Living the Dream (15 page)

“Change of plan,” Vickie told her brother. “We’re going to Butterfly Woman. Earl, it’s dying. DRIVE!”

Bad stuff happens; we all know that. Puppies die. Even angels can’t save them all. Yet as Earl stepped on the gas, I had a sudden cosmic flash. I knew this puppy was supposed to survive. Cody and I must have shared the same flash. She’d gone running to its rescue before she even knew what she’d find in the sack.

I watched the puppy’s bony little ribs rise and fall as it gasped for oxygen, then I put my hands softly over its chest, beaming the gentle vibes that Mr Allbright had said are suitable for baby animals. Next minute Cody silently placed her hands over mine.

I looked down in surprise at her stubby human fingers with their bitten nails and my shimmery angel fingers eerily occupying the same space. A sudden shocking flood of heat flowed through our joined hands.

Cody hadn’t heard about the rules for healing baby animals. She just pulled on some invisible energy supply and
whoosh
! I saw vibrant rainbow colours come streaming back into the puppy’s aura. It opened its eyes and feebly wagged its ridiculously teeny-tiny tail. We all looked at Cody, amazed.

Earl gave a low whistle. “Well, well, Ms Fortuna. Exactly how long were you planning to keep those superpowers under wraps?”

“I don’t have superpowers,” Cody said, going red. She didn’t want to think she’d done anything unusual.

“Your new best friend disagrees!” Vickie was watching the puppy gratefully lick Cody’s hand, making soft puppy whimpers.

My mind flashed back to Julia at Thanksgiving:
Could you put your hands on my head? It sometimes feels better when you put your hands on my head
.

I’d known Cody was special, I’d have known even without Sam’s hints. But I had never dreamed she was a healer, a fabulously gifted healer at that. With eighty per cent of her life force still locked inside her energy system, she had managed to bring a dying puppy back to life. Imagine if she freed up that eighty per cent, I thought.

All that healing energy flying around had brought Helix online.
That answers one question in your notebook, hon
, she pointed out.
Why Cody Fortuna is on the PODS’ hit list. With a gift like that, she’s a major threat.

“Just what I was thinking,” I told her.

And they won’t stop, Helix warned.
Cody’s waking up, Melanie. She’s starting to tap into her gifts. They’re going to make a move, sweetie, I can feel it. They’re going to try to stop her once and for all.

Cody was gazing down at the puppy with such a soft, open expression, I suddenly felt deeply afraid. Helix was right. Cody was in more danger now than she’d ever been in her life.

“Still want me to drive to Butterfly Woman?” asked Earl.

Vickie nodded. “Scooter’s just had puppies. She might let this little guy nurse. Stop off at Basha’s first so I can buy tobacco.”

“You
smoke
?” said Cody disapprovingly.

Vickie laughed. “Butterfly Woman uses it in her ceremonies. In our culture it’s considered rude for a guest to arrive empty-handed!”

“So is she like, a medicine woman or whatever?” Cody asked in a whisper as they walked up the track to Butterfly Woman’s hogan.

“She’s a traditional healer, star gazer, chanter, dream walker. There aren’t many of her kind left. When she—” Earl stopped what he was going to say, obviously troubled.

When we walked in, Butterfly Woman was sitting up in a straight-backed wooden chair. A Navajo blanket in a woven pattern of red and blue diamonds was draped over her shoulders. A much younger woman crouched at a small wood stove, boiling water for tea.

You know those maps of major rivers? Butterfly Woman’s lined, wrinkled face was like that. She had the brightest eyes I’d ever seen. Her
hogan
had just the basics: two chairs, a wood stove, a shelf with pans, cups, plates. This simple, almost empty house had that vibe of deep stillness you feel just before morning comes.

The moment I walked in, I knew Butterfly Woman didn’t have long to live, a year at most. I could tell she knew this and was totally accepting, enjoying the time she had left, interested in whatever the Universe brought to her door, even a tiny puppy no one wanted.

She inspected the pup all over and gave a creaky old lady’s laugh. “A coyote got in with their pooch,” she announced in Navajo. “That’s why they didn’t want him.” Vickie translated for Cody.

“I don’t care if those puppies were half mongoose,” Cody said fiercely. “They shouldn’t have dumped them in a sack.”

“He was dying,” Vickie told Butterfly Woman in Navajo. “Cody brought him back.”

Butterfly Woman turned her disturbingly bright eyes on Cody. “You brought this little puppy back to life?” Vickie quickly translated. “What did you do?” Butterfly Woman asked with interest.

“I - I went really hot and something made me put my hands on him.”

“Done anything like that before?” Butterfly Woman probed.

“A little,” Cody admitted. “My mom has these bad spells. If I put my hands on her head it sometimes helps.”

“Your mama gets sick a lot, don’t she?” Butterfly Woman had a slightly pouncing look. Michael gets that same super-focused look when he’s looking into your soul. Cody nodded, swallowing.

“Do you have bad dreams, see things that shouldn’t be there?”

Cody’s mouth started to tremble. “My mom says it’s because I’m under a curse.”

Butterfly Woman’s eyes flashed with anger. “Who’s supposed to have cursed you, child?”

“My dad,” Cody whispered.

“That sweet boy, never!” Butterfly Woman gripped the wooden arm of her chair, her gnarled hands suddenly trembling with emotion. “I brought your father up,” she said through Vickie. “His mama died and his papa just took off. His sisters had their own families, so Martin came to live with me.” She let her eyes linger on

Cody. “Tonya, show her the picture,” she said abruptly.

The young woman fetched a small framed photograph, handing it to Cody. Cody stared at it as if she wanted to pull her young handsome father out of the picture and into the room. In his arms a small girl gazed solemnly back at the camera.

I felt my eyes sting with tears. Cody had been right about the boots. The leather had patterns like waves. All these years she’d remembered his boots; she’d remembered dancing with her dad.

“You have lived many rounds as a Navajo,” Butterfly Woman told Cody calmly. “But this lifetime is different. This time the Holy People need you to understand life through Anglo and Navajo eyes.” She frowned. “People think I heal people. I don’t heal anyone. The power of their own minds heals them. I just use herbs and sacred things to bring their mind back into balance and harmony.”

”
Hozho
,” said Cody impulsively.

Butterfly Woman looked pleased. “
Hozho
. Yes. But you have a new kind of power. I don’t understand it, but I see it in your face.” Cody started to speak, but Butterfly Woman held up her hand.

“I see evil all around you,” she told her sternly. “The Evil Ones tried to destroy your gift. They put wrong thoughts into your poor mother’s head. They turned people’s minds against you. They gave you the dream that makes you scream in the night. If I could, I would take it away, but you must root it out yourself.”

Butterfly Woman gently stroked the puppy as she continued to talk. “You thought so many bad things happened because you yourself were bad and worthless. That wasn’t true. It’s because you are so precious that the Evil Ones want to harm you.”

She fumbled in a pouch at her waist, handing Cody a lump of raw turquoise threaded on a piece of leather. “Sometimes a bad dream gets so close it can seem real. This stone will help you see the truth.”

Cody went to give back the photo, but Tonya said quickly, “Butterfly Woman says she was only keeping it for you.”

We followed Tonya out to a large shed where Scooter sprawled happily on her side feeding her pups. When Cody showed her the new puppy, Scooter sniffed it over, gave it a quick lick, then gently shifted position to make room.

Cody looked as if she might cry. “She doesn’t mind! She doesn’t mind that the puppy is half coyote.”

“Scooter’s a Navajo dog,” Earl joked. “She takes care of puppies the Navajo way!”

Watching the puppy cuddle up to Scooter, I understood something for the first time. I understood that huge longing inside Cody. After she split from

Cody’s dad, Julia needed her daughter to forget everything to do with her Navajo relatives except the bad parts. To please her fragile mum, that’s what Cody did; she forgot.

Lily Topaha survived her life in foster homes because she remembered her mum’s hands doing the things Navajo mums do. She heard her mum’s voice, every single day, saying she loved her. Cody just had a fuzzy memory of a pair of boots. Without her Navajo roots, Cody was like the lost piece that makes a jigsaw puzzle totally meaningless. Now she’d been found. Now the puzzle made sense again. Now Cody’s energy, the tribe’s energy, could start to flow.

I was outside the trailer composing my nightly text to Reubs when Lola rang. “No news,” she said quickly. “Just wanted to know how you are.”

I felt something inside me just crumple. “I don’t understand how they can just lose an angel,” I wept.

“Nor does anybody,” she said unhappily. “We can’t get a reading on him, we can’t get a reading on the leopards. It doesn’t make sense, but they’re all just - gone.”

“The Agency knows when some little bird drops off its perch! How can they not know where he is?”

“We will find him, Boo. You know that, right?” said Lola fiercely. “We’re not going to give up.”

“I know!” My voice came out in a wail. “It’s just so hard when I’m all by myself.”

“I should think it’s total agony!” Lola’s sympathy totally finished me off. I had to excuse myself for a second to generally get a grip.

“I could never be a permanent GA,” I said in a more normal voice when I’d got it back together. “You have to figure everything out on your own. I just keep telling myself, at least you can phone for back-up, Melanie. Cody doesn’t have that option.”

“How’s she doing?” asked Lola.

“OK, actually. She’s loads healthier thanks to Aunt Bonita’s herb teas and stuff, plus she’s out riding in the canyon every day.” I told Lola about Cody healing the puppy and the visit to Butterfly Woman. “That has to be why the PODS needed to separate her from her relations.”

“Divide and Rule, Dark Studies 101,” Lola sighed.

We said our goodbyes, then Lola remembered, “I forgot to ask, have you seen anything of Ambriel?”

“Not exactly
seen
. I sometimes feel him around, watching and wondering.”

“Wondering…?”

“What will happen, I guess. He set something in motion, but what happens now is really up to Cody.”

“And her guardian angel,” Lola reminded me.

“Omigosh, Lola! Cody saw me in a dream. She described my boots!” Remembering this gave me goosebumps all over again.

Lola was so impressed! “For someone who doesn’t rate working alone, you are a genius guardian angel!” she said warmly. “You and Cody must have formed an incredible connection!”

“I don’t know, Lollie. You know that angel cake thing Mr Allbright says? There’s a layer I’m not seeing and it scares me.”

As it turned out I wasn’t nearly scared enough. Two days later Aunt Bonita’s trailer was struck by lightning.

Chapter Eighteen

R
oxie had to go to the hospital for her check-up so Tazbah stayed the night. As usual the little girl woke up singing with the sun. Cody amused her for a while, then took her outside to make friends with Pepper.

I sat on the steps of the trailer, watching Tazbah run about investigating everything with huge excitement. She found a toad sitting by a water butt and settled down on her haunches for a chat. “Hello, Grandpa Toad,” she said solemnly. “How you?” The aunts had taught her to greet certain animals, even some trees, like well-respected relatives!

At breakfast Aunt Bonita said her knee was hurting. “A storm’s coming,” she sighed. “I loved them when I was a girl, but not now. The land’s got so dry, the lightest rainfall can turn into a flash flood.”

By the time they were clearing away the breakfast dishes, you could see the storm brewing. Huge pillowy clouds rapidly piled up over the canyon and we heard distant growls of thunder. Aunt Bonita said Tazbah should stay indoors so Cody took her off to play a v. limited form of hide-and-seek in her bedroom.

I was going to tag along, but Aunt Jeannie and Aunt Evalina arrived to discuss arrangements for Cody’s
Kinaalda
, so I thought I’d stay and listen in. They stopped chatting while Cody wandered back into the sitting room with Roxie’s little girl balanced across her hip. At that moment, wearing Butterfly Woman’s lump of turquoise around her neck, she looked totally like a Navajo girl. She took a breath, as if she was going to say something, and the entire trailer flashed blue-white as lightning tore through her bedroom.

Tazbah screamed with terror. Aunt Evalina ran in with the extinguisher, quickly putting out the fire. There was a blackened hole in the ceiling directly over Cody’s bed. The bed where she’d been playing with Tazbah was a charred wreck. If the lightning bolt had struck a few seconds earlier, Cody and Tazbah would both have been killed.