Soul Loss

by Amber Foxx

  The attention both embarrassed and honored Kate. She was accustomed to being invisible except to the deaf. She woke Lobo and proceeded down the ramp. She had another session to interpret, but her way was doubly blocked by front row attendees moving toward the exits and a flow from the other direction forming into a line in front of the stage.

  Jill worked her way down the aisle and joined the line waiting for Bernadette, glancing up at the professor with the kind of smirk Kate had seen on the faces of political debaters about to score a point. The famous shaman then took notice of Kate, giving her a small, dry smile, and said, “I’m intrigued that there are signs for the things she was talking about. Can you really translate all that?”

  “Once in a while there aren’t signs for the words. Then I spell. But I specialize in academic events. My vocabulary is extensive.”

  “Your spelling must be good, too,” said a tall, shapeless woman in line behind Jill. “I’d hate to have to spell something in public.” She giggled and then turned to Jill. “I was with you on that last thing she said about potential harm being as important as competence. I mean, modern medicine does so much harm, but alternative medicine is always being asked to prove it’s not dangerous.”

  Jill nodded and looked over the heads of the people in front of her. Royalty forced to stand among the peasants.

  Kate asked, “Do you think she was saying that neo-shamanic practitioners are dangerous?”

  “Not people like Jill.” The bad speller touched Jill’s arm. “But someone like that witch doctor in your book—”

  “A colorful anecdote from my travels.” Jill ruffled like an irritable bird. “Not exactly representative of modern neo-shamanism.”

  The line progressed and Jill closed in on Bernadette. “I suppose Stan Ellerbee had an influence on your ideas about verifying shamans?”

  Bernadette replied, “I started studying these issues before I met Stan. I began my research on modern healers in Norfolk and Virginia Beach.”

  “The guild of verified healers started there?”

  “No. That wasn’t my idea. It was Jamie Ellerbee’s. I’m only consulting, and I haven’t got anywhere near developing a verification system yet. If you’d invite me to review your trainings, I’d be further along. Please get in touch.”

  Bernadette slipped past Jill and began to talk with the bad speller.

  Jill muttered, “Does she really think I need her approval? A review in her little column?”

  “I have no idea,” Kate said. No idea why Jill objected so much, either, or what was behind the bad blood between Jill and the Ellerbees. Kate wanted to ask, but couldn’t risk alienating her last hope of a star attraction for the fair. Access to the exit had cleared. She gave Lobo his cue to walk. “Please excuse me. I have to sign another session.”

  “Meet me for lunch, Kate.” Jill spoke her name with sudden warmth. “We may have things to talk about.”

  Between signing sessions, Kate checked e-mail and the fair’s web site on her tablet. No updates yet. Jamie had still done nothing. All he’d had was a good idea, and Kate could have signed this conference and thought of it herself. She checked messages on her phone. He’d left her a chaotic text. What had he done—turned off the auto-correct when he couldn’t type? Gto hlep. Fwe dyas ago. Fgrot to teel u. Heather. Kate hoped that the number he gave wasn’t scrambled. She called it.

  “Palace Street Healing Arts, this is Heather. How can I help you?”

  “This is Kate Radescu. Spirit World Fair. Does Jamie do anything on this project?”

  “He pays me.” Heather sounded cheerful and light-hearted. “Or he will.”

  Outrage popped up like a jack-in-the-box. What? I didn’t tell him he could do that. That’s coming out of his pay if we don’t get enough vendors. Kate kept her voice calm, pressing her frustration back into its container. “What has he hired you to do?”

  “The web site. Ad ideas. Place ads once you approve them. I called about the location, too. The price has gone up for the outdoor venue in Pojoaque, so we may have to move it. The registration for participants is so low it’ll be hard to pay for it. Since Jamie’s got some connections at the tribal college I thought we could move it there if we made it more relevant to their mission. You could get some Native dancers and story-tellers, and have lectures in some of the classrooms. They don’t have much going on in the summer, so I bet we could get a weekend. I can’t work on the ad copy, though, since we don’t know what we’re advertising yet—and we can’t take the web site live yet, either. I’ve got a draft version you can look at if you log in as an administrator. I had fun playing with that last night. It’s not fin—”

  “Shit.” Heather was right. How could they advertise when they didn’t even know who was participating?

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No. You didn’t. You’re great.” Kate had to credit Jamie with that. He knew who to choose to do his work for him. “But Jamie did. Where is he?”

  “Albuquerque. He’s doing an interview on KUNM, and then he’s at the hospital.”

  “What?”

  “Oh no, he’s not sick. He volunteers with the Music in Medicine program. Concerts, or bedside music for people who are stressed or scared.”

  It might be nice for the patients to hear his flutes or his voice but she couldn’t picture him being soothing. Fuck. You look buggered. Need a lullaby? Kate brought her mind back to Heather. “Have any more major people declined to participate?”

  “One more, yes. Jill Betts.”

  “She doesn’t count. She already turned me down.”

  “I know. I thought I should try again, though, since the other famous people weren’t doing it, and I love her work.” Heather sighed. “She wasn’t even interested.”

  “Still, you showed some initiative.” Curious about what was behind Bernadette’s exchange with Jill, Kate asked, “Do you know Jill? Have you been to her drum circle?”

  “No, and I couldn’t afford to join even if I was asked. One of our massage therapists got invited and I looked at the application—phew! That’d keep me out even if Jill wanted me in.”

  “How much is it?”

  Heather named a startling price.

  “Wow. If she can command that kind of money ...” Kate needed the psychic part of the fair to bring in the equivalent of Harold Petersen in the musical part. Witch, bitch and all, Jill would be valuable. “We could charge a good fee if she’d do a talk. I like the lecture idea if we get the campus. Did you mention that to her?”

  “No. I thought of it after I’d already asked her. It was just an e-mail, but she came across as pretty final.”

  “Are the campus setting and the lectures on the new web site?”

  “Yes—but it’s just a draft. None of that’s confirmed yet. I can’t get hold of anyone there on the weekend.”

  “Look into it Monday. I’ll see if I can get Jill.”

  Jill sat across from Kate in the hotel coffee shop, examining the draft version of the new Spirit World Fair web site on Kate’s tablet. Heather’s plan included the music, spiritual art, book signings, healing sessions, and psychic readings that had always been features of the fair, along with her proposed expanded programming. Kate sipped her chai tea and watched her companion’s reactions go from frowning distrust to smug delight.

  “This looks marvelous.” Jill’s voice dropped into the glass of iced coffee poised at her mouth, like an echo in a small cave. “Very professional. I think I could find time to be one of the speakers.”

  “So it’s good enough for you now?” I’m inviting the witch who almost destroyed the fair to save it.

  Jill drank and lowered her glass. “Now, Kate, really. I never said it wasn’t good enough. You’re putting words into my mouth. I was busy. A ninety-minute lecture isn’t like committing for two whole days.”

  “Be honest. You want to do this now that it’s classy.” Or now that you’ve eliminated the competition.

  A little girl trailin
g disinterested parents lunged toward Lobo. Kate thrust her hand between her dog and the child. “You never play with a service dog when he’s at work. Do you understand?”

  She kept her voice soft for the little girl, but gave the parents a freezing glare. They were the ones that should know better. The mother mumbled an irritable apology. Lobo remained alert but calm. A look of amusement crossed Jill’s face as the chastised family walked away.

  “I’m afraid I turned Heather down.” Jill speared an olive from her salad and pulled it off her fork with her lips. There was a theatrical precision to her eating, the opposite of Jamie but equally annoying. She reminded Kate of a proper New England dowager at tea, dressed up as a Santa Fe cowgirl. “But she didn’t tell me all this. It would be a perfect venue for sharing my work. In the earlier version of this event I’d imagined having a booth like someone selling frybread at a powwow. In this setting, I think I could reach a great many more people who could benefit.”

  Kate pulled a wilted piece of lettuce from her sandwich. Disgusting. “People who could buy your books?”

  “Have you read them?”

  “No. Do I need to?”

  “Hardly.” Jill cut a tomato slice with her knife and dipped it in dressing. “I think you are fully in touch with your personal power and your womanhood.”

  “You mean I’m a bitch.”

  Jill chuckled, a deep, close-mouthed sound. “That’s what timid people call strong women.”

  “Will you call Heather back?”

  “Get her to ask me again.” Jill took a bite of her salad and leaned back in her chair, taking her time to chew and swallow. “I’m sure I’ll get a better location and time slot if I’m courted. I see it’s going to be at the Eight Northern campus.”

  “That’s tentative.”

  “I expect you can work it through Jamie’s connections.” Jill’s tone became condescending. “Everything that young man does comes through his father’s influence. Verifying healers.” She sniffed. “That has Stan written all over it.”

  Kate felt a strange urge to defend Jamie. She’d seen him at the board meeting, struggling to pull his thoughts together as the idea formed. “No, I was there when Jamie came up with it. It’s his original idea.”

  “It still came from Stan. Jamie’s thinking is no more original than his music.”

  “His music—”

  “Is a hodge-podge of influences from Stan’s travels, plus the operatic training.” Jill winced as if hearing music in two clashing keys. “Jamie’s talented, but he has no center.”

  “If you’re doing the fair, you’d better not go around saying things like that. He’s the emcee, and the opening act.”

  “That’s why I wanted to see you.” Jill lowered her voice, angling in toward Kate with the air of a concerned confidante. “He’s unreliable. I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I don’t know how well you know him.” She speared a slice of zucchini, held it poised near her mouth. “Check your crystal ball, dear. You may need a plan B.”

  Kate turned off her tablet and put it away. “Thanks for the warning, but I don’t need it.”

  Enemies said things about each other that weren’t worth listening to. Jamie wasn’t that unreliable. He might want to quit if Jill was in the fair, but he couldn’t, and he and Jill both knew it. Kate was going to have them both whether or not they wanted each other there.

  On her way to interpret her final session of the day, The Intentional Evocation of the Placebo Response in Traditional and Modern Healing, Kate made a quick call to Heather to have her take care of Mae’s contract and appointments, and suggested she re-invite Jill. Heather bubbled with excitement at the prospect.

  Attendance at the talk was low. Kate had only one deaf client left. The speaker, a squat woman wearing ceramic jewelry in the shape of frogs, had a monotonous voice that put a few listeners to sleep. The deaf man looked more alert than the people who could hear her.

  “Ceremony evokes a response, whether it’s an OCD ritual, an athlete’s superstition about his lucky socks, or a shaman’s dance. Rituals with negative meaning create a nocebo rather than a placebo.” Kate had to spell out nocebo. “For example, a voodoo curse, or having your blood pressure taken.”

  Being in a doctor’s office made Kate’s blood pressure go up. She understood the nocebo.

  “These responses are real, not imagined. It’s how shamans have always worked. We all respond to music and dance, and we all respond to hope and to dread. I’ve conducted studies on lesser-known placebo effects that are more subtle aspects of our expectations. CAM practitioners, for example, may be advised not to set their prices too low. My studies have found that an expensive placebo is more effective than a cheap one. This is true of pills and procedures. If your work is effective, it may be more effective if it costs more. Our beliefs set up our expectations of quality, and our bodies respond accordingly.”

  Kate was grateful to her remaining deaf client for not leaving early. Her head was spinning with ideas that almost fit but sometimes contradicted each other. Were Jill’s high prices making people feel better, rather than her teachings?

  Meanwhile Jamie was giving away music at a hospital where people paid thousands of dollars for treatment, yet might need a song to ease their suffering. A nurse could check blood pressure or the use of self-administered pain medication and see if the music helped. Who would measure anything Jill did? Bernadette wanted to, but Jill wouldn’t let her.

  Maybe the high prices and the applications were a guarantee of a good placebo response, but they could also be a moat around the castle of Queen Jill. Her reputation must have suffered when Kandyce Kahee died. Jill protected herself from scrutiny after that. Maybe it was because she was a fake, or maybe because she had something else to hide.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Unpacking the kitchen was easy, since Mae could put things in cabinets. She flew through it, eager to surprise Jamie. The work was harder in the other rooms, since they had no furniture, but it was worth the effort. The last artifacts of his winter of depression would be gone by the time he got home.

  She had to put the boxes with papers in them in the living room closet. If she didn’t make Jamie buy a file cabinet tomorrow he might leave them forever, so she started a furniture shopping list. When she stacked books where shelves should go, she estimated how many shelves he’d need and added those to the list. Upstairs, she found one disassembled lamp and a whole nest of lampshades in a box, but no other lamps. More for the list. Lamps. Dressers. Bedside tables. She turned an empty box upside down as a table for the bouquet, which she had arranged in a pretty blue vase.

  As Jamie had predicted, the clothing she unpacked showed him at extreme variations in weight. Why hadn’t he gotten rid of things he’d never wear again? Avoiding the history of his battles with his body? The biggest clothes must have been packed for years. She hung all the clothes she thought he might want to keep in the closet. The largest and smallest sizes she repacked into separate boxes and labeled them.

  At the bottom of a box containing neckties, dress shirts and a suit, which would fit him at what he called perfect-one-seventy-five, Mae found photos of Jamie with an elegant blonde woman. Mae had never met her, but she knew enough about Jamie’s life to recognize his ex-fiancée, Lisa. He probably hadn’t dressed up since Lisa had broken the engagement. Mae put the pictures on the spare room’s closet shelf and hung the clothing toward the far end of the bedroom closet. Jamie might not want to think about Lisa, but he’d lose a few pounds eventually and look good in that suit.

  At the bottom of the box, Mae found two small lumps wrapped in white paper, and a cheap stand-up picture frame, face down, showing its black cardboard backing. She picked up the first bundle of paper and two rings fell out, wide silver bands with gold-trimmed inlays of alternating green and blue turquoise. Two sizes, a man’s and a woman’s.

  For a second her breath stopped. Wedding bands? Jamie had packed most of these boxes when he’d split up with Lisa. Th
e suit might have been for their planned wedding.

  The edge of a bracelet poked out of the other wad of paper. Gold-trimmed silver, perhaps the work of the same artist. Mae unwrapped it with the intention of rewrapping it more tightly, but once she’d uncovered it, she was too struck by its beauty to hide it again.

  The heavy silver cuff bore a solar system in semi-precious stones, the ringed planets wearing thin bands of gold around their colorful belts. A yellow turquoise Jupiter was inlaid with jasper for its red spot. Mars was apple coral. Venus, mother of pearl. Earth, made of green and blue turquoise like the wedding bands, showed the western portion of North America and all of Australia, wrapped in gold in the silver sea. Lisa must have had it designed for Jamie, showing his birthplace and hers. Tears started in Mae’s eyes.

  So much love and hope went into these things. They told a story she could read without being psychic: Lisa gave Jamie the bracelet and he went to the same silversmith for their rings. If Mae had uncovered anything this meaningful from her marriage to Hubert, even after moving on from him, it would still hurt. She wished Jamie had furniture, a drawer in which to tuck these away so he wouldn’t lose them, but wouldn’t have to see them until he was ready.

  Turning the bracelet reverently, she noticed words engraved inside. Reading them felt almost sacrilegious. They might say, Love forever from Lisa, or some other broken promise.

  They didn’t. The inscription was simply sterling silver, 14k gold, and the artist’s maker’s mark and tribe. Mae stared at it. The letter K framed either end of a striated arc like a rainbow. K rainbow K. Kandyce Rainbow Kahee, Cochiti.

  If Mae thought like Kenny, she’d say the universe had put this in her hands. That everything happened for a reason. Through Kahee’s creations, Mae might see how Jill had worked with a chosen student. If Jill taught certain favored students how to steal power, knowing how she did it could help Mae undo the damage.