“I’m sorry about earlier.” It’s a paltry apology.
“Whatever.”
I count backward from ten, trying not to lose it. Shira doesn’t have to help me, but she is, so her snark’s excused.
“Thank you. I really appreciate you doing this.”
“You’re welcome.” Her tone is flat.
“I’ll see you around eight, then.”
“Eight sharp.” She hangs up and I want to hurl my phone into the wall. Girls. It’s like they expect me to decipher some hidden meaning between their words. Can’t they just say what they mean?
“Kyle, dinnertime,” my dad shouts up the stairs. 19:03. I won’t make it to Shira’s by eight unless I leave right now. Two options. Duck out my window and escape without confronting my parents, without having to tell my mom I really don’t want to eat or talk about my sexual preferences. Or face my parents and their ire when I turn down family dinner to go see a medicine man with the friend they don’t approve of.
If only there were two of me. One Kyle goes out the window; the other goes down for dinner. My dad’s feet trudge up the stairs. I take the coward’s way out, pushing my terrarium to the side and heading out the window.
This time, I’m more careful and test the branch before swinging off the sill. Ominous creaking, but the branch holds and I monkey my way down the tree. Obscura hasn’t risen yet, leaving the skies untainted by her blue light.
My dad’s shouting for my mom. “Kyle’s gone.” Hysterics will likely ensue. Maybe leaving a note would’ve been a good idea. Too late now.
Guilt warms my neck and creeps onto my cheeks. They deserve a better son. Once these ghosts plaguing me are dealt with, maybe then I can start making things right with everyone.
The jog to Shira’s is unpleasant. This route I’ve walked for most of life, usually comforting, offering me the solace needed to clear my head, now seems sinister and menacing. Every shadow seems out to get me: crouching juniper with distorted talons reaching for me, withered cacti with mouths full of jagged fangs. Jesus, I am
losing
it.
The warm glow of light spilling out of trailer windows calms my frayed nerves.
Shira’s waiting on the steps. “Mom’s home.”
Clattering pans and her mom’s gin-soaked voice crooning along to the static-filled country radio.
“Let’s go then.” I offer her my hand, but she ignores it. Dusting off her jeans, she heads into the thicket of darkness gathered at the periphery of the trailer’s lights.
“Come on, Kyle. We can’t be late.” She flicks on a flashlight and blinds me with the beam. Warily, I traipse after her, mindful of where my feet land in case I tread on something venomous.
We walk for what feels like miles. My phone in my back pocket keeps vibrating. Twenty-six missed calls from my mom. I should’ve texted after the first call; now it’s too late, and no matter what I say, it won’t be OK.
“Your folks know what we’re doing?” Shira asks, breaking the tension.
“Nope.”
“You snuck out?”
“Yeah.”
“Was that wise?”
“Probably not.”
She turns on me, forcing me to squint in the glare of flashlight. “Either answer your phone already or switch the damn thing off.”
Twenty-eight missed calls. I turn off my phone and try not to think about what’ll happen when I eventually go home.
Shira leads the way through scrubland. Gradually the barren landscape is illuminated silver and blue as the moon and Obscura rise together in the east.
“It’s beautiful.” Shira stops for a moment and stares out across the landscape.
“It’s eerie.” Obscura seems so much larger and brighter. Her aquamarine glow is painful to look at. A distant coyote wails a greeting to the moon causing shivers across my skin.
“Not far now,” Shira continues.
Within minutes, we come to the circular dwelling I was anticipating: the hogan, the traditional Navajo house, made of packed earth or mud. This one’s bright orange adobe and surrounded by neat rows of green vegetation. Only yucca is recognizable.
The hogan is illuminated by several solar-powered garden lamps. Wind chimes, as only Shira can make them, tinkle their soft music where they dangle from the droopy branches of mesquite.
A man emerges, his face obscured by shadow, accompanied by a jubilant mongrel. The dog makes a beeline for Shira, its tail wagging in glee. Should’ve asked Shira for a crash course in Navajo etiquette. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do as the man approaches me. He’s younger than most medicine men, maybe thirty at the most. I look to Shira for help, but she’s too busy giving belly rubs to notice.
Niyol chuckles, wipes his hand on his jeans and offers it to me. I shake it with a firm grip. Even though he’s barely my height, Niyol is still intimidating. There’s just something about him. Shira would call it his aura. Whatever it is, this guy gives off a
don’t fuck with me
vibe in spades.
Then he smiles and it feels like coming home. My scars don’t seem to be having much effect on him.
“Hi, Kyle. I hear you’re having problems with
ch’iindi.
” He flicks his thick braid of hair over his shoulder.
I tug my hair over the left side of my face as if it’ll make any difference to my horrific appearance.
“I’m having problems,” I echo. “Not sure with what, exactly.”
“You look a bit concerned about all this.” He waves his hand in the air above his head.
“A bit.” Eloquence deserts me.
“Don’t worry.” He winks as he invites me into his hogan. Shira stays outside with the dog, leaving me without moral support.
Inside, it smells of herbs and dog. Strung across the ceiling are clumps of desiccated foliage. Niyol breaks off a handful of what might be greenthread.
“For tea,” he says. Yup, greenthread.
I sit only when he does, crossing my legs, occupying a rug woven in geometric shapes of red, black, and brown. It looks a lot like the ones they sell at Garry’s. Glancing around the hogan, I try to match what I’m seeing with my preconceptions of what a medicine man’s home might look like.
“Not quite what you expected, right?” he says, handing me a cup of aromatic tea. He’s barefoot and his jeans are torn at the knees.
“I didn’t know what to expect.” An old guy losing the battle to wrinkles, gray-haired and gap-toothed. Feathers and smoke. Not some hunky guy in a faded Beatles T-shirt.
He smiles again, a flash of white teeth in the dim interior and the knots in my shoulders start to unwind. The tea’s helping too.
“So, what’s up?” he asks, settling on another rug, frayed at the edges.
“Shira thinks I have ghost sickness.”
“And what do you think?”
This feels like another shrink session.
“I think I’m going crazy. This professor told me that Obscura’s causing a rift in the multiverse and I’m somehow shifting between alternate realities and then Shira says I’m being haunted by some unfortunate spirit that’s making me sick. I have no idea what’s happening to me.”
Niyol sips his tea, his eyes never leaving my face.
“What do you feel?” he asks.
Guilty as sin, freaked out, terrified…
“Tired.”
The medicine man nods. “I don’t know why Obscura is in our sky, but I believe she’s brought about many changes. The worlds move differently now that she’s here.” Despite his modern attire, he sounds ancient.
Timeless.
“Perhaps her presence has opened up the passages between the worlds too.”
“I just want it to stop.” Even if it means having to choose Shira or Danny, one life or another. Living in two worlds at once isn’t working out so great, because I’m not really living in two worlds. I’m lost somewhere in between them.
“When did this all start?” Niyol asks.
“The night of the fire.”
He nods. Everyone knows about the fire in Ghost Town, even medicine men sitting in hogans out in the middle of nowhere.
“Any idea how you can end it?”
“Apparently at midnight tomorrow, Obscura will be closest to Earth, and that’s when I’ll have the best chance of putting things right.”
“You believe you have the power to make things right?” He bends a knee, hugging it to his chest.
“Sounds arrogant, doesn’t it?”
“Very,” he says without blinking. “Perhaps the
ch’iindi,
these meddling spirits, are trying to show you something. Perhaps you’re too blind to see it.” He pauses, takes another sip of tea. “Perhaps the problem is that you do not wish to see what they’re trying to show you.” Again, he sounds older and wiser, more like a shaman.
“I think I need to know…” It feels like I’ve got rocks instead of internal organs. It makes me feel so heavy, like the ground will crack beneath me and swallow me up any second, “…what really happened that night.”
“You can’t see with your eyes, Kyle. You need to see from here.” Niyol jabs me in the chest, above my heart.
“And how do I
see
with my heart?”
Niyol laughs, and the sound makes me smile. The guy might be older, but he’s beautiful as only the Navajo can be, with their smooth faces and wide features.
“Don’t think so literally.
Seeing
means to be open. You must be open to the spirits; you must welcome them and let them show you what they think you’re missing.”
“Are you going to give me some peyote for that?”
“That could be interesting, but sadly no. No mind-altering chemicals are going to make a difference if you don’t want to see for yourself.” He spreads his hands open as if in apology.
“So what do you recommend?” I drain the last of the tea from my cup.
Niyol takes a moment to think. “If you were Navajo, we would’ve done this differently. Prepared a full ceremony with hand tremblers and singers, the works.”
“That takes nine days. I only have until tomorrow.”
Niyol grins, perhaps a little impressed that I’m not a complete idiot when it comes to their practices.
“Perhaps the professor has a point,” he says.
I stretch out my legs, relieving them of pins and needles.
“When Obscura is at her closest, the passage between realms will be wider and the spirits more inclined to dance with us. You know which spirits are haunting you.”
“How would I know?”
“Didn’t a boy die in that fire?” He waves away the question. “You will know who of your dead friends or family were closest to you, which spirits might have the most secrets to tell you. It’s unconventional, but perhaps it’s best to acknowledge them.”
“How?”
Communing with ghosts. This reality is spinning way out into the realm of bizarre.
“Wear something of theirs, something personal, unique. Then, perhaps you should return to where it all started.”
Niyol’s only confirming what I already suspected, solidifying my intent to return.
“I can do that.” Going back to Ghost Town… Not something I ever wanted to do. That sinking feeling people always describe? It’s not slow and effortless like sinking into some bottomless ocean pit would be. No, it’s crushing and suffocating.
“These are strange times, Kyle.”
“
Strange
is a euphemism.”
“Would you sit with me while I sing?”
“You’re going to sing the spirits to me?” I ask with a lopsided grin.
“A chant, really. It might help you connect, help you see.” Niyol smiles again. “Whatever’s going on, supernatural or not, you clearly need to unwind.” He places both hands on my shoulders and squeezes the muscles. I yelp and twitch away from the pressure. “See?”
“A song will get rid of knots?”
“No, but some arnica oil and a massage might.”
He might be flirting with me, but it’s too strange. I’m so out of my comfort zone I can’t really tell if Niyol is just being himself or if his fingers lingered just a moment longer than necessary on my shoulder.
He sits up straight and closes his eyes. It feels only right that mine close too. The chant begins. Niyol’s voice is reedy, the syllables make no sense to my ears, but the rhythm I can feel deep down in the marrow of my bones. In this moment, it’s not hard to believe in the ancient powers of the land and the Diné who hold her dear.
Where are my ancestors, then? Not rooted in the tumbleweed sprawl of northwest New Mexico, that’s for sure, but dead and burned to a crisp in a funeral boat supposed to transport them to Valhalla. Burned. There’s no escaping the fire in my DNA.
As the song reverberates around the hogan and inside my skull, I start slipping sideways, slow at first and then in a rush.
I shift.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Shira’s dead
Obscura’s fucking with me.
Instead of the hospital bed, needles, and sad-eyed nurses, I’m passed out diagonally across my bed with a puddle of drool under my chin and dried blood around my nostrils. The pill bottle beside my alarm clock is still full. According to my watch, it’s Saturday again. 17:47.
So this is me not overdosing.
I peel myself off the bed, knock back two pain pills, and ditch my clothes in a filthy pile that reeks of Tex-Mex. Showering helps. I turn the water up, hot as I can stand it and then some. Purification by hot water isn’t nearly as dramatic as fire, but I’m burning all the same.
Shutting off the warm water, I force myself to stand beneath a torrent of icy cold, and emerge minutes later shivering and feeling more human.
My dad’s planted at my door, legs spread, arms folded, and face puckered in a scowl.
“What?” Feels too much like being a child, wearing only a towel and bruises.
“The sheriff’s sitting at my kitchen table.” Dad’s voice is quiet and deadly.
I swallow hard, not meeting Dad’s gaze.
“Want to tell me why?”
“There was a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?” Dad lurches into the room, fists at the ready. I involuntarily back away when I should stand my ground. I’m five years old all over again.
“I reversed into a car, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Dad’s usually red face is turning purple. He takes another step toward me and this time I stand my ground, rooted to the floor by sheer willpower.