by Alisa Valdes
The house was spotless, and spacious, decorated in a no-nonsense middle-class style that reminded me of the rooms you’d see in department store catalogs. The floors were of tile in places and pristine cream-colored carpet in others. The furniture was high-quality, but not showy, wholly functional, which spoke of a certain kind of family that might sit down to homemade chicken potpie. We’d never had anything like that; my mother had always preferred to microwave ready-made food for me, or to get takeout from the gourmet market’s deli, because she was so busy. Travis’s mom seemed busy, too, running a horse ranch; but she seemed like the type who’d make time for family and cooking. It smelled of potpourri in the house, apples and cinnamon, and of a pot roast cooking. Photos were in a variety of charmingly mismatched frames everywhere you looked, so many photos: photos of Travis and Randy, Randy and Travis, as babies, toddlers, children, teens.
This house was no longer a home; it was a shrine.
“There’s one off the kitchen there, and another down the hall past the door, there,” said Travis’s mother, looking at us curiously as we made much of squirming to hold our bladders in control. Kelsey went for the kitchen, leaving me to the hallway.
I hurried down the somewhat darkened corridor, noticing the walls were coated with photos, many from rodeo contests, all of them bearing Travis’s face. The locket around my neck warmed and glowed more and more brightly as I took in these pictures, and I covered it with my hand to stifle the light. My heart ached terribly, and I fought back tears. I missed him with such fervor it threatened to topple me. He’d been so talented, so decorated, and he’d had such a lovely mother. Such a pleasant home. Such potential for joy and greatness, and the family through no fault of its own had been caught in Victor’s crosshairs. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. Where I had simply felt a fear and resentment of Victor, within the walls of this house I now felt a vengeful streak rise like anger in me. I wanted to take him down for what he’d done to this family, to my love, and to me.
I found the bathroom, stepped in, and closed the door. It was a green-and-white wonderland of shine and gleam, spacious and filled with living plants in pots with crocheted holders, more photos, and perfect towels and little dishes of soaps in the shape of seashells. Like the rest of the house, it smelled freshly scrubbed and as though no one had ever done in it what bathrooms were known for. It was pleasant, but also almost unfathomably sad, because the woman who tended to it all had clearly not moved on, was not ever going to move on. She was keeping things as they had been, in perfect working order for the day when those who’d once shared this space with her would return.
I knew how she felt, and yet I dreaded becoming like her. How could I not? Travis’s pull was so strong, and our love for each other so perfect and enormous, there would be no moving on from him. There simply couldn’t be. I had to find him. I had to save him. I had to bring him back into my world, because a life without Travis was unthinkable now. And this, I reminded myself, was why I was here, in this house, now. To steal a piece of him from her. I didn’t want to add to her misery, or take anything away, but I reasoned that in doing so I could possibly bring back part of him to her world.
Because I didn’t actually need to go to the bathroom, I waited a moment, then washed my hands, drying them on one of the stiff green towels that smelled of dryer sheets and felt like it was never used.
I cracked the door open, and listened. Kelsey, true to our plan, was busily asking Travis’s mom a million questions, trying to get her to let Kelsey see her horses. While she carried on in this way, I sneaked down the hall another couple of doors, until I came to the room I felt belonged to Travis. I did not feel his hand or thoughts guiding me as I had in dreams, but I just knew. I entered and recognized the room as surely as if it had been my own, and wondered if somehow Travis had transferred knowledge to me in my sleep.
I went directly to the wooden shelf affixed to the wall above the dresser. It veritably sagged with fancy trophy belt buckles, dozens and dozens of them, all with his name on them and many demonstrating he’d won first place. I ran my fingers over them, my lip caught between my teeth and my brow furrowed with concentration, trying to remember which was the one he had loved the most. His soul was my soul, I told myself. Even if I could no longer feel him, I could feel what he’d felt, if I just allowed it to happen. I stopped on a small buckle, worn down and nondescript. He’d been four years old when he won it, according to the date. It was for something called “mutton busting” and he’d come in first place. It was the oldest trophy here, and from the warmth I felt emanating from it, his most precious. His first win, the time when he first realized he had a calling for rodeo. I swiped the little buckle, stuffed it easily into the pocket of my jacket. I hustled out of the room as quickly as I could, ducked down the hall, and found Kelsey standing with Travis’s mom at the far end of the kitchen, pointing at something outside. Seeing me, she stopped.
“Hi,” I said as naturally as I could fake.
“All set?” Travis’s mom asked me. I could tell Kelsey was getting on her nerves.
“Yes, thank you so very much.” I shot Kelsey a knowing look so she’d understand I’d accomplished our mission.
“You’re a lifesaver,” Kelsey said to Travis’s mom. I didn’t know if my friend recognized the irony in her choice of words, but I certainly did.
“You girls need directions out of here?” Travis’s mother asked, almost seeming sad to see us go. I wondered if she ever had guests or visitors.
“Sure,” Kelsey said, though we didn’t. As Mrs. Hartwell told us how to get back to the interstate, I felt an overwhelming urge to throw my arms around her, to tell her how sorry I was, to ask her if I could come and visit her often. I wanted to tell her I’d seen him, I knew him, that both her sons were still out there somewhere. But I couldn’t do any of that. I couldn’t risk having her think me crazy, too. I didn’t want to open up old wounds for her, or clog her life with any more turmoil or pain.
“Thank you, Deidre,” I said, as she showed us to the door. “Have a wonderful day.”
She looked at me in surprise.
“How did you know my name?” she asked me.
Caught, I waffled and blushed. I stammered and tried to think up a lie. “Um, I, uh, I saw it on the mailbox, Hartwell Ranch, and then in the hall, the pictures, there was something with your name.”
In truth, I knew her name from the news stories I’d read about the deaths of her sons. She narrowed her eyes at me, sensing the lie, her body growing rigid with defensiveness as she seemed to wonder who might have sent us here. Where she’d previously seemed only sad, she now seemed afraid. I wanted so much to tell her she did not need to fear us, but I couldn’t.
“Kids around here generally refer to adults as Mister and Missus,” she said suspiciously, “in case you girls ever get ‘lost’ again.”
“Thanks,” Kelsey said, shoving me out the door. “Have a great day!”
Travis’s mother gave us a mournful look and did not answer. Her eyes were wide with worry now, but also filled with painful memories she had no idea I understood as deeply as I understood my own being. The ache I held in the center of my heart for Travis expanded in that moment to include his mother, and I felt dizzy with grief—but with the trophy in hand, and Minerva maybe able to help me find him, I was hopeful for the first time. As we walked out of the house, the heat from my locket grew stronger, and I pulled it out from under my shirt to keep it from scorching my skin.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Going as fast as we legally could, Kelsey and I returned to Minerva’s oddball apartment in the city, with Travis’s childhood trophy like a prize in my hand. Minerva was knitting something shapeless and fuzzy, and she welcomed us as though we were old friends back from a yearlong journey. We quickly got down to the business of her trying to find traces of Travis’s spiritual energy on the award.
Kelsey and I once again sat on the red sofa with the bread crust in it, and we watched as Min
erva, seated in the wingback chair, closed her eyes and turned the belt buckle over and over in her hands, mumbling, “Yes . . . yes . . . oh yes . . . I see. . . .” She touched every part of it, caressed it, and little by little a satisfied smile crept onto her face. It put me at ease, that smile, because it was truly and genuinely happy, and I waited to hear what she’d say next. My heart raced, and I was filled with hope. I’d find him. I knew I would.
“He was so happy when he got this,” said Minerva, opening her eyes and raising her gaze to the ceiling. “I can see a little boy, such a cute little thing, just beaming, his whole face a smile. I sense his father, too. A proud father. They were very close, even though the boy never knew his dad was with him; his dad was there when he won this. At all his wins, I think.”
Minerva’s eyes shifted back down and connected with mine.
“His father is here, with us,” she told me.
“What?” I asked, incredulous.
“He wasn’t here before,” mused Minerva, “so I am thinking he must be connected to this buckle as well. You brought him with you. You have alerted him to your presence.”
“Is he mad at us?” I asked.
“Not at all,” said Minerva. “But he does have an anger he has carried for a very long time, long before he became aware of us here in this room. He is not a peaceful spirit. He feels guilty, as though somehow he could have saved his family. But it isn’t his fault, and we need to help him to understand this so that he can move on to where he needs to go.”
She focused on a spot across the room, and said, “Gregory, welcome. We are all friends here, and we all want what is best for your son Travis. Please feel at home with us. We mean you and your family no harm.”
Again, my skin crawled with goose bumps, and I shivered. Kelsey crossed her arms over her chest and pulled her knees together protectively.
Minerva began to meditate upon the buckle again, and again fell into a trancelike state as, I assumed, she searched for Travis. Five minutes later or so, her eyes popped open and her gaze bore into me. She rose and came to sit at my side again, holding the buckle in one hand and my hand in her other.
“I’ve got the energy,” she said, “but it took a moment to register because his energy is so much like yours. Let me compare.”
She lowered her head in concentration, and a few held breaths later, looked up brightly.
“Oooh,” she said, as if in awe.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re a musician, right?” she asked me. I nodded, and she kept talking. “Then you understand that musical notes are just vibrations that your eardrum picks up.”
“Of course.”
“That’s kind of what spirits are like for me,” she said. “Think of me as a person who was born with a kind of ear, here”—she touched her sternum—“that allows me to hear spiritual vibrations. They really are very much like music.”
“Okay.”
“There are tones, and frequencies, and harmonies,” she explained, still smiling at me in a sort of joyful awe, “and each spirit has a slightly different sort of harmony to it. Kindred spirits vibrate together in complete and perfect unison. This is very rare, indeed, and each person is only given one—one!—Kindred, or perfect soul mate, and oftentimes, they never meet.”
I waited, my heart pounding. I knew what would come next—the pause in the tornado had told us—but I needed to hear it out loud, as a fact.
“Shane, you and Travis sound in perfect unison. It is no wonder, then, that when you and Travis touched there was a special and compelling energy. You were part of the same soul finding itself again, making itself whole.”
“Oh my God,” I said.
“No wonder his absence is incredibly painful.”
“That is so amazing,” said Kelsey.
“Do you know where he is?” I asked Minerva.
“I get a feeling about it,” she told me, “but given that you are a Kindred, I would bet that a part of you knows where he is.”
“I wish I did!” I cried.
“You do.”
I grew upset with her now. “No, I don’t! If I did, I wouldn’t be here.”
“You’re not aware of it yet, but it’s in there, somewhere. Because wherever he is, you are there, too.”
“Even if that’s true, it doesn’t help me right now because I don’t know how to access that information. Please, just tell me what you know.”
Minerva released my hand, and refocused her concentration on the trophy, closing her eyes and starting to sway and mumble. After ten minutes of this, she emerged again with her usual bizarre “Hello, girls” greeting, and told us what she knew.
“He is in the Underworld, in a prison of mirrors, if I heard that part right. One of my guides who is able to travel there has located him and told him you are looking for him with my help.”
“Well, that’s great!” I said. “Isn’t it? I mean, knowing where he is makes it easier to help him get back to the Vortex.”
“He is there for a reason, but my guides tell me that only his Kindred can get him out. She knows this, the one who keeps him. She is counting on it.”
“Why?”
“She wants what you have.”
“What do I have that she could possibly want?”
“That’s what we have to find out.”
“I’m scared,” said Kelsey, looking at me. I nodded, because I was, too.
Minerva continued. “The Underworld is most difficult to find, but Clyde can help us.” She paused a moment, and stared into my eyes with a serious expression before asking me, “When you died, where did you go?”
I tried to remember. “It was a good place,” I said. “Good people were there, and I knew that I was loved. I was very happy there. I didn’t want to leave.”
“The Afterworld,” said Minerva. “You are good, and pure, and we are fortunate to know this, as it bodes well for helping Travis. That, plus you being of the world of the living. With my help, you will be able to access the seventh level of the Underworld, and travel there, and if you are careful, find Travis.”
I was filled with excitement, but also dread and fear.
“How will I get there?” I asked. “Will it be in dreams, or in my real physical body?”
Minerva grew somber. “The Underworld is a real physical place, Shane. It’s not some fairy dust fantasy. It exists, but not in our dimension here in life on Earth as we know it. But you can get there.”
“A portal?” I asked.
“Yes. A shortcut through space and time, a cosmic tunnel. You will have to get there in your real and physical self, because until and unless you are dead, your spirit cannot be separated from your body. Do you understand? To send only your spirit would be to kill yourself now.”
I nodded.
“You mentioned to me that you knew of a wormhole, or portal as you called it,” she said. “You saw Travis use one.”
“Yes!” I told her in detail about the cavern near Chaco Canyon, and her eyes grew wide with wonder and excitement.
“I have heard for years of such places, and I have sensed it when I was near one, but I have never been fortunate enough to see one for myself. Shane, if you will let me, I will accompany you on the journey to find Travis.”
“Can you do that?”
She nodded. “It is riskier for me, because I do not have a Kindred—at least not that I know of—on the other side to help strengthen my energy once I am there. But I have my guides and my many connections, and I have knowledge of things that, while not perfect in any way, shape, or form, is certainly more than you might have entering such a foreboding and unforgiving place on your own.”
“How long would we be gone?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Shane. I’m honestly not sure how that would work. We could be gone for what feels like a very short time here, but it would feel like a very long time there, or vice versa. It’s uncharted territory.”
“Would we be able to get back?” I asked.
>
“I would most certainly make sure that we could.”
I looked at Kelsey, and she seemed worried. “You don’t have to do this,” she said. Looking at Minerva, she said, “Right? She doesn’t have to do this.”
“No, you don’t have to do this,” Minerva told me. “We can try to deal with the dark mark upon you in other ways, through spiritual cleansing and through ceremonies to ward off any more evil spirits. We can protect you as best we can, and you can try to continue with your life as you knew it before. There is danger in that as well, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility. I can help you, if that’s the route you wish to go.”
I shook my head vehemently. “No. There’s no way I’m leaving him there, not if there’s a chance I can help him escape.” I began to cry, but the tears were hot with purpose and conviction. “He saved me, and it is up to me now, to save him. I feel it. I need to do this.”
“Are you quite sure?” Minerva asked me, but her eyes glowed with approval. She knew this was the right thing to do, viscerally, just as I did.
“Absolutely,” I said. Kelsey looked uncertain, and upset.
“Very well,” Minerva said, dusting her hands together as though we were coming up with a plan to bake a pie. “Then here’s what we’ll do. We will go see Clyde. We’ll get his help. You girls will find a way to make it look like Shane has run away from home. People will fret and search for you, of course,” she told me, “but in the end it will all work out just fine.” She turned to my friend. “Kelsey, it will be very important for you to keep up this charade for us, darling, you understand?”
