Death Omen

by Amber Foxx

  “Both. You do one to heal the other. That’s one reason I wanted to stop smoking now, as well as to make a better impression on Posey. I shouldn’t still be smoking if I’m going to reverse the emphysema and ... I hope not cancer, but if I have it, maybe I could. Sierra healed herself of melanoma.”

  Funny. She told us she’d had chemo. Or at least she’d hinted at it when she mentioned her short hair being new growth, not a fashion choice. Mae fought with herself, wanting to tell Rex every crazy thing she knew about Sierra. But the Tibetan doctor might be excellent despite his connection with her, and Mae didn’t want to discourage Rex from the retreat if Sierra had only a minor part in it. Maybe some of the optional sessions were with her. “That’s quite a claim, healing her cancer.”

  “Her arthritis went into remission, too, when she dissolved the cancer. Posey has fibromyalgia, so she’s very excited about karmic healing. It would be wonderful if she could go into remission. And if I could breathe better.” Rex held his arms out as if being showered with applause and roses. “We could enter a new adventure together as new people.”

  He dropped the pose, took Mae’s hand in both of his, thanked her, and started to leave, then paused in the doorway. “I have to decide about another appointment. We should probably do the medical intuition session before the retreat. I’m sure Sierra Mu could tell me, but I’d hate to be hit with bad news while I’m there. I’d rather have time to get used to it and start the retreat in a healing mindset.”

  “That’s a good plan. If I did find anything, it would give you time to get another opinion from your doctor before the retreat, too.” Mae doubted Sierra would advise Rex to do that. She seemed to think she knew what people needed and that she should deliver it, ignoring Mary Kay’s and Fiona’s advice on ethics and scope of practice. “Make an appointment as soon as you decide. I only work Saturdays, and I get booked up fast.”

  Rex departed. Mae was grateful he’d mentioned the retreat. She hoped Jamie’s gig with Dr. Ngarongsha wouldn’t end up being four days with Sierra.

  When Mae got home, she went through the trailer to the new sliding glass doors in the living room and laid the crystals she’d used on the back deck to be cleansed and rebalanced by the sun. She wanted to call Jamie about the retreat, but it was late morning, which meant he would be on the road. He avoided using his phone while driving, so she couldn’t talk to him until early evening Eastern Time. And that was assuming he arrived on time to settle into his hotel or couch-surfing stop.

  Maybe it was just as well. Before talking to him about Sierra, Mae should know if Kate had gone back to the support group. She might have talked to the boyfriend if she had, and found out if he was in fact Yeshi Ngarongsha.

  The weather was perfect and the view of Turtleback Mountain magnificent under a clear sky, but the deck wouldn’t be in full shade until later, and Mae was too white to sunbathe for even a few minutes without sunscreen. She went back through the house to the diminutive front porch with the view of the driveway, the corrugated metal laundry shed, and the neighbors’ garden wall. The sun-dodging move reminded her of Don’s guess that Sierra might have invented her medical history. Her fair skin looked as undamaged as Mae’s.

  She called Kate. They took a few minutes to get caught up with each other, and then Mae asked about Sierra’s support group. Kate hadn’t returned.

  “What’s crazy is that Sierra invited me to come back. She says they have ‘so much to offer me.’ I couldn’t see wasting my time, though. Bernadette only reviews businesses. This isn’t one.”

  “It might be connected with one.” Mae brushed the ever-present pinkish desert dust off an old metal chair and sat down. “Did Sierra mention her boyfriend’s name, introduce him to you? There’s a Tibetan doctor running a retreat here in a couple of weeks, Yeshi Ngarongsha, and she may be part of it.”

  “She didn’t introduce him, but when she called to invite me back, she cited him like some kind of authority. ‘Yeshi thinks you should come back, too.’ ”

  “Shoot. It’s got to be the same man.”

  “Okay, so that’s a business or at least commercial. But I still don’t know if Bernadette will want to review it. A retreat in T or C isn’t necessarily material for a column in the Santa Fe Reporter. And won’t necessarily be Sierra’s bullshit going on, either.”

  “But it could be. And they’re from Santa Fe. And Jamie’s playing at Yeshi’s retreat. She’d ruin it for him. On top of that, I had a healing client today who’s going to it. He’s a nice guy and I don’t want Sierra to waste his time and money or make a fool of him. He met a woman in her support group online through Spiritual Singles, and he’s pretty excited about her. Posey. Their first date is the retreat in T or C.”

  Kate groaned. “Posey. The ex-dog. She’s the most deluded person there. If your client has any sense, he’ll dump her as soon as he meets her.”

  Mae suspected Rex was too romantic to do such a thing. But at least she could warn Jamie about Yeshi’s connection with Sierra.

  Ahead of their appointed Skype time, she had her laptop ready on the yellow Formica kitchen table. She opened her anatomy textbook and notes to review for the next day’s class, but couldn’t concentrate on bones and ligaments. Instead, she thought about how she had seen her own so clearly in the workshop, and what she might see if Rex asked her to check his lungs. When she was a new psychic, unsure how to handle her gift, she’d seen cancer once. It had been like a small intense fire, totally unlike the normal tissues around it. Metabolic energy, like Mary Kay had said about seeing lights, only it was massed in one place, hungry and blazing. How fast could something like that show up? Rex’s doctor had said he was fine six months ago.

  Mae returned to the chapter on the foot and ankle. As soon as she was finally absorbed in it, Jamie’s Skype call came through.

  He appeared on screen shirtless, sitting in an armchair in black pajama-style pants, his thick mane of ash-blond hair disheveled. His long-limbed, chocolate brown body, scarred from an accident-prone life, showed firm though not ripped muscles, and less of a belly than when he’d left in August. In some of their recent Skype calls, Mae had thought his bone structure looked more defined, his square jaw and wide cheekbones more prominent, but she hadn’t wanted to say anything about his weight loss in case he took it as either nagging him to lose more or worrying about his health. She’d asked him a few times if he’d gotten signs of cat scratch fever and he’d said to stop fussing about it.

  They spent a moment smiling at each other, and then Jamie reached out toward the screen. Mae reached back, and they mimed hugs. He said, “Miss you.”

  “I miss you, too. How was your last show?”

  “Incredible.” He opened a Blue Sky vanilla cream soda, drank, and a small half-stifled belch escaped him. “Great audience. Had me dancing my arse off with ’em. I’m still buggered. Hip’s killing me. I miss swimming. Haven’t had a hotel with a pool for a week.”

  “You been keeping up with your yoga?”

  “Yeah.” Jamie wriggled deeper into his chair. “Touched my toes today.” He snort-laughed. “Probably helps that I can see ’em now.”

  “You look good. Lost a few pounds. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything, though.”

  “Jeezus. You thought I’d get offended? Yeah, I probably would.” A louder laugh. “Been too tired to drink beer. Think that’s why I lost weight.”

  “You’re drinking soda instead. It’s not exactly low-calorie.”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t make me eat snacks, y’know? I drink beer, I eat.” He bent over, getting so close to the camera the tip of his goatee brushed the screen, and then he reappeared with his cat clutched to his chest. Gasser had not lost weight. The orange cat’s white belly was as vast as ever. “Say something, mate. Give Mae a little mew.”

  Squeezed in his owner’s arms, Gasser squawked, and Jamie kissed him between the ears, spread him on his lap for petting, and beamed at Mae. “He was talking to ya.”

  “I
think you squashed him.”

  “Nah. He likes you. Heard your voice.”

  The cat didn’t like her at all, but she said an obligatory hello to him, supporting the illusion for now. Jamie loved his pet and depended on him as a therapy animal for anxiety. The fat cat’s lumpish laziness made him travel well, and his possessive devotion enabled him to endure Jamie’s hugging. That same devotion made him resent Mae.

  “Two more weeks. Can’t wait.” Jamie squirm-danced in his chair and held Gasser’s front paws, rolling him onto his back and making him do a little tango. “Be great to see you for real.”

  “It sure will.”

  “Been working on my mate here so he’ll be nice to you.” Jamie put a hand at the cat’s heart-throat juncture and paused, apparently checking on something. “Probably won’t work, though. Dr. Don said you can’t heal people close to you. Jeezus. I just called Gasser ‘people.’ Parrots are more like people. Y’know I Skype them, too? Placido talks with me. First time Bouquet saw me on the screen she said, ‘Fuck me dead.’ Which was perfect, except it’s all she knows how to say.” Jamie turned the cat over and moved his hand to Gasser’s spine-tail joint. He held that position for a while, then looked up. “So how are you?” He focused intently on her. “What’s happened? Anything new?”

  Could he tell she was tense about something? “I don’t want to freak you out, but I found out something you won’t like, about Yeshi Ngarongsha.”

  Jamie drew his head back, frowning. “What? He seems all right to me. I’ve talked to him a few times, learned some chants. No wonder he wants me, Jeezus, bloke goes flat and sharp all over the place. Found out he actually taps you with a stick with this little egg-shaped beater-thing on the end, or a little bag of herbs. Hits you like a hundred times. Guess if you had a knot in a muscle it might help, but it’d drive me crazy. Yeah, short drive. Sorry. Drifting. What about him? Aside from the stick, he struck me as normal. Pun—struck me. Get it?”

  “He’s Sierra’s boyfriend.”

  Startled, Jamie spilled a splash of his drink on Gasser. “Fuck.” He vanished, leaving Gasser in his chair, and Mae found herself watching the fat cat struggle and fail to reach the spill with his tongue. Jamie returned with a damp washcloth and began to sponge his pet, muttering, “Bloody fucking hell. Bloody fucking hell.”

  “Sugar—”

  “I just washed him and dried him. He was all fluffy and he smelled nice.” Bending over the cat, Jamie dabbed, probed, and dabbed again. “I don’t want him to have any sticky spots.”

  Mae waited. Jamie was so upset over getting soda on his cat, like a child whose toy had broken, that she suspected something else was bothering him—and it was not the mention of Sierra. Sierra provoked outrage, fury, contempt, not this fretting desperation. When he was satisfied with the state of Gasser’s fur, he put him down, spoke a few tender words to him, and took a gulp of soda.

  “That was a big deal to you,” Mae said carefully, wondering if Jamie would explain.

  “Sorry. I’m just so tired, y’know? I get moody.”

  “Two more weeks.”

  “Yeah. And then I’ll see you and ... Jeezus. Y’think he’ll have her at his retreat?”

  Good. It finally sank in. “It sounds like he will. You should talk to him. Tell him how she acts around you— Oh. Never mind. He saw her at Bandstand. He knows. Tell him you don’t want her messing with your part of the retreat.”

  “Right.” Jamie leaned back and closed his eyes. “Can you see it? I’m supposed to be doing healing music and she barges up and starts telling everybody I’m in her diseased soul group.” He rubbed his hands over his face and raked them into his hair, then sat in silence, clutching his braids.

  “Jamie? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” He let go and sat up, gave her his brilliant gold-toothed smile, the version she recognized as an attempt to prove he was happy and normal. “No worries. Got to go, though. Do my yoga, warm up my voice, get ready for the show.”

  Ending the call already? He normally wanted to hear about her work, her classes, how Marty and Niall were doing, and what she’d heard from her children, and then he would ramble until she reminded him of the time and the things he had to do. She let him go, though, wished him a good show, and urged him to call afterwards if he needed to talk.

  “Nah. Let ya sleep.” Jamie blew her a kiss. “Hooroo, love. Catcha.”

  Mae turned off her laptop and stared at the blank screen. Was he relapsing into depression? Fatigue was a symptom and Jamie had mentioned being tired twice. Still buggered from the other day’s show. So tired he was getting moody. He’d been doing well for over six months, but relapse was always a risk. Like the people in Sierra’s group, Jamie was averse to medication and wouldn’t take any, because of some bad experiences with it. He did his best to manage anxiety, depression, and ADHD in other ways.

  Did Sierra know that about him? He’d talked publicly, at Spirit World Fair, about a suicidal reaction to antidepressants. If he was getting depressed again, he might not have the energy to handle her and her obsessive pressures about his chronic disease. He might not make the effort to call Yeshi, either.

  Stop worrying. It was the end of a long tour, and Jamie worked incredibly hard onstage. He would be offended if he knew she was thinking of him as Jamie-the-sick-person. If anyone else was exhausted after that many weeks on the road, she wouldn’t worry. Telling herself not to underestimate Jamie, she went back to studying, but the conviction that something was wrong wouldn’t go away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fading fast, Jamie wrapped up the call with Mae. He had to get up and move while he could or he’d be napping instead of doing yoga. Napping or panicking, a strange precipice to hover on, but one that was becoming all too familiar.

  He rolled out his yoga mat and arranged himself into downward facing dog. Though he should have taken a moment to chant or do some breath work at the beginning, he didn’t dare simply sit or fatigue would overcome him. Gasser rubbed along his ankles. Jamie lowered into plank and Gasser tried, without success, to climb onto his back. Once he was in cobra, the cat nestled on his buttocks and purred. Grateful, Jamie pushed deeper into the backbend, his hips weighted into relaxation. When he rose for standing poses, Gasser cried at being left out.

  “Relax, mate, I’ll be on the floor again in a minute. Trust me.”

  Jamie set up for triangle pose, both feet turned to the right, one more than the other, arms reaching out to the side, and checked his alignment in the mirror before folding at the hip. He reminded himself of Ezra’s dream. Da Vinci's Vitruvian man. He dreamed I’d be doing yoga? That didn’t make sense. Ezra didn’t dream messages about what you already knew or did. But when Jamie finished triangle and took a break in mountain pose, he looked like the other position in the picture. And he was thinner, wearing what Ezra had called pajama pants. Jamie had bought six pairs of the loose cotton pants because of the drawstring waist, adjustable for his progressive weight loss. The dream had been literal, not symbolic. A prediction.

  William’s ghost sprang onto his foot the way he had done as a playful kitten, but instead of batting at Jamie’s toes, he bit him. “What the fuck? You never did that.” The ghost kitten attacked again. He seemed bigger, like he was growing up. “Stop it, mate. You can go back wherever you came from.”

  Gasser mewed and William faded. Jamie moved into Warrior Two. It made his legs shake. It always did now, instantly, not just after he held it a while. How would he get through his show? He folded into a deep forward bend and then child’s pose. Gasser crawled laboriously onto Jamie’s back, making him sink into the stretch. After dropping a few pounds, Jamie was finally getting comfortable in the curled-over posture, but between his exertion and Gasser’s furry warmth, he was sweating. And his chest felt crowded, as if there wasn’t room for both his heart and his lungs, as if something else was in there with them.

  He completed his yoga practice, got up and finished the soda, and then collapsed in th
e chair. He needed food and coffee. Sugar wasn’t enough to get him through the show, but nothing except cream soda had tasted good since the fever had started. How long had Dr. Don said it took to get over cat scratch disease? Jamie couldn’t remember. And he couldn’t remember when Don was retiring and going to Haiti either.

  Hoping it wasn’t too late, Jamie dialed his neighbor’s number. Don picked up.

  “Ma-a-a-ate.” Jamie tried to sound normal and cheerful. “Packing for Haiti yet?”

  “Not until December. I have a grandchild due in November. And I have to wind down with my patients, make sure everyone is happy with their new docs. I’ll fly out after Christmas. I’m looking forward to going.”

  “Really? Sounds hard.”

  “That’s the key to being happy. Do something hard that you love. If it’s too easy, your soul dies.”

  “Sounds like something this old Apache medicine man I know would say. He’s been pushing me to do more healing work, more healing music.”

  “Are you?”

  “Been writing healing music. I was pretty productive until the past few weeks. Then I got sick. Fucking cat scratch fever is kicking my arse. How long does it last?”

  “Didn’t you see a doctor when the symptoms started?”

  “Nah. Thought you said it cleared up on its own.”

  “It usually does in a month or so, but you still need to get a diagnosis.”

  “Why? I don’t have time to go looking for doctors or to be sick for the rest of the month. And I’m in Canada. I don’t even know if I can use their health care system. Couldn’t you just call in a prescription for me?”

  “You can go to a doctor in Canada.” Don betrayed an edge of exasperation. “And no, I can’t call in a prescription. Cat scratch disease is one of many possible things that could cause the same symptoms. Fever, swollen glands, weight loss—that’s pretty generic.”