“Feeling better?” he asked, also smiling.
Livvy noticed his eyes lingering on her hair, like most people, but then they moved to her eyes and then her lips.
“Yes, much,” she said.
The radio on his partner’s belt squawked and he turned away to listen to it.
“Are you going to be all right?” asked the paramedic, placing a hand lightly on her knee.
“Yeah, definitely,” she said, feeling some strength return.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m feeling much better. Really,” she confirmed.
“Well, your color is better,” he said, standing up.
“All right,” said the partner, looking at the two of them. “If we’re done here, we’ve got a call.”
The paramedic in front of her nodded. The other man keyed a microphone clipped to the top of his shoulder and headed toward the exit.
“Unit 34 responding,” he said.
The paramedic picked up his box.
“Okay, I’ve got to go,” he said, but hesitated. “You sit here as long as you feel like it and then get some real rest.”
Livvy nodded and said, “Thanks, I’ll do that.”
“All right,” he said. “Make sure you do.”
He moved toward the doorway, glanced back once, and then hustled after his partner.
After a few moments, Livvy slowly got up and headed toward the main entrance. Rest sounded like a good thing.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
UNFORTUNATELY, REAL REST was going to remain elusive. The knocking on the door wasn’t loud but it would not stop. Livvy looked at the clock. Seven-thirty. In the morning. Nacho stretched and pushed his front paws into her feet. She’d slept for two hours, tops. Oh, please go away, she thought, bringing the blanket over her head and turning over. But the knocking continued, with annoying pauses that would lull her into thinking it had stopped. Then it would start again. Nacho meowed.
“All right!” she said, and threw off part of the covers. “All right,” she muttered, sitting up.
She went to the front door, with Nacho trailing behind, and looked through the peephole but whoever was there was standing off to the side.
“Who is it?” she said, her tiredness producing more annoyance than she felt.
“Livvy, it’s me,” came a small, high-pitched voice. “Soo Min.”
“Min?” Livvy said, not quite processing the information.
Min was another shaman, a neophyte really, a little younger than Livvy. Even so, shamans didn’t visit one another. In fact, they were careful not to be seen in public together. That was how their clients liked it, a throwback to the day when villagers sometimes suspected their shamans of colluding together for hexes, not healings.
Livvy undid the locks, discharging a small static shock to the chain, and opened the door. Nacho dashed out, his usual in the morning. Although Livvy had adopted him, he was still the building cat. During the day, he was out and about but, at night, he always came back to her place. Min liked Nacho and usually tried to pet him but it seemed as if she hadn’t even seen him.
She stood there, wringing her hands, and peered through the gap. It had been weeks since Livvy had seen Min. They’d met in the university hospital where Livvy had studied. Although she and Min had started training as shamans about the same time, Livvy had grown by leaps and bounds while Min still struggled. From time to time, Livvy even mentored her. When she had insisted that Min use ‘Livvy’ instead of ‘Olivia’, Min had insisted she drop the ‘Soo’ part of her first name. Despite all the prohibitions, they’d quickly become friends–secret friends.
Livvy looked past her into the hallway to see if anybody was watching, then took her by the hand and pulled her in, shutting the door behind her.
“Min, what are you doing here?”
“I made sure nobody saw me,” she said contritely. “Can we talk?”
There was a pleading in her voice and Livvy knew she must have taken the bus at first light to get here at this hour. Now that she was inside, Livvy could see that something was wrong.
“Sure, sure,” she said, giving her a brief hug and encouraging smile. “Stay for a bit.”
Min stood close to the door, watching Livvy lock it.
“Come in, sit down,” Livvy said, heading into the kitchen.
She pulled out a folding chair as she passed the card table that straddled the edge of the linoleum.
“I’m so sorry for coming by,” Min said, still wringing her hands. “But I had to talk to another shaman.”
Min had always been thin, even for a Korean, but she was looking positively gaunt now. Her almond eyes were set too deeply into the high cheekbones. A jade choker rested between her collarbones instead of clinging to her neck. Unlike Livvy, Min dressed the part of a shaman and was wearing a long black velvet coat with grey piping, the high collar tucked up under her shoulder-length black hair. The bottom of her coat reached almost down to the tops of her knee high black boots. The small leather flaps at the top of the boots were shaking and Livvy realized that Min was shivering.
“Sit down,” said Livvy, as she started to forget how tired she’d been. “I’ll make some tea.”
Min glanced around as if she needed more permission than that but finally came over to the table and sat down on the front edge of the chair, knees together, her hands folded in her lap.
Livvy filled the kettle with water from the tap, put it on the stove and lit one of the burners with a match. The igniters hadn’t ignited anything for months. With the flame burning high, Livvy left the kettle, took an open package of cookies and two paper plates over to the table, and set them down next to the tall plastic bottle of syrup. She sat down and pulled out the brown corrugated liner of the package and two short rows of cookies came out with it.
“So what’s up,” she asked Min, putting a cookie on the plate in front of her.
“I’m having the worst healings lately,” she said, her dark eyes staring at Livvy from a pinched face. “Really hard.”
“What kind of hard?” Livvy asked, taking a cookie for herself.
“Bizarre,” said Min, putting her hands on the table. “The underworld is, I don’t know, not right.”
She searched Livvy’s face for confirmation.
Livvy nodded.
“Yeah, I’ve seen the same thing.”
“What do you make of it?”
“I have no idea,” Livvy said, shaking her head, as she separated the two halves of the cookie with a push of her thumbs. “The middleworld too.”
Min nodded, bobbing her head.
“Yes, the middleworld too,” she agreed.
Livvy poured syrup over the two open cookie halves.
An awkward silence settled on them. Shamans didn’t share their visions of the multiverse. Each one saw something different, except for the black lake. Their vision was peculiar to them, born out of their initial vision quest and their spirit helper.
“It’s crowded…” Min ventured.
“Or deserted,” finished Livvy.
Min exhaled as though she’d been holding her breath.
“Oh thank all the gods that ever were. I thought I’d been imagining it.”
The teakettle started to whistle and Livvy went over to it. She opened a drawer and brought out two boxes of tea, holding them up for Min.
“Nothing for me,” she said.
“Minnie Mouse,” Livvy said with mock disapproval. She cocked her head and stared at Min, holding out both boxes for her to choose.
Min relaxed a tiny bit and almost smiled.
“The Genmai-cha,” she said.
Livvy nodded once and put the raspberry tea back in the drawer. She brought back a couple of chipped mugs with steaming tea and set one in front of Min.
“Eat a cookie,” she commanded.
Min looked dubiously at the one in front of her. She probably didn’t eat much refined sugar and probably also didn’t shop in the kinds of markets that would sell this sort of produ
ct. Not to be rude, though, she picked it up and took a small bite.
“Have you seen any unusual spirits?” Livvy asked, trying to sound casual.
Min was slurping her tea the way Koreans were taught to, but she stopped and thought about the question.
“Just the usual assortment I think,” she took another sip. “Unusual like what?”
Livvy wondered how much to tell her and if Min would think she was absolutely nuts. She got up, went to the bedroom and fetched her phone. As she came back out to the kitchen, she found the picture of the kachina and handed the phone to Min.
“What’s this?” she said, setting her tea down.
She fetched a pair of reading glasses from the large pocket of the long velvet coat she was wearing and put them on.
“Oh my,” she said, gasping.
Then she turned in her chair to look in the direction of the couch, comparing the photo to the spot where the kachina had stood.
“Oh my,” she said again, not able to stop looking at the photo.
Livvy waited, knowing how shocking the photo was. Finally, Min looked up at her.
“You’ve got more to worry about than me,” she said, with a small amount of relief.
Someone in the world was experiencing weirder things than she was.
“Thanks,” said Livvy, taking the phone back.
Min sipped her tea and absently pushed the cookie remains aside.
“I haven’t seen a kachina anywhere,” she said. “Especially not…in the real world.” She put down her mug. “I haven’t seen anything like that.”
The silence settled in again, as Livvy remembered the kachina beckoning to her in the clearing of the middleworld.
“I’m having strange dreams,” Min blurted out. “It’s hard to wake up.”
Livvy looked at her. Min was holding herself rigid but her eyes moved back and forth scanning Livvy’s, looking again for confirmation. Here was the real reason for the visit. It was the dreams that had scared her, not the disturbance in the multiverse.
“Do you feel like you’ve been…buried?” asked Livvy.
Min exhaled with relief.
“You too!” she said, almost glad.
“Not quite,” said Livvy, shaking her head.
She decided to come out with it.
“I just had to rescue another shaman who had gotten trapped in the middleworld. She’d been buried. During a dream.”
Min thumped her mug back down on the table, sloshing some tea out but not noticing.
“She couldn’t wake up?”
“Nope. I don’t think she would have either.”
“How did you know about her?”
“Her boyfriend called me–her fiancé,” Livvy corrected herself. “He called when he couldn’t wake her up.”
Min was suddenly silent, her shoulders hunched. Her knuckles stood out from the boney fingers as she clutched the mug.
“You had trouble waking up?” Livvy asked quietly.
Min only nodded.
“Today?”
“Last couple of days,” Min admitted. “I dreamt of being covered with dirt. I don’t know why. I’ve never dreamt of such a thing before.”
She looked up at Livvy, her face drained of what little color had been there.
“Livvy, I’m afraid.”
Livvy reached her hand across the table and rested it on Min’s, who grasped it in both of hers, like a lifeline.
“What are we going to do?” Min whispered.
Livvy thought about it.
“Well, we could call each other in the morning,” she suggested. “If one of us doesn’t answer, then we’ll know there’s a problem.”
Min bobbed her head. It wasn’t a great solution, but at least another shaman stood a chance of helping.
A loud thumping at the door nearly made Min topple her tea. Livvy grabbed the mug just in time and then they stared at each other as though they’d been caught.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MR. SIDIROV, THE landlord, stood in the doorway. As soon as Livvy saw him, she knew what day it was.
“Rent is overdue,” said Sidirov, in his thick Russian accent. “Again.”
He wore a filthy white tank top that matched his dirty jeans. A large wad of keys hung from one of the front belt loops, under his protruding belly.
“I’ll bring it by this afternoon,” Livvy said, starting to close the door, embarrassed that Min had to see this.
He put a hand on the door, looked into the room, and saw Min at the table.
“Rent goes up for a roommate.”
“She’s not a roommate,” said Livvy.
“Better not be.”
“I’ll bring it by this afternoon,” Livvy said, as she tried the door again.
“You owe two months now,” he said as the door closed.
“This afternoon,” Livvy said, as the gap narrowed.
“Better be,” he said as it closed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WHEN THE ALARM went off, Jack was alone in bed. He swished his hand absently over Indra’s side and wondered why she’d gotten up so early. He rolled over and looked at the bathroom door, which was closed. As he waited, the minutes ticked by and he drowsed, until he woke up again and saw from the clock that fifteen minutes had gone by.
He looked at the bathroom door, which was still closed. There was no sound coming from it.
“Indra?” he said. “Are you okay in there?”
There was no answer. He got out of bed and went over to the door.
“Indra? Are you in there?”
Again, not a sound. He glanced back into the bedroom. Maybe she’d gone downstairs already, he thought, but her robe was on the bed. He knocked on the door.
“Indra, are you in there?”
He tried the knob, which was unlocked.
“I’m coming in,” he called as he pushed the door open.
After only a short distance, it thumped against something. He pushed harder and the door opened more but not all the way. He peered through the gap and saw Indra’s legs stretched out, blocking the entrance.
“Oh my god,” he said, shoving the door, putting his shoulder into it.
“Indra! Are you okay?”
He squeezed through the opening he’d made and saw her lying there, her head next to the toilet, vomit everywhere. She was lying in it, on her side. He tried turning her over but there was no room on the bathroom floor. Her eyes were closed but her mouth hung open.
“Indra!” he shouted. “Indra, wake up!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
AS THE DOOR brushed by it, a small bell at the top of the entrance quivered on its spring and tinkled. Livvy stepped through into the familiar scent of myrrh resin and the flickering light of candles.
After several seconds, her eyes adjusted from the midday glare. The familiar overstocked shelves came into focus. Mamacita’s shop was a crazy cross between a magic shop, a new age bookstore, and an electronics outlet. Livvy headed down the short center aisle to the counter in the back where Mamacita was perched on her stool like usual. She fed a peanut to the large cockatiel in the cage next to her.
“Well, hi baby,” she said in the smooth Southern drawl that always put Livvy at ease. Mamacita gave her a big smile as she looked over her half-glasses. “Haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays.”
Although she had no trace of a Spanish accent, she was Hispanic, the straight dark hair pulled into a large flat barrette in the back, the slightly darker-than-olive skin. It was impossible to tell her age. She might be fifty or she might be ninety. She was plump, which helped with the wrinkles, and her hair coloring–if there was any–was perfect. It might also be possible that she was using a little something in the spirit world to help her along, keep that younger look. Some people swore her shop had been there over sixty years. If a customer needed something of a shaman nature, no matter what, Mamacita had it or could get it–for a price, of course.
Livvy came up to the counter. It had always lo
oked to her more like a judge’s bench than something for a store. Knowing Mamacita, it could have been. The rumors swirled around her like the flakes in a snow globe. Some even said she had been a shaman once–a long time ago. Livvy leaned her elbows on the high counter and looked up at Mamacita.
“It’s good to see you, Mamacita,” she said, smiling. “How you doing?”
“Oh, I’m all right,” she said, taking off her glasses and letting them dangle on the beaded chain. “But you’re not, child. Look at you. When was the last time you slept right?”
“A little while,” said Livvy, wondering if her drawl might be Texan.
“Mmm hmm,” hummed Mamacita, knowingly. “I guess that’s going around.”
Livvy perked up at that. The shop had been on her way and, after Min’s visit, she no longer felt alone in having strange dealings in the multiverse.
“What do you hear?” Livvy asked.
“Oh, you never visit Mamacita just to say hi, do you,” she said, taking a peanut from a small bowl on the counter.
She scooted the bowl closer to Livvy and they each worked on prying open a shell.
“Strange doings in the multiverse is what I hear,” said Mamacita, as she popped a peanut in her mouth. “Very strange.”
“Yeah,” said Livvy, looking at her peanut. “Like shamans who can’t wake up from dreams.” She looked up at Mamacita, who was waiting like she had all the time in the world. “Like they’ve been buried, under the ground, in the middleworld.”
“Oh, well, I can’t say as I’d quite heard that one yet,” said Mamacita, as she reached for another peanut and dropped the old shell on the floor.
“I’ve heard it a couple times,” said Livvy, absently splitting the peanut into halves.
“That right?” said Mamacita, as though she wasn’t particularly interested. “You rollin’ with other shamans now?”
Livvy laughed.
“Who’s teaching you to talk like that?”
Mamacita chuckled, her laugh quiet, almost shy. Despite the complete lack of a physical resemblance, Mamacita’s laugh reminded Livvy of her mother. Sometimes Livvy wondered what a relationship with her mother would have been like. Usually she found herself thinking along those lines after a visit to Mamacita–visits that often coincided with stressful times in her life.
Shaman, Healer, Heretic (Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman) Page 7