Water and Stone (35 page)

Why couldn’t Church see her?

He stood right beside the bed where she was laying. He seemed to hear her voice yet for some inexplicable reason he didn’t seem to notice her. It reminded her uncomfortably of their times together growing up and how he ignored her.

"Where are you, Tree?"

Couldn’t he see her? What was wrong with Church?

"I'm right here, Church."

The words sounded odd, like she was speaking through an empty tube of wrapping paper. She seemed to be hearing the sound of her voice in her head but not in her ears. When Church spoke it was as if he was under water, perhaps, or drowning in syrup, maybe. His voice was so slow that she had to struggle to keep her attention focused upon it.

One time she'd gone to work with her father. He delivered mail. When they got to the post office he showed her a secret room where the post office gods gathered to watch the workers through a one-way mirror and make sure they did their job right. Inside that room she could see everything going on in the post office through a large window while outside only her reflection stared back at her.

That was how she felt... as if she was looking at the world through that same one-way mirror... she could see everything going on around her but no one on the outside could see into her secret lair.

And then there was the music... it wasn’t unpleasant yet try as she might she couldn’t quite place the name of the song that kept playing over and over again like a snatch of rhyme lodged in her mind.

The bright sunshine flowing through the sliding glass doors leading to the patio held no warmth. That didn’t seem strange at first but then she thought how they were in Miami. The sunshine should be nearly unbearable, especially since she wasn’t used to laying in it. She wanted to ask Church about the anomaly but then he seemed to be readying himself to leave the room... to leave her behind.

He was picking up her clothes too and stuffing them into the same paper sack that he carried his stuff in... what was she supposed to wear? Why would Church leave her naked and all alone? Was he angry with her for something she couldn’t remember doing?

All of a sudden the room went black.

Was it nighttime and Church had turned out the lights? It was strange too that she couldn’t remember the last time she ate yet she wasn’t the least bit hungry. And what was she supposed to do without her clothes? She didn’t mind showing off her body to Church but she was way too shy to walk around naked all day long and in front of complete strangers.

Fumbling her way forward to find the light switch she discovered the motel room was far larger than she realized... either that or she had somehow been magically transported to somewhere else while she was sleeping. Stepping away from the bed she noticed how the carpet wasn’t really made of polyester like most carpeting. Rather, it seemed to be alive. She could feel it breathing beneath her feet. It reminded her of the movement of the ocean or what it must be like walking on the side of some great slumbering beast.

There was someone else in the room. She couldn’t see who it was so much as sense their presence, like back in Texas... how she used to know when the rain was coming long before it happened... an electric feeling in the air, perhaps, or the imperceptible odor from clouds days off.

"Church? Are you here?"

It seemed odd for the boy to disappear when they'd just made love... she thought sure he'd be one of those clingy ones never wanting to let go of her now that she was his. Though she had never actually been in love like she was now, she had read plenty of books revolving around dysfunctional relationships. They all ended badly.

"What are you doing here, girl?"

She gave a start at hearing someone speak to her in such an irritated tone, as if she was someplace she didn’t belong. She felt like she was ten years old again and how she had been caught stealing tomatoes from the neighbor's garden and how mother had delighted in bringing up the incident every time one of her friends came to visit until finally Tree didn’t dare to bring anyone home with her ever again.

At first she thought it was her mother's voice again, bent upon tormenting her even from the grave. As she listened she realized it wasn’t who she thought... it was a woman's voice though it sounded husky like a man's, not at all like mother's. Still, it sounded vaguely familiar, like she had heard her speak before. Tree's eyes were having trouble focusing more than a few feet in front of her... the rest of the room seemed to be in a fog.

"I'm looking for Church. Have you seen him?"

She sounded as frightened as she felt though she couldn’t pinpoint of what it was exactly that she was afraid. It had to be the maid come to clean the room, maybe exasperated that she was still there past check out time. She realized she had no idea what time it was or even whether it was day or night. The sounds of the ocean had been replaced by what sounded like a steady rustle of autumn leaves or maybe the wind blowing through tall reeds down by the creek.

"He's here. We're all here."

"I don’t see him though... its too dark to see anything. Who are you?"

"You know who I am, Teresa."

The voice was persistently and annoyingly familiar and yet she had a nagging feeling if she did recognize it, she might go mad. Whoever it was, she knew her name. It bothered her more than it should that the woman used her real name. Only authority figures did that.

"You're Mrs. Ford."

Tree didn’t know how she knew that... the thought simply popped fully blown into her head and the words followed. She dimly remembered Lorraine Ford riding down the middle of Main Street sitting beside Rancher in a big black Cadillac with the top down and with a bleached white set of cow horns fastened to the front of the hood during each Fourth of July parade in Guthrie and how much she reminded her of a man.

Once the woman had come to the high school to give a speech to the students about how vital it was that they participate in politics and what a fine thing it was to have the right to vote. She sounded more obsequious than Tree would've liked but she clapped along with all the other kids when the speech was over.

"Please call me Lorraine. I should say that Church's shadow is here... he's gone outside again. Don't worry, though... he'll be back soon."

"Where are we, Lorraine?"

"Why, we're inside the stone, Teresa. You touched it... remember? Now you're part of it, along with the rest of us here."

"Did you touch the stone too, Lorraine?"

"No, sweetheart... I didn't. It touched me."

"I thought you were dead, Lorraine. I read your obituary."

"Did you now... was it well written, Teresa? Did they say nice things about me?"

"I guess so... it seemed okay. But if you're dead, what are you doing here?"

"This is a place where death has no more meaning than life... at least that's the way it seems to me. I've only just arrived myself, however, so I could be wrong. Time doesn’t mean anything here, not like it used to."

"How do we get out of here, Lorraine?"

"Oh, there is no escape, deary... at least not for me. For you, I'm not at all sure. Church seems to come and go as he pleases... or perhaps that's all in my imagination. Maybe I just see his shadow... perhaps he's never been here at all. Maybe you're not really here either, Teresa. Maybe you're dead like me."

"No... I'm real. I'm not dead... I'm alive, Lorraine."

"Your sister is here, Teresa."

"Beth? Where is she, Lorraine?"

"Oh, she's about somewhere... this place is so large it's difficult to keep tabs on everyone, you know. If I see her, I'll tell her that you're looking for her, Teresa."

Like everyone else in Guthrie she'd assumed Beth died out in the high desert of New Mexico. Though her remains were never found, Tree understood it was not unusual for people to completely disappear out in that treacherous terrain sometimes never to be found again.

She felt like stamping her foot when she suddenly realized the ludicrous position she was in... talking to a dead woman was only the start of it. Putting a finger to her wrist Tree felt the pulsing of her heartbeat. She breathed deeply tasting the air that smelled faintly of turpentine and perfume.

She had to be dreaming. Pretty soon Church would wake her up, she'd be in bed next to him, and they'd both laugh when she told him about what had happened to her and how she thought she was trapped inside the stone.

Lorraine had disappeared. Tree hadn’t noticed her go and it seemed strange that a woman that large could simply vanish but lots of crazy things happened in dreams. Until that moment she didn’t pay much attention to her actual surroundings... she'd been too involving in talking to Lorraine and trying to figure out what was going on... but now she noticed how there was a hole in the floor the size of a manhole.

She thought she could hear someone or something moaning. Had the woman fallen through it? Was she hurt? Of course if Lorraine was dead she probably didn’t feel pain any longer... or did she? Maybe it wasn’t Lorraine Ford at all but only an image in her mind of what the woman looked like. Was she losing her wits?

Her mind seemed perfectly lucid. Tree recalled having nightmares in the past and how she was always able to wake herself up before something awful happened. Perhaps she could do the same thing now... but she couldn’t seem to remember how to go about doing it.

"Do you ever wonder if people you're never actually around really exist, Tree?"

"What a strange question, Church... no, I never have... why, do you?"

"All the time... I remember driving to Mexico. When I arrived, all the people there acted so friendly toward me, like they all knew me... but right up until that moment I never knew any of them were even alive. Now that I'm gone, I wonder if they're still there, or if they were all just figments of my imagination. If I can't see them... if I'm not around those folk, how do I know if they're there or not there? I don’t think I can say anything at all about them."

"Church... people are real. They don’t just disappear because you're no longer around them."

"But how would we know, Tree?"

They had just made love for the third time that night and Church seemed to be opening a part of himself to her that lay hidden from everyone else. She loved that about him... how he felt so in tune with her that he'd share the most intimate thoughts without fear of her making fun.

"Because people don't simply vanish when you leave them, Church... when you were away in Mexico did you think the rest of Guthrie had evaporated? Did you think I was gone too? Do you believe that when you go into the bathroom that you can't trust that I'll still be here when you come out?"

"No... maybe... I'm not sure what I mean, really. Aren't we all taught to assume that when we leave a room everything will still be there when we return? But, Tree... how can we know that for sure? Let's say someone buries something precious under the ground where they think it'll remain safe and secure and no one will ever find it. But unless they were to go out and dig it up again they'd never know if that precious something was still there or if someone else came along, dug it up, and took it away with them.

"Isn't it the same way with the people we love? When I left the Triple Six for Mexico I only planned on being gone for a few days, just long enough to hide the stone somewhere safe. Instead, I couldn’t pull myself away. I ended up being away a lot longer. When I finally returned everything I left behind had vanished. All the ponies I loved were gone, my brother and my father were dead, and my mother had left town without a word to anyone. I realize I shouldn't have stayed away so long but I simply assumed everything would be the same when I returned."

"You're not just talking about people, are you, Church... you're talking about the stone too."

"Did anyone ever tell you how smart you are, Tree?"

"No... all I was ever told was how dumb I was, and how unattractive."

There was always a moment... a chance to change everything by turning right instead of going left. Of course looking back was the easy part. Once the road had been traveled it became apparent where she'd gone wrong, at least most times.

The hole in the floor seemed larger than it had before. Was it growing? It was big enough to swallow a pickup truck now. Though she had the strangest urge to walk over to it, to peer down inside the maw of the beast, her legs would not obey her will.

"Tree? Where are you?"

It was Beth's voice! She was in the hole in the floor... or maybe that was the only way out of the dream in which she seemed to be trapped.

"I'm right here, Beth!"

Breaking out of the paralysis that gripped her body she ran to the edge of the hole and leaped into it.

"Who is Hajdani, Evalena? Is he the same man I thought was my father?"

The name had been swimming in the undercurrents of her consciousness ever since she dreamed of seeing him both in Miami and when she landed in Cuba. It puzzled her that his face was so familiar, that she knew him by name, and yet she could remember little else about the boy.

"Have you seen him, sister?"

"I was dreaming, I think... but now I'm not so sure. I do believe he's the one who gave me the ticket for the boat ride to Cuba... at least I think he was. My mind is so muddled these days I'm no longer even sure if I'm awake or asleep most times. I believe I saw him here in Cuba too right before I got off the boat. But how could he have made the trip so quickly? It must have been merely a boy who reminded me of him... that must be what happened."

"Hajdani is not to be trusted. He may claim to be your father but he's not. He once stole something of great importance from me. He lies as easily as he tells the truth. If he helped you to get here, there was a reason for it... he'd never do anything without thinking first of himself."

"But you haven’t answered my question, Evalena... who is he?"

"You've lived long enough to understand so I'll tell you who he is, my sister. I first knew of him in Africa though he wore a different face in those days. That's why his name isn't like ours... he is Arabian, not Spanish, though with the changes the years brought you cannot tell... no one can. Later he followed me to Cuba. He insinuated himself into my life by pretending to be that which he is not. You see, he recognized me even though I didn’t remember him.

"Hajdani was my father... one of many fathers. I can't survive for long without the help of others... you know that. I use men... I've always done so. It isn’t out of any malfeasance on my part... I simply need them and they always agree to my desires. Perhaps it's my body that lures them but it's love that keeps them with me. If what you say is so, then Hajdani has perhaps yet to master the piedra. I knew he was a man of knowledge yet his genius was always matched by a generous portion of idiocy. If he knows we're here, it's only a matter of time before he approaches us.

"He'll lie to us... to you... that's how the man makes his way in the world. Perhaps to him it's the truth... but then again what is the truth? Isn't it merely some socially agreeable babble that we all concur upon? In the normal world—this world—what our senses tell us is always mediated by what we already know. That light burning on the horizon that is the sun... is it really there? Or are we only agreeing that it's there? We've been taught to accept the world as it comes to us as something fully real, immutable. Yet the light we see isn't the light of the world... it's instead a representation of that light inside our brains that we've learned to call the world.

"What if there's a way to see the world in all its unmitigated splendor, Yani? What would you do for just a glimpse? Smarter people than us have given their lives for such an opportunity never knowing if their desires would be granted in the end. Now that I've shared a small portion of my secret with you, it's your turn. Tell me the truth as you understand it, sister... did you have the piedra? Is it nearby? If so, we might the both of us survive the onslaught that's coming our way. Tell me quickly before it's too late."

"I gave it to Church."

"Now you're the one not answering the question, sister."

"Yes, I had it. Remember the night Church was born?"

"I do."

"You told me to strangle him, to drown him. You frightened me, Evalena. Not long after you left the Triple Six a parcel arrived with your name on it. Your threats against my son were still fresh in my mind so I kept the package. Perhaps it was out of malice... I don’t know. It doesn’t matter any longer. There was no return address—not even my address was on it—so I had no idea who left it. In fact, I never got mail at the chabola... I purposely kept a low profile when I came to the Triple Six... I knew people might be searching for me and I had no intentions of letting them find me so easily.

"I'm not even sure who delivered the package. It was sitting on the front stoop when I returned home from working at the hacienda. I recall seeing the parcel in the moonlight and how it glowed like something inside of it was on fire... remember how when we were living in Cuba and we used to put sand inside of paper sacks and then stick candles in it and light them on every Christmas Eve? It reminded me of that. I brought the package inside with me but something made me uneasy... maybe it was the music coming from it or perhaps it was the feeling I got that something inside that box wanted me to open it up... first I put the parcel back outside on the porch but then I thought how someone might steal it so I brought it back inside and hid it under a loose floorboard.

"Finally, curiosity got the better of me and I took it out and I opened that parcel. I didn’t open the box inside, however... it opened on its own. When I saw what was inside, I knew I had found something of great importance. I told myself I should find you somehow and put it in your hands, but the longer I kept it, the more I discovered I couldn’t let it go. I buried it close to the chabola. That way it was close enough that I could hear it singing and yet sufficiently far away that if it was putting off some kind of weird energy it wouldn’t hurt us. I worried that it might be radioactive."

"So you heard the singing? I've always wondered why I could never hear it, sister."

"I thought sure you would, Evalena... some nights it was so loud I had trouble sleeping. But after a while I'd grown so used to the music I couldn't sleep without it... like now."

"The stone acts upon everyone in different ways, I suppose. Maybe I just wasn’t in tune with it so I could never hear it."

"I'm sorry I kept it from you, Evalena. That was wrong of me... and I'm sorry for trying to kill you."

"Did you do what you thought was best, sister?"

"At the time, yes... but looking back I'd change many things."

"As would we all... as for me, I'd have never given you to Hajdani should I have the ability to do it over again. You were just a child. I had no right to treat you so terribly."

"I don’t understand what you mean by that, Evalena."

"I struck a bargain with the man to save my own life. I used you, Yani. But I honestly thought I could save you in the end... I never thought Hajdani would actually go through with his plan."

She felt as if she was on the edge of a precipice, in danger of falling into the abyss, and unable to keep her balance. The ill effects of the sea voyage were still haunting her... the uneven floors of the old house seemed to roll and shudder beneath her. Reaching out she took firm hold of the arm of the sofa upon which she sat to keep from being thrown to the rotting wood beneath her feet.

"What plan, sister?"

"Hush now... you look exhausted, Yani. We'll talk more on this later. Can I bring you something to drink, sister? If you need to lie down please avail yourself to that sofa. It may not look like much but I assure you it's comfortable."

Though she knew she shouldn’t trust Evalena she couldn’t even begin to stand up. Every muscle fiber in her body seemed to be on fire. Lying back and giving in to her need for rest she had only the strength left to whisper to her sister.

"Yes... a glass of water would taste good. Perhaps I will lie back for just a minute, Evalena. The boat ride here was quite tiring. I'm afraid I suffered a bout of seasickness and it's still with me."

The water looked tainted but she was past all that. She took a sip, made a face at the taste, and set the cup on the floor beside her. Evalena was right. Though the old sofa had doubtlessly been salvaged from the hobo encampment on the poor side of La Fé it felt as if she was floating over a field of cotton.

Billy was there. He was standing in the bright sunshine though a shadowy mist seemed to glom onto his body like a rain cloud following only him. Still, he appeared fine and strong and handsome, nothing like the wraith they had carried from the chabola on that terrible night.

At first her heart leaped to see the boy again... his death was obviously a mistake... he was alive. But then she recognized the telltale signs of dreaming... the lightness of being, the inability to swallow, or to taste and smell the rank air she knew she was breathing.

"I should have listened when you warned me about her, Yani."

She knew who he was talking about though the boy didn't name her. Perhaps she could've done more... she should have done more. Billy had been the only friend of her son... he'd put himself in danger protecting Church. Yet she'd merely thrown a few words in Billy's direction never really telling him the truth about Evalena.

She'd always heard how the dead might well see more than the living. Too, if Evalena had bewitched Billy he might have knowledge of her that went beyond Yani's. Though she hated taking advantage of his situation he was her only real chance at fighting the woman.

"Have you seen Church, Billy?"

"Yes... he's coming for you. His girlfriend Tree is with me."

"Church has a girlfriend? Is she dead?"

"No... she is inside the stone... the same as I am."

"How is that possible, Billy?"

"Anyone who touches it is drawn inside, Yani."

"But how could you touch the stone, Billy? Evalena didn't have it. I did."

"She put sand in my food. I tasted it but I ate it anyway. At that old shack where we lived she always scrubbed the pots with sand. I thought she hadn’t wiped it all away, perhaps. But she used the sand to poison me... to plant something inside of me... to make me grow old before my time. That sand was touched by the stone... that was its power. She did the same thing to you, Yani, only she put the sand on your body instead of in your food. That's what made those marks on you."

"How do you know all that, Billy?"

"Because of where I am now... I see everything that was hidden to me before."

"Who was it that sent the stone to Evalena, Billy? How did they know she was with me in Texas? Was it my father?"

"No... it was a girl named Allison Johns."

"Who is that, Billy? I never heard of her before."

"Allison Johns was a friend of Tree's older sister, Beth Patterson. They owned a used bookstore together. To stock the shelves they bought books by the thousands in estate sales and off the internet... the libraries of people who had passed away and whose descendants sold their old books. Allison Johns found an ancient manuscript secreted away inside a large box of books they bought sight unseen at an auction. It was a hand-written account of the stone... how dangerous it was, and how precious. The author was a man named Hajdani.

"Apparently he was worried something might happen to him. He desired his descendents to know about the stone... how precious it was and the powers it held... and so he took the time to write it all down. The manuscript came with a map of where the stone had been hidden. Apparently Hajdani was concerned that others knew he had the object and were coming for him so he traveled incognito to America where he stashed the stone inside a cave just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. He planned on coming back for it as soon as he thought it was safe to do so.

"But then the Cuban revolution occurred. All travel to America was curtailed. So the stone stayed where it was, hidden away, waiting for the day when someone would come to retrieve it. Forty years passed. The house where he lived had become old and the rumors of Hajdani's powers grew negligible until no one at all remembered that he was once a feared brujo not to be trifled with.

"While he slept thieves broke into the house to carry off the only items of value... his books. When he woke the entire library had been ransacked. He must have told himself it didn’t matter, that no one would believe the account he had written of the stone anyway. That old manuscript that Hajdani had written as well as the map he had drawn was sold along with a ton of other moldy books to an antiques dealer in Havana who had ties in Miami. Once in the States the books were boxed up and sold in bulk on the internet. It was in one of the boxes they bought sight unseen that Allison and Beth found the manuscript.

"After having the map translated by an old schoolmate, they decided to make a game of tracking down the treasure. They drove to Santa Fe and by carefully following the landmarks on the map they eventually discovered the cave where the stone was hidden. When they found the box, Beth was the one who figured out how to open it. Allison said she watched as Beth reached a hand into the box. When she touched the object, Beth vanished into nothingness. The only thing left of her was the clothes she was wearing, her jewelry, and her eyeglasses.

"No one believed Allison. Some people even accused her of foul play. She thought about showing them the stone but something told her it was better not to divulge its existence... that she too might vanish if the wrong people heard about it. She said she'd lost it again while making her way out of the desert. But she had it with her all the time. She brought it back to Guthrie. On the day she returned and quite by chance—or so she thought at the time—she met a young woman at a café where she stopped to eat breakfast. Evalena Gutiérrez was her name. Allison needed someone to talk to and who better than a complete stranger.

"When Allison mentioned the book written by Hajdani, Evalena started asking questions about it. She told Allison that Hajdani was actually her long lost father. Allison didn’t believe it though... after all, what were the odds of meeting someone by chance or circumstance with actual ties to the author of that old manuscript? When she told Evalena about finding a strange object in the desert, the girl seemed to hang on her every word... her interest was such that it spooked Allison into claiming she had thrown away the object... tossed it into a river.