The Way We Bared Our Souls (21 page)

MY HAND FLASHED THROUGH THE
flames in the center of the Pueblo kiva. I dropped Kaya’s baby tooth in the middle of the hallowed fire. It just seemed right to burn the relic like coal. I could not keep that reminder of her body.

But was I myself a reminder of her body?

Thomas stood up on his blanket and limped to the timeworn wall encircling us. He seemed infinitely weary as he leaned his head against the stone pillar that kept the roof from collapsing. He was done fighting.

“We just need to return things to the way they were,” he said. Maybe he hadn’t given up on me after all. He walked toward the fire, kicking up a small cloud of glittering sand. I couldn’t stop myself from morbid speculations. Were the burned remains of ancient bodies mixed in with the granules? Kaya had told us what had happened on this land centuries ago. What had happened to her people. And now she’d met a similar fate.

“We just need to be ourselves again,” Thomas continued. “We can’t bring back Kaya, but we can reclaim our old identities. No matter how heavy they are. No matter how much they hurt.”

I shuddered, but I knew Thomas was right. Our past selves were the only options we had left. Those imperfect selves were the only ones who still had a chance of surviving.

The sunrise beamed down through the keyhole in the roof and mingled with the smoke and flames, as if the rays had been waiting throughout the dark night for a worthy dance partner. Dance. . . . It had just been Wednesday night when we all moved in the casita together, but now it seemed like lifetimes ago. One lifetime.

I made up my mind to do everything I could to save these three people. They had become my friends. And one of them had become much more than that. If Jay’s magic was strong enough to turn a deer into a bear and a mountain into a volcano, then maybe it could turn death back into life.

“JAY,” I SAID TO THE
solemn man standing near the ladder. “Please, bring her back. You have to bring her back.”

“Bring her back?” he said.

“Yes. You have to save Kaya.”

“We can’t resurrect her, Lo. But we can set her free.”

“No! I don’t accept that. There must be a way. You’ve got to know some magic for . . . accidents. There must be another ritual. Look in your bag. Look in your pockets. Spit on me. Smudge me. Do something, anything. Kaya wasn’t supposed to die. You have to see how wrong this is—”

“Kaya is gone,” Jay said, “and there’s nothing we can do. While we can grieve the loss, we cannot undo it. We can let it shape us as Kaya was shaped by her own losses. Strong souls like your friend’s can persist long after the body has departed, but unfortunately you cannot reverse her physical fate.”

“So that’s it?” I said. “She’s just . . . dead?” Like Karine. Another person I loved, gone. What kind of a miserable
shape
could I make from this? All I could think of was a heart broken down the middle.

“Kaya’s soul was too fluid, too porous,” Jay said. “It couldn’t establish boundaries.”

“So she was punished for that?” Kit said.

“She was not punished,” Jay said. “Nor was she rewarded. She simply was. She simply fell.”

At that moment I wanted to fall too. In some ways I felt I already had. It had never been my body at stake this week. It had always been my soul.

“My darling children,” Jay said. “You’ve gone astray. You need to return to the right path. I trust you to find it.” Then, without another word, he made his way up the ladder.

“Where are you going?” I shouted as he disappeared through the smoke hole. “Come back and help us!”

But then I realized that we didn’t need him anymore. Jay’s magic still remained in the kiva, circulating among our bodies. And I alone knew how to use it.

“HE’S NOT COMING BACK,” I
said, getting to my feet. “I’m going to conduct the ritual without him.”

“Wonderful,” Kit said. “And what exactly qualifies you? Were you a spiritual guru in a past life? Or did you just play with a Ouija board once at a sleepover? Right before your Agua girlfriends put your bra into deep freeze?”

“Please, Kit,” I said. “I got us into this, didn’t I? Please give me a chance to make amends. I think I know how.”

A calm descended on our chamber, and our previous bickering seemed to dissolve with the night. Thomas sat silently, back in hibernation. Next to him Ellen painstakingly scratched Kaya’s name into the kiva wall with her lighter. Suddenly even the graffiti and other modern markings in the chamber seemed sacred in their own way. Though the story they told might not have been beautiful, it was true. And utterly human.

“Did everyone bring their totems?” I said.

Kit reached inside his pocket for Ellen’s raccoon. Ellen untied my horse from her neck, and Thomas withdrew Kit’s rabbit from his pocket, as well as his and Kaya’s bear. I was the only one without a totem to give back. I clenched my numb and empty hand. I knew exactly what I wanted to say.

“Thomas, Ellen, and Kit. My friends. This week we have all proved to ourselves and to each other that we are more than our burdens. We know now that our burdens can never define us, that pain is a part of life that we cannot ignore or fight off or destroy. We can only accept it and live in its moments, just like everything else. We must take the lessons from this week and live with souls full of light and purpose, full of each other, and especially full of Kaya. Now we are ready to receive back our burdens. With gratitude for what they have taught us.” I approached Ellen, who was more pensive than I’d ever seen her.

“Ellen,” I said, “I hereby take back my symptoms. . . . I see now that the reason I was suffering so much is because I was trying to do it alone. Now I feel that I can accept my illness, whatever it is. With a community to support us, we can accept anything.” Ellen handed me the horse. I seemed to feel its power in my palm.

“I’ll be right there with you, Lo,” she said. “Like you were there for me this week. I promise.” I hugged her.

Then Ellen walked over to Kit, who faced her fearlessly. “Kit,” she said, “I hereby take back my burden. Through watching you this week, I’ve seen that life doesn’t need to be clouded over with fear . . . or masked with drugs. Now I just want to take the bad with the good. I want things to be
real
. By always looking for an escape hatch, I miss the beauty around me. Now I will try to see clearly.” Kit placed the raccoon in her palm.

“You’re part of the beauty,” he said. “We want you here in the real world. With us.” Ellen drew the raccoon to her chest and held it there for a moment, meeting Kit’s undaunted gaze with her own.

Then Kit turned to Thomas. “Thomas,” he said, “my brother. I take back my fear. I’m sorry that I made you scared. Before this week, I never would have thought that was possible. We can recognize that human beings are vulnerable without being paralyzed by that knowledge. And there are good, helpful spirits who work in the dark. Not just monsters.” Thomas gave Kit his rabbit, then pulled him into an enduring bear hug.

Now Thomas stood quietly with his totem. “If I could speak to Kaya right now,” he said, “I’d tell her. . . .” His eyes filled with tears. “I’d tell her that I’m sorry for what I inflicted on her. Seeing her on the mountain last night, it was like I recognized my own trauma for the first time. But there was no time to help her process and . . . metabolize what she was reliving. Without being able to make sense of her suffering, or dull its immediacy, she was . . . doomed. And I see now that . . . I can’t go that same route. I have too much to live for. I think . . . I
know
that if I face my past now, with the help of others, I can heal.” I wrapped my arms around him.

We didn’t expect to feel the effects of the swap right away, if at all, and so we simply sat on our blankets, waiting for the day to be over, communing with our individual thoughts. Which all centered on Kaya, if my own focus was any indication.

Before we could leave, I knew there was one final thing I needed to do. “I’m going up,” I said, “but you all take as long as you need.”

Back out in the open, the clouds of smoke from the north were smaller, sputtering. My father had put out the fire, as I knew he would. At a higher elevation from where I stood, the bones of Kaya’s ancestors awaited consecration. Many miles away, Kaya’s bones also waited.

And then I was dancing. Something in the air—maybe smoke, maybe gold—compelled me to move. There, in the desert, in the daylight, all by myself, with no music, I danced. So Kaya’s spirit would find peace, I danced. So we would all be kinder, more accepting of our differences, and of our own faults, I danced. So we would not just destroy each other, but instead open our eyes to the miracle of being alive, of being so similar, even in our suffering, I danced. The smoke and the fire and the blood and the light were all in my body, and I lifted my arms to the sky with grief and with joy. I felt that I was drawing rings around my body and then finally shaping them into a world.

ON SUNDAY MORNING I WOKE
up early, roused by the familiar pounding in my head. I’d been dreaming that I was limping across the desert with a broken foot when a magnificent horse rode up behind me, her flanks tattooed with images of gentle faces both human and animal. I climbed on her back, and we galloped toward the ocean.

Lying in bed, my foot throbbed precisely where it had in the dream, but I knew that it wasn’t broken, only sprained. And I knew that, somehow, I was still being carried. I smiled through the pain.

Seymour darted acrobatically across my window screen. I guess only one superhero remained in my bedroom, and that was okay with me. I dressed and took my pills for the first time in a week, then crossed the hallway to the door I hadn’t opened since July. Karine’s wheelchair still sat empty in the corner of the spare bedroom. I kissed the horse totem in my right hand and then wrapped its string around the wheelchair’s handle.

“You have given me a great gift,” I said, feeling my aunt’s energy swimming through the room. “An awakening. I am ready to accept it now.” The horse swung back and forth slightly on its string, catching the light from the window and casting it upon the shrine of family pictures on the mantel. Soon I would add the painting that Kaya had given me, just as soon as I sketched her body into the scene, so the three of us would be dancing together always.

• • •

“
Buenos mañanas
,” I said when I walked into the kitchen. My parents weren’t eating. They were too busy drinking coffee and monitoring my every movement. All of Saturday night’s careful apologies about the illicit camping trip and my explanations for Kaya’s accident and my subsequent disappearance had only served to make them more worried about me.

“How are you feeling this morning?” Mom asked.

“I miss Kaya.” She nodded, knowing fully what I felt.

“And physically?” she said, looking me up and down.

“A little achy, but alive,” I said, limping to her so I could kiss the top of her head. “And glad to see you.” I began chopping up peppers for the McDonough Sunday Morning Chili Challenge. If it turned out that habañeros were an offbeat home remedy for MS, I’d be in remission in no time.

“We’re glad to see you too,” said Mom. She had already arranged a visit to Mrs. Johnson that afternoon. We were bringing food and flowers. And memories. Ellen, Kit, and Thomas were going as well. We wanted to tell Kaya’s mom how special her daughter was, and not just because she couldn’t feel pain.

“Remember, baby,” Dad said, “no matter what the doctor says tomorrow morning, we’ll get through it as a family.” Oh, right. My neurologist appointment. How could I have forgotten? Little did Dad know that I’d already been healed by a medicine man with no fancy degrees on his wall. He lived in the wild and had no prescription pad beyond a pouch of animal totems. Even though he couldn’t eliminate my MS, or whatever I turned out to have, he had made me better. He’d reminded me of who I was beneath my errant DNA. I had a life that transcended my illness. MS. My Salvation.

“I know, Dad,” I said. “It won’t be the end of the world, either way.”

• • •

Thomas and I met at the Psalms airfield before the usual post-church rush. I saw him before he saw me. He didn’t wear a hoodie, so I could see that his face was grave and lost in thought as he tinkered with a burner. But he brightened the moment our eyes met.
Circle home, Lo.

“I missed you,” I said, resting my head on his shoulder.

“I missed you too.” When we finally withdrew from our embrace, we both had to wipe away tears. We were together, but Kaya was still gone.

“Are your symptoms . . . ?” he said.

I nodded. “And you . . . ?”

“My memories are back,” he said. “But they feel a little different now. More like shadows of the real thing.”

I squeezed him tight. “That’s good,” I said. “Shadows mean the sun is shining.”

“Consuelo, I’ve seen . . . and done . . . many horrible things. I’m afraid you only know a fraction. Things as bad as what happened on Friday night. Though in some ways that was more brutal because I’d let myself care. Deeply. But now. . . . Now I think I can mourn without reliving the trauma. It hurts—it hurts bad—but it’s not crippling, you know? Because of this week, I don’t feel as separated from my inborn nature, and I feel this sense of self and strength rising to help me. Does that sound foolish? Do you know what I mean?”

“I do. And I feel the same thing.” Thomas pulled away slightly and tilted my chin in his fingers, gazing into my green eyes that might one day go blind again. I would remember every detail of his face.

“And I think,” he said, “that I can also . . . feel love again . . . especially now that I have you.”

“What are you saying?” I knew exactly what he was saying, but I wanted to hear the words.

“I love you, Lo.” The happiness that swelled inside my body at that moment dwarfed any pain I could ever feel.

“I love you too, Thomas.” I think from the moment I’d seen him standing at the Agua wishing well, I’d loved him. And each little glimpse of his soul since then had only made me fall deeper. He was a poem that spoke to me. He was a song. We stood there kissing as the morning breeze tumbled over us and the blue sky became our own private vault of atmosphere, keeping us safe.

But not Kaya. She was outside our vault now. Her energy was elsewhere. And yet . . . I could still feel it.

“I was thinking,” I said, moving my lips away from Thomas’s but keeping his body close, “about how a lot of native tribes didn’t keep a written history. So most people in the outside world don’t have any idea how they danced, how they laughed, how they loved their babies and celebrated each other. . . . All of that happy, abstract stuff is sort of skipped over by the history books. But that doesn’t mean it’s lost. I think suffering is only part of the picture. The Indians were tricked, killed, even massacred. But that joyful energy, that music that they made, can still survive. When you think about it. Just like our dead can survive, as long as we keep them in our hearts.”

“You’re right,” Thomas said. “Let’s remember Kaya the way she lived.” I closed my eyes and pictured her riding a bike like a mustang through the streets of Santa Fe. I pictured her racing around a Zozobra picnic blanket with heaven in her hands. I pictured her childlike expression as she comforted me in the car on the way to our first—and her only—ritual, responsive to my suffering even though she had no reference points for pain.

“Hey, guys,” said a new voice. I opened my eyes to Ellen’s gentle, sober face. Kit stood beside her with his arm around her shoulders. I hadn’t realized how much Kit and Ellen had bonded during the ritual week, but in hindsight it was only natural that they should get together. They had both crafted thorny exteriors to hide their fundamentally tender souls. When they were finally able to ease up on their defenses, they discovered kindred spirits on either side.

“We thought we’d find you here,” Ellen said. I hugged her. Our group wasn’t complete, but it was still full of love.

“How are you guys feeling?” I asked, after we’d dried our fresh tears.

“New and old at the same time,” Ellen said.

“I know what you mean,” I said. “It’s like being reborn, but in your same old body.”

“Good, though,” Kit said.

“Yes,” Ellen said, clasping him to her. “Good.”

Though everyone had shed their adopted burdens after last night’s ritual, we didn’t feel that we’d regressed. Something had happened to us over the course of the week to forever alter the angle of our energy. We had roused our dormant souls and bared them to the light, and to each other. Now we felt a truth and a . . . harmony to our lives, an inner wellspring that could weather any drought. At least that’s what I sensed when I admired the faces, simultaneously brave and vulnerable, of my friends.

“Does anyone want to go on a trip with me after school tomorrow?” Kit said. “There’s an Indian reservation around Four Corners that I’ve been wanting to check out. I’m doing research for a short story.”

“Oh yeah?” I said. “What’s the story?”

“It’s about a beautiful Zuni girl who dies. Her parents take her body to a mountain and bury her in the space between boulders. They pray over her body for three days, until they’re sure she’s taken refuge in the next world. Then they leave her to the rocks. And then her story really begins.” Ellen reached for his hand and squeezed.

“That’s kind of cool,” I said. “So in your story, life doesn’t start properly until after death.” We were all quiet for a moment.

“Is your arm okay, Lo?” Ellen said.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s actually . . . a relief to feel it.”

A coyote howled in the infinite distance behind the airfield.

“Did you guys know that in Native American legend,” Kit said, “the coyote is responsible for death? The story goes that in the beginning, people lived forever. But the coyote alone knew that the world wasn’t large enough to hold all the people, so he tricked the dead into staying away, even though it made the living sad. The coyote alone knew that sometimes we have to die.”

I touched the bandage on my arm. “Maybe Dakota knew that too,” I said.

Thomas looked up at the sky thoughtfully, as if searching for one of his balloons. “You can wish for a different life all you want,” he said, coming back to earth and to us, “but in the end we’re all guided—whether by an animal alter ego, or a shaman, or the spirit world . . . or whatever—to be where we need to be. Or just to
be
. And I don’t know about you guys, but it makes me feel safe. This week has convinced me that each one of us has a powerful soul that can communicate with something that transcends . . . us. And that same soul can give us direction along the way. If we know how to listen. As long as we pay attention to life—all of life—and keep our hearts wide open, we’ll be protected. We just have to tune in.”

I thought about how I used to read energy as music and think people were different strains of the same song. Somewhere along the way I’d stopped listening. I’d had to block it all out because it was too much. I hadn’t wanted to be so sensitive to the sounds of the world. It was a liability to feel everything—like my aunt’s pain, like my mother’s grief that her little sister had died before fulfilling all her dreams. Like my conflicted body. But maybe it was a gift to be burdened, because then you could change. Then your soul could be enlightened. Now my ears felt open again to what everyone intoned.

“And we can’t get rid of human suffering,” I said, picking up Thomas’s thread. “We can’t block out what happened to Kaya. But there’s something to be said for feeling pain, in all its various songs and colors. Because it can inform us.”

Any number of energetic forces can make us see more clearly. Sometimes just seeing that other people are suffering is enough to forge a blessing of compassion. You can’t make your burdens disappear by putting them into a burning man or into a prayer book or even into someone else. You can only make a healing miracle in your own mind.