First thing we did was eat cookies and drink hot chocolate and chat. My mom went out to catch after-Christmas sales. So we had the place to ourselves. Annie and Kai got along really well. Although I guess that was to be expected, since Annie cured her and all.
Eventually, the topic turned to college applications. Annie asked if I had finished sending mine in. I said, “No.”
Annie gave me a stern look. She said, “Shade! Going off to college was our biggest dream. Why aren’t you following through on that?”
I said, “I don’t know. I’ve had a lot on my mind.” Boy, was that ever an understatement.
Annie said, “Are you planning to live with your mom in Roswell for the rest of your life?”
God. I thought this was Christmas. Not Halloween, the month of horrors.
I said, “No.”
Annie said, “January 1st is the deadline for applications at most colleges.
No! She couldn’t be right! Well, that would explain why Ms. Bell kept asking me every time she saw me for the past couple of weeks if I’d decided where I wanted to go. She kept saying, “I’m here every day after school if you need any help.”
Annie put down her mug of hot chocolate. Wearing a whipped cream mustache, which seemed really funny to me, she said, “OK. I know what we’re doing over this vacation. We’re helping you apply to college.”
Turning to Kai, Annie said, “What year of high school are you in?”
Kai said, “I’m homeschooled, but senior year. I’m in my senior year.” It sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
Annie said, “What are your plans for the future?”
Kai said, “I’m not sure.”
I knew she wanted to be a shaman, but it wasn’t my place to say it.
Annie said, “Well, same as I asked Shade: are you planning on staying in this trailer park forever?”
Ouch. That seemed a little rough. Sometimes Annie’s goth exterior cracked and you saw the upper crust of her background showing through.
Kai looked confused, and hurt.
I said, “Annie, Kai’s Navajo.” I looked at Kai with as much assurance as I could possibly convey that I wasn’t going to reveal her secrets. “She might want to stick around here and do some work with her tribe.”
Annie turned back to Kai and said, “You should reconsider. You could come back after college and help your people a whole lot more than you could without a college degree. You could go off and become anything, especially if you went on to earn a higher degree. You could come back as a doctor, a lawyer, anything.”
Kai stared at Annie. If she was anything like me, she couldn’t picture herself as a doctor or lawyer. That level of success was someone else’s world, not ours.
Annie tried a different approach. She smiled. Then she said, “How about we spend my time here helping you guys fill out your applications and get them submitted?”
I started to protest. I said, “Oh, no, Annie! This is your vacation!”
Annie insisted. “Exactly! Nothing means more to me than going off to college and changing the course of my life. You know that’s been true for a long time, Shade. I have really good grades. I was on my way to applying to college this year. Then I lost out on my chance. I’m a year behind because...” Pain filled her eyes. “Because ... well, because stuff happened.” She looked at me triumphantly. “Nothing would make me happier than helping you fill out your college applications. Pleeeease, Shade. Pleeeease let me do this.”
I moaned. I ended up saying, “OK,” before I was ready to actually commit to it.
One victim down, Annie then turned to Kai. She said, “I’d really like to help you fill out applications, too. You can always turn down the colleges later when they accept you, but you won’t have a choice if you don’t make the January 1st deadline.”
I noticed Annie said when they accept you, rather than if they accept you. Tricky. She was quite the salesperson.
Kai mimicked me. Groaning with the exact same tone I’d used, she seemed happy to be part of our group project.
Annie clapped her hands together and laughed with glee. She said, “Let’s get started! There’s no time like the present!”
Oh my God, she was worse than Ms. Rose. Which made me realize: If I really got through all these applications, Ms. Rose would be thrilled.
So, we spent the entire day filling out one application after another.
I dumped all the brochures out of the bag Ms. Rose had given me. Annie was delighted; I was horrified. Seeing all those top schools for Journalism intimidated me no end.
Annie was undaunted. She paged through every one. Then, just like a teacher, she handed out instructions. Giving me the booklet for Northwestern University, she said, “I’ve heard of this one. It has an amazing reputation for its Journalism Department. Every college has online applications. Apply that way. It’s easier, you don’t have to worry about mailing it in or whether or not they got it, and you’ll beat the deadline no problem.”
Feeling like a dutiful child, I went to Northwestern’s website and found their Undergraduate Admissions page. I was thrilled to discover there was such a thing as the Common Application—a single form accepted by many colleges, sometimes with extra materials required; but, still, one form that could be submitted to multiple schools. NYU, Boston U, and Syracuse U all used the Common Application! Things were looking up in terms of workload. University of Missouri took extra time, but that’s only because they had a boatload of Journalism majors and I spent quite a bit of time poring over them. It felt like walking through a toy store as a little kid—so many exciting possibilities. Documentary Journalism. Investigative Journalism. Magazine Writing. Photojournalism. I’d never realized that Photojournalism was a college major before, but it would allow me to combine journalism with art. I’d never been able to afford cameras before, but the school would have them.
Sadly, I discovered I’d missed the application deadline for the University of Missouri because it was December 1st, but that was OK; I could still apply to all the others. Thank God our school had offered the SAT during school hours and I’d taken it and done OK. If I’d had to schedule it myself, I totally would have forgotten about it.
The only things I’d have left to do would be getting references from teachers and guidance counselors and having my grades and test scores forwarded.
As soon as I finished with each booklet, Kai looked through it. She decided she’d apply everywhere I applied. At Northwestern, she’d apply for the Ancient Philosophy major. At NYU, a Religious Studies major. At Boston U, Anthropology and Religion. And at Syracuse U, Religion and Society. That fit, I guess. They weren’t exactly majors in Shamanism, but the areas of study were similar.
We took a break for dinner when my mom came home. Leftover roast beef and mashed potatoes and all the side dishes, which we all thoroughly enjoyed. My mom had a chance to get to know Annie.
For dessert, we just carried plates of cookies and mugs of hot chocolate into my room and got back to work, filling out college applications and thinking about the future.
My mom seemed a bit lost when we told her what we were working on. She’d just bought more Christmas decorations, 50% off the original price at the Day After Christmas Sale. She’d come home carrying bags of lights, houses and figurines for a tabletop village, and a sparkly cotton sheet that was made to look like snow. She’d announced rather cheerily, “We’ll make next year even more special.”
I’d be home for Christmas vacation. It wasn’t like I was going away forever.
By the time we finished filling out applications, it was after midnight. My mom had done the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. She was sitting in the living room, listening to Christmas music. The blinking lights on the Christmas tree were throwing eerie shapes across the darkened walls.
I don’t know if she was punch-drunk from exhaustion or what, but Kai said to Annie, “Hey, you want to see something?”
Annie said, “Sure.”
&
nbsp; Kai looked at me while replying to Annie. “I want you to meet my mom.” She turned to my own mom and said words I’ll never forget: “You should meet her, too.”
I vigorously shook my head no and made my eyes go super-wide. What was she thinking? But Kai had zipped off to grab a jacket and didn’t notice me.
My mom said, “That would be really nice, Kai.”
So, off we went, The Three Musketeers ... and my mom.
Kai’s house was even eerier than mine. All the lights were off. When she opened the front door, we were greeted by total blackness punctuated only by the blinking light of a smoke detector.
Kai ran to plug in all her Christmas lights. They produced the same effect mine did in an otherwise darkened room. Weird shapes of colored light danced across the walls and ceiling: creatures emerging from another dimension.
Kai waggled a finger at us. She said, “C’mon.”
Following her into her mother’s bedroom, we saw ... nothing. I breathed such a sigh of relief, you have no idea.
I was just about to say to my mom, “I’m really tired. You want to go back home and call it a day?” when Kai’s mom and aunt suddenly floated through the wall and into the room.
Kai introduced them to Annie and my mom like nothing strange had happened.
Focusing almost totally on my mom, they told her how delighted they were to finally meet her.
My mom did not return the favor. Her jaw dropped. Literally. Her mouth just hung wide open. No manners. Just that.
It was all way too surreal.
Then my mom bolted. She ran out of the room and out the front door.
I let her go. The rest of us stayed about an hour, chatting about Christmas and other things, including whether or not we should have introduced the ghosts to my mom.
Kai gave her Christmas gifts to her mom and Aunt Doli. Lighting the candles, she showed them how the angel carousel worked. They were delighted. As the angels spun faster and faster around their little carousel, we heard the tink-tink-tink sound of metal touching metal.
Kai’s mom said, “We have a gift for you as well.” They weren’t able to go shopping. Which made a whole lot of sense, considering how that might terrify the customers. But Kai’s mom said she had taken out life insurance before she died and made Kai the beneficiary. She said, “I want you to know that you’ll be OK at least for a few years.”
When Kai told her mom she’d just applied to college, tears flowed down her mom’s face. I don’t know what they were made of, but they totally looked like ghost tears. Her mom said she’d never felt happier. She said, “You’ll be OK, Kai. I just know it. You’re going to do better in life than I ever did.”
Kai’s aunt nodded. “Same here. Don’t make the same mistakes we made in our lives. Do things right. And don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.” She rolled her eyes and added, “No matter how cute he is.”
Finally, Kai’s mom blew out the candles. As the metal angels slowed down, she said, “We better call it a night. It’s really late.”
Kai asked her mom, “Is this the last time I’ll ever see you?”
Her mom said, “We’re not leaving yet. I sense our time here is short, but I actually think we’ll be here at least until the new year.”
Kai smiled. She told Annie and me to go ahead back to my house; she’d catch up in a little while.
As soon as I opened my front door, I smelled alcohol. It smelled like a freaking bar—late at night, after the booze had been flowing and drinks had been spilled. I felt humiliated in front of Annie.
My mom was sitting alone in the dark, Christmas lights blinking and one of the plastic Santas absurdly singing, Jingle Bells ... Jingle Bells ... Jingle Bells, over and over again like a broken record. My mom had fallen asleep, one arm wrapped around a bottle of whiskey, a glass of the stuff in her other hand. The bottle had tilted to the side, spilling whiskey onto the rug and all over a two-foot Santa.
I never knew before what a moment of insanity felt like. Rage and humiliation poured into me. I went berserk.
Stepping through the doorway, I let out some kind of banshee scream. The intensity of it probably should have scared me and been a warning for me to stop, but I was too far gone. I wrenched the bottle out from the crook of my mother’s arm. Throwing it across the room, I screamed, “What is wrong with you? What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you doing this?” The bottle smashed against the wall, glass shattering, brown liquid dripping down the wall like poisoned blood. The place stank of alcoholism and addiction and my own horribly shattered childhood.
My mother woke with a start. She stared into the gloom as though seeing ghosts straight from the pit of Hell. Dropping her half-filled glass, she managed to ruin the couch with the stench of her addiction.
Drunk and struggling to understand what was going on, she said, “Shade?”
Grabbing the glass off the couch, I twirled around like a discus thrower and let it fly. As it went sailing into the Christmas tree, smashing a bunch of ornaments I had bought with my own hard-earned money, I burst into tears. Screaming, “I hate you!” at my mother, I pushed past Annie and took off for ... God knows where.
Running across our front yard, I tried to gather my unraveling thoughts. I was coming apart faster than I could put myself back together again. What was Annie thinking? How could I leave her alone with my mother? What if she went back into a catatonic state? I’m a horrible, horrible person. I ruined Christmas. I’m a monster. It was my mother’s fault. It was my fault. I never, ever wanted Annie to see this!
Reeling from shame and humiliation and a rage I couldn’t quantify or control, I took off for the cave where Kai and I had found the serial killer and the ghost. Knowing they were both long gone and the bats that infested the place were probably gone for the night, I headed out into the desert.
Passing by the desert willow with the cacti growing beneath it, the place where a UFO had been sighted and Bobby Huffman had thought he’d been beamed up into one, and Moonjava had shot his assault weapon at a guy whipping a mountain lion—yeah, that place, that weird, weird place—I just stomped on by, oblivious to danger, to cold, to anything. I just wanted to get away. Truth be told, I wanted to go live in a cave. All by myself. Forever.
As I approached the cave, I saw something I wasn’t prepared to deal with. The hugest mountain lion I had ever seen! There seemed to be something wrong with it. It was staggering, having trouble walking.
Then, oh my God, I saw what looked like two feral pigs. They were both large, but one of them was massive. At least three feet high and five feet long, it could have easily weighed three or four hundred pounds. Afraid to move or make a sound, I froze.
Suddenly, the more monstrous of the two pigs turned in my direction. It sniffed the air repeatedly, snorting and sucking in air. Becoming agitated, the two pigs let out a sound that I can only barely describe. It was deep and guttural, something far more frightening and primitive than anything in horror movies. The thought of werewolves passed through my mind. But these were feral pigs.
I realized the mountain lion had probably been wounded by these gruesome creatures. Which meant that I stood no chance whatsoever against them.
As the wild pig lost interest in me or whatever scents might be floating on the wind, it leapt onto the mountain lion and sank its massive teeth into its neck. The sound of the victim dying and the pigs attacking and feasting will haunt me forever.
Taking advantage of the fact that the mountain lion was in no shape to hunt me down and the pigs would soon be sated, I ran for my life back home.
Adrenalin still flowing through my veins from my close encounter with death, I felt somewhat ready to face my shame and humiliation and the destruction I’d wreaked when I finally made it back to my trailer, out of breath and wheezing.
Opening the front door, my hands started shaking even harder than they’d already been. My racing heart sped up so fast, I thought I’d have a heart attack.
No one was anywhere to
be seen.
The living room had been cleaned up. It smelled like a combination of whiskey and cleaning products and leftover dinner. The shattered glass from the whiskey bottle, the drinking glass, and the broken Christmas tree ornaments was all gone, as though my fit of rage had never destroyed them.
Taking a deep breath, I headed off to my bedroom. Cracking the door a few inches, I peeked in to see if Annie was OK. She seemed OK. She was sitting on the bed, watching an anime show I didn’t recognize.
Looking up at me with fear in her eyes, she asked, “Are you OK?”
I said, “Yeah. I was hoping I didn’t shock you ... or hurt you ... too much.”
Annie looked surprised. She said, “No. Not at all. Your mom’s kind of a mess, though.”
I said, in a voice cold as ice, “Yeah, now tell me something new.”
Annie said, “No, I mean she was a mess because of you. She cried for a long time, saying how she ruined Christmas.”
I replied, “Well, she did ruin Christmas.”
Annie said, “Not really. She’s never seen ghosts before. Not everyone’s going to be able to handle that real well.”
I felt my temper rising like the mercury on a thermometer during a bout of dangerously high fever. I started losing it. I said, “Look. I’ve had to handle a whole lot more. Ghosts. Faeries. And ... you don’t know the half of it! Things I’ve gone through with the skinwalkers and shapeshifters have been such a nightmare, there were times I felt like I was completely losing my mind!”
I couldn’t read the expression on Annie’s face, but it wasn’t good. She looked shocked and confused. I wasn’t sure of the cause: my mentioning that I’d been dealing with so many paranormal creatures, or the depth of my rage?
Annie said, “What’s happening with the skinwalkers and shapeshifters?”
I was never so glad to be upstaged by creatures more frightening than me during total meltdown.
I said, “A lot.” Then for the next hour, I filled her in.
Shade and the Skinwalkers Page 28