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The first time I summoned Atofo three years ago had been an accident. Drunk and dying, I’d already been to the park a dozen times before. I’d started a tab at the gift shop where I used to buy their bottled water in cases. My desperate search for some way to put off my mortality had led nowhere.
I’d been combing the countryside for months before then. The roadside psychics, the park bench tarot readers, the carnival gypsy tents, they had all given signs which pointed to this one place.
Cops on a case too long sometimes let their need for closure cloud the facts. When I found myself at the park, come hell or high water I’d found my suspect. All the evidence matched. Case closed. I drank the water until I got sick. I drank whiskey the rest of the time to numb the fact I’d soon be dead.
But just like a cop’s intuition, the dogged, relentless pursuit of a single thread can sometimes prove right.
Caleb had shown me to the burial exhibit the first day. The video player was broken, but he recited the history book story. I listened for any clues. A bunch of dead native converts? What magic could they possibly have? My own prayers to God had already gone unanswered.
Weeks later, I broke into the park after hours and stumbled into the exhibit, drunk. I had no idea that I’d satisfied one of the conditions of magic by placing my mind in an altered state. When I tripped and busted open my forehead, blood dripping on the sanctified earth, I didn’t know I’d satisfied yet another component: Sacrifice.
Neither involves the extremes people often assume. A few drops of blood, a slightly altered consciousness, was all it took. With enough training, that altered state could be reached through meditation. The sacrifice could be purely symbolic.
Being nearly dead had helped as well. I’d almost made myself the sacrifice. The cancer had spread throughout my lungs by then and on to other organs. The original six months to live had dwindled to days. Hours.
Blurred vision, blood pooling in the back of my throat, that day had been much like today and every time I’d come here since. I opened my bleary eyes to see Atofo, propped on the railing, his arms folded against his chest, the matching tattoo pattern almost like scales, and his guitar-pick-looking fingernails scratching at his chin.
“Did it work?” he asked.
I took a deep breath and sat up. My lungs filled without the tell-tale rattle or the coppery tinge of blood in the back of my throat. I nodded.
“Good. Tell me about your dead bird talker. What did she say?”
“Her name’s Tish,” I said, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. “And she has the gift.”
Atofo shrugged. “Nobody on these shores has a gift. They have a layaway plan they refuse to make payments on. But what did she say?”
“Why so curious if you think she’s not using magic?” I snatched the beer bottle from between his fingers and took a swig.
“You can’t do that,” he protested. He watched me closely as if waiting to see if I’d drop dead. Disappointed when I didn’t, he grabbed the bottle back. “Magic isn’t what it was. The dabblers don’t even know what they’ve lost.”
“Not a big market for reading guts anymore. She’s got to pay the bills. Bills are more real than spells to her.”
Atofo rolled his eyes. “We had fun watching you people go apeshit over yellow metal.” Another swig, this one loose and sloppy. He scowled. “We felt sorry for you. Your shamans wasting their lives trying to make rocks into gold. What’s the point of that?”
“The point was to get rich.”
“Rich? Those runty Spanish? I’ve had heartier dogs.”
Atofo was quite the physical specimen. Well over six feet when standing, his muscles corded and his bronze skin a palette for incredibly elaborate patterns of black and colorful inks, he must’ve looked like a demigod to Ponce and crew.
He had an intense hatred of the Spaniards, even to this day. The only reason I’d been able to contact him involved his burial in what had appeared to be a Catholic cemetery. Once buried here, his spirit had become trapped. Lost. He swore he’d never converted to worship the ‘loser pinned to branches.’
“I’m not ready to listen to you grind on the conquistadors or whatever,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. Not all the pain had subsided.
“Fine, then tell me what the intestines said,” he said, diving into the bag. He disappointedly inspected a particularly naked bit before popping it into his mouth.
“She wouldn’t say. It sounded bad.”
He licked his fingers again, making sure to get beneath his pointy nail. “Then tell me what you saw.”
He knew about the visitor on my stoop. Of course he knew.
“A raven. Saw it on my doorstep this morning. Flew off to the north.”
I didn’t mention that it flew off with my corn. The offering was part of my prescription from my mentor. The purpose was to strengthen and maintain the ritual we’d performed here, in the Below, on the outside. Placed in the doorway of the house where I lived, unnamed forces in the Above would shine their good fortune on me. My lease in This World would be extended.
“Is that all?” he asked. I nodded at his scrutiny. “Hrmph. Means something is coming.”
“Like what?”
He pursed his lips. “Could be anything.”
“Thank you, mighty Shaman, for the detailed insight.” I stood.
“Where are you going?” Atofo asked, not bothering to move, only settling more comfortably into his crouch. “I’m not finished with my beer.”
“I need to jet. Headed to South Carolina to pick up a sword.”
“Ahhh, Carolina Province,” he said, all too happy to recognize the name. He took a swig and pointed smugly with the bottle. “To the north.”
I wanted to argue but I had to admit, I’d seen the bird’s flight before I got Kitterling’s errand. Possibly, the two were related.
As a shaman, I’d neglected the divination side of my trade. Finding lost or stolen objects had become a sort of specialty. Full divination was supposed to include prophecy and foretelling the weather — two things a person could do with a smartphone. Of course, those weren’t in my bag of tricks either. Kitterling was too cheap to provide a business phone. And as a cop, you wouldn’t believe the number of cases we closed based on evidence and leads found on social media or from cellphone GPS. I didn’t need that noise.
At one point, Atofo had developed an unhealthy interest in technology. Seeing so many kids wander past the exhibit, faces in their screens, he’d started asking for a “World Mirror.” Took me a minute to figure out what the hell he was going on about. When I did, I brought him a burner.
“This is bad, chemo-sabe. Very bad.”
“What, that automation will soon replace even us shaman?”
He looked me over and scratched his head. “Replace me? I’m dead. Besides, these World Mirrors, they’ve already replaced us.” He pressed his face to the screen and did a passable impression of, well, everybody staring into and jabbing at their phone. “Rituals, Haas. They’re in here.”
“Man, you’re trippin’,” I’d said and snatched the phone.
“Why? You got something?” he’d asked, hopeful.
Since then, I’d started to think maybe he was right. With these checkups slash training sessions, I began to see ritual in everything. Even unacknowledged, those repetitive, absorbing actions plowed into smartphones had potential magical energy.
Atofo had already targeted a modern selfishness which for him phone obsession only seemed to confirm. Too often, his lessons would slide into tirades against Christianity which would’ve made my grandma want to smite him with the Holy Book. According to him, codified monotheistic religion had convinced the world the only meaningful spirits were trapped inside us.
Despite his prejudice, he had a point. Could be smartphones and social media were the next evolution of magic. I’d never heard of them curing cancer though, only causing it.
Raised by god-fearing parents, I couldn’t help but share his darker thoughts about religion. I’d said my share of prayers when I lay dying, hoping to see my son grow up and become a man. Hoping to not leave him in this world without a father. God never answered. Only when I found Atofo did my death sentence get commuted.
“What are you thinking?” Atofo lounged against the rail, one arm draped over, the other picking the last bits of fried goodness from the takeout bag.
“About Izaak.”
“Dangerous,” he said, sagely. “Separate fires for the sick. You keep a different house because you must.”
“So I keep telling myself.”
According to Atofo, I would invite the Below into any other house where I lived. The idea helped me put up with Kitterling. But even though he owned the carriage house, the servant’s quarters had a different feel than the rest of the home. Borders had been drawn there for centuries. Legally, his name was on the deed, but spiritually, I owned that tiny room.
“Yes, you do,” he said. “But you should go now. Someone awaits you.”
“This mystery to the North or whatever,” I said.
Atofo shook his head. “No.” He raised the bottle clasped between two fingers and extended his taloned pointer. “There. At the door.”
I turned to see Caleb peering through the nudged open door. Eyes saucers, his face appeared too long, too stretched, all the ruddy color drained.
Peeking over that threshold from This World into the Below, I can’t say what he saw or felt. Spiritually unprepared, Atofo could appear to be a demon, or ghost, or perhaps Caleb had been confronted by his mortality like I had. Whatever it was, he was...
“Never seen one so white before,” Atofo offered.
“Ace?” Fear and confusion laced Caleb’s words. He started to step inside.
Whatever he saw would claim his soul. Much like the first time Atofo had been released, when an unprepared mortal crossed Below, worse things were always drawn from the shadows. Hungry things. I heard the distinct sound of lapping water. My chest tightened.
Diving into my pocket, I pulled out my medicine bag. I’d sewn several separate pouches inside, and I reached into one where I kept a stash of red earth and salt. This hadn’t been part of Atofo’s training. I’d learned this trick out in the barrier islands on one of Kitterling’s errands. Scattered across a threshold, it was the best thing I had for keeping evil spirits at bay.
“Hey, man!” I said, calm, collected. The root tucked near my gums had begun to break apart. “Let’s go meet the smith, huh? No need to come in here.”
“Yeah, but...” His eyes focused over my shoulder where Atofo squatted, finishing his beer. The lounging crouch took on the hunched and predatory look of a beast claiming territory. “What’s going—”
“Caleb,” I said, this time not leaning on the root’s power so much as a beat cop’s command presence. “Step outside. There’s nothing here.”
He nodded, slow and vacant as the magic in the root and the timbre of my voice took hold. “Ya. Okay. I’ve seen this old display before.”
I didn’t breath again until Caleb’s shadow slid away from the vein of sunlight he’d let inside.
“Too bad,” Atofo grunted. “I’d hoped to pin his arms on the trees.”
I spun with the fistful of dirt. Atofo was gone, just a greasy bag and a toppled IPA left behind.