By Dark

by T Thorn Coyle

  “Breathe in deep. All the way down to just above your pubic bone. That’s right. Slow it down.”

  In moments, Raquel had a woman on the verge of a panic attack breathing almost normally. Impressive.

  “Okay. I’m going to stay right here. Tell us what you need to.”

  Tish nodded, then looked directly at Shekinah with those exhausted eyes.

  “This is so much…I can’t say it’s worse. But it’s so bad! Terrifying. I can’t… It’s…”

  “Keep breathing,” Raquel said, voice warm and completely calm. Shekinah realized she was holding her own breath, and exhaled, then drew a measured breath in through her nose.

  Tish fumbled in her pants pocket and came out with a tissue. Blew her nose.

  “I’m okay. I’m okay. Thanks.”

  Raquel backed off and gave her some space, but Shekinah noticed she sat in the chair across from Tish rather than moving back to the couch.

  “Look, we all know about the police. Targeting people. After I saw you yesterday morning I’d half convinced myself it was just my fears for my brother, showing up in my subconscious. That’s natural, right?”

  Shekinah nodded. “Makes sense.”

  Tish continued, looking over Shekinah’s head now, as if watching a scene on the wall. “But I swear, what I’m seeing is so much worse than that. It scares me so bad.”

  Worse than your brother getting killed? This didn’t even make sense.

  “It’s like…”

  “It’s like what?” Shekinah leaned forward, elbow on her knees, peering at her friend. She could feel the air in the room changing. Becoming thicker. Heavier. It was as if someone were pumping steam into the room.

  “It’s like…I swear, they’re doing something. Something bad. I saw flashes. Images. Stars. Metal. Fire. People in robes. Some sort of…”

  Raquel swore under her breath, then said a word Shekinah couldn’t catch.

  “What did you just say, Raquel?”

  “Magic. It sounds like you’re seeing scenes of people doing magic.”

  “Not just people. The police.” Tish’s eyes were wide with fear. “I saw the police doing those things. I swear.”

  17

  Alejandro

  “How did you know it was the police?” Alejandro asked. He had focused his attention on Tish to avoid the pain and anger in Shekinah’s eyes. Goddesses, he knew he’d fucked up, but trouble was, he had no idea how to fix it. He didn’t know how to fix one damn thing.

  So. He’d concentrate on seeing if the coven could help Shekinah’s friend. Maybe that would be one step toward reconciling. Yeah, he really hated messes. And he hated hurting Shekinah even more.

  “Well, there were the stars. Like metal badges. Six-pointed. Five-pointed. But not the ones you guys wear.”

  “Not a classic pentacle,” Raquel said.

  “Right. Filled in. Solid. Like a cop’s shield. Plus, there was something about how they moved.” She looked at Alejandro then, and in her anger, he saw a flash of the woman she usually was, bright, with a luminosity and strength that was different than Shekinah’s, but there all the same. He saw why they were friends. “You know how cops move. You, too.”

  She turned to Raquel at that. Both Alejandro and Raquel nodded their heads.

  “It’s that swagger they all have. As if they’re gunslingers in the Wild West.”

  Alejandro gasped. All three women snapped their heads toward him.

  “Stay with it,” Raquel said. “Don’t push it away.”

  Right. Good. She knew something was happening. He was going to be okay. A slight tingle of discomfort at doing this in front of Tish and Shekinah and then… He was going to be okay.

  And he was surrounded by flames. And in front of him was a cross, burning. And all around him were shields on fire. Stars. There were stars everywhere. And horses screaming. Gunfire. Laughter. The feel of rope around his waist and wrists. A jerk. And he was being dragged.

  “What’s happening to him?”

  Panic. He jerked and rolled. Slammed against hard earth again.

  “Ssh. He’ll be fine.”

  Then louder, near his ear? “You’re okay, Alejandro. We’re right here.” A soothing, familiar voice.

  Choking. Dust filled mouth and nose. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. Body bashed and scraped. Over and over and over. Bones cracking. Skin flayed open. And it would. Not. Stop. The bumping, dragging speed of it. Sound of hooves.

  And that laughter again. And finally, one last image of a star, shining in his eyes. Then. Nothing.

  Alejandro seized up, then choked, coughing, gasping for air. Eyes fluttering. Ice pick of a headache lancing his brain. Blinked.

  “Too bright.”

  “Turn the overhead lights off.” Raquel’s voice. Raquel. He was sitting on Raquel’s red couch in her living room. There wasn’t any fire. His body wasn’t being dragged behind…

  “Horses.” He struggled to sit up. When had he lain down? Gods, his body hurt, and not like he’d been to the gym. He coughed again, trying to clear the nonexistent dust from his throat.

  “Here. The tea should be cool enough to just drink down. Swallow that, and we’ll get you some water. And maybe some ibuprofen, from the looks of things. Those are in the cabinet next to the fridge.” That last wasn’t spoken to him.

  He half saw Raquel gesture to Shekinah, who headed through the swinging door to the kitchen. Shekinah. She was still here. He felt a rush of relief.

  “I thought I was alone.”

  She came back with a clear tumbler of water, other hand cupped around the pills. Crouching next to the couch, she offered both. Raquel took the tea mug from his hands. As he reached for the tumbler, he wrapped his fingers around his lover’s hand. His lover. Still. After all his shit. There she was…

  “You’re not alone, Alejandro. I’m right here. So is Raquel. We see you. We know you.”

  He began to weep. Big, rolling sobs that hunched him forward. Heard the thunk of glass on table, and then her arms were around him. Holding him.

  “You are precious to me, Alejandro. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but whatever it is, we’ll get through this. Just stick with me, kid. We’re going places.”

  Through his sobs, he gasped out a small laugh, then folded more deeply into her body, allowing her strength to hold him up. Just for a minute. Just for now.

  “I’m sorry,” he said through the tears and the phlegm.

  “I know. Ssshhh. It’s okay. We’ll be okay.”

  He hoped that it was true. But for now, it felt good to hear the words, and to feel her, and to smell the warm incense scent that permeated her hair.

  Finally, his breathing slowed. He shifted back, away from his lover’s body. She allowed her arms to slide down his, giving him space, but not letting him go.

  “I need a tissue. Got one?”

  Raquel left the room and returned with a box. After wiping his face and blowing his nose, he reached for the water glass and ibuprofen on the coffee table. Shekinah curled up on the couch beside him, hand on his thigh.

  “It seems like your visions are as bad as mine,” Tish said. “Shit. I’m kind of glad someone else is seeing something, gotta admit.”

  “I’m sympathetic but…damn. We called you here mostly to see if we could help you control your visions, give you some psychic tech. I didn’t expect to get pulled into visions of my own.” He looked at Raquel. “Sorry, boss. I’ve been slacking on my practice.”

  She grimaced, then picked up the teapot and headed back toward kitchen.

  “I’ll let it go this time.” She paused at the swinging door and looked back at him, face grown serious again. “But clearly you need more help than we’ve been giving you, and I’m sorry about that. It’s back to daily practice for you, and psychic basics, and weekly check-ins with Brenda or me, and all the rest of it.”

  “Message received.”

  She walked through the swinging door.

  In truth, he fe
lt relieved that he wasn’t trying to hide it anymore. He was a wreck, and the people he trusted still loved him. He leaned into Shekinah, who shifted her arm from his leg to around his shoulders, pulling him closer.

  “Once Raquel gets back with more tea, you’re going to have to tell us more about what you saw.”

  “I know.” Just thinking about talking about it brought the sense of choking dust back into his throat and nose. He cleared his throat and took a drink of water, then blew his nose again.

  “And Tish?” she said. “The coven really can help you. I know it. They have all sorts of energy techniques that should help. Right, Alejandro?”

  He cleared his throat again. “We do. And we can start on those today. Someone with your spiritual training has a leg up on someone coming in fresh, so that’s good. You’ll probably find most of the techniques familiar, at least in essence. What Raquel will help you do is get better focus on this specific thing: dealing with unbidden visions.”

  Raquel was back then, teapot wrapped in a towel.

  “I heard that last part, and he’s right. It all starts with breath and energy flow, which I hear you kundalini people are good at.” She smiled, placed the pot back on the tray and sat back down. “Alejandro, you said something about horses.”

  Oh Gods. “It was really bad. I was being dragged. Tied up. Shit. And there was fire.”

  Shekinah squeezed his shoulder. “Oh, love.”

  He looked at Tish then, who sat, preternaturally still, eyes trained on him.

  “And I saw stars. A sheriff’s badge.”

  Tish opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  “Do you know who you were? Because this vision feels different than Tish’s. Tish’s was a possible future, right?” Raquel asked.

  Tish nodded. “I think so. But it felt so real. It felt like it had already happened.”

  “But it hasn’t. So, premonition.”

  Face shocked, Tish started to reply. Raquel held up a hand to stall her. “I’ll get back to that. Don’t freak out yet.”

  His coven mentor turned her wise, dark eyes back on him. “But your vision? The way you describe it, it sounds as if it was sometime in the past. So I’ll ask it again, any idea who you were?”

  One image from the scene snapped into clear focus, quickly overlaid by the image of hands, weaving yarn into rugs. The base of his skull started buzzing so loud, he could barely hear himself think.

  “Yes. I do. I was my however-many-greats grand uncle. Alejandro Juan. I’m named for him and my abuelo, Guillermo.”

  “What happened?” Shekinah asked, voice soft. “Do you know his story?”

  Throat tightening, nose tingling. There came the tears again. He swallowed, hard. If he didn’t keep the tears at bay, he’d never get through this.

  “Most Mexicans in Oregon worked on the railroads, or as miners. Some were mule packers for the Army, which isn’t something to be proud of, considering they were fighting the indigenous people here, and most Mexicans are at least part, if not all, indigenous.” He shrugged.

  “Not agriculture?” Shekinah asked.

  “That came later. My family arrived a lot earlier than most, this far north, working as vaqueros for a Spaniard. Late 1700s. Four generations in, they’d been able to save enough money to have their own cattle. They became pretty prosperous, actually, with a family ranchero, around sixty miles from here. Then some white men decided a bunch of dumb vaqueros couldn’t have built that up honestly.”

  “So they accused your family of stealing.” Raquel’s voice was flat.

  Alejandro nodded. “Yeah. They couldn’t get to my uncle’s father. He was too powerful by that time.”

  “So they targeted his son,” Tish said. “Those bastards.”

  “They killed him. Tied him up. Beat him. Then dragged him behind horses until he was dead.”

  “Oh my God. Love. I’m so sorry.” Shekinah’s warmth broke through his fragile shell.

  He let the tears come again. For himself. For all of his ancestors.

  And mostly, for Alejandro Juan.

  18

  Shekinah

  Shekinah parked at a distance from the Shiva Center because she wanted a chance to walk. Gather herself. She liked walking beneath the trees with their turning leaves, and past the rock garden on the corner, and the mix of Craftsman and Victorian homes. This end of the street was peaceful. Quiet. As though it lived to balance out the more commercial stretch not so far down the road. As she walked from streetlight puddle to streetlight puddle, she tried to match her breathing with her steps. One inhalation for every four boot strikes. The cadence of walking helped, and the scent of night blooming jasmine soothed her soul.

  On one hand, she was more worried about Alejandro than ever. On the other, she was relieved that he’d had some sort of a breakthrough. It was hell not being with him, but she had her appointment with Yogi Basu and he needed to meet with his coven.

  They had promised one another that they would spend the night together, the way both their calendars said they would. Whether you lived together or not, it was the little commitments that seemed to make or break a relationship. Sometimes the big commitments were easy, assumed. The little ones became easy to skip, ignore, or let slide over time. So tonight, their bodies would lie side by side. They would breathe the same air, as they drifted off to sleep.

  Maybe they’d even have sex, though she still wasn’t counting on it, not after all of today’s bruises. But you never knew. Sometimes the deeper the anguish, the hotter the sex. She smiled. Yeah, having sex with Alejandro tonight would be really great. She’d see what she could do to make that happen.

  Her feet led her to the Center, just as they always did. Her other heart home. She felt a clenching in her chest, and paused, just staring up the short walkway to the three steps, and the dark wood door. A massive Craftsman with solid pillars, it stood, lights glowing warmly, like a refuge in the night.

  “Ravana ordered his chariot fetched. Surrounded by his warriors, he drove into battle in the golden ratha.” She recited the words from the great epic, the Ramayana, into the evening air, not sure whether she actually believed them. But sometimes you had to act as if, right? She could pretend she had a chariot and could call up the strength of a child of Shiva into herself. At least a little bit.

  “Here goes.” She stepped onto the path, walked up the three steps, and opened the big wooden door. The building was quiet, class having let out half an hour or so before. A couple of students sat chatting on chairs in the small reception room to the right. She shucked her boots by the door, gave them a wave and continued down the hallway lined with warm wood wainscoting, past all the framed photos of great teachers hung above. And then, all that was left was a three-panel wood door, standing slightly ajar.

  Shekinah knocked.

  “Come in,” said Yogi Basu.

  She wiped her hands on her jeans, pushed the door open and walked into his office. Immediately, she felt a palpable sense of peace. As if all her fears were for nothing, and she could finally relax. Her feet padded across the rich carpet, woven in threads of navy and red, not looking at the floor-to-ceiling bookcases she’d seen a thousand times. Barely noticing the pots of orchids by the window. Seeing only him, sitting behind a big oak desk, surrounded by books and papers, smiling at her. Luminous, eyes glowing as warmly as the brass lamp on his desktop. His thinning hair was neat as usual, though his beard needed combing.

  She paused three feet from the desk, put her hands together and gave a slight bow. “Good evening, Yogi Basu.”

  “Sit down, Shekinah. Know that you are welcome here.”

  That. That was what she so longed to hear. Tears pricked at the edges of her eyes. She looked down as she sat, hiding her response.

  “You never need to hide emotion from me. Emotions are our teachers, just as everything in life can teach. Sometimes emotions are the strongest teachers of all, if we do not let them control us. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

/>   He steepled his hands on the desk and leaned forward slightly, desk chair creaking beneath his weight.

  “So. What have you come to talk with me about?”

  “Teacher training, and…” She paused.

  “Initiation.”

  She mashed her lips together and lightly bit the folded flesh. As soon as she caught herself, Shekinah released her lips from between her teeth. An old habit from her teenage years; she didn’t do that anymore.

  “What seems to be the issue?”

  “I’m polyamorous.”

  If it was possible, Yogi Basu smiled even more broadly than before. “You love many people? So do I! I love every person that walks through that front door.” He gestured toward the front of the house, as if they could see the door. As if they weren’t sequestered in his safe womb of an office. “I don’t like all of them, mind you. But love? That is our task in this world. To love. To become light. Yes?”

  Shoving down the fluttering in her belly, Shekinah inhaled as slowly and deeply as she could. She was going to have to be careful. Find the right words.

  “It isn’t that. I mean, of course it is. But it isn’t just that. I have a partner, Alejandro. We love each other. I also have a girlfriend, Maureen. I’ve been with Alejandro for five years and with Maureen for two.”

  “And they both know this?’

  “Of course!” He shocked the words out of her.

  He nodded thoughtfully, then sat in silence, looking toward one of the tall bookcases. She folded her hands in her lap and trained her eyes on the large image of Lord Shiva on the wall above Yogi Basu’s desk. His right palm faced outward, in the Abhaya mudrā, representing fearlessness, and the promise of protection. She needed both.

  “It is not my way. But that does not mean it is impossible. If you practice truth with your partners as you say?” He paused.

  She nodded.

  “And you feel that living in this way supports your dharma?”

  She nodded again.