by Harper Lin
“Can’t you get her to cross over, too?”
“Well, I can try.”
“Ladies?” came the voice of our spa technician and her entourage. “Why are you out of the mud bath so soon? You still have ten minutes.” She seemed shocked at our rebellious behavior.
“It wasn’t for us,” Bea said tactfully. “We’re ready for our soak in the hot springs.”
“Well, it won’t be ready for ten more minutes. You can wait in the lounge area. There is ice water to drink or orange juice if you prefer.” She gave us a quick smile and held the curtain back for us to exit the mud bath room.
We sat down around a small table and each enjoyed a glass of ice water with cucumbers in it.
“And the thing about this Enisi,” Aunt Astrid continued, “she is cruel. Cruel for sport. I can feel it.”
I didn’t like the sound of this.
We sat there, and I let Aunt Astrid’s words sink in. I thought about all the evil that surrounded me. This was supposed to be a relaxing getaway, and all this chaos—murders, astral spiders, evil spirits—was so absurd that I wanted to laugh.
After a while, our friend the spa technician came into the waiting room.
“Okay ladies. If you’ll follow me.”
She led us down a long corridor to an open patio. The air was heavy and thick with moisture like a greenhouse might be. We followed her down a cedar-planked path that gave way to more smooth stones and a lovely, crystal-clear pool of water. Steam rose from the water and wove and curled its way through the air in delicate plumes.
We each removed our robes and climbed in. All at once we let out a collective “ahhh.”
“Now this is nice,” Bea said, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.
I watched my aunt, who gave me a wink and rolled her head to the left and right.
The water was hot. I nestled onto a shelf of stone, let my legs float, and inched myself down until the water was just below my chin. I could hear the birds and the flitter of leaves from behind us over the cedar wall that blocked off the elements of nature for just a little privacy. The steam continued to rise, and I felt all the tension and nervousness leaving my shoulders and my back.
As the birds chirped and squawked, I called out to them.
“Hey, how’s everyone doing out there?” My mind was feeling soft and loose.
“Good. Not bad. Too many squirrels.” Then I heard a great squawking among all of them as they all agreed on too many squirrels. “Eating our sunflower seeds. Always the sunflowers. Stealing the sunflower seeds.”
“I’ll see if I can’t get more seeds out there for you.” I smiled a little as I watched through slit eyes the steam becoming thicker until finally it seemed like I was the only one in the water. I wasn’t scared. In fact, I was so relaxed that I stretched my arms and legs out and didn’t feel the sides of the spring. It felt like I was floating on the water, which rippled gently beneath me, carrying me off to another place, maybe even another time; I couldn’t tell. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I just wanted to drift in the hot water.
The sounds of the birds got farther and farther away. It wasn’t long before all I could hear was the water lapping over itself. I found no rocks to sit on anymore, no shore. It was just one vast body of water with me as a speck in the middle of it.
But that isn’t where I am, I thought to myself. I’m in a small hot spring. My aunt and cousin are just within arm’s reach. I stretched out but felt nothing.
With all the courage I could muster, I pointed my toe down and lowered my leg. Any minute now, any second, it would brush against the stone bottom. It had to be there. But I felt nothing. In a great panic, I pulled my legs up and snapped my eyes open.
Finally I found the bottom. In fact, I could stand up in the little pool, and the water would just be below my nose. It wasn’t deep at all.
I was in complete darkness except for the crescent moon staring down at me, reflecting off the ripples of water. What had happened? How had I gotten out here?
“Help!” My voice echoed off of nothing. “Help! Bea! Aunt Astrid!”
My heart drummed in my ears.
I spun around in the water, looking behind me for anything to grab on to. Then I realized it wasn’t my heart making that noise. It was actual drums. Like Indian drums. Like they were getting ready for battle.
I tried to scream again, but water filled my mouth. Something had pulled me under for just a second, letting me up almost instantly. I gasped and choked. Again came a tug on my foot, and my head dipped beneath the surface, only to pop back up. I tried to call out, but nothing but coughs and chokes came out of my mouth.
Then, as if in slow motion, I felt one finger at a time wrap around my ankle tightly. I tried to pull my leg away, but where was I going to go? It could see me, but I couldn’t see it. It held me fast. Kicking did no good. With a grip that felt like it was going to sever my foot from my ankle, I was yanked under the surface of the water, and this time it kept me there.
I opened my eyes in the black water and saw the hot-red eyes staring at me from the distorted face of the old crone I could only assume was the Enisi. She screamed at me, her mouth long and horrifying and ready to swallow me up.
But before I gulped up half the water around me, I saw another face. It was Bea!
Evil Old Biddy
Bea was in the water too. Her face was determined and…angry. She grabbed hold of the Enisi. In a huge flash of light, I snapped my eyes open, sat bolt upright, and took a huge, loud gulp of air.
“Oh, Cath!” I heard Aunt Astrid calling to me. “Get her on her side. Pat her on the back. There you go, sweetheart. Just cough it out. You’re okay now.”
I felt like a prize poodle on display. Dozens of eyes followed me as I coughed and gagged, and the look on the poor spa technician’s face sent me to tears.
Looking at Bea, who herself was out of breath, I could see she knew. We had been together in that other place. If it hadn’t been for her, I thought I very well might be visiting Davy Jones’s locker right about then.
“I’m all right,” I managed to gurgle. “I’m okay.” Taking a couple of deep breaths and shaking my head, I sat up. Aunt Astrid put a robe around me. My foot was hanging over the edge of the small pool of water in which I had been relaxing just minutes ago. It took a nanosecond for me to pull my foot away from the edge.
“We’ll call you an ambulance,” the technician said, worried by not just my condition but whatever trouble she thought she might be in.
“No.” I put my hand up quickly. “No. No ambulance. It’s my fault. I have allergies. I took an antihistamine. Bad idea. No. I don’t need an ambulance. Really.”
It was a lie. This pool of water was part of the curse. All three of us were targets, and a trip to the hospital would just delay our helping the poor Indian chief get his well-deserved rest and perhaps sending this Enisi off to…somewhere else.
“Really, I’m all right.”
“We’ll take her back to her room. She’ll be better after a rest.” Aunt Astrid and Bea helped me to my feet. I stood for a moment. Nothing tilted or whirled around my head, and one step was easily followed by another.
I will admit the idea of getting out of my bathing suit and into some comfy clothes and away from the water and the mud and all the rubberneckers sounded ideal.
We got through the lobby and piled into the elevator, where I had to let out a sigh.
“I never thought I’d be this scared of anything, but I’ll be honest and tell you guys if I never set foot in an elevator or pool of water again, it will be too soon. I don’t even think I can take a bath ever again. How about you, Bea?”
“That is one evil old biddy we are going to be dealing with. Her magic is as old as ours,” Bea said angrily.
“Are you all right, Bea?” I slipped my hand into hers.
“When I touched her, I saw what she was made up of. Aunt Astrid is right. She’s evil and likes it. She’s the one who takes the beauty of
nature and twists it into ugliness. She makes it scary.”
“Like the chipmunks!” I shouted as the elevator stopped and bobbed before the doors opened.
“Chipmunks?” my aunt asked.
I told them about the chipmunks I had seen while I was still under assault by the astral spiders and how depressed that image had made me.
“That sounds about right,” Bea said. “She’s had her eye on us since we arrived, I think.”
Once we were all in my room, we sat quietly for a few moments. I was on one bed. Aunt Astrid was on the other. Bea sat at the desk.
“So. What is the plan?” I looked at both of them.
“We need to get ready. I’ll go to my room and get my bag.”
“What bag, Mom?”
“My witch’s bag. Never leave home without it.”
She stepped outside, leaving Bea and me alone. Suddenly I remembered what Jake had told me. He’d asked me not to tell Bea. He didn’t want her to worry. But something inside me said I had to. I wouldn’t tell her everything. I’d let him fill in the gory details. But I should say something.
“I saw Jake this morning,” I said. Bea smiled at the mention of his name.
“Yeah, poor guy was up all night.”
“He told me that something happened that scared him.”
“He did?”
I gave her a Reader’s Digest version of what he’d said. I left out a lot, including the gun.
“He could probably use a shoulder to lean on.”
“My poor guy,” Bea said. “He puts up with so much, and I sometimes wonder if he’d have any of these problems if I wasn’t… you know, the way I am.”
“If you guys aren’t just the most sickeningly sweet couple I’ve ever seen. Good heavens.” I smirked, rolling my eyes. “First of all, Jake would run into a burning building for you. Second, you’d do the same for him. That kind of love is what the world needs. Not the safe kind that stays while times are good or each person is healthy and normal. Real love thrives on the weirdness, the oddities, the strange little ticks and twitches that make people different.”
“And how would you know about this, Miss Cath? That sounds like the poetry of a woman in the throes of passion.” Bea began to fan herself with her hand. “Don’t tell me that handsome Officer Tom Warner has moved you to spouting sonnets.”
I rolled my eyes but felt my cheeks blush, and when I heard Bea start to laugh, I knew she had seen them turn red too.
“He seems nice” was all I said.
“Yes, he does, and he seems very interested in you. But…”
“But what?”
Bea stood up and sat across from me on the other bed.
“I just always thought I saw something between you and Blake. Even though you guys fight and bicker and all that.”
“What are you talking about? He’s dating Darla.”
“Oh, come on! Do you really think that is going to last? And are they really dating, or are they just sort of hanging out together? It isn’t like she doesn’t have a reputation around town.”
“Oh, yeah, guys never want to be with girls who have reputations.” Did I mention how much I loved to use sarcasm?
Bea was used to it and started to laugh. I changed into an oversized T-shirt and leggings.
“Besides, maybe I don’t want to be with a guy who’s gone out with Darla Castellano.”
I didn’t dare say anything about what Blake had said to me about my family. A pang of anger plucked at my heart just thinking about him sitting where Bea had been a few seconds ago, telling me how crazy I was, how nothing had happened at the Prestwick house and how even Jake felt that way. No. I’d keep that to myself.
“Hey, it’s your life. I certainly wouldn’t discourage you from going out with Tom Warner. Are you going to call him when we get back home?”
“If we get back home? Maybe.”
Bea nodded and smiled a little. “There is always a chance things could go south. But I don’t think it will be this time.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Bea didn’t say anything more but just shrugged.
We were startled by the knock that came from the door. With Bea there, I wasn’t scared and opened it for my Aunt Astrid, now wearing one of her long hippy dresses, who bustled inside holding a green carpetbag that was packed so full I could have sworn I heard the seams crying out.
“Okay, girls. Let’s get started.”
Okima
All of us could tell things were going to be difficult. We had no references, no real supplies, no way of knowing what we were really dealing with. I felt like MacGyver trying to make a bomb out of two paperclips, an inch of duct tape, and a piece of chewing gum.
But I had learned my lesson from the Prestwick house. No way was I going to rush anything, second-guess my aunt’s instructions, or let my emotions get in the way. We had to be one united front if we were going to be of any help at all.
While Bea did a cleansing of us and the room, I looked out onto the balcony. The sun had set about fifteen minutes previously. The beautiful landscape had become menacing as the bare branches stood darker against the sky, and shadows covered almost every square inch of the grounds. Even the little lights around the paths seemed to have grown dimmer, as if their batteries were low.
Normally, Aunt Astrid would call to the guardians of the surrounding dimensions to come to our aid if we began to falter. However, although she tried to shoot up a psychic flare to get their attention, it was not generating the response she had hoped.
“This place is being cloaked or something,” she said. “I can’t seem to get anyone out there to notice us.”
“Perhaps it’s too noisy. Like you said, this whole area has become a terminal for wayward spirits. Have you ever tried to get someone’s attention at an airport? Or at the train station, especially when it’s rush hour? You need an air horn, police lights, and a megaphone.” Bea shrugged.
“It might not be the greatest idea to let the guardians know we are in need of help. Just because you call them doesn’t mean they are the ones who will answer, right?” Here I was, the eternal optimist, always looking on the bright side of every situation.
“You’re right. There is just too much activity. I didn’t even think of that.” Aunt Astrid slapped her hand against her head. “You’re both right. We’ll have to see what happens, and if we get in trouble, well, we’ll just have to rely on each other.”
“I’d rather rely on you guys than anyone else in the world,” I said, pulling my hair back from my face. “Besides, this doesn’t sound like a tough job. You’re just helping this Indian chief cross over to the light, right? That shouldn’t be so hard.”
“You’re forgetting the Enisi,” Aunt Astrid said. “If he listens to her in death like he did in life, we may be in for a bigger fight than we are prepared for. Normally I’d have my books. I know back at my house I have some things on the Native American holy men. I remember a simple ritual of thanks. But right now the best I have is Wikipedia, and that doesn’t ease my mind.”
With the room filled with sage smoke (and the smoke detector batteries removed—thank goodness the detectors weren’t hardwired), our minds and bodies clear, and the energy in and around us unblocked, we made our simple plan and headed toward the clearing in which Bea and I had stumbled on Aunt Astrid that afternoon.
It was much slower going in the darkness. The crescent moon was easily seen in the sky but gave off little light.
“I’m sorry, guys, but darkness hasn’t been my friend these last few days,” I whispered. “Is it just me, or is everything getting harder to see? Just please don’t let me fall into a body of water.”
I felt Bea’s hand slip into mine and squeezed it. Her touch was a healing one, and I began to feel the courage she had transferred to me. Aunt Astrid walked ahead of us, her bag still full of things Bea and I knew better than to question.
“I’ve come to see Okima by the flight of the crow. Let me pass,”
she murmured over and over in a respectful voice. It was a quiet song that Aunt Astrid kept up. From the sound of her voice, she was not completely with us anymore. She was making her way to the dimension that she had been in earlier that day, the one with the tall grass and the bubbling brook. I wondered how beautiful it must have been in the nighttime, too, when the land was wild.
Bea and I didn’t speak. If Aunt Astrid was crossing over, we just had to follow her for now. So far, I was enjoying this journey. All my aunt had to do was talk with the chief. How hard could that be, right? Right. I sounded confident in my head until I heard my aunt’s voice begin getting louder and louder.
“I’ve come to see Okima! By the flight of the crow! Let me pass!” She called out the words, then yelled them, then shouted them, and finally she was screaming at the top of her lungs.
She was hollering so loud that I was sure armed guards or at least the lights from on top of a police car would soon be seen from where we were, officers with weapons drawn running to rescue the senile old lady lost twenty feet from the door she’d left by. But nothing happened. I heard only the sound of crickets and loons, but just as I noticed them, they stopped.
Aunt Astrid began to make her way quickly off the path and to the same clearing she had been in when Bea and I had found her under the influence of the Enisi.
“Should we follow?” I whispered.
Bea’s eyes darted around. “I don’t know for sure. I’m really not sure what to do.”
Pointing off to the right, I saw what Jake had seen the night before: something so unnatural, so unnerving that no breath came out of my mouth.
They were like an army. Shadows separate from any stationary object appeared to be climbing up trees, crawling around the ground, hopping and dancing on the path between Aunt Astrid and us.
They were blacker than the darkness around us and much bigger as they shifted and morphed into different things. I saw a wolf bound over the brush before turning into a sleek cat and running off. A bird with immense wings circled over us before bounding across a small ditch like a deer might. And then I saw the human shapes. They were bulky, menacing things that marched up to us then disappeared. They seemed not to believe we were there and needed a closer look, but before they got to us, the dream ended.