The view into the canyon made me sick, like a migraine might be coming on. I was getting scared, I think. Everything before this rest stop was what I had to do. I had to make sure Ida was as okay as she could be. I had to head out to find Mom. I had to get to the bus station and hand over my ticket. But that was as far as had-to-do got me. This next part was entirely what-to-do. What-the-fuck-to-do.
George walked back to the bus and we followed.
“Your stop’s next, young lady,” George told me as I climbed back into the dust-covered bus.
The panic and adrenaline were kicking in, stirring up the blood and keeping me awake. I’m really going to have to sleep, I thought.
The desert pooled in front of us, vast and golden-red. How would I find anyone here? The bus rumbled on until we reached what looked like an actual town. I hadn’t known what to expect of Sedona. But there it was: a town, with parking meters and coffee-place chains. The bus heaved to a stop. I climbed out and took my backpack when George handed it to me.
I checked my phone—I had a missed call and a voicemail from Carol. The open-air bus depot wasn’t entirely vacant, but the people who waited for their buses didn’t look like people I wanted to open a conversational door to. There was one couple pressing up against each other as they leaned against a wall. A few scruffy, rumpled men roamed around.
I sat on a weathered bench outside of a convenience store and drank an entire bottle of water in long, cool gulps. I sat there, cracking the empty bottle between my hands. There wasn’t any more to do. I had to get it over with. I had to hear whatever answers I was going to get.
The phone rang and rang. No Marine, not even her voicemail. Finally I texted: In Sedona. Call me.
Within a minute, the phone buzzed in my palm.
“Marine?”
“Yes, it is me. What have you done? I told you there was no reason for you to come. I think you should turn around. Go home, wait for us.”
Real fury bubbled out of me.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Marine? I’m here. At the bus station. I’m going to wait until somebody picks me up. So, if I get raped or murdered in this sketchy, sketchy place, Marine, it is on you.” I regretted that, even as I choked the words out into the phone. It was my fault we were all in Sedona, anyway. The bus station wasn’t that sketchy. But I came for Mom and I was going to get her.
“Nobody asked you to come,” Marine finally said. “In fact, I very clearly asked you not to. I don’t think you can possibly understand what’s going on here.”
“What’s going on where? Where, Marine?”
“At the Blessed Light Congregation, of course. Now really, I must ask you to simply turn around and go home. You are at the bus station, after all, so that is actually most convenient.”
“What?”
“Have a nice trip, dear Van. Bye-bye!”
She hung up, and I waited for an idea to fall over me. I watched shadows stretch across the pavement and waves of people roll up and down the street while the cars flashed by.
I wondered if maybe I should call someone else, maybe Alex or Chantal, to confess Marine hadn’t agreed to help, to let them know I was in Sedona, and to ask about Ida. But it had only been a few hours. Alex and Chantal were probably sleeping. I noticed the voicemail from Carol again, and tapped the tiny blue disc beside her name.
“Heeeyyy, Van. Well, I have good news and bad news for you, and if you actually answered the phone, I might have given you the option of good news first or bad news first. But, since you’re an asshole and you didn’t, I’m giving you the bad news first. Fucking Marcos took back all of his gear, and I do mean all of it. So you’re going to have to dip into those money bags, Money Bags, and get some new stuff if you want to stay in the band.
“The good news is, if you stay in the band, we’re going on tour. My cousin’s touring next month with his band, and he saw our show, and he asked me and J if we would be into it, which obviously we are, so that’s why I’m calling you. Hopefully you’ll be into it too. Call me back. Seriously.”
I was stunned. A tour was exactly what I needed; a place to go that wasn’t college, to play music all the time. My first, own thing. And I knew I’d never go. I didn’t deserve it—not even a little bit. I was a bad, selfish person, and I was going to do penance for however long it took me not to feel that way anymore. I would nurse Ida back to health—I would feed her and bathe her. I would take better care of Mom. I had to find her first, though.
The Blessed Light Congregation, that’s what Marine had said. I Googled it on my phone and found an ancient website. There was no real information—only a P.O. Box address and phone number with an area code I didn’t recognize. I tapped the number and called, because, really, what else was there to do?
“Blessed Light, Carapace speaking.” A male voice answered, high and musical.
“Oh, hi. Glad I got a hold of you.” What would Mom say? What would Ida say? “I just got to Sedona, and would you believe it, I lost the address of where we’re supposed to meet.”
“Address? May I ask who’s speaking?” The man’s voice sharpened.
“Carapace, it’s you, right? Haven’t we spoken before? I just know we had a whole conversation about how the recordings changed my life.”
“Oh yes, the recordings,” the voice singsonged. “Aren’t they extraordinary?”
“Oh, absolutely.” I felt him giving way.
“Did we meet at the conference in New Hampshire?”
“That’s right! We did!” Tone it down, Van.
“Well of course you must join us. We’re at the Wind Song, right off of 89A. You can’t miss it. But call again if you get lost.”
“Perfect, will do. Thanks, Carapace.”
“My pleasure,” he said, and hung up.
Well, I’d done something. Now I had to get there.
The taxi I climbed into smelled like an old tuna can, and I cracked the window to let the late afternoon air in. The driver was a quiet elderly man who only raised his eyebrows when I told him where to go. I caught on to the dry-sun smell of the desert and closed my eyes. I tried to recall the feeling of playing with Carol and Joanna. I put Alex’s sweatshirt back on and smelled his comforting, oily boy scent. I imagined I was a person with a different life, that I had told Carol yes, I’d love to go on tour, that I was Alex’s girlfriend.
“Excuse me,” the driver called, over a thin thread of Spanish language radio. He pointed toward the passenger side window. There wasn’t much to see—a row of sagging trailers and a barely lit sign that read: Wind Song Mobile Home Park. We pulled into a parking lot—not a paved one, just a wide square of bald earth. I paid the driver with one of Mom’s hundreds, and as he counted the change back into my palm he said, “This is the right place?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” I could see the doubt skating over his face. “Really. I’m visiting a relative.”
“Okay.” He rolled up the window and drove away.
I walked around the pressed-dirt lot, looking for signs of manic, spiritual activity. I hoped that didn’t mean large groups of people dancing around naked. I took my phone from Alex’s sweatshirt pocket and thought about calling the Blessed Light number again. I was chilled by the prospect of what Carapace might look like naked, and by how meager the reception was at the Wind Song. I put the phone back into my pocket.
In the murky twilight, I finally noticed a thin dirt path, a path no wider than a single footprint. The air was dusty and fragrant. Scents of desert plants—herbaceous, smoky smells—twisted in the breeze. I passed a row of mint green trailers and kept going toward some kind of campground.
I got close enough to see a circle of light—a chain of different-sized tents with small fires burning in front, and various-sized lanterns wobbling in the wind. I walked down into the shallow, lit basin. I had a delirious fantasy of waking up, running to Ida, running to Mom; You guys won’t even believe this dream I just had.
There was music—no, not music. Drums. I let myself
feel the downhillness of the whole situation. The narrow path widened until it wasn’t a path at all, just a sandy circle. Shadowy figures dipped and turned under the darkening sky. There were so many people, I thought. What were they all doing here? What was Mom doing here? What was I doing there? Ida, Ida, Ida. I beat back my rising headache with the sound of her name in my mind. I kept moving toward the large fire at the center of the campsite. Even I, a stranger in this deranged, mystical setting, understood that this was its beating heart.
A dirty white tent, like the kind used at outdoor weddings, marked the end of the campsite. The sides were open. Tons of people—and all of that drumming—were jammed inside. I pushed toward one of the corners where all of the campers, wearing a variety of homemade knitwear, seemed to be focused on a small triangular clearing. The force of the bodies and the drum pounding was so violent just then, I thought I’d fall dead to the ground. This is how a person’s brain explodes, I thought. No sleep, all drumming. I cut through the last row of people before bursting through to the corner of cleared space.
Mom and another woman huddled together there on the ground: the valves of that terrible, fevered heart. Mom’s face was painted a bright magenta. The woman leaning over her was older than I expected, and very, very thin. Her hair was bright white—it looked like it had been dyed that way, and she wore a voluminous knit poncho in the same magenta that stained Mom’s face.
“Van?” Marine said. Her enormous eyes glinted at me unmistakably.
I didn’t answer. Marine cleared her throat and clasped my upper arm with her giant’s hand. “Van, you didn’t listen to me.”
The thin woman lifted her head slowly like a predatory jungle cat and looked up at us. Her eyes were blue and clear. This woman wasn’t dancing around naked at least, I told myself. And that was probably the best thing I had going for me here.
“This is Sofia’s daughter, Van,” Marine said.
“Van!” The woman said it like my name was an amen. She stood, leaving my mother kneeling in the dirt alone.
“Mom!” I shouted. “Please! We need to leave! It’s an emergency.” Mom held up her finger, and I was shocked by the normalcy of the just-give-me-a-minute gesture.
I wanted to run over to Mom, to pull her up by the arms and wrestle her away. Instead, I watched the older woman approach me, this little woodland-creature-looking person. She moved like an exotic dancer—all hips and loose joints—which was weird because her emaciated body was stripped of all sexuality. It was this silly, Peter Pan–looking mess of jaunty, spritely lines. I almost wanted to laugh. Almost.
When she was right up in front of me, she stopped and looked me over. Not with just her eyes, but with her whole face and head. She started at the top of my forehead, standing on her tiptoes, and hovered her face all over me, like it was one of those metal detectors old men use at the beach.
I felt the eyes of the other spectators all over me, too. Laurel finished her inspection and knelt at my feet.
“It is you, Van,” she said softly, to my sneakers.
What?
“It is the prophet’s daughter!” she shouted to the crowd.
What?
The knitwear-clad throng drummed even louder than they’d been drumming already, and they whooped and roared. And for just one fraction of a second, I got it. I got why they were all here. Maybe why Mom and Marine were here. To be part of this wild, ephemeral organism. It was a very little bit like playing with Carol and Joanna.
But then I remembered who I was and why I was there. I moved toward Mom.
“Mom?” I said, and knelt down in front of her. “Mom?” I repeated, louder. “It’s me, Van.”
Mom opened her eyes. “I see you,” she said.
“Will you just get up? Please? I have to tell you—it’s Ida. She had a stroke. She’s in the hospital. We need to leave, right now.” I said it softly. I didn’t want any of these people to know about Ida.
Mom nodded, slowly.
“Mom! Did you hear me? It’s an emergency!” I couldn’t keep myself from yelling.
In a feat of frightening flexibility, Laurel turned her neck while keeping the rest of her body straight and still. “There is only one emergency here. Sofia is in the middle of a transition.”
“Excuse me?”
“A transition. Perhaps the transition.”
“What?” I was flooded with panic, delirious in an instant. Wasn’t the transition death? “Is she going to die?” I don’t know why I asked Laurel that, like she was a real doctor.
“No, she is not.” Laurel’s eyes shone in the firelight. She swept a spindly little cricket arm over the crowd. “Sofia is a being of great power. We’ve all seen it. We are, each of us, witnesses. Perhaps you are the most important witness of all.”
She stood and walked toward Mom and me, where we knelt like a pair of salt and pepper shakers in the sandy soil.
“Now is your mother’s time, Van. I’m sure of it. Not three hours ago, we watched her levitate. She was floating six inches above the ground, at minimum. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Well, that explained Marine’s curt phone manners, at least. You couldn’t drop everything to pick a person up at the bus station while someone was levitating. I looked into Mom’s magenta-gold face. Over the course of my life, I’d watched her spin out into something dangerous and great dozens of times. I’d seen her rashness and unpredictability ebb and flow. I’d seen her retreat into almost nothing. But I’d never seen her wildness look like this—so still. Not without medication, anyway. I knew Mom was on something. I just didn’t know what.
“Mom,” I whispered, my face right in front of hers. I tried to block out all of the other sights. “Mom, please, I need you.”
“Yes, the people here need me, too,” she said. Her voice was much too even.
“This is crazy,” I said, trying to match her even tone. “Ida, a person we actually know and love, needs us right now. These people are insane. They’re nothing to us.”
“They’re everything,” Mom said. “Each of these men and women is as dear to me as you, or as Ida.”
“What? What are you even saying right now?” I stood up and sat back down. I was dizzy with fury.
“I am a part of all things. A part of you, but a part of them, too. They need me here.”
“Jesus, Mom!” I grabbed her shoulders, my fingers sinking into the thin layer of flesh there. “This is not the time to fuck around!”
Mom slapped me. It was something that she’d never done before. A sting across the side of my face, and then it was over.
“You will be quiet,” she said. “Either you stay and help me, or you will leave.”
I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t really Mom behind that magenta face paint, but it didn’t matter. I felt myself crying. I felt the anger and injustice of the terrible evening with every breath I took.
“Van,” Laurel said, again filling my name up with that amen sound. “The spirits sent you to us, to your mother, at the most crucial moment. Tomorrow, our sister and prophet, Sofia, will begin a journey unlike any other she has known. Unlike any journey any of us has known. Tomorrow night, we move as one into the canyon, where Sofia will receive a divine visitation from our cosmic masters.”
“Oh my God,” I said, and put my hands over my face.
“Yes, oh my God and oh my Goddess,” Laurel shouted to the crowd. Their murmurs and whoops filled the air like confetti.
I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders—Marine’s.
“Laurel, Sofia, I’m going to put Van to bed. She needs to rest.” Marine lifted me up, and I tripped along beside her, out of the tent, through the sweating, whirling crowd, and into the cold, clear night.
I wondered if Mom really believed she was their prophet, I mean down inside who she really was underneath this wave of her wildness. Mom’s faith in her abilities had always been maniacal. When I was five, I broke my arm. I fell down a crumbling staircase in a condemned house we stayed in for a
few months. I remember the rush of pain, that I threw up. Mom wiped my mouth and looked straight into my eyes, like I was an adult, like she and I were the same.
“Be calm,” she said, her voice low and even. “Mama will fix it.”
I stared into the smooth skin of her cheek as she reset the bone, gripping my wrist tightly and pulling slowly, slowly out. I imagined that when she was done pulling, my arm would be as long as hers. My face was hot, the tears still on my slack cheeks, but I was quiet as Mom pulled and pulled. I saw the click behind her eyes when she knew that she’d pulled long enough. She beamed a smile of triumph. “There’s my brave girl. Hold still.” I nodded and kept as still as I could while Mom bound my limb.
So much of my life with Mom had been just that—nodding and keeping still, waiting for her magic to take effect. If Mom’s faith in her abilities was maniacal, mine matched, maybe even exceeded it. After all, my arm healed perfectly. I trusted her. I trusted that she knew what to do.
But something had changed—maybe I’d realized it in that slap—and I couldn’t trust her anymore.
Marine guided me through the opening of a dark green camping tent and over to a sleeping bag stretched out against one side. Somehow, she’d found my backpack and carried it along as we wound through the campsite.
“Sit down,” she said, her voice firm, like she was scolding a misbehaving pet. I was so empty and tired, that I did.
“What were you thinking, coming out here? I meant it when I said this is no place for you.” In the close confines of the tent, I noticed her real smell, noticed that her usual, commanding perfume was missing.
“I was thinking, Marine, that Ida is sick, really, really sick. Mom needs to help her. To help me.” I felt a horrible thickness in my throat.
“I understand how you might see it that way.” She nodded, bobbing her head along. “But this is something Sofia needs to go through. I know Laurel seems a bit much. And I admit, she’s much more . . . extreme now than when I first knew her.”
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