Gray Magic

by Sarah Dreher

  Siyamtiwa looked inward for a long time. "Old," she said at last. "Probably the oldest person you know. The oldest I know, anyway. How many years?" She gestured, palms up. "I don't remember. I remember lots of stuff, but not how many years. After this, I think I will retire."

  Stoner smiled. "I think you've earned the right."

  "Earn? When the Spirits want you to do something, they call. When you have done it, when they don't want you any more, you can go. What does this have to do with 'earn'?"

  "Sorry." Stoner fiddled with a bit of dried grass. "Laura Yazzie says I should try to think like an Indian. I think maybe Laura Yazzie expects the impossible."

  "She is young." The old woman chuckled. "You complained of thirst. Do you want the water to come to you? Even I don't have that much magic in me."

  Stoner scrambled to her feet. ''Which way?"

  "Close your eyes and open your nose and tell me."

  It was totally confusing. Odors came from everywhere, mixing and swirling around her. She strained and tried to sort them.

  "You work too hard," Siyamtiwa said. "You scare the Water People away. Make a picture in your head."

  She imagined water. Water in a glass. A lake. The ocean. A brook. Bathtub.

  Settle down.

  Okay, a waterfall. Might not be appropriate out here in Sandland, but go with what you can get. She closed her eyes.

  A compass formed on her mind's screen. The needle swung rapidly and came to rest. "That way," she said, and pointed.

  Siyamtiwa stood aside and let her lead.

  She found the little spring in a deep and narrow crevice cut into the mesa wall. A pencil-thin stream of water trickled over rocks and disappeared into the sand. Not exactly a waterfall, but it was water. Falling water. "Hey," she said. "It works!"

  Siyamtiwa rolled her eyes.

  "Is this how we'll find Gwen?"

  "Got a better way to do that. Eagle will find her."

  Yeah, right. Why didn't I think of that?

  The old woman knelt by the spring and drank from cupped hands. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and sat back. "Now I will tell you something that you will not believe. Or, if you believe it, you will forget it." There was something close to affection in her voice. "Magic is not a thing for which you must grunt and strain. Magic is a bird that comes to you if you are very still and very quiet in your heart. But if you try to grab it, it will fly away."

  "I'll try to remember that. I really will."

  "Yes," said Siyamtiwa. "No doubt you will grunt and strain with trying to remember."

  Stoner laughed. "You're very wise."

  ''Well, I had a lot of experience."

  "There's something I don't understand," Stoner said hesitantly, wondering if she were treading on taboo ground.

  "Lots of things I don't understand. What troubles you?"

  "It's about Mary Beale. And Maria Hernandez. What did you mean when you said they were you?"

  ''What I said. They and me, same person."

  "You mean, sometimes you've called yourself Mary Beale, and..."

  "No, Green-eyes," Siyamtiwa said firmly. "I am Mary Beale and Maria Hernandez. Not sometimes, all times."

  Oh, boy. Multiple personality. "I see."

  "You don't see. You want life to be like soldiers in a straight line, first one thing, then the next, then the next. It makes you feel safe, but it is not how things are."

  "Okay," Stoner said carefully. "How are things?"

  "Everything goes at once, in a big mish-mosh." She chuckled. "Now you really think I'm crazy, eh?"

  "I didn't say that," Stoner said, and blushed guiltily.

  "That's okay. Maybe, if you think I'm crazy, you humor me more. Don't argue with me so much. Then maybe we get something accomplished." She got up, went back to the path, and disappeared over a gentle rise.

  Stoner ran to catch up. "Don't leave me here!"

  "You think I'm going to vanish into thin air?"

  She realized that was exactly what she had been thinking, and laughed.

  "I sure do like your laugh, Green-eyes. Too bad you take life so seriously."

  "I know." She walked along silently for a while. "Darn it, Grandmother, it's hard being young."

  The old woman looked off toward the horizon, where an eagle circled a pile of fallen rock. ''Well, maybe I don't make it so easy for you, either. Ask a lot of you." She glanced slyly at Stoner. "Don't get big in the head. I said maybe."

  "May I tell you something personal?" Stoner asked.

  The old woman nodded.

  "I like you."

  Siyamtiwa looked away, her face softening.

  Spears of sunlight found the spaces between the eastern mountains and flooded onto the desert, chasing away the last of the dawn twilight.

  "If you have a morning song." Siyamtiwa said, "time to sing it."

  * * *

  The outside of the village made Wupatki Ruin look like the Hyatt Regency. Crumbling red rock. Mortar long ago eroded by time and blowing sand. Doors fallen in. Windows fallen out. The wall that had once surrounded the town a pile of rubble. The plaza choked with dead and drifted tumbleweed. Pottery shards and chipped stone tools scattered over the ground like smashed Christmas tree ornaments. The silence whispered 'old' and 'gone'.

  Stoner stood in the middle of the plaza and sensed the loneliness. ''What is this place?" she asked.

  "No name," Siyamtiwa answered. "Long ago forgotten."

  "I wonder why the people left."

  "Drought. Whites. Navajos." The old woman shrugged. "Maybe the Spirits said go."

  Stoner knelt and picked up a piece of broken pottery. It was part of a bowl, black paint in geometric designs on white clay. She held it up. "Do you know what this is?"

  Siyamtiwa gave it a cursory glance. "Hisatsinom. You like my town?"

  "To tell you the truth, " Stoner said hesitantly, "it looks as if someone's been chewing on it."

  Siyamtiwa chuckled.

  "How long have you lived here?"

  "Long time. Too long to remember."

  "Time doesn't mean much to you, does it?"

  "I'm here, long time here. Someday gone. How many years doesn't matter."

  Stoner brushed her fingers over the broken pottery gently. "Did your people live here?"

  "Some."

  "This was a Fog Clan town?"

  "For a while."

  Stoner picked up what looked like the broken head of a terra cotta bear.

  "Siyamtiwa, are you a sorceress?"

  "Powaqa? No. Like your Hermione. Tuhikya, Healer."

  Stoner stirred through the shards. They made a sound like tiny bells. "Do you have as much power as Begay?"

  "Not if he has the bundle."

  "If he doesn't?"

  The old woman shrugged.

  "If I can't do what you need me to do, what happens?"

  "Nobody blames you. You do what you can."

  “But... in general, what will happen."

  "Pretty bad stuff." Siyamtiwa said.

  "How bad?"

  "Some legends say all the powaqa from all over the world meet at Palangwu, over by Canyon de Chelly. Maybe true, maybe not. If true, and they get the bundle... could be a lot of trouble."

  "Trouble?"

  "Land dies. People die. Maybe even the sun dies."

  "Are you talking about Nuclear War?"

  "Mushroom bomb," said Siyamtiwa, "is the White man's Ya Ya bundle."

  Stoner mulled it over. "You really think I can stop him?"

  "He thinks you can stop him. So he takes your woman. He read something in you, Green-eyes. He is afraid of you."

  Stoner laughed humorlessly. "He has a funny way of showing it."

  "He shows it in the man's way." Siyamtiwa thrust out her chest and pulled her skirt up between her legs to form trousers. "Big man here," she shouted, swaggering around the plaza. "Everybody get out of the way of big man." She dropped her skirt. ''When man starts kicking stuff around, that's how you know
he's afraid."

  "Hey," Stoner said with a grin,"we may not speak the same language, but we have the same politics."

  "Frightened man is a very dangerous man. You gotta be extra carefuL"

  "If I'd known I had all this scary power," Stoner said,"maybe I could have done something about the '84 election."

  "Everybody drunk in '84. Gonna wake up to big hangover, eh?" Siyamtiwa perched on an intact section of wall and swung her legs. ''We got some ways out here you pahana women oughta think about. Our women own everything. All property. Man and woman marry, he joins her clan. She gets tired of him, one night he comes home and all his stuff is on the front porch. He's gotta pick it up and go away." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I got rid of three, four that way."

  "Too bad Gwen didn't know about that," Stoner said. ''We had to kill her husband to get rid of him."

  The old woman looked at her sharply. "You have killed?"

  "It was self-defense. It took two of us and a horse." She glanced up. "Does that disqualify me?"

  "I've been too easy on you," Siyamtiwa said. She hopped down from the wall and started across the plaza."You come," she tossed over her shoulder. ''We begin."

  * * *

  From the outside, Siyamtiwa's house had the same crushed graham cracker look as the rest of the village. Inside, it was a different story. A single room of white-washed adobe walls, the roof supported by rough log timbers, the windows without shades or glass. The first impression was light, light pouring through the doorway, light reflecting from the walls, light broken into colors by the bits of crystal and tinted bottles that sat on a high shelf opposite the windows and turned the rough wall into a mosaic of rainbows and hues. The second impression was coolness, as the thick clay absorbed the sun's heat, storing it by day to release it by night.

  A rough cot-like bed lay against the north wall, the head facing east. It was covered with a woven blanket of natural, earth-tone dyes. Other blankets covered the dirt floor. Near the door stood an ancient wood-burning stove, in another corner an open fireplace with raised hearth. A large, hand-made basket held scraps of material and dried yucca leaves. On a table against the wall sat a kerosine lamp, tin plate and eating utensils, and a pottery mug that looked as if it had been salvaged intact from the shards in the courtyard.

  Stoner touched it. "This is beautiful. Is it a copy?"

  "No copy," Siyamtiwa said.

  "How old is it?"

  The old woman shrugged. "Seven hundred, eight hundred years. Hard to remember."

  "It survived that long," Stoner said wonderingly. "It isn't even cracked."

  "I take good care of stuff," Siyamtiwa said.

  "Even so, it must have been lying around a long time before you found it."

  "You act like one of the museum people. Maybe you'll steal my stuff and sell it."

  "If I were thinking of that," Stoner said, "I'm sure you'd know it before I did." Talking about museums made her think of Mary Beale. "Siyamtiwa, about Mary..."

  "Mary Beale retired now, couple of years ago. Living in Albuquerque. Out Chamayo Road. House with light blue door, lots of sunlight. You want to visit?"

  Stoner rubbed the back of her neck. "Well..."

  "Bet you're sorry you asked," Siyamtiwa said with a sly look.

  "You know how it is with me."

  Other pieces of pottery and scraps of woven blanket lay on the floor, up against the walls. Siyamtiwa pointed them out. "Hohokam, Sinagua—all old stuff. Some from Wupatki, some from Chaco, some other places. All a little different. Mary Beale gets mad I keep this around. Should be in museum, she says. Under glass, she says. I think maybe Mary Beale got too much education. Next thing she'll want me under glass."

  Stoner decided to ignore that in the interest of her own sanity. "This place is wonderful," she said, and meant it.

  "It's okay. Got no cable hook-up or VCR, though."

  "I'm sure you get plenty of entertainment."

  "Sure," Siyamtiwa said. "Lotsa ghosts to talk to, tell stories. Sometimes animals come along. Sister Angwusi—Sister Crow—she makes good gossip. Other things happen, too, but I don't want to make you nervous."

  "Good idea," Stoner said, feeling as if a cold breeze had just drifted through the room. She slipped out of her knapsack. ''Well... uh... where would you like me to put my things?"

  "Come look around. Find something you like." She led the way past the blanket door and around the plaza. What had seemed before like piles of rubble took on the shapes of rooms.

  Some were unusable, roofs fallen in, a wall collapsed. Some were already occupied by mice or snakes or things that lived in holes in the ground that she'd rather not observe too closely. Others were piled with broken pottery and had apparently served as the Hisatsinom version of a dumpster. But the most remarkable thing about the place was the absence of litter. No paper scraps. No mangled foil, shredded styrofoam, candy wrappers, cigarette packs. No yellow film cartons.

  As she walked and looked, she began to feel sleepy, a slight, pleasant dizziness, as if she were slipping backward and down. She leaned against a wall. The sun washed over her in gentle waves, stroking and soothing. Dust gave the air a burnt smell. Silence formed a dome around her.

  "Come," Siyamtiwa said, and took her arm.

  Her feet barely seemed to touch the ground. Then there was shade and coolness all around. She felt her knees give way beneath her. "I'm sorry," she murmured, and sank to the ground.

  "You sleep now, that's good," Siyamtiwa said. She slipped a soft pillow beneath Stoner's head.

  As she drifted off, she could hear the old woman nearby, chanting.

  * * *

  It was dark when she awoke. For a moment she was afraid. She sat up, joints complaining. The ground was hard, and cold. Beneath her head, her knapsack was stiff and lumpy as a sack of potatoes. She struggled to her feet and went to the door. Across the plaza, a faint light marked the window of Siyamtiwa's room. On the ground by her own doorway she found a candle and matches. At least Siyamtiwa didn't expect her to see in the dark like a Two-Heart. She lit the candle and looked around.

  The room was small and perfectly square. The dust of dead years had drifted into piles where the walls met the floor. The sandstone blocks smelled dry and red. Overhead, a roof constructed of dried cornstalks—some with small ears attached and hanging down—made a zig-zag pattern.

  Had that roof been there before? Had she, by accident or manipulation, fallen asleep in front of the one roofed room in town? Or had Siyamtiwa levitated those corn stalks and spruce beams up there while she was unconscious?

  Maybe the old woman had conjured up a platoon of beavers. Chisel-tooth Construction Company. No job too big or too small. We work while you sleep.

  She decided not to look too closely at the cut ends of the stalks. There might be toothmarks.

  She dripped wax to secure the candle to a window sill and sat down, back against the wall. Well, here I am—wherever here is.

  Loneliness flooded in to fill the silence. And longing. And fear.

  Oh, God, please let Gwen be all right.

  The fear rose and expanded in her like yeast. It traveled outward from her heart and filled her legs, her arms, her mind. She saw Gwen broken, dead, her body crushed, her clothing torn, and blood... so much blood.

  She tried to push around the fear, to sense what was true. To get behind the picture with a clear mind.

  But fear held tight.

  I'm never going to see her again.

  Never.

  Don't give in to this, she told herself roughly. The truth is, nothing is definite.

  I'm never going to hold her again.

  You have to fight. Don't let it take your strength.

  The one person in my life who ever made me feel understood, and we only had five months together.

  I never loved anyone the way I loved her.

  Stop! Someone's putting those thoughts in your head. You can control it.

  She thought of advice Dr. Ed
ith Kesselbaum had given her once. "Turn your emotion into a person. Sit down and talk to it. Ask it what it wants from you. And don't you dare tell anyone I told you this. If the insurance company finds out I'm handing out New Age advice, my malpractice rates will skyrocket."

  Stoner closed her eyes and tried to make a Fear person.

  It turned out to be huge, mean, clumsy, and hairy, and said its name was Kurt. It said it liked to see her cringe. It said it liked to trample her into the ground and turn her into a spot of grease. It said it liked to be In Charge. It said it was going to get inside her and stay there. It said...

  She asked if they could make a deal.

  Kurt said no deals.

  She pointed out that he was merely a psychological exercise.

  Kurt said he didn't give a shit.

  She threatened to send a small, yappy dog with tiny sharp teeth to nip at him and drive him crazy forever.

  He said if that was the best she could do, she might as well pack it in.

  Okay, asshole, she thought. Okay, hang around, see if I care.

  She heard Edith Kesselbaum's voice telling her this wasn't what she had in mind, exactly. What she had in mind, exactly, Stoner, if you don't object to a teeny suggestion, is that you try to make friends with this person.

  Hey, Kurt, wanna make friends?

  Kurt roared a laugh drenched in halitosis.

  Sorry, Edith, he's not interested.

  Nonsense. Everybody wants a friend, it's human nature.

  What say, Kurt? That true?

  He laughed again, and the ground trembled.

  This one can't be helped, Edith. I think what we have here is your basic psychopath.

  Anti-social personality, Edith said. The terminology's been updated.

  Right.

  She turned back to Kurt. Buzz off, buzzard-breath.

  He roared and beat his chest and started toward her.

  The energy-knot in her stomach began to glow. She concentrated on the warmth, on gathering it and sending it toward him. She breathed deeply, pulling energy from the air, building a shining gold cord that reached out...

  Kurt took a step backward.

  She kept on sending.

  He backed up a little more.

  Okay, she thought as she held him at bay, let's see if Gwen can slip through.