Aunt Lucy was every bit as good a cook as his mother and Aunt Leila. With the simplest of ingredients, it seemed that the three of them could each make meals that would be the envy of any of the great chefs of the world. Thomas’s mouth began to water as soon she set a plate in front of him: flatbread heaped with a chili of tepary beans, roasted corn, squash and peppers, all of it topped with shredded lettuce, sour cream and a chunky salsa of diced tomato, chipotle, cholla buds and green chilies.
“Where do you get all this stuff?” he asked.
Aunt Lucy pointed to the other side of the pond, past the river oak and the mesquite trees.
“I’ve got a garden over there,” she said, then smiled. “I share it somewhat reluctantly with the local rabbits and deer. The rest I get from town.”
Thomas nodded. Everything seemed so normal. Sitting round the table eating a homemade meal. The sun shining. The desert spread out around them, mountains in the distance. It felt familiar and strange all at the same time. It felt like home except the meal had been made by his dead aunt, and his companion was supposedly the ex-wife of the raven who’d created the world, the three of them being watched by the ghost of a raven and a dog that was a spirit of death.
And he wasn’t sure he even wanted to know what a town would be like in this world.
That reminded him of how he and Consuela had gotten here in the first place.
“Do you know what’s under the ground of your yard?” he said. “A whole other world, separated from us by a bunch of boards and a few inches of dirt.”
Aunt Lucy just looked at him.
“It’s true,” he started to tell her, as Consuela and her raven twin began to laugh. “What?” he asked. “You saw it, the same as me.”
“I did and I didn’t,” she told him. “Those boards you pulled away were just a passageway between the world we left and this one. The only reason there was a sky painted on boards is because that’s what your shaman sight saw.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t have some shaman sight.”
Aunt Lucy reached across the table and put her hand on his. “But you do,” she said in a gentle voice.
Thomas looked at her, his surprise plain.
“All the men in the Corn Eyes Clan do,” she continued. “Some of the women, too.”
“What does that even mean?”
She settled her gaze on his. “You know exactly what it means. You see deeper into the world than most people do.”
Thomas couldn’t argue with that.
“Except I don’t want to be a shaman,” he said.
“Who says you have to? You could run with Reuben’s dog boys.”
“I don’t have ma’inawo blood.”
“Neither do they,” Aunt Lucy told him. “Their dog aspects grow from Kikimi traditions. You could wear the same four-legged skin as any of them.”
Thomas shook his head. “That doesn’t appeal to me any more than being a shaman, which it looks like I’ll end up as, whether I want to or not.”
“And who says you have to be either?”
“I—I don’t know. I just assumed it would be expected of me, what with Morago looking for an apprentice.”
“That’s right,” Aunt Lucy said. “He comes back, doesn’t he? I mean, he came back—it all depends on your when.”
“Morago went away?” Thomas asked, unable to hide his surprise. He couldn’t imagine the shaman being away from the rez. “Where would he even go?”
“Everybody leaves at some point,” Aunt Lucy said. “Look at me—here I am. Some of us just don’t go as far as Morago does.” She smiled and added, “Did.”
“But where did he go?”
“You’ll have to ask him.”
Thomas nodded, then went back to eating because it was easier than trying to understand just how weird his life had become.
Gordo had been following the conversation too, or at least that was how it seemed to Thomas. But now the big black dog dropped his head on his paws once more, the now-meatless bone lying forgotten on the dirt beside him.
Thomas sopped up his plate with his last piece of flatbread. He was about to put it in his mouth when he noticed Gordo watching his every move. It was so much like the begging gaze of any of the rez dogs that he forgot what Gordo was and tossed it over. Gordo’s mouth opened wider than should have been possible and the flatbread disappeared into its depths like a pebble dropped into a canyon.
Si’tala made a small gutteral sound of approval from her perch.
“I don’t know why you feel the need to go anywhere,” Consuela said.
Thomas tore his gaze from the dog to give her his attention.
Aunt Lucy shook her head, amusement plain in her eyes. “Says the woman who has been on one road or another for as long as I’ve heard stories of her.”
“I just feel there has to be something more out there,” Thomas said, responding to Consuela.
That made Aunt Lucy laugh. “Of course there is more—how could there not be? You need only travel a few canyons from your home to find more.”
“It’s hard to think of travelling anywhere when you have no money and a family to support. Being poor gets old really fast.”
“How are you poor?” Consuela wanted to know. “And in whose eyes? You have your family and friends and your tribe. You have the Painted Lands to host your journey in the world.”
“All of which is well and fine,” Aunt Lucy said before Thomas could respond. “But it doesn’t help when you feel all the possibilities of your life slipping away and there’s nothing you can do to stop it from happening.”
Thomas shot a grateful look at Aunt Lucy. “That’s exactly what it feels like,” he said.
Consuela made a noise in the back of her throat and looked away. Though he didn’t agree with her, Thomas was a little envious of how certain she was of, well, pretty much everything. She didn’t seem to have any doubts, whereas he would second-guess or even third-guess the simplest decision. Which maybe wasn’t such a bad thing, considering how when he’d acted on impulse—like stepping in to give Morago a hand—he’d ended up in this situation.
“You’re seeing something different now,” Consuela said. “How do you like it so far?”
“Other than almost being in a couple of car wrecks and having a gang of mutant salvagers out for my blood?”
“What salvagers?” Aunt Lucy asked.
Thomas jerked a thumb in Consuela’s direction. “Ask her. I’m still not sure I completely understand.”
Aunt Lucy’s features darkened as Consuela explained.
“What were you thinking?” she demanded when the raven woman was done.
“That the boy needs to accept his responsibilities to his people—the sooner the better.”
“And now his soul is forfeit if he should ever stray onto one of those damned ghost roads.”
Consuela glared back at her. “It was nothing I planned.”
“And when he dies?” Aunt Lucy continued, her voice getting louder. “Where will he go? Where will his soul be safe?”
From where Gordo was lying splayed out in the dirt soaking up the sun, the big black dog lifted his head, dark gaze swinging between the two women.
Aunt Lucy shook her head. “You corbae are as bad as Cody ever was.”
Consuela ignored the slight. “Si’tala would never have woken his connection to his people’s traditions if she didn’t see that it would be needed in the future,” she said.
Thomas was having trouble concentrating on what they were saying. He was still trying to get past his soul being forfeit. What the hell did that even mean?
It was really time he disengaged from all of this craziness.
“Time out,” he said.
Both women turned to him.
“I can’t figure out half of what you’re saying,” he told them. “Maybe it’d be better if we just go do what we set out to do. The sooner that gets over with, the sooner I can get back to my actual life.”
“But she—” his aunt began.
Thomas raised a hand, palm out. “Don’t want to hear it.”
“Your ‘actual life’?” Consuela said. “What makes you think this isn’t—”
Thomas waved his hand back and forth. “Don’t want to hear that, either. Let’s just go find Sammy and be done with all of this.”
Gordo stood up as though he understood every word. And he probably did, Thomas thought. Si’tala straightened in her perch. She gave her back feathers a ruffle, her gaze fixed on Thomas.
He stood up from the table and inclined his head to his aunt. “I appreciate the meal, Auntie,” he told her. “And it was weird, but really good to see you. But now we need to go.”
“I understand,” Aunt Lucy said, rising as well. She came around the table and gave him another hug, adding, “Don’t let anyone do your thinking for you.”
“I won’t.”
She smiled. “No. I see that you already trust in yourself. That can be a hard road at times, especially when everyone around you claims to know a better route you should take. But in the course of your life, that trust will serve you well.”
Thomas stepped from her arms and focused on Consuela, who was standing now as well.
“You know I had no intention for things to get so complicated,” she said.
“I don’t know any such thing,” Thomas told her, “but it doesn’t really matter, does it? Can we just get going?”
“Of course.” Consuela looked to his aunt. “Thank you for your hospitality, Lucy.”
Aunt Lucy just nodded stiffly, still visibly upset with the raven woman.
“Come, then,” Consuela said to Thomas. She began to walk back into the desert.
Si’tala left her perch and floated to Consuela’s shoulder. Thomas gave Aunt Lucy a smile and a shrug. Gordo brushed his head against Aunt Lucy, then stopped beside Thomas, tongue lolling. As Thomas began to follow the raven woman, the dog fell in step beside him.
“So, no magic portals?” Thomas said, when he caught up to Consuela. “Gordo here doesn’t turn into a jeep or something?”
“We’ll be there soon enough,” she said.
Her voice sounded tight and she didn’t look at him. She was obviously still ticked off as well.
Like any of this was his fault, Thomas thought. But for once he was going to follow Morago’s advice and keep his mouth shut.