by Harper Lin
Bea didn’t hesitate.
“Mom?” she kept babbling over and over as she quickly crawled to her mother’s side. “Mom? Are you okay?” Tears had soaked her cheeks.
I knelt down and took my aunt’s hand. She was panting as if she had been holding her breath for a long time. I watched as the color slowly crept back up into her face and her eyes blinked back to their normal color, as clear and twinkling as ever they had been.
“I’m all right, Bea.” She rubbed her daughter’s head and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Then she rubbed her own cheek, and I saw her wince.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Astrid. I had to give you a crack. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Well, I won’t have to worry about you if that Officer Warner gets fresh, I suppose.” She stretched her jaw to the right and the left then smiled at me.
“What the heck was that, Mom? You had us scared to death. You weren’t breathing. You weren’t moving. Your face was all…”
“Gross,” I added, hoping a little levity might help calm Bea down.
“Yeah, gross,” Bea said, slowly getting her composure back. We both stood up and reached down to help Aunt Astrid to her feet. Once she was up, she wobbled a little but seemed to be coming back to us completely. Before we could let go of her hands, she clutched us both tightly.
“I’m glad you did that,” she said. A sound came from my aunt’s mouth that I rarely heard. Not just fear. Terror. “I’m glad you got me out of there.”
“Out of where?” I shook my head. “And can we get out of here while we are at it? This whole place is making me jumpy. I’m seeing things and stuff is moving and the birds aren’t singing and, well, it’s all just a little unnatural.”
“Yes. Let’s get out of here.”
“Can you walk okay, Mom?”
“Honey, I think we better run.”
Enisi
It didn’t take us long to make it back to the spa. We didn’t talk. We just panted our way back up the path we had come down and didn’t stop until we had reached the lobby entrance.
“I’m a sweaty mess,” I said, pulling at my shirt, which was sticking to my back.
“We’ve got our facials, mud baths, and hot spring soaks waiting for us. I say we just go relax, get ourselves settled, and talk amongst the living.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” my aunt said. Shrugging, I didn’t say a word and followed my family into the spa.
While we were getting into our robes in the women’s changing room, my aunt began to talk quietly. We were the only ones in there, but discretion was the word of the day.
“I just thought I’d see what I could see,” she began.
Without knowing exactly where she was headed, Aunt Astrid had let the guides of the other plane take over and lead her in the right direction. Channeling those spirits was something she was used to doing. It had never scared her before, nor had she ever had a spirit consume her so she’d have a problem getting back to this dimension. But the land around the Muskox was not like the rest of Wonder Falls.
“It is like Grand Central Station,” she said as a petite woman of Asian descent slathered my cheeks with dark-gray, almost black clay. “There are spirits coming and going from all directions, and not all of them are what we’d normally see,” she said, looking at me.
“Oh man. You mean more spiders.” I shook my head and wrinkled my nose. “What the heck? Who do you get to exterminate those things for good?”
The little woman who was rubbing my face finished and laid two cucumber slices on my eyes. They were ice cold and felt fantastic. Each of us was stretched out on her own white table as soothing music played and a small water fountain bubbled happily in the background. A half dozen candles burned, giving off the scent of lemongrass.
Aunt Astrid peeked from under her cucumbers and saw we were finally alone in the room.
“I didn’t want to say too much in mixed company. So let me be quick. The Muskox Serenity Spa and Retreat Center is a beacon for any spirit from any dimension to pass into this one.”
“That makes sense,” Bea said. “I discovered a few things on the Internet about this place and what is going on that probably has the multidimensional door standing wide open.”
“And I’ve decided you two witches are not taking me on any more vacations ever.” I took a deep breath of the lemongrass-scented air.
Aunt Astrid went first.
Her journey into the alternative dimension had not been just chance. Her guide had told her he was waiting for her and that she had to speak with their Enisi.
“I couldn’t get a fix on my guide. He was strong, but he kept changing, altering his appearance so he just seemed like a shadow.”
“Was he a shadow person? Aren’t those trouble all on their own?” My face was starting to tighten, and I felt the cool mud drying when I tapped it with my fingertips.
“No. Not a shadow person like the kind they claim to see on all those ghost-hunter shows. And not a person who is still alive but his essence, his supernatural fingerprint, is showing up like in room 116. No. I believe this was a shape-shifter.”
I remembered what Jake had said and swallowed hard.
“Before I started to follow him, I looked around me. Of course, I wasn’t seeing the landscape that you girls found me in. I saw the blurry outline of the spa in the distance, the path I had walked on, but spirits were everywhere. They were not necessarily in the dimension I had slipped into. But this place, this land had brought them there. Some looked as if they were studying the place, maybe searching for someone that looked familiar. Others gave off a more insidious aura. Like if the opportunity to trip an old woman or prick a child with a pin came up, they might take it. And still others hid in shadows, seething with red-hot eyes.
“Finally our journey started. I walked for miles and probably didn’t even take a step in this world. Isn’t it funny?” Aunt Astrid mused for a moment. “This shape-shifting guide took me through fields of tall grass, over a small brook of perfectly clear water, and up a hill. Once at the top, he became very nervous. He told me to stand where I was, and I wondered where in the world he thought I would go.”
“Weren’t you scared?” I asked. “Neither one of us was there. I think we might have to have a long talk about stranger danger and going off with shape-shifters when we get home, right Bea?”
“Oh, yes, we are going to have a long talk about this kind of reckless behavior when we get back to Wonder Falls.”
“I wasn’t scared. Not at first. I could smell clean, fresh air. Air like I’ve never smelled before. Honeysuckle bloomed far off in the distance, and I swear I could smell it from where I was standing. I looked around, turning in a circle, but before I noticed my guide had disappeared, the sky clouded over with dark, low-lying clouds.”
I propped myself up on my elbow and took the cucumbers off my eyes. Bea had the same thought.
“Then the Enisi showed up.” I watched my aunt’s face become pale. She chewed at her lip for a few minutes as if she was thinking that maybe she shouldn’t say anything. Her throat extended for a second as she swallowed hard.
“She couldn’t have been more than four feet tall. Skinny wasn’t the word for her. She was bony, and her joints stuck out like knots on a tree. Her skin was the same color and texture, like she had spent her entire life working under a bright, hot sun. Very little hair grew on her head, but scant gray and wiry strands stood out randomly in brittle tufts over her scalp.”
I looked at Bea, who stared at her mother with her mouth open.
“When she spoke, I could see her purplish lips moving. She had about four teeth in her mouth, and they were mostly black. But her eyes were the most unsettling. Something lurked behind them. At first I thought they were white with cataracts. But she got in my face, right up to my face, and glared at me with those eyes. Something was in them.”
“What do you mean something was in them?” Bea asked, her lips barely moving as our masks tightened.
“Mom, would you like some water?” Bea swung her legs over the side of the table she had been lying on.
“Actually, I could use something a good bit stronger.” She reached over and patted Bea’s knee.
“What did she say to you, Aunt Astrid?”
“Well, the language she was speaking, the words coming out of her mouth, I didn’t understand. But I heard a voice in my ears. It was that voice inside me that was scary.” Aunt Astrid’s eyes focused on a spot in front of her as if everything else were too bright. “In my head I could hear it. It was raspy and childlike at the same time, sending a needle of terror down into my stomach. And if this Enisi was old, her voice sounded even older, if that makes any sense. She said it wouldn’t stop.”
“That what wouldn’t stop?” I heard the question come out of my mouth, but I was pretty sure I knew what the answer was going to be.
“The deaths.”
Hot Spring
Yup. I was right.
“She said that she would continue to collect those souls as long as she was summoned, and she would never stop being summoned. Then she started to laugh and pointed a long, bony finger off to a high cliff behind us. A figure stood there. He was in a pitch-black shadow from a brilliant sunset behind him. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I felt them.”
“Then the Enisi took hold of my arm. Her old, gnarly hands were like eagle talons, and they squeezed hard until I thought I was going to scream. She started to laugh at me, pointing to other creatures and people drifting around like she was letting them all know I was there and I wasn’t like them. I wasn’t. I was alive. But she cackled at me as I tried to pull away from her, and that was when you guys got me out of there.”
I watched my aunt take a deep breath, still rubbing her hands together and worrying a hangnail on her thumb.
“Even though I am back here in my dimension, I can see some of those things that I saw there. They are looking for me. Maybe they hope I can bring them back here. Or maybe they want to feed here. I don’t know for sure. But I’m afraid the longer I am in this place, the more dangerous it is going to get for all of us.”
We all sat in silence until the curtain separating our quiet room from the hallway was pushed aside and my Asian facial technician entered with her two companions.
Both Aunt Astrid and Bea jumped and let out yelps of surprise just as I did. I clutched my heart and let out a relieved chuckle.
Without another word, we were each swiveled over to our own big bowls of cool rose water, and our faces were gently and thoroughly washed clean.
The women explained to us that now that our faces were detoxified, we were ready to have the rest of our bodies as thoroughly cleansed in the mud bath. I wasn’t really listening to her speech on where the mud was from, what kind of kelp or seaweed was mixed with it, and how the water from the hot springs kept it at a constant ninety degrees. I thought that sounded kind of hot, but since I was only half listening, I didn’t give it too much thought.
The three of us stepped into a dimly candlelit room. It was a very romantic setting, and out of nowhere a thought of Officer Tom Warner popped into my head.
He should have been the last thing on my mind. My aunt had been telling us about her traumatic experience with an old hag. This was no time for romance.
“Okay, who’s first?” the spa technician asked happily.
After a few moments of hesitation, each one of us slowly but surely sank up to our necks in the charcoal-colored goo. It was a little unnerving at first, and I didn’t like the idea of not being able to see what was in there with me.
Of course, there was nothing in the mud but minerals and dirt and seaweed and me. That was all. Still, I didn’t really like how it felt and would probably be hopping out sooner rather than later.
“Okay, Mom. You need to hang on to your hat, because I found out stuff, too. But you tell me if you think it fits together.”
Bea seemed to be so wrapped up in her part of the story that I don’t even think she realized she was sitting in mud. To her this was just a very fluid, dark blanket that was keeping her warm and pulling the impurities out of her body. To me it was a soupy mess. But I calmed myself down, leaned back against the hard, curved basin that was designed to look like rock, and listened to what Bea had to say. She hadn’t even begun to explain to me anything she had found out before we had gone off in search of her mom.
“So, with just a few slight variations on the story Maureen the waitress told us about the teenagers that died, the legend of the cursed land was pretty much spot on.”
It was a little freaky for me to look at Bea across the wide tub filled with mud, because she looked like she was just a talking head.
“But a few missing details make this story a little more coherent but a little more sinister, too.
“According to the folklore of unincorporated Wonder Falls, a Chief Big Running Fox and his people did roam along this territory. Some kind of exchange occurred that was not beneficial to his people, the exact details being lost or hazy at best.
“When the chief found out he had been swindled, he did put a curse on the land. Now it isn’t clear if he kidnapped two people who happened to be siblings or if he chose them on purpose.” Bea tried to use her hands, but the mud made it nearly impossible to move. “But I read a tiny blurb that said the chief poisoned these two people as an offering to Nanbohzo, their god of vengeance. Now, you’d think it would have stopped there after the sacrifice, but no such luck.”
It was as if Bea had known this information all her life and had just been waiting for the right moment to bring it up. She could remember facts and figures like she was reciting a grocery list.
“Whether the chief was aware of this or not, and I think he was, Mars was in a superior conjunction with Earth. Venus was at its eastern elongation, and we had a crescent moon. This all happens like clockwork every six years.”
She stopped talking and looked at us as if we were supposed to be on the same page as her.
“And…” Aunt Astrid shrugged, getting mud on her cheeks.
“These spirits are still here,” Bea said sadly. “Every six years, they reenact the sacrifice. Not to mention the placement of the moon lights the place up like a beacon and leaves the doors to several astral planes open for other entities to come and go as they please, as it will stay open for several days. Once it is shut, any wayward spirits are stuck here. But in six years, another set of people will be sacrificed and the door will be left open, and the revenge will continue.”
“So what do we have to do to fix this?” I was hoping the time was almost up for the mud bath. This was not my idea of feeling good. I didn’t care how clean it made my pores.
“We have to tell the chief his land is safe. That he can move on now,” Bea said. Her eyes were sad, and I could tell this bothered her. It wasn’t like the usual spirits or bug-a-boos we dealt with. This was a proud leader who had been done wrong not only by the new settlers but by his own kind. He had to be suffering unspeakable heartbreak.
“Why do I get the feeling that this has to be done sooner rather than later, and it is going to have to be done by a couple of people, oh, who could they be…maybe us?” I scratched my head and got mud in my hair.
“And Mom, I hate to say this, but it is your area of expertise. Do you feel up to it?”
My aunt nodded.
We sat there in silence for a couple of minutes. Bea looked as if she was solving some mathematical equation in her head, and my aunt, well, as always, was probably watching the comings and goings of the closest dimension. I felt like I was sitting in glue and couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m done here, guys. I don’t like this.” I began my slow ascent from wha
t looked like the primordial soup.
“Jeez, I thought it was just me,” my aunt said, standing up.
“I’m with you guys,” Bea said, rising and helping her mother as well.
We all got out, stood on the smooth, pebbled area of the room that was underneath the showers, and began to wipe ourselves off.
“This feels better than the mud.” I got nods of approval from my family.
“I am looking forward to the hot springs, though,” Aunt Astrid said.
“Me, too. And I also heard that the Indians of the area used to sit in those sometimes before they sat in their sweat lodges.”
“What in the world is a sweat lodge?”
“Native American men would sit in those when they needed answers, needed to resolve a conflict, or maybe before a battle or hunt. It was a small structure where they heated some rocks, poured water on them to get steam, and then sat there.” My aunt’s eyes twinkled.
“And then what?” I asked.
“And then they waited for their visions.”
“Okay. Well, maybe you’ll have a vision that will help you with our task at hand. It doesn’t sound too bad. I mean, you’re just telling this chief he can cross over. You’ve helped spirits do that before. This shouldn’t be too hard, right?”
“I’m not sure. There is the Enisi to deal with.”
“What do you mean, Mom?”
“Well, I’m sure Chief Big Running Fox is tired. Every time this lunar formation takes place, he must mount his horse and come back to the site of so much pain. I don’t believe he likes it. But I didn’t get that feeling from the Enisi.”
Bea and I stopped and looked at Aunt Astrid as the water washed away the mud from our skin in a cool, refreshing spray. It was a complete contradiction to the hot fear that had started to grow in my stomach.
“The Enisi was his counselor. She was his muse and confidant. She had his ear at every turn and, well, this might be one of those instances where she is more interested in getting him to continue his revenge because it is somehow helping her, feeding her. I believe she is getting stronger each time that lunar thingamajig takes place.”
