| |
Without pausing to explain to Mae and his family, Jamie walked away from them, calling Naomi on his cell phone. Her recorded greeting answered. “Hi. You’ve reached Naomi. Sorry I missed you. Leave a message. Be happy, be blessed.”
Stumbling over his words, Jamie told her to call him and then tried her store’s number. If they were open until nine, she could still be there at ten doing paperwork. He had to explain this in conversation. A message would sound too strange, too crazy.
Her voicemail picked up. “Hi. You’ve reached Naomi Petersen at Magic Mountain Books.” Idiot. It’s midnight on the East Coast. He almost hung up. “I’ll be out of the office for a couple of weeks. If you need immediate assistance please contact my assistant manager Willow at extension 6754 or use the customer service link on our web site. Thank you for calling and have a day full of love and light.”
“Bloody hell.” She’d left for Santa Fe early—and planned to stay late. His lie had been close to true. He called her cell, willing her to pick up this time. She didn’t. He had to leave the message no matter how it came across. “Jamie again. Guess you’re on your way to Santa Fe. Wish you’d waited. Don’t see Lily, whatever you do. She could hurt you. Call me or Mae. We can explain.”
He rejoined the group at the bent tree, but didn’t sit. Stan and Mae were in the middle of an argument. Stan had his fatherly, lecturing manner. “You’re too new at this. Only medicine people who’ve been practicing their whole lives can interfere with witches and sorcerers in the way you’re talking about, and even for them it’s not easy, or safe.”
Mae protested, “But Dahlia is even less experienced than I am.”
“It doesn’t matter. A witch who can kill has a power stronger than anything you have. She’d attack you before you could take it away from her. Look what she did when Jamie tried to fight her off.”
Mae straddled the tree trunk, facing him. “We can’t be stuck. There has to be something we could do.”
“I think ...” Stan paused, frowned, and continued carefully. “Your only hope is that she would choose to give it up.”
––––––––
They brainstormed ways to get through to Dahlia to make her quit, but came up with nothing promising. All her potential soft spots had been explored already. She didn’t seem to have any. Stan, Addie, and Mae declared themselves ready to sleep, too tired to think. Jamie said he couldn’t sleep yet, but went inside with the rest. In the kitchen, Addie brewed some herbal tea she claimed would help everyone relax, and the two couples departed to their rooms with steaming mugs.
After the chaos, fear, and worry of the evening, Jamie found something comforting about his old bedroom. A hopeful young teenaged Jamie, the person he’d been before his first big breakdown, had decorated the walls with Santa Fe Opera posters and some small works of Aboriginal dot art, had painted each dresser drawer and knob a different color, and picked out a furred red bedspread that reminded him of his roo. Gasser slept on it now.
Jamie sat beside his cat and stroked him. “Feeling like your old self, mate?” Gasser made a low rrrr sound, opened one eye and then the other, and stretched and farted. “Seem all right.”
Did the cat remember dying, or had he suppressed or forgotten it? Though Jamie wished he could remember his own near-death, he thought it was better for his cat to forget. With his hand at the root of Gasser’s tail, he dug in a little with his thumb, provoking a questioning mer from the cat. They were so connected it was easy to tune into Gasser’s energy. Like a melody he knew so well it played itself when his fingers touched the flute, all Jamie had to do was open up and feel its flow.
Mae put their tea mugs on the bedside table and stood watching him. “You checking his three chakras?”
“Yeah. He’s a little sore.” He moved his hand up to the heart-throat point. Gasser was aching there as well, his energy shredded and weak. “Like how you feel after something sad or scary.”
If Gasser remembered dying, the memory was that feeling, not a thought. His head chakra was peaceful, a nice bright purple. Jamie sent its flow down to the others until he felt Gasser vibrate at a slower frequency and sensed the trauma letting go. Satisfied, he closed his inner vision and healing force.
“All better?” Mae asked.
“Yeah. Think so.”
She sipped the tea and made a face. “What in the world kind of herb is this?”
Jamie tasted his. It was grassy and peculiar. He set it back down. “Ugh. Dunno. Mum means well. You don’t have to drink it.”
“I’ll probably sleep without it.” She sat next to him, put her mug aside, and swung her legs up on the bed. “I always get tired this time of night.”
It wasn’t even midnight. Jamie felt like a bat that had chosen a songbird for a mate. “My head sort of churns at night. What in bloody hell could Jill have done to teach Dahlia what she did?”
Mae slid down, head on the pillow. “Dahlia is really into this power animal idea. Jill teaches that stuff.”
“But it’s a load of crap when she does. Dunno how Dahlia could ...” Jamie forced down another sip of the supposedly soothing tea and shivered. “Freezes my bones to think about it.”
He cuddled Gasser and lay back with Mae. Side by side, leg over leg, they stayed quiet for a while. Gasser tried to wedge himself between them but there was no room. He gave up and spread over Jamie’s belly with his tail on Mae.
Mae broke the silence. “The electricity started messing up right around the time Dahlia talked about power animals, didn’t it?”
“Nah—right after. When I pissed her off about something. And it wasn’t just her burning stuff out, my music got louder—like my spirits were fighting with hers, or my energy and hers.”
“It makes more sense that it was your energies. Positive and negative. Yours does things like fixing my ceiling fan and hers does stuff like setting your kitchen on fire.” Mae turned on her side and ran her hand over Jamie’s hair. “Your head looks like a hoo-rah’s nest. You want me to undo your braids? It’ll help you sleep if I brush your hair.”
He pushed himself up to look in the mirror over the dresser. His hair frizzed from the braids like frayed rope. “Jeezus. Yeah, thanks.” He pulled a rubber band off a braid and hairs came with it. “Ouch. I think it’s spirits. Like, with the fan, and the ice, they wanted me to chill, y’know?”
“It didn’t look like it worked too well.”
“Ice did, sort of. For a minute.” He pulled another tiny rubber band off and cringed at the hair-pulling. “And if I’m lonely they turn on music, or if I’m scared they turn on lights.”
Mae sat up, took the rest of the rubber bands off, and began to unravel one of his braids. Somehow she could do this without causing him pain. “You got guardian angels, sugar?”
“Something like that.”
“But that would mean Dahlia has spirits, too.”
“Yeah. Demons.” He made a face in the mirror, frowning over wide-open eyes and forcing a square grimace. Japanese woodcut demon. It was a good face, but it strained his eye muscles and made his chin look triple. He rubbed his eyes and lifted his chin, stretching out the feeling of that little roll of flesh. “Anyway, she could attract some bad stuff.”
“So could that face.” Mae finished undoing the braid and began on another. “I don’t see how Dahlia’s got demons. Demons would help her, not wreck things. If you got spirits that send you reminders and do things to help you feel better, what do hers do?”
“Dunno. Maybe they’re holding up a mirror. Warning her to stop. ‘You’ll burn in hell if you keep this up.’ ” He made a modified demon face, adding a tongue flicker. “Spirits. Jesus. They’re running everything and we don’t get it—don’t pick up our cues or something.”
“Maybe.”
She sounded like she doubted his ideas. As she should—he was fishing. The ancient Mayan glyph for having a spiritual experience was a hand grasping a fish. Perfect image. Slippery and submerged.
Jamie’s phone rang. Expecting Naomi, he answered without checking the caller ID. Kate’s fierce, frustrated voice shot into his ear.
“We just got in at Tim’s place. Dahlia was coming out of her building with a suitcase. Tim tried to talk to her but she was in too big a hurry. Did you and Mae—”
“No. We didn’t.” They’d told Kate a little of their plan. She hadn’t shown much faith in it, but after paying for Andrea to join the drum group and then finding out that she wouldn’t even be able to meet Dahlia, she’d been at a loss for any other ideas. In retrospect, setting up a threesome and turning it into an empathic conversation about Dahlia missing her father and then healing her had been absurd. Jamie could see why Kate had been skeptical, but he didn’t want to hear her say I told you so. “Sorry. Better let you talk to Mae. Dahlia’s worse than we thought.”
He handed off the phone and took over unbraiding. It hurt again, but it was better than having Kate yell at him. Mae described the events up through Gasser’s near death, and explained that the model had gotten the perfume ad campaign she wanted and was headed to New York or LA, Mae didn’t know which. “As far as I know, she won’t be back until the fair.”
Kate’s response was so loud Jamie could almost make out what she said. He heard fear under the anger. Mae said, “I hope not, but her mama’s coming here to try to see her, and Dahlia hates her mama.”
Mae handed the phone back to Jamie, told him to put it in speaker mode, and began brushing his hair. He whispered his thanks, and then said to Kate, “We’re trying to make sure Naomi stays safe. Can we ban Dahlia from the fair? Not let her in?”
“What—have every ticket seller refuse to sell to every tall skinny white girl? Have her picture up like a wanted poster?”
“Of course not,” Mae said. “We’ve got plenty of time to warn Naomi to avoid her. Dahlia needs to be there. It’s the one chance to turn around. I’ll ask her to go with me to see her Daddy, and—”
Kate cut in. “This is just your last plan that didn’t work, recycled with you as the healer instead of Jamie. And that makes it even worse. I thought you liked her too much to be safe.”
“I didn’t say I’d heal her. I’m gonna try to talk to her about ... I don’t know exactly.” Mae ran the brush through Jamie’s hair a few times. “Something that’ll make her quit on her own.”
“I have no idea what that would be.”
“Was there anything in your reading? After what Jamie’s been through with Dahlia, I think you should share that with him.”
After a pause, Kate said, “The cards—the Hierophant, someone with secret knowledge, and the Tower—something getting torn down ... They could mean you’re going to succeed. But that car crash, and the owl—I hope that doesn’t mean she tries to kill her mother first.”
*****
In a flowing purple dress that flattered her rosy coloring and periwinkle eyes but not her figure, Naomi strode across the hotel room to embrace Jamie. “This is so exciting.”
He returned the hug with weary arms that felt as if something was hanging from them. Mae had gone back to T or C. She had a personal training client who wanted to schedule a session and there was no more work for her to do in Santa Fe until the fair opened. Jamie had assured her that he’d be fine, but in the days since she’d left her absence was like a hole in his bed. Lonely for the first time since signing the contract with Dr. G, he’d ended up repainting his kitchen and eating chocolate at four in the morning.
Naomi half-released him, beaming up into his face. “I get to see you and Harold in the same show. And Lily—oh my god—I might see Lily.”
“Yeah—we need to talk about Lily. Don’t see her until you hear what she’s done.”
“Oh, she’s always been a handful.” Naomi tapped Jamie under the chin, and then grabbed his middle. “And you’re an armful. Settled down with a good cook, have you?”
“Fuck, no—Mae can’t cook and we’re not settled. I got fat without her.” As Naomi released her playful hold on him, he realized he sounded grouchy. “Sorry. We need to talk.”
“About Lily? Relax. Everything’s fine. She called me. She actually called me.”
Naomi hurried across the room to take a phone from her big flowered bag and played a voice mail message. Lily’s cool, expressionless voice said, “Mother, I thought you’d like to know—I’m going to be the face of Jeteuse. I’ll bring you a drop. See you at Spirit World Fair.”
“Jeteuse.” His French was rusty, but the word rang a bell. “What’s that?”
Naomi dropped the phone back in the bag. “A new top-of-the line perfume. She’ll be the face of the brand. That’s quite a coup at her age.” She settled into an armchair. “Of course, she got an early start. Did you know I was her first modeling agent?”
“No. You never said.”
“I caught her selling drugs when she was sixteen. We’d tried to teach her to value simplicity but she always wanted more, so I showed her she didn’t have to hurt people to get rich.”
“Fuck—you rewarded her?”
“I educated her.” Naomi fluffed her hair back over her shoulders. “Punishment doesn’t work.” She glanced down, and her voice faded. “I learned that the hard way.”
“But—drugs? My parents would have grounded me for a year if I did something like that.”
She shook her head and pressed her hands to heart. “You may not understand this, but ... I had to love her without anger, no matter what she did.”
Jamie took the chair from the desk and turned it around to sit facing her with his arms folded over the back. He remembered Naomi as full of excessively positive beliefs, some of them implausible. It had made her cheerful company on his Asheville stop, but it bothered him now. It was going to be hard to get through to her.
She had an altar set up on the bedside table, with little statues of various goddesses, smudge sticks of sage and cedar, and some prayer beads. Her drum sat near the window, and the full opus of Jill Betts books lay on the small dining table. He didn’t know where to start. When he had to say difficult things, he either exploded, or yabbered and then exploded. No, he was learning not to do that.
“I’m feeling a little anxious telling you this.” Good. Found the feeling and said it. “Y’know she’s been studying with Jill.”
“Of course. I’m sure that’s why Lily finally called. A woman to woman healing. It’s in the Sacred Cycles book, about the maiden, mother, and crone stages. As we move through them we often have chances to heal at the cusp of these phases. Lily may be ready to move into the mother phase as I move into the crone—”
“Bloody hell, she’s not in some mother phase.” Fucking Jill drivel. “She’s a witch.”
“Wiccan? How wonderful.”
“Not some berry-stringing harp-playing pagan—I mean an actual witch.” The French word’s translation came to him. “A spell-caster. Jeteuse.”
“Oh my goodness, how magical—is that what that means? What a beautiful synchronicity.”
“Jesus. It’s not beautiful. Listen to me. Lily’s not Glinda the fucking good witch. She steals healers’ power, like a spiritual vampire—”
“That is not just ugly, it’s preposterous. She was a difficult child, but she isn’t bad. Just wounded.”
“And you thought Jill Betts could heal her?”
Naomi nodded. “I think she has. You heard that message.”
“That’s not why she called. Lily wants to hurt you. She’s got powers that could kill you.”
To his dismay, Naomi laughed. “Oh, Jamie, you’re such a worrier. Don’t be silly. Jill’s work is all about empowering. You get power, yes, but there’s no evil in it. My women’s circle has had such bonding through using her books.”
“Through playing drums together. Jill had nothing to do with it.”
“Her books changed our lives.”
Jamie paced to the window and stood rippling his fingers on the stack of Jill’s books. If Naomi could go through what Lily had done with her intentional pregnancy and abortion and still not believe her daughter capable of harming her, what could change her mind? His brain felt like wet wool. He flipped the page edges of The Woman in the Light, A Shaman’s Path to Healing, making a fluttering sound. Jill—healing. What a lie.
“That’s the only one Lily liked,” Naomi said. “She thought the ones my circle uses for our ceremonies were stupid.”
“You mean she read it before she came out here?”
“Yes. I shared them all with her. She gave me such a hard time about my spiritual path. I wanted her to understand. After she read that book, she said Jill might be cool, for having gone off in the jungles. That was about it, but if you know Lily that rates as wild enthusiasm.”
Jamie could picture Lily’s zombie manner of saying it, the hint of approval without warmth. He scanned the table of contents. Introduction. Jaguar Spirit. Anaconda Spirit. No owl spirit, but she might have gotten the idea here. Purging the Soul. Shared Visions. A Shadow on the Path. That sounded dark. He turned to it, a short chapter of three pages. In his peripheral vision he noticed Naomi watching while he read, smiling. She must think he’d been captivated and converted.
A shaman does not need to be a good person, only a powerful person. Some whom we might call sorcerers get into spirit world battles with each other or inflict harm with their magic (1). Even the men and women we would call ‘good’ shamans seldom live exemplary lifestyles by Western religious standards, nor do they need to. It makes them understanding of their patients to be sinners themselves (2).
This latter mild level of wickedness was all I expected at first, when I spent a week in the company of a man I hope never to meet the likes of again, a witch doctor of the Wayani tribe. He was a short, wrinkled man with thin bowed legs and a pot belly, one of the ugliest men I’d ever met, and the most powerful in his own way. I think my guide introduced me to him to see if he could spook the white woman out of the jungle.
Jill wrote that she’d found the witch doctor frightening until she realized that his powers came from suggestion and reputation, not magic. He left bits of bone carved like tiny arrowheads in the hammocks of his enemies, and they got sick. Some went mad. If he made little ropes of their hair, they died. Jill said it was the fear of his curses that killed people rather than the sorcery itself and that this was her lesson. Our negative expectations kill us, not our enemies.
Lily had proved otherwise. She did her cursing in secret with spirit arrows—and to poor Gasser who didn’t know she was twisting his hair into a death rope. No fear or belief was needed.
Jamie checked the two citations. The second was John Lame Deer’s autobiography. The first was Stanley Ellerbee, Magic-induced death in Polynesian shamanism: a case study.
“Isn’t her work marvelous?” Naomi came up beside him. “Look—you’re drawn right in.”
“Read the fifth chapter.”
“I already have. That’s where she proves that fear will destroy you. It’s a powerful lesson.”
“No—you don’t get it.” He slammed the book shut. “It’s not a lesson, it’s not symbolic—it’s what Lily does. She’s like that witch doctor—”
“Jamie, Jamie.” Naomi patted his arm. “You have more fears—”
“This isn’t me being neurotic. Jesus. This is real.”
Naomi slowly shook her head and walked to her altar. “My daughter is being healed. Our relationship is being healed.” Her words sounded like a prayer or an affirmation. “What you believe is what you bring into the world. Don’t bring in fear or negativity or doubt.” She touched each goddess, and then faced Jamie. “Support me in this.”
“She almost killed my cat. She did the hair rope, and—”
“Goodness—a cat can’t even imagine a curse to be scared and die of it. Be realistic. I saw his picture on your web site. He’s terribly overweight. If he almost died—”
“Jesus.” Jamie banged the book on the table. “He didn’t have a fucking heart attack. Your fucking zombie vampire witch of a daughter tried to kill him. She takes healers’ power and hoards it so she can send it out to kill.”
Silently, Naomi went to the door and stood holding it open. Her gesture enraged him. Worse, she spoke in a sweet, syrupy voice, sing-song and scripted-sounding. “I forgive your anger and your fear. But please, take it out of here.”
“I’m trying to save your bloody fucking life.”
She signaled again for him to exit. Jamie stormed out. His fury sank into ashes by the time he reached the lobby. Not only had he lost control, but he’d lost Naomi. Jill wins again.