“Promise?”
“I promise.” It was their familiar exchange, the way they’d always taken care of each other.
“Love you, Xochi.”
“Love you, too.”
Xochi placed the phone in its receiver and cried. She missed Collier. She missed Loretta. Evan was dead. Why hadn’t Ky grabbed her leather jacket instead of this worthless hoodie? She’d had her wallet in there. She’d been saving up. Right now, nothing sounded better than the crappy SRO she’d stayed in when she’d first gotten to the city. She would check in and sleep for the next six months.
As it was, she was starving and exhausted and a total liability to her friends. It was crazy, but there was no denying what Xochi remembered now. The Waterbabies had appeared at the same moment Leviticus walked through the door, just like Kylen said. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Xochi stood up. She couldn’t stay in that phone booth forever.
She walked until she found a bus stop. What time was it? Eight or nine? She sat cross-legged on the bench, keeping her spine straight. She’d seen Io meditate this way. She kept her eyes open, though. It wouldn’t do to sit around with them closed in the middle of the city. She fixed her vision on the wheels of a car parked across the street and quieted her mind.
Of course, there he was: Leviticus. His bathtub, his bed—so natural and right. Touching was complicated, so they didn’t touch. Surprisingly, sleep was simple. Yes, she’d been drinking. She was high. But the comfort there was stronger than the chemicals she’d ingested, an antidote made by her and Leviticus both. It made her feel taller, sit up straighter. Iggy Pop’s “Strong Girl” bounced around her head. How cool to be a girl as strong as an ocean. That’s what Xochi needed now. A slight breeze disturbed the garbage in the gutters. Her eye caught a gray slip of paper floating above the collection of trash. A bus transfer, still good. A squeaking Muni bus pulled up. Without stopping to see where it was headed, Xochi got on.
50
Kundalini Express
For the first time since he’d left the warehouse, James could identify the bus’s location: downtown, Mission bound. He’d ridden the entire route twice. After a third time, if his routine held, he’d be grounded enough to retrieve his car and go home.
For the last half hour, he’d been listening to the conversation of the elderly couple who’d just gotten off the bus. They’d spoken in Mandarin, so all he could make out were a few simple words, but in his heightened state, their connection appeared like intertwined roots. Each time they spoke, the roots curled more intricately together. He’d especially enjoyed watching them exit the bus, how the man had helped his wife disembark with a hand on her back, how she’d discreetly steadied him, the more rickety of the two, with a touch to his elbow, taking nothing away from his chivalry.
Now there were only two other passengers—a woman reading a novel in the seat behind the driver and a young girl in a sweatshirt with her hood pulled up. Unlike most passengers, who held their destinations tightly in their minds, the young woman did not know where she was going.
She folded her legs to sit in lotus position and closed her eyes. Lines of light flowed from the palms of her hands, which she held in a posture of surrender. As the bus turned onto Valencia, something in the girl’s aura changed. The light shooting from her left hand flickered, glowing pomegranate red. He remembered the way long journeys were depicted in old movies, with a line traveling across a map.
He switched seats from the window to the aisle.
“Excuse me, miss.”
The young woman opened her eyes. She was familiar, but he couldn’t place her. “Excuse me, but I think we’re coming to your stop.”
Her brow wrinkled. After a moment, she said, “Wait, do I know you?”
He removed his sunglasses and met her eyes. “It’s possible,” he admitted, “but there is no doubt whatsoever that this is your stop. Hurry, young lady, you don’t want to miss it.”
51
Wilderland
Xochi stood on the corner of Valencia and 23rd. She’d recognized James as she was getting off the bus, too late to thank him. But really, thank him for what? He’d been so sure she was supposed to get off here, but it was hard to see why. None of the shops or houses on the street held any special significance.
Xochi was warm. She backed out of the sun, retreating to the shade of an overgrown camellia. She took off her hoodie. With the cool air against her skin, it was clear the heat was coming from her necklace. Weird, she thought, heading down the block.
At the crosswalk, she realized she’d left her hoodie behind. By the time she walked back, she was sweating again and the stone on her necklace was almost too hot to touch.
Wait a minute, Xochi thought. Warmer when I’m close, cooler when I’m far away? And when I’m right here—right where the Hookah-Smoking Caterpillar sent me—it’s red hot?
There was nothing on the block besides closed-up bars and taquerias, a grocery store on the corner and an occult store across the street, also closed. The house behind her had a sign in the yard, hidden by some exuberant spring grass. The word “sirena” was printed in curly script under a picture of a mermaid. This must be the secret women’s bathhouse Bubbles had told her about. Xochi climbed the stairs to the front porch, necklace hotter with every step.
The door didn’t give many further clues except for a hand-printed sign: “women only” and a piece of lined paper announcing spring business hours in pink Magic Marker.
Xochi left the porch and tried the narrow walkway leading around the side of the house. When she came around the corner, the amulet practically sizzled. She came to a high wooden gate with a sign: “be aware of the dog.”
Be aware of the dog? She’d officially stepped off the bus and down the rabbit hole. She was contemplating standing on an overturned trash can to see over the fence, but then the gate opened. Standing in a posture of calm welcome was a massive German shepherd. It wagged its tail and grinned.
Xochi followed, closing the gate behind her. She found herself in an oasis of a backyard.
The cool green space vibrated with a sense of destination. A wet nose nudged her leg. A flagstone path wound through the trees. The moment Xochi put her foot on the pavers, her necklace screamed, HOT HOT HOT.
She took a step, then another. A wisteria trellis in full bloom scented the light wind. The path opened onto a clearing.
A swell of emotion surged, wave upon wave upon wave. Grief and longing and relief and reunion were a whirlpool that sucked Xochi to the ground. Gravel bit into her palms and dug into her knees. Crows cawed overhead. She touched her face. Viscous tears dripped from her chin. She stood and touched her fingers to her lips. They were sweet. Just like honey.
Near the fence were three redwood hot tubs. The center tub was smaller than the others and covered in a buzzing cloud. The dog pressed against her leg, licked her sticky fingers, and pushed her onward with its blocky head. The buzzing cloud of bees rose several feet to reveal two small, still figures. Xochi’s mind reached for something to explain this improbable garden with its sentient dog and sentinel bees and Secret Service detail of crows, all obviously guarding the two otherworldly beings asleep in the redwood tub.
In Xochi’s dreams, the pair’s skin had been vivid, their hair a living thing, but now their skin was dull, their hair pooled on the deck behind them in two limp piles. Xochi wanted to run to them, as if they were long lost and beloved. But she stopped, remembering what they were capable of.
“Hello?” she said.
The Waterbabies didn’t stir. Slowly, she approached the tub. She put a hand in the water. Tepid. She remembered the dreams of mineral pools and mud baths. She found the controls for the heater and turned them all the way up. The green girl’s eyelids fluttered, but didn’t open. Her tiny, perfect hand rose to the surface of the water. Xochi should have been afraid, but she wasn’t. She took the little hand in hers.
A voice opened like a flower in her mind. My brother is cold.
“I turned up the heat,” Xochi said. “It will get warmer.”
YOU are warm.
Reason told her to stop and think, but she was already unlacing her boots. The bees buzzed overhead. The crows ruffled their feathers.
Naked, Xochi slipped into the water, the cool an instant relief. She touched the brown boy’s hand. It was heavy, a clay thing, but Xochi sensed life in it. She touched her throat. Loretta’s necklace! She took it off and placed it around his neck. The opal glowed. His eyes opened.
Thank you.
His voice in her head tasted of iron and made her piercing tingle. The fist that had been in her stomach since breakfast released.
Xochi.
He said her name like he loved her.
We greet you, he said, taking Xochi’s hand. Xochi touched the green girl, who reached in turn for her brother, the circuit complete. The voice in Xochi’s head was a textured thing, each word connected to the next like the loops of yarn Loretta hooked into blankets.
Low, low, deep and low
In the heat at the heart of the earth
Brother is alone and lonely
It has not always been so
He once had a sister, tall and fine, elder and wiser
But one day, his sister was gone
His kind must be paired to travel
His kind must be paired to thrive
His kind must be paired, but he is not
His sister lost to mystery
Alone and lonely, Brother sleeps
Curled into the earth
Knowing only darkness
Heat and magma, ore and root
Then, one day, a voice
“I can’t see you, but I know you’re there,” the woman said.
The human sound was pleasant,
A thing of bark and soil
“I feel you every time I come here. Like maybe you lost someone you loved.” She lowered her body into the hot spring and sat quietly for a time.
From deep below
Brother sends his greeting
He sends a story, a gift of thanks
He tells of a sister, elder and wiser
A sister, suddenly gone
The human sends the gift of her name: “Loretta.”
“My aunt was a midwife,” Loretta said. “She worked with a family who tried to have a child for many years. Finally, they were expecting, but the baby died the day it was born. We brought them food, did a cleansing in their house. Nothing helped until my aunt met a young woman who couldn’t keep her baby. ‘Perfect,’ my aunt said. ‘A match made in heaven.’ When the bereaved couple saw the baby, they instantly knew: the child was meant to be their daughter.”
The story runs through Brother, seismic
A new child, a second chance
The mudpot stirs
Bright flashes of fire wake the slow, liquid earth
Brother reaches for the woman, but she is gone
The next day,
He makes himself light
Rising through the earth’s thick blood
To the cooler water atop the spring
Crows ring the meadow, melanite feathers sparkling in the sun
Smaller birds carpet the clearing,
Orbiting some earthbound moon
They part as Brother approaches
His steps as unsteady as a fawn’s
In the center of the circle sits a Dream:
Honeybee mantled, hummingbird crowned,
Her skin a luminous fortunate green
A little sister. Precious and rare
A brother once more, he takes her hand
Together they listen. Together they feel
Together they travel, side by side
Brother is no longer alone
Xochi opened her eyes. The precious sister, the loving brother. They stood before her, hand in hand, eyes bright with hope. Tears streamed down Xochi’s face. Loretta. She’d been taking care of Xochi all along. “You knew her,” Xochi said.
I knew her. Brother’s voice rippled through the water. He wiped Xochi’s tears with the back of his hand. His touch brought back the September afternoon Loretta’s pain had ceased, the invisible hands holding hers on either side of the rented hospital bed, the glowing stone of the necklace at her throat.
“You came when she was dying,” Xochi said. “You helped her.”
She helped us, Sister said. She loved you.
“She loved Evan, too.” Xochi was still crying. “No one asked you to do that.”
He hurt you. Brother’s voice expanded into Xochi’s chest like the vibration of Kylen’s cello. He hurt others. Others before, others after. He would not stop. He could not mend.
Hurt and hurting. Sister squeezed Xochi’s hand. Golden and broken. Over and done. We led, but we did not choose.
Xochi saw a peaceful moment, Evan’s face in repose under a blue sky. She thought of the blue velvet box and locket. Panic flapped in her gut. “What about Gina?”
Your mother sleeps, Brother said. We cannot wake her.
“What do you mean?” Xochi pulled away, backing to the edge of the tub. “What did you do to her?”
Hurt and hurting, Sister’s voice chirped. Golden and broken. Guilty and shamed. The green girl’s eyes begged for understanding. Her hair twitched and rose an inch from the deck. The crows in the fir tree launched into the air, cawing and harsh. They reminded Xochi of Kylen.
Suddenly, Brother stood. He unfastened Xochi’s necklace from his neck and put it on his sister. The hummingbirds looked alive on her throat, the opal a radiant egg. She climbed from the tub and stood on the deck with the air of a reciting child. When she spoke, her voice was rough with crow’s music, obsidian and feathered and wild.
We tracked and we changed the one who betrayed
Broke the spell of the blood-thief and snake-tongued maid.
You called us here, and we answered your call.
We found your lost mother, but cannot mend all.
Too long from our home, cut off from our might
Your mother lays trapped in ever-night.
We came to help you, restore you and heal you,
We came to avenge you, to know and protect you.
But now we must ask these things of you—
We cannot go home unless we do.
Sister finished, her skin agate bright.
Her brother’s eyes burned with pride. “Do you understand what we ask of you?” His voice had physical form, a tall tree in an ancient wood.
“You’ve been to see my mother. And something went wrong?”
“She sleeps,” Sister said. “She cannot awaken. Hurt and hurting. Guilty and shamed.”
“Okay. I get that, I think. She’s too messed up. You guys couldn’t fix her.”
The Waterbabies nodded in unison, an oddly human gesture.
“And now you can’t wake her up?”
Sister nodded again, raven eyes wide.
Xochi sat on the edge of the tub, legs in the water. A chemical stink pushed out of her pores—alcohol and cigarettes and drugs. She tried Loretta’s breathing technique. She longed for a cold glass of water.
The slipperiness she’d described to Kylen edged at the perimeter of her brain—because although her body was here in this impossible situation, how could it be real? She noted the familiar internal rip of dissociation, consciousness separating from skin. She pictured a zipper on the surface of her soul, making it easier to leave at will. So many things didn’t add up. Better to leave them behind with her vulnerable, treacherous body and just . . . float away.
A hand on her ankle brought her to ground. She saw water and the wooden bottom of the tub. She s
aw the soil and small creatures beneath it. Lower maple roots made a lattice that held her. The earth stretched its arms open wide.
She was here.
She was real.
She was safe.
Denial may have helped her survive before, but it would only ruin her now.
A memory rose from the mulch, branding her forehead with its protection: Xochi on Duncan’s horrible dead-animal couch, Leviticus kneeling at her feet. Him holding her head, touching his forehead to hers. A kindred spirit. Family. Friend. The Waterbabies were as real as she had been last night in Leviticus’s bed, last night on Duncan’s couch, last year alone in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, lying dead as a stone as Evan moved over her again and again and again.
Something buzzed in her ear. A bee. Xochi stayed very still. The bee hovered. A scent lingered, utterly familiar. Gina’s perfume. It drenched Xochi’s skin and seeped into her open pores. Xochi wanted to reject it, but she couldn’t; it was already part of her. Gina may have messed up a thousand different ways, but she would always be Xochi’s mother.
Xochi sat up.
“I think I understand,” she said. “Evan was too far gone. But Gina isn’t. Not innocent or guilty. Golden and broken—I get it.”
These two magical beings were so small and strange and brave. They didn’t belong here. They’d only come for Xochi, for Loretta. She had to help them. And, like it or not, that meant she had to help Gina, too.
52
Gun Street Girl
Xochi took the bus again, her transfer still good. The Mitchell Brothers marquee read: kelly summers: live and barely legal! The club didn’t open until noon, but men were already lining up. Xochi’s stomach tightened. Wherever you are is where you belong, Pallas’s voice chirped in Xochi’s head. She’d said that before the Equinox concert, when Xochi had confessed to feeling out of place.
Pallas. She was probably so mad. And worried. But maybe Xochi could still fix things. She put her shoulders back and approached the bouncer guarding the door against the impatient men.
All of Us with Wings Page 25
