Gray Magic

by Sarah Dreher

  "Here's what we gonna do," Siyamtiwa said. "You stay here tonight. We wash your hair with yucca and make some steam and you can have a bath."

  "I'll bet I could use one."

  Siyamtiwa nodded. "You smell White. Begay will know you're there. You got to see him before he sees you."

  She decided to make one last try. "Siyamtiwa, Grandmother, I really don't think I'm the best person for this."

  "Get a good rest," Siyamtiwa said, ignoring her. "No food, just tea. In the morning, Angwusi comes for you."

  “Who is Angwusi?"

  "Sister Crow."

  Stoner sighed. "Right."

  "I got some stuff for your medicine bag here." Siyamtiwa took a small bowl from the altar. "This is important stuff, magic stuff. Stuff you oughta remember." She picked out a small white bone. "This is foreleg of rabbit. Rabbit runs like the wind and jumps up, turns in mid air. Even Brother Coyote doesn't catch rabbit, because rabbit has wisdom in his legs. But if Brother Rabbit does not listen to the wisdom in his legs, if Brother Rabbit sits and thinks like a man, that is one dead Brother Rabbit. This will help you remember."

  She poked among the objects in the bowl and brought out a stone. "Stone is patient. Waits. Endures. It does not hurl itself into danger. When you need to know that, think of stone." She added the stone and bone to the medicine bag and held up a snake skin. "Brother Snake is silent. Doesn't chatter and announce his presence to his enemies. Think of how many snakes you have seen in your life. Think of how many you have not seen because they lie beside the path and do not speak. Remember that." She placed the snake skin in the bag and drew the bit of turquoise from her sleeve. "And remember me." She dropped the turquoise into the bag, pulled the string tight, and handed it to Stoner. "Any magic you got I don't know about, put in there. Now go bring your things from your room. You won't need it any more."

  Well, that was ominous enough.

  She trudged up the hill and through the village. Night was coming on fast.

  She stuffed her belongings into her knapsack, hooked Gwen's necklace around her own neck. By the time she was finished it was purple dark. The moon was no more than a pin-scratch. Tomorrow night there would be no moon at all.

  Overhead, the Milky Way formed a glittering bridge across the heavens.

  The coyote was out there.

  She couldn't see it, but felt its presence. The hairs on the backs of her hands prickled.

  Hosteen Coyote, she thought, it seems you and I have some serious business to do.

  She waited, half expecting a reply.

  The night was silent.

  * * *

  When she got back, the hogan was dimly lit and smelled of sage and burning cedar. Siyamtiwa had built a crackling fire in the rock-lined pit. She sat beside it, tossing bits of fresh herb and pine boughs into the scarlet coals. She got up and reached for Stoner's knapsack, dropping it at the head of the corn husk bed. "You sleep with the corn tonight. Brings you good luck."

  Oh, great. We're reduced to luck.

  "Take off your clothes," Siyamtiwa ordered. "Give to me."

  “Wait a minute," Stoner said, blushing. "I didn't know this was going to involve nudity."

  "If it is your way to bathe with your clothes on," Siyamtiwa said, "you're crazier than I thought."

  Stoner fumbled with her buttons. Siyamtiwa took her shirt and tossed it into the fire.

  "Hey, I kind of liked that shirt."

  "No magic in it." She waited for her jeans.

  "But these clothes make me feel strong," Stoner said as she stripped them off.

  The old woman threw her jeans into the fire and motioned for her underwear.

  Stoner watched it break apart into black ashes. "I was fond of those socks," she said wistfully.

  Siyamtiwa wrinkled her nose. "Powaqa could smell you coming a mile away, even if you were down-wind." She pointed to a deep pan of water and a bowl of milky suds. “Wash yourself with that stuff. I come back when you're through." She picked up the knapsack and left.

  The air of the hogan was chilly in spite of the fire. Shivering, she contemplated the bowl of suds. It looked almost like dish water.

  Oh, well. Probably has deep ritual significance.

  The soap had an astringent quality. It made her skin tingle, sensitive to the slightest draft and movement of air. She washed quickly, rinsed in the lukewarm water from the basin, and huddled close to the fire to dry.

  Okay, here we are, clean as a whistle and naked as a jay-bird. Now what?

  The fire collapsed in on itself. She looked around for more wood and found a stack in a corner, or what passed for a corner in a round house. On the wall above the wood hung four sticks, each decorated with soft gray feathers. They were painted in the colors of the four sacred directions: red-east, blue-south, yellow-west, white-north. At the corners of the wood pile sat four woven plates filled with corn meal. She hesitated. What if it wasn't a wood pile? What if it was an altar? Under the circumstances, desecration didn't seem like a good idea.

  She hugged herself and jumped up and down to keep warm. It made her feel like a jerk, hopping around in the nude, everything loose, jiggling. It made her feel as if the whole world were watching.

  Hey, there's nothing wrong with nakedness. It's natural, right?

  For new-born babies, frogs, and earthworms, it's natural. For me, it's not natural.

  "If you're embarrassed," she remembered Gwen telling her once, "close your eyes."

  She closed her eyes, which helped a little. But it still didn't help with what to do with her hands. If Nature had intended us to be naked, she would have given us pockets in our skin.

  Something poked her roughly in the shoulder. "Don't get so nervous about your shell," Siyamtiwa said. "It's only something to get you around, so your spirit doesn't blow away."

  "Stop reading my mind," Stoner muttered.

  The old woman glanced down into the fire pit. "You let the fire go out." She gathered an armload of wood from the altar and tossed it onto the coals.

  "I was afraid to use it," Stoner admitted as she edged closer to the fire. "I thought it might be sacred."

  "Everything's sacred." Siyamtiwa said. "Air, water, earth, food, all sacred. What you gonna do, stop eating, stop breathing, die?"

  Stoner sighed. "I don't want to discuss it."

  Siyamtiwa raised an eyebrow. "You don't want to discuss? You not feel good?"

  "I'm fine. Just in a bad mood."

  Siyamtiwa stood back and looked at her. "This isn't good. What troubles you, Granddaughter?"

  Granddaughter. The term of affection and familiarity did her in. "I don't like being naked," she said as tears made her vision go blurry. "I'm afraid. I don't know what you want me to do. And I don't think I'll ever see Gwen again."

  The old woman took her hand. "Your friend's okay. Kinda scared, I'll bet, but okay."

  "You say that..." Stoner brushed at her tears with her forearm. "But you don't know it's true."

  "Sure, I know it. Know it in here." She touched her heart. "You're gonna be okay, Green-eyes. I couldn't have done any better." She chuckled. "Begay sends note, says we gotta give answer tomorrow. We have answer, all right." She went outside and returned carrying fresh jeans and underwear. "Put these on, maybe you don't feel so crazy."

  Stoner slipped into them gratefully. She looked around for a shirt.

  "Here," the old woman said. "I got a present for you."

  The shirt she held out was a soft, much-washed denim, embroidered with beads and porcupine quills. There were designs of suns and bear claws, clouds and snakes, spirals, arrows, forks of lightning, corn stalks, and hump-backed flute players. And across the back, linking a stylized mesa and burro, a rainbow of brightly painted quills.

  "You like it?" Siyamtiwa asked.

  "It's beautiful. Did you make it?"

  “Well, I had something to do with that. See this?" She pointed to the rainbow. "This is strong magic, so your Power Animal, the little horse of the canyon,
brings you back safely."

  "Grandmother," Stoner said, at a loss for words, "It's .. .it's the loveliest thing I ever saw."

  Siyamtiwa gave the shirt a critical frown. "Not so good as I used to do when my eyes were sharp. But got lots of heart. Maybe it'll do okay." She hung the shirt on a pine peg set in the wall. "Now we gotta wash your hair."

  She laid out a woven rug and brought fresh water and yucca suds from the shadows. She motioned for Stoner to kneel on the rug. "Your hair's nice and short, won't take long."

  Stoner covered her eyes against the suds, feeling calmed by the touch of the old woman's fingers. "Is this a ritual?"

  “'Would be if you were gonna get married. You gonna get married?”

  "Not if I can help it."

  The old woman chuckled and massaged her scalp. "The Dineh, you know, they like women like you. Let you bring your friend into your mother's clan, even let you be a warrior sometimes. Maybe you oughta think about that, eh."

  Stoner shuddered. "I don't want to be in my mother's clan. Except for Aunt Hermione, it's as bad as Gwen's grandmother's clan. And, frankly, this is as close to warrior-hood as I care to get." She brushed soap from her eyes. "If the Spirits had wanted me to be Dineh, the Spirits would have made me Dineh."

  "You're catching on," Siyamtiwa said, and dumped cool water over her head. "Now you smell better." She handed her an old rag for a towel.

  Stoner rubbed her hair. "Should I put the shirt on?"

  "Better not It's gonna get pretty sweaty in here." She built up the fire again, adding bits of sage and juniper. She indicated a bucket and gourd dipper. "I'm gonna leave you now. You have to do this yourself. Make steam in here until you feel like you got all the nukpana, all the bad stuff out of you. All bad thoughts, too. Okay?"

  "Okay."

  "You probably get sleepy pretty soon. Do what your body says. Maybe some interesting things happen, maybe not. If you get hungry or thirsty, there's ngakuyi, medicine water, in that jug. Tastes kinda funny, but it's okay." She took the blanket from around her own shoulders and handed it to Stoner. "I gotta go now."

  Stoner looked at her with a sinking feeling. “Will I see you again?"

  "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you see me and don't recognize me. When Sister Angwusi comes for you, you follow."

  Stoner pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders. " All right."

  "You remember what I said, about the kopavi. The Spirits will talk to you through there, but you got to listen."

  "I know. I'll keep an open mind."

  Siyamtiwa smiled. "Not too open. Don't want your brains to fall out." She turned to go.

  "Grandmother."

  Siyamtiwa turned back. "Hoh."

  “I... I hope I weave the right pattern."

  The old woman touched Stoner's face. "No right or wrong patterns, Green-eyes. Things are gonna happen how they happen."

  Feeling awkward, Stoner looked at the ground. "I wish you had someone better than me to do this."

  Siyamtiwa stroked Stoner's hair. “Well, I wouldn't have met you, would I? That would have been too bad."

  She looked up. The old woman was gone. The blanket that covered the door moved softly in her wake.

  TWELVE

  The night was as dark and still as Tokpela, First World, Endless Space World. Sotuknang the Air Mover held his breath, while Spider Woman Kokyangwuti paused in her weaving. At the poles, Poqanghoya and Palongawhoya turned the earth trembling on its axis. The planets and constellations slipped noiselessly through the sky, and worlds were born and worlds died and comets leapt like flying fish, and there was no sound anywhere except the song of Palongawhoya that is the song of the Universe, the song of Taiowa the Creator.

  In her room, Siyamtiwa wrapped herself carefully in her white shawl, blew out her candle lamp, and began to compose her Song to Masau.

  Kwahu, in her aerie high on Big Tewa Peak, shifted uneasily in her sleep. "Soon," she crooned to her little lost ones. "Soon."

  The little horse of the canyons raised its head from drinking and listened to the silence. Droplets of water fell like tears from his soft muzzle. Deliberately, he stretched and shook each muscle, then began picking his way east, up out of the canyon.

  Larch Begay scratched his stomach and looked down at the sleeping Gwen. "Fuckin' bitch," he muttered. "Your friend better come through tomorrow. I ain't a patient man."

  Her face was ruby in the dying firelight. He hungered to strip that soft woman body naked, to crush it beneath his own, to feel her frantic, useless struggle.

  The old taboos held him back. They might be a crock of shit, but he thought he just might wait until he had the bundle. Once it was his, he'd be beyond taboos, beyond laws. Once it was his, there'd be no stopping Larch Begay.

  "Mister Begay to you," he said to Gwen and the mesas and the stars and the universe in general.

  He drained the pint bottle of cheap bourbon and hurled it into the darkness. It shattered on a rock, the sound of destruction giving him a deep and sincere sense of satisfaction.

  Stoner built up the fire again and made more scented steam.

  Deep beneath Pikyachvi Mesa, in the secret cavern, the Kachinas began to gather.

  Jimmy Goodnight, keeping an eye on things at Begay's Texaco, got tired of tossing his pocket knife at mice and popped the cap on a Coors.

  Laura Yazzie stepped outside to look at the stars. She remembered some ancient Dineh prayers she'd thought she'd forgotten.

  In her hospital room, Stell stared into the darkness over her bed and swore, if anything happened to her Little Bear, someone'd pay for it, and pay big.

  Tom Drooley dreamed ancestral dreams of cold and hunger.

  Stoner drank the last of the medicine water and rinsed the sweat from her body. Her pores felt exhausted. She had stripped away her clothes long ago, and wrapped herself in Siyamtiwa's blanket. Going back to the blanket, she thought. Her old friend Insecurity stopped by for a visit, bringing greetings from Kurt. Ineptitude and Inadequacy joined the party. Together they poked and taunted until her brain felt like bacon on a griddle.

  She told them they could come along for the ride, since she didn't know how to get rid of them. But she had to do what she had to do, regardless.

  Loneliness wrapped a fist around her heart and began to squeeze.

  Over on Pikyachvi Mesa, Gwen, hovering between sleep and waking, slipped out of the ropes that bound her wrists and ankles, and began to walk on the wind.

  * * *

  "Stoner."

  She thought she had been dreaming, but she was wide awake. A hissing ember? A falling log? Breeze through the rough mud chinking?

  "Stoner."

  It came from just outside the hogan. She held the blanket aside and peered out into the night.

  "Thank the Goddess," Gwen said. "I thought I'd never find you." She brushed past and went to huddle by the fire. "Would you ever believe it could get so cold in August?"

  "Gwen..."

  "If you ever go out of body be sure you have your destination clearly in mind. Otherwise you could wander in the ether for an eternity." She moved closer to the fire. "Of course, I did have my destination clearly in mind, you just happened not to be there." She looked up and swallowed Stoner with her eyes. "Next time, Dearest, please leave a forwarding address."

  Stoner knelt beside her. "Gwen, doesn't this strike you as odd?"

  "Naturally." Gwen rubbed her hands together. "Or should I say un-naturally?"

  "This place is so strange."

  "Maybe it's one of those mystery spots where nothing grows and water runs uphill."

  "Nothing grows, that's for sure."

  Gwen sat back on her heels. "Stoner, my love, getting here wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done in my life. Believe me, sailing through the sky at high midnight is thrills and chills galore. At least you could pretend to be glad to see me."

  "I am glad to see you."

  Gwen glanced at Stoner's hands. "I don't have the bubonic plague, you kno
w."

  "I know." She was beginning to shake. With wanting her, with needing her, with longing for the feel of her. She got up and walked to the other side of the fire.

  ''Well,'' said Gwen sadly, "I guess I'm kind of disheveled. We're a little short on the amenities over at Casa Begay..." Her voice caught.

  "It's not that Gwen. The last time you were here, you said, if I touched you, you might disappear."

  "I don't care," Gwen said. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye. "I miss you. I need you. Isn't this ever going to end?"

  Stoner went to her, reached out a tentative hand. "Tomorrow. I'm coming for you." She touched her face, expecting to feel... she wasn't sure what.

  Gwen's skin was warm and soft and very, very real.

  It made her want to hold her tight, but she was afraid. She needed her here, needed to look at her even if she couldn't hold her. She couldn't risk....

  ''What's wrong?" Gwen asked. "Do I feel like ectoplasm?"

  Stoner shook her head.

  Gwen hugged herself and looked down at the ground. "I'm frightened, Stoner. I don't understand what's happening."

  She didn't know what to say. "Is... is Begay nice to you?"

  "Nice to me?" Gwen looked up, eyes blazing. "Larch Begay is a wad of humanoid scum. Of course he isn't nice to me."

  "Has he hurt you?"

  "He offends me."

  That sounded like the real Gwen, all right. Stoner smiled.

  Gwen got up and looked around the hogan. "If you won't touch me," she said tightly, "at least you can feed me. I'm starving."

  "There's nothing here to eat. Siyamtiwa has me on some kind of fast."

  "I might as well go back to the cave, for crying out loud."

  Gwen's back was to her. She looked so small, and so lost... She couldn't let her stand there like that, alone. Even if it made her disappear, she had to break that loneliness.

  She went up behind her, slipped her arms around her.

  The feel of Gwen's body against her own sent eddies and currents of excitement up and down her skin. She ran her fingers over Gwen's face and felt the warm dampness of tears. Over her hair, and felt the silky softness. Over her shoulders, and felt the worn chambray of her favorite shirt, the firmness of her muscles underneath. "I want to make love to you," she whispered, ''but I've never made love to an astral body."