by T. G. Ayer
Maya’s dad slipped his arm around her waist, supporting her, giving her more of his warmth.
At Maya's feet sat her best friend Joss, the look of horror on her face visible despite her thick glasses. Joss's hair was up in rollers, hidden by an ugly yellow beanie which hurt Maya's eyes more than the light did. Despite her appearance, Joss failed to look comical, even with her expression bordering on overstated horror.
"What the hell is going on, Maya?" asked Joss, pulling her pajama shirt closed.
A distant part of Maya’s mind registered the chill in the hallway, as if a North Wind had taken up residence there, and now lingered, biting at her cheeks and nipping at the tips of her ears. It was the front end of winter after all. Although a California winter wasn't something to fear, even at the worst of times.
Maya frowned.
Then why the hell is it so darned cold?
"You scared us half to death." Joss wrapped her arms around her torso, the goosebumps on her neckline confirming the low temp.
Maya turned her head slowly, relieved to see she was able to move now. The details of the dream drifted back to her.
"I was dreaming." Then she gave a cheery laugh, the sound sharp and tinny even to her ears. "More like a nightmare to be honest."
Leela squeezed her daughter a little harder. "Honey, you weren't dreaming. You were sleepwalking."
Her father laughed. His mirth sounded hollow, as if he was pretending to be fine when all he wanted to do was give in to panic. "That was not sleepwalking. More like sleep dancing," he said.
Maya looked up at her mom. "I was dancing?" It seemed unlikely, what with Maya's sad lack of skills in anything requiring rhythm and grace.
But Leela nodded, her eyes filled with shock and amazement, in spite of the worry shadowing them. Her mom was too weak for all this drama and Maya felt a rush of guilt for forcing her out of her bed in the middle of the night. "You were dancing. For all the years you refused to learn, the way you moved just now . . . seems you have natural talent."
Maya grunted, the sound a dozen razors scraping her throat. "You and I both know I have absolutely no clue how to dance. I was born with two left feet, Mom. Even you have said it."
"That's what we always thought," Leela said evenly, her tone forced and edged with fear. "Only, we just saw it with our own eyes."
"You were amazing," said Joss. She too was staring at Maya in admiration.
Undeserved admiration.
Maya laughed. "It was just a dream. I must've been re-enacting what I was experiencing."
"But it doesn't make any sense." Dev got to his feet, at last doing something with himself rather than sitting still.
He was still dressed in dark jeans and a brown wooly jumper, which meant he'd come back late from whatever he’d been working on and hadn’t yet gotten to bed.
Without warning, he bent and scooped Maya up in his arms, and Maya caught sight of her reflection in the gilt-edged mirror above the off-set hall table. Her face was pale, almost gray, her lips shadowed, her eyes staring as if half-crazed. No wonder these guys were concerned.
Sabala’s nails scrabbled against the tiles as he got to his feet to follow them.
Dev carried her to the living room while Joss kept pace as if she thought Dev would drop Maya on her head. Her dad deposited her gently onto the sofa and sat on the arm. He put enough distance between them that she’d feel reassured as opposed to claustrophobic.
Leela followed two steps behind, and sank down beside her. Now she looked unsure what to do. In the end, she took Maya's icy hand, holding it gently in hers as if Maya was suddenly made of fragile porcelain.
With her whole family around her Maya was beginning to feel a little human again.
Seemed Sabala was concerned too as he came to sit in front of her, squeezing himself between the sofa and the coffee table. He lowered his head to the seat beside her knees and she smiled. The hellhound had never been super affectionate and this reaction was enough to tell her he was worried. She reached out and gave him a reassuring scratch behind the ears.
Joss sat on the very edge of the sofa opposite Maya, watching from afar as if the distance would help her not freak out.
Maya sighed, her body heavy with exhaustion. She was sinking against her mom's silk cushions, relief seconds away, when she stiffened suddenly, forcing herself to sit upright. She wrinkled her nose and shivered as her cold, sodden blue pajamas settled against her skin.
With two fingers, she pulled the front of the flannel shirt away from her skin. "Gross." She shivered lightly. "In the dream, I could see myself sweating, I could see blood on my feet."
Sabala lifted his head, then sniffed as he glanced down at Maya’s feet. She leaned over and stared down in horror, studying her bleeding feet. When she glanced out into the hall, she froze. Angry red streaked the white marble, the floor not too different from those murder scenes you see on TV.
Maya lifted her feet slowly off her mom’s pristine cream carpet - which was probably too late considering the splotches of red already marring its perfection -and pointed her swollen toes at her mom. Leela's expression darkened at the sight of them, and for once she didn't complain about soiling her precious carpets.
As much as Maya had endeavored to ensure her mom was fully aware that Maya was totally capable of taking care of herself, Leela still managed to coddle her daughter as if she'd remained five-years-old for more than the last decade. But, to her credit, right now she didn't go momma-bear nuts.
Instead, she released Maya's hands and got to her feet, mentioning something about wet towels. But Maya reached for her. She wasn't concerned about the wounds.
Her fire would do its job just as soon as she got the chance to concentrate. Although she’d healed herself with her fire power before - granted to her by the goddess Kali - Maya wasn’t as adept at the task as she would like. And the last thing she could do was to concentrate well enough while surrounded by her family and in so much pain.
Wouldn’t want any accidental redirections of fire and flame.
"What the hell is going on?" said Joss as Leela sank to the cushions, looking troubled. The hellhound whined softly, as if he too wanted to know.
"You said that already," said Maya, rolling her eyes.
"And I'll say it again."
"Please don't."
"Fine," said Joss in a huff.
Maya studied her swollen feet and sighed. Even she could see things were well past bad and clocking up to solid crazy.
"In the dream, the floor was streaked with blood. And I was dancing and dancing and I couldn't stop. And then I fainted. The last thing I remember is lying face down on the stone floor. Exactly the way I woke up." Maya looked at her dad. "How long was I dancing?" she asked softly.
Dev leaned forward, placing his elbow on his knees. He was the picture of relaxed and yet the chords in his neck stood tight. He shook his head. "Honestly? I have no idea. I was in the study and heard noises. When I came out, I saw you spinning like Fred was about to come dancing through the front door."
"Fred?" Maya frowned, her tone confused.
"Astaire." Leela's eyebrows curved dangerously.
"Who?" asked Maya, her expression deadpan.
"Maya!" Three voices protested Maya's ignorance in unison.
"Geez. I'm kidding, okay,” she said, shaking her head. “I know who Fred is. Besides, wrong type of dance."
She eyed her dad, urging him to continue. He did, although he failed to stop smiling, which Maya counted as a good thing. A little distraction never hurt.
"Seemed strange," he said as he thought it over, his eyebrows scrunching. "You didn't seem to be aware of me or anything else. Kept bumping into furniture. So I called your mother."
"Why didn't you just wake me?" Maya asked, looking from one parent to the other, a little annoyed now. Her pain would certainly have been curtailed had they awakened her faster. Maya felt a rush of anger at her parents. Sabala shifted beside her knee, bumping against her eith
er in comfort or admonition of her feelings.
Leela raised a single eyebrow this time. The woman had sharp eyes.
"Because we know from experience how dangerous pulling someone straight out of a trance can be." Leela stared at Maya, her expression dark with concern. "Waking someone while they're in the deepest part of a trance can render the person a vegetable. Not something we would treat lightly. You were dancing. It may have been a dream. But it could have been a trance. Neither of which were obvious to us at the time. Since we were smart enough not to mess with a trance, we elected to do nothing.”
Elected?
When Leela used highfalutin synonyms, even Maya knew the woman was too close to being ‘officially pissed off’.
Maya stiffened.
“Trance?” she said softly. “What trance? I've never had one."
Thank goodness.
Maya suppressed a shudder. She knew well enough about Trance States. The trance was a state of hyper-awareness - or non-awareness depending on who you talked to - experienced by ardent devotees, usually only at extremely religious events, and under well-supervised conditions. She’d been to mass celebrations before where hundreds of people gathered to sing, invoke trances and pierce their bodies with all manner of decorations in the name of the gods. She’d been partially fascinated and mostly horrified.
And yet, despite what her eyes had told her, despite seeing for herself needles that pierced skin without shedding a drop of blood, without leaving a single scar behind, she'd rolled her eyes at the entire act, thinking how silly it all sounded when people claimed the worshipper was channeling their god.
Not silly anymore.
Especially not when Maya had come face-to-face with a number of living deities in the past months. She'd never believed in God. Any god. She'd never thought they’d existed.
Recently she’d learned better.
"Maybe you haven’t experienced a trance state in the past, but you certainly have now," said Dev. He still hadn't moved. "And nobody can rule out the possibility of experiencing one in the future."
That did not sound good.
Chapter 5
Maya shivered and her Mom reached out for her. "Come, let's get you out of those clothes before you catch cold."
With a single roll of her eyes, Maya said, "Mom? How in the world would someone who has the ability to create fire catch cold?"
Leela just watched, unamused as her daughter drew her fire from her core and allowed it to rise towards her skin. There the heat collected, to be transferred to the fabric of her pajamas. And within seconds, the moisture began to rise like a mist from the wet cloth. Minutes later, the water evaporated and the fabric was dry.
And toasty warm.
I'm my very own heater.
Yay.
"There," she said, satisfied. "All done. Happy?" she asked her mom, hiding a smile as the hellhound whuffed and shifted his body away from her heated limbs.
Leela snorted and got to her feet, smoothing down the front of her pajamas. "I'll get you something to drink. And then you can tell us more about the dream.
Before Leela hurried off, as was her way because she never did anything lazily, Maya said, "I don't want something to drink. I'd rather tell you exactly what I remember now, because I feel like the memory is drifting away." Something twisted urgently within her gut as she spoke, underlining her words.
Leela sat beside Maya, and listened as she went over the details of the dream. Even as she repeated the sequence of her memories, her heart rate sped up in response to the experience. Sabala whined softly and bumped her hand with his nose, the cool wetness of it bringing her back to awareness.
But had it truly been a trance state?
She found herself unable to accept it. Not that she didn't believe what her family had witnessed.
It just seemed too far-fetched. There must be a more acceptable reason.
When she finally finished her tale, Dev said. "It’s possible this was not a dream."
Confusion clouded her brain. "If not a dream then what could it be?" she asked softly, talking more to herself than her dad.
He lifted a shoulder. "Any number of things. You could be having some sort of premonition."
Maya looked away. "There is another option."
"Which is?" asked Leela, leaning forward.
"I could just be finally going crazy. It was bound to happen."
Joss snorted and Maya's parents merely looked at each other and shook their heads.
"There is one more thing you haven't considered," said Dev, his expression far from amused.
Maya looked at him expectantly. Even Sabala shifted his glossy black eyes toward Dev.
"You could be channeling someone else. Which means we need to find out who this person is, and if she is okay. She may be far more injured than you are right now."
Maya sighed softly and leaned back against the cushions. "There's never any peace around here, is there?"
Joss let out a tinny laugh. "Trust you to think of it that way. Anyway, I've called Nik. He'll be here any minute."
Maya glared at her. "Why did you go and do that?" Sleepwalking hardly warranted disturbing Nik, although Maya suspected he wouldn't appreciate being left out of the loop.
Now, Joss rolled her eyes dramatically. "Why do you think? You need help. Nobody here has a clue as to how to help you. No offence," she said, glancing at Maya's mom and dad.
Dev waved a hand airily. "None taken."
Maya let out a huff of breath, spine tense with irritation. Her emotions seemed all over the place. "I hope bringing him here for a stupid dream is worth it. Nik's got better things to do than assist with sleep therapy. For all we know he’s returned to Florida to be with his mom.”
Shaking her head, Joss said, “A little mother-son chat in the early hours of the morning?” Joss snorted. “What just happened here wasn't your run-of-the mill sleepwalking session. He’ll be pissed we didn’t tell him. I’m just keeping my ass out of trouble.”
"It was pretty freaky," said Leela. Her gray skin and from the hollows under her eyes it was clear to Maya that she was straining herself. Trust Maya to do something to set her mom’s recovery back just when she was getting back to normal. Leela smiled and patted Maya’s shoulder.
"Nik will know more about the dancing in the trance thing, honey.” Then Leela pointed at Maya's bloody feet. "Let's get those seen to while we wait for him."
She glanced at her mom, wondering if she meant she’d use the earth goddess’s powers to try and heal Maya. She’d pull the parent card and insist, but Maya didn’t plan on allowing her mom to strain herself that way. Way too soon for her to be pushing herself with healing even if she was a goddess reborn.
Maya scooted forward to step gingerly onto her feet. Her bloodied toes were about to hit the carpet when Dev heaved a deep sigh, rose to his feet and lifted her in his arms. Again.
“Good thing I'm light," she said primly as she stared up at him. "Wouldn't want you to break your back or anything."
Dev merely shook his head and headed for the stairs. Sabala snorted, got to his feet and circumnavigated Dev, as if approving of his decision to carry her. The dog followed solemnly as her dad carried Maya upstairs to her bedroom.
Things were getting a little too crazy around here.
Maya decided she’d wait to hear what Nik had to say and if she wasn’t satisfied with his explanation she’d planned to do the next best thing.
Talk to a god.
Chapter 6
Maya’s dad lay her on her bed and said, “I’ll grab the first aid kit.” As he left, the hellhound trotted to her bedside where again he rested his chin on the mattress and stared up at her.
Guess you’re back to guarding me now, right?
Sabala was always graceful, always aloof so Maya wondered what his problem was. He suddenly seemed worried, or upset she’d been hurt by her trance dance.
Maya suppressed the urge to roll her eyes again. Dev Rao’s first-aid kit was
the size of a freaking suitcase. And besides, he won’t be needing it.
She could not understand where the cuts had come from, or what exactly she'd done to break the skin open that way. Dancing meant a lot of stamping of feet against ground, but how hard would one have to stamp before skin broke anyway?
Maya brought her feet close to her body in an open yoga sit and studied the damage as the hellhound let out a soft whine. Was that the dog’s way of expressing his own shock at the state of her feet?
The fleshiest parts of her soles were slashed open, blood seeping through and drying in the gaping mouths of the wounds. Her feet still looked like a bloody mess.
Nik had taught her well, and she'd used the power to heal her body before.
She took her foot and placed it on her thigh, in a half yoga pose, giving Sabala a warning glare. She didn’t need to be disturbed. Wrapping her hands around her foot, she sighed and listened to the silence around her.
Relaxing, she concentrated on her solar plexus, sinking into the simmering energy within her main chakra. Slowly she pushed the power toward her feet, forcing her legs to relax as the energy rippled along her muscles, sending sparks of heat through her flesh.
Her palms burned with fire, a simmering heat which she focused on her foot, allowing the energy to fill the muscles and tendons, to warm the broken skin and torn blood vessels.
She could feel the fire working, the energy of it seeping into her skin. She'd never understood the concept of energy being light and light being creation.
Not until Nik had taught her how to use her fire to heal.
It had been small things in the beginning; a broken fingernail, or shallow cut. Now her wounds were much bigger, much deeper, and it took her a lot longer than she expected.
Inside her feet, she could feel the fire simmer, surging through her muscles, waiting for Maya’s next instruction. With a soft sigh, Maya pushed the energy through the muscles and flesh, guiding it to her dermal layer.
In the last few weeks she’d been studying anatomy, especially where it was related to her powers and how they worked. It helped that her parents, and Joss’s, had transferred the two girls into the homeschool system where they could study while still training and working within the KALIMA Agency.
