Goddess Girl Prophecy

by C C Daniels

  Outside my open window, MawMaw’s truck pulled into the driveway. The truck door creaked open and slammed shut.

  “Wray!” MawMaw bellowed up to me. “Come help me unload!”

  I tore my attention away from the skull and tugged on Amaya’s sleeve. Still unable to speak, she pointed at the mysterious skull.

  “Leave it for now.” I pulled her with me downstairs and outside.

  In the bed of the truck was a secondhand dresser.

  “Can you believe someone threw it out?” MawMaw pointed at it with her cane. “That magnificent wood that the earth nurtured and provided to us, left on the curb with no respect for its life whatsoever.”

  MawMaw was a wonderful mix of her ancient culture and PhD smarts. She was like this old soul with a modern twist and a genius IQ. I loved PhD MawMaw. I just wished she were strong enough to fight off woo-woo MawMaw.

  I motioned to Amaya. “You get this side.” She was still wide-eyed at what we just experienced. I climbed into the bed of the truck to push the dresser toward the open tailgate.

  “Where do you want it, MawMaw?” I asked her.

  MawMaw gasped at the fresh wound on my arm.

  “Wray Sky! What happened to you?”

  Nothing escaped PhD MawMaw’s notice…ever. She was my American Indian grandmother—adoptive—with an eagle eye for details. Her Ute name, Osyka, meant Eagle Hen, loosely translated, and it fit her to a tee.

  “It’s nothing, MawMaw. I fell.”

  Amaya gave me a look that didn’t escape MawMaw’s notice either. The highlights of yellow in my grandmother’s brown irises reminded me of gorgeous brown tourmaline—one of my favorite gemstones. MawMaw narrowed her jewel-like eyes at me, deepening all her crow’s feet. The web of crinkles turned both her eagle eyes into lacy dreamcatchers.

  “Really, I’m okay.” I reassured her as much as myself.

  Amaya took hold of the other side of the dresser. I hopped down from the truck and we carried it to the covered breezeway between the garage and the house.

  “Just leave it there.” MawMaw opened the back door to the house. “I texted Junius already, he’s coming—” MawMaw froze and stopped speaking.

  Doorknob in her hand, she stood at the threshold of the house with her mouth wide open.

  “Oh, MawMaw.” I sighed and went to her.

  My genius-level grandmother was gone, replaced by who I’d come to describe as woo-woo MawMaw. She had had bouts like this for as long as I can remember. But before, they were only occasional, a couple episodes a month, max. Day by day, she’d gotten progressively worse to where she zoned out several times a day.

  I touched her shoulder, as I usually did when she slipped into a trance, to try and pull her back to reality. Sometimes it worked. Most times it didn’t.

  A smile of pure bliss spread across her entire face. That was one consolation. When MawMaw went off to Woo-Woo Land, it was always a happy trip for her.

  “Come,” woo-woo MawMaw whispered in her serene, singsong voice. “Let’s go in.”

  Amaya and I followed her deliberate slow steps into the house.

  “We have a visitor,” MawMaw murmured.

  Amaya gasped behind me. I looked at her. Eyes wide, she mouthed, the skull. I shook my head at her, denying the obvious. I always denied my quirks, even to myself, when I could get away with it. That was the first time I had to deny someone else’s quirk.

  MawMaw somehow sensed the energy I felt since the morning ride. That couldn’t be good. Turning around and around, MawMaw looked at the traditional stucco walls of her kitchen as if she saw right through them. She took my hand in one of her soft but weathered ones and patted it with the other.

  “It’s celestial,” she whispered.

  Amaya sucked in a breath. Her jaw dropped another half inch.

  “It’s the same aura as when you first arrived,” MawMaw continued.

  Oh, brother. I rolled my eyes and wished for the thousandth time that MawMaw wouldn’t say stuff like that out loud. She sounded worse than woo-woo. She sounded nuts. It didn’t help when people encouraged her—like Amaya, wide-eyed with awe like she was at that very moment.

  What was so celestial about a blond-haired, blue-eyed baby being abandoned on a random family’s porch?

  That I was wrapped in an old buffalo blanket was the only unusual detail, which didn’t prove anything at all. Buffalo blankets tanned in the traditional way might have been hard to come by, but not impossible, especially in that part of Colorado. MawMaw thought otherwise. She didn’t consider the porch I ended up on as random at all. Mom and Dad agreed with her believing that fate had brought them all a special child.

  I didn’t believe in fate or that I was special, at least not in the way they defined it. I was special, all right. A quirky kind of special.

  “Random or planned.” Mom had kissed my forehead. “I’m thrilled that you’re our daughter.”

  They didn’t know exactly where or who I actually came from. Given my pale coloring, my biological parents had to have been of Scandinavian descent. When I brought up the idea of doing a DNA test, they got so upset with me that I never mentioned it again. That was years ago. I loved my adoptive family. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt them.

  Woo-woo MawMaw, still awed by her own kitchen, turned my hand palm up and rubbed it with her thumb.

  “Special, just like you, Wray,” MawMaw said softly.

  Yes, I loved MawMaw with all my heart. And I knew without a doubt that she loved me back with all her heart. I chalked up her proclamations of how special I was to the rantings of a lovable old woman who just happened to be a little bit off her rocker. I mean, if I were so special, why didn’t my birth parents want me?

  Thumb still on my palm, MawMaw caressed my wounded arm with her other hand. It was the stickiness of the ointment that brought MawMaw back to the real world. Her trance over, she grimaced at the offensive goo.

  “Amaya, get the aspen salve.” She pointed to the corner cupboard behind the kitchen table.

  Moving fast, Amaya did as MawMaw asked. While I privately thought MawMaw leaned more and more toward insanity, Amaya still revered her almost to the point of worship.

  “MawMaw.” I whined. “I already treated it with antiseptic ointment.”

  She latched onto my arm and pulled me to the kitchen sink. “Modern medicine is okay in a pinch.” She turned on the water. “But Mother Nature makes a much better version.” She stuck my wound under the water and briskly rubbed my arm.

  “Ouch,” I cried.

  MawMaw tilted her head in apology. Gentler, she patted my arm dry with a clean towel. Taking the timeworn pottery from Amaya, MawMaw removed the stopper. “Hold this.” Before I could stop her, MawMaw plopped the pot into my other hand.

  The bright flashes of images were instant. So was the searing pain. As though I were the pot itself, I looked up into the eyes of the young potter creating the vessel—a Ute girl with long shiny braids. Behind her, an adult woman placed her bigger hands over the girl’s to show her how to mold the clay.

  Though the images were pure agony to my nervous system, I didn’t scream. I didn’t fling the pot off my hand like I wanted to either. I couldn’t. To do so meant having to explain why. I learned that lesson the first time I got a vision.

  No way was I going to go through that embarrassment again. The cocked heads. The raised brows. The curious looks. Nope. It was best to keep certain things to myself. So I squeezed my eyes shut, concentrated on breathing normally, and bore the pain silently.

  The old pot pressed so hard into my hands that I almost dropped it.

  “Hold it firm.” Though I heard MawMaw’s voice, I couldn’t see her. The visions took over my eyesight completely. One of MawMaw’s hands cupped beneath mine just as the pot pressed down again. I imagined MawMaw was scooping out balm from it. I was right, because in the next instant it was spread, cool and soothing on my wound. It felt so good.

  It did nothing, though, to ease the tor
ture going on behind my eyes. Still seeing the young Ute girl, I heard what could only have been Uncle Junius’s SUV roar into the driveway. That’s when MawMaw let go of my arm. Next, the pot lifted from my hand. As instantaneous as they started, the images went away.

  “Later.” MawMaw wagged a finger at me. “You’re going to tell me what happened to your arm.” She put the stopper back on the pot and handed it to Amaya to put in the cupboard. “Put this is the laundry.” MawMaw handed me the towel she used on my arm and went out the back door to meet Uncle Junius.

  Amaya turned to face me. “It’s the skull. That’s what MawMaw felt when she first opened the door.”

  “What?” I scoffed. “It was MawMaw being MawMaw.”

  “Oh, Wray,” she pleaded with me. “Why are you always such a skeptic? You live with the ultimate proof of the supernatural.” Amaya was referring to a legend I’d heard over and over again.

  Young MawMaw appeared in Manitou Springs already pregnant. She couldn’t remember where she came from or who got her pregnant. Her first name and that she was a descendant from Chief Ouray himself were the only things she claimed to know for sure.

  A few doubtful members of the local tribe took her to all three Ute reservations to spread the word, hoping that someone would recognize her. While everyone agreed that she was Ute, no one claimed to know her. At the next powwow, an elder gave MawMaw tea he had secretly laced with a truth herb—allegedly supplied by a local witch, if you believe in that kind of thing.

  To his surprise, MawMaw didn’t change her story in the slightest while she was drugged. Instead, the spirit of Chipeta, the Queen of the Utes herself, supposedly spoke through MawMaw, chastising the elder and claiming that MawMaw was a favorite of the sky gods. That’s when, the story goes, MawMaw received her official surname, Sky. Which became Dad’s surname when he was born, and my surname upon adoption.

  “MawMaw said that thing is putting out some sort of aura.” Amaya interrupted my thoughts.

  I gave her my most skeptical look.

  “Deny it all you want,” she insisted already headed upstairs. “It calls for more investigation.”

  Chapter 3

  Amaya lost her nerve at the door to my room. Eyes downcast, she stood back and waited for me to open it.

  I flung open the door, stomped in, and crossed my arms in irritation—not at Amaya per se, but at the skull and its energy. Funny how a blissful vibe in a constant dose isn’t so blissful at all.

  Amaya stepped into the room slowly. “It’s smiling,” she whispered.

  I glared at the ceiling and blew out a breath before glancing at it. And it did look like it was smiling. Putting out an aura was logical. According to Ute lure, every object—even inanimate—have energy. Given the visions I got from old things, I definitely vouched for that. But changing shapes? No way.

  “The sun is higher and coming in the window at a different angle. It’s just shadows,” I reasoned.

  Amaya nodded her agreement. “Pick it up and move it to the dresser.”

  “You move it.” I kept my eyes averted, going to the closet to pick out my outfit for the day. I hoped that my dodge didn’t show. No luck.

  Amaya’s jaw dropped. “You’re afraid of it.”

  “No I’m not!” I actually was. But not for the reason she thought.

  Chuckling, she crossed her arms and nodded at the skull. “Okay then move it!”

  “We don’t know what it’s made of. It might be toxic for all we know.”

  Amaya raised an eyebrow.

  “Fine.” Using the duvet, I rolled the skull to the far side of the bed.

  Amaya still wouldn’t sit on the bed. She plopped onto my desk chair instead. Guess she was afraid of it too. She looked around my room and focused on my big collection of dreamcatchers. They hung from the sloped eaves over my headboard and dangled like a curtain in my window.

  “They’re just decorations, Amaya.”

  She didn’t respond, just turned to look at the artsy space posters on my walls. “How do you explain knowing every constellation from birth? You just looked up in the sky and boom.”

  “From birth?” I laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous.” I hated these conversations, hated the quirks that forced me to lie to Amaya. “These jeans smell like horse.” I unbuttoned the fly.

  Amaya threw her hands up at my attempt to change the subject. “You pointed out all the zodiac constellations in one point two minutes.”

  I shrugged again, taking off the jeans. “My parents taught me.” That was true.

  Amaya blinked her attention back to me. “You were six when you did it.”

  And I never did it again.

  Although a fascination with the stars wasn’t that weird or unexplainable, that was my second, and final lesson to keep my quirks to myself—all of them. “So? I’ve always had a fascination with the cosmos. Some girls have posters of guys. I have the stars. What’s the big deal?” I put the stinky jeans in my hamper.

  Amaya sighed loudly, which meant she wasn’t ready to let it go.

  “Isn’t it weird that Ella didn’t want to go down one of her favorite trails?” she murmured. Amaya used her Sherlock voice that, normally, I liked. Her reasoning skills were top-notch and something I admired most about her. Not that morning, though.

  I slid hanger after hanger, not really seeing any of it, until I got to a summer dress Mary made for me.

  “That’s pretty,” Amaya said. “All turquoisey.”

  “You think?” I pulled it out and admired the fine hand-stitching. Mary didn’t do machines. “Don’t you think it’s too bright for me?”

  “Too bright? There’s no such thing with your coloring. Besides, the turquoise brings out your eyes.”

  I put the dress up to my body and looked in the full-length mirror attached to the inside of the closet door. “Hair up or down?” With one hand I piled my hair on top of my head.

  “Either.” She shrugged.

  I smiled, glad she finally took the hint and stopped reminding me how weird I was.

  “Ella balked this morning because the skull was there,” Amaya whispered.

  Probably, but I didn’t say it out loud. Instead, I turned to face the closet and put the dress back on the rod.

  “She sensed it just like MawMaw did. When you forced Ella, she threw you and ran away from it.”

  Still facing my closet, I tilted my head back to let Amaya know I was over that conversation too. Along with learning to hide my quirks, I also knew better than to talk about them. Invariably something would slip out of my mouth that I’d regret.

  “I don’t get you, Wray. You say you don’t believe, but I think you do.” Amaya waved a hand hostess-style at the dreamcatchers.

  What had gotten into her? She’d never been aggressive about my personal beliefs or lack thereof. For obvious reasons, that was what I liked the absolute best about her. I glanced at Amaya’s reflection in the full-length mirror. She locked eyes with me.

  “You landed right beside it?” she asked.

  I did. I couldn’t argue with that. The urge I felt at the fork in the trail was so weird and so powerful. It was the skull. I was certain of it. Done trying to figure out what to wear, I just grabbed my favorite seen-better-days leggings off the built-in side shelf and pulled them on.

  Amaya got up from the chair and walked to the bed.

  Pants on, I turned to look at her, then the skull. “Face to face with it,” I admitted.

  “Like it wanted you to find it?” Amaya whispered with a tilted head.

  I couldn’t argue with that either. We just stared at each another.

  “Wray,” MawMaw called up the stairs. “Please come help your uncle Junius with the dresser.”

  Grateful for the reprieve, I moved quickly with Amaya at my heels. Oh yeah. She was afraid of the skull too. She pulled my door closed on our way out and we hurried downstairs.

  “Hey, Uncle Jun,” I said when I got outside. My uncle had the dark skin typical of Ute men
. My father’s brother, they were extremely close growing up.

  Uncle Jun walked to the far end of the dresser. “I’ll go backward.”

  “Okay.” I picked up the nearer end.

  “Amaya,” Uncle Jun called to her. “I’m taking this to your house. Your mom said to bring you home, too.”

  We slid the dresser on its back into the rear of his SUV.

  Amaya looked at her phone. “They don’t leave for another hour. I’ll walk home later.”

  “Oh no,” Uncle Jun said. “I’m not tangling with your mama. You’re coming with me and that’s that.”

  Her shoulders slouched. “I’ve got to babysit my little sister while Mom and Dad take Kai to another specialist in Denver.”

  Kai, Amaya’s younger brother, had a mystery disease. Amaya once explained it to me as his body slowly eroding away from the inside out. Not one of the dozens of doctors they’d seen figured out what was causing the degeneration, or how to slow it, let alone cure it. His parents were desperate to find a cure, especially since the disease seemed to be getting more aggressive. Kai was getting worse with each passing day.

  Uncle Jun slammed the tailgate closed. “Thanks, MawMaw.” He hugged her. “You always find the best stuff.”

  MawMaw pointed at her eyes with her middle and index fingers. We all laughed at the eagle-eyed signal.

  Uncle Jun yanked open his driver’s side door.

  Amaya ran to get in the passenger side. “Call me, Wray,” she yelled through the window.

  The farther down the street they got, the more I realized I’d have to deal with the skull lying on my bed by myself. Showing it to MawMaw wasn’t an option, what with it causing a woo-woo reaction in her. I swallowed and turned to follow MawMaw into the house.

  She tilted her head at me. “Ready to tell me what happened to you this morning?”

  I promptly searched my brain for a plausible way to tell the story without implicating Ella or mentioning the skull. But once at the threshold of the door, MawMaw was overcome again, and the issue forgotten.

  She shuffled to her easy chair by the front window in the living room. I helped her settle in, then went back to the kitchen to put on the kettle for her smelly juniper tea. Once brewed, I brought it to her in her favorite mug while she blissfully rocked and stared down the street outside.