Death Omen

by Amber Foxx

“Guess I could stand to starve a little again.” Jamie dropped onto the love seat and leaned back. “Just wanted you to know I’m grateful.”

  “That was sweet.” Wendy touched a petal. “I’m grateful to you for trusting me with your career.”

  “Bloody hell, I’d buggered it up. Of course I trust you. Even if you’ve booked me for two fucking months on the road.”

  “You’ll be fine.” She resumed her seat. “You’ve got your stress plan, right?”

  Jamie reviewed it with her. Therapy, yoga, swimming, and daily contact with people he trusted. And bringing Gasser, of course.

  “I’ve added even more stress relief.” Wendy handed him several pages of printout. “I e-mailed these to you, also. You’re going to be couch-surfing with some fellow musicians at key points along the way. It should give you a break from motels and—”

  “I get to stay with people?” Jamie bounced on the love seat. “In actual houses? Thank you.” He jumped up and squeezed her hard. “I go crazy not getting to sit down and have real conversations. Skype is good, but I need people in the room.” His exuberance faded when he thought of the rest of the trip. He returned to the love seat. “This makes me at least twenty-percent less scared.”

  “Will you ever be not scared? I’m not being impatient. Just thinking ahead. How often you should tour, how far, how long.”

  “I’ll need a long time between tours. Do something here for a while.”

  “You’re working on another healing music album?”

  “Yeah. Composing, anyway.”

  “I got a request from a guy that’s running a healing retreat. He wants to have you play didgeridoo and flutes and lead some chants. You’ve got two such different audiences. Your ballads-and-blues-world-music people and the New Age massage music people. This will be a good way to get back in touch with that second audience. You haven’t done much for them in a while. It’s at the end of October in T or C.”

  He could stay with Mae. The location was perfect, but the timing wasn’t. The event would be as soon as he got back. “I like it, except there’s not enough time to prepare.”

  “I can’t make him reschedule his retreat.”

  “Guess not. Who is he?”

  “Dr. Yeshi Ngarongsha. He’s a Tibetan traditional doctor here in town. I checked him out a little. He doesn’t have a full medical practice. He mostly does Ku Nye massage. Andrea says it involves movements as well as massage, and sometimes hot stones.” Wendy’s partner Andrea was a massage therapist who liked to play Jamie’s old healing albums while she worked. “And he does something called stick therapy that uses mantras and rhythms and some kind of tapping with rattan sticks. It sounds interesting. I don’t know if he taps you or if it’s just sound healing.”

  “You’re kidding. He taps you with sticks?”

  “I guess that does sound strange. I’ve heard of tapping therapy with acupressure points, though. That would fit with his being a Tibetan doctor.”

  There was a fair-sized Tibetan community in Santa Fe. The doctor could easily have heard of Jamie. Wanting him to play seemed odd, though. “Think he’d have Tibetan music. He’ll have to teach me the chants. Can he call and sing ’em to me while I’m on the road?”

  “I don’t see why not.” Wendy wrote on a sticky note and attached it to her computer monitor. “You can work on it while you travel.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. I still don’t like having so little time between the tour and performing something new and different. This just added to my stress score.”

  “It shouldn’t. If you play at the retreat, you get to go to the whole thing free and get paid. How’s that for a post-tour recovery gig?”

  Free massages? “Too good to be true.”

  “Are you saying there has to be a catch? Why can’t something really good show up?”

  “Dunno. Guess it could. Go ahead and book it.”

  *****

  Mae brought the girls to Santa Fe’s historic downtown plaza early to get seats on the wall around the central monument, front and center next to the sound booth. The children would be able stand on the wall to see the stage past the crowd that was sure to be dancing. Zambethalia was the opening act at Bandstand, and their African-Australian fusion always brought people to their feet. The three-man band included Jamie and two friends, men who loved music but didn’t try to make a career of it. Though he mostly performed solo, Jamie played with them two or three times a month. Usually the evening’s program consisted of an hour-long first set by one musical act and then a ninety-minute set by another. Tonight, Zambethalia was on first and the main act was Jangarrai solo. Hard work for Jamie, but a great night for the audience and a perfect farewell to Santa Fe before his tour.

  Stream wandered onto the cement dance floor in front of the bandstand and began spinning, looking up at the twinkle lights strung above it and the baskets of petunias on the lampposts. Brook stood on the wall, singing Jamie’s nonsense song and wiggling to the beat, and Stream danced over to join her. A few other early arrivals set up lawn chairs at the perimeter of the dance floor. In the park beyond, a flash of movement, hands speaking American Sign Language, caught Mae’s eye. A cluster of people sat on one of the benches and in the nearby grass, while a slender young woman with long black hair faced them in her wheelchair, all of them signing back and forth in conversation. Mae recognized the sign interpreter, Kate Radescu.

  She called the children’s attention to what Kate was doing. “The lady in the wheelchair is my friend Kate. She’s a sign language interpreter for people who can’t hear. When the show starts, she’ll sign what the singers say to introduce their songs, and sign the lyrics—well, not all, because some of them will be in African languages—and that way the deaf people don’t miss anything.”

  “That’s so cool,” Brook said, then grinned. “If we knew sign language, we could talk at night and Daddy wouldn’t keep telling us to be quiet.”

  “Oh yes, he would. Y’all would giggle.”

  Kate waved to Mae, signed something to her group, and gave a command to her service dog. The golden retriever walked with her as she wheeled toward Mae and the girls, and Mae explained that Lobo worked for Kate and couldn’t play or be petted while he was at work. With a disappointed “Yes’m,” the twins sat side by side on the wall, kicking their feet. Mae introduced them to Kate, who, in her typical brusque fashion, acknowledged their Southern manners by asking them to not call her Miss Kate and then got straight to the point. “Bernadette wanted me to check out this group Jamie told her about. A support group for chronic illness run by Sierra Mu.”

  “Good. She needs checking out. Did you go?”

  “Not yet. I talked to her. It doesn’t meet until Wednesday. She says she’ll help me understand the karma behind my limitations when she reads my Akashic records.”

  “Your what kind of records?”

  “You worked as a psychic in Virginia Beach and you never heard of the Akashic Records? They’re what Edgar Cayce was supposed to be in touch with. His source. Please tell me you’ve heard of Cayce.”

  “A little,” Mae said. “He was a famous psychic, right? From Virginia Beach?”

  “Yes. There’s that whole Cayce research center there.” Kate sounded impatient, then softened. “I guess you never went.”

  “No. I was pretty new to psychic work. And I didn’t study it much, to be honest.”

  “I’ve had to, running a psychic fair. Cayce talked about reincarnation and soul mates, things like that, but he also did medical diagnoses and suggested natural treatments. With that, he was right a lot of the time. He’d go into a trance and come back with information. I don’t know if that means there’s such a thing as the Akashic records. As far as I can tell, no one agrees on exactly what they are other than an astral plane repository of history and knowledge.”

  “Not literally a psychic library.”

  “Maybe,” Stream said, “this guy listened to records. Grampa Jim and Granma Sallie have records, and those are re
ally old.”

  Mae pictured Edgar Cayce and Sierra listening to Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane on vinyl with her former in-laws. She said, not sure if Stream was serious, “Maybe he did, sweetie. Being psychic could be like listening to records.”

  Kate half-smiled. “Sierra made it sound like a public records office where she’s going to request a copy of my rebirth certificates.”

  They fell quiet for a few minutes, watching the crowd as the Plaza grew busier. Wendy Huang was setting up to sell CDs at a table to the right of the stage, and colorfully dressed people collected at the edge of the dance floor. A softly built woman with platinum hair in a cascade of dreadlocks wore an unflatteringly tight blue dress. She chatted with a skinny bearded man in a yellow shirt and black cargo pants that stopped just below his knee. A long-haired middle-aged woman hustled past, clad in a flared white tunic beaded with pearls and glitter over white footless tights and what looked like a long-sleeved undershirt. She gushed a greeting to another woman who looked as if she hadn’t bothered to change her clothes after yoga class.

  “Why is that lady dressed up as a fairy?” Stream asked.

  “It’s called fashion,” Kate said. “If you look to your left on the lawn, you’ll see the same outfit in the cowgirl edition.”

  Mae and the girls looked. Another woman, about fifty years old, wore a short white fitted dress over the same tights and sleeves, and on her feet were white cowboy boots.

  “It’s like Halloween,” Brook said. “They’re in costumes.”

  “No. They’re in Santa Fe.” With her heavy eyeliner and bangle bracelets, Kate was in something of a costume herself, emphasizing her Romani ancestry. “We never go to Bandstand looking boring if we can help it.”

  The band arrived and began warming up, their bright African print shirts adding emphasis to Kate’s assessment of Santa Fe’s sense of style.

  A slim, short-haired woman in poufy gray eyelet-fabric shorts and a tight white top walked by, clinging to the arm of a middle-aged Asian man in an embroidered shirt and red flowing pants. Mae whispered to Kate, “That’s Sierra Mu. The blonde lady with the crew cut.”

  Frowning, Kate watched her pass. “I didn’t finish telling you about her. She asked me to bring my garbage.”

  “What, your emotional garbage?”

  “No, my actual household trash.”

  “That’s crazy. What does she want that for?”

  “Some ritual, some symbolic thing.”

  “She’s so into reincarnation, you’d think she’d want you to bring your recycling.”

  “Or my compost.” Kate chuckled. “Now that stuff’s having a rebirth.”

  Brook mooed, “I knew yooo when yooo weren’t yooo and I’m Mrs. Moooo.”

  Mae squeezed Brook’s hand and tried to hush her, but was drowned out by Stream mooing and pig-snorting. “She’s a cow and a pig! She likes to dig through garbage.”

  Mae raised her volume. The girls knew they were in trouble if she used their full names. “Autumn Brook and Summer Stream—”

  “Disrespectful.” A sad, scolding voice spoke behind them. Mae turned. Sierra had rounded the monument and taken a seat about a quarter of the way down the circular wall. Beside her sat the square-faced, thickset Asian man. He patted Sierra’s arm in a nurturing gesture, but he looked displeased.

  Mae’s face burned. The girls had been rude. What if Mu was his last name? Neither he nor Sierra wore wedding rings, but people had all sorts of ways of making commitments. Or the odd name could be a word in his language, one Sierra had chosen because of their relationship.

  “I’m sorry,” Mae said. “We shouldn’t have been making fun of your name. Brook, Stream, can you apologize, too?”

  Their eyes grew wide, but they obeyed.

  Sierra glared imperiously at Kate, who said, “I’m not apologizing for making jokes about doing a ceremony with my garbage. You have to admit, it is strange. And there’s nothing un-spiritual about having a sense of humor.”

  Sierra stared a while longer. “Do you know what a soul group is?”

  “Of course. You all get reincarnated together over and over and ...” Kate waved a hand, making the row of silver bracelets on her thin arm jingle. “Something happens.”

  “You have a lot to learn.” Sierra leaned close to the man beside her, her hand on his, and spoke in an undertone. “She’s got so much karmic baggage, she’s going to have a difficult journey.” Her gaze rested on Kate’s wheelchair. “I’m afraid she’s deeply invested.”

  Mae felt a surge of outrage. Was Sierra blaming Kate for being disabled?

  Kate moved closer, aggressively cheerful. “You mean my chair? You like it? It’s the ultralight folding model. Pretty nice, huh? It was a big investment. I hope that’s what you meant. Because otherwise you were suggesting that I chose to be paraplegic because of my karmic baggage and that I’m deeply invested in not walking.”

  The Asian man frowned, his head drawn back, and glanced between Kate and Sierra.

  “It is a hard thing to face,” Sierra said in her pitying way. “That’s why we start with our garbage.”

  “That was garbage,” Kate snapped. “And a lot more disrespectful than any jokes these children made.”

  She told the twins it had been nice to meet them, nodded to Mae, and returned to her deaf group. Mae hoped the girls didn’t take Kate’s words as an endorsement of their misbehavior.

  “Don’t worry,” Sierra’s male companion said, placing his arm around her. “If she’s ready, she’ll come.”

  “She has to come. She has to get this right. I can’t let her think those things about me.”

  Brook tapped Mae’s arm. “Mama? What’s karmic baggage?”

  “Yeah,” Stream added. “And what’s it got to do with garbage?”

  Before Mae could answer, the three members of Zambethalia turned to face the audience, and the lead singer, a short, dark, stocky man with a graying beard, spoke into the mic. “We are Zambethalia. I am Mwizenge Chomba from Zambia and this is Dagmawi Molalenge, from Ethiopia.” He gestured toward a thinner, younger man with a long, narrow face and a reserved, self-contained demeanor, and then toward Jamie. “And Jangarrai, from Australia.” Jamie grinned and took a bow with a sweep of his hat. Mwizenge continued, “We perform a blend of traditional African songs and our original works, all of which we hope will make you dance.”

  The performance began with an explosion of drumming. Mae told the girls she would answer their questions between songs, but Sierra walked up to them, standing so she blocked Mae’s view of the stage. “Don’t you think I should be the one to explain it?” Without waiting for a reply, Sierra addressed the children with cold condescension. “Once upon a time your souls were in different bodies. You were something bad in a past life, something awful. I don’t know what, I but I can feel it. And the bad things you did added up and made you do more of them, life after life after life. If you don’t face up to it, your life will turn out worse each time. That’s karmic baggage. Kate has a lot of it.”

  Mae was appalled. “You do not talk that way to my girls.”

  “They have karmic baggage, and they need to know.”

  Sierra’s words would have scared most children, but they seemed to stir Mae’s kids to defiance. Stream stood on the stone wall, her hand on Mae’s shoulder, bringing herself up to eye level with Sierra. “How can you tell this stuff?”

  “I’m a seer,” Sierra replied. “A psychic.”

  Brook popped up beside Stream. “Mama’s psychic and she doesn’t say stuff like that.” She walked around behind Mae, planting one foot on either side of Mae’s hips and holding onto her head. “Do you see karmic baggage, Mama?”

  Sierra cut in over Mae’s attempt to reply. “I’m sure she can’t or she wouldn’t try to come between me and Jamie.” She glanced back at the stage and shook her head. “You can’t see what I see in him.”

  At the moment, Mae saw radiance and pure life force. The traditional African song feature
d Mwizenge as lead singer and all three men on drums. Dagmawi sat surrounded by an array of tall drums that he beat in complex patterns, while Jamie stood at a microphone, singing harmonies and dancing as he played, the beat pulsing through his body with fluid grace.

  Mae nudged Brook to step aside and rose, conscious of how her height made her loom over Sierra. “I heard enough of your nonsense about Jamie at the workshop. You don’t need to start again.”

  Sierra raised her chin. “He has heavy karma. If he doesn’t deal with it, he could die.” She ignored the children’s gasps of alarm. Now she had frightened them. “And our whole soul group would have to come back again. You, all three of you, should get out of the way and let me reach him. You must not be much of a psychic or you’d know everything I said was true.”

  “Mama’s a good psychic,” Brook retorted. “She could find you if you were lost. Except you’re mean and no one would want to find you.”

  “That’s enough,” Mae said. “Let’s go.” She led the twins away into the spinning, hip-shaking crowd. “Forget about Sierra. Let’s dance, okay?”

  Brook cut loose, hopping and whirling, but Stream danced halfheartedly, clinging to Mae’s hand and gazing up at Jamie. “I like him so much, Mama. Is the Moo lady really psychic? Is he sick and gonna die?”

  “Of course not. She’s kinda psychic, but the sickness she found was probably his anxiety. Or maybe a cold or something. He won’t die of it.”

  “Yay!” Brook jumped up and down. “Jamie’s fine. And Mrs. Moo is full of poo!”

  “Hush,” Mae said. “You don’t yell things like that, even if you think she is.”

  Stream didn’t join in her sister’s relief. Instead, she kept her worried eyes on Jamie. The effect of Sierra’s prediction infuriated Mae. Stream didn’t recover until Mwizenge’s wife JoNell brought their two sons, a lively boy the same age as the twins and a chubby toddler, to meet the girls and dance with them. The four children roamed the dance floor together, inventing wild steps, and Mae danced with JoNell and with Dagmawi’s wife, who carried a baby in her arms. They distracted her from her anger, making it recede into the back of her mind.