Obscura Burning

by van Rooyen, Suzanne

  “It’s getting worse.” Shira grabs the dog and hauls him off me. “Can’t you do something?” She’s looking at Niyol over my hunched back.

  “This isn’t normal ghost sickness.” Niyol’s watching me from the entrance to the hogan. At least I made it into the garden before regurgitating the medicine man’s tea.

  “So there’s nothing we can do.” Shira’s looking at me apologetically.

  “Kyle knows what he needs to do. I think he’ll need your help.” Niyol winks at me. “Nice meeting you, Kyle. You come back and see me if the world doesn’t end.” He says something in Navajo to Shira and she nods, releasing the dog that goes bounding after his master.

  “You OK?” she asks when I’ve purged the contents of my stomach.

  “I’ll live. For now.”

  “So what do you need to do?”

  We amble through the garden and back along the path.

  “Pretty much what the professor said, only Niyol gave me more specifics.” Bile’s burning on the back of my tongue. I’d kill for a glass of water. “He says I need to be open to the spirits, let them show me whatever it is they’re trying to communicate to me.”

  “And how do you do that?”

  “By wearing something belonging to the dead person.”

  “You know who the spirits are?” She turns to look at me, her face lit up with freakish shadows.

  “I think so.”

  “Daniel.”

  “And you.”

  She shudders. “That’s weird.”

  “Tell me about it.” I pull my fingers through my hair.

  “You need, like, a shirt or something?” We continue along the path.

  “I think it has to be more personal than that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Danny’s St. Anthony medal.”

  Shira doesn’t say anything for a while, the silence between us punctuated by the scurrying of nocturnal creatures through the scrub and the uncomfortably close laughter of hunting coyotes.

  “What do you want from me?” she asks. I’m pretty sure she chose those words deliberately, stringing them together to make my answer that much more difficult.

  Chewing on my inner cheek for a bit doesn’t provide the hoped-for insight.

  “There’s that bracelet you always wear.” Although her wrist is bare tonight.

  “It’s at home,” she says, as if reading my mind. “How are you going to get Dan’s necklace? Didn’t they bury him with it?”

  Of course they did. The idea of desecrating his grave, digging up his corpse and robbing it of a religious medal brings on another wave of nausea.

  “I’ll have to get it from living Daniel.” Easier said than done, considering he’s not answering my calls.

  Her head bobs in a nod. “And then what?”

  “Then, Niyol says to return to the site of the fire.”

  “You want to go back out to Ghost Town?”

  “Hell no, I don’t. You got another idea?”

  Her shoulders slump in defeat. I take her hand and walk beside her. “You don’t have to come with me.”

  Her cheeks are wet when she turns to me. She tries to speak, but fresh tears tumble out of her eyes and she just nods her thanks instead.

  * * *

  It’s after midnight by the time we get back to Shira’s. Soft moans emanate from the trailer, moans and creaking bedsprings.

  “Terrific.” Shira hesitates with her hand on the door.

  “I can get the bracelet some other time.”

  “Just give me a minute.” Shira takes a deep breath, cracks open the door, and tiptoes into the trailer. The sound effects continue. Hope Shira and I never sounded like that. Looking up at Obscura, I try ignoring the increasingly frenetic creaking and gasping groans.

  Shira slams the door behind her and joins me beside the cacti.

  “Your mom boning that ranch hand?”

  “Mr. Bulging Biceps?” She raises an eyebrow and I nod. “Just some random she picked up at Garry’s. Hasn’t said two words to me, which is better…”

  Than him showing too much interest. No need to say it out loud.

  “Banging your way through the end of days isn’t the worst way to go.”

  Shira’s lips quirk up in a fleeting half grin. “Take it.” She pushes the bracelet into my open hand.

  “You’ll get this back, I promise.”

  She looks at me, and it’s as if I’m seeing her for the first time. Her deep brown eyes and caramel skin, her soft mouth and long eyelashes. She’s lovely, drenched in the blue-silver starlight.

  “You shouldn’t promise when you don’t know.”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “Which reality you’ll be left with.”

  I close my fingers around the turquoise. “Either way, I’ll keep this safe.” I’m about to slip it into my pocket when she catches my hand.

  “You should wear it.”

  It’s too tight, jagged stone digging into my skin, but I don’t object as she fastens the clasp around my wrist.

  “You should have this, too.” She hands me the dog-eared photograph of the three of us, all smiling. “It shows the bond between all three of us.” She shrugs. “Maybe that means something.”

  “Maybe it was me that died.” I study the stupid grins plastered on our faces in the photo.

  “Only Obscura knows.” Shira gazes up at the blinking orb, her fingers wrapped around mine.

  Climbing back into my bedroom isn’t an option given the tree’s anatomy. Two a.m.; my folks should be asleep. I pry open the screen door and pad across the kitchen tiles in my socks. I’m almost past the living room when the light goes on, catching me like roadkill in headlights.

  Mom throws her arms around me, crushing me in a hug. Then she shakes my shoulders.

  “Where the hell were you? We were so worried about you. What were you thinking? Praise the Lord, you’re safe.” Her words are a jumbled torrent as she alternates between hugging and throttling me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, shrugging free from her. My dad’s standing behind her.

  “Where were you, Kyle? We were worried sick.”

  “I’m really sorry, Mom. I just had to go do something.”

  “And you had to sneak out of your room to do it?” She looks confused and hurt. My mouth opens and closes like a dying fish, words failing me.

  “Your mother slaved all afternoon preparing a roast, your favorite dinner.” My dad finally speaks. “The least you could’ve done was let her know you had no intention of eating it.”

  “I’m really sorry, Mom.”

  She dismisses it with a shake of her head although the tendons in her neck are taut.

  “We really wanted to talk to you, Kyle.”

  “Let’s eat,” my dad says. “We’ve waited long enough.”

  “You didn’t eat dinner?” I ask.

  “You think we’d sit down to a roast dinner when you’ve run off and we have no idea where you are?” Dad’s expression is stormy, but his words are controlled.

  “I am truly sorry.” Guilt tightens in my gut. There’s no way I’m going to be able to eat.

  Still, I’m ushered to the table and served a plate of roast chicken with vegetables made limp in the microwave.

  Dad starts shoveling meat into his mouth, Mom picks at a carrot, and I chase potatoes around my plate.

  “What did you want to talk about?”

  “You, young man.” Dad pokes his fork in my direction. “We want to know what you plan to do with your life now that you…” He chokes on a piece of broccoli.

  “Now that I look like this?” I grin, driving the point home.

  Mom’s crying into her napkin.

  “Or now that you know I’m gay?”

  “Sweet Jesus, Kyle.” Dad slams his fist into the table. At least it isn’t me who’s getting punched. “We want you to be happy; we want you to lead a decent life.”

  “By decent you mean straight? Find a wife, bang out so
me kids?”

  “By decent I mean you do something with your life. Graduate, go to college. Don’t rot in Coyote’s Luck.” Dad casts a glance toward Mom, who sniffs and nods.

  “We know life in this small town isn’t easy, especially not for someone like you.” Mom reaches across to take my hand. “You have to live with your scars, Kyle.”

  “Don’t I know it.” I pull away from her.

  “But you don’t have to live them with them here,” Dad says.

  “So you want to get rid of me?” Emotions are warring within me, too many to count. It feels like I’m drowning.

  “Not at all, Kyle.”

  “Are you getting a divorce?” The question’s out before there’s time to reconsider. It stuns my parents into blinking silence.

  “Your mother and I…” Dad clears his throat. “How did you know we’d been considering a divorce?”

  Dad’s eyes flick nervously to my mom, who’s turned an alarming shade of gray.

  “Just had a hunch is all.”

  Mom won’t meet my gaze. She’s tearing apart the seam of the napkin instead.

  “Is it because of me?”

  “No,” Mom says, and Dad echoes her.

  “Then why? Did one of you have an affair?”

  “Kyle, your mother and I have had our differences. That’s all. This is really none of your concern.”

  “Jesus, Dad. I’m eighteen, not five. I think I deserve to know if there’s a stepparent in my future.”

  “See, this is why we want you to get out of Coyote’s Luck. We want you to have the kind of life we never did.” Mom’s working on destroying the napkin.

  “You could do anything. Go to Rice like you wanted and then go where you please. We just don’t want you to think that one incident defines the rest of your life.” Dad’s turn to dodge my question.

  “But it has, Dad. The moment I lit that match, I knew…” The words turn to ashes on my tongue. My palms are sweating.

  “What is it?” My mom’s face creases with concern.

  I had matches, I planned to take matches. Easier to light and throw so that I wouldn’t be so close to flames. In my murky memory, the hands shutting the barn door, trapping Shira and Danny inside, are mine.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Kyle,” Dad says.

  “What if it was?” My head’s pulsing as if it’ll explode any second. “I just don’t understand why.”

  “Kyle, you’re scaring me.” Mom presses the frayed napkin to her lips.

  “I’m so sorry.” A sliding sensation hits, as if the chair’s tipping over. When the world rights itself, we’re no longer in the kitchen, but in a room devoid of color. Off-white walls and linoleum floors.

  Chained to the chair, shackled at wrists and ankles; I’m back in orange pajamas.

  “What’s happening to me?”

  Dad reaches a hand toward Mom, hesitates, and retracts the offer of support.

  “Time to go, Beth.”

  Mom reaches for my hand, patting my fingers. She’s not wearing her wedding ring. Neither is my dad.

  “No, don’t go.” My voice is a sob. There’s too much I don’t understand.

  “We’ll come back next week.” My dad gets to his feet, pushing in the chair. Mom won’t meet my gaze as she stands to leave.

  A man in uniform opens the door for them and another two uniforms approach me. Rough hands grab my arms.

  “Please,” I yell at the retreating forms of my parents. “Please, don’t leave me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Shira’s dead

  My head whips to the side as my dad’s fist finds my jaw.

  I’m hungover from my time in the other reality. My head’s pounding. Pressure builds in my ears and finally releases as a trickle of blood down my neck. I stay down, face pressed against the kitchen tiles. Dad needs me on my feet. It’s a trick learned ages ago; just stay down and he gets bored, goes off to smash furniture instead.

  If my ribs weren’t broken, and if I hadn’t just been beaten up by Nicholas again, I’d be on my feet, fists clenched, driving my dad to the floor instead. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

  “This is the last time you disgrace this family,” Dad says, his breath warm on my ear. It’s ripe with the sweet stench of beer. “They’ve issued a warrant for your arrest. Assault with a deadly weapon.”

  So much for Mya getting Nicholas to drop the charges.

  Dad nudges me with the tip of his shoe and I look up into his face. His eyes flash with fury and something precariously close to hatred. Part of me wilts and dies inside as Dad continues to glare.

  “You’ve ruined this family,” he says.

  “You and your whiskey bottle, you mean.”

  His steel-capped boot connects with my gut, leaving me whimpering as I curl into a fetal position.

  He looms over me and I brace myself for another blow. He rocks on his heels as if contemplating whether to send me into oblivion.

  After what seems like hours, he steps over me and stomps out the screen door.

  Peeling myself off the floor takes herculean effort. My limbs feel like they’re attached with frayed string, like I’m some battered marionette and Obscura is the puppet master.

  My jaw’s fine; bruised, but not broken. I slide my tongue along the ridges of my teeth. All intact. His foot caught a soft, fleshy part so no further damage done to my ribs.

  I made the stupid decision to come home. Should’ve kept on walking out into the dry nothing. Let them find a corpse weeks from now with eyes pecked out by crows.

  It’s only Saturday. Another four whole days until this dismal world is annihilated. Armageddon can’t come soon enough.

  If my future is a prison cell, I’d rather let the world end. There’s still a whole bottle of pain pills beside my bed. Not going to make the same mistake twice. I’ll need liquor. Dad keeps his booze locked in a glass cabinet in the living room.

  From his spot on the wall, Jesus watches me with judgmental eyes. No matter where I go, they follow me, tracing my every movement. I tear him off the hook, the wood heavy in my hand, and head for the cabinet.

  There’s a bottle of Jose Cuervo hiding behind whiskey and gin. It takes two blows with the cross to shatter the glass. Mom’ll be the one who has to clean this up. Why isn’t she home? Me being in jail will be harder on her than me being dead.

  I bound up the stairs as fast as my injured body will carry me, cradling the tequila. I check my parents’ bedroom. Mom isn’t home. Working a double shift, maybe out shagging at the Throbbing Strawberry. God, I don’t want to imagine who she might be with. Some brawny ranch hand or sleazy townie.

  I lock my bedroom door behind me.

  Not long until the sirens wail down my street and police boots thump up the stairs. I’ll have to hurry. Tequila and pain pills. There are probably more efficient ways to go, but I don’t have a gun.

  Suicide notes are so melodramatic, all guilt and lies and empty apologies. I grope under my bed for my sketchbook instead. The comic is far from finished, but the black frames, one stained with my blood, tell a story nonetheless.

  With a shaking hand, I scrawl a final frame. My hero in his prison cell. He was meant to bust out with the help of the girl. Meant to be the dark avenger and set the wrongs of his past right. But he’s no hero; he’s just a scared kid in chains, too afraid to reach for the soap in case life fucks him over once again.

  The last frame is gory, but gets the message across. Death by sharp bed corner. My bedroom floor becomes a makeshift gallery. I lay the drawings out in sequence. They can fill in the blanks, the bubbles still waiting for thought and dialogue. Let them make up the narrative.

  Last-ditch effort, I call Danny. It rings and someone answers. I only hear breathing.

  “Are you there?”

  “No,” Danny says and my heart stutters.

  “Danny…” My voice breaks, but I turn it into a brittle chuckle.

  “What is it, Kyle?”

 
; “I’m sitting here with a bottle of Cuervo and a tube full of pills.”

  Silence.

  “They’re going to arrest me for assault with a deadly weapon.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Danny sucks in breath. “And the pills?”

  “Is there another way out?”

  “Suicide is selfish.” Daniel’s emphatic.

  “Give me a reason to live then.”

  “I did, but you didn’t want me.” There’s hurt embedded in his every word. The memory rises unbidden in my thoughts, fragile tendrils at first, then solidifying into a single canvas: my hands on the barn door and Daniel screaming.

  But I refuse to believe that’s the truth of it. That can’t be what happened.

  The tequila carves a burning canyon all the way to my stomach. The pills spill from the tube in my hands across my bed in narcotic constellations.

  “Do you want me to beg you?” Danny asks. “You want me to forgive you, take you back like nothing happened? Dick move to threaten suicide just ’cause you don’t have the balls to deal with your infidelity, Kyle. These charges are bogus; they’ll drop them.”

  “I hit Nicholas over the head with a bottle.”

  “You’re fucking losing it, man…” Danny rages on but I interject.

  “I spoke to Shira.” I owe that much to her.

  “You what?”

  “It’s a long and complicated story. In a nutshell, I’ve been shifting between realities. In the other world, you’re dead and Shira’s alive. She asked me to give you a message.”

  “Have you been drinking?”

  I don’t care that he doesn’t believe me. He doesn’t have to; he just needs to listen.

  “She said she was sorry about the fire, about everything. She wanted you to know how much she misses you, how much she loves you.”

  “You’re an asshole.” Danny’s crying; there are tears in his voice. I move to the bathroom with pills and booze to stare at my reflection. If I stare long enough, maybe it’ll stop being me staring back from the glass.

  Police sirens pierce the evening quiet, wailing down the street.