by Sonja Bair
“Why are you taking his side?” I asked with my mouth full of food.
“Good question. I’m not really sure. Maybe because you are too stubborn to see past some preconceived notions. And I’m seeing a problem happening between you and Alrik and David. Both of them are trying to get your attention, but you are holding them at arm’s length. For two high-strung men like that, you are setting up a situation that won’t have a happy ending.”
“I’ll be sure to tell them that you said they were high strung.”
“You know what I mean,” Elin said.
“So I probably shouldn’t go behind Alrik’s back and use some of David’s talents to help get more information about Jia?” I asked.
Elin stopped mid-bite and glared at me. “You aren’t.”
“Do you think that he would allow me to do it? Absolutely not. And let me tell you what gets my back up quicker than anything is someone telling me what I, a grown woman, can and cannot do. I’m thinking of this as a public service. I won’t tell Alrik, he won’t tell me not to, I won’t get fuming mad at him, he won’t get spitting angry at me. Much better. Besides, I would do it regardless of what he says, so it doesn’t much matter anyway.” The cashews in my food had gotten too soggy and didn’t have the crunch that I loved. I dropped the container on the table, dissatisfied.
Elin continued to glare at me. “I hope this information is worth it because he is going to be hard to take afterward.”
“Hopefully, afterward, I’ll have some information which will distract him from his childish reactions.”
“Let me know what I can do to help with the Jia problem.”
“Can you meet with the other Yin/Yang couple tomorrow? Perhaps you can add some information which will help them.”
Elin readily agreed. We both opened our fortune cookies. Elin’s read, “Walk the road of happiness and you will find joy.” Mine said, “Produced by the Chinatown Fortune Cookie Company.”
Chapter 15
David looked at me and nodded. Guessing from his reaction, there was enough of an energy trail left to access. I looked around, but there was no one as far as I could see. Pedro was on lookout, to prevent any interruptions while we were... away. Alrik had needed to do some work for his client, and I told him I needed to make a run to the grocery store. Which I did. And I would. After David and I checked out the site of the fire. I glanced back at David and returned his nod. The tingles and starburst that came with the last vision clouded my vision, but this time I was ready and didn’t trip over my own feet like the klutz I was.
My sight returned in patches until I could see normally. A bedroom. Looked American. There was a blue checked bedspread pattern on a white iron rod bed. The air was hot around me. I got a tingling on the back of my neck about a millisecond before I nearly had a heart attack. I was in Elin’s guest house, but seeing it through Jia’s eyes.
“Where is it, where is it?” I/Jia mutter beneath my breath. “And why can’t I let it go?”
My stomach feels horrible; I constantly feel like I’m about to vomit. But its felt this way for the last few days, so that’s nothing new. In fact, the day it started, I eventually stuck my finger down my throat, hoping that if I threw up, the feeling would go away. It didn’t work. There is also a piercing pain behind my left eye and a deep throb in my shoulder. I blink a few times. The tears which always seem to be hiding behind my eyelids swell, and my vision blurs a little. I stand up straight, close my eyes, and focus on an imaginary spot behind my eyelids.
The centering relaxes me, but not as much as usual. I push the pain to a back corner of my mind and mentally shut a door on it. The aches are still there, but I will not allow them to rule me.
Unfortunately, when the pain decreases, anger grows. How odd that I seem to be operating at such an elevated emotional state. I cannot run on anything but feelings, even if I see the illogic nature of them. My rational side is only a passenger on this runaway train of emotion. And as a passenger, I can observe and even analyze my actions, but the control of the train is beyond a passenger’s ability. Perhaps it would be possible to exist like this if I had a full range of emotions. If I could swing from blissful to panic to depressed to ecstatic, perhaps the extremes would even out and allow me to function. But I only seem to be able to manage the most base emotions: anger, fury, hatred, depression. In the beginning, I could manage feelings such as lust or gluttony or greed, but even those emotions are too rational for me now. And overriding everything is this feeling of falling. Constantly falling and never hitting the bottom. Perhaps if I could find the guidebook, I could find some comfort.
The anger rises to rage. It becomes fury. Memories of my training flood back into my head.
“To achieve peace, you must not fight so hard against the inevitable, Jia. Such fighting will only get in the way of nature.” Madam Wen would scold me. What would she say now? Should I allow this unbridled anger to flow over me and command my moods? Or did the death of Qiang create a disruption of nature which is an abomination itself?
In the end, it doesn’t matter. Rage clouds my vision and commands my limbs. I grab the large mirror resting on top of the dresser and yank it over my head. With all of my strength, I hurl it to the ground. I had expected to hear the twinkling and shattering of the glass into a thousand pieces—I am disappointed by a single crack down the middle of the mirror. It didn’t even have the decency to fall face down. It mocks me by reflecting my own image back to me, the crack intersecting my reflection right down the middle. I grab the dresser drawers and tug them out. I dump all the insides of the drawers and then, one by one, use the outside of the dresser to smash them to smithereens. I am satisfied by the cracking of the wood. I smile. What next? Find the book. I paw through my clothes, which I had carefully unpacked only a few days ago. Order to chaos. Thus is my life now.
There is a noise outside the door. Who dares to interrupt me?
“Hello? Anyone here? It’s Elin’s sister, Freya. I’m here to look for something.”
There was still a part of me, Freya, that was present in this memory. I cringed at the thought of seeing myself through another’s eyes. I wanted to run away, but I was a captive in another person’s body.
Yes. Freya. I remember her. She drove Qiang and me here. Her long blonde hair, freckles, blue eyes was such a contrast to my black hair and black eyes and clear skin. Always smiling and trying to find a joke. We could have been friends in another life. Okay, so far, I wasn’t too much of a jerk in her memory.
Freya jumps at my appearance. “Holy heart failure, Batman! Do you know that everyone is looking for you?” I flinched. Really, Freya? How did I think that was the best thing I could say at the time?
There was some cultural reference there that I previously would have eagerly asked her to explain in my attempt to understand Western culture. I didn’t care now. Freya is Western, I am Eastern. She is light and I am dark.
“But who are they looking for?” I reply. I was so far from Jia of the past that I didn’t think any of me remained. “Perhaps I still am Jia, but I don’t think so. I have abandoned all hope; therefore, what remains is hell.” I am in hell and I can’t stop falling.
Freya’s brow creases and worry is evident in her voice. “Talk to me, Jia. What has happened? Let us help you.”
I laugh, but I think the laugh was only in my head. “There is no help. You could never understand. Qiang and I were together as partners since our pairing ceremony when we were twelve years old. And we weren’t just together; we were one person, sharing everything. We were never supposed to exist without the other one.” I am torn and in two and I don’t like what remains.
“I am truly sorry for your grief, Jia. Help me to understand.” Freya seems concerned—unlike the hiker, who was too caught up in my sudden offer of carnal pleasure to spare a concern for the peculiar scenario. Alex, the man from whom I stole the car and went on the meth trip with, was too submerged in the drugs to even register the bizarreness of that circu
mstance. The drug dealer was too lustful of Alex’s money to concern himself with how Alex ended up with someone like me. After losing my own humanity with Qiang’s death, I am unimpressed with the humanity I see in others.
“Perhaps you are my guide, Freya. I have been looking for my guide. Are you my guide?”
Freya reaches for my hand. I take a step back. I have nothing to give her. “I certainly am here for you,” she says. “Why don’t we sit outside on the swing and you can tell me what has happened since Qiang died.”
I will accept her offer. I haven’t found the book and if she is my guide, perhaps I will not even need the book. We sit on the porch. The swing is a tan color, perhaps to hide the coat of dust which would be impossible to prevent from daily coating the cushions.
Strange, but my rage had calmed in the last few minutes. I latch onto the lack of feeling and take a breath. In that breath, memories of my life with Qiang flowed in. There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time when miserable.
“We shared one soul. We didn’t in the beginning, but after the ceremony, we became one. Not like in your Western tradition, but actually became one soul. We had separate thoughts and actions, but whatever affected his spirit would affect mine. He was more outgoing than I was, but with him, I became more social. He became more introspective. He loved to be in motion, but with me, he could rest. I went into Western literature because it provided some external perspective on life, not only Eastern philosophy. Qiang studied what you would consider Eastern Medicine. One extreme could not exist without the opposite. Together, we had a perfect balance. We were steps beyond the enlightenment we could have expected without each other. But we lost ourselves as well. We could never be only Jia or Qiang again.” The absurdity of what I said hit me and I laughed. “Or so we thought.”
The memories continued to flow. Qiang and I at our wedding day. Unlike what others supposedly feel, neither of us were nervous; we already felt each other’s emotions and could communicate without a word. Our first council together; the petition was to resolve two sisters’ fight over a family heirloom. Qiang anxiously admitting that he didn’t want to travel to the US, and my reassurance flowing over him about the safety of the trip. Qiang’s excitement at exploring the cave and his reassurance now flowing over me about the safety of the adventure. His need to protect me and spare my life during the cave-in, but his refusal to save Miguel’s life because it would mean giving his own. My split-second decision to make him save Miguel and then the consequence of Qiang’s death. The devastation as I feel Qiang die when the cave entrance crushed down on him. And in the moment of his death, the tear in our soul, ripping away my connection with Qiang. And my push of altruism dying with him. The anger which had calmed in the moments before comes raging back.
“Of course, we had to save Miguel! I never had a moment of hesitation giving Qiang my power. But he still was going to let the roof collapse on Miguel! How dare he! And how dare Miguel put us in that position!” Freya looks confused, but I can’t stop now. “I had to push the desire to save Miguel onto Qiang!”
And he left me with worse than nothing. Qiang needed to only die, but I had to live as a half a person with only acrimony as a companion. At first, I desperately wished I had died in the cave-in, but now I am starting to enjoy this acrimony. That change is what scares the remaining rational part of me the most.
“It was very honorable and noble to make a sacrifice for another person.”
Honorable? Does Freya think it is honorable and noble to force someone to die and then be left with only wickedness as a prize? “You know nothing of sacrifice! And you know nothing of good and evil! Do you really want to go there?” Perhaps I have gotten this wrong, perhaps I am the guide and Freya is the supplicant. Perhaps my job now is to show her the level of evil to which I could descend. My vision clouds, reason fades. I grab the first thing I can get my hands on, a piece of wood. I can feel splinters jam into my hand. I channel the pain into my swing. The wood connects with Freya’s head. There is a disturbing crunching sound. Freya collapses into a heap. I need to start the descent with her, but I am not finished here yet. It appears I do need my book.
***
The emotions I shared with Jia were still coursing through my body when I returned to the church parking lot and I realized that I was still shaking with anger. Jia’s emotions were powerful in this vision, much stronger than the other times. I flexed my fingers out when I realized I had them fisted in tight balls. My fingers cracked and popped as I stretched them. The anger slowly dissipated, although my shoulders were still trembling.
David’s voice reminded me that I wasn’t alone. “Are you okay, Freya? That vision was intense for me. I can’t imagine what it was like for you.” He looked over at me.
“I’m okay. Give me a second, though.” I rolled my shoulders to stop the trembling.
David was quiet for a moment and then started talking softly. “That energy trail felt different than the first time I traced it. It was much more intense and potent. That’s odd because the trail was older than before and, compared to losing your life partner, it was less of a traumatic event. Another oddity: the energy transfer in the vision is incredible. Werewolves communicate thoughts through vision, very little emotions or energy.”
Although I knew that David was only thinking out loud and wasn’t expecting a response, I added my two cents. “The power in their species is the flow of energy. Perhaps that is what is causing the difference.”
“Okay, if their power is energy flow, what is the meaning behind the vision? How does the scene with you help us figure out what is going on in her head?”
I didn’t reply. I was still fighting off Jia’s emotional backwash and wasn’t ready yet to dissect what we had seen.
“Heads up, David. Someone is coming.” Pedro’s shout drifted over to us.
David gently put his arm around my shoulder and guided me off the parking lot. My face was wet and it startled me to realize I was crying. I wasn’t sure what the tears were about. Maybe it was the combination of everything. I gracelessly wiped them away on my shirtsleeve. We crossed into the field. David guided us around some small bushes and through a ditch back up to our car, hidden in the scrub. Pedro was waiting for us there. He shifted from foot to foot, arms crossed. He raised his eyebrows at David, but David said nothing and opened the front passenger door for me. I got in, leaned my head back, and focused on the silence for a second. The tendrils of Jia’s anger and frustration still clung to me, even though I knew I was no longer in her head. I fished my phone out of my purse, plugged it into David’s stereo, and cued up Beethoven’s 4th Symphony. Unlike Beethoven’s odd-numbered symphonies, this one was playful and cheery. I let myself get carried away by the music. We were halfway to David’s home before I opened my eyes.
“What do you get when you pour root beer into a square cup?” I asked, looking between David and Pedro.
Pedro looked at me blankly. I guess this was not what he expected to hear from me. David, on the other hand, must have started to understand me a little better because without taking his eyes off the road, he smirked and gave me the required reply. “I don’t know. What do you get when you pour root beer into a square cup?”
“Beer.” I smiled broadly. I guess I had kicked Jia’s emotions out of my head if I could pull off that bad math joke.
David laughed out loud. There was silence from the backseat. I turned around and looked at Pedro.
“Hey Pedro, where does the general keep his armies?” Pedro sighed. Little did he realize that until he played along, I was going to keep going. And I have a long list of bad jokes memorized. “His sleevesies, of course!”
Still silence from the backseat. “Why do chicken coops have two doors? Because if they had four, they would be chicken sedans!”
Pedro gave a disgruntled half-laugh, half-snort. I smiled in victory and faced forward. Oddly, being trapped in Jia’s emotions had reminded me that I was my own person with my own emotion
s. I had struggled to become who I was, but after troubled times in my teenage years, I liked myself. I was here to help Jia as much as possible, but, push come to shove, this situation was her problem. She kept trying to drag me into her drama, but I did not need to be her partner. Relief swept over me and I felt better than I had in days. I picked up my phone, which was still connected to the stereo, and switched the music to something a little livelier.
Pedro finally gave a real laugh. “Really, Freya? “Dirt Off Your Shoulder?” You don’t strike me as a Jay-Z fan.”
“Hey, I’m feeling like a pimp right now. Wait, maybe not a pimp, exactly— but I’m feeling pretty good.”
“It sounds like you may have recovered from the vision, Freya. Want to give me a rundown of your impressions? Was there something that helped shed some light?” David asked.
“Hmmmm, let me think. First, Jia is completely unbalanced. We should stop trying to predict her next logical step because there isn’t a next logical step. Second, Jia has it in for me. I guess I was at the wrong place and the wrong time and became her focus. Third, she does have some sort of plan, illogical as it is, because she kept referring to the guidebook and looking for a guide. I think that should be our focus. Let’s try to figure out what in the world her guidebook could be. Those are my takeaways from that crazy trip. What are your thoughts?”