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Jamie stumbled over Ezra’s suitcase in his rush to answer the door. Hands were striking low on the frame, four hands playing the door like a drum. His visitors had to be the twins. And Mae. He’d been dreaming about Bouquet imitating his phone’s message signal. Now he realized why, but the new message would have to wait. He righted himself from his fall into the sofa.
“Bloody hell.”
Why had Ezra left his bag open on the floor? The kid was normally neat.
As Jamie opened the door, Brook looked up at him and held out her palm. “I heard that.”
Jamie gave her all the coins from the heap of pocket contents he’d dumped on the table by the door. “Owe you for a few.”
Afraid his suite might smell like Gasser, he joined Mae and her girls outdoors and sat on the blue bench.
Brook perched beside him, swinging her legs. “Your hair’s messy.”
“Ya think?” He hated undoing the braids himself. His thick hair had a crinkly texture that clung in knots, and the longer he procrastinated combing it, the worse it got. His preferred option was asking Mae to brush his hair, an awkward request at this point in time, though he still was tempted to make it. “Don’t you like the rumpled, casual look?”
Steam snuggled next to Jamie on his other side. “Nope. It makes you look like you just got up.”
“I did. Sort of.” He met Mae’s eyes, offering her a handful of his hair. She shook her head. Yeah, bad idea. He would probably cry if she groomed him. Maybe he could just let his tangles turn into dreadlocks and then fall out. No, with his luck, he’d do that and then be the person who kept his hair through chemo.
“Did you get my message?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He would have to check the new one in a minute. “Forgot to ask Ezra about the letter, though. I was buggered. I did look for something of Magda’s, though, in her room, but it’s all gone. Her daughter came and got everything.”
Brook pointed at something in the gravel beyond the green sidewalk. “Look.” An enormous dead beetle lay on its back, being consumed by ants. Jamie cringed, but Stream let out an ooh of fascination and the twins jumped from the bench to crouch at the edge of the pavement, studying the insects.
“I wish you’d let me know,” Mae said, and briefly described Sierra’s appointment with her. Jamie heard Mae’s frustration and urgency and wanted to reassure her, but he had nothing to offer. She asked, “Did anyone here talk to her this morning?”
“Nah. She wasn’t here. But Kate went to tell her fortune at Passion Pie. ’Round eight thirty or so.” This reminded Jamie to tell Mae about Yeshi’s conference with Chuck and Daphne and his talk with Rex.
“That helps, but we still don’t know what they’re up to.” Mae sat on the multicolored bench, her heels tapping. Jamie was painfully aware that she didn’t take a spot beside him. “I wish I could get at more information from another point of view. One of her soul group.”
“Ezra and Refugio might have taken the letter.” That would explain the suitcase open on the floor. “Heard ’em come back for a minute like they’d forgotten something, but I couldn’t hear what they said. They were doing that trying-to-be quiet thing people do when they think you’re asleep.”
“They didn’t bring it to me. And Refugio didn’t call.”
“Think they went for a run first.”
“As important as Magda is to them?”
Jamie shrugged. “Dunno.” The fact that he’d been too worn out to ask the boys a simple question embarrassed him.
“What about that other believer, Leon? Could I use something of his?”
“Mmm.” Jamie began to pick at the tiny coated rubber band on the end of one braid. Discovering hair wound up in it, he stopped. “He’s pissed off, especially at Posey. Expects me to find Sierra for him. He’ll be even more pissed that I didn’t. Doubt you could get hold of his stuff. But he talked to Kate before he got so mad. We could see if she’s back. She can tell us Sierra’s fortune, too.”
Mae summoned the girls, and the four of them walked up the alley to the pink-and-purple back entrance of the Red Pelican. If they were going to pretend to be a couple, Jamie should have been beside her, his arm around her waist, or holding her hand. It struck him that they weren’t so much fooling the children as postponing the pain. Like he was postponing the truth about his health.
When they entered the courtyard, Kate, Bernadette, Chuck, Daphne, Don, and Rex were gathered on the benches around the big rock. The door to the Loft was open and Barb’s electric cart was parked near it. Her husky voice wafted from within, belting a country song. Rex began to sing with her. As soon as Mae and Jamie reached the group, the girls wanted to know if Lobo could play. Kate released him from his harness and made them promise not to leave the courtyard. With a mixture of hope and sadness, Jamie sat beside Mae. So hard to be inches away and not touching. Cross the line, love. Please. It’s up to you.
She seemed focused on the Sierra problem, though, asking for an update. In response, Chuck said, “Here’s what we know so far. Or what we guess. The short version. Sierra and Yeshi have some differences when it comes to the retreat center. She was trying to buy some land nearby, but he told her not to bid on it. Then Kate saw her with a local realtor. I told Yeshi he needs a proper financial advisor as well as a lawyer, and—”
Jamie cut in. “C’mon, mate. The short version?”
“That was it,” Daphne said. “Chuck just likes to hear himself talk.”
Chuck slid closer and slipped his arm around her shoulders. “And so do you. Music to your ears.”
Jamie was struck with envy and loss. Jeezus. Why can’t we be like them?
Kate summarized her encounter with Sierra.
Mae said, “She came to see me at The Charles, and I found out she actually believes in Mu. I used to think she was making it all up.”
“She could believe in Mu and the rest is bullshit,” Kate suggested.
“Yeah. Probably bullshit.” Jamie toyed with undoing a braid again and stopped. Hair pain did something to his nerves. “She seem at all real to any of you? I mean, she’s got what—like two facial expressions?”
“That could be because she’s such a mess,” Mae said. “I think she’s really troubled.”
Jeezus. Leave it to Mae to feel sorry for Sierra.
“But not necessarily out of touch with reality,” Don said, “I’ve been in practice in Santa Fe for a long time, and I’ve heard a lot of peculiar ideas from reasonably functional people.”
Bernadette nodded. “Religious beliefs can sound crazy if you take them out of context.”
“Isn’t that what Sierra does?” Jamie asked.
“But she does it plausibly,” Rex countered. “She has a good pitch, to the right mark.”
They broke off their discussion as Sierra entered the courtyard through the front gate, ran to Leon’s room and pounded on the door. He let her in and closed the door behind her.
The group exchanged looks. Bernadette observed, “I’m sure we’d all like to know what that was about.”
No fucking kidding.
“I should go ask her,” Kate said. “Not that she’d tell me, but at least I’d get my card back. She stole my three of swords. I like that deck, and I’ll have to buy a whole new one to replace a single card.”
Mae frowned. “I wonder if that was what she put in Magda’s get well card. There was something else in the envelope.”
“That would be mean,” Kate said. “More like a don’t-get-well card.”
Sierra came tearing out of Leon’s room. He followed at his slow pace, pleading, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to let you down.”
“Well, you did,” she shouted, on the edge of screaming. “You failed me. You failed all of us.”
On both the red and the purple sides of the courtyard, turquoise doors and green doors opened and curtains parted. Posey peeked out of her room like a frightened child, and Yeshi appeared in the doorway of the conference room, making a shushing gesture. “I have a patient, Sierra. People came here for healing, please, not yelling.”
“Healing? You call your work healing?” Her voice cracked. “You’ll never heal anyone without me.”
She strode across the courtyard toward the Loft. Yeshi glanced back into the conference room, then at Sierra. Posey whimpered, “Don’t let her leave us.”
“It is up to her.” Yeshi stepped back inside and closed his door.
“No!” Posey ran after Sierra.
“Jeezus.” Jamie held up his hands. This was what they needed. Sierra quitting. “Don’t stop her.”
“Is this a good show or what?” Daphne turned to watch the two women disappearing into the Loft. “I feel bad for the real customers, though. They’ll want a refund.”
“If she leaves?” Kate said. “No way. They’ll have a better experience.”
“But what if we don’t find out everything before she leaves?” Mae asked. “Will we have another chance? Kate, did you get anything out of Leon?”
Jamie looked for Leon. The door to his room was just closing behind him.
Kate replied, “That he’s jealous of Posey being ‘chosen.’ And he thinks Sierra’s yoga will help him heal.” Kate searched for something on her phone and showed it to Mae. “Look at this. She says it gives you eternal youth.”
“The Five Tibetan Rites,” Bernadette said. “You can learn twenty versions of it from YouTube. It’s harmless if you don’t do fifty repetitions a day like Sierra says or think it will work miracles.”
Mae peered at the video. “God, her teaching is awful. You don’t do fifty reps of anything even if you’re healthy. He could end up feeling worse, or like a failure.”
Her concern was so intrinsically Mae-like, caring about Leon’s feelings and about Sierra’s dreadful exercise instruction, Jamie had an urge to hug her. Just for being herself. Not that she would want him to.
“And now Sierra’s mad at him,” she said. “That’s got to hurt. I wonder what he did that let her down.” She turned to Jamie. “You’re good at talking to people, sugar—”
He was on his feet before she could finish. “Yeah, I’ve got it.”
Embarrassed at his eagerness to please her, he headed toward Leon’s room. Jeezus. He was as bad as Posey and Leon, wanting to be chosen. No, wanting Mae’s approval was different. It meant far too much to him, though, that she’d complimented him and asked him to help. He should have thought to do it on his own.
The gawkers were disappearing from windows and doors, and it bothered Jamie. He’d liked seeing Sierra lose control. It had been a good show, and he wanted it to go on. Sierra’s downfall should be public. In front of her faithful, her potential recruits, her boyfriend, everyone. Was the fantasy vengeful? Proud? Probably. But then he thought of Leon’s tremors, Magda’s collapse, and his own long delay in getting a diagnosis. Sierra was his problem, and everyone else had done all the work investigating her. His only contribution had been to steal her shoe.
He tapped on the turquoise door to Leon’s room. The response was sulky and subdued. “Who is it?”
“Jamie. Worried about ya, mate.”
After a pause, Leon said, “Come in.”
He was seated on a red couch under a classic geisha print, facing a TV tuned to a sports channel with the sound off. A kitschy little fat Buddha statuette, black ceramic with a robe of bright blue glitter painted onto it, sat on the coffee table in front of him. Jamie held up the remote, pointing it at the screen. Even when silent, TV killed conversation. “You mind?”
“No. It was just a distraction.”
The screen went dark. Jamie sat beside Leon and picked up the Buddha. “I like this.” He turned it, admiring the way its sparkling robe draped in back.
“Why?”
“Dunno. Because he’s black?”
Leon huffed out a soft, tired laugh.
“Or because he’s fat. I was sort of fat before I got sick.” Before I got sparkly. Jamie fingered a trace of dust from the fold of the statuette’s belly. “Think he’s in my soul group. I’ve got a pink satin bathrobe with silver embroidery. Wonder if they’d sell him to me. My personal Medicine Buddha.”
“Are you mocking the teachings?”
“Mmm.” Jamie wriggled his shoulders. “Nothing unspiritual about a joke. Actually, I get what Yeshi was saying about the Medicine Buddha.” He studied the statuette’s round beaming face. “Seeing reality as change and all that. Even the bodhisattva stuff Sierra said makes sense, y’know? Compassion. But it was weird hearing her say that. She’s not exactly the poster child for compassion.”
Leon straightened, his tone defensive. “Sierra is a visionary.”
“Yeah? What’d she see for your past life?”
“I was a very wealthy Marquis.” Leon spoke to the blank TV rather than to Jamie. “In seventeenth-century France.”
Visionary? Pig’s arse. Leon was well-dressed, with a kind of faded aristocratic air about him. “You could be a Marquis now, y’know? Give you a wig and some knee breeches.”
“My karma does show.” Leon managed a weak flicker of a smile. “It was our life on Mu that mattered most, though. We may never recreate it, now.”
Unsure where to go next, Jamie said the first thing that came to mind. “Sierra was harsh with you. Didn’t that piss you off? You’ve been loyal to her, and she treats you like shit.”
“She had a right to. After Magda let her down, I was Sierra’s last hope, and then I let her down.”
Now what? Keep asking questions? Mae expected him to communicate well. Jamie tried to channel Dr. Gorman. He leaned back, interlaced his fingers and crossed his ankle on his thigh, fighting the distraction of all the cat hair on his pants, and gazed patiently at Leon.
Leon balled his hands into fists and pressed them against each other. “I’d promised a donation for her retreat center, but I never came through. She asked me for it today. Someone else had bid on the property and she needed to go higher.” He scrunched his eyes shut. “But I waited too long to go off the meds. My savings are gone. I almost lost my business.”
“Bloody hell.” Jamie dropped his foot to the floor and slammed his hands to his thighs, losing touch with his inner Dr. G. “Your drugs cost that much? And you still would have given her money if you’d had any left? Jeezus. I had some medical bills that knocked me flat and—”
“I was talking about the side effects. Dopamine agonists change your brain, your reward system. Some people get impulse control disorders. Like compulsive gambling. That’s where my money went.”
“Sorry.” Jamie was taken aback. “Never knew that. If Sierra was any kind of a healer, she should have helped you with the gambling, not fed you that crap about karma and self-healing.”
Leon ran his fingers along the creases of his pants. “How do you know it’s crap?”
Jamie recalled his imagery of the green crystal and the waterfall, and the tones he’d sung, believing he could heal himself. All the while avoiding a diagnosis. “I’ve studied healing. Tried really hard to heal myself and I couldn’t. I never said this in the group, just told you about my mental health stuff and the cat scratch disease, but ... I’ve got cancer.”
Leon stopped fidgeting with his creases and met Jamie’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’ll survive. What matters is, Sierra never had it. Rex didn’t, either. And Posey was never sick. No one’s been healed. Magda could have died. And there was no such place as Mu.”
“What?” Leon stared at Jamie, frozen, scarcely breathing. “You can’t know that.”
“Actually, I can. I met Sierra at a workshop for medical intuition and energy healing. She wouldn’t let people who were good at it work with her. Always had some excuse. Don was there, too. You can ask him. When I finally realized how to use my intuition, I could tell she was lying. Think Don saw the same thing. And Rex already knew he didn’t have lung cancer.”
Leon looked at the floor, unmoving except for his tremors, and fell silent for what felt to Jamie like an eternity. Had he been too blunt? Done more harm than good? “You didn’t fail at anything,” Jamie said. “You just ... y’know ... hoped.”
Still withdrawn, Leon let out a long breath.
Jamie picked up the little sparkly Buddha again. It gave him a sense of grounding while he finished the disillusionment process. “As for Mu, it’s a historical error. Some people liked it and turned it into a myth.”
Leon sat more upright. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah. My dad’s an anthropologist. I grew up with all sorts of weird facts.”
“Then what were you doing in our soul group?”
“Hard to explain.” The truth was complicated, with Jamie’s swings from doubt to belief to outrage. He tossed the little Buddha and it landed upright on his palm, looking right at him. His Medicine Buddha. The Buddha of Sparkliness. Jamie set it on the table, answering slowly, “Y’know, I think it was karma.”
*****
Mae was engaged in a group discussion of their next steps when Barb backed out of the Loft, dragging her vacuum cleaner with one hand and gripping a plastic carrier full of cleaning supplies in the other. “Take it easy, ladies,” she called to the people inside. “I’ll finish up when—”
Posey’s long, howling “No-o-o-o!” cut her off, followed by something unintelligible from Sierra. Barb hastily crammed the carrier basket into her cart.
“We’re missing the rest of the show,” Daphne said.
“The door’s open.” Chuck gestured toward it. “Shall we?”
Kate and Rex said they were tempted to go watch, while Bernadette objected on the grounds that even Sierra and Posey deserved a little privacy. Mae was pulled both ways. She hadn’t so much healed Sierra as disrupted her. Should she leave her alone or try to undo the damage?
The twins ran to Barb while she loaded the vacuum onto her vehicle. Mae had no trouble deciding what to do about that. They needed to let go of their obsession with driving. She jogged after them, and Kate called Lobo back to her. Stream was asking if they could “please just see what it was like to turn it on and drive just a few feet?” Brook added, “Plee-ee-ease?” and they dropped to their knees, hands clasped, faces uptilted.
Since when did they put on a show like that to get their way? Jamie’s influence? Or his permissiveness. He’d have thought it was funny if they did that to him.
“Don’t pester Miss Barb,” Mae said. “She already told you no and she told you why.”
The children stood and apologized in unison. “We’re sorry, Miss Barb.” Stream added, “We won’t pester you.”
The housekeeper accepted their apology and drove the cart across the courtyard to start work on a different room.
“Let me ask Rex,” Posey whined. “Plee-ease.”
“That lady’s as bad as we were,” Brook whispered.
“There’s no point,” Sierra snapped. “I can’t do this with just you. I don’t even want to.”
“It won’t be just me. It could be me and Rex. We still have Jamie, too.”
Sierra sounded doubtful, but partially assuaged. “You, Rex, and Jamie.”
Posey burbled with eagerness. “Yes.”
Mae told the girls to go sit with Kate. “And do whatever she tells you, all right? I need some time with Sierra.”
Brook mooed, “Did Mrs. Moo-oo know yooo when yooo weren’t yooo?”
“Hush. That’s rude. And it freaks her out when you do that.”
“Why?”
“She thinks you’re demons.”
“Demons?” Brook opened her eyes wide. “Like, devils?”
Stream giggled, poking her fingers up beside her temples and sticking her tongue out. Brook responded by arching her arms over her head and stretching her mouth into a toothy grimace. Posey appeared in the doorway, looking confused, as Sierra commanded shakily from behind her, “Do something with them.”
Mae turned to the twins. “I told you to go sit with Kate. Now.”
As they scampered off to join the group near the big rock, Stream made gagging noises, commenting on Posey’s perfume. Those kids are due for a talking-to. They needed re-civilizing after their trip with Jamie.
Posey gave Mae a wide berth and crossed the courtyard, cooing to “Rexie” to come with her, and waited on the bench outside her suite.
Glaring at Mae, Sierra stepped into the doorway of the Loft. “You’re not even part of this. What are doing here?”
“My friends are here. And I ... kinda owe you something. You weren’t happy with my work. Can I make up for it somehow? You were yelling at Leon. What’s wrong?”
Sierra turned her back and paced into the room and Mae followed her. One of the wardrobes hung open, empty, and a half-packed suitcase lay on the second bed with a heap of clothes beside it. Sierra resumed packing. “Fiona acted like you were so good, but you’re worthless. I didn’t need healing. There was nothing wrong with me. You unhealed me.”
Unhealed? What did that mean? Mae sat on the corner of the first bed. Sierra ignored her and stuffed more clothing into her bag. Trying to be as nonthreatening as possible, Mae kept her voice soft. “I didn’t send anything on purpose. I meant to just let the healing come to you, if you were ready for it.”
Sierra slammed her suitcase shut. “So I couldn’t channel it to Magda?”
“I thought you wanted to hurt her. I’ve met witches before, people who could steal a healer’s power and use it that way.”
“Hurt her?” Sierra zipped the bag with a fast, hard pull. “I wanted to get through to her. Make her see me, talk to me. My energy wasn’t enough.”
Good thing it wasn’t. “Maybe you meant well, but you were trying to control her, not help her.”
“You don’t know how much I could have helped her. And Leon, and Jamie. For someone who’s supposed to be psychic, you have no insight. If you hadn’t been a shaman in a past life, your children would totally destroy you. Do you realize that they were once demons?”
Mae wanted to challenge so many things in this crazy speech, especially Sierra doing anything to help Jamie, but she had to pull back and get her to talk, not fight. “No, but they do keep saying they knew you.” Jamie’s random-sounding suggestion to ask about demon twins on Mu popped into Mae’s head. “Did you know them on Mu? Is that where they were demons?”
Sierra took a breath but didn’t answer, turning away as rhythmic thumping came from the courtyard, and Rex and Jamie’s voices rose, harmonizing on the nonsense song.
“Oh my god.” Sierra rushed to the door. “Did Posey get Rex to come through? Are they celebrating?”
Mae followed her. What had gotten into Jamie? It was bad timing. She had just been starting to connect with Sierra.
Rex was pounding on one of the poles supporting the pagoda roof while Jamie beat on another, hip-dancing and foot-shuffling as they sang. Chuck and Daphne were clapping along, and Brook and Stream danced on a bench, making demon faces off and on to the beat. The door of one of the rooms opened, and the occupants, a couple Mae didn’t recognize, probably genuine retreat participants, emerged to stand in the sun, smiling and toe-tapping. Don, Kate, and Bernadette had migrated toward the Loft’s side of the courtyard and were clustered there in conversation. Posey huddled alone on the bench by her doorway. Sierra, shouting her name, hurried toward her.
Mae joined Kate, Bernadette, and Don. “Why are they singing?”
Kate replied, “Your kids asked Jamie to do his moo-sic.”
“Darn.” Mae remembered his improvised verse now, the new one mocking Sierra. “They’re still tormenting her. I need to teach them better.”
“Don’t blame them,” Bernadette said. “Jamie would have done it anyway. He and Rex were talking about it and the kids got excited.”
Jamie increased his volume.
I logged into my past life to see what I could see
And wooden ya know it, I used to be a tree ....
As he finished the verse, he executed a drum solo on the post, cawing like a crow and whistling like a songbird, and then Rex continued,
Then I got cut down but I came right back
To work out my karma with the lumberjack.
They mimed sawing themselves across the middle and danced past the rock, turning the sawing action into a handshake, singing the refrain. Any other time, it would have been funny, but not now. Mae would never get a chance to heal Sierra if this kept up.
Striding toward the big rock, Mae called to the singers to stop, but her voice was small and theirs were strong.
Samsara. Samskara, round we go,
Mp a walla thmp a lalla way-a-hey
Aaahh! Make that face.
Jamie did a full spin, making a face that imitated Sierra’s pitying look, while Rex and the children had a tongue-extension contest. Mae felt invisible, standing two feet away, trying to get their attention. By now all the doors were open. Leon came out, shaking his head sadly, and sat on the bench outside his room. Only Yeshi and his patient didn’t show up.
Posey pressed both hands to her heart and wailed, “Rexie! How could you?”
Sierra slapped her. “And you said you were going to ‘get through to him.’ ”
The music and dancing came to a stop. Sierra, berating Posey at the top of her lungs, became the center of attention. “You’re as bad as Leon. You failed me, too.” Turning toward the group by the big rock, she shouted, “I’m ashamed of you. Disgusted.”
Posey began to weep, crumpling over. Afraid Sierra would hit Posey again, Mae started across the courtyard, but Jamie was ahead of her, rushing to sit beside the little woman. He held her, rocking her like a crying child, stroking her hair and murmuring to her. Mae’s anger with him softened.
She approached Sierra, reaching out, palms up. “Come on. Let’s go back to your room.”
Sierra spat at her.
“There you have it,” Don announced. “The real Sierra Mu. Exposed.”
Spinning away from Mae, Sierra flung an arm in his direction and chopped the air with each angry line. “You poisoned everything. A medical doctor. Yeshi shouldn’t have let you sign up.”
Don walked up to her. “Yeshi and I are both Posey’s doctors. We did what we had to do.”
Sierra’s mouth opened wide before she finally got words to come out. “Yeshi? No.”
Mae was stunned, too. Yeshi and Don had talked about Sierra? Don looked into Sierra’s eyes and nodded slowly.
“Then everyone betrayed me.” Her voice shook. “Everyone. It’s over. We’ll all have to come back a hundred times before we can start again.”
She stormed back to the Loft and reappeared with her suitcase. During her seconds offstage, she had transformed her demeanor to a stately, martyred air. As she marched out the front gate, Mae was tempted to go after her, though the chance of getting Sierra’s trust now was slim to none.
Jamie, still patting Posey’s quivering back, glanced up at Mae. He seemed to read her mind. “Let her go. She’s done with us.”
“But is she done with everything? What about the donations? And the support group?”
Posey sniffled. “She won’t want me in it anymore. She hates me.”
Jamie rubbed her shoulder, making reassuring sounds, still looking at Mae.
“The best way to stop her is healing,” Mae said. “Real healing. I was just getting her to talk, before you started that song.”
He lifted his chin, his goatee snagging a strand of Posey’s brittle hair. “Couldn’t know that, could I?”
“You had to have seen me go into her room.”
Jamie held Mae’s gaze. His Posey-free shoulder twitched. “It was my fight, not yours. I won it my way.”