by Paul Sating
***
Sounds came in a wave of clarity; her own vision took longer while seeing through Atsidi’s eyes was lost. Bullets had stopped flying; the fighting had ended. Serenity wasn’t sure when everything ended. The Screecher wasn’t standing over her and Jerrod anymore. In fact, she was on her back in the sand, Jerrod holding her head aloft. She didn’t remember falling.
“Sis, please come back,” Jerrod was saying, tears in his eyes. “Please, sis. Ma…Ma…,” he sobbed.
Jerrod’s reaction unlocked the door that hid the secret to her confusion. The conversation hadn't been her own. She was too weak to connect with Atsidi, and it wasn’t a mad spirit conversing with itself. Serenity hadn’t been talking to him. She was listening to him talk to someone else.
Her mother.
Serenity jumped up, noticing the two hundred people—half that who braved this fight at the start—scattered unconscious around the battlefield. The Screecher lay prone, its head facing Ida. Then it slithered toward her, slow, almost cautiously friendly, like the slow wag of a dog’s tail. Its opaque form rolled effortless through the sand and over metal scraps and decimated bodies.
No, Momma, no! Serenity yelled into the void. If the universe were fair, if there was any god in the heavens, her mother and Atsidi would listen to her. They would allow her to take Atsidi’s place. They had to. Her mother—her loving, protective, annoying mother—had already sacrificed so much throughout her life. She couldn’t sacrifice more. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
I’m here to release you, the voice said. My spirit is yours. Let go.
Please, no!
“Stop!” she yelled, racing forward. Too late. The Scales, the world, exploded in blinding light, burning out existence itself. Serenity was falling…falling…falling…
***
Serenity opened her eyes to a turquoise sky. She pushed up to her elbows, wincing as the sounds of life flooded in between her quarantined breaths. The world refocused. She was at the Scales, sprawled in the sand alongside a hundred of her fellow residents. Bodies littered the area. More than before. Too many.
Serenity, remembered.
“No! Momma!” she bellowed.
Her mother was the Caller.
“Porkchop?”
“Jerrod?!”
He struggled to his feet, extending a hand to her. “Are you okay?”
Was she? Serenity allowed him to pull her up, looking around. The absence was profound. And in the place where Ida had faced the Screecher, there was now only one.
“Look,” she croaked, pointing.
The Screecher, coiled so that most of its immense body hid within itself, its head-end lowered to the ground, swayed back and forth. No longer an opaque blue haze, the Screecher was a solid rose-color. Rose, the favorite color of—
“Ma!” Jerrod reached for a pistol at his feet, crying. “You son of a bitch!”
He surged toward the Screecher. Serenity chased, her tears washing the sand from her eyes.
“Stop,” she yelled, grabbing his shoulder and holding him. “Stop, Jerrod.”
He started to say something and stopped. “Ma,” he cried.
The Screecher slithered toward them through the sand. Serenity waited.
“It’s okay,” she told Jerrod when he tensed.
I love you, my children, so, so much, the androgynous voice, slightly more effeminate than before, said. Serenity sobbed at the subtle difference, her mother’s transformation confirmed. Her chest heaved. She screamed. She was supposed to free Atsidi. Her. Not the woman who’d already done so much; who had done everything.
Why? Serenity asked, grateful that she didn’t have to speak. She didn’t trust her voice anymore.
I was a Caller too, the voice in the void said. I have just as much a right as you do. I have the responsibility too.
“It was supposed to be me,” Serenity argued through tears that would not cease, slightly aware that Jerrod watched her with wide eyes.
“What are you talking about, Porkchop?” He stepped closer.
No, child, no, the voice said. Either one of us could have been. But only us, because we woke it. You, here at the Scales, and me, when I was a girl. Atsidi was worried he’d be trapped forever. Just the two of us could free Atsidi. I wouldn’t allow that to happen to my baby. This had to be the way. It’s okay. I’m at peace.
“But Momma,” she cried. “I don’t want to go on without you.”
Jerrod looked at her as if she'd spontaneously sprouted wings. “Wha—what’s going on, Serenity? Why are you—”
“It’s her,” Serenity said, painfully pulling her eyes away from the mother-Screecher. “Momma.”
His eyes danced between them, and then he tipped his head in the direction of a man laying twenty feet away, the closest victim of the violence. Her father. And he was beginning to stir. In fact, a number of Tri-Countians were now. None were fully awake yet, so they posed no immediate threat, but they soon would. And just as soon, her mother would be in danger.
The mother-Screecher slithered closer with smooth, delicate movements, so unlike before.
“It’s okay,” she whispered to Jerrod.
A thin rose-colored tendril stretched out from the mother-Screecher’s side, flowing up past its head toward Jerrod who took a step backward. The tendril hovered there, radiating warmth.
“It’s her, Jerrod.” Serenity encouraged him through the tears, placing her own hand on the tendril and feeling overwhelming love.
Jerrod eyed Serenity but copied her gesture. Togetherness; a family united. Though not the same as a hug from her mother, the fulfillment was still the type only a loving parent provided. In that moment, one Serenity wanted to last forever, she needed nothing else. Here, she was safe. Here, she was loved. And here, she wanted to stay.
I must go, the mother-Screecher said, its connection with Serenity so deep that it understood her rawest emotions. The survivors are waking, and I need to be the thing of dreams before they do.
“Don’t go, Momma,” Serenity begged, not caring about feeling childish.
The tendril pulsed. I must, child, the voice said kindly. This isn’t my place.
“But.” Serenity gripped her mother’s strange new body. “I don’t know what to do, Momma.”
We have a duty to each other, the voice answered. Atsidi wasn’t at peace. If you hadn’t woke him, another would have. Even if by accident, Atsidi would have found a Caller because he had grown restless. His spirit had been separated from his people for too long. Desperation makes people do horrible things, baby, and Atsidi was desperate to leave this world. I thought the connection was gone, gone forever, but the day you and your brother came home from this place, I knew the Screecher was back. Why do you think I wanted you to stay away from all of this? The Scales, the desert; Patch and George? The more you discovered, the more the connection strengthened, the more you understood the power within you to change his fate… and yours. It gets stronger, you know. Over time, you wouldn’t have been able to deny him. It got harder for me too, and I had to figure it out on my own. That old man, the mother-Screecher’s laugh was a deep, sad rumble, he frightened me to death when we met him at the cafe. That’s when it all made sense. Decades of feelings becoming clear. I’ve never been so scared.
“But you’ve done everything for me, Momma,” Serenity argued, “for us. It’s not right!”
No, the voice answered, pulling the tendril back into itself. No, you have dreams and promise, a gift the world needs. Dreams need to live. The Tri-Counties is no place for someone like you. You need to see the world. Go to California. Get your education and change the world. Anything else wouldn’t be fair, my child. The mother-Screecher sagged, the head swaying side to side. They wake. I must go.
The mother-Screecher slid backward, its immense tail digging into the sand. Sorrow wracked Serenity, an immense, unbearable weight. She wasn’t ready. It was too soon. George was gone. Patch. Oh God, Patch. She couldn’t say goodbye.
> Oh, the voice said as more of its solid rose-colored body sank, and take your brother with you. The Tri-Counties is making him lazy.
The ugly laugh burst out of her, through the tears, turning into a laughing cry as her mother-Screecher slid beneath the sand that would protect it. All that was left was an indistinguishable pyramid of sand.
Serenity turned, sobbing into Jerrod’s chest, the last family she had in the world.
“What did she say, Serenity?” he asked. “Where is she going?”
Serenity pressed her forehead against Jerrod’s sweaty shirt. Her words came in the gaps between deep sobs. “Momma wanted me to tell you she loves you very much, but it’s time for you to get off your ass.” She laughed and cried, cried and laughed.
Jerrod buried his head in her shoulder and sobbed. She held her older brother in a protective embrace and cried along with him.
People, warriors of the Tri-Counties, stirred and groaned, confused by what they saw around them. More people were waking, sitting up, holding their heads, rubbing their necks, massaging their temples. Mitzie bent over, palms on knees. Twenty yards away, she saw a body on its side, partially blocked by a large man who didn’t appear to be breathing, its back turned in her direction. In a glimmer of hope, she thought the dark arm, much darker than one of George’s people, meant that her mother might still be with them, that she hadn’t swapped with Atsidi and that the old spirit had found peace another way. But then the person sat up, holding his head. His. Jerry Johnson. Serenity was glad he was okay. Serenity held Jerrod. Over the acrid smell of wasted bullets and bodies, she held him.
Even when Deputy Rodgers checked on them, Serenity didn’t let go of her brother. “You two okay?”
“Yes.” She tried to hide her personal devastation from the deputy, who looked beaten and broken. “Are you?”
He inspected his arm by gripping his bicep, allowing him to test his range of motion. “I’m going to make it.” The arm stopped swinging. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, Serenity. If I had, none of this—”
“Don’t.” She reached out, touching his shoulder. “Without you, we wouldn’t have been able to get my family, get rid of the Black Suits, or survive the Screecher. Thank you for helping us.”
Rodgers’ mouth moved but nothing came out. He seemed to be struggling with how to respond. Instead, he ran the hand of his good arm through his hair, filling it with small speckles of sand, and glanced over his shoulder at the injured and dead. “I need to,” he stumbled.
“Go,” she said. “We’re okay. The Tri-Counties needs you.”
The deputy lowered his head and moved off to help the injured.
Serenity continued holding Jerrod, shielding his sobs from observers. When Mitzie Carmichael laid a shaking hand on the back of Serenity’s head, she didn’t turn, but pressed against the older woman’s touch. “Thank you for helping me see my strength, Mitzie.”
The older woman’s mouth quivered as she held back tears and moved away with a noticeable limp.
Even when Jerry Johnson ambled their way, a dumbfounded expression painted on his face, Serenity held her brother. Before he got close, he stopped, examining the pair. Serenity glared fiercely, hoping to discourage him from interfering in this moment. Blinking seemed impossible until Jerry looked away. He pursed his lips and tried to cross his arms, yelping and grabbing his wrist.
Serenity didn’t laugh, took no joy in his pain or his defeat.
Jerry Johnson wasn’t her focus.
She squeezed Jerrod harder.
He squeezed her back, just not as hard.
Everything would be okay.
Epilogue
Six Months Later
“Here,” Jerrod handed her the folded piece of paper. His stupid smile made Serenity laugh just the same. Laughing was getting easier as memories faded. They would always be there, somewhere in the core of who she was as a person. Each sunrise put another day’s distance between her and that life of sorrow and longing. With each sunset, she breathed more easily, laughed more loudly and loved more fully.
Serenity slung a quizzical look at Jerrod but held tight to the paper. The breeze coming off the ocean threatened to pull it from her grasp.
“What is this?”
Jerrod smirked. He’d changed too since they left the Tri-Counties, but somewhere behind those focused eyes was the playful and irritating older brother she always adored.
“Just open it.” Jerrod gestured at the paper, laying back on his beach towel with a theatrical sigh, hands folded underneath his head.
She let out a yelp. “Oh my God, Jerrod.” She hugged him. “This is amazing!”
“Well,” he said, “it’s not Pepperdine, but I’m happy about it. Plus, Ventura isn’t too far. We’ll still be able to hang out.”
She blinked away a sudden tear. “Just don’t get too comfortable with us hanging out. You need to focus on school!”
He laughed and put her in a headlock. Two young boys, no more than six, ran by, staring at them. “He’s being mean to her,” one said to the other as they race toward the crashing waves of the Pacific.
Jerrod released her, sticking his tongue out at the boys. Serenity drew a deep breath and stared into the sea, tasting the salt on the breeze. “This is beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he breathed, laying back on the sand. “It is.”
Serenity sensed the deluge of memories too late to distract herself with something, anything, else. She drifted back to the Tri-Counties and everything they’d left back there. This wasn’t Hollywood—though she was closer to it now than she ever thought she’d be—and real life didn’t have those endings. More than three hundred people never went home after the battle with the Black Suits and the Scr—with Atsidi. The face of the Tri-Counties had changed forever that day, including the promise of its people. She saw that now. Without its people, she wouldn’t have this, with Jerrod, right now.
And the Tri-Counties seemed to experience a rebirth since that fateful day. Mitzie Carmichael, sweet as she was for helping them with all the legal aspects of selling the house and handling their mother’s affairs, still wrote, but the missives came less often now. When she did, though, she filled her letters with the latest news of a new store opening, a new neighborhood being built, or the new cultural events at the Community Center that were drawing vendors, entertainers, and families from all over the Tri-Counties, including the reservation.
The battle at the Scales was the last time Serenity had interacted with them, and that was for the best.
Though she’d lived her entire life in Rotisserie, it was no longer home; California was, and she loved it. Sure, it was crowded and expensive, and sometimes it smelled a lot worse than Patch, but it was everything she'd hoped for. Filled with strange people, this was a place where she could chase dreams.
“I wish Momma could have seen this,” she said. “I think she’d love the ocean.”
This time, Jerrod wasn’t a smartass. “Yeah, but you know she would have complained about how there’s 'people on top of people' here. Or how this heat is too damp and so much worse than the desert heat.”
Serenity snickered. “Yes, she would have, but I miss it.”
“Me too,” he said, barely above the ocean breeze. “She would have been so proud of your ridiculous GPA.” Jerrod gave her a playful shove. “You’re such a brain, I swear.”
“No, I just study.” Serenity winked. “You should try it some time.”
“Nah.”
They laughed, and he hugged her again. That happened more often since they moved to California. It also gave her a chance to cry without him noticing. While they embraced, she would let as many tears go as she could, one for every single person who helped them. For Ricky. For Mitzie. For Deputy Rodgers and George. For Patch. For her mother. Who knew? One day she might even cry a tear for Jerry Johnson.
Someday.
Maybe.
Serenity held Jerrod, squeezed him, looking down the length of sandy b
each where people played, strolled, relaxed, and enjoyed life under the California sun—kids building sand castles, young couples holding hands across beach towels, older couples strolling in the wet border between scorching sand and crashing waves. Tomorrow she’d be back in the routine of studying and writing papers, but today was a day to spend with her brother, to enjoy life her way. A day to dream.
Over Jerrod’s shoulder, she watched one of the volleyball games toward the back of the beach. Something caught her attention where the wall of sand dune sedge waved in the wind. Serenity rubbed her eyes.
A slight bulge in the sand, rounded and about the size of a beach ball, moved casually…as if whatever burrowed underneath the beach gleefully explored a new world, a new life.
THE END
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