Soul Loss

by Amber Foxx

  “Maybe.”

  She sounded like she doubted his ideas. As she should—he was fishing. The ancient Mayan glyph for having a spiritual experience was a hand grasping a fish. Perfect image. Slippery and submerged.

  Jamie’s phone rang. Expecting Naomi, he answered without checking the caller ID. Kate’s fierce, frustrated voice shot into his ear.

  “We just got in at Tim’s place. Dahlia was coming out of her building with a suitcase. Tim tried to talk to her but she was in too big a hurry. Did you and Mae—”

  “No. We didn’t.” They’d told Kate a little of their plan. She hadn’t shown much faith in it, but after paying for Andrea to join the drum group and then finding out that she wouldn’t even be able to meet Dahlia, she’d been at a loss for any other ideas. In retrospect, setting up a threesome and turning it into an empathic conversation about Dahlia missing her father and then healing her had been absurd. Jamie could see why Kate had been skeptical, but he didn’t want to hear her say I told you so. “Sorry. Better let you talk to Mae. Dahlia’s worse than we thought.”

  He handed off the phone and took over unbraiding. It hurt again, but it was better than having Kate yell at him. Mae described the events up through Gasser’s near death, and explained that the model had gotten the perfume ad campaign she wanted and was headed to New York or LA, Mae didn’t know which. “As far as I know, she won’t be back until the fair.”

  Kate’s response was so loud Jamie could almost make out what she said. He heard fear under the anger. Mae said, “I hope not, but her mama’s coming here to try to see her, and Dahlia hates her mama.”

  Mae handed the phone back to Jamie, told him to put it in speaker mode, and began brushing his hair. He whispered his thanks, and then said to Kate, “We’re trying to make sure Naomi stays safe. Can we ban Dahlia from the fair? Not let her in?”

  “What—have every ticket seller refuse to sell to every tall skinny white girl? Have her picture up like a wanted poster?”

  “Of course not,” Mae said. “We’ve got plenty of time to warn Naomi to avoid her. Dahlia needs to be there. It’s the one chance to turn around. I’ll ask her to go with me to see her Daddy, and—”

  Kate cut in. “This is just your last plan that didn’t work, recycled with you as the healer instead of Jamie. And that makes it even worse. I thought you liked her too much to be safe.”

  “I didn’t say I’d heal her. I’m gonna try to talk to her about ... I don’t know exactly.” Mae ran the brush through Jamie’s hair a few times. “Something that’ll make her quit on her own.”

  “I have no idea what that would be.”

  “Was there anything in your reading? After what Jamie’s been through with Dahlia, I think you should share that with him.”

  After a pause, Kate said, “The cards—the Hierophant, someone with secret knowledge, and the Tower—something getting torn down ... They could mean you’re going to succeed. But that car crash, and the owl—I hope that doesn’t mean she tries to kill her mother first.”

  *****

  In a flowing purple dress that flattered her rosy coloring and periwinkle eyes but not her figure, Naomi strode across the hotel room to embrace Jamie. “This is so exciting.”

  He returned the hug with weary arms that felt as if something was hanging from them. Mae had gone back to T or C. She had a personal training client who wanted to schedule a session and there was no more work for her to do in Santa Fe until the fair opened. Jamie had assured her that he’d be fine, but in the days since she’d left her absence was like a hole in his bed. Lonely for the first time since signing the contract with Dr. G, he’d ended up repainting his kitchen and eating chocolate at four in the morning.

  Naomi half-released him, beaming up into his face. “I get to see you and Harold in the same show. And Lily—oh my god—I might see Lily.”

  “Yeah—we need to talk about Lily. Don’t see her until you hear what she’s done.”

  “Oh, she’s always been a handful.” Naomi tapped Jamie under the chin, and then grabbed his middle. “And you’re an armful. Settled down with a good cook, have you?”

  “Fuck, no—Mae can’t cook and we’re not settled. I got fat without her.” As Naomi released her playful hold on him, he realized he sounded grouchy. “Sorry. We need to talk.”

  “About Lily? Relax. Everything’s fine. She called me. She actually called me.”

  Naomi hurried across the room to take a phone from her big flowered bag and played a voice mail message. Lily’s cool, expressionless voice said, “Mother, I thought you’d like to know—I’m going to be the face of Jeteuse. I’ll bring you a drop. See you at Spirit World Fair.”

  “Jeteuse.” His French was rusty, but the word rang a bell. “What’s that?”

  Naomi dropped the phone back in the bag. “A new top-of-the line perfume. She’ll be the face of the brand. That’s quite a coup at her age.” She settled into an armchair. “Of course, she got an early start. Did you know I was her first modeling agent?”

  “No. You never said.”

  “I caught her selling drugs when she was sixteen. We’d tried to teach her to value simplicity but she always wanted more, so I showed her she didn’t have to hurt people to get rich.”

  “Fuck—you rewarded her?”

  “I educated her.” Naomi fluffed her hair back over her shoulders. “Punishment doesn’t work.” She glanced down, and her voice faded. “I learned that the hard way.”

  “But—drugs? My parents would have grounded me for a year if I did something like that.”

  She shook her head and pressed her hands to heart. “You may not understand this, but ... I had to love her without anger, no matter what she did.”

  Jamie took the chair from the desk and turned it around to sit facing her with his arms folded over the back. He remembered Naomi as full of excessively positive beliefs, some of them implausible. It had made her cheerful company on his Asheville stop, but it bothered him now. It was going to be hard to get through to her.

  She had an altar set up on the bedside table, with little statues of various goddesses, smudge sticks of sage and cedar, and some prayer beads. Her drum sat near the window, and the full opus of Jill Betts books lay on the small dining table. He didn’t know where to start. When he had to say difficult things, he either exploded, or yabbered and then exploded. No, he was learning not to do that.

  “I’m feeling a little anxious telling you this.” Good. Found the feeling and said it. “Y’know she’s been studying with Jill.”

  “Of course. I’m sure that’s why Lily finally called. A woman to woman healing. It’s in the Sacred Cycles book, about the maiden, mother, and crone stages. As we move through them we often have chances to heal at the cusp of these phases. Lily may be ready to move into the mother phase as I move into the crone—”

  “Bloody hell, she’s not in some mother phase.” Fucking Jill drivel. “She’s a witch.”

  “Wiccan? How wonderful.”

  “Not some berry-stringing harp-playing pagan—I mean an actual witch.” The French word’s translation came to him. “A spell-caster. Jeteuse.”

  “Oh my goodness, how magical—is that what that means? What a beautiful synchronicity.”

  “Jesus. It’s not beautiful. Listen to me. Lily’s not Glinda the fucking good witch. She steals healers’ power, like a spiritual vampire—”

  “That is not just ugly, it’s preposterous. She was a difficult child, but she isn’t bad. Just wounded.”

  “And you thought Jill Betts could heal her?”

  Naomi nodded. “I think she has. You heard that message.”

  “That’s not why she called. Lily wants to hurt you. She’s got powers that could kill you.”

  To his dismay, Naomi laughed. “Oh, Jamie, you’re such a worrier. Don’t be silly. Jill’s work is all about empowering. You get power, yes, but there’s no evil in it. My women’s circle has had such bonding through using her books.”

  “Through pl
aying drums together. Jill had nothing to do with it.”

  “Her books changed our lives.”

  Jamie paced to the window and stood rippling his fingers on the stack of Jill’s books. If Naomi could go through what Lily had done with her intentional pregnancy and abortion and still not believe her daughter capable of harming her, what could change her mind? His brain felt like wet wool. He flipped the page edges of The Woman in the Light, A Shaman’s Path to Healing, making a fluttering sound. Jill—healing. What a lie.

  “That’s the only one Lily liked,” Naomi said. “She thought the ones my circle uses for our ceremonies were stupid.”

  “You mean she read it before she came out here?”

  “Yes. I shared them all with her. She gave me such a hard time about my spiritual path. I wanted her to understand. After she read that book, she said Jill might be cool, for having gone off in the jungles. That was about it, but if you know Lily that rates as wild enthusiasm.”

  Jamie could picture Lily’s zombie manner of saying it, the hint of approval without warmth. He scanned the table of contents. Introduction. Jaguar Spirit. Anaconda Spirit. No owl spirit, but she might have gotten the idea here. Purging the Soul. Shared Visions. A Shadow on the Path. That sounded dark. He turned to it, a short chapter of three pages. In his peripheral vision he noticed Naomi watching while he read, smiling. She must think he’d been captivated and converted.

  A shaman does not need to be a good person, only a powerful person. Some whom we might call sorcerers get into spirit world battles with each other or inflict harm with their magic (1). Even the men and women we would call ‘good’ shamans seldom live exemplary lifestyles by Western religious standards, nor do they need to. It makes them understanding of their patients to be sinners themselves (2).

  This latter mild level of wickedness was all I expected at first, when I spent a week in the company of a man I hope never to meet the likes of again, a witch doctor of the Wayani tribe. He was a short, wrinkled man with thin bowed legs and a pot belly, one of the ugliest men I’d ever met, and the most powerful in his own way. I think my guide introduced me to him to see if he could spook the white woman out of the jungle.

  Jill wrote that she’d found the witch doctor frightening until she realized that his powers came from suggestion and reputation, not magic. He left bits of bone carved like tiny arrowheads in the hammocks of his enemies, and they got sick. Some went mad. If he made little ropes of their hair, they died. Jill said it was the fear of his curses that killed people rather than the sorcery itself and that this was her lesson. Our negative expectations kill us, not our enemies.

  Lily had proved otherwise. She did her cursing in secret with spirit arrows—and to poor Gasser who didn’t know she was twisting his hair into a death rope. No fear or belief was needed.

  Jamie checked the two citations. The second was John Lame Deer’s autobiography. The first was Stanley Ellerbee, Magic-induced death in Polynesian shamanism: a case study.

  “Isn’t her work marvelous?” Naomi came up beside him. “Look—you’re drawn right in.”

  “Read the fifth chapter.”

  “I already have. That’s where she proves that fear will destroy you. It’s a powerful lesson.”

  “No—you don’t get it.” He slammed the book shut. “It’s not a lesson, it’s not symbolic—it’s what Lily does. She’s like that witch doctor—”

  “Jamie, Jamie.” Naomi patted his arm. “You have more fears—”

  “This isn’t me being neurotic. Jesus. This is real.”

  Naomi slowly shook her head and walked to her altar. “My daughter is being healed. Our relationship is being healed.” Her words sounded like a prayer or an affirmation. “What you believe is what you bring into the world. Don’t bring in fear or negativity or doubt.” She touched each goddess, and then faced Jamie. “Support me in this.”

  “She almost killed my cat. She did the hair rope, and—”

  “Goodness—a cat can’t even imagine a curse to be scared and die of it. Be realistic. I saw his picture on your web site. He’s terribly overweight. If he almost died—”

  “Jesus.” Jamie banged the book on the table. “He didn’t have a fucking heart attack. Your fucking zombie vampire witch of a daughter tried to kill him. She takes healers’ power and hoards it so she can send it out to kill.”

  Silently, Naomi went to the door and stood holding it open. Her gesture enraged him. Worse, she spoke in a sweet, syrupy voice, sing-song and scripted-sounding. “I forgive your anger and your fear. But please, take it out of here.”

  “I’m trying to save your bloody fucking life.”

  She signaled again for him to exit. Jamie stormed out. His fury sank into ashes by the time he reached the lobby. Not only had he lost control, but he’d lost Naomi. Jill wins again.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The time since the peculiar drama in the cactus garden had flown, and the rumors had too. Kate had let them. The buzz she and Miguel had planted was working as publicity. Anytime someone asked her about what had happened, she said it was up to Jill and Jamie to explain.

  She’d told them they could say anything they wanted as long as they waited until Spirit World Fair, and they had. Jill, no doubt, would have a good spin on the shamanic emergence theme, but Jamie? Kate had no idea. On the opening day of the fair, she showed up at sunrise to supervise the final details—stage, seating, sound system, booths, ticket sales—all the things she could have control over. After that, there was nothing left for her to do but prepare her own booth and endure the uncertainty.

  Lobo trotted ahead of her and sniffed the cool morning air as they crossed the quad behind the rows of benches that faced the stage. Tim walked beside her, carrying her crystal ball and her tarot cards. Azure, Mae’s lone success, was arranging a small circle of chairs in the open-fronted blue tent closest to the stage. In the booth beside her, Hilda was hanging her angel prints. Kate’s booth was next. Geoff Johnson, past-life astrologer, had his charts and books ready for business on the other side of Kate. A mix of spiritually themed artists and writers and people further to the fringes spread out beyond Geoff and lined the other side of the quad. Except for Azure, the major attractions in this year’s fair would be on the stage or in the college lecture halls. Harold Petersen. Jangarrai. Jill Betts.

  Tim adjusted the drape of Kate’s shawl along her shoulders. “You look tense, sweetheart.”

  “I keep thinking of what could go wrong.”

  “Do a reading for the event. Reassure yourself.”

  “That could give me more dread. What if I saw that car crash again? What if that was the whole fair crashing?”

  “Come on. Look at all this.” Tim’s sweeping gesture took in the festive displays surrounding them. “It’s too late for it to crash.”

  “I hope so.”

  On the stage, Jamie bounced and gestured as he talked with a sound technician. He was wearing a flamingo print shirt and the fedora with the pink and green band. Kate was glad to see him as annoyingly perky as if he’d never had that scene with Jill and the cacti. She liked to imagine he would tell the truth about the fight she’d overheard, but from what she’d seen of Jamie under stress, he lacked the strength to get through such a speech or the escalated conflict with Jill that would follow.

  Tim helped Kate set up in her booth. When they were done, he asked, “Need me to stay? I want to take a look around.”

  “Don’t go far. We could have a power outage if Dahlia shows up.”

  “I hope she doesn’t. I’ve seen enough of her. She fritzed out her microwave when she got back last night and wanted me to fix it right away so she could have her no-fat, unsalted popcorn.”

  “She’s back in town? Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “Sorry, I forgot. I don’t wake up at the crack of dawn with my brain working.”

  “I hope Mae did. This is her last chance to undo Dahlia before we open.”

  “I thought you didn’t think she
could.”

  “I don’t. But I still want her to try.”

  “So do I. All your healers would be healed, and I’d never have to deal with Dahlia’s appliances again.”

  Tim kissed Kate and strolled off down the row of booths.

  Seeing that Hilda wasn’t ready yet, Kate went to help her arrange her CD display.

  “Thanks.” Hilda hung another print and studied it. “I wonder if I’ll make more copies after these sell out.”

  “Of the prints? The music?”

  “Both. I might let it all go, even the paintings. Sell the whole collection and move on.”

  Jamie tested the sound system by yodeling. Startled, Kate dropped a CD, and Lobo picked it up. She dried it off and continued filling Hilda’s display case. It felt like years ago, not a mere few weeks, when she and Hilda had hoped this exhibit might somehow attract the angels back. A guilty thought struck Kate. She’d been so focused on stopping Dahlia she hadn’t considered a possible unwanted side effect. “If Mae undoes Dahlia and you get the angels back, what will you do?”

  Hilda frowned. “I don’t know. I should hope if they love me they’d let me be, but I don’t know if they have feelings like that. They’re not like us.” She flipped open a small battery- powered CD player and put one of her disks into it. The wandering, floating electronic sounds began. “The longer I’m without them, the less I’m sure they’re really even angels.”

  The arrival of an influx of people made Kate look at her watch. It was just after ten a.m. The fair had started. She excused herself to Hilda and returned to her booth. A minute later Lobo growled, and his back hairs rose around his harness. That could only mean one thing. Kate searched for Dahlia in the crowd that spread across the quad. She didn’t see her, but she spotted Mae easily. A very slender woman, equally tall and fair-skinned, walked beside her, engaged in conversation. The woman wore sunglasses and a wide brimmed hat with her hair swept up under it. Dahlia, incognito. And according to Lobo, not yet healed.

  Shortly before eleven, when the music was scheduled to begin, Jamie introduced an elder from Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo who said a prayer in Tewa and blessed the space. Jamie then helped the man make his stiff-kneed descent from the stage, and came back up to welcome both the audience and the participants, promising all a wonderful experience and thanking them for being part of it. After the formalities, Kate expected him to either introduce his first song or explain his public craziness, but instead he blithered for at least five minutes about how to find the café, the restrooms, and the water fountains. What was the matter with him? That was all in the program.