BY DARK
The Witches of Portland, Book 8
T. Thorn Coyle
By Dark
“I’m…fine.” Alejandro exhaled. “That’s part of the problem. I can’t figure out anything that’s actually wrong. I mean, other than the usual state-of-the-world stuff.”
“And?”
“And…taking a break from consulting feels too easy. And as if that’s not it. I don’t know what I need to be paying attention to, and whether it’s coming, or it’s already here.”
Charlie crossed his arms over his chest. “I hate it when you witches talk like that.”
That shocked a laugh out of Alejandro. “Why’s that?”
Charlie looked at him, assessing him with steady eyes. “Because when you say things like ‘something’s coming’ it usually is. And that means my life’s about to get harder again.”
“You’re right about that, hermano.”
Copyright © 2019
T. Thorn Coyle
PF Publishing
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Cover Art and Design © 2019
Lou Harper
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Editing:
Dayle Dermatis
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ISBN-13: 978-1-946476-12-8
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locales is coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved.
1
Alejandro
Alejandro, phone in hand, earbuds in, paced the sidewalk in front of Charlie’s store. A supple, black leather jacket was thrown over his usual pressed black slacks and lightly starched lavender dress shirt. A gray- and black-checked scarf wound around his neck, warding off the late October chill.
He barely heard the voice on the other side of the phone. He was in crisis. It was an internal crisis, but it was throwing every part of his life into upheaval.
Maybe it was a midlife crisis? He was forty-five years old, smack in the middle of what he hoped would be a very long, fulfilling life. Really fulfilling. He had a great partner—the sexy Shekinah—a great coven, and plenty of money. But life still felt like crap. So here he was, pacing on a sidewalk, trying to ignore the droning, entitled voice yammering in his ear.
He’d much rather be inside. Charlie’s gaming store—Owlbear—was his two nephews’ favorite place to go on their afternoons together. He would pick Henry and Joey up at school and they’d walk the three blocks together, chattering at him about one hundred and ten things, all as quickly as possible. Both of them were talkers, which was funny, because they were also big bookworms. Alejandro had been a bookworm—still was—but leaned toward the decidedly quieter end of the spectrum.
The afternoon edged toward twilight. Alejandro loved the sun, but this year? He welcomed the coming winter, with its long, dark nights. It just felt…restful. He needed some rest.
Just as the year leaned halfway between autumn and winter, the neighborhood was in the midst of a transition, too. There was still some light industrial on the main drag here, with old homes on the side streets, but more and more, small commercial shops like Charlie’s mixed with swank new cocktail bars and artisan pizza places alongside tire shops and seedy old bars. It was going the way of all Portland neighborhoods west of 82nd.
Gentrification, Moss would say. Alejandro didn’t mind it as much as some of his more radical coven mates. Alejandro was a fan of nice restaurants and bourgeois bars, though he’d been known to set foot inside the occasional dive. He just wished gentrification didn’t come at such a high cost.
What the city needed was rezoning….
Earbuds in, phone in hand, he barely heard the voice squawking in his ear. “I understand,” he murmured. Polite noise to keep the person on the line at bay. He watched his nephews appear and disappear in between the window displays packed with board games, toys, and action figures. Deeper inside the store, he knew, were the coveted Magic cards and painted role-playing miniatures locked inside a clear glass case. He was supposed to be enjoying their excitement. Buying them an add-on pack for their decks, or whatever it was they wanted this week.
Instead, here he was, dealing with this person—rapidly becoming an asshole who wouldn’t take no for an answer—on the phone.
“As I stated in my email, I am currently closed to new clients.” He was currently closed to all clients, but this jerk didn’t need that information.
Taking a break. Getting his head together. Or whatever the hell he was supposed to be doing.
Maybe he was depressed. Was he depressed? He didn’t feel like it. He just felt…alternately numb and frustrated.
Alejandro looked across the street to the low-slung building that housed Sub Rosa, the Mexican American food place. They served up a decent margarita, plus tacos. Maybe he’d take the kids there. The food carts at the Mercado down the street were more auténtico than Sub Rosa, but it was a little too chilly to eat outside, besides, Sub Rosa also had hamburgers, and the boys usually didn’t say no to that.
Then he remembered. The ofrendas should be up at the Mercado. The ancestor altars, covered with offerings, flowers, and candles to light the way for the dead. Maybe he’d take the kiddos to the Mercado after all.
“I have another call coming in. I’m sorry. I need to go. But if you want a referral…”
The guy actually hung up. Good thing, because no way was Alejandro referring this asshole to anyone he trusted anyway. He had to stop with the polite noises.
“Fucking spic!” a voice yelled out from a car speeding past. Alejandro flipped a middle finger at the receding bumper.
“Pendejo,” he said, without too much heat in it. The coven and the rest of the community had dealt a big blow to the white supremacists, but that didn’t mean the assholes weren’t still around.
He shoved his phone into his jacket pocket, ran a hand across the stubble on his head, and sighed. He should get inside. Let the kids pull him into their excitement. But he just wasn’t ready. Couldn’t shake the sense of wrongness that had crept forward in his consciousness for the last six months, finally coming to a head around the equinox.
It was guys like the jerk on the phone—and the asshole in the car—who’d led to Alejandro’s current crisis. Right now? He questioned everything he’d worked so hard for. All the training. All the hours. All the money in his bank account. It all felt tainted now. Badly fought for, badly won.
He watched people smoking outside one of the dive bars across the street. Sometimes he wished he smoked. Instead, he went to the gym four days a week.
So now what? You’re a grown man….
“Alejandro? You okay out here?” Charlie stood, half in and half out of the shop, blocking the glass doorway. Dude looked like comic book Thor, and Alejandro felt the usual pang of half-interested lust at the sight of the man whom he was slowly starting to call a friend. Not that he would poach Raquel’s sweetheart. She’d rip out his heart and eat it for lunch. And besides, he didn’t think Charlie swung that way. Alejandro swung pretty much every way, though his sex drive wasn’t what it used to be, much to Shekinah’s dismay.
“Alejandro?” The worry in Charlie’s voice increased, and he stepped all the way out onto the sidewalk, hands in pockets, Ms. Marvel T-shirt straining over his very impressive pecs. Alejandro only recognized the young Ms. Marvel in her lightning-bolt tunic and flowing red scarf because the alter ego of Pakistani teen Kamala Khan was one of his nephew’s favorites.
“Sorry. Woolgathering. How are you?”
Charlie stepped up beside Alejandro. He was of a similar height, but much broader
. “I’m fine. Shop’s doing great. But I was trying to ask about you.”
“I’m…fine.” Alejandro exhaled again. “That’s part of the problem. I can’t figure out anything that’s actually wrong. I mean, other than the usual state-of-the-world stuff.”
“And?”
“And…taking a break from consulting feels too easy. And as if that’s not it. I don’t know what I need to be paying attention to, and whether it’s coming, or it’s already here.”
Charlie crossed his arms over his chest. “I hate it when you witches talk like that.”
That shocked a laugh out of Alejandro. “Why’s that?”
Charlie looked at him, assessing him with steady eyes. “Because when you say things like ‘something’s coming’ it usually is. And that means my life’s about to get harder again.”
“You’re right about that, hermano.”
Charlie clapped him on the back. “Let’s go inside. Your nephews are building quite a stack on the counter. You may need to do triage.”
Charlie pulled the glass door open again, a phaser sounded, and Alejandro followed him on through.
Whatever may or may not be coming? It would have to wait. His sobrinos were the priority of the evening.
2
Shekinah
The oak floors felt cool beneath the balls of her bare feet. Shekinah stood in a sea of white, breathing. Her hands were in what should have been an awkward position, resting on top of her shoulders, elbows splayed out like wings. But it wasn’t awkward. Nothing in her life had ever felt so right.
Her teacher stood at the front of the room, hairline receding from his brown face, gray and brown beard straggling down the front of the white tunic covering his round, powerful belly. He was second-generation American who still had family in Delhi. The rest of the room was filled with people like her. Not Indian. Not Pakistani. Not even second- or third-generation Indians or Pakistanis. Americans dressed in white clothing. Brown. Asian. Black. White.
But who was she kidding? It was Portland, Oregon, so mostly white. But in this room, none of that mattered. In this room, there was only breath and sound, movement and the moment.
“Sat!” said her teacher, his clear voice cracking like a retort. “Nam!”
Shekinah rocked her torso, feeling the muscles at her side catch her just as her head snapped to the right. Sharp inhalation through the nose. “Sat!” Her voice was loud, attempting to match the energy of her teacher’s, echoing with the others in the spacious room. She turned again, muscles catching her trajectory as her head snapped left. Sharp exhalation through the nose. “Nam!”
The Gurmukhī words reverberated through her body and into the surrounding room.
The Name of Truth. The true self. The soul in alignment with the limitless God. The limitless God itself.
Every breath. Every movement. It was all a prayer. A prayer of the body to clarify the heart and mind. Breath was the practice. Where breath flowed, energy followed. She was learning that. As the moving and chanting increased in tempo, she allowed her body to simply be. To join with the prayers of the others.
Simplicity. Power. For the first time in her life, Shekinah felt like she could simply be. All her worries fell away here, in this room, dressed in white, the culmination of all colors of the rainbow on the light spectrum. Here, she could truly be Shekinah, the pure light of the Holy Presence.
Here, she could be a reflection of the limitless essence of God.
“Sat! Nam! Sat! Nam!”
There was no truth but truth. And it was there, in every moment.
“Sat! Nam! Sat! Nam!” Shekinah breathed and twisted and shouted out the Truth. The spiritual fire generated by the practice filled her body and purified her mind.
And then it was done. The bodies around her stilled. She stilled, heart pounding, breath moving deeply and evenly through her nostrils to her lungs and back again. Shekinah felt lighter, as if a burden had been lifted from her heart.
It made her wonder what burden she’d been carrying.
“The body knows what the mind won’t tell us,” her teacher sometimes said. She could feel her blissed-out brain beginning to tick back over into figuring-out mode. Her default, despite her best efforts.
“Shekinah! Do you have time for a cup of tea next door?”
It was Tish, her best friend at the Portland Shiva Society. A younger Black woman with a neat cap of light brown curls and a smile that could melt solid honey, Tish seeped goodness from her pores. Oh, Shekinah knew Tish had problems, just like everyone, but she never seemed to let it get her down.
“Hello!” The two women shared a slightly sweaty embrace. “Actually, I can. Alejandro is busy with his nephews tonight.”
“That’s so sweet. Let’s…”
Shekinah looked toward the door. Yogi Basu stood, chatting with three other students, but as she looked, he smiled and beckoned her over.
“I’ll go get our coats,” Tish said. “Meet you in the changing room?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
The other students left, giving Shekinah a little wave.
“Yogi Basu.” Palms together, just beneath her chin, Shekinah bowed her head. When she raised it again, he was studying her, deep brown eyes steady as a flame.
“Have you given our conversation any thought?” he asked. Shekinah swore it was as if the man stood perfectly still, even though, as a former dancer, she knew that wasn’t possible. Breath and heartbeat alone made the body move.
“I have, but I don’t have an answer for you yet,” she replied.
He pointed one long finger toward her breastbone. “You know, I think. Inside. But go meet with Patricia. You both need something from each other.”
“Yes, teacher. Thank you.”
She scurried out to where Tish waited with their coats, one red, one black, both incongruous against Tish’s white clothing.
“Thanks.” They quickly pulled on their coats, and in minutes were out on the sidewalk in front of the small Craftsman, just north of the dormant cinder cone of Mount Tabor. The café was half a block away, at the cusp between the residential part of the street and the brightness of shops further down.
Bells chimed as they entered the tea shop, which was fragrant with cinnamon and clove, the scents of autumn. A wooden display case held a few cookies and a single scone. The rest of the baked goods had been decimated by earlier patrons.
Tish and Shekinah both ordered spiced rooibos tea.
“I’ll bring the pot out when it’s ready,” said the weary looking barista.
“Thank you,” Tish said, as Shekinah stuffed a couple of dollars in the tip jar.
Divested of their coats again, they slid into a booth tucked near the back of the half-empty café.
“So, can you tell me what Yogi Basu wanted?” Tish asked.
“If you can tell me what the heck is going on with you. You haven’t been to class in two weeks.”
Tish’s bright face fell for a moment. “Can we…I can’t just yet. Can we focus on you, instead? That’s much more interesting.”
Shekinah gave her friend a look. “Okay for now, but I really do want to know.” She reached a hand across the table. “I’m interested in your life, Tish.”
The other woman shrugged and looked away, before plastering a smile back on her face as the barista approached with their pot of tea.
After thanking the woman, Tish raised an eyebrow. “Well?”
“He wants me to take teacher training.”
“That’s great!”
“I don’t know. It makes me feel…uncomfortable.”
“Why?”
“First of all, I don’t like people staring at me. Second of all, I haven’t been training long enough.”
“Ten years isn’t long enough?”
“Not for spiritual practice!”
Tish waved a hand in the air and poured fragrant tea into their cups. “Fine. What’s third of all?”
Shekinah looked down. “You’ll say it’s
stupid.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the two other people I’ve talked to about this have said it’s stupid.”
Tish just waited, blowing on her tea to cool the surface.
“I’m a white woman. And I don’t feel right about teaching yoga.”
“But…”
“I know. I know. Yogi Basu is American and teaches Americans, and I can go to India for more training if I want to, and as long as I respect the practice and the vedas…I’ve heard it all, but it still makes me uncomfortable. For goodness sake, I’m even blond!”
Tish rolled her eyes at that. “Do you feel uncomfortable when Dennis leads? Or Kate?”
“No. But that’s them. Yogi Basu asked them and they said yes. That’s fine. But it’s not me. I’m the one who would have to explain it to myself, and to my Mexican American boyfriend, and…”
“And those radical witchy friends of his.”
“Yeah, them.”
Shekinah allowed herself a grin and took a drink of tea. Warm. Spicy. Delicious. She practiced several types of yoga—the Shiva Center trained people in three different forms—but kundalini practice was the one that resonated with every part of her being. It was the form Yogi Basu wanted her to teach. But as long as there was this conflict in her heart…she didn’t see how it was possible.
Cultural appropriation was real. She was a white Jewish woman who’d come at yoga via the New Age festival scene, of all places. She’d seen the misuse of the culture and traditions and didn’t want to contribute to it.
“Okay. I spilled, and I know you’re going to sit here and tell me all the good reasons I should teach kundalini yoga. I’ll humor you. Tonight. But someday soon, I really want to know what’s up.”
“It’s nothing, really.”
By Dark Page 1
