by Thomas Perry
The woman appeared in the doorway, and Jane sat up on the bed to look at her. The woman wore a deerskin dress with leggings and moccasins. Her shining black hair was long, combed and straight, and Jane could see that its weight made it swing a little each time she moved her head. As the woman stepped into the bedroom, the silver-blue light from the moon shone on her and Jane could see that her dress, leggings, and moccasins were decorated with dyed porcupine quills sewn like embroidery in the shapes of wildflowers. Jane knew she was from the old time.
The woman spoke in Seneca. “Owandah. Or maybe I should call you Onyo:ah.” This was Jane’s secret name, a nickname her father had given her when she was little.
Jane pulled the bed sheet up to her neck.
“Don’t bother hiding yourself,” said the woman. “You’ve been doing what you should be doing.” She looked at Carey. “Your husband is good and he’s strong. You’re a good match.”
“You know the name my father gave me.” Onyo:ah was a call used in the peach-pit game. It meant that five of the six peach pits in a player’s throw had landed with the black, burned side up, and only one was on the unburned side—literally “one white.” If all six had been black, the player would have been allowed to take five score counters. With one white, he could take only one counter. Her father had explained to her that Onyo:ah meant the player was winning, but by slow, gradual steps, the way people did in life.
The game was played at Midwinter and Green Corn to celebrate the triumph of life over winter. But it was first played just after the beginning of time by Hawenneyu the Creator and Hanegoategah the Destroyer, the twin gods who transformed the dirt on the great turtle’s back into a world. The twins’ grandmother proposed that she and the destroyer play the game against Hawenneyu the Creator to decide who would have dominion over the earth. When she rolled the pits from the bowl, she got no points. When Hawenneyu cast the pits, he won.
“Of course I know your name. I’m in your mind. Maybe I’m one of the four messengers, a hatioyake:ono, a sky dweller. Maybe I’m just a side of you—a part that you need and miss.”
“Why are you here?”
The woman shrugged, and the fringe on her shirt swung, then settled. “You called me.”
“Who are you?”
“Just a woman like you. I’m from the dark times, when no village was at peace with another. If a man met a stranger in the forest, the wisest thing to do was try to kill him, and if you were a woman, the wisest thing to do was run. Villages were built in high places, or on peninsulas jutting out into lakes, surrounded by palisades of tree trunks set into the ground and sharpened on top. I lived less than an hour’s walk from this spot. I was working at the edge of a field outside the village planting corn, beans, and squash with my sisters and cousins when I saw a warrior moving among the trees. He was a stranger who had come with eight friends to catch someone off guard and kill him. Our eyes met, and I turned to run. He tried to keep me from giving the alarm, but I got out a scream before the war club he swung hit my head.”
The woman half turned and pulled her hair aside, and Jane could see a huge gash where the bone of her skull had been shattered. The back of her beautiful dress was reddish brown where the blood had poured out and run down it. “All of the women heard me, and began running and shouting, so the warriors from the village came and chased down the man and his friends, and killed them all. I was nineteen.”
“It’s terrible and sad,” said Jane. “Nineteen is so young.”
The woman shrugged. “Everybody dies. The part that hurt me most was that I had a young baby, a beautiful boy. I took him everywhere, and right then he was hanging in his cradleboard from a branch of a tree. When the wind blew, it rocked him back and forth. When I saw the killer, I ran away from my baby to distract the killer from him. After the fighting was over, two of my sisters came back and got him from the tree.”
“What happened to him?”
“He lived to be a man. He was a famous runner and good fighter, and the men all listened to him respectfully in council. He fathered seven children by two wives, and died in a fight against the Cat People on an island in the Niagara River when he was over fifty. He’s satisfied with his life. My sisters and the other women of the clan did a good job raising him without me.”
“There must be a reason why you’re the one who’s here.”
“I told you why. You chose me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Maybe your mind chose me because I’m from the time when things were in chaos, before the great peace. My times are the reason why the Senecas and the other longhouse nations hate discord and anarchy. We lived it. We died of it. You live a violent life. You’ve killed people, and that’s not an easy thing for a woman. Killing strains against our nature. Maybe it’s making you sick. You know sken:nen means peace, but the same word means health.”
“I’ve only tried to keep people from being killed,” said Jane. “I taught them to evade, to run, to start new lives. How could anyone—man or woman—not do that much?”
“If that’s not what’s wrong, then maybe something is missing from your life.”
Jane sighed. “I wanted a baby.”
“You still do.”
“I suppose I do, but Carey and I have tried for years and it hasn’t happened, so I’m training myself not to keep longing for what I can’t have.”
“Now you’re setting a snare, trying to trip me up so I’ll accidentally tell you whether you’ll have a baby or not. I’m sorry, but I come from you. I know exactly what you know, and no more. Maybe I know a few things that you saw or heard but have forgotten. But you haven’t seen the future, so I haven’t either.”
“Admit that you were sent to me.”
“I was sent to you,” said the woman.
“By the good brother or the evil one?”
“You know better than to ask that. Which is God—birth and growth, or death and decay? They seem to fight, but they don’t.”
“Are either of them real?”
“If there’s a creator, he created your parents and grandparents, your mind, your memory, this dream, and sent me to guide you. If there is no creator, and your subconscious mind put me together out of memories and imagination because your mind needs me, then your brain sent me to guide you. Tell me which it is.”
“I can’t.”
“Then neither can I,” said the woman. “And my time will be up soon. This is your last REM cycle for the night, and it should be thirty minutes, or forty. The best thing you have in your life is Carey. It’s not always in your power to make him happy, but it is in your power to make him know that you love him.”
“Am I making him jealous by worrying about Jimmy?”
“He’s not jealous,” said the woman. “Maybe you think he should be.”
“I’m not interested in Jimmy that way. But being around him makes me—I don’t know—miss something.”
“Jimmy looks like a Seneca and speaks Seneca with you as your father did, so it’s natural to feel the connection. You think that you were supposed to marry a man like Jimmy but didn’t, so you feel guilty, and now you feel guilty for feeling guilty because that’s not fair to Carey. I can tell you that you were right to pick the man who didn’t just give you a faint friendly feeling. Instead you took the one who gave you a trembling in your stomach and weak knees.”
“If I stay home with my husband, what will happen to Jimmy?”
“You won’t do that. Being Jimmy’s guide is something the clan mothers require of you—that life demands of you. But you’ve got to do whatever you’re going to do soon. Time isn’t helping you.”
“That’s your advice? Hurry up?” said Jane.
“Jimmy’s enemies are getting more powerful, so you have to be quick. Follow the poisoned stre
am to where the spring seeps out of the ground. Find out everything you can and then do what you have to. But you have to act soon. Jimmy won’t see the man in the forest before he swings the club. You might.”
Jane woke while the sky was just lightening from black to blue gray. The stars outside the window were still bright and glowing, but she could see the leaves of the old walnut tree on the far side of the carriage house. She sat up, still naked, slid out from under the sheet, and looked down at Carey sprawled beside her. He always slept with an innocent, peaceful look on his face, especially after a night like last night. He undoubtedly had disturbing dreams sometimes, but white people didn’t study their dreams, or make much of them.
She got up and walked quietly out of the room, passed the master bathroom, and continued down the hall to one of the bathrooms attached to guest rooms and turned on the shower. The warm water felt good.
A few minutes later she saw through the glass door of the shower that he had appeared. “Dr. M.,” she said. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
He opened the shower door and stepped in with her. “I woke up alone and came looking for you. You’re home now, but you won’t be soon.” He sidestepped past her, ducked under the shower and got wet, then scrubbed himself with soap.
She was very still. “You know that?”
“Since I saw you in the kitchen last night I’ve been listening for you to say this was over—that Jimmy Sanders was safe and you were home for good. You haven’t said it, so it isn’t over.”
She hugged him, feeling the water spraying her back. “I’m sorry, Carey. I don’t have a choice right now.”
“I know you think that,” he said. “I was here for the beginning, the day they asked you to take this on. I didn’t like it, and I still don’t like it. Last night wasn’t the time for the argument. Is this the time?”
“I don’t think so.” She turned off the shower, took his hand, and stepped out of the stall with him. She tossed him a bath towel, took one herself, and led him into the guest room. They made love gently and then passionately, and lay lazily on the bed. After a time she could tell he was looking at her.
He leaned over her and kissed her. “You’re leaving right away, aren’t you?”
“As soon as I check the refrigerator to see what you ought to have but didn’t buy for yourself, and go to the grocery store. But when I get back, we’ll spend about three days just going from room to room doing this.”
14
Jane spent the morning preparing to leave home. She packed the clothes that she would need in a small suitcase and included her empty backpack inside, two more packets of identification and credit cards, and more cash. She walked to the nearest grocery store, which was only about a half mile down the road, bought food for Carey, and walked back. She left a bottle of eighteen-year-old Macallan single malt scotch on the kitchen table with a crystal glass to hold down her note to him. All it said was: “There are still fourteen more rooms in this house.” That would give him something to think about.
She said quietly to the empty house in Seneca, “Thank you for visiting me in my dream, grandmother. I’ll name you Keha kah je: sta e.” It was literally my black eyes.
Jane went outside, locked the door, and walked down the road to the bus stop to catch the bus to the station at Sheridan Drive and Getzville Road. She caught the rural service bus to Lockport, took another to Batavia, but got off at the Pembroke exit of the thruway. She took out her copy of the service order Ray Snow had given her when she’d left her car with him. She dialed the number she found on it and heard, “Snow’s auto.”
“Hi, Ray. This is Jane Whitefield.”
“Hey, Janie. Are you coming back for your car?”
“Well, I’m making my way there. I’ve gotten as far as the Pembroke rest stop on the thruway. I took a Greyhound.”
“Get yourself a cup of coffee. I’ll be there in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“See you then.”
Twenty minutes later, she saw her white Volvo S60 coast along the exit ramp into the parking lot, and then glide up to the building. Jane tossed her suitcase on the backseat, sat down beside Ray, and fastened her seat belt. Ray smiled. “How was your hike?”
“Tiring. Thanks so much for picking me up, Ray.”
“No big deal. We do this all the time for our customers, and most of them don’t have such nice cars.” He drove toward the ramp back onto the thruway.
“I’m glad you like it. It’s about six years old.”
“Mechanics like a car that’s been cared for, and I like them better if they didn’t just come off the lot. I buy a few used ones now and then and fix them up for resale. If you ever want to get rid of this one, don’t trade it in. I’ll give you a better deal.”
Jane looked at him through the corner of her eye. “Do you happen to have any cars you’ve fixed up at the shop right now?”
“A couple.”
“I’m wondering if you have one I could rent for a while.”
“So you found Jimmy.”
“If you knew something like that, then sometime you might get asked about it under oath. You’d have to tell the truth. Fortunately I don’t know who you’re talking about. But what about the car?”
“Sure. I’ll rent you one.”
“I’ve got to be clear about this. I might not be able to return it in mint condition or right away. But I’ll pay for anything that happens to it.”
“Fine,” he said. He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then returned his eyes to the road ahead.
They drove up to Snow’s garage and he parked Jane’s car in a row of other cars of various makes and models. He walked over to a Ford Mustang that was red with black stripes running along the hood, roof, and trunk. “I put a five-liter Racing Crate Mustang Boss 302 V8 in there. It’s supposed to deliver four hundred forty-four horsepower, but I brought everything else up a notch too, so it should be faster than that.”
“I was thinking of something quieter, a little less vivid.”
“I’ve got that too,” Ray said. He stepped up to a small navy blue car and patted it on the trunk. “This VW Passat is a good, reliable car, and one you can hardly see if you’re standing beside it. I haven’t done anything but a tune-up, because it runs great and doesn’t have dents or scratches. That’s not the kind of car that interests me much.”
“That’s perfect. Dull is good.”
“Hold on a second.” He went into the shop and opened a drawer behind the back counter, then came back with the keys. He handed them to her.
“What about my Volvo? Can I pay now for the work you did?”
“No. It’ll be easier to handle everything at once when you come back. Besides, I heard something when we were driving on the thruway a few minutes ago—a little faint whine. It could just be a fan belt, or it could be a transmission problem. I’ll have to keep it to check it out. That VW is your free loaner until your car is ready.”
“Gee, Ray. You’re such a lousy liar I’ll trust you forever.”
“Thanks. By the way, the car came from Pennsylvania. The old license plate is still in the trunk, and it’s current. Maybe you’ll find a use for it. Say hi for me to, uh, any old friends you happen to meet.” He took Jane’s suitcase out of the backseat of the Volvo and put it in the backseat of the Volkswagen.
“I’ll do that.” Jane got in and backed the VW out of its space. She could already hear the smoothness of the engine. She drove down the road a few miles to the thruway, and then east to Rochester and stopped at the Hyatt Regency hotel on East Main Street adjacent to the Convention Center. The hotel was large, fairly new, and had been renovated within the past couple of years. She checked in and gave the desk clerk a credit card in the name of Janet Eisen.
Jane had built Janet Eisen over a per
iod of six years, beginning with a birth certificate that had been inserted into the records of the county clerk’s office in Chicago. She had gotten an Illinois driver’s license, a diploma from a long-defunct local parochial high school, St. Luc’s. In time Janet Eisen had submitted her resume to a few online employment agencies. The resume listed a BA degree from North Ohio Business and Technical School, an entity that had gone bankrupt in the 1990s, but had a ghostly afterlife due to the efforts of a man who sold artfully concocted academic transcripts. Janet Eisen had also applied for everything she could get without much risk or effort—library cards, gym memberships, magazine subscriptions, frequent flyer programs—so within a year or two she had been firmly established in an online existence. Jane had even inserted a few articles about her in online publications so anyone checking her name on Google would find her. Jane had hired her to work in McShaller, Inc., the consulting business Jane had incorporated fifteen years ago. Jane used the business to run credit checks and buy information, but it also allowed the fictitious Janet Eisen to give imaginary people jobs, employment histories, and glowing recommendations.
Jane didn’t have a clear idea of who might be searching for Jimmy—or for her—or what resources they might use. Today she was making sure that if someone searched, she would be in a spot that was far down the list of likely hiding places. This hotel was big and full of business people just like Janet Eisen who were in Rochester for conferences, business meetings, and sales visits to local companies. As soon as Jane had checked in at the hotel she walked down Main to the convention center and registered for the convention that was starting that day. It was a convention for the medical information storage and transcription industry, and would last a week. She paid a two-hundred-dollar fee, accepted a folder full of information about meetings and presentations, and a map of booths in the Convention Center. While she waited, her name badge was printed and inserted in a plastic case that hung from a lanyard. She put it around her neck so she looked like everyone else, then walked back to the hotel with a few of the women from the convention.