Welcome to the Slipstream

by Natalka Burian

  “What does that even mean? This levitation stuff and prophet stuff, and, Jesus Christ, this divine visitation stuff? Are you telling me you think any of it is real?”

  “That’s a tricky question.”

  “It’s not tricky at all! Do you think it’s real or is it bullshit, Marine?”

  “Let me say this another way.” Marine looked away for a few breaths before she spoke again. “Do I believe in levitation and so on? No, I do not. But, do I think your mother is a tremendously powerful woman? Can she change things here for the better? Of course. Is she a prophet? Most likely, she is not. But I do believe this quest is good for her. It will calm her. You’ll see, my dear.”

  “Marine,” I half sighed, half growled. “There’s something I need her to understand. I mean, normally, I’d be with you on this. I’m all about Mom ‘calming down’ not in a hospital, but this? And even if it worked—which who knows if it will—I need Mom to come back with me now, back to Vegas. Ida isn’t just sick with the flu! She’s in the hospital. A stroke. Unconscious.”

  Marine pulled back.

  “I didn’t realize it was so serious,” she said, sounding genuinely shocked. “Will she be all right?”

  “I don’t know,” I told Marine and looked straight at her. “I need Mom for this. I don’t know what to do. If something happens to Ida . . .” I heard my voice breaking up, like I was floating far away in the air overhead. I cleared my throat. “If something happens to Ida,” I repeated, “I’m not going to know what to do.”

  “Oh Van, of course you won’t,” Marine said, a little violently. “Ida shouldn’t be alone.”

  “Exactly.” Relief flooded through me. God bless Marine, I thought, Goddess bless this crazy broad.

  “I’ll just have a word with Laurel and your mother. Laurel will understand if it’s coming from me.”

  “Can’t I just try talking to my mom, one more time?”

  Marine looked down. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. You’re upset, and we don’t need any more violence.”

  “Are you serious?” I yelled. “She hit me!”

  “Well, we don’t need anyone hitting anyone,” Marine said. “I’ll see if she can talk tomorrow. The first step is that I must advise Laurel. Get some rest, dear Van.”

  Marine ducked out of the tent and left me alone. I knew that if I followed her, I’d find Mom again. But I just sat there, because I felt something dark, something that did make me want to hit her. I imagined it was Mom in the hospital, unconscious, instead of Ida.

  I crawled into Mom’s night-chilled sleeping bag and took a deep breath, inhaling her smell. At least she still smelled the same. I wanted to close out what I’d just seen and end that horrible day. But I needed to do one last thing. I turned in the sleeping bag and felt the lump of my cell phone in the pocket of Alex’s sweatshirt that I still wore.

  With my very last millimeter of presence of mind, I thought tell someone you’re here. I twisted around and scooted the phone out of the pocket. Alex answered in the middle of the second ring.

  “Van?” he almost shouted. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. How’s Ida?” I wondered if he could hear how bad it was.

  “She’s the same. I went by there today and she’s still asleep. I waited around to talk to a doctor, but nobody told me anything.”

  “Oh,” my voice was flat and thin, a dotted line reaching out into the dark.

  “Are you with your mom?” His voice crackled in and out.

  “Yes.” I paused, not sure of how much I wanted to tell Alex.

  “Well, is she all right? Are you guys on your way back?”

  “Not exactly,” I said, forcing my voice into words when all my throat wanted was to be still. Just tell him, I thought. “Alex,” I began.

  “What?” He really shouted that time.

  “It’s not good. I’m going to try to get her back, but this whole situation is just . . .” I thought about how to explain what was going on, but I could barely explain it to myself.

  “What? The whole situation is what?”

  “It’s not good. I’m going to do my best to get Mom out of here. I think Marine can help me, but—”

  “Wait, get her out of where? Is she in the hospital, too?”

  “No,” I said, so quietly that I wondered if he’d heard me. “If I’m not back in three days, come get me. Or, please send someone to help us.”

  “What? Three days? Van, you’re freaking me out. You want me to call the cops?”

  “No, no—just anyone who can help. Just someone who can help us.” I could feel my voice slurring. It didn’t seem possible that I could still be awake.

  “Did you say Marcos? What, seriously?”

  “Sorry, sorry. I’m just really tired. Three days, though. I’m in Sedona still. We’re at the Wind Song Trailer Park.” I was shocked I’d plucked the name from my depleted mush of a brain.

  “The Wind Song Trailer Park? Is that a joke?” His voice flickered in and out, the connection barely there.

  “No. Bye Alex, I have to sleep now.” I hung up and switched the phone off. I knew he’d call back, and all I wanted to do was close my eyes. I tucked the phone back into the sweatshirt pocket and dropped into a hard, empty sleep.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When I woke up, I pulled my phone out and switched it on. A tiny number four lit up, announcing the number of voicemails I’d received overnight. As I played them, I knew without hearing them all that each one was from Alex. I’d call him back when I had something new to tell him. I needed to find Marine. Outside the tent, I found her waiting for me.

  “Here, sit down.” She handed me something wrapped in a linen napkin, and a bottle of water. “Make sure you drink this. We are in the desert, you know.” She sat down across from me.

  “Did you tell Laurel it’s an emergency?” I asked, and unwrapped the napkin to find a peanut butter sandwich and a banana.

  “Van,” a voice spoke behind me. When I turned, I saw that it was Laurel, still swimming in her oversized poncho. “I’m so happy you’ll be joining our group tonight. Your presence will certainly amplify Sofia’s response from the cosmic masters.”

  “What?” I said slowly. “I thought Marine told you—we’re leaving now.”

  “Oh, you can’t mean that.” A cascade of laughter spilled out after the words. “There’s no question of Sofia leaving.” Laurel swept her arms out like a person miming what it was like to swim. “Tonight we travel with her into the canyon.” Laurel raised a hand to the horizon line and indicated a dark, narrow gap in the mountains. “We’ll travel through the pass, in procession. Our group will camp at a sacred place, and then, we will send our prophet out into the universe.”

  “Right, about that—I’m sure Marine didn’t have a chance to tell you, but we have a family emergency back in Las Vegas, and we really do need to go.”

  Laurel’s face fell. “That is awful. But, I hope you’ll think of us as your family now, too, as your mother does. Right now we are in perhaps the most highly emergent time in our history.”

  “Uh,” I began, but was interrupted by a buzz from my phone. It was a text from Carol.

  Before I could even check it, Laurel plucked the phone from my hand. She wrinkled her nose and said, “I’m very sorry, but I can’t allow these in our holy space. I thought Marine would have told you. They interfere with the vibrations.”

  “What? You can’t just take my phone!”

  Laurel smiled blandly. “Ulrike!” she barked out.

  A towering, leathery-skinned blonde woman loped up to us. She bowed her head down to Laurel’s, face-height.

  “Please take care of this,” she said, handing over the phone.

  Ulrike nodded and scampered off to wherever they burned the phones of innocent girls looking for their mothers. I couldn’t even call the cops now if I wanted to. What was I supposed to do?

  “Please, ma’am,” I begged.

  “Call me Laurel, or, Your Eminence, i
f you prefer.”

  “Please, just let us leave. Just tell my mom to go. Tell her she isn’t welcome to stay anymore.”

  “It’s not a question of letting, Van. The service we are doing here to benefit humanity greatly exceeds any obligation to a single person. Your mother understands that, and I believe after speaking with Marine, that you will, too.”

  Marine said nothing and looked at a pile of stones by her feet.

  “But you seem so compassionate,” I added, desperately.

  She looked up at the sky and took a deep breath, raising her hands above her head. “I’m moved to grant you a boon. Tonight, you will walk with us at the head of the procession. It will be a good opportunity to test your place beside your mother and me.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Tonight we will sing and feast, preparing for our prophet’s return with what is sure to be a glorious message.”

  “Right. That all sounds—really interesting, but did you hear anything I just said? Aren’t you in charge here? You don’t need my mom messing things up for you. Please, I mean, you really seem to know what you’re doing—you can’t possibly need my mom for anything.”

  “Ah,” Laurel coughed out. “I’m afraid that I could never ask her to leave—we are one now.”

  Marine looked up, sharply, the first sign she’d been listening to any of Laurel’s pontificating.

  “Besides,” Laurel continued, “she is already in the midst of deep preparation. She’s fasting in isolation. It’s best that we don’t disturb her.”

  Fasting in isolation sounded ominous, like North Korean prison ominous. Part of me felt that Mom deserved it. But Ida, Ida didn’t deserve to be forgotten like this.

  “I need to speak with her again,” I said, desperate.

  “Of course! And you will, once we begin the procession,” Laurel said as she rubbed her palms together. “If you’re going to join us, we have some work to do. You’ll definitely have to learn some mantras. Ready?”

  “Marine? Is this okay?” I asked. I don’t know why I appealed to Marine like that. Maybe it was because she was my only resource, or maybe because she seemed to be bending under what I’d told her about Ida.

  “Yes, you should go, Van. I’ll sit with your mother while you’re busy,” Marine said.

  “Perfect! Let’s get a move on.” Laurel waved over my head to someone behind me.

  Marine came up and stood at my side. She looked at me like she was trying to tell me something, but I had no idea what. I raised my eyebrows at her and she raised them back. Before I could figure it out, Laurel swept me away—back to a cleared space behind the tepee. Several followers sat in a circle, their heads bent over busy hands. Knitting needles flashed in and out of a dense, magenta sheet growing between them.

  I recognized one of the women, the middle-aged Scandinavian one, Ulrike, who’d stolen my phone. Laurel squished me into the circle, between a girl who wasn’t much older than I was, and a man who was at least Ida’s age. Laurel walked around, slowly, like she was building up the suspense in a round of duck, duck, goose.

  “Now, everyone,” she called. “I want to run through some of our mantras for Van’s benefit. It will help with the work. Ready?” Then, like some deranged Maria von Trapp, Laurel started them in a round of monotonous chanting: “Om mane padme om, om mane padme om, om mane padme om.”

  “Van!” Laurel chirped over the droning voices. “Come on, join in!”

  I moved my mouth, but let no sound out. This is definitely in the top five weirdest things that’s ever happened to me, I thought. It was a realization that made me even more certain I could never jump into a normal life—at college, or in a regular relationship with a human being. The white-haired man beside me handed me his set of knitting needles and motioned for me to take over.

  “Oh,” I said. “Uh, I don’t know how to do this.”

  “Nonsense, Van, this is in your blood!” Laurel called. “Tell her, Lou!”

  “No, I mean, I don’t know how to knit,” I told the old man.

  “Just trust yourself,” he said. “Here.” He tore off a magenta thread from the bulk twist of yarn at his side. “Hold it. Listen. Feel your connection to all of us. To all things.”

  “Again, louder!” Laurel said. “From the diaphragm, Van, that’s how it’s done.”

  The chant moved through and around me, even though I didn’t speak. I started to feel dizzy, like all of those sound waves were needling into my brain or inner ear or something. In that moment, I longed for Ida, for Alex, for Carol, or Joanna. Anyone outside of this place—anyone who could tell me I belonged with them, and not in this unhinged circle. Laurel was really feeling it. She swayed in my peripheral vision, and I wondered how such a wisp of a person had inspired something so large and strange.

  She came over to where I sat and set her palms on my shoulders. “Oh, Van,” she said. “We are so grateful to your mother, and to you.”

  “What do you mean?” I swallowed back my building nausea.

  “Why, without your mother’s generous financial gift we’d never be able to hold this meeting with the cosmic masters.”

  “What?” I swam up through the woozy aural haze and tried to focus on what Laurel had said. “How generous was she, exactly?” I didn’t think I could feel any sicker. I was sure that whatever infusion of cash that had come our way from the Silver Saddle was now lining the pockets of Laurel’s robes.

  “Oh, that’s not important now. And anyway, it’s how we knew she was the chosen one—our savior, so to speak.”

  Oh boy, I thought.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When the chanting was over, I wobbled away from the others. I’d go back to the tent and use Marine’s phone to call Vegas. I assumed she had it stashed in there. The fact that Marine was hiding her phone—and its vibrations—from Laurel reassured me, made me believe she would help. I wanted to check on Ida again. Then I would talk to Mom. The light in the sky was lush and warm. All of those spiny, fragrant plants released their scents under the heat of the sun.

  After wandering around a little, I found the tent and heard shuffling inside.

  “Hello?” I called into the green, waterproof material.

  “Van? Is that you?” A man’s voice called out.

  The zipper slashed open and a figure tumbled out—a tall, familiar figure.

  “Oh my God, Alex,” I said, and fell right into him. “What are you doing here?” I was hysterical with relief.

  “It sounded like you needed help,” he said, smoothing the part of my back just under my rib cage.

  I did need help. I needed help so much.

  “And you weren’t answering the phone, so I drove out here.”

  “How did you find all this?”

  “Wind Song Trailer Park, remember? You don’t forget something like that.”

  My initial relief was peppered with anger. “You promised me you’d stay with Ida!”

  “Don’t worry, Ida’s fine. Ovid is there. He’s barely left her side.”

  “Is she awake?” I pulled away.

  “No.” Alex looked down. “Not yet. But her doctors say she’s doing better.”

  “Well, that’s good,” I said.

  Alex nodded. “Van,” he said, “we need to get out of here.”

  “Yeah, no shit. But it’s not as easy as just walking out. My mom doesn’t want to leave.”

  “Did you tell her about Ida?”

  “Of course I did!” I let my anger pour out over Alex.

  “And what did she say?”

  “She said she didn’t care, basically. She’s crazy, Alex!”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “She stole my phone,” I explained, trying to breathe through the waves of rage flooding my body.

  “Your mom stole your phone?”

  “No, Laurel! She confiscated it, because of the vibrations!” I was shouting now.

  “I’m not sure what that means. Just, I think we should call someb
ody—the cops, something!” Alex was shouting, too.

  Hours before, I’d been desperate to call the cops myself, but I didn’t like Alex suggesting it. And now that he was here—now that I wasn’t completely alone—Laurel and her followers, well, they seemed less threatening.

  “What did Marine say to you about all this?” he asked.

  “Oh Jesus, Marine,” I muttered.

  “She seems really close to these people, but, I don’t know, like she doesn’t trust them.”

  “You think?” A hopeful glow coursed through me. “You talked to her?”

  “A little. She seems, I don’t know, she seems kind of jealous.” Alex raised an eyebrow.

  “That’s good. I think.” I paced around Alex and let my thoughts overlap, folding down into condensed, real possibilities. “Maybe we let my mom go through with this thing tonight, and then tomorrow, when everyone is all celebrating, we sneak away. If I have to hit her over the head and put her in the trunk, I will.” If Alex had a car—it would be fine.

  Alex didn’t say anything.

  “What? We can’t call the cops,” I said. “Do you have any idea what would happen if you called the cops?”

  “No, I don’t.” Alex’s voice was soft. “Will you tell me?”

  I turned away because I couldn’t even look at him. I couldn’t even look at a real person. Why had I felt so relieved, I wondered, when Alex’s showing up just made me feel like more of a mutant. His presence made me feel, horribly, like this campsite was where I belonged.

  “Please tell me why we can’t call the cops.”

  I let my arms fall to my sides.

  “Have you ever called the cops?” I began.

  “No.”

  “That’s what I figured. Cops and people like us, people like Mom, are a bad combination.” I risked a look up into Alex’s warm hazel eyes. “A terrible combination.” I turned my gaze back to my feet.

  “Okay, I still don’t know what you mean exactly.”

  I sighed and looked out over the basin campsite. The sun was just beginning to set, and the layers of sediment in the stone were bright and distinct.