Livvy turned into the first alley she found and kept moving. The pain in her leg was excruciating and her breathing labored but she didn’t dare stop. At the end of the alley, she reached the edge of the village and leaned on the metal handrail. In the distance, the sun had set and only the faintest orange glow was lighting the sky. Using the handrail for support, she headed in the direction she hoped her car would be. More buildings went by but she didn’t recognize any of them. The tour group had come up the middle of the village but she was at the edge. Where was the visitor center?
A dog snarled and barked from the shadows of someone’s back porch. Despite the pain, she lurched away from the sound and tried to pick up the pace. After what seemed like an eternity, the village ended. She leaned heavily against the last stone building, panting. Dogs were now barking all along her path. If Dale and Leon followed that sound, they’d find her. She pushed away from the building and onto the asphalt road.
Where is the car?
She looked in both directions. The tour bus was gone too.
Wait, had she passed the visitor center? She must have. The homes in front of her were occupied. That meant she’d already left Walpi, passed the showers, and gone through Sichomovi, the adjoining village on the mesa.
She hadn’t noticed that the dogs had quieted until they abruptly started up again. She heard someone yelling.
They’re coming.
There weren’t any trees and the rocks weren’t high enough to hide behind. If they came down the street, they’d be sure to see her. She was completely lost now with no idea which way to turn. She headed off at an angle, into the scrub and the loose dirt, trying to put some distance between her and the village. The ground was uneven here and the fading light wasn’t helping.
In fact, the ground here was so hard to see it seemed blurry.
Wait! It’s not the ground. It’s the desert below!
Livvy skid to a stop as loose rock and dirt skipped to the edge of the cliff and fell over. She had nearly run off the edge of the mesa. Instinctively her feet moved backward, ignoring the pain in her hip and thigh. She backpedaled a few short steps and was about to stop and get her bearings when the heel of her right foot caught on something and twisted.
The ground beneath her right foot started to sink.
Despite the pain, she tried to step forward. That foot started to sink as well.
“What–”
Suddenly, the ground under her gave way.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SK PUT A hand on the coffee table to steady himself and looked around Liv’s condo.
Was it an earthquake?
The vertical blinds weren’t swinging nor were the pendulum lamps in the dining room. Everything was still–except for his stomach. It felt like he’d dropped in an elevator.
He quickly sat on the table. Unlike his condo, where the furniture had all been lowered to accommodate his short stature, Liv’s furniture was a tad too high to be comfortable. He checked the blinds and lamps again–nothing.
“What is that?” he muttered as he put a hand to his stomach.
Suddenly, the feeling passed. The elevator had reached bottom. As quickly as it had come, it had gone. He decided to stay seated a bit longer and took out his phone–yet again. No texts from Liv today. He frowned at it and set it on the table. For a few moments, he looked at the cat perch near the sliding glass doors, until he realized he was waiting to see Nacho’s orange ears. Then he stared back down at the phone.
Maybe she’s already starting to pull away.
It was a possibility he had to be prepared for but he deliberately looked away. It’d only been a few days, despite the fact that it felt like months. He shook his head. She was right to have left. She needed to sort things out. Her transformation into the most powerful shaman of her generation had been a whirlwind that they had both been caught up in.
And then they’d fallen in love.
He got up and went to the sliding door and parted the blinds to see the sun beginning to set. He needed time too–to get some perspective, get his balance back. He needed to reach that stable middle place, so he could do his work. Shamans and their clients depended on him for that.
Unfortunately, work was the last thing on his mind.
He turned and looked at the living room and pictured Liv, sitting on the couch.
The news that they’d never truly be able to be together had come as a blow. Being the water baby had never been a negative. He was that rare mix of dwarf and shaman’s intercessor that could make him the most powerful of allies. A pairing with the lightning shaman was the ideal. But when it came to their feelings for one another, it was a deadly combination.
He took in a deep breath and touched his stomach again. What had that lurching feeling been?
And where is Liv?
“Screw it,” he said, as he marched over to the table and picked up the phone.
Neither of them had called each other. He understood she needed to figure things out–things like him–but something was wrong. He knew it.
He dialed her number and waited. It didn’t ring but went right to voicemail. He hung up.
Something was definitely wrong.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LIVVY COUGHED AND tried to wave away the billowing dust. She hadn’t fallen so much as ridden a wave of cascading dirt into what appeared to be some type of underground cavern. She coughed again.
At first, she had thought the face of the cliff was giving way. Then she’d thought it was quicksand. By comparison, sliding into a hole actually seemed like a good thing. She took out her cell phone and turned it on. No service. What a surprise. There hadn’t been much signal since she’d driven up to the mesas. She turned the phone around and used it like a flashlight.
The light hardly penetrated the gloom but, up above, she could see the hole she’d fallen through. How far up was it? Whatever the distance, it didn’t look close enough for her to reach. She put the phone in her pocket and tried to stand but immediately felt a piercing pain in her left hip and sat back down with a thump. She pressed both hands over it as though that might help.
“Oh gods,” she ground out between her teeth, doubling over.
“So it is,” came a small voice from the darkness. “Which gods would those be, my child?”
Livvy froze. She heard her own heart pounding in the silence.
“Speak up!” said the voice, making Livvy jump.
It sounded like an old woman. What was an old woman doing in an underground cavern?
Livvy fumbled for her phone, brought it out, and turned it on. She pointed it in every direction, not sure where the voice had come from.
“That’s not going to help you,” said the old woman.
Livvy quickly aimed the phone more to the left. There was no one there.
“Olivia, try to stay calm and I’ll do my best to help you.”
It just now occurred to her that the shaman, Dale, had also used her name. What was it with this place?
“Who are you?” Livvy said. “And how do you know my name?”
“You can call me Coco, my child. And,” she chuckled under her breath, “I know everybody of course.”
Know everybody. What was that supposed to mean?
“Let’s get started,” said Coco, her tone down to business.
“Get started with–hey!”
Livvy felt a sharp pinch on her hand. She had set it down on the small pile of rubble that she sat on to steady herself. She quickly hovered the cell phone over it. Two small red dots had appeared between her index finger and thumb.
“I think I’ve been bitten!”
She swung the light back to where her hand had been as a little spider that glowed violet, disappeared under a rock.
“A spider!” Livvy said, but her words seemed to echo off the walls of the cavern.
“I know,” she heard Coco say as though from far away. “It’ll be all right, dear.” Livvy could barely hear her.
“But…” Livvy started.
The phone slipped from her hand. She watched as it tumbled in slow motion, the beam looping around like a searchlight. There was only a moment to wonder if it would break as she collapsed back onto the mound, her eyes already closed.
CHAPTER NINE
CHILDREN RAN EVERYWHERE.
The sound of their laughter bounced off the walls of the homes surrounding the plaza of the village. Livvy watched as they kicked balls to one another, screamed, chased each other, and simply ran with pure abandon. Most of them, both boys and girls, had their bangs cut straight like Emma.
“It’s fun to watch, isn’t it?”
An older woman stood next to Livvy, her arms crossed loosely over her chest.
“Yes,” Livvy said. “They’re beautiful.”
“So they are,” said the woman, with a hint of satisfaction.
Livvy looked at her. Her voice seemed familiar.
“Coco?” said Livvy, cocking her head.
“That’s right, my child,” she said, putting a hand lightly on Livvy’s shoulder. “Good for you.”
Livvy looked at the wrinkled hand and then back to Coco’s face, deeply lined under the salt and pepper hair, but so at ease and gently smiling. Livvy smiled back.
“There now,” said Coco. “You’re so much prettier when you smile.”
Coco was wearing a simple black gown but the fine material was iridescent, catching and reflecting the light in its small folds. A gauzy, multicolored, almost see-through shawl was draped diagonally over one shoulder. At her waist was a shining golden sash into which the shawl had been tucked. The sash matched a border at the hem of her dress, which fell just below the knee. Though her arms were bare, her legs were covered by white leather leggings that extended down to the white moccasins. Her lustrous and straight hair fell some inches below her shoulders.
Livvy gazed again around the plaza. It was larger than the one at Walpi. The cooler tones of light felt like those of morning but the heat of the coming day was already on the rise. It seemed so real and yet there was something else that was all too familiar.
“We’re in the Multiverse,” said Livvy.
In reply, Coco patted her shoulder before crossing her arms again.
Livvy looked up to the blazing sun. She had learned that the spiritual plane could look different to different people. In her own work, she traveled to a plane that looked like downtown Los Angeles–a locale she could navigate and where she felt at ease. Typically she’d cross over with the use of goggles to help her visualize the transition. But she knew goggles were only the latest innovation for inducing the trance state.
“How did we get here?” Livvy asked.
“Well, it’s no trick for me,” Coco said. “But you had a little help.”
Livvy recalled the spider bite and looked down at the two small puncture marks on her hand.
Spider venom. She’d never heard of that one. For thousands of years, shamans had used hallucinogens, fasting, hyperventilating, dancing and whatever else might induce a state of ecstatic exhaustion.
“Though I suspect,” continued Coco, “you don’t need much help to make the transition.”
A shadow passed over the plaza. The children stopped playing and every face turned skyward. The blue was quickly giving way to a fast-moving storm front. The clouds flowed like water. Eddies of dark and light grey roiled in constant movement. In moments, the sky was covered as lightning flashed within the darkest part of the cloud above them and thunder steadily rumbled.
Livvy’s spirit helper had arrived–lightning. While every other shaman seemed to have an animal or an insect as a spirit helper, a guide to which they had become attached during their vision quest, Livvy’s had always been lightning.
“Yes,” said Coco, also looking skyward. “I’d heard of this but one can never rely on hearsay. Very nice to see. A lightning shaman comes once in a generation.”
Again, lightning arced within the clouds and a slow rumbling noise travelled from one end of the plaza to the other.
“Play, my children,” Coco called out to them. “It’s just the Lightning Shaman come to visit us.”
The kids eventually chatted among themselves, whispering at first and pointing at Livvy, until someone kicked a ball. Then the squealing and shouting started up again and they were playing.
“Are you a shaman?” asked Livvy.
“So I am,” said Coco. “Come now. Tell me about that hip.”
Had Coco seen her struggle with it in the real world?
As they stood at the edge of the plaza and watched the children, Livvy recounted the story of how she’d used her incredible speed to move an innocent bystander out of the way of an errant lightning bolt–except she hadn’t been fast enough and taken the brunt of the strike on her left side. She left out the part where the lightning had come from her own mother, the lightning shaman of the previous generation, who she’d summoned from the dead.
“Lightning strike, eh?” said Coco, moving behind Livvy. “You won’t need this coat.”
As Coco helped her out of the heavy peacoat, Livvy felt the heat wash over her.
“It’s hot here,” she said, astonished.
Coco lifted the bottom of Livvy’s sweater and lowered the waistband of her jeans enough to see her hip.
“Of course,” Coco said. “It’s summer.”
“There are seasons?”
In Livvy’s Multiverse, the Middleworld was a black lake that led to the Underworld, where it was invariably high noon on a temperate day.
“Naturally,” Coco replied, stooping down and looking closer.
Livvy felt Coco’s strong fingers squeeze but there was no pain.
“If it’s winter up above,” Coco said, continuing to probe. “Then it’s summer here. Nighttime above, daytime here.”
Opposites, thought Livvy.
“Is this the Middleworld or the Underworld?” she asked.
“The Underworld,” replied Coco, straightening up. “It doesn’t hurt to touch it, does it?”
Livvy looked back at her.
“No, it never has,” she said. “Mostly when I put weight on it.”
Coco nodded. “Put your weight on it.”
Without hesitation, Livvy did as she was told and the pain shot upward as though a hot knife had been driven from her knee to her side. Lightning flashed beneath the clouds and thunder pealed almost simultaneously.
Coco gave the sky a wary look.
“All right,” she declared, patting Livvy on the shoulder. “Let’s get this fixed.”
“You know how?”
Coco laughed. “Do I know how,” she said, continuing to chuckle. “You kids are so funny sometimes.”
She took Livvy’s left hand and crossed the plaza. Livvy limped and leaned on her, lightly at first so as not to overburden her, and then more heavily as she realized how strong Coco was. Of course, she thought to herself, it’s the Multiverse. Here, shamanic power was the only thing that mattered, not physical.
It occurred to Livvy she was placing a lot of trust in Coco, someone she’d just met, under some very strange circumstances. Plus this Underworld was completely unlike her own. At least her experience with networked goggles and other shamans had prepared her for the possibility of something different. The presence of her spirit helper reassured her as well. She glanced up at the dark sky as electricity continued to light the underside of the clouds in muted bursts of light.
As they crossed the plaza, most of the kids were careful to avoid them but a few would occasionally zoom close and touch Coco’s shimmering gown. She would also reach out and lightly brush the tops of their heads.
Wait a minute, thought Livvy. If this is the Underworld, the spiritual plane where ancestors, spirit helpers, and the newly dead come before passing on…
“Coco,” said Livvy, stopping. “Why are there so many children?”
She looked around at the smiling and happy faces.
“Don’t be silly,” said Coco, starting them
on their journey again.
Livvy stared at her as she limped along.
“Remember what I said?” Coco asked.
She gave Livvy a few moments to puzzle it out but they hadn’t talked about the kids.
“In the real world?” Coco prompted.
Livvy shook her head.
“It’s winter above,” Coco said. “Summer below. It’s evening above…”
“Morning here,” Livvy finished quietly, looking around.
Opposites.
“These aren’t kids,” she whispered. “They only look like that.” She gazed around in wonder. “They’re ancestors.”
They had reached the edge of the plaza.
“Just over here,” said Coco, as she led her to an outcropping of rock and stopped. “This is the spot,” she declared.
Livvy looked down at the bedrock protruding from the ground and then back to Coco’s beaming face. She had to be missing something.
Coco must have seen the look on her face. “Well I haven’t done anything yet, have I?” At that, she stepped back a few paces.
Will she call a spirit helper? What could it be?
Livvy looked around and waited but nothing appeared–not an insect, an animal, nor a force of nature. Then again, if her spirit helper were going to arrive, wouldn’t it have come by now?
Again, Livvy looked at Coco. Maybe she didn’t need a spirit helper. Maybe her shamanic power would–
Coco spit.
Had it not been for her bad leg, Livvy would have leaped backward since it landed on the ground only inches from her feet.
“Stay where you are,” said Coco quickly. “And don’t move.”
Livvy froze.
Even before Coco had finished, the bedrock started to change. A small puff of dust popped out of the rock where the spit had landed and a tiny mushroom cloud formed before collapsing. As the dust settled, a chain reaction began as more puffs of dust sprang up in a circle around the original location. Clearly, if Livvy didn’t move, she’d soon be in the midst of it. She looked up at Coco.
“Do as I say and you’ll be fine,” she said, all seriousness now.
Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman Books 1 -3 Page 60
