Trinity Sight

by Jennifer Givhan

  “You know who that is,” Chance said. “Look closer.”

  The figure hunched on the ground, back curved into a hump, feet curled beneath a blanket, a rebozo draped over head and shoulders. A woman. She held a pot in her hands, no, a bowl. A red clay bowl. Calliope was shaking violently now. She whispered, “But how? Am I dreaming? Hallucinating?” Chance held Calliope’s arm, led her toward the woman on the floor. Louder, Calliope said, “What is this, Chance? What are you doing?” She pushed against his hand, stuck her feet in place. The flashlight wobbled.

  When the woman looked up, Calliope was staring into her bisabuela’s face. Wrinkled in old age, gray hair wisped from beneath the dark rebozo covering her head, her honey-brown eyes the same as they’d always been, flickering firelight-gold as she spun stories for Calliope. The earliest stories Calliope could remember, her first memories, had come from Bisabuela.

  Mija, mi vida. Her voice, sandpaper and moth wings, fluttered inside Calliope, prickling her senses like chile verde on the comal, roasting on the fire. No tengas miedo. Y no te preocupes. Está bien. Soy yo.

  Calliope sealed her eyes tightly. Breathed in deeply, out again. Opened her eyes. Her bisabuela was still on the ground, the taupe lines of her face roping together into a soft smile, her eyes glimmering. The rebozo wrapped around her, colorful flowers woven into its hem. Calliope recognized it from childhood. Bisabuela had draped it around Calliope on cold nights, told her stories more than bedtime tales but truths, she had said. Just because something isn’t written down doesn’t mean it’s not true. Calliope had shivered beneath the rebozo, and Bisabuela had lit a fire in the round adobe fireplace, made her Mexican hot chocolate, crushed the spicy granules with a mortar and pestle, stirred the grainy powder into a pot of milk and sugar. Calliope had loved her more than anyone.

  “We’re dead then? I’m dead?” She turned to Chance, the bile burning her throat, tears stinging her eyes.

  Her bisabuela’s voice—No, mija, no estás muerta. Estás perdida.

  “Lost? Lost souls? We’re in purgatory? Bisabuela, I’m so scared.”

  Ven aquí, mija.

  Chance unclasped Calliope’s arm, and she stepped cautiously toward the woman, still not believing what she was seeing. She wiped her tears on her arm then kneeled in front of her great-grandmother. “Tell me what to do, Bisabuela. I have to find my boy. Andres y Mamá también. Are they here too? Are they dead too?”

  You’re not dead, Calliope, I’ve told you. Estás perdida, pero hay otro camino. Una luz.

  “A light? Like that flash? What was that, Bisabuela? Did it take them?”

  Ay, mi vida. Por eso estás aquí. Entiendes?

  “No, I don’t understand one damn thing since I crashed. I’m in a coma, right? I’m in a hospital hooked up to monitors, and this is all a delusion? A figment of my broken brain?”

  Her bisabuela laughed, wry and deep. She lifted her hands, rawhide and dappled with age spots, the way they’d looked when Calliope had kissed them last, folded them back into the coffin, buried her to the earth.

  Bisabuela held out the clay bowl to Calliope’s face, motioned her to take it. Bébelo, mija.

  Calliope looked into the bowl, reddish water. Clay water. “You’re dead, Bisabuela. How can I be here with you if I’m not dead too?”

  Your journey is unfinished, mija. And Spirit is never gone.

  Calliope winced. Spirit is never gone. The words recalled Kennewick Man, a nine-thousand-year-old nearly complete skeleton found along the Columbia River. And the source of Calliope’s falling out with her great-grandmother. For twenty years, tribes of the Northwest claimed he was the Ancient One, their ancestor. Scientists like Calliope had stolen him. Bisabuela was so angry, they had stolen him—for research. He was too important to science to be buried in the ground, his body could yield too many answers. But his journey was interrupted, tribal leaders had argued. He belonged to his people, and his people needed to send him back to the earth, allow his journey to continue, allow his Spirit to continue.

  Calliope had sided with the scientists, had presented a paper theorizing possible waves of migration to the Americas because of Kennewick Man, whose head shape and bone carbon signaled an oceanic diet of marine mammals like seals found along the kelp highway—not the Columbia Plateau, where his bones were discovered. A forensic archaeologist at the Smithsonian who had “won” the right to study Kennewick Man argued that he was likely of the Ainu people—from coastal Asia, a maritime hunter-gatherer more like the Ancient Polynesians. If that were true, then modern American Indians had no claim to him. The newspapers declared Kennewick Man was finally “freed to release his secrets”—but Native peoples felt differently. Some “secrets” are meant only for the ground. You let those white coats disrespect us, Bisabuela had said. Human remains are sacred, mija. They are not science experiments. Calliope had devalued her people’s emergence story. Had sided with the white coats. With white people. With those who claimed the Americas were “the last continent to be conquered.” And Calliope had broken her bisabuela’s heart. Had she been forgiven at last?

  “What will happen if I drink this, Bisabuela?”

  Encontrarás tu camino. You’ll find a path.

  “To Phoenix? Andres? Y Mamá? I need to find them, Bisabuela. I need to find my family. My living family, pues.”

  Bisabuela gestured for her to take the bowl, for her to drink the reddish water. The copper penny smell, this was where it had come from. Calliope closed her eyes and drank. The liquid was cold, tasted like river. Bisabuela cupped Calliope’s face in her hands. Eres muy fuerte, mija, mi corazón. You’re much stronger than you believe. And you’re not alone.

  “You mean him? Chance? How does he know you?”

  Es una guía—he’ll guide you. Confía en él.

  Calliope glanced back to see if he’d heard, if he’d understood Calliope’s vision or delusion or whatever it was. His hands were folded in front of him, as if in prayer. His face, solemn. He nodded at Calliope, and she nodded back. Then she turned to Bisabuela.

  But she was gone.

  The bowl remained in Calliope’s hands, and she handed it to Chance. “Will you hold this? Prove to me it’s a concrete thing, not my imagination.”

  Chance took the bowl, knocked it lightly with his knuckles, pressed his fingers into the opening, wiped the bottom. Lifted his fingers back up to show Calliope they were covered in clay-colored silt. “As real as you and me.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” She took the bowl, trying to catch her breath, trying not to hyperventilate. How could any of this be happening? “She said I’d find a path. I’ve been taking too long, following wrong turns. I need to get to my tía’s right away.”

  “Did she say to find your tía?”

  Calliope stared into this face, hesitant. What was he getting at? “It’s what she meant.”

  He raised his eyebrows then sighed deeply. “Fine. Where is your tía?”

  “Silver City.”

  He cleared his throat, seemed to debate the location in his mind. After a moment, he said, “Bueno. That’s where we’ll go.”

  She looked at him closely. Why would he detour with her rather than returning to his own family in Zuni as quickly as possible?

  He must’ve seen the skeptical look on her face because he said, “I’m your guide, right? Your bisabuela said so. And we know better than to disobey Bisabuela.” He cracked a grin, and Calliope noticed he had a dimple in his left cheek. A little button on his face.

  She lifted her hand to his chest, looked him in the eyes. “Thank you.”

  His smile unraveled a bit, got crooked, and his jaw tensed. Just a moment. Then he was smiling wide again. “De nada.”

  * * * *

  “Oh my God, I thought you guys had died in there.” Amy rushed over and hugged Calliope. “That weird light’s gone. Did you turn it off?
”

  Chance was glancing toward the hills. He said, “In a way. It was, um, a kind of transmitter. An old message. Nothing new.” He put his hands on his hips, staring intently at something in the distance Calliope couldn’t see, but his posture had gone rigid.

  “Something wrong?” Calliope asked.

  Chance squatted to the ground, balanced on his haunches, pressed his palm to the dirt. “Something’s coming.” He stood, his face alert, his eyes darting, searching. “Get into the hangar.” He moved toward the truck. “Amy, you too. I’ll get the girl.” When Calliope didn’t move, he said, insistent and loud, “Hurry.”

  His voice was so urgent, so full of alarm, she didn’t argue. She clutched Bisabuela’s bowl and scurried into the hangar, Amy close behind her. In the aluminum threshold, she turned toward the truck to make sure Eunjoo was following. The wind had intensified, the orange windsock fluttering maniacally, until it broke off completely and blew away. The swirling in the clouds made wings of the sky, an angry bird searching for prey. Calliope replayed the Sleeping Sisters’ reemergence—howling awake.

  Chance unhooked Eunjoo from her booster seat, and the girl ran toward Calliope, who bent down and opened her arms. “Hurry, chica.” The dust eddied around her, a miniature whirlwind. The girl tripped, fell flat on her stomach. “Eunjoo!” Calliope lurched forward to grab her, but Chance reached her first, carried her inside.

  “Shut the door, hurry.” He was panting, set the girl down, helped the women lug the screeching metal door shut, closing the accordion from both sides, joining the handles in the center of the door. They were enveloped in darkness. The ground vibrated. Calliope gripped the wall. Another Sleeping Sister awakening?

  Amy screamed, “Earthquake.” She dropped flat to the ground, kneeling as if in prayer, except Calliope heard what she was muttering under her breath, not prayer but obscenities.

  Calliope reached for Eunjoo, huddled on the floor covering her head as when Calliope had found her cowering before the coyotes. Although her own stomach lurched, she held the girl and hummed in her ear a Spanish song Bisabuela had sung to her.

  Chance was looking around the hangar wildly, tossing things toward the door. The earth kept trembling; the air seemed to have frozen, a jolt of high-pitched sound vibrating through nothingness, as if the air had been sucked away and all that was left was noise—

  A strange pause, a void in the atmosphere. Calliope cleaved in two, her skin too tight for her body, nitrate-cold splintering her skin. She tried to keep humming to Eunjoo, tears running down both of their faces, but she couldn’t. Nothing would come from her mouth, as if she too were a void. She was dying. She was suffocating. She could not breathe.

  The flashlight dropped to the ground, pieces of ash forming at the base like dust motes. They clouded Calliope’s eyes, they sparkled. She shut her eyes.

  Just when she believed she could stand the splitting no longer and her ribs would cave in the absence of air, the shaking stopped, and she gasped. She gasped as deeply as she could, coughing, letting go of Eunjoo’s hand and rubbing at her throat as if to restart blood flow. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  Once she had enough air to set her vision straight, she grabbed Eunjoo’s shoulders, shook her. Was the girl breathing? “Chica? Chica, answer me.” Her body hung limply, her lips were bluish, her face pale in the low light. Her eyes fluttered. “Chica, goddammit, wake up.” Amy had crawled over, hovered beside Calliope, watching. Calliope tilted the girl’s head back, her head a rag doll’s, her neck stiff.

  Amy was whispering again, but this time it sounded more like a prayer: “Don’t-die don’t-die don’t-die don’t-die …”

  Calliope pressed her fingers to Eunjoo’s neck—did she feel a pulse? She couldn’t tell.

  She laid the girl flat on the ground, found the space between her breast bones, clasped her hands together, pressed, afraid she would break the girl’s ribs, pressed but not too deep, pressed and counted, pressed and counted, pressed—

  At fifteen she stopped, closed the girl’s nostrils, breathed two puffs into her mouth.

  Wake this child up. She moved to press again and Eunjoo opened her eyes and sputtered, gurgling. Calliope lifted the girl, turning her face to the side as she vomited watery bile.

  Calliope rubbed Eunjoo’s back as she vomited. When she finished, she wiped her mouth with her hand. “I feel flat.”

  Calliope smiled. “Me too, baby. Me too.” She hugged the girl, wanting to say, Thank you for not dying, but she refrained.

  “What was that?” Amy asked. “I’ve never felt an earthquake like that—it literally squeezed my brain together, like, my head was smooshed, my chest, my ass cheeks, everything.”

  Chance was still grabbing miscellanea from the hangar shelves, throwing objects at the door, barricade-style. If he’d been squashed too, he didn’t let on.

  “Hello, earth to cowboy,” Amy said. “What are you even doing?” To Calliope, she hissed, “He’s nuts.”

  Without pausing from his work, he said, “That wasn’t the worst of it, believe me. It’s not over. Help me bar the doors. We need to find something to seal it.” Under his breath: “I shouldn’t have busted the lock.”

  “Seal it? Like a coffin? Nuh-uh. I want off this crazy train.” Amy stood.

  Calliope agreed—she didn’t want to be trapped in a freezing hangar where she’d seen her great-grandmother’s ghost then been nearly asphyxiated by some mysterious force. The only thing she knew that could so radically change the air pressure for that extended time was a fuel-air explosive, a vacuum bomb. She turned to Chance. “Are we being attacked?”

  “Not yet.” He was climbing a shelf, throwing down gear. “Help me.”

  “Not until you explain what’s going on.”

  “There’s no time. Please. Just trust me. Get the girl away from the door. Hide her.” His voice was desperate. “Please.”

  Hide Eunjoo? Hide her where? Calliope shone the flashlight across the vast expanse of the hangar until the beam reached the row of airplanes against the wall. “Let’s go, baby.” She scrambled up, clutching Eunjoo in one hand, the bowl Bisabuela had given her in the other, then pulled Eunjoo across the room toward the planes. Amy followed, muttering, “This is insane. Maybe I should just fly us away.” She sighed, then said, “Well, go on, get the girl in the cabin,” though she sounded unconvinced.

  Calliope opened the small, hatched door of the plane at the end of the row, toward the wall where she’d just conversed with her dead great-­grandmother. The hatch popped open. She motioned for Eunjoo to climb in behind the seats. The girl crouched in the back. Calliope asked if she could breathe back there, still not sure why she was asking her to hide or from what. Eunjoo squeaked her answer, a chirp Calliope was fairly certain was yes. This poor child. Was Phoenix safe, wherever he was? She stood back from the plane. It was a puddle jumper, yellow and white. The name on the back, in black sprawling cursive: Vixen.

  A rumbling at the roof—strong wind? Thunder? Calliope expected Amy to get in and hide, but instead she was circling to the front of the plane, touching the propeller, the needle nose, the top, over to the left side, touching the wings.

  “Amy, what on earth are you doing?”

  “Preflight inspection.” She said this like it was the commonest, most obvious thing. Duh.

  “I see that. I mean, why?”

  “To make sure this sky pig can get us out of here. Fuel, oil, tires, control surfaces, hull integrity, and electrics.” She continued pulling and prodding at different parts of the plane. “Is there a cup in there? I need to check the fuel.”

  “Check it for what?”

  “Water.”

  Calliope looked around, not seeing a cup. Eunjoo reached from her crawlspace in the back, handed Calliope a clear, hard plastic cup. Calliope passed it to Amy.

  “Thanks. I’m assuming no radio or GPS. Not sure how we
’ll navigate.”

  “So, you … have your pilot’s license?”

  “You need to see my license and registration, officer?”

  Calliope looked hard into Amy’s face, gauging whether or not she was serious. Had she learned all that from a video game? YouTube?

  A pounding on the doors, a scratching metal sound. Was that Chance? He might be more forthcoming away from Amy and Eunjoo, as when they’d been alone in the hangar before, with Bisabuela. Calliope left Amy to her game of checking the plane.

  Chance lugged a metal propeller, then jammed it into the door handles, although a wrench lay on the floor. Apparently, it wasn’t large enough for him.

  “Look, I appreciate all you’ve done. Killing that psycho. Talking to my bisabuela with me. Agreeing to help me find my family.” He didn’t look toward her or acknowledge that she’d said anything, but kept ramming the propeller into the handles, grunting with the effort. His forehead and neck were sweaty, his face scrunched with exertion. She leaned in and touched his arm, lowered her voice, conspiratorial. “Pero dime. Qué pasa?”

  He shoved the propeller again, and it lodged horizontally between the handles.

  “That might hold it,” he panted, wiping his sleeve across his forehead. He looked at Calliope as if just noticing her presence, the lines in his face furrowed. “Vamos. Ándale.” He pulled her arm, leading her back toward the plane.

  She dragged her weight, shoving his arm away. “No. Come on, Chance. What’s this for?”

  “You won’t believe me.”

  “Like I wouldn’t have believed you could conjure my dead bisabuela?”

  His eyes darted toward hers, his eyebrows raised. “I didn’t conjure anything.” He looked hurt. “Is that what you think? That I’m some kind of pinche magician? A charlatan?”

  She didn’t know what she thought.

  “Please, just trust me. That thermobaric explosion? It wasn’t a bomb. The things attacking? Not people. We need to hide.”