to it.”
Mae wrapped up the call and gazed at Turtleback Mountain, its serene turtle shape profiled against the bright cloudless sky. She should recruit people who could not only help question Sierra but also shield Jamie from her. Bernadette would be interested if she was free to go. Daphne Brady and her husband Chuck lived out in the country and might enjoy staying in town for a spa retreat. Both were lawyers, sharp-minded, unlikely to be susceptible to Sierra, and Jamie had connected with Chuck the way he had with Don. Sierra wanted Kate to come back to the support group, and Kate wanted to debunk Sierra. Jamie was fonder of Kate than she was of him, but he didn’t notice. He’d be happy to see her.
The tour had been lonely except for his couch-surfing stops. Being surrounded by people he knew and trusted should do him good, and so would the chance to be helpful. Instead of being bullied by Sierra, Jamie could be on the team that was trying to protect the sick and vulnerable from following her.
*****
Jamie sat in a plastic chair by the motel pool, reading a Tony Hillerman mystery while the children swam and chased each other underwater. He read in fragments, keeping an eye on the girls and watching out for motel staff in case they might object to the twins’ outfits. Since they didn’t have swimsuits with them, Brook and Stream had decided their despised pink dresses could be old-fashioned bathing costumes.
Though he missed swimming, Jamie would have had to tie his hair back to go in the water, letting the glands in his neck show, so he had lied and said he’d lost so much weight his trunks didn’t fit. It was close to the truth, only leaving out the fact that he’d bought new trunks.
The twins swam in circles and then switched to kicking underwater, reaching backwards to poke their hands above the surface with shoulder mobility that Jamie envied. After two shoulder injuries, both in accidents that could have killed him, he doubted he could get his arms into that position even with twenty more years of yoga. The children’s movements looked like water ballet until they stood up, baring their teeth, and Brook declared, “We’re sharks!”
He could tell it was Brook because he’d put her hair up in a spray on top of her head like his manager Wendy’s former hairstyle, and then done Stream’s in a version of the Navajo double-folded bun like Dr. Gorman wore.
“Good thing I’m not in the pool, then,” he said. “You’d scare me.”
Shrieking as if this were hilarious, the twins made shark faces again, rearranged their dorsal fins, and dove under the surface to circle imaginary prey.
A smile took over Jamie’s face. Kids were so frankly and unselfconsciously weird. Pink frilly sharks. He started to read again, then thought of Kate’s presumed pink dolphin incarnation. She hadn’t liked it, but he could picture her having been some strange and intelligent predator.
He put the book down. What could Brook and Stream have been in other lives? Would they always have been twins? The Navajo art-inspired imagery on the book cover made him think of the tribe’s mythical hero twins, Monster Slayer and Born for Water. Or was the Navajo name for the warrior twin Killer of Enemies? He got the Apache and Navajo versions of the story mixed up.
Closing his eyes, Jamie drifted into ruminations about mythical twins, the various warrior-healer pairs of indigenous legends his anthropologist father had told him about. Was Wild Thing the mischief-maker half of the Seminole hero twins? What was their peaceful one, the healer twin, called?
The Mayan hero twins had done something to trick Death. Like Jamie was trying to do. He’d been having a good day, no fever so far. That could mean he was winning. Inside his mind, he called on those twins. What had they done to trick Death? The only part of the story he remembered was that they had done it in a deep hole or cave. Or had they? He was falling into one—
“Jamie!” The children shouted in unison.
Alarmed to find he’d been asleep, though surely it had been only for a few seconds, he jerked upright, dropping his book to the deck. The girls could have been in trouble in the water, and he’d failed to watch them.
“Your phone is singing,” Stream said. “Ringing and singing.”
The Mozart ring tone hadn’t disturbed him, though his brain was trained to be alerted by it. How tired am I? “Thanks, darl.” He answered, noticing the caller was Yeshi.
“I have good news,” the Tibetan doctor said with hearty good cheer. “The retreat is sold out.”
Did this affect Jamie’s pay? He tried to care, but he couldn’t muster the energy. “Uh ... great.”
“I had planned to give you a room in the same building as all the participants, so we could gather more readily in the mornings, but I didn’t make that clear to the spa and they sold all the rooms in the Red Pelican. So your room will have to be in the next building, The Pelican Apartment Motel. I’m sorry. The manager tells me it’s right next door.”
Jamie hadn’t realized his free attendance for doing music included a room. Reluctant to stay with Niall and Marty until he knew his diagnosis, he didn’t care which building this room was in. He needed to keep his worst symptoms to himself until he knew what they meant or had made them go away. “No worries. Happy to have the room. Thanks.”
“And you can have a guest, if you like.”
“In my room?” That didn’t seem like anybody’s business. Of course he could.
Yeshi chuckled. “At the retreat. Someone you think would appreciate what we offer.”
We. Why were they letting him bring someone? Sierra didn’t trust Mae. Not that she would be free to come anyway. Maybe they wanted to attract a future audience. Who would be interested in the good part but not the rubbish? What about Ezra? The boy had been open-minded about reincarnation. As a future medicine man, he might be fascinated by the Tibetan practices. “Mind if my guest is ...” Was Ezra thirteen yet? Not quite. Jamie fudged it. Twelve sounded immature, though Ezra wasn’t. “A teenager?”
“It depends on the teenager.”
“He’s more adult than I am.”
“Ah. An old man in his last life, perhaps.”
“Dunno. No offense, mate, but d’you think anyone can really tell stuff like that?”
“Do you mean Sierra?” Yeshi’s tone became solemn. “She has insight into karma. I believe I understand my life better because of her.”
The twins clambered out of the pool and wrung out the skirts of their dresses. The pink fabric was faded and streaked. Wrapped in towels, they sat in the chairs on either side of Jamie, staring at him and fidgeting. He gave them a hang-on-a-second look while he asked Yeshi, “How? She tell you you’re in her soul group?”
“Yes. And why my life has been different from the others in the group. My health. My unusual luck.”
“Really? Your good karma?”
“Karma is neither good nor bad. It is a consequence. I have hardly deserved the good fortune in my life. Why does everything I need fall into my path? What could it be the consequence of? Sierra understands karma. How it comes from this life and the ones before.”
“Can we go to our room now?” Stream tugged on Jamie’s sleeve. “We’re cold.”
“Yeah, let’s head up.” He stood. “Shower and bed.” He told Yeshi that he had to go. “Catcha Thursday.”
“Bright and early.” Yeshi grew cheerful again. “I’ll send you the schedule.”
No such thing as Jamie being bright if it was early. He ended the call and followed the girls to the elevator, stunned and confused. Yeshi was a Tibetan Buddhist. Of course he believed in reincarnation. What was astounding was that such a man, a doctor in his people’s traditions, thought Sierra had insight. Jamie had to think about this. Not that he wanted to, but the implications were hard to ignore.
*****
“Do you think we should go to that retreat?” Kate asked. “Both of us? I know the doctor paid for it, but that’s short notice, and it’s a big chunk of time.”
“Yes, but it could be important.” Bernadette took a sip of her coffee. “He suspects she never had the illnesses she claims she healed herself from.”
“Stage nine of self-healing my ass. No wonder everyone else is stuck at stage one or two.”
They had agreed to meet in the Starbucks at Zafarano and Cerrillos, where Kate and Tim often went with other AA members after meetings. Tim and the young men he sponsored in the program sat at a nearby table, joking and laughing so hard that one of Tim’s sponsees had to leave the table to catch his breath. Kate smiled. Tim was good at getting people to realize sobriety was more fun than drinking. Now that was a support group. No pompous self-righteous leaders glorifying themselves with grand pronouncements and pseudo-spiritual names. The humor and the contrast with Sierra made Kate think of Mae’s children, snorting and mooing. I knew you when you weren’t you and I’m Mrs. Moo.
“Not that I need four days with her to find out,” Kate said, “but I wonder if she’d explain what her name means. Is Mu a Greek letter?”
“It must be. There were Phi Mu sororities at some of the colleges where I taught.”
“Sierra, ex-sorority girl? That would be funny. Naming herself for that.”
“Yes, but I doubt that’s her source.”
Kate took out her smart phone. “Mind if I look it up?”
“Not at all.”
Kate typed what is Mu into the search box. “Is Don Gross a rich doctor? Did Sierra tell him he was in her soul group?”
“I don’t know. Mae didn’t say and I didn’t ask. She’s got more than enough on her plate right now. Family problems. We had a long talk last night and it was about that, not Sierra.”
“You should have brought up Sierra. Mae would want the distraction.”
“Kate, I think I know her better than you do. She needs to focus on her own issues.”
“Seems to me, anyone who’d get into a relationship with Jamie would rather solve someone else’s problems than her own.”
Bernadette half-smiled, but her lips were pressed together. Barely a smile at all. Kate read it to mean: Don’t criticize my friends, even if you’re right.
“I know Jamie gets on your nerves,” Bernadette said. “But he’s doing his best. And he’s got his hands full with the same problem Mae does.” She related what Mae’s stepdaughters had done.
“They’re traveling with Jamie? His attention span is about five seconds long. And he has panic attacks. How safe is his driving?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never ridden with him. But he drove all the way across Canada without any accidents. What did you get on Mu?”
Kate glanced down at the screen. She’d expected the Greek letter or a Chinese word, and those were the first few results, but after that came articles about a lost continent. “Holy shit.” She took a swallow of her chai tea. “The lost continent of Mu? Why haven’t I heard of this?”
Bernadette frowned and shook her head. “I can’t believe I forgot. Maybe I wanted to.”
“Why?”
“I hate it when bad scholarship comes from Native people. There are so few of us in higher ed, I feel as if we need to exceed the expected standards in what we publish. Especially since we tend to have offbeat research fields.” She watched her hands turning her cup. “Back in the late eighties, a Lakota professor published a book that revived this story about a lost Pacific continent, like a western Atlantis. I didn’t like the way he used his tribal identity to legitimize nonsense about Native and Asian and Polynesian cultures having roots in Mu. The idea was originally a sincere error on the part of a French anthropologist in the early twentieth century, but we have more information now. It’s been discredited. Hard-core believers still use some odd rock formations off the coast of Japan to support the Mu hypothesis, but there’s no evidence there ever was such a place.”
Kate scrolled down and tapped on a YouTube result, a beautiful, mystical underwater video. “I think I found those rocks. This video shows divers on what look like giant stairs. It almost could be a temple.”
“His book claimed that the advanced indigenous cultures of the Americas were descendants of the high culture of Mu. I think misplaced Native pride made him go back to that old Mu stuff. His book sold in New Age stores. No one who knew enough history or anthropology or geology took it seriously, but let’s face it, a lot of people don’t, even educated people, and too many don’t question what they read.”
Kate watched the divers bobbing gracefully. Over a background of pan flutes, a narrator told the story of the sudden disappearance of the great Western continent. “This could be pretty persuasive if you didn’t check other sources. I wonder if Sierra thinks one of her past lives was on Mu.” She moved on to a Wikipedia article that explained the error, and grinned when she came across mention of a Queen Moo. Mae’s children would love it. Kate showed it to Bernadette. “Maybe Sierra was Queen Moo.”
“Reincarnation frauds tend to claim things like that. Past lives as royalty.” Bernadette scanned the article. “Not bad. But keep looking. I bet you’ll find believers’ sites.”
Kate browsed through her results until she found something with a New Agey title. Illustrated with artwork portraying great temples and lush jungles, the site was entrancing. Animations of tall, stately people who looked to be a mix of all races, wearing white robes and crystal jewelry, floated across the exotic background. The text offered a fuzzy, gentle conspiracy theory about why people were afraid to acknowledge Mu had been real. Kate read aloud: “ ‘The heritage of Mu can be blinding and overwhelming to the unready, who lack the preparation to open their hearts to true wisdom.’ What a load of bullshit. That doesn’t say anything.”
“Any sign that Sierra is behind it?”
“It’s run by someone named—I can’t pronounce it—Umamoa? She claims she channels a guide from Mu and can give you advice over the phone. Fifteen dollars for fifteen minutes.” Kate kept looking through her results. There were more pro-Mu sites. “Wow. And to think that as wacky as Santa Fe is, I never heard of this before.”
“Amazing, isn’t it? The more I research alternative medicine and psi phenomena, the more fringe things I find. It motivates me to verify the legitimate people.”
“Have you ever checked out a channel?”
“How could I? I can’t prove or disprove that an ancient wise being is talking through someone. It’s like reincarnation. How can you check the story? It’s subjective.”
“Unless it’s reincarnation or channeling from Mu. That’s fake for sure. Too bad none of these sites are Sierra’s. You could debunk her in a heartbeat.”
Bernadette finished her coffee. “Only to an unbeliever. People crave myths and magic. I’m fortunate to come from a culture that still has our stories and our ceremonies. From what you said, Sierra’s using ceremonies and chants and kind of a legend, the Akashic records, blended with some Asian traditions about reincarnation and karma. Add in Mu, and she could have her own mythology or religion.”
Kate recalled Posey’s devotion to Sierra’s teachings, and the quiet, unquestioning acceptance shown by the others in her support group. What Posey did was a lot like tithing to a church. Only this “church” didn’t do good works, didn’t help the homeless or run a foodbank or provide rooms for AA meetings. Sierra claimed she planned to start a retreat center with the donations, but was she going to? And if she did, would it be for profit or for service?
“I have an idea how to check this out.” Kate brought up her contacts list. It would be a good time to reach Jamie. Traveling with children—an image she still found worrisome—he should be at a hotel by now, getting them to bed. “Jamie’s a good actor. If he pretends he’s bought into it, he can ask to see the plans. Most people are too polite. But he could act sincere and still be pushy, ask questions other people wouldn’t. He’ll be at their retreat, so he can ask like he really wants to be part of it.”
“You found it hard not to let Sierra know what you thought of her. Do you really think Jamie can hide his feelings for four days?”
“He already has to. He’s getting paid.”
Jamie answered, unusually subdued. Immediately, a child called out in the background, “Is that Mama?”
“Nah. Go back to sleep. You already talked to her. And your dad. You’re done for the night.”
“Who is it?”
“My friend Kate.”
Kate rolled her eyes. Jamie had this persistent conviction that they were friends, though she’d never successfully hidden her irritation with him. In a way, his affection was endearing, and at the same time, it was one more thing about him that bothered her.
“The sign language lady?” the child asked. “Can we say hi to her?”
Kate found herself making small talk with Brook and Stream. They asked about Lobo, and told her they had made up their own sign language while they were hiding. It was obvious they wanted to chat with her, maybe as an excuse to stay up later. She ended the conversation by telling them they needed to go to sleep and asked to talk with Jamie again.
He sang a line or two to the children, and then she heard a door close. “Sorry. But that was nice, wasn’t it? They’re such good kids. What’s up?”
“I wondered if you could do something for me and for Bernadette while you’re playing at the retreat.”
“Depends.”
“We want to know what Sierra does with the money she collects for the retreat center. Is it hers and Yeshi’s? Her soul group’s? Have they bought a place yet? Do they have a design, a business plan? We need you to act like you believe her stuff so you can ask around.”
A long silence. “Yeah. I can do that.”
“Seriously? You think you can keep it up for days? I know you can act, but that’s a long time.”
“No worries. Won’t be that hard. Sierra’s a bully and a pain in the arse, but it doesn’t mean she’s entirely wrong.”
Kate’s jaw dropped. “What the hell?”
“Been thinking about it, y’know? I’ve got some bad fucking karma.”
*****
As usual, Kate ran over Jamie like a truck over a turtle, but for once he didn’t have the energy to argue with her. He lay on the sofa bed and closed his eyes, visualizing holding one of Mae’s crystals, a green one that looked like tiny scoops of lime sherbet, against the glands in his neck. Then he pictured bathing in a waterfall like the one at Nambé Pueblo, with a big cooling pool at the bottom. He’d been experimenting with tones that seemed to vibrate into various parts of his body, and if he hadn’t been on the phone listening to Kate rant about how she hadn’t been a pink dolphin, he would have chanted out loud. Instead, he imagined being immersed in a thousand voices chanting those notes in the pool below the waterfall, while the little round green crystal masses tended to him like conscious beings, healing him.
“Are you still there?” Kate asked. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Yeah. Y’know, when I was growing up Mum told me we come back as plants and animals. She always said I’d come back as a yam.” Maybe William had been a human before he was a cat, and he had karma after all. “And the Pueblo people come back as clouds.”
“Those are beliefs. They don’t mean Sierra’s right. I thought you hated her.”
“I do. Don’t want her to be right about anything, but I hate my doctor, and it doesn’t mean she’s not right.” Jamie’s score on the stress quiz had practically screamed bad karma. And that was only for the past two years of his life. The bad luck had started when he was a small child. He’d seen a friend die, been bitten by a rabid puppy, and had suffered a long episode of spirit visitations and seeing souls, all before he’d even started school. “I’ve been a trauma magnet my whole life. It’s not normal.”
“That doesn’t make it related to your past lives or her soul group. What’s gotten into you?”
Disease. Serious disease. No, he was healing serious disease. Making it vanish. “Mmm ... Hard to explain. Been working on healing music, y’know? And I think it’s doing something for me. Chanting. All that. So if you can heal yourself ... dunno. Can you make yourself sick?”
“That only sounds logical. It isn’t, if you take it apart. Of course music heals you. You have anxiety, not a disease like the people in her support group have. And that’s music, not some Sierra-patented system with levels. And just because you can make something better doesn’t mean you made it happen in the first place. I can’t believe you’re going over to the dark side.”
“I’m not. Jeezus.” He could feel himself getting angry, and he didn’t have room in his crowded chest for anger. “I need to go.” Back to the waterfall.
He hung up, laid the phone on the upper right corner of the bed, and softly chanted the Tibetan mantras in notes that vibrated all the way to his bones.