He stole a look at Livvy to see her reaction. She’d never heard any of this, of course. Other than Tawa, she had no knowledge of the pueblo world.
“Okay,” she said, nodding, as she continued to follow the circle of light that Celestino kept on the ground in front of her.
“But the rebirth won’t happen until we have all of the tablets–the ones the Creator left for us.”
They had entered the village and light from some of the windows illuminated the rough and narrow asphalt road but Celestino left his flashlight on.
Hadn’t that first shaman also said something about a tablet?
“I’m afraid you’ve lost me,” she said, but kept walking.
They passed between several small homes and followed the road around a bend. Finally she saw something she recognized–the building where the tour had started. She picked up the pace.
“So you’ve never heard of the prophecy?” Celestino asked.
“I’m afraid I don’t know a thing about it.”
They rounded the corner of the visitor center and there was her car, alone on the street.
Celestino arched his eyebrows. “Nice car,” he said.
Livvy had been holding the keys to the Porsche sedan in her jacket pocket and beeped the alarm. The car chirped in response.
“So Dale didn’t tell you any of this?”
“Uh, no,” she said. “There wasn’t exactly a lot of time for talk.”
Celestino gave her a puzzled look as she opened the car door.
“All he really mentioned,” Livvy said, “was the tablet.”
Celestino quickly put his hand on the door and pushed it shut. “What did he say about it?”
The mildly neutral facade disappeared instantly. A new intensity replaced it and Livvy knew this was really what he had come to find out. He was holding his breath and the flashlight in his hand looked more like a club.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “He asked me if I had it.”
Celestino turned off the flashlight but didn’t lower it.
“And what did you say?”
“The same thing I’m telling you now,” she said carefully. “I have no idea about any tablet.”
He leaned forward, searching her eyes. Livvy smelled tobacco and saw that his teeth were stained. She leaned away from him.
What was it Coco had said? “When you know why you’re here.”
He finally relaxed and released his grip on the door. He turned the flashlight back on.
“Enjoy the rest of your stay,” he said, turning to go. He paused and looked back. “But take my advice. Face the wind when you’re near the edge of the mesa and don’t get too close. It’s a long way down.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DALE DIDN’T LOOK up as Leon set down the cereal bowls and took a seat.
“Weeks of dreams,” Dale muttered, staring at the bowl. “I knew she would be here. I knew it.”
“Too bad she didn’t know it too,” Leon said, picking up a spoon.
Dale swung his glare from the bowl to Leon.
“Maybe if you hadn’t sat on me–”
“Maybe if you hadn’t fallen over–”
Dale stood up. “How could you have let her go?” he yelled.
Leon thrust his forearm out. There was a tiny blister in the middle of a patch of red.
Dale frowned at it and subconsciously touched his own forearm.
“Well, serves you right,” Dale said, though he’d lost some steam. “You didn’t have to be so rough.”
Leon threw up his hands.
“You said put her down!”
“You didn’t have to squeeze her to death!”
“Fine,” Leon said, getting up. He took his bowl, dumped it in the sink, and turned to leave.
“Wait,” Dale said. “Leon, wait.” He took in a deep breath and Leon paused. “Look, I’m sorry. These past few weeks….”
“Tell me about it,” Leon said.
Dale didn’t reply. Leon was right. He’d been a bear to live with ever since the dreams of Olivia had begun. He’d always been prone to vivid dreams, like most shamans. Unlike most, though, his dreams sometimes came true.
“Here,” said Dale, fetching the first aid kit from under the sink. “Sit down and let me have a look at that burn.”
Leon sat glumly at the table. “Is this going to hurt?”
Dale opened the kit and removed a roll of gauze. “It already does,” Dale said. “And you know that I know.”
Leon gave a little smirk.
From the time of his vision quest, Dale had been an empath. His ability to sense his patients’ emotional and physical states was uncanny. He’d almost have them diagnosed before he went to the Underworld. The upside was that he naturally bonded with people and could feel their pain. The downside was that he naturally bonded with people and could feel their pain.
He snipped off some tape and deftly covered the burn area with gauze. “The main thing is to keep it clean,” he said.
“You said her name, you know,” Leon said quietly. “Last night.”
Dale didn’t reply and didn’t meet Leon’s eyes either. He repacked the medical kit and put it back under the sink. Then he sat down heavily at the table.
“We still need to find her,” he said.
Leon seemed not to have heard as he looked at the new bandage.
Dale shook his head. Olivia had probably left after what happened yesterday. Then he paused. But if she was still in Hopiland…
Simultaneously, they both said, “I know where to look!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FLUTE MUSIC?
LIVVY rolled over and pulled the covers up higher.
At this hour?
The hotel at the Hopi Cultural Center had seemed quiet enough when she’d checked in last night but someone’s morning music lesson was starting to get annoying.
It became louder.
She was so tired. It’d been a long day and then a long evening. It was only when she’d gotten to her room that she realized she didn’t have her cell phone. She must have left it at Coco’s. She’d wanted to call SK and tell him everything. Without the cell phone, though, she didn’t have his or anyone else’s number and she knew he wasn’t listed.
Thinking of Coco made her think of her healed hip and leg. Suddenly she was awake.
Were they still healed? It hadn’t been a dream, had it?
She quickly scrambled out of bed only to shriek and fall back.
“Tawa!” she managed to get out.
The giant kachina lowered his flute.
Livvy flashed on another moment much like this one. He’d appeared out of nowhere, in her apartment in L.A., and nearly scared her to death. He had a knack for that–especially since manifesting in the real world was supposed to be impossible. The powerful sun spirit of the Hopi pantheon had seemed ominous and threatening but he had eventually saved her life.
He tucked the flute into his kilt, tilted his giant head toward the door and beckoned her.
She stared at the two black rectangles that served as his eyes and the inverted black triangle that was his mouth. The lower part of his round face was a light turquoise color while his forehead was divided into yellow and red quarter circles. As he moved, it seemed like his face wasn’t as big as she’d remembered. It was the large feathers that radiated out from it that gave it the sense of enormity.
He turned to look at her and then took a step toward the door and beckoned again.
“Not even a ‘hi, how are you?’,” she said, still sitting on the edge of the bed in her pajamas.
He just stood there.
“Of course not,” she said.
He communicated with gestures. Aside from the musical instruments, he was completely silent. She glanced down at his colorful moccasins and leggings and was reminded for an instant of Coco’s.
Then she smiled at him. “It’s good to see you.”
As baffling and unnerving as her short time on the mesas had
been thus far, it was good to see Tawa. At least he was someone she knew.
“Okay, a trip to the Multiverse,” she said standing up. Her hip still felt good, more soreness than pain, but she rubbed it out of habit. “Let me find my goggles.”
He slowly shook his great head.
“What? No trip to the Multiverse?” She cocked her head and put her hands on her hips. “Then what?”
He pointed to the door.
“Oh, the real world?”
That was a twist. Tawa didn’t stay in the real world long.
As if on cue, the disappearing act began. Unlike his appearances in L.A., he didn’t fight it and she simply watched. From the ground up, he began to vanish. As though a cylinder of invisibility were rising to swallow him, his moccasins disappeared, then the deer hoof rattlers suspended from his knees, then the white kilt, and, with increasing speed, his torso and face. Livvy half expected to hear a small pop as the last tip of one feather disappeared but there was only silence. She was alone.
Fine, she thought. The real world it is.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LEON RANG THE bell at the front desk and waited. It wasn’t like the old movies when you could figure out a person’s room number from the guest book. He looked behind the counter–only computers now.
Francine came out of the office.
“Oh, Leon,” she said, stopping. “I thought it was a guest.”
“Loloma to you too,” he said, using the traditional Hopi greeting. Then he grinned and rang the bell a couple more times.
“What do you mean I don’t have a reservation?” he said loudly, suddenly slurring and leaning heavily on the counter. “Hey, do you have a Sam’s Club discount? Where’s the free–”
Francine quickly closed the distance to the counter and put her hand on the bell. “Cut it out,” she hissed. “You’ll get me in trouble!”
“Oh no, not that!” he said, reaching for the bell.
She picked it up and set it down away from him. Then, she looked at his long reach and moved it even further.
“Sam’s Club discount,” she said, trying to scowl. The scowl quickly turned into a grimace, then a grin and finally a small chuckle escaped.
He and Francine were cousins. Even though he was of the Eagle Clan and she was of the Bear Clan, and they’d grown up on different mesas, their fathers were brothers.
“Come on, what’s with the clowning already?” Francine said. “We haven’t even had the first dance of the season.”
“Just wanted to see you smile,” he said.
“Yeah, okay,” she said, smiling. “Now you’ve seen it.” She waited for a second or two, looked at him pointedly. “Oh, so that’s not all?”
It was his turn to smile.
“Well, I might be looking for someone, like maybe one of your guests.”
“Really. And what would you want with one of our guests?”
“Well, not me,” he said and looked down. “Dale.”
“Oh,” she said. “Mr. Two-Heart.”
“Hey, hey,” he shot back. “It’s Two-Spirit and you know it.”
In the old days, calling someone a two-heart was serious business. A shaman, the evil kind, would use up the hearts of his own family members to make his life longer. Calling someone a two-heart was like calling someone a sorcerer, even a murderer.
“Two-Spirit,” she scoffed. “Maybe three or four.”
This, Leon couldn’t deny. Everybody knew Dale’s reputation.
Dale had declared himself a Two-Spirit, someone born with the spirit of a man and a woman, when he was a child. Although he referred to himself as an alternate gender, the joke was that he “alternated” genders as he flitted from one relationship to another, some with men, some with women. That had ended with Leon. They’d been together nearly two years.
“You know it’s not his fault,” Leon said. “He’s an empath. He can’t help feeling for people.”
Francine smirked. “Yeah, he’s probably feeling all over them when he’s doing a healing.”
Leon frowned a little but then opened his eyes too wide and grabbed at the air as though he were trying to grope someone. “You’re just jealous it’s not you,” he said.
Francine burst out with a short laugh. “Cut it out,” she said.
Leon rested his forearms on the counter. “Only if you let me ring that bell.”
She laughed again.
“Forget it,” she said, still chuckling. “Okay. You’re running an errand for your boyfriend, Mr. Two-Spirit. What does he want?”
“The white-haired woman. He needs to find her.”
Her laughter died abruptly. “That one?” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Why?”
“So she’s here then.”
“I didn’t say that!”
He gave her the ‘yeah, right’ look.
“We can’t give out a room number if you don’t know the guest’s name,” she said, as though she were issuing a challenge.
“Olivia!” he retorted.
She scowled at him and waited.
“I never heard her last name,” Leon complained. Then a thought occurred to him. “But Dale knows it.”
Francine crossed her arms in front of her, pressed her lips together, and glared at him.
“Oh, come on,” Leon whined. “Don’t make me call.”
She didn’t budge.
“Fine,” he said, lowering his voice. “If I tell you why he wants to find her, you’ll tell me her room number?”
She considered that for a moment and then uncrossed her arms and came closer to the counter.
“He’s had a dream about her,” Leon said.
Francine snorted. “Uh huh. Him and every other guy.”
Leon shook his head. “Not that kind of dream.”
It took a few seconds to register but, when it did, Francine’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, one of those dreams?”
Leon nodded.
“Well, you do know her name,” she reasoned with herself. “Well, part of it anyway.”
She slowly looked one way, then the other, and leaned toward Leon. He leaned over the counter and met her half way.
“You didn’t hear it from me,” she said lowly. “Anybody could have seen her come and go. In fact…” She looked around again. “She left but she hasn’t checked out. Room 114.”
Leon nodded.
“She probably didn’t check out,” he said, “because she couldn’t reach,” his hand darted out, “that bell,” he concluded, ringing it.
Francine quickly grabbed it. “I’ll ring your bell,” she said, waving it at him.
He jumped back like he was afraid. Even for a big guy, he was still nimble. He needed that for the clowning.
“And I don’t want to see this in the plaza,” she warned as he continued to back up. “It better not come up in any of your skits.”
He pretended to zip his lips and turned.
“Leon,” she said, as he was about to leave.
He turned back to her.
“What are you going to do if you find her?”
He cocked his head to the side. “Find who?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE FLUTE MUSIC led down.
You have got to be kidding.
“Tawa!” Livvy called.
The flute music stopped.
“I’m not coming down there!”
Her words echoed back to her. She closed her eyes and swallowed. She wasn’t afraid of heights–well, not as such. Obviously. She was out here wasn’t she? She opened her eyes and looked down the cliff face and then back up the path from which she’d come. No one was afraid of heights. They were afraid of falling.
The music resumed.
“What is so important down there? Can’t we just do this back at the top?”
The flute kept playing.
She’d followed it to her car at the hotel and then down a dirt road and finally this path. Whether it actually sounded in the air or just in her head, she couldn’t be s
ure. But it had started the minute she’d left the room and no one in the vicinity gave any indication they’d heard it–not that she had asked.
No doubt she was trespassing by being here. Someone was bound to spot her car parked up above.
“Oh geez,” she muttered.
The path had switched direction, back and forth, down the face of the cliff but it had also narrowed, little by little. At first she had thought it might widen out again but, at this point, it was barely two feet wide. She had to sidestep with her back to the rock and her hip was most definitely hurting now. Down below, the path wound around a bend and disappeared. She leaned her head back and looked up at the cloudy sky. There was a faint rumble of thunder on the horizon that gently rolled away.
“That’s what I’m saying,” she muttered.
The flute music stopped. She looked back down.
“What?”
It started again.
Fine. Fine. Let’s just get this over with.
She started her crab walk again, bringing her feet together, and then apart, feet together and then apart, just wanting to get to the end. She was about to round the bend. Maybe the path would be wider there.
Then, her right foot slipped.
She screamed as gravel spilled over the edge but her left foot was still on solid ground. She pressed her back into the cliff face.
The flute stopped.
“That’s it,” she muttered. “That’s it!” she yelled and she turned her head to look up the way she had come.
The sound of a rattle burst from somewhere behind her, down the path. It sounded close. She turned to look but there was no sign of Tawa. The rattle sounded again, out of view.
“I’ve had just about enough,” she called. “I’m serious, Tawa. This better be it.”
She scuffed her right foot along the path and kicked away any loose gravel. Then, slowly, she started the sideways crawl. The ledge had become even more narrow.
As she rounded the curve, she found herself in front of a small, shallow rock shelter. It wasn’t wide but the back of it was several feet from the edge of the cliff. And there was Tawa. She quickly stepped toward him and away from the edge.
Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman Books 1 -3 Page 62