Fated (24 page)

“A skull face, a snake skirt, and a steady diet of stars?” I shake my head and balk. “No thanks, I’d prefer to avoid her if it’s okay with you.”

“You don’t always get the journey you want,
nieta.
Though you always get the journey you need,” she says—yet another sage statement in a collection of many.

“You paraphrasing Mick Jagger now?” I laugh. It feels good to laugh, lessens the creepiness of her story.

Paloma grins, but it’s not long before she tucks a leg underneath her and says, “Now, back to Chepi—while she had no interest in Leandro, no interest in
hooking up with bad boys
as you put it,” she winks at me, “she was no match for Leandro, whose proficiency in the black arts is unrivaled. The Richters have misused the power of the Day of the Dead for centuries. They don’t so much honor and commune with their relatives as
resurrect
them.”

I lean toward her, chin tucked to my knees, eyes practically popped from their sockets.

“Oh, not for long,
nieta,
and not physically. They’re not necromancers, or at least not yet, anyway. It’s more like they call upon the energy of the dead and infuse themselves with the dark power of their lineage—an effect that lasts a few days at best. But, as it turns out, on that day, it proved enough. And that, coupled with Leandro’s ability to alter perception, is what made it so easy for him to seduce Chepi. He knew about the powerful magick that flowed through her bloodline, and he was desperate to harness it and merge it with his. The Richters’ power was beginning to falter. While they’ve never had access to the Upperworld, on the occasions they’ve managed to breach the Lowerworld, they were quick to corrupt it along with the spirit animals, which caused chaos to reign here in the Middleworld, leaving people unprotected, easily misled—becoming both victims and supporters of insane, corrupt leaders. The rise of Atilla the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, Stalin, Robespierre, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Hitler…” She looks in my direction, but her gaze remains far away. “It can all be traced to the Richters’ dark influence in the Lowerworld, and it took great sacrifice on behalf of Seekers and shamans everywhere to evict them. The Lowerworld, just like the Upperworld, is populated by loving, compassionate beings that guide us and aid us without our even realizing. We are dependent on their well-being and wisdom in more ways than we know. It’s only the Middleworld that contains beings that both help us and harm us.”

It’s not until she pauses that I realize I’ve been holding my breath, doing my best to take it all in and try to make sense of it.

“And so, desperate to beef up their ranks, Leandro purposely set out to father a son whose blood would run thick with the magick of both sides, hoping that would enable him to infiltrate the other worlds so long denied him. Chepi didn’t stand a chance—he kept her captive for the entire ceremony—and when she awoke, she was nude, battered, and her body was covered in black-magick symbols.”

I’m speechless, haunted by the images that flare in my head. Remembering the night I met Leandro in the office at the Rabbit Hole, the creepy impression I got when he caught my hand in his.

“Leandro wasn’t looking for just any son, he wanted a son with a soul even darker than his own. Knowing the soul contains equal parts light and dark—that a person’s life story and the sort of nurturing they receive often determines which side emerges as the dominant one—he set out to dissect the child’s soul right from the start. He called upon his long-deceased ancestors to aid him, worked terrible magick and ritual to split the soul and nurture the dark part at the expense of the good. Though, in the end, things didn’t go quite as planned. Instead of giving birth to one black-hearted son, Chepi gave birth to twins, one with a light soul and one with a dark one.”

My mind spins with the news—unable to think of one good response.

Twins.

One evil. One good.

The stuff of myth—only in this case it’s real.

“Okay,” I say, struggling to understand. “But if Chepi’s dad, Jolon, was so powerful, why didn’t he stop it?”

Paloma nods as though she was expecting the question. Wasting no time in replying, she says, “When Chepi arrived home disheveled and disoriented, Jolon was distraught to find his beloved daughter violated and used in that way. Little did he know, but Leandro was waiting nearby, and he used that moment of weakness to penetrate and alter Jolon’s perception—something he was never able to accomplish before. Some claim Leandro terrorized Jolon with images of the future, the havoc his grandson would wreak. All I know for sure is that Jolon didn’t survive. He dropped dead of a heart attack, leaving poor Chepi an orphan. When Leandro learned he’d produced twins, there was no doubt which one he favored. He immediately took custody of Cade, warning Chepi that if she tried to fight him, tried to get the boy back, he’d take Dace as well. And so Chepi turned her attentions to Dace, while turning her back on the healing, and magick, and all that Jolon had taught her. Claiming she’d lost her gift along with her faith—that she was good to no one, but she’d try to be good to her son. To support herself, she began making beautiful turquoise jewelry she sells in the square. Hers is a very sad story,
nieta.
She refuses to forgive herself for something that was never her fault.”

“So, how is it the boys never met?” I ask, my head spinning with the story she weaves.

“Dace didn’t leave the reservation until his teens when he decided he wanted to attend Milagro, and Chepi, tired of fighting him, knowing she couldn’t shelter him forever, finally consented. The day before he left, she confided the truth, told him about the brother he never knew. Though I doubt she told him the full truth. She can barely admit it to herself. And I can’t see how it would do Dace any good to know his true origins.”

I grow silent, not quite knowing what to make of it. Remembering the day at the gas station, the older woman with the beautiful turquoise jewelry, cloaked in deep sadness, and I’ve no doubt it was Dace’s mom, Chepi.

“Now that I’ve revealed this to you, you must never repeat it. Not to anyone, and certainly never to Dace. Someday he may learn on his own, but it’s not our place to intervene. The boy is truly a pure and beautiful soul. He is no threat to you. I wish nothing but the best for him.”

Beautiful—no argument there.

“And you must never confuse the two. You must never allow Cade to trick you into thinking he’s his brother, or vice versa. You must find a way to set them apart—you mentioned the eyes?”

I nod, picturing them in my head. “They’re almost exactly the same, except Cade’s absorb light, while Dace’s reflect it.”

Paloma clasps her hands to her chest, her face glowing with excitement. “You’re the only one who’s ever been able to see that,
nieta.
And now that you know it, you must never forget it. When in doubt, seek the eyes—no matter what guise they wear, their true nature remains. They will never lead you astray.”

I exhale slowly and deeply, my head spinning with everything I just learned, when Paloma places her hand on my knee and says, “And now, sweet
nieta,
seeing as how you’ve managed to teach yourself telekinesis without my instruction, I suspect it is time for you to learn something far more exciting, and I see no further need to delay. So tell me, are you ready to fly?”

twenty-nine

Paloma leads me to the yard tucked away in the back, which, no matter how much time I’ve spent here, I’ve visited only once, and even then it was brief. But now, as we make our way down the stone path, I can’t help but gawk at its sheer size and scope—not to mention how fragrant and lush the plants are, considering we’re well into fall.

The yard seems to sprawl forever, consisting of carefully designated areas for the healing herbs she uses in her clients’ therapies and the organic vegetables we eat for dinner. There’s even a space brimming with beautiful, fat, blooming flowers sitting adjacent to another area reserved especially for her hybrid experiments, where all sorts of odd, misshapen plants sprout from the earth.

She murmurs in Spanish, her voice soft and lilting, her fingertips grazing over everything she passes. It’s a song I’ve heard her sing on other occasions, only now I recognize it as her garden song—the one that encourages the plants to stay strong and thrive, to reach toward the light, even when there appears to be none.

But the lyrics belong only to her. They’ve yet to reveal themselves to me. Probably because my thumb has always been more brown than green. And though Paloma promises to remedy that, it’s usually followed by,
“First things first! There is still so much to teach you,
nieta,
and so little time.”

It’s that last part that bothers me:
So little time.

It’s not like she’s old. Statistically speaking, she should have several more decades ahead of her, at least. But between the nosebleeds and blood-spewing cough, I can’t help but worry about the state of her health. Yet every time I ask her about it, she just waves the subject away, tells me she’s fine, and moves on to something else.

I watch her lead the way, her step light, her long dark braid swaying behind her, as I say, “I met Xotichl.”

Paloma turns, a smile lighting her face. “Aw, Xotichl. A girl who is sweet, and mischievous, and wise beyond her years. Which of those faces did she share with you,
nieta
?”

I think for a moment, then I look at her and say, “Pretty much all of them. She says she’s a client of yours—she’s not sick, is she?”

Paloma shakes her head, and I’m surprised by the flood of relief that washes over me.

“While the content of our meetings are confidential, I can say that Xotichl has the rare ability to see what most sighted people miss. What she lacks in outer vision, she makes up for in inner vision—her insight is unsurpassed.” Paloma nods, leans down to admire a particularly fragrant bloom that I can smell from where I stand. “She’s unmoved by the usual superficial things most people get too caught up in to look any deeper. And without that sort of distraction, she’s able to get right to the heart of the matter—to read the true energy behind a person’s actions and words. Which is one of the reasons she’s always remained unswayed by the Richters. They’re unable to reach her, unable to alter her perception. She is a rare child indeed and has a great sense of humor. I’m sure she had quite a bit of fun at your expense. Though I have to admit, I supplied her with all the information she needed. I know you had a rough day, I hope you won’t hold it against her?”

I think about our strange first encounter in the hallway and quickly dismiss Paloma’s concern. “Her boyfriend, Auden, drove me home. They invited me to meet them at the Rabbit Hole tonight to see his band, but … I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m up for it, much less ready to go back to that place—or at least not just yet anyway.”

Paloma gestures for me to take a seat on the mosaic tiled bench that sits adjacent to the birdbath, saying, “You’re right,
nieta.
You are not quite ready yet. But by the end of our lesson, you will be.”

I squint, wondering what she could possibly teach me in the next few hours that’ll prepare me to return to the place where I nearly lost my mind, not to mention my life. Surely she was speaking in metaphors when she asked if I was ready to fly?

“I’m going to teach you to hop with the rabbits, to slither with the snakes, to run with the horses, to crawl with the scorpions, and to fly with the ravens. And you’ll be surprised to find that it’s so much easier than you think.”

My eyes light on hers, not knowing which part to believe, if any. It seems like such an impossible feat, and I highly doubt I’ll succeed.

“Much like you merged your energy with the energy of the dream catcher to lift it off its hook and bring it to you—you will now practice merging your energy with true living spirit—with flesh-and-blood creatures—in order to share their experience.”

“You mean, like …
shape-shifting
?” I ask, already dead set against it. What if I get stuck? What if I get lost and can’t find my way back? I like being a girl. I have no desire to live out the rest of my life as a lizard, a scorpion, or anything else.

Paloma laughs, her voice soft and reassuring, as she says, “No,
nieta.
You will not become them, but rather you will experience what it’s like to be them. You will learn to see what they see, experience what they experience. It’s a skill steeped in much magick and mysticism—one that normally comes much later in the training, but you’re ready right now. I can feel it. It is time for you to begin.”

I don’t say a word. I have so many questions, I don’t know which to ask first.

Paloma turns, her gaze surveying the yard, moving past the empty stall waiting for Kachina’s arrival, and landing on the first animal she sees, which happens to be a mangy white cat carefully picking its way across the thick adobe wall.

She gestures toward it, her voice a mere whisper when she says, “Concentrate. Focus. Picture him for what he
truly
is—not just an underfed feline with matted white fur but rather a mass of vibrating energy that’s assembled itself into that form. He is energy just as you are energy, just as your thoughts and words are energy too.” She sneaks a peek and continues. “Now, focus harder. Block out everything around you, until it’s just you, and the cat, with nothing standing between you, no barriers of any kind. Merge into his energy stream, delve into his experience. Go ahead,
nieta,
you are perfectly safe. Let your energy blend, and mix, and merge. Allow your soul to ride tandem with his.”

I do as she says. Staring at the cat for so long everything around me goes dark. Watching as he stops, sits, lifts a delicate paw to his mouth in order to clean it with his sandpaper tongue. And the next thing I know, I’m
in.
It’s like I’ve
become
him. My energy merging with his until I’m deep inside his experience.

I’m light.