Shadow of Time

by Jen Minkman

  “I asked Emily what she thought of aura-less people,” Amber whispered. “I didn’t tell her why I was interested, but she mentioned chindi – witches. According to Navajo religion, they aren’t strictly human anymore, so that would explain the lack of aura.”

  Hannah stared at her neighbor, a shiver running down her spine. “Witches?” she whispered back. The day on the rez had calmed her down somewhat, but now her uneasy feeling about the three men in Safeway came back with double intensity. “Did she mention what to do about them?”

  “No, she didn’t. I didn’t ask too many questions, though. Maybe you’d like to grill her on the subject yourself when you feel ready.”

  Hannah didn’t respond. Quite frankly, she didn’t feel ready for anything except to lie down and sleep a dreamless sleep for at least twenty-four hours. “Thanks, Amber. We’ll discuss it later. I need some sleep first.”

  Hannah went inside, flung herself down on the bed and didn’t even bother to take off her clothes. She longed for peace and quiet, harmony and balance, hózhó.

  Unfortunately, her subconscious didn’t take that wish into account. That night, once again, she dreamed about Josh trying to save her from the clutches of Mexican soldiers. Once more, she left him at the precipice overlooking the canyon, his hair flying in the wind and tears streaming down his face.

  The only thing different this time were the three intimidating shadows waiting for her at the foot of the hill, staring at her with hollow, dead eyes as she ran away.

  “Ben?”

  The house was still quiet as Hannah peeked into the kitchen. No sign of her brother yet. But she could have sworn she’d heard a voice calling out her name. What had woken her up so suddenly?

  Groggily, she stumbled back to bed, trying to rub the sleep from her eyes. She downed the entire glass of water standing on her bedside table. Maybe she’d been dreaming again. But what about?

  For a minute, she couldn’t recall a single thing about it, but as she got up and went to her wardrobe to get some clothes, it started to come back to her. The precipice. The sinister apparitions at the foot of the hill.

  Absently, Hannah put one hand on the pile of T-shirts in front of her without picking anything up. With a cold feeling in her chest, she re-lived the confrontation with Josh, his broken-hearted stare as she ran away from him.

  What in the world was going on with her? All the elements of her dream obviously had to do with things keeping her mind occupied in real life, but that didn’t explain why her mind would make up such a bizarre storyline to cope with them once she was asleep. And why it was always the same storyline.

  With a frustrated sigh, she slammed the wardrobe door shut and walked back to her bed with a green tank top and a denim skirt in her hands. From the nightstand, she picked up the turquoise necklace she’d been wearing yesterday and sullenly put it back in her jewelry box. The necklace she’d worn yesterday. The necklace she’d made together with Josh, her little brother. Who happened to be her lover in her nightmares. Why was her life so terribly unfair?

  Maybe a shower would cheer her up. She made her way to the bathroom and took a long, hot shower. After all, Ben was still asleep, so she could take her time.

  After getting dressed, Hannah sat down at the kitchen table to read yesterday’s newspaper while the coffee was brewing. She took her mug outside, walking down the steps to find a spot on the grass to enjoy the morning sun. She found herself right where she’d been star-gazing with Josh two days ago. It was getting warmer already, and the world was waking up. Birds twittered in the trees next to their cabin.

  Her eyes drifted across the garden and caught on something lying at the edge of the lawn. Something turquoise, partially covered by the blades of grass. Curious, she scrambled up to take a closer look.

  Her jaw dropped when she saw what it was. Her turquoise necklace. Hannah bent over to pick it up. Her body went cold with anxiety. That was impossible. She knew for sure she’d put it back in the box in her room before she went out. Someone must have been in her room, going through her stuff, while she was taking a shower.

  Oh God. This was insane. Her fist closed tightly around the necklace, the beads pressing into her palm. And then, her eye fell on something else: pawprints. In the sand bordering the lawn, there were clear animal footprints. It looked like a dog had walked around their cabin ... or a coyote. Like the coyotes that had mysteriously appeared yesterday.

  Hannah inhaled sharply, shook her head defeatedly and suddenly burst out crying. Sobbing desperately, she sagged down on the ground, tears running down her face. Seriously, what was happening to her? All the weird dreams, those three guys harassing her and then seeming to come back to her in different forms... and now this.

  She startled when she heard Ben call her name, this time for real. “Han! What’s wrong, darling?” Her brother ran down the porch steps, kneeled next to her and hugged her in a warm embrace. “I woke up and saw you crying outside through the window.”

  Hannah saw the worry on Ben’s face, his eyes reflecting her despair. This had gone on long enough – she simply had to share things with him. Who cared what he might thing?

  “Ben, I think I’m going crazy,” she said desolately. There – now at least she’d said what she thought. That would take the edge off this conversation.

  “You look wired. I don’t know what’s wrong, but you can tell me. Come on, spill.”

  “It’s difficult to explain where it all started.” Hannah thought back to the moment she’d been sitting in the car, surrounded by drunks circling her Datsun like a pack of wolves. “Probably when those guys threatened me.”

  Her brother sighed. “Yeah, I suspected that was going to come back to you at some point.”

  “I also have dreams,” she quickly went on, before she lost her courage.

  “About those assholes?”

  “No. About Josh.” Hannah felt the heat creep up in her face.

  “Well, that’s not so out of this world, is it?” Ben smiled.

  “Yes, that is so out of this world. In my dreams I live in a Navajo village, in the past, and Josh is there too. It feels like he’s my lover in the dream. And every night, he tries to save me from Mexican soldiers attacking and burning down our village, and at the end of the dream, I break up with him on the edge of some rock plateau near a canyon.”

  “And the dreams started after you were harassed?”

  Hannah nodded. “Yeah. Straight after that.”

  “So maybe you subconsciously feel the need to be protected by Josh. And in the dream, you leave him because you’re not sure he wants you. Or maybe you’re not ready yet to get involved,” Ben philosophized.

  “Hmm. You could be right.”

  “And groups of three men simply stand out more because you had a nasty confrontation with a trio of drunk bastards. That’s why you feel afraid of innocent people.”

  Hannah exhaled. Ben hadn’t managed to completely convince her, but his explanation was a better alternative than her own supernatural hocus-pocus.

  “I think you should drop by the police station tomorrow and ask for victim services. Maybe they don’t think your case is serious enough, but it won’t hurt to try,” Ben suggested.

  She put her head on his shoulder. “Thank you.” She hugged him, the beads of the necklace turning sweaty in her palm. Stubbornly, Hannah suppressed the strange feelings of unsafety she’d been having for the past few days and hoped they wouldn’t resurface. She probably put the necklace in her skirt pocket instead of in the box, and then it must have fallen out. There was simply no other explanation.

  “What time will Josh be here for the trip to Rainbow Bridge?” she asked, when Ben and she scrambled to their feet.

  “He won’t. He just called to tell me that he’s expecting you guys at Wahweap Harbor at noon.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll wait until Amber and Ivy wake up. I haven’t seen any life signs at the Greenes’ house yet.”

  Ben grinned. “If they’re s
till not up at eleven, we’ll visit them, banging drums and shaking rattles.”

  Laughing, they walked back to the porch. Ben fixed some more coffee for the two of them. He sat down with a pile of textbooks, starting up his laptop to show Hannah the pictures Katie had sent him from Barcelona.

  She’d just reached a series of photos shot at the Sagrada Familia when the neighbors’ front door swung open and Amber emerged in her pajamas, a towel in a turban around her wet hair. She waved at them and crossed the lawn to sit at their garden table.

  “Sleep well?” she asked. “I woke up half an hour ago.”

  “Like a log,” Ben replied. “Is Ivy awake yet?”

  “She’s trying,” Amber grinned. “It takes effort.”

  While Amber poured herself a cup of coffee too, Hannah sat back in her chair and quickly clicked through the last few pictures of Spain before getting up to get her book from her bedroom. The jewelry box on her night table was closed. She ignored the nagging voice inside her head telling her that she’d left the lid open this morning, opened the box and dropped the necklace inside.

  At ten to twelve, Hannah drove off with Ivy and Amber in the back seat of her Datsun. The car raced down Lake Powell Drive, and it didn’t take long before the harbor of Wahweap appeared in the distance. Hannah parked her car alongside the road leading down to the small harbor. The girls walked down the asphalt path, meandering past jagged rocks, ending at the jetty where Yazzie’s boat was anchored. It was twelve o’clock sharp.

  “Wow, you girls are right on time,” Hannah heard a voice from behind her. She turned around and saw Josh appear on deck. He was wearing old jeans with the legs cut off, worn flip-flops, and he had his hair in a ponytail. Of course, in this heat, he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Which was no reason to ogle his chest. After all, he was just her little brother. So he was walking around shirtless. So what? He’d been walking around shirtless in summer his entire life. Nothing had changed.

  “H-hey,” she said nervously, despite telling herself off. “How are you?”

  He gave her such a heart-wrenchingly sunny smile that Hannah felt her heart skip a beat. Who exactly was she trying to fool with her ‘he-is-your-brother’ mantra?

  “I’m fine!” He walked down the gangway to help Amber and Ivy climb on board. When Josh grabbed her hand to help her up, he caught her eye. “Sha’di. Are you okay?” he asked, concerned. Somehow, Josh had picked up on her restlessness and stress.

  She gave him a pained smile back. “I’m okay. I talked to Ben today. He made me promise I would drop by the police station again and ask for victim services. Ever since I was attacked, I keep... seeing things.”

  Josh froze. “What kind of things?” he asked, suddenly sounding apprehensive.

  Hannah stared at her feet. “Nothing special.” She just wanted to block out all the confusing thoughts going through her mind.

  “If someone scares you,” Josh started out. “Or ... something. Will you please tell me?”

  Hannah looked up curiously. She saw how tense he was. Why did he seem so anxious all of a sudden? “Yeah, sure. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. It’s just in my head.”

  “You promise?” he insisted.

  “Yes, I promise.” Hannah almost felt like crossing her fingers behind her back. Of course she didn’t have the slightest intention of telling Josh about all the bizarre dreams she’d had about him as of late. Talk about embarrassing.

  She’d just jumped off the gangway onto the boat when Yazzie appeared on the jetty and climbed aboard too. “Ya'at'eeh, biligaana,” he called out cheerfully to the girls. “Hey, shitsílí,” he then greeted his cousin.

  “Hey back, shinaaí,” Josh replied. They always used the Navajo words for younger and older brother – or cousin; there was no real distinction between the two in Navajo – to address each other. Yazzie and Josh usually spoke a mixture of English and Diné Bizaad to each other. Hannah had learned quite a few words in summers past, just by attentively listening to them when they were chatting away. Heck, maybe she should start calling Josh shitsílí too – that would make everything as painfully clear and distant as possible.

  Josh pushed off the boat and Yazzie fired up the engine, lightheartedly chatting with his cousin.

  No reverence there. Apparently, Yazzie hadn’t caught on when the whole all-bow-down-to-Josh thing had happened in Naabi’aani, because he treated his cousin no differently. Or maybe he just didn’t give a hoot. Yazzie had never really cared about rules, written or unwritten.

  “Rainbow Bridge, here we come!” he trumpeted, standing at the ship’s wheel. Today, he was wearing a black hat and a T-shirt with some punk band’s logo on it. Quite frankly, he reminded Hannah of some sort of Native pirate.

  “All he needs is a parrot,” Josh observed, following her stare.

  She laughed. “Yeah, or an eye-patch.”

  “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum,” Yazzie growled.

  Hannah leaned her back against the railing and stared out over the water, as Josh rummaged around in the minibar to get something to drink. Ivy sat down next to her and switched on her video camera. “I am so happy we’re going to visit that sandstone bridge,” she said, her voice chipper in happy anticipation. “I promised Nick to tape the whole thing. Shame he couldn’t make it.” She filmed the boat leaving Wahweap Marina and gliding past the brown and red rock formations along the shoreline. Soon, they were on their way to the jetties constructed near Rainbow Bridge.

  Yazzie left the wheel to Josh and sat down next to the girls with a can of Coke in one hand. He used the other to put on a pair of round, pink sunglasses, belting out a John Lennon song.

  “You were clearly born in the wrong decade,” Amber giggled.

  “Nah, I’ve been reborn in this decade. I am John’s reincarnation. Now all I need is a Japanese girlfriend.”

  “And a record deal,” Josh remarked dryly.

  Yazzie’s boat steadily sailed on, the hot sun beating down on the five passengers. It didn’t take long before Hannah sought refuge from the sunlight in the cabin. She popped in her iPod earbuds and flipped through her book, but couldn’t concentrate. Dreamily, she stared out the small window. She closed her eyes and tried to recall what the precipice in her dream had looked like, but the image was slipping away from her.

  She jolted when Josh came to wake her from the dream she’d apparently slipped into. He put a hand on her shoulder and whispered in her ear. “Sha’di? We’re almost there. Rise and shine.”

  Still sleep-drunk, she lifted her head and looked into his brown eyes from up close.

  “Hey,” she yawned.

  “Were you having a nightmare?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t remember,” she said softly.

  “You sounded scared.”

  “Did I? Well, good thing I’m awake now.” She stretched. Her book dropped from her lap to the floor with a heavy thud. Confused, she looked around. “Where’s my iPod?”

  “Oh, I saw Amber fiddling around with it. I guess she borrowed it after you fell asleep.”

  Hannah followed Josh and got off the boat, which was moored to the docks built especially for day-trippers wanting to visit Rainbow Bridge. From the looks of it, another group was visiting the bridge today too. A second boat, which belonged to an official guided tour, was tied to the jetty.

  “Booh, tourists,” Yazzie muttered.

  “Uhm ... what about us?” Amber pointed out.

  “You’re guests,” Josh replied. “It’s different.”

  “Yup,” Yazzie agreed. “You’re part of the Diné in-crowd, so to speak.”

  Ivy came to walk beside him. “How come you moved away from the reservation? You seem sort of, uhm...”

  “Nationalistic?” Yazzie ventured with a grin. “Well spotted. I moved to a frontier town, but you’ll find me back at the rez for every occasion, ceremony, festivity, you name it. The only reason I’m camping out in Wahweap is employment opportunity.”

  The
walk from the docks to Rainbow Bridge took them about half an hour, but there was enough to admire in the landscape to keep them entertained. Every turn in the road showed them new colors, different kinds of rocks and plants. Ivy had the time of her life with her video camera, and Josh enjoyed himself pointing out all kinds of geological phenomena to them. After about ten minutes of ambling along, they encountered the tourist group belonging to the other boat, making their way back from Rainbow Bridge. They fell silent after that and stopped speaking for a while. Hannah didn’t mind – the silence and the intense heat on the path between the rocks made her feel almost humble. When she finally caught sight of the sandstone bridge she still knew from her childhood visit, she stopped dead in her tracks. Rainbow Bridge was like a theatrical backdrop for a Native American movie, and breathed so much ancient mysticism and wisdom that she was glad the day-trippers had left the scene before them.

  She started walking again and slipped into the shade of the bridge to stare at the magnificent view from this sacred spot. Her eyes lingered on Josh, who’d positioned himself a few feet away, staring into the sun with squinting eyes. The way he was standing there gave him an air of unapproachability again, but Hannah had seen glimpses of the gentle character hiding underneath that attitude in the past few days. Would she ever be able to crack his shell and break through the shield he’d put up around him?

  Her musing was interrupted when she heard howling, far away in the distance. She froze. Her heart was suddenly lumped in her throat. She didn’t know much about wild animals, but that definitely sounded like a coyote. Again, a coyote.

  In a sudden panic, she looked to Josh for council. That didn’t help. To her amazement, he gave her an equally panicked look back, running toward her, then suddenly changing his mind and slowing down to a stop. He stood there, a few paces away from her, clearly debating with himself. It was a mystery where his indecision had come from, but Hannah didn’t have the courage to take the few remaining steps separating them to grab his hand. He looked completely out of it. What was wrong?