“The doctors have gone over this again and again. You weren’t yourself.” Alina touched Katryn’s hand, her skin gritty as if covered in powder. “You need to go back before the end of the week or the producers are going to find someone else.”
The morning chill seeped from the wooden floor through Katryn’s bandages into her damaged feet. The sensation was pleasant.
“She knew they weren’t candies.” Katryn gave a weak smile. She looked out the window at the tops of lush trees rippling like the surface of an ocean in the wind. “I’m responsible. If not for me—”
Someone knocked at the front door.
“Oh dear. Do you hear that? They’re nosing about again.” Alina stood, walked towards the entrance.
Katryn stared out the window and watched the girls run between the trees. Their diaphanous rags glowed in the lambent light. Several had fingernail thin darts protruding from their shoulder blades and calves.
The foliage shuddered as something unseen chased them.
A bump against the front door. The window panes clinked in response. “Hold on. No need to be rude.”
The door shook violently.
“You hear that dear? Such impatience.”
“I don’t know what I heard,” Katryn said.
Alina opened the door.
THE OCEAN IS EATING OUR GRAVES
Levi and Mariee were seven years old when they found the dead child on the shore. The newborn’s skull was horribly deformed: bulbous eyes, skin the color of a Moon Jellyfish, a face so unlike the twins they were certain it wasn’t human. Despite Levi’s attempts to console Mariee, she wept as if they’d lost a sibling.
The Coastal Colony Tribes’ reservation police investigated, but nothing was resolved. It was several years before AIM and the Ogala Lakota took over Wounded Knee, so few non-Indians were aware of, much less cared, about Native human rights issues. Predictably, outside authorities claimed the corpse’s deformities were the inevitable consequence of Indians and alcohol.
But that malformed baby stirred up talk on the Rez. Stories about Pugwis and Kushtakas luring children to a watery grave spread, and a few influenced by Kwakwaka’wakw myths spoke of Kumugwe lurking just off the coastline.
Levi’s tsunami nightmares started the evening the elders buried the tiny corpse.
When Levi was a child he’d pretend the windswept Douglas Firs leaning away from the ocean were Tsimshian totem poles trying to escape the icy spray. The pieces of glass-smooth driftwood washed up by foamy waves were magical artifacts. It was a landscape plucked from another world and spliced with the local fauna in hopes the invasive species would eventually replace his land.
“Well, look what the sea washed up.” The deep voice startled Levi.
Dr. Alex Hardy still sported long, braided hair and turquoise bracelets. Still playing the Indian wannabe. Levi didn’t remember his old professor’s eyes being such a vivid blue.
“Good to see you. Hope you don’t mind that I used some vacation time to poke around.” Levi said.
“Glad you could visit off the clock, Dr. Garcia. Let me show you what we’ve found.”
Levi did his best to hide his annoyance over Applied Environmental, Inc. hiring Dr. Hardy to work on Site 35-CS-198. Granted, the Coastal Colony Tribes Rez relied on contractors since their cultural resource budget was limited, but he felt stifled bound to a desk at the State Historic Preservation office. He missed the archeological work, the saturated ground under his boots, the subtle tug and depth of ancient things buried within the land. The world of fossil antlers and osteological jungles deep below seemed far too distant as of late.
The Blood Mound was monstrous, several feet taller than Levi’s impressive height. The clay was a deep, reddish chocolate color, like a swollen blood blister. The crew had sectioned the dome into balks, partitions breaking it up into four quadrants to better preserve its stratification. There were several archeologists and students digging and sifting in the deep wet sand.
Levi placed his palm on the mound. The clay suckled his flesh. He rubbed thumb against forefinger, fascinated and repulsed by the soil’s color and albumen-like texture.
“Hiker found a bone fishhook over here. Our initial survey uncovered the top of the clay and we’ve since excavated the whole thing.”
Levi resisted the urge to scour the red stain from his skin. “Any idea what it’s for?”
“Not a funerary receptacle. Plenty of lithic and bone tools inside—harpoon points and such. No human remains. We’ve catalogued and stored the artifacts in town at the rental space. Waiting to be shipped off to the university lab.”
“Most of these kinds of mounds were used for burial. Nothing like the Etowah or Gahagan mounds.”
“No. Nothing like them.”
“Clay?”
“The Structural Geology lab is going over the samples. I’ll e-mail you what they’ve sent so far.”
Levi wasn’t surprised that little had changed on the Rez—same tilt of a rusted fence, same growth of mold enveloping a crumbling home, rows of abandoned houses, roofs sagging with age. All casualties of bank-redlining the American Indian Housing Council was powerless against. He imagined everyone lying in their soggy beds and couches as they grew into the furniture like moss on roof shingles.
He drove to the outskirts of the reservation into the small town of Mosswood, past the convenience store’s alley where Thomas had suffered irreparable brain damage from huffing paint thinner, past the trailer park where the Reynolds brothers beat 15-year-old Levi so severely he missed a week of school. He’d made sure the Reynolds boys missed a month.
He parked at the River Run Café. As he set foot on the asphalt something scurried past his truck. Probably a stuffed trash bag swept along by the rushing waters. His rain-saturated glasses only made the object look like a blubbery animal waddling through the muddy ditch.
Mariee was waiting for him inside, the café’s only customer. She was wearing their old high school punk band sweatshirt, Red Menace.
“Oh, sweetheart, your hair used to be as black as the ocean floor.”
“Hey, go easy, sis—I’m here on vacation.”
“What’s it been? Ten months?”
“Nine months. Congrats on your promotion, by the way.”
“Thanks. I’ll let you get away with changing the subject.”
Her smile was infectious. Mariee had always been better at learning languages and absorbing foreign cultures than Levi—there was no one better qualified for the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer role. He was proud of his twin sister.
Mariee slid a key towards him. “I don’t care if your room is on the state’s dime; my place is closer to the site than any shitbox hotel in Mosswood.”
“Thanks. You’re pretty considerate for a Rezzy ‘crat.”
“I am, aren’t I.”
Levi tried to enjoy his grilled salmon and eggs breakfast, despite the strange consistency of the fish. Several cups of coffee and a basket of warm fry bread washed the disconcerting aftertaste away.
“How’d your visit with Dr. Hardy go?”
“He’s a bit different than I remember. So, is this where you tell me why you think he violated NAGPRA?”
Mariee’s suspicions relied on the word of Adam Joseph, a Duwamish kid recruited to the site on an SAA Native American Scholarship. Adam claimed he’d been sorting fish bones at a flotation tank when he saw Dr. Hardy walk off with a parietal bone.
Levi traced his finger along the FUCK THE REZ groove carved into the tabletop. “Stealing Indian bones, federal shitstorm like that—” he paused with a mouthful of bread, “—needs more than the word of some student.”
Mariee nodded. “I don’t want to ruin anyone’s career, but Adam also found a strange artifact. Photographs it, fills out an area form, bags and labels it. Archeology 101. Adam checks the database the next morning and ....”
“Never entered.”
“You got it.”
“You really think Hard
y is a goddamn pothunter?”
“Maybe. Adam texted some pics.” Mariee handed her phone to Levi.
There were several shots of a cylinder, bone or ivory, stained a dull red from the clay it had been buried in. The surface was etched with unusual designs that didn’t resemble any Native art Levi was familiar with.
“Haven’t heard or been able to get a hold of Adam since he sent these last Tuesday.” Mariee’s voice quavered.
“Probably ran off with a girl.” Levi knew he wasn’t offering much comfort. Violent crime on the Rez had escalated dramatically and they both knew how the machine operated—justice was all-too-often stymied by convoluted federal jurisdictions. Another disease inherited from the European occupation as far as Levi was concerned. He deftly changed the subject.
“Hardy might be a respected anthropologist, but to me, he’ll always be just another academic appropriating Native cultures. Remember back in college? Arrowhead necklaces and all that turquoise jewelry. Fucking joke.”
“Sometimes, we have work with whatever’s available. Enemy of my enemy and all that.” Mariee sounded uncharacteristically angry.
Levi shrugged. “Christ, those lectures on telepathic dolphins and Von Daniken pseudoarcheology ....” He mimicked Hardy’s baritone voice: “Lacandon Mayans are from Mars; Tz’utujil are from Venus.”
Mariee couldn’t help but laugh. “Crazy shit, innit? Almost as crazy as that Blood Mound.”
That night, Mariee went to bed early while Levi stayed up to read the lab reports Hardy had e-mailed. Salmon, duck and deer bones dating back to the late 17th century, plenty of faunal material, traces of camas bulbs mixed into the oak and pine charcoal samples. There was little doubt in his mind that 35-CS-198 was a temporary settlement swept away by the Cascadia tsunami.
In 1700, a massive earthquake had caused a tidal wave to sweep from Vancouver Island to Northern California, sinking the Washington coastline by as much as 3.5 meters. Geologists estimated that the area’s subduction zone produced a massive tremor every 500 years on average—the region was long overdue for another one. Levi was certain his tsunami nightmares would be brutal that night.
He skimmed the geology lab’s results: Deposition of fine-grained sediments on the continental shelf… Abyssal deposition of clays… found in submarine canyons… The Blood Mound contained volcanic ash, silica shells, hematite. That explained the red color.
The rubidium-strontium tests identified the clay samples as pelagite, a sediment found far from major landmasses. At depths below 6,000 meters.
The lab must have made a mistake.
There were a couple of species on the spreadsheets he hadn’t expected to see—an abundance of Chauliodus macouni and Abyssobrotula galatheae bones, more commonly known as the viperfish and cusk eel. Both animals inhabited the Abyssal and Hadal zones, in the furthest trenches of the oceans. Well over 10,000 meters deep.
Almost seven miles underwater.
Levi was sure this would all make more sense after a good night’s rest.
He dreamt he was writhing in bloody clay, devouring nutrients in the stagnant muck, gorging on decomposing bones, ferns and rotting larvae. The clay filled his eyes and mouth. A tsunami rose miles into the sky, descended and rolled across the cosmos. Something began to sing. When he woke up he assumed Mariee had walked to work since her bed was made and her car was still in front. As he sipped his coffee his ears rang with the dream song.
Levi decided to avoid 35-CS-198 for the day and catch up on old acquaintances. As the afternoon approached, he called Mariee to see if she wanted to join him in Mosswood for lunch, but her voice mail picked up.
By early evening he tried Mariee’s cell and work numbers again with no luck. This was unlike her; she was obsessively punctual. Her Umpqua women’s advocacy group had probably run later than expected. He thumbed through the literature on her bookshelves in hopes he’d see something that would draw his attention away from the phone.
Mariee had always been an avid reader, mainly history and sociology. But her bookshelves also held yellowing fantasy novels whose plots centered on barbarians battling tribes that were thinly veiled racist stereotypes and sci-fi covers depicting bipedal axolotls rising from the depths to rape the surface world’s women. Literature that warned against the threat of miscegenation.
But Levi knew that Mariee saw something beyond his knee-jerk assessment. To her, they were not only thrilling adventures but a way to explore fantastic lands guided solely by imagination. Perhaps, in some subtle way, these books had inspired her to study their own Coos heritage, free of Eurocentric impositions.
One particular book’s spine caught Levi’s eye. It was a limited print vanity press edition titled Unidentified Aquatic Objects by an I.T. Ivan. The blurb read, “Ever Wonder Why 89% of UFO Sightings Are Near Water?” then elaborated by alleging UFOs (or UAOs) were emissaries from underwater alien bases.
Levi thought back to college and remembered Hardy’s office stacked with books on Lemuria, Pumapunku, and “ancient astronaut” titles. For some inexplicable reason, he distinctly remembered a copy of Unidentified Aquatic Objects on the desk.
He was acting paranoid. Mariee just happened to have the same obscure volume Hardy had all those years ago. But the coincidence, combined with the missing Duwamish kid, the artifact and human bone, clawed at his gut. Hardy had stored his finds at the Mosswood storage facility. The building was isolated. The area was a convenient spot to hide something…
Levi threw the book back on the shelf. He was being ridiculous. Dr. Alex Hardy was a renowned archeologist, not a thief, much less a psychopath. He had to think this through rationally. But he also knew he was wasting time, pacing his sister’s house waiting for a phone call.
Levi parked his truck in front of Mosswood’s sole storage facility. The sliding shutters for the individual rental spaces were labeled, but he looked for the only one with a padlock. He quickly found it.
Getting caught would have serious repercussions, but he was betting his crime would be blamed on bored teen vandals. He kicked the shutter several times until the metal loop holding the lock in place broke away.
Inside, rows of corrugated plastic Hollinger boxes were stacked on wire shelves running the length of the small room. They were all marked with a CV-7421 sticker identifying their contents as originating from the Blood Mound site. Levi opened a few to find labeled polyethylene bags stuffed with animal bone chips and mussel shells.
Sweat trickled down his temples. He pointed his flashlight inside another box, all the while dreading the discovery of human bones. He glanced over his shoulder at the broken door, expecting something to come bursting in. There were only painted shells and dozens of faded beads that had been brightly colored centuries ago.
Nothing incriminating. He’d let his personal dislike of Hardy lead him on a wild goose chase—not to mention breaking and entering. He’d allowed his impulsiveness to get the better of him.
His phone vibrated. He was disappointed to see it was Hardy’s number.
“Alex?” He felt as if he’d been caught red-handed, but managed to keep his voice steady.
“We need to talk.” Hardy’s voice gurgled unpleasantly.
“About Mariee?”
There was a long pause. “They’ve gone and summoned it. It’s ascending—”
“Meet me at the River Run Café.” Levi interrupted.
He slid into the booth across from Dr. Hardy. The waitress came by and Levi ordered two coffees.
Hardy was pale, his skin oily, almost sleek in the diner’s diffused light. “It can’t walk and it can’t multiply, so let it be merely a thought.”
“The Popol Vuh.” Levi shook his head in confusion. “What is this about?”
“At first, the gods made them from clay, but the water dissolved their bodies. Like Cairns-Smith’s clay from silicates, crystal structures proliferating, each layer containing defects allowing natural selection to influence their growth.”
Levi cou
ldn’t disguise his frustration. “Is there a point to all of this?”
“The Koran says humans came from a clot of blood. The Sioux have We-Ota-Wichash, Much Blood Boy, the—.”
“I know. Some of us were born real Indians. But I’m not sure why you think I give a fuck about Sioux legends—we Redskins don’t all have the same customs. Where’s Mariee?”
Hardy looked hurt. “Mariee called them Pugwis. I thought, if I ever published a paper on them, I’d call them Abyssal Ones—” He laughed and made a dismissive gesture.
“Your students might be impressed by your alien fantasies, but I’m not. Where’s Mariee?”
The waitress brought their coffee. Hardy spoke when she was out of earshot. “A new people, Levi, an undiscovered culture.”
Levi wasn’t ready to accept submersible ETs burying their kin in native burial mounds. “Alex. Did you steal artifacts? Take some bones as souvenirs?”
“Oh, their technologies…” Hardy looked as if he were going to weep. “They can do things with biology we’ve never even come close to imagining.”
“What did you do to my sister?”
Hardy looked at his work-weathered hands on the table. “She dove deeper than any human has ever been.”
It took everything in Levi to keep from reaching across the table and hurting the elderly archeologist, but he managed to calmly drop a five on the table and walk away. None of this mattered anymore; all he’d gained from the conversation was that the senile old fool was still obsessed with space devils and indigenous tall tales.
It all seemed futile. Mariee had only been gone a day, at most, and he knew that, what with the rise in violent crime, the Rez police would be too busy to halt everything for an overprotective brother. He drove back to his sister’s place.
As he walked to the front door he heard something move through the grass at the back of the house. Probably a raccoon raiding a trash can.
Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales Page 7
