by Smith, Skye
She suddenly felt vulnerable and looked around. The only other person nearby was an old woman with a cane. She had learned the hard way in Frisco never to put anything valuable in a purse or a bag. In Frisco she had started carrying her cash in her bra. That is, until she went on a date with a guy with too many hands and got home to find it gone.
The bra was out anyway. In Vancouver she rarely wore one, and certainly not with a halter top. The bicycle, then. Maybe there was a hiding place, after all, weren't they made of pipes and tubes? While she was looking, the weight of the front basket caused it to twist on the kick stand and start to fall, and she pulled the plastic bag out of the basket to stop it, but it got caught on the bike lock and she scraped her calf on a pedal trying to hold the bike up.
Not the bike. Bike theft was rampant in Vancouver. She looked in the plastic bag. The geode winked back at her. There was a little box stuck inside the geode and her curiosity trumped her feeling of vulnerability. She looked around. No one watching. She lifted her skirt and shoved the wad of money down the front of her panties.
The little box had a card stuck to it. It was the card of the rock shop where she had bought the crystals. She flipped it over and printed neatly were the words "Come back next weekend, I will have a new shipment from Arizona." She looked at the box, and then opened it. Inside was a miniature telescope in a pouch. She read the box. Mini Monocular. 7x18. $14.95. She took it out of the pouch and looked through it. The house across the street seemed miles away. She flipped it over, and twisted it to focus.
Focus. She shrieked in delight as she watched a robin pulling at a worm. What a wonderful gift! Yes, she would go back to the shop, she thought and whispered the word "thank you". Focus. Why had Larry not called 911? Why had he handed her a wad of cash? She hung the monocular around her neck by its string and it dropped down her cleavage and lay amongst the crystals. Her cleavage was filling up, and lost in thought she walked her bike back to the edge of Kits beach park.
She leaned her bike up against the first bench she saw and then used the monocular to find Larry and Murray. Omigod. She felt like she was right there with them. Murray was now leaned up against Larry and Larry was chatting to him. A huge wave of guilt shuddered through her. He was having his last conversation with his brother, the brother whom she had just killed.
She couldn't watch. She felt devastated. Murray was a psychopath and evil. He was a rich mover and shaker who, out of his own mouth, had confessed to murder, and swindling people that trusted him. But, but, but, even an evil man had a brother who would miss him.
Of course. That was why Larry hadn't called 911. This was his last chance to sit and talk with his brother before 'the emergency system' took control of the body. She wondered how many years the two of them had been meeting on that bench. Probably since they were kids.
She had to wipe her tears away before she could use the monocular again. Larry was on the phone again. She pushed rewind on her memory and tried to find something in the jumble. Most of what the two men had said while she was sunning was just so much blah blah blah to her. Stock deals, shares, gold mines, family in Chile.
This was still not a 911 call. He was talking too long. He was selling stock. He didn't call 911 because he was selling his stock before anyone knew that Murray was dead. That is why he gave her the wad of money and pretended his brother was asleep. To him it was just small change to get rid of her. To make sure she didn't call 911. She wished she knew someone at the stock exchange to phone and announce that Murray was dead.
She pulled and pushed at her crotch trying to center the wad of cash again. Panties were not nearly as good as bras for stuffing money into. They were too loose. Had she really just murdered a man? She didn't feel very guilty about it. Omigod, was she a psychopath? She needed to talk to someone, someone wise, and soon.
* * *
* * *
MAYA'S AURA - the Refining by Skye Smith
Chapter 11 - Three years earlier in Kitsilano, Vancouver
She leaned her bike up against the shop window and locked it. Joy was not there, probably in school. Instead the old man gave her a jack-o-lantern grin. "Go upstairs," he said, "Lin waiting."
She knocked softly on the old carved door and a voice said to come in. Lin was sitting up in the window looking out at the strange garden. "Oh, I'm so glad you've come," she said.
"Oh dear. Is it worse?" Maya's heart dropped.
"No, heavens no. I feel pretty good, actually. And look." She was pointing at her head. Maya shrugged her shoulders because she couldn't see anything, no scar, nothing. "My hair is growing," Lin said. "My hair is growing back in, and it is not growing in kinked and dry and silver. Look how silky and black it is."
"I have a present for you," Maya said and pulled the four shoe strings from around her neck. "Close your eyes and feel these four crystals. Choose the one that feels best to you." This took a few minutes, but Lin finally chose one.
She put it over her head and nestled it down between her breasts. "It feels warm. Oh look, Mum, look what Maya has given me." The old lady came into the room and closed the door. She lifted the crystal up to her own forehead and smiled. "White," was all she said.
"Umm, Lin, before I do your back, I need to talk with your mother. Could you translate for me?"
"You need ask?" She rattled some Cantonese at her mother. Her mother nodded.
"Why does she call my aura 'white power', 'monk power', when the monk calls it
'white monk power'. I know it seems like a silly question, but...."
"Because the monk assumes that the white power is the power of a white monk and that they are completely linked to each other. My mother thinks there is white power and it is different from monk power and they are not linked. Of course she is just a silly woman. Her words, not mine."
"And the white monk...."
"In legends, he is the hunter of the tiger. The hunter of powerful men who are evil in their soul and care nothing for the people around them. I must explain. In the old way, men were given great power so that they could protect their people, and so they must care for them. It is their duty."
"Before, she called me the bait goat."
The women bantered unintelligibly. "She has changed her mind. You are the lamb, the poison bait. No hunter is required. You are both bait and killer."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"I don't know enough to ask why what?" said Maya sheepishly.
Again the women bantered. "Perhaps the gods have given up on giving the white power to hunters. Perhaps the hunters were losing too many bait goats, and killing too few tigers. Perhaps the hunters can no longer get near to the tigers without being seen." There was more banter. "She is tired of talking about legends. Talk real. Talk now."
"The bad man with the van near the playground." Maya saw the mother nod. "Before I came to your store, I caught his runaway puppy and he touched me on the hand when I brought it back to him. As soon as he touched me, I knew he was dangerously evil. If I had not known that ahead of time, I would have let him drive away with the little girl, thinking he was a relative."
"So my father, I mean her husband has told her. He wishes he had your gift to divine the evil ones. If he had not seen you run and hit the man, he would also have watched him drive away with the little girl and the puppy."
"You must tell no one what I am about to tell you. Not Mister Li, not the monk, no one." They agreed and she told them the story of the man on Wreck Beach trail.
At the end there was silence and then it was broken by a cackle from the old lady. Lin talked with her and then translated. "Then you are indeed a poisonous lamb, as she had thought. And a poison that cannot be traced." She talked with her mother.
"Her advice is to stay away from the petty evil men, like the man in the van and the man on the trail. They are nothing. They are not worthy of your gift. Let the police and the mothers capture them. That type is always caught eventually.
She says more, and
this is important. With those type of men, you are most at risk. They may kill you or maim you for their twisted pleasure, before you can kill them. They are nothing. Stay away from them."
"But..." Maya tried to interrupt.
"Wait, there is more. Offer your bait only to the most powerful of evil men. They will be drawn to you and to your charms, and will seek out your company to increase their own standing amongst other men. They will be as helpless as bait goats and you will not be harmed. No one will suspect the lamb."
"She is telling me to go and kill powerful men?" She listened to some staccato words. Her mind drifted to the vision of Murray sitting dead, very dead, still on the park bench.
"Think of them not as men, but as tigers. Animal tigers are now protected because there are so few of them left. Man tigers are plentiful and more numerous every year. They need no protection, they need culling.
Wait, I translated that wrong. She says she is not counselling you to kill, but if you do decide to kill, why waste your gift on the likes of the man on the trail when you could, with the same effort, have a global effect for good?"
"She said global?"
"I translated global, her actual words were tidal effect. To her the tides are the global waves caused by the forces of sun and moon." She hushed and listened to her mother. "The tiger, like all predators, will not risk injury. A tiger knows that if he is injured he will turn from hunter to hunted. He is bold only when attacking the helpless, otherwise he uses stealth and surprise. He attacks without warning."
The old woman said something that sounded snarky and left the room, closing the door behind her. "She says she has said too much, way too much. We are not to tell anyone of what she said. She has gone to prepare for your Tai Chi lesson in the garden, while you do my back."
Maya helped her out of her night dress and helped her to lie on her stomach. She did not take her own clothes off this time, she just bared her shoulders, and then used a version of 'pushing pizza' that she had invented herself. It looked like 'pushing pizza', but with the right hand extended instead of the left, and although the left arm crossed her breast, the left hand supported her right forearm.
Her hope was that it would not just focus her aura along her right shoulder and arm and into her right hand, but also she would have more control over the right hand as it hovered, trying not to touch the skin. She tried it with a weak aura to sense for dark spots. They were still there, but she was sure they were not so dark as last time. She increased her aura slowly until it just reached the floral whiteness, and then she passed her hand over Lin's back, over and over and over.
She was pleased by her new method. She felt more in control of the aura and it seemed like the whiteness was not turning brilliant. She did not feel drained at the end of it, and her arm was not tired by the muscle control that the skimming required. She was well pleased. So was Lin.
"That was much calmer," Lin said, as she rolled herself over and put on her nightie by herself. "Please, stroke my hair again. It gives me hope to see it grow." Maya stroked her non-hair and then went down to the garden.
* * *
"No more fool around," said Mrs. Li. "You need be dangerous even if no white power." It was not a lesson anything like the others. There was no stylized slow motion dancing, no yoga-style meditation, no big heavy punching bag. She had dragged a punching mannequin out of the shed and the whole lesson was spent practicing against it.
First, she was shown the most painful places to hit a man. No, that is not quite correct. They were the places where intense pain was instantaneous.
"No go for balls. Always girls think, go for balls. Silly. Man get mad and hurt you before he feels all the hurt."
She was shown how to brutalize a shin, both close in and from a distance. "He no can run. You can run. Girly kick best. He mad at himself, not you."
She was shown how to brutalize the small organs of the throat and ears, if she was being held close. "If him fall down like dead, you not look. You run."
She was shown how to brutalize the nose and eyes, if she was being held at arms' length. "If him scream and cannot see, you not look. You run."
She was shown how to use the soft spot on the base of the back of the skull. The place that Erik had shown her. Any sharp thin object would do. "Him dead, or frozen, neck down. You not look. You run."
She was then instructed in the most useful natural weapon of all for young women. The high-pitched scream. "Before you do any of these, you scream. Him maybe run away when you scream. Him make mistake when you scream. Him not watching your feet and hands when you scream. Maybe help come. They on your side if you scream. Always scream."
The old lady stopped and took her to sit on a bench. "If nothing work. He get you down, he hurt you." She held up Maya's hand and ran her finger over Maya's fingernails. "Always scratch his face. Deep scratch. Skin under fingernails scratch. Mark him all women to see. All police to see. You now have his .... his ..."
"DNA." She hoped it was the word the old woman was searching her mind for.
"Yes, that stuff. Like on CSI on TV."
They sat together in stony silence for a long time. The old lady held Maya's hand with both of hers in her lap. They spoke no more. They were both thinking. Her talk with the old woman had triggered an epiphany in her mind. Maya made some decisions. Important decisions. Life decisions.
No more little girl shying away from life. From now on, she would act on her thoughts. Why not? Why shouldn't she? There were things around her that she could make better. Make better for people she liked. Why shouldn't she? What was preventing her? Only her own insecurity. Well no more miss insecurity. No way. Not any more. Starting right now, not anymore.
* * *
* * *
MAYA'S AURA - the Refining by Skye Smith
Chapter 12 - Three years earlier at U.B.C., Vancouver
She had left the bike locked up outside the shop and had bussed it up to U.B.C.. If Randy or Marique were there, she would see their truck in the free parking along the road, because the beer sellers all came early enough to grab the best free spaces. The ramshackle pickup was there.
At the top of the trail stood one of the guys who picked up beer cans on the beach for their deposits. "Did you see Marique selling beer on the beach today?" she asked him. He looked at her and tried to recognize her and scratched his dirty forehead. He was a bit charmed. A bit slow in the head.
She gave him lots of time. Even she had trouble recognizing beach acquaintances when they had their clothes on. He looked around nervously. "I'm no doing anything wrong," he said. Another guy who looked like he had smoked way too much dope in his life, walked up and asked what she wanted. He was also carrying empty cans.
"Is Marique on the beach today?"
"The cute beer seller with the French accent?"
"Belgian, yes, that's her."
"She'll be coming up soon. She sells out faster than an ice cream man in hell."
She thanked him and went across the street to sit at a bench far enough away from the trail head so that the ghost cop car in the 'loading only' zone wouldn't take her picture, but close enough to watch for Marique through her new monocular. Finally she came up. She was wearing the travel skirt Maya had bought for her and she looked very smart as she waved at the ghost car.
Maya took a B-line across some parking lots and intercepted her at the truck. After hugs and kiss-kisses, she grabbed Marique's hand and swung her around and started pulling her towards the Student Union building.
"I 'ave to get de more beer," she complained. "Dis could be de last warm day on de beach for de season."
"No, it's too dangerous. You're going home."
"But Randy is not 'ere eh, so I 'ave to take de truck. Besides, the cops said it was a heart attack. That's why I came back."
"Not that home. You're real home. Belgium."
"Merde, I would love that, but I'm hundreds short of a ticket. Aye, you fear I am hooking for the money. Who told you that? I told the
m no. No way. They tell me 'just a couple of times for big money'. I know it is a lie. Once you start they have you, they force you."
"I have the money," Maya said and crossed her legs over to make sure the wad of cash was still there. "Let's go to the student travel office and buy your ticket."
"You found the car. Randy and I looked and looked, but we were never sure which car was 'is. So he wasn't lying. He had money in the car."
"What car, oh, oh, that car, that guy. No, this isn't his money. This is money a rich guy gave me to buy some nice dresses for some parties. You know me. I can dress myself for very little out of the consignment stores. He gave me money enough for downtown fashion houses."
Marique whistled, "So much, enough for a ticket to Belgium? Wow, so have you done him yet, or do you get extra for that?"
"He got sick and cancelled. He told me to buy the dresses for next time."
"He gave you cash up front and then cancelled and didn't want a refund? Why do I never meet this kind of man?
"Well, you just met that kind of woman. Come on, before I think of something else to do with the money."
* * *
Marique got a ticket on a last-minute deal to Amsterdam, and for an extra hundred, a one-year open ticket back. The only complication was when the travel agent asked for the seven hundred and forty dollars. Maya realized that she should have fished it out before they got to the travel agent. She had to run down the hall and wait in line for the women's washroom. Why don't guys ever have to wait in line?
Marique was so happy, her eyes sparkled. Maya was glad the pretty woman would not meet with any mean streets in Vancouver, especially now that yet another street walker had just been reported missing.
Maya refused a ride in the old pickup. She didn't want to risk association with it because of the trail incident. She had Marique's parents' phone and address in Bruges, Belgium, and an open invitation to visit her there.
