“We thought you were dead!” someone exclaimed.
“It’s been days since you were awake!”
“Dolores sat here the whole time!”
Then the kids were on the bed. The older girl had buried herself in Anita’s chest and was yelling “Mama!” over and over. The little one had started to wail in the tumult.
Livvy smiled. It had been a difficult healing but this was the payoff, the reason that she hadn’t given up. She stood up, a bit shaky, to get a better look.
Quiet descended on the room and, as one, the crowd looked at her. She had intended to step closer but stopped instead. The cry of the infant was the only sound.
Although what she read in their faces shouldn’t have been a surprise, it was–like a quick slap. Some faces were clearly awed, others angered, some thankful, and some afraid, but mostly, they were afraid. The old woman with the rosary made the sign of the horns at her, a defiant look on her face, as the crowd separated from her.
Next to Anita, the little girl peeked at her but when Livvy looked, the girl shrieked and also gave the sign of the horns.
Unable to look at their faces, Livvy looked at the floor. As her eyes misted up, she let go a shaky sigh.
“Let’s go outside for a minute,” SK said quietly.
Without a word, she picked up her mat, put the goggles in her bag, and they made their way out of the bedroom. The young couple that she had seen on the way in were gone.
“Did you see the lights go out?” someone whispered behind them.
People looked away as she approached and took a step back if they could. Even the cute boy with the earphones stared at the wall. Outside in the hallway, doors slammed shut as people hid, until Livvy and SK were by themselves.
“Wait right here,” he said. “There’s the little matter of a payment.”
Livvy leaned against the wall, exhausted, but not wanting to sit because it’d be too hard to get back up. Her mind raced as it processed what she had seen in the multiverse and what she had managed to do. She had almost lost control of the energy, even the little bit that she had called down. Then she remembered the vicious talons on her scalp and reached a hand up to her head but there was no blood. She knew that what happened in the multiverse shouldn’t manifest in the real world but it had seemed real. As she lowered her hand, she realized it was shaking.
In a couple of minutes SK was back.
“All right,” he said. “One hand on the railing, one on me.”
CHAPTER SIX
BY THE TIME they reached the diner, Livvy was nearly recovered and was starving. As she handed her menu back to the waitress and reached for her tea, she saw SK smiling at her.
“What?”
“You did good back there,” he said. “I know it was a difficult one.”
“Well, it was a weird one, that’s for sure,” she said, looking down, not knowing what to do with the compliment.
“Weird?” he asked.
“I didn’t see anybody in the middleworld.”
“What do you mean you didn’t see anybody?”
“Not one single spirit helper or ancestor. It was empty.”
SK wasn’t a shaman but he had worked with so many, it was as if he’d actually been to the multiverse.
“There isn’t always somebody by the lake,” he said.
“That’s true,” she said, considering for a moment. “But I’ve never seen it completely empty. There wasn’t so much as a fly.” She looked down at her tea. “I don’t know, it gave me the weirdest feeling.”
“So, what about this kachina,” he said, and sipped his coffee.
She pulled up the sleeve of her jacket and held out her arm but the small welt was gone.
“What am I looking at?” said SK.
Livvy took off her jacket and pulled up the short sleeve of her t-shirt. No welt there either. She touched the spot but it had disappeared.
“There was a spark between us, where he tried to touch me. It left marks, but they’re gone now.”
SK set his coffee down, frowning, and Livvy realized he was watching her.
“Look,” she said, putting her jacket back on. “Even when I was drinking–”
“You ever have any dealings with kachinas?” he asked, focusing on her. “You know, on the other side?”
“Never,” she said, surprised. “I’ve never even seen one there. I thought they were rare.”
“I think they are and you’re not really their type of shaman.”
Despite the spread of shamanism to most parts of the urban landscape, the old gods tended to stay with familiar customs, people, and places. The most likely shaman to encounter a kachina would still be someone from the Pueblo world.
There was also a debate about the type of shamanic experience that different entrance methods allowed. Since techno-shamanism was the newest form, it raised suspicion among traditional shamans. In fact, it tended to raise more than just suspicion. Some traditional shamans were openly hostile. Luckily, shamans never saw one another in the multiverse.
“You’re sure it was real?” SK asked.
Livvy thought hard about it. She knew as well as SK that spirits and ancestors from the multiverse did not have a physical presence in the real world, pretty much by definition. They were spirits.
“I don’t think it ever really touched me,” she said, touching her upper arm through the jacket. “Just that spark thing.” She paused and tried to remember. “I don’t know. It seemed so real at the time.” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
SK picked up his coffee again but didn’t say anything.
“SK,” she said, quietly. “You know I’m on the wagon, right?”
It wasn’t only that SK brokered most of the shaman work in the area or that most of her income came through him. Somehow, his opinion of her mattered–a lot.
He nodded.
“I know it,” he said.
Livvy breathed a small sigh of relief and took a sip of her tea.
“By the way,” SK said. “Lightning came out of the wall sockets.”
She sputtered and spewed some tea.
“Oh my god, was anybody–” she managed, between coughs.
“No, no, no,” he said. “Not even close. There was just a little bit. Just wanted you to know.”
The waitress arrived with two plates of pancakes and set them down but Livvy hardly saw them. Even though the coughing fit had stopped, her heart raced and she knew her face must be flushed.
“Nobody saw anything. Just me,” he said, when the waitress left.
Livvy shook her head and looked down at her lap.
“By all the gods in the multiverse, why lightning?” she muttered. “Why me?”
Livvy had marveled at the variety of spirit helpers in the multiverse, some menacing, some cute, but all recognizable, all normal. Why couldn’t she have had one of those and not some freak thing like lightning?
“It’s a gift,” said SK. “A rare one.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Liv, look at me,” he said, and waited several moments. “Livvy?”
She sighed and looked up.
“A lightning shaman is born once in a generation, if we’re lucky,” he said. “It’s rare and it’s powerful.” He hesitated. “But it’s also dangerous, hard to control.”
Only recently had she figured out that she had the most control when the lightning strike was close to her, as with Anita earlier.
“You’re going to have to work out how to handle it, and eventually you will, but it’s going to take time. You need to cut yourself some slack.” He paused but didn’t take his eyes off hers. “Agreed?” he asked.
She nodded.
Three teenage boys in a booth a couple of tables away laughed out loud–a little too loud. Livvy glanced over and saw them looking at SK. They stopped abruptly when they realized she was looking at them.
“Fact of life,” SK said, not even looking over as he reached for the raspberry syrup. “Eat your f
ood before it gets cold.”
The tables here always had three types of syrup: maple, raspberry, and blueberry. One by one, Livvy took all three and poured as much syrup as the plate could hold. There was actually a secret fourth syrup, if you knew to ask for it, but Livvy had missed her chance when the waitress had brought the food.
“You know,” said SK, looking at her plate with mild revulsion. “Maybe you should just skip the pancakes and ask for a mug.”
“Syrup is the food of the gods,” said Livvy, as she carefully moved her fork through the three flavors, creating a striated pattern. “Pancakes only exist because there is syrup.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes, until Livvy’s phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. It was Jack.
They’d broken up months ago. Subconsciously though, she had left his number in the address book hoping he’d call. It had seemed less painful than deleting it.
“You need to get that?”
“No,” she said, trying to aim for a casual tone of voice and not succeeding.
SK nodded as he chopped through the stack of banana pancakes with the side of his fork.
A voicemail notification arrived on Livvy’s phone. Jack had left a message. She stared hard at it.
“You know, it’s okay if you get that,” said SK.
“I’ll get it later.”
“Mmm hmm,” he said, turning his attention back to the plate.
Livvy did likewise and realized that she’d hardly made a dent in her pancakes but that SK was nearly done.
“How is it you eat so much?”
He shrugged.
“High metabolism I guess.”
Livvy got a text message notification. Jack was texting her now.
“Please call. Emergency,” it read.
“Well, look, I need to get going anyway,” SK said, but Livvy barely heard him.
He stuffed the last wad of pancakes in his mouth, took out his wallet and left twenty-five dollars on the table for the bill. Then he rifled through the big bills, under the table. He took a few out and folded them up tight before handing them to her.
“That’s three hundred for you,” he whispered, as he transferred the money to her hand. “And seventy-five for me.”
She looked at him and cocked her head, frowning. Normally, for someone who was on death’s door, it was a higher fee and it was usually all in round numbers.
“The family had already spent a wad on the previous shaman and couldn’t come up with the usual.”
“Why just seventy-five for you?”
With the usual twenty-five percent commission, he should have had one hundred dollars.
“One of the lamps was damaged.”
“Oh, SK, I’m so sorry,” she said looking down into her lap at the three hundred dollars. “Here, let me pay for it.”
“No, that’s mine. If I’d known for sure that it was a soul transformation and that you’d need to call down lightning, I’d have cleared the room and unplugged everything. That’s my lookout,” he said, scooting off the bench. “Finish eating.”
As he passed her, he stopped and squeezed her arm.
“That was really fine work today.”
He smiled at her but then glanced at her plate, where the bottom pancake had swelled and nearly disintegrated in the sea of syrup.
“Food of the gods,” he muttered, before pointedly averting his eyes.
Before she could reply, her phone chimed with an e-mail notification–Jack again.
“Thought I’d try e-mail,” it said. “Tried calling and texting. Where are you? I need your help. It’s an emergency. Please call when you get this.”
She looked at the phone, remembering the last time she’d seen him. It had been at his place and he’d told her he wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship. It had come out of nowhere. She had thought things were going so well. They never argued, he never complained about the hours she worked. It had been the best relationship she’d managed to have since dropping out of med school and it was suddenly over and she had no idea why or what had happened. Was this his way of getting back in touch?
When she looked up to reply to SK, he was gone. She swiveled in the booth to see the front door but it was closing behind him. Her phone chimed again to remind her there was a voicemail she hadn’t heard. She went to missed calls and hit the dial button next to Jack’s name.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“LIVVY, OH THANK God, I’m so glad you called!” Jack exclaimed.
“It’s good to hear your voice too,” she said, and it was.
Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it.
“I have a friend who needs your help,” he said.
A friend needs help, she thought. Not, hi, I’ve missed you or how have you been? She slumped, hunching over the half-eaten pancakes. She kept the phone to her ear, though, still hoping.
“It’s a shaman thing. I mean, I don’t know what to do,” he said.
After what he’d learned in his time with her, she knew that he ought to know the difference between something a shaman could help and something that needed a doctor. She thought she heard real desperation in his voice. Maybe she should turn this over to SK. Then again, maybe this was the start of getting back together.
“Okay,” she finally said. “Where are you?”
“I’m at home. Are you coming over now?”
The waitress appeared, took the cash, and cleared the plates.
“Yeah,” she said, sliding out of the booth. “Can you pick me up?”
There was a tiny hesitation on his end. Anybody else might have missed it.
“I can’t. I think I better stay here.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Thanks Livvy, I really appreciate this,” he said, and hung up.
She looked at the phone. I really appreciate this? Since when did Jack use words like ‘really appreciate’?
CHAPTER EIGHT
LIVVY HAD CONVINCED herself that she’d forgotten about Jack’s good looks. The truth was she hadn’t forgotten at all. Even so, when the door to his condo opened, she stared at him. Just a shade under six feet tall, he had the classic surfer look, tousled blond hair and blue eyes, dark tan. It probably helped that he really was a surfer.
“Livvy, I thought you’d never get here!”
As he reached for her, a small static shock discharged from his hand to her upper back, which they both ignored. Jack, of all people, was familiar with the way Livvy seemed to store static charges like a battery. She’d given up wearing electric watches in high school and had to have someone else put the metal case on her phone.
Jack gave her the friend hug, at the shoulders, before she could say anything. Uh oh, she thought.
“Come in, come in,” he said, closing the door behind her. “She’s up here.”
She.
They were heading upstairs to the bedroom but it felt like she was sinking. She followed him up anyway, unable to stop climbing the stairs and unable to stop hoping–until she looked into the bedroom. She froze at the doorway. All around the room small votive candles were burning, as well as incense. There was an altar on a high table in the corner and pictures of Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopochtli, the greatest of the Aztec gods, were on the walls. Copal offerings were on the altar and also fresh flowers. It was the bedroom of a shaman.
“What’s this?” she asked.
She looked at the woman in the bed–in his bed–young, Hispanic, and quite beautiful. Livvy’s stomach tightened.
“She’s a shaman,” he said.
“Yeah, no kidding,” she said, looking at all of the paraphernalia on the altar–in fact, scattered all around the room. “And she’s living here?”
“We’re engaged,” he said.
Click went the snippets of conversation. Thud went the other shoe.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
She fumbled for her phone and brought it out of her bag.
&n
bsp; “I’m going to call SK. He’ll be able to find somebody,” she said, even as the word ‘idiot’ repeated in her head.
Jack came over and wrapped his hands around hers on the phone.
“Please don’t,” he said. “You know he’ll just put me in the queue. Do you think I would have called you if I had any other choice?”
She gave a short laugh and shook her head.
“This just gets better and better,” she said, trying to pull away.
“I’m sorry Livvy,” he pleaded. “I’m sorry, okay?” He held on to her hands. “I don’t know what else to say. I would never have bothered you if I didn’t really need your help–if she didn’t really need your help. Please.”
She hesitated, looking into his eyes.
“Please, I’m begging you. I need your help.”
She sighed and looked down at his hands around hers.
“I don’t believe this,” she muttered, shaking her head.
“I do,” he said. “I know you won’t let her die.”
She took in a deep breath, staring at his hands. When they had been together, she had loved holding hands with him. Soft and warm, they enclosed hers completely.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do,” he pleaded.
“Okay,” she exhaled, hanging her head.
“Thank you, Livvy,” he gushed, as he tugged her into the room.
She stood next to the familiar bed and looked down at the woman under the covers who was obviously wearing a lacy black nightgown. Around her neck was a thin gold chain with a sapphire pendant.
“What’s her name?” Livvy asked mechanically, as she took off her shoulder bag and removed the mat.
“You can lie on the bed if you want.”
She swung a silent glare at him that could have melted steel.
“Indra,” he said.
Livvy unrolled the mat on the floor and took out the goggles and pillow.
“What was she doing at the time?”
“Nothing. We went to sleep last night and this morning she wouldn’t wake up. Her pulse and breathing seem fine but I can’t get her to wake up.”
Shaman, Healer, Heretic (Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman) Page 4
