by Corie Weaver
Jack tightened his arm around my shoulders. “When you’re ready, we’ll go on.”
The other visitors wandered through, glancing about the dig. I wondered if they felt the weight of the ruin, as if someone had erased everything but the last few bricks of a city. Only the outlines of the buildings remained. Time and wind and rain had worn the adobe down, so that no wall stood taller than my knees. Grass and weeds grew up through what once had been hard-packed floors. I guessed the gardens that once supported the pueblo lay underneath the modern looking house some distance to the right.
Jack squeezed my hand. “Let’s look around a little.”
Bright-orange strips of fabric marked off the ruins of the buildings. The other visitors stood by each one, looked around, moved on. I do not know what they sought to find in such a place. An empty village, so long gone that even the stones did not remain. My mouth tasted of ashes.
Maggie’s father spoke to a group of people, and while I did not think he posed a danger to us, being near him made Jack uncomfortable. We stayed at the edges of the group. From there we were able to see something we had missed coming in.
A man addressed a cluster of people gathered outside the gate. Even from a distance I could see some strong emotion twisted his face. “Let’s go see what he’s saying.” I wandered closer.
“Every day we wait, and every day we are told to wait more. What we ask for is only right and decent. This is not a place that should be examined by scientists and students, but to be returned to us for care. It is our right.” He continued, but I could not hear more over the other noise. I stepped closer and into the path of the young woman who had spoken to our group on the bus.
“He’s here again.” She didn’t sound surprised. “Don’t let him bother you kids, ok?”
Jack spoke up first. “We’re not worried, but what is he talking about?”
She blew her hair out of her face. “Most of the Pueblo people understand what we’re doing here. We’re not grave robbers. There are all sorts of rules about this, and Dr. Sanger makes sure we follow them. The skeletons will be returned to the Pueblo Council for reburial as soon as they are examined. But some people aren’t happy that we’re involved at all. There’s a group that wants the University to stop investigating right now and just go away. Luckily it’s not very many people.”
I looked again at the speaker. Although his group nodded and muttered in agreement, they were few, only five or six.
“Don’t let them rattle you,” she finished, and was caught up in another conversation with an older man and woman.
Jack caught my hand and whispered. “Bear Girl, look over there.”
I forced my attention to where Jack pointed. Nothing but another ruin, larger perhaps, with more strips sealing it away from unwary feet. A sign stood in front of it, no doubt explaining what the building was, but such a thing did us no good. I looked, but saw nothing unusual. “Jack, what am I looking for?”
He flicked a glance over to me. Frowned. “You don’t see her?”
I looked again. No one stood by the building.
“No, I don’t see anyone.”
“Ah. Well, that explains it then.”
Some times he could be truly maddening. “Explains what?”
He sighed. “I see a girl, running back and forth in long skirts that might be faded blue, or gray. And a white blouse with patterns stitched into it.”
“Embroidery,” I murmured, staring at the empty ground that had caught his attention.
“Her hair is long and dark, almost as dark as yours, and she has it in two braids that hang down her back. Her skin is golden, but paler. Not nearly as pale as Maggie, though.” He looked at me again. “I think maybe she’s a ghost.”
I nodded. “I think you are right, for you have perfectly described the girl in my visions.” I stared at him, stricken. “How can you see her?”
Jack laughed. “Because I’m a dog, remember? Everyone knows dogs can see ghosts just as well as we see normal people.” He glanced at me and shrugged. “Well, everyone here does.”
He frowned, eyes narrowed. “She looks pretty scared. I can’t hear her, but I think she’s calling for something, someone. You can’t see her at all?”
“Of course I can’t see her,” I snapped. “I’m not a sorceress. I have no magic.”
Jack grabbed my arm, shook it lightly. “What does it take to convince you? You have seen these visions for a reason, it’s a gift. If you don’t use the power you have, this will never end. What is it you fear so much, that you don’t fear losing your parents and your friends more?”
His words fell like a blow to my heart.
“I am a healer, the daughter of healers.” I whispered.
“I’m not saying you aren’t. But you’re something else as well. It’s like saying you’re a bear and a girl. One doesn’t cancel out the other.” He stopped for a moment, then continued, his voice lower. “Like me being a boy doesn’t mean I’m not still a dog.”
I stared at him, stared through him, thought of my family, how much change bothered them. And how badly I had underestimated them before. I could not hide behind the possibility of their disapproval. If I were afraid to change, I would have to acknowledge that fear, face it.
“You are right. We must——no, I must find a way to make this right.”
He gripped my hand tighter. “I’m not sure what I can do, but I’m not leaving you.”
The plan of not returning with the bus took time to develop and when we executed it, it happened with almost disappointing smoothness after our worries.
After an hour or two the people we had arrived with filed back into their buses and rode away. The protesters abandoned their post. As the light faded from the day, the rest of the people left in little groups. We kept out of sight. We moved into the treeline and stayed still. We Waited. Watched. Dusk came and the old pueblo was once again abandoned by everyone but us.
Free to move about without risk of discovery, we set up camp in a clearing in the trees.
“Do you want a fire?”
Jack shook his head. “I think it’s warm enough for me without it. It would only give people one more thing to notice. Will you be okay?”
I nodded. “I was thinking the same thing, but wanted to make it easy on you.”
He threw a handful of old pine needles at me, laughing.
While Jack rummaged through the backpack, I sat with my back to a tree, looking out over the pueblo, trapped in the loops of my mind. I tried to figure out how to reach the girl, but nothing came to me.
“Here.” Jack shoved a battered sandwich and an apple at me. “Maggie restocked us last night at the house.”
He turned back to the backpack, continued fishing things out with one hand while he ate.
“Flashlight, maps, bus routes.” He pressed a button on a yellow-and-black cylinder and light came out, not much, but enough to read the maps.
“I’m going to assume that you’ll get this figured out tonight. My part of the job will be figuring out how to get us home once you do.”
Oh. My cheeks burned. I had been so wrapped up in the problem of Isabel I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
I chewed my dinner in small bites, the juices from the apple helping to wash down the dry cheese sandwich.
As I ate the last quarter of sandwich, a soft sound startled me. A black-and-white kitten with golden eyes, a pink nose and a huge plume of a tail stared at me. No, he stared at my sandwich.
I slowly took the cheese out of the bread and broke the slice into tiny pieces.
“Jack.” I whispered. “Look up, but don’t move.”
He flicked his eyes up from the maps, scanned the area, found the cat, froze. “Cat.” His nostrils flared and his eyes widened. “Cat.”
“Jack, stop. This is the same cat that is in my visions. This is Isabel’s cat.”
Chapter Eleven
My words broke the spell the cat’s presence had placed on him. Jack glanced away fr
om where the cat finished with the cheese and had moved on to licking the bread.
“What?”
“This is the cat that I see Isabel holding. This is her cat.”
Jack looked again. “That can’t be the same cat. Cats don’t live that long. Isabel’s cat would be hundreds of years old by now.”
I shook my head. “All right. Maybe it’s the son of that cat, or the grandson, or the great-great-however many time grandson. But I’m telling you, even though it’s smaller, it’s the same—the markings, the colors, even that ridiculous tail.”
The cat glanced up at me, as if perfectly aware I had cast aspersions on his perfection. It carefully stalked around our little camp and swished its tail in front of Jack. Nothing could have been more deliberate. Jack fought to stay still.
“Bear Girl . . .”
“I know, he’s being difficult. Please, ignore him.”
Jack looked at me. “You have no idea what you’re asking, do you?”
But he remained where he was and eventually the black-and-white ball of fur finished his circuit. Two white paws landed on my leg and golden eyes blinked at me.
“Come on, then.” I patted my lap and the cat jumped up, turned about, then settled down, tail wrapped around his body until it covered his nose.
I petted the furry ball. The resulting low rumble was soothing, but I still could not focus.
Jack looked up from his maps. “When Maggie can’t figure something out, she’ll talk to me about it. Even when I’m in my other shape and can’t answer, she says it helps to get pieces straight. You could try it.”
Perhaps hearing the problem aloud, instead of circling around it in my mind would help. “All right. Here are the pieces of my broken pot that I am now trying to reassemble to see the pattern.”
Jack sat up, all attention. I could almost see his ears prick forwards and I smothered a smile.
“I am having visions of a girl who lived at this mission.”
Jack nodded, took a bite of the apple he had saved for dessert.
“This mission was later abandoned. Recently, Maggie’s father’s people disturbed a grave with two skeletons. We do not know for certain that one of the skeletons was that of Isabel, but it seems likely. It also seems likely that the disturbance of the grave happened about the same time that the crying wind started in my land.”
“Not that we can tell for certain,” Jack interjected. “The time difference is a mess.” He cocked his head. “I wonder if we could figure out exactly what the difference is? Has any one tried?”
“Jack, until recently, no one was going back and forth often enough for it to make a difference. So, no, I do not think so.”
“Hmm. I wish I could make a chart or a graph, like in Maggie’s schoolbooks.”
His eyes focused past me and I felt a moment’s frustration. “Jack? Can you make that, whatever it is, later?”
“Oh, sure.” He flicked a flustered smile. “Sorry.”
I returned to my pieces. “So, we think the disturbance of the grave caused the wind. Spider Old Woman thought the cry might be a heart in pain, a call for help.” I stroked the cat’s ears.
“From what I have seen, I think the girl is in danger from the boy, Tomás. He is not gentle with her, he tells her what he wants her to do, he frightens her.” I paused, narrowed my eyes. “My first vision was of her running, afraid. I think she calls for help, for someone to hide her.”
A gasp from beside me. “You think he hurt her? That he killed her?”
“I do not know. It would explain why the skeleton was in that hole. I know he took her there once. Perhaps he hid her body there.”
“But,” Jack frowned. “Who does the other skeleton belong to?”
“I do not know,” I repeated. “I do not know anything for certain. But she ran, calling. Maybe her call was for help and she knew of no one to help but her people’s legends. If she had much magic, perhaps her call echoed in the kiva and then was set free,” I waved my hand at the excavation site, “by all of this.”
I shook my head and the fall of hair woke the cat, who proceeded to swat at it with a soft paw. “There is something wrong here, too many pieces I do not understand. But perhaps I do not need to. If I can speak with her, she can tell me and we can solve whatever it is that has disturbed her so.”
I could see my doubts mirrored on Jack’s face for an instant, then he put them away.
“Then you had better get started, hadn’t you?”
I wished I knew how. I sat with my eyes half-closed and tried to think about nothing in particular, to keep my mind clear. But like standing in a stream, stray thoughts, like swift, silver fish darted about. My parents, Ash, his village, Maggie’s unhappiness at being left out of this, Jack and his problem. Then the swarm of my thoughts slowed, my breathing eased. My hand stilled on the warm back of the cat and my eyes unfocused.
This time I was aware of myself as a ghost in a small room, lit through two windows shaped out of the adobe, their squares framed with wooden shutters.
In one corner of the room a curved fireplace bulged out, but no flames licked forth on this summer day. Nearby sat a massive gray chest of iron strips woven with hardened leather, the ends bearing massive twisted-metal loops as handles.
The man in the long brown robe sat at a rough hewn wooden table, hunched over papers. A large leather box sat at the upper-left corner of the table, decorated with a border of flowers and vines.
Isabel ran into the room, skirts flapping and braids flying behind her, then skidded to stop.
“Fray Alonzo, I am sorry; I did not realize you were working.”
The man opened the box, took a handful of sand and gently scattered it upon the paper in front of him.
“No matter, child. I am finished now.” He gently picked up the paper and let the sand run back into the box. “Now, what is so important?”
“I,” she stopped. “I think we should leave this place. We should go away, go back to Santa Fe.”
The man sat upright. “Why would we do that? How could we? This is our place, our home. And you, child, this is your place as well. Your father entrusted your care to me. You are too young to have been left alone at his ranch, with no one to guide you. What else could he do, since your mother left us in your infancy?”
The girl was awkward, hesitant. “Father, I think the people of the village are angry with us.”
“Nonsense. Your mother was of this village and she was a true lamb of the Church. And her people also love the Church, just as she did. All is well. When the bells ring, they come to Mass with shining faces. I will not abandon them and do not understand how you can ask me to. What has prompted this?”
The girl looked down, stared at the hard-packed floor, ran her hands over her arms. I tried to move close to her, but felt as if I walked against the stream of a river, each step a struggle.
“Tomás. He spoke to me, he said, he said. . . .”
The man placed one hand on her shoulder, and with the other, raised her face to his. “Child, if he has frightened you, if he has hurt you, you must tell me.”
Isabel shook her head, but remained mute.
“I will speak to him, tell him he is to leave you alone from this time forth. This has gone too far.”
And with that the tall man strode from the room.
Isabel stood before me, her hands in front of her face, soft sobs escaping from her.
I tried to reach her again, fought my way to her side. “Isabel! Isabel, can you hear me?”
But she did not react, not even when I reached out and gripped her upper arm. I could feel her arm beneath my hand, slim and warm, but even when I shook her, she did not notice me. She turned and left me alone in the room, standing in the sunlight.
I woke to the darkness of the trees that surrounded us. The last of the day’s light had long ago left us while I traveled through the past.
“Jack, I cannot do it, I tried, but I cannot reach her, I cannot find a way to talk to h
er.” My throat felt dry and tight, frustration threatened to turn into tears.
“Try again,” Jack said. “Keep trying, you’ll find a way, I’m sure of it.”
I looked past the dark outlines of the trees against the sky, tried to make out patterns in the stars beyond. After a while I could feel the knots around my spine loosen.
Jack must have noticed as well. “Ready to try again?”
“No, but I have no choice, do I?”
He shook his head and grimaced.
I sat, but this time focused on what I wished to do, what needed to happen. Reality must be created out of layers; I must make a new reality. The vision, the past, the worlds here and now, the live girl, the ghost—I must mix each together with care.
Back to the beginning, back to the vision in my parents’ home. She ran through fire, calling for someone, searching. I brought that image to my mind, held it, then drew an image of myself into that memory, just as I held the images of my shape when I changed forms. I shifted my memory, drew it around me, until I followed her, watched her run through the narrow hallway, push doors open, come back to the long hallway, run more. I moved myself through the memory/vision, stood in front of her.
“Isabel!”
She did not hear me.
I reached through the flame to where she stood, trapped, her eyes casting around for a way to escape.
“Isabel, take my hand!”
She jerked back from me and I wished I had thought to take a shape familiar to her, perhaps the man I had seen her talking with. Too late now.
“Isabel, please!”
She looked at me again, face pale as the moon, dark eyes wide and then, beyond all my hopes, she reached for my hand.
I grabbed her slim fingers and with all my strength, and wrenched her out. Away from the fire, away from the hall, from the memory, into a new place, all of my shaping.
I imagined a cloudy sky with a waxing moon which cast gentle light upon us. Thin grasses brushed my knees and distant trees ringed the clearing, an echo of the one in which Jack, the kitten and I sat.
She looked around, startled.
