Gray Magic

by Sarah Dreher

  "A stove?"

  "Sure." With her fingernail, she traced a rectangle along the top rim. "Cut a door here, punch some holes in the bottom." She turned it upside down on the ground. "Now you got a little stove. Make a fire inside, maybe cook beans, make coffee on that."

  Stoner picked it up and looked it over, fascinated. "That's really clever."

  "Nothing wrong with that can, no point to throw it away."

  Stoner sighed. "It doesn't seem right. We throw away so much..."

  “Well," Siyamtiwa said, "we each got our ways." She touched Stoner's hand. "Now don't save all your old cans and bottles to dump on this old grandmother's doorstep. I don't need a hundred little stoves."

  Stoner laughed. "I wouldn't do that."

  "Jesus Way people do stuff like that. You're not Jesus Way?"

  "I was raised Congregationalist, but I kind of fell away from it."

  “Why do you fall away?"

  "I don't know. I guess their God had too many strings attached."

  Siyamtiwa nodded. "This Grandmother Hermione, do you follow her way?"

  "She's not my grandmother," Stoner explained. "She's my aunt.”

  Siyamtiwa grunted. "Grandmother is a way of saying things, a word of respect. Don't you use the word like that?"

  "I don't think so."

  Siyamtiwa grunted again, eloquently.

  "I could call you Grandmother Siyamtiwa if you like."

  The old woman shook her head. "Better not, it might take all day. How come," she asked, abruptly changing the subject, "this Begay makes you creep?"

  "There was something..." Stoner frowned. "I'm not sure, but when he looked at me, I felt he was reading my mind. Or trying to put something in it. I guess that sounds crazy..."

  "Not crazy."

  "And when I was in his house, I couldn't breathe. I felt as if I were evaporating. And I got so tired..."

  "You stay away from this Begay," Siyamtiwa said sharply.

  “Why?"

  "I think he is dangerous for you. I don't like what I see here."

  Stoner shook her head. "I don't understand."

  "The things you notice, maybe they mean something." She sat quietly for a moment, sucking her cheek. "I would like to see this Begay." .

  "I could introduce you."

  The old woman raised a hand. "There is another kind of seeing."

  "Like reading his aura?"

  “What is aura?"

  “It's... it's kind of like the energy you put out. Sometimes you can tell what a person's like, you know, on a spiritual..."

  Siyamtiwa cut her off impatiently. "Did you read this Begay's aura?"

  "I didn't have to exactly. I mean, it sort of comes at you, all thick and tarry." She refilled the coffee cup. "But I'm not very good at that sort of thing."

  "I think that is good luck for me. I think maybe you would read my spirit energy and not like it."

  "Oh no," Stoner said quickly. "I know I'd like it."

  "No tarry?"

  "Not at all.”

  The old woman stood up abruptly. "Time for you to go. Your friend is waiting for you. She wants you to go to Wupatki Ruins. I think that is a good idea. Maybe something happens there. Meanwhile, I will try to read this Begay."

  “Wait a minute," Stoner said, scrambling to her feet. "How do you know...?"

  Siyamtiwa reached up and lifted a necklace from around her neck and placed it on Stoner's. "You take this."

  She held it up in the palm of her hand. The necklace was made of small striped seeds, interspersed with rough black beads. “What is it?" she asked.

  Siyamtiwa shrugged. "A trinket, something for tourists. Maybe good luck for you." She turned away. "Maybe you will need good luck."

  "I don't understand," Stoner said. She stared, mesmerized, at the necklace. “Why would I need good luck?"

  "All pahana need good luck. Their Spirits aren't friendly."

  "But why me?"

  The old woman put the thermos of coffee and remaining sweet rolls into the paper bag. "Questions. Maybe I shouldn't call you Green-eyes. Maybe I should call you Many Questions."

  "It's just… I want to know things."

  "You think any old person walking on the desert knows more than you? Everything you need to know, Green-eyes, comes through the kopavi." She patted the top of Stoner's head. “This. The open door where the spirits come in. If you keep the kopavi open, you don't need anyone to tell you things. If you let it go shut, nothing you hear will do you any good." She tucked the paper bag under her arm. "You think about that. Maybe next time I see you you'll know something, eh?"

  "Am I going to see you again?"

  "If Masau doesn't take me first, and I don't think that's gonna happen." She held out the paper bag. "I gotta bring this back to you or you go home and say all Indians are thieves."

  ''I'd never say a thing like that," Stoner said indignantly.

  "You shame your race," Siyamtiwa said. "No wonder you ran away from home."

  She felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. "How did you know...?”

  The old woman ignored her. "You're gonna like Wupatki." She turned and walked away, her tennis shoes barely leaving a trace in the dust.

  "Thank you for the necklace," Stoner called after her.

  The old woman waved without turning around.

  In a few minutes she was out of sight.

  * * *

  "I don't get it,” Stoner said. "She knew you'd want to do this. How could she know that?"

  "It's probably a popular tourist attraction," Gwen said.

  "This place?" She looked around at the nearly-deserted parking lot.

  Gwen stretched and arched her back. "I feel as if I've been run over by a sack of potatoes. We've got to stop riding the back roads."

  "It's not a popular tourist attraction," Stoner persisted.

  Gwen looked around. "You're right."

  "So how did she know we were coming here?"

  "It's a mystery." She took off the cowboy hat she had borrowed from Stell and dropped it on Stoner's head. "If you refuse to wear sunglasses, at least cover your head."

  Stoner adjusted the hat. "So how did she?"

  "I mentioned a lot of places, Stoner. Wupatki, Sunset Crater, Petrified Forest, Meteor Crater—everything within a half day's drive from Spirit Wells. You're the one who chose Wupatki."

  "It was the first one you mentioned."

  Gwen looked at her and shook her head, smiling. "Dearest, I think you're losing your grip."

  "Don't you feel it?"

  "Feel what?"

  Uncertain, bewildered, she glanced around. It was only the desert, strange and familiar all at once. Like a place visited in dreams. Like a place seen and forgotten. Like a place she knew, somewhere deep inside where there were no words. Like ... home.

  It felt like something crawling under her skin.

  "Let's look around," she said quickly.

  "Stoner, are you okay?"

  She forced a smile. "Sure." She started up the walk to the Visitors' Center. "Get us a map, will you?"

  She watched Gwen at the counter, exchanging a few words with the Park Ranger, as she always exchanged a few words with cashiers, sales clerks, meter maids, postal employees, and parking lot attendants. Wupatki lay behind her, out of sight unless she turned around. She was afraid to turn around.

  It's a ruin, she told herself. A pile of fallen-down, uninhabited buildings. Probably not even very interesting, except to archaeologists and such. Ruins are the safest places on earth. Especially nice, sunny, National Park-ized ruins like Wupatki. You want to be afraid? Go to New York. To Boston. To Providence, Rhode Island, even. Not to Wupatki, Arizona.

  "Ready?" Gwen asked.

  “What did you find out?"

  "She's from Nevada. This is her first year here. Last summer she was at Cedar Breaks. She'll be staying here over the winter, and isn't looking forward to it but it'll give her time to think about whether she wants to marry Michael. I
recommended against it."

  Stoner grinned. "About Wupatki."

  "It's a National Monument, not a National Park. For our purposes, the distinction is irrelevant. It was occupied by the Sinagua Indians from 1120 to 1210 A.D., and nobody is certain why they left. Which is ominous. There are about eight hundred ruins in the Monument-some Sinagua, some Anasazi. The building blocks are Moencopi sandstone. It seems to have been a town of some importance, having both an amphitheater and a ball court. The New York of its day." She held the door open. "Shall we?"

  Wupatki looked, at first glance, like a pile of giant Lego blocks, surrounded by sandstone dust and scaly chips of rock. The edge of the lava flow from Sunset Crater lay just beyond, dotted with saltbush and Mormon tea. The ruin itself was roofless, some walls fallen in, a jumble of doorways and angles. The rooms were tiny, low-ceilinged, and practically windowless.

  "According to the guide book," Gwen said, "during its hey-day, as many as two-fifty to three-hundred people lived in this. I wonder if they had rent control.”

  The light, Stoner thought. How did they bear the light? It was everywhere, bleaching the sky, pounding at her from all directions. She felt a pressure behind her eyes and across the bridge of her nose. Like the onset of a sinus headache. Except she didn't get sinus headaches...

  Anxiety fluttered moth wings against her fingertips.

  “What do you think?" Gwen was asking.

  Think? Can you really think about this? How can you think about light, and sky, and...

  A large, flat disk detached itself from the sun and hurtled toward her. A face. Horizontal lines for eyes and mouth. Vertical lines like tears beneath the eyes. Bright, blinding colors-red and white and black and yellow...

  She covered her face with her hands, felt a jolt of electricity as the object passed through her.

  "Stoner?"

  "Did you see that?" Stoner asked.

  "See what?" .

  "That... thing?"

  "I didn't see anything." Gwen touched her arm. "Are you sure you're all right?"

  Stoner nodded. "It must have been an optical illusion. The sun."

  “Want a drink of water?"

  "I'm fine. It's gone." But it wasn't gone. The feel of it wasn't gone. The feel of it was all around. In the sky, in the ground, in the crumbling sandstone...

  Once, when she was a child, she had stayed up late on Christmas Eve. Long after the house was silent, long after her parents were asleep, long after the traffic no longer moved on the packed-snow streets...

  There had come such a stillness, a calm, a sense of waiting for something wonderful... as if the universe had stopped to listen, to hear the sound of Creation.

  She could almost hear it now. In the sky, in the ground, in the crumbling sandstone...

  "This is a holy place," she said in a whisper.

  Gwen knelt in the center of the room, examining a fire-pit. "In that case, it can't be New York."

  "I mean it," Stoner said. "I don't think we should be here."

  Gwen glanced up at her. 'Want to go?"

  "No, but... " Something didn't want her to go. There was something she had to do. “Don't you feel it?"

  ''I'm not tuned in to these things," Gwen said as she brushed the red dust from her knees. "I wish I were, but the Spirits seem to find me lacking in some way."

  "Are you being facetious?"

  ''I'm completely serious."

  “Well, I wish they'd find me lacking."

  "I'd think they would," Gwen said, "since you don't even believe in them."

  "I believe..."

  "If you really believed in Spirits," Gwen laughed gently, "you wouldn't look so embarrassed every time the subject came up."

  From beyond a hill off to the side there came an explosion of raucous voices. Stoner looked up sharply. “What's over there?"

  Gwen consulted the map. "According to this, a ball court."

  "Softball?"

  "It doesn't say, only that the games had religious significance."

  "Gosh," she said. "A dyke softball diamond."

  Gwen laughed. "Now that I've come out, will I have to play softball?"

  "The urge can strike at any..."

  IT ISN'T A BALL COURT! The thought slammed into her consciousness.

  IT'S A SACRED PLACE. THEY'RE DEFILING A SACRED PLACE.

  Another burst of girlish shrieks and boyish curses reached them.

  "Sounds like Mets fans," Gwen said.

  They have to be stopped. Before it happens again.

  "Stoner?" Gwen said.

  The last time it happened...

  "Stoner."

  The last time, the rain died, and the land died, and the People died, and the world came to an end. The last time...

  She took off running down the path.

  As she rounded the corner, she saw it. Two waist-high walls, like cupped hands, open at either end. She stared at it, fascinated, and knew that what was happening here was wrong...

  Terrible...

  A violation of sacred things.

  This place was no place for games. It was a place of mystery and secrets, of sacrifices and silent prayers. Here Spirits lived below the ground by day, to rise with the moon and restore the balance man had upset. Here the People met. All the People. The Old Ones and the New Ones. The tribes that had gone, and the tribes yet to come. It all spiraled to this place...

  ...this place where Whites were playing.

  "Stoner!" Gwen called sharply.

  She stopped in her tracks.

  "Dearest, what do you think you're doing?"

  Stoner gestured toward the ball court. "I have to break that up."

  "I don't think that's a good idea," Gwen said. "You're outnumbered."

  Stoner shook her off.

  As she crested the rise, she saw them. A family of six, all looking remarkably alike, between the ages of twenty-five and forty. Assorted spouses. A mother who sat to one side guarding a large wicker picnic hamper and drinking something from a thermos. The father had organized the troops into a rollicking game of touch football, family versus in-laws. They cavorted on the field, tossing a chartreuse Nerf ball. They probably wouldn't leave home without it. Probably carried it on the dashboard like a plastic Jesus. If it was left behind, they probably went back for it, no matter how far.

  "God damn it!" she shouted from the top of the hill. "Stop that!"

  The game came to a screeching halt. They all looked at her.

  "This isn't the Super Bowl. It's Holy ground."

  "Yeah?" One of the women stepped forward. She was short, stocky, sweaty, and obviously annoyed. "You a Ranger?"

  "No."

  "Then buzz off."

  Her rage exploded. "The world was not created for your personal pleasure!"

  "It's a free country," Stocky-sweaty said.

  “Want to bet?" She headed for the ball court.

  Gwen jumped her from behind. "Let the Rangers handle it, Stoner."

  Stoner shook her off. “Why do they have to take everything?"

  "Calm down."

  Anger coursed through her like fire. "It never stops. Killing. Taking. Destroying..."

  Gwen held her shoulders. "There's nothing you can do about it, Stoner."

  "It has to stop. Right now. It has to stop! "

  "All right," Gwen said. “We'll find a Ranger..."

  "You don't understand."

  "I do. Really. But you can't..."

  "It's been like this for three hundred years, Three hundred years. "

  "I know. Please let it go for now. We'll find a Ranger..."

  She tried to pull away.

  "Stoner," Gwen said firmly, "there are at least twelve of them down there. There is one of you. Now let it go."

  She took a deep breath, forced her fists to unclench, forced her heartbeat to slow, forced her rage to subside. She looked down into the ball court and sent a few dark thoughts in their direction.

  "You okay?" Gwen asked.

  Stoner nod
ded. "I cursed them with the McTavish Curse."

  "And what is that?"

  "For sudden and complete enlightenment. The McTavish Curse has sent people to the brink of suicide."

  Gwen smiled and brushed Stoner's hair back from her forehead. “Want to get out of here?"

  The game seemed to be breaking up. One of the women-an in-law, she guessed-had decided to drop out. Pressure was exerted on all sides. The woman held her ground-or rather, her stomach and indicated cramps. With great reluctance, the family resigned themselves and stood about with their arms hanging at their sides.

  Stocky-sweaty had a sudden burst of inspiration. "Yo!" she shouted in Stoner's direction. "Either of you play touch football?"

  Stoner stared down at her, her mind turning to white noise.

  "Are you seriously inviting us to play?" Gwen called.

  "Yeah, why not?"

  "Because we're on our way to report you to the Park Service."

  Stocky-sweaty shrugged. "So come play football instead."

  Gwen grabbed Stoner's wrist and dragged her back along the path, saying, "Get me away before I do serious damage."

  * * *

  The road to Lomaki Ruin was nearly deserted, the last mile unimproved dirt. They decided to walk it. “We're pretty vulnerable out here." Gwen said. "I hope The Family doesn't catch us."

  "Don't worry," Stoner said. "I fixed them."

  Gwen stopped walking and looked at her. "You what?"

  "Stopped them."

  "How?"

  "It doesn't matter, I just stopped them."

  "Stoner McTavish," Gwen said in a menacing tone, "what did you do?"

  "Nothing much. I just bent the exhaust pipe on their van. They should be breaking down just about now."

  Gwen's eyes widened. "You did what?"

  "Bent the exhaust pipe." She shrugged. "Only a little."

  "How do you know it was their van? It could have been anybody's van."

  "Are you kidding? The thing was littered with sports equipment and empty beer cans. They even had back-up Nerf balls. And the bumper stickers. 'Go Mets.' 'Nuke Jane Fonda.' 'I Heart Pit Bulls.' " She laughed. "If it wasn't them, it was someone just as worthy."

  Gwen shook her head. "One of these days you're going to get us into serious trouble."

  "I'm working on it."

  Dust had begun to build up in the air. It softened the edges of the distant mountains. The ground underfoot was black with volcanic ash. The sun was bright, the shadows impenetrable. Everything was still. And silent.