by Micah Thomas
“I don’t get it,” Thelon said. “What’s a land acknowledgement?”
Cassie interjected, “We covered this while you two were in the bathroom. They have a deal with the Chickasaw, Osage, and Peoria nations. Black Star co-owns this property with them.”
“The well-known mounds are in town,” Cynthia said. “Ours is outside the main situs, but it is somewhat unique.”
“We’ve opened it,” Lena said excitedly.
“Wait. No,” interrupted Cynthia. “The three of you will go down into the mound, but not yet.”
The smell of something savory wafted into the room, and Henry’s stomach growled loudly in the awkward silence.
“Sorry. Guess I’m looking forward to dinner,” he mumbled.
“I could eat,” Cassie added with a smile.
“I would ask that none of you eat,” Cynthia chimed in. “I’m sorry for tempting your senses. Yes, we have wonderful cooks with us.”
Oh, shit. It’s happening. Click, click, click. We’re going up the hill on a roller coaster now. Guys, can you hear me? He sent the thought to Henry and Cassie but received no reply.
“Tonight, you must go dreaming.” Cynthia took three vials, from her pocket, bright blue swirling chemicals like ink inside.
“Drugs,” Henry said. “Hey, I just got clean and this is probably not great for my sobriety.”
“You will not form an addiction to this,” Cynthia explained. “These will help you.”
Cassie asked with a furrowed brow, “Are we going into the sweat lodge?”
“No. That path is not for you,” Cynthia said. “You three will build your energy together—alone, but together. This is required.”
“Or…?” Thelon asked, wanting to bring up the topic of the reanimated dog, but sensing now was not the time
“Or you will die,” Cynthia said flatly.
“There it is,” Cassie said and stood, shaking her head.
“Oh, hell no.” Henry joined her.
Thelon tugged at Cassie’s sleeve in a gesture of trying to calm her, but cringed at behaving more like a child wanting attention. “This is what we came here for. We knew it was coming even if we didn’t know what it was.”
Cassie turned to him, an accusation in her expression. “I’m not letting anyone threaten us, okay? Do you want to die tonight?”
“I…fuck, I don’t, but…”
“But you might,” Cynthia finished for him.
“We will not die here,” Cassie persisted.
Lena spoke up, calm and neutral, “Perhaps Cynthia said that wrong. You will die tonight, but you will also be reborn.”
“Give us a minute,” Henry said and walked his friends out onto the porch.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Cassie said. “We could totally just go home.” Her posture radiated protection, strength emanating from tense shoulders.
Thelon could almost see her in a military uniform, and he knew in his core that she watched out for them—for him. Thelon looked to Henry, but also knew he’d follow Cassie’s lead. They were a unit now. “Let’s just talk it out for a second.” He searched for words but didn’t have any.
Henry and Cassie opened their mouths, but before they could say anything, Thelon spoke. “Don’t go. Please, don’t go. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you, and I have to do this.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Cassie said, holding Thelon’s arm.
“You two have been so beautiful, taking this weird trip with me,” Thelon said, “but this is what it’s all about now. I’ve been quiet because I don’t have the words, and I’m scared and confused, but inside of me, everything says that this is our destination. I don’t know if anything Cynthia says is true, but all that about our bodies having knowledge—you feel it, right?”
“Thelon, bro, yes, but I don’t like this death talk.” Henry crossed his arms. “I don’t like it one bit. Like, did I suddenly just realize we are hanging out with a cult? Why, yes, Henry. How astute of you!”
Thelon laughed. Cassie laughed.
“Mother fucking cults,” Cassie said. “So, we’re gonna take drugs and go on a spirit journey that might end in our deaths. Jesus.”
“I think they are talking in metaphors, though,” Thelon said. “Can we go back in there? You’re not gonna get your gun and like, kick some ass or anything?”
“Fine. But you know I’m a nurse, right? The idea of a strong as hell psychedelic drug, which has no…um, no pharmacological history is not good. It would be different if we had a control; maybe Thorazine or something to take us down, someone checking our respiration. Do you know some drugs like this can fuck up your breathing?”
“I guess you’ll have to keep your third eye sober while the rest of us go fucking nuts.” Henry took a deep breath and pulled the three of them into a bear hug. “Okay, I love you weirdos.”
They held each other tight, drawing comfort to steady nerves. Thelon felt it. They were commingling even now; somewhere deeper than these bodies, they were already aligning, and he was no third wheel. They connected. Like a Bluetooth. Connected. We just snapped in place. He pulled away from the embrace and said, “Let’s do it.”
When they returned to the drawing room, they found only Cynthia there, waiting.
“You’ve decided?”
“Yes, but I have questions,” Cassie said.
“Have them out, but remember, we’ve run this cycle over decades now. While I will not avow that it is perfectly safe, I will preempt your line of reasoning to say there is no medical consequence to our formula to your biological functions.”
“Except that it will make us trip, yeah?” Henry pointed out. “Will it come on like LSD? I’ve done LSD.”
“You will have an hour before the drug takes effect. This is completely stable across all our runs with the final lot. Nothing in any of your past experiences will be an analog to what you will experience after that. We have said all we can to prepare you.”
Cassie laid out her concerns. “Well, to be perfectly honest, you’ve been vague with lots of wishy-washy metaphors and stoner theory. That’s all right, and we’re going to do it, but tell me you have an appropriate measure for a bad trip and adequate first aid kits if we accidentally harm ourselves? Are we going to be observed at all?”
Henry and Thelon examined the vials Cynthia laid on the table.
“And what does it taste like?” Henry asked.
“You will dose. I will withdraw to dine with my fellows. We have big work to prepare for the effort to come after this night, should you survive. We must not interfere with you. None of us will stop you from making your choices.”
Thelon had the absolute moment of déjà vu and this time, he caught it. He’d seen Cynthia channeling Nestor and heard that horrible voice direct her—no, direct Black Santa—not to interfere. He trembled with the recovered memory but stayed present and didn’t dissociate. His breath shivered out of him.
Cassie refused to be placated. “You’re telling me that if I’m bleeding and too fucked up to patch myself, you aren’t going to help me?”
“Cassandra.”
“Can you just say my name? Cassie, please.”
“Cassie, yes,” Cynthia corrected. “We will administer anything you should need except direction. But you are fixated on points, which I know are your comforts and area of expertise, but believe me, when you are cycling on your dose, you will see that your worries in this regard were entirely unfounded. That’s not the story of tonight.”
Cassie shook her head and joined Henry in studying the vials. They each picked one up; the unmarked, little rubber stopper was the only thing between them and the strange contents within.
Cynthia winked at them, a smug smile on her face. “And now I take my leave of you, children. Your trip will last no more than ten hours. Make the most of it.”
Together, they uncorked, standing there in that oddly formal drawing room. Yellow light fixtures illuminated the watchful gaze of the portraits of philosophers a
nd scientists whose work they prepared to consume. There was a clatter in the kitchen as old folks prepared to dine.
Cassie held up her vial. “To those who wish us well, and all the rest can go straight to hell.”
She drank and they all followed suit.
“An hour. She said an hour. What the fuck are we going to do?” Henry asked.
Cassie answered, “I dunno, but I don’t want to do it in here. The paintings are creepy as fuck.”
Thelon’s smile grew out of nowhere. “We should take a drive.”
“That’s dangerous,” Cassie said.
“Think about. We’ve spent more time together on the road than anywhere else. I want to feel something familiar when it kicks in.”
Though undecided, they went outside under the porch lights and walked around the house to the car, which hadn’t been started in several days.
“Where’s Cat?” Henry asked.
“I left her in my room. Should I go get her?” Cassie offered.
“Hell yeah,” Henry said.
“You cool to do that alone?” Thelon wondered out loud, not meaning to say it, but not wanting them to part.
So they held hands and walked the few yards in the darkening early night to their bunkhouse and collected Cat, her carrier, some treats, jackets, hoodies, flashlights, and water bottles. Though it still didn’t take up their entire hour, they felt time clicking along too fast in its gears as they hustled back to the car, each knowing that they’d likely forgotten something they’d want once the drug took hold.
Thelon sat in the driver’s seat, Cassie in the passenger and Henry in the middle back, holding Cat. They didn’t drive anywhere, but enjoyed the air-conditioning, music playing, and radio chatter of hosts introducing songs in a top ten lists they’d completely forgotten existed. They sang along, voices lacking instruction or care, allowing the music to serve them as it always had, to pass the time remaining.
~
SUDDENLY AND SPONTANEOUSLY aware, Thelon had no idea how long he’d been sitting with his right hand to his lip, letting the texture of his beard press into his fingertips. His his arm cramped so it had to be a long-ass time, but he should turn off the car because he’d have to fill up the gas tank before returning it to the rental agency and they might even be mad because he’d had it longer than the contract. Maybe not, because he’d taken the car out for a long time and wasn’t sure what day it was anymore, but it wasn’t his car. He didn’t have a car. He lived in the city and took Ubers and public transportation to get around. Cars were irresponsible to the planet. We all care about it and need to do our part in protecting the envir…on…ment.
I’m tripping.
“Yup,” Henry said, awake now that the radio was off. His bladder was full, but he didn’t want to pee his pants. The pressure had been there for quite some time now, and if anyone else knew about it they might make fun of him or be angry that he fucked up the good time they were having because he did that a lot and it wasn’t fun being the butt of every joke—even though he’d turned it around to be in on the laugh and it was funny to be a clown but he was a sad clown. Deep down—deep, deep down, he knew everyone was also a sad clown, trying not to frown, trying not to make a sound.
“Just go outside, man,” Cassie said to Henry as she fumbled with the seatbelt she hadn’t been wearing, which was just plain irresponsible if you were going to be in a motor vehicle operated by someone on drugs because they could have an accident and pee all over the floor and there’d be blood and ambulances and trouble. So much trouble to have to deal with and when everyone else panicked, they needed someone to step up, take control, and give direction. To be cool under fire because those bullets have to be ignored when you are going to do the right thing and decide to swallow your fear. I feel it feel, too. I’m not sooooooooperman.
“But I bet you could fly if you wanted to,” Thelon said.
“None of that talk. That’s how people get hurt on drugs,” Henry said as Cat slipped from beneath his fingers, which had been petting her soft fur over and over to the tune of her infinitely deep, rumbling purrs. He let himself out of the car, the door swinging on a hinge impossibly smooth. His body glided as if on invisible rails—because it was. There were now lines of force coordinating the world. “I’m a bumper car!”
Thelon and Cassie emerged into the cool night air with him and watched as he rode that funny arc of black metal like painted pig iron that super imposed itself into a pointless rod and hook going ten feet up and curving in front of Henry over the car. And he rode up, and down, and up, and down, then into the sky.
Cassie blinked. Thelon scoffed. “Quit fucking around and pee already,” one of them said, but he didn’t need to pee anymore. It had gone back inside or something.
“That’s weird.” and Henry did stop fucking around but his giggles didn’t, and he forgot how to not be laughing.
“Cat is going to stay in the car,” Thelon said and waved to Cat, who told him it was okay, that the carrier had her soft blankets and she wouldn’t make a mess in there or tear things up with her claws—but she could if she wanted to. She told him to go see what there was to see and she would be there waiting if they needed her to protect them.
“Thank you, Cat. I love you,” Thelon said.
“Let’s walk over there.” Cassie pointed to a line of soft gold fairy lights guiding them to the trails leading into the woods. The boys nodded and they left Cat, water bottles, flashlights, and anything else they thought they’d needed.
“We already are.” Henry saw dozens of themselves—holograms, blurry around the edges, but them. Hand in hand, they were translucent, all walking down the path. The closest of them stood right in front of him having the same conversation, though he couldn’t hear them.
“I don’t know about that,” Thelon said, unsure of what he meant. As he walked, his goofy robot legs propel him too fast and had to hold Cassie and Henry’s hand to slow him.
“Henry touched the ghost of himself and he absorbed it—him, himself. He knew that once upon a time, his life had been exactly the same,” Henry said.
Cassie added, “She held her hand up to mouth to say no more. Henry, be serious!”
“I am!” Thelon said, but he wasn’t Henry. He’d always been similar but different.
They walked beneath the trees, unaware of the rising stars and Moon, following trail upon trail, incidentally gobbling up other selves on contact with the ghosts, knowledge penetrating their bodies but changing nothing—or nothing obvious.
Cassie bit her bottom lip and groaned, “I don’t like this.” The trees were closing in. The path grew darker. The wind whispered through the leaves. Shapes and faces formed across shadowy geometries. She shook it away.
Henry said, “I don’t see them anymore. Do you?”
“Dude, I never did.”
“What?”
Henry paused, causing the chain of them to stop on the trail as he leaned into Thelon’s face, feverish bright eyes meeting feverish bright eyes. “We’ve done this before. Every time we died.”
“But did something get us?” Thelon asked, averting his eyes from that blue stare where stars multiplied in the dark pit of his pupil.
Cassie said, “We are not alone,” and pulled on her friends’ hands, making them bend a bit as she was the shorter of them.
Thelon looked ahead on the path and saw the dog, PD. “That dog was dead.”
Henry said, “We brought him here. We found him at the hotel in Scottsdale. We had his name tag made at Walmart before we left town. He didn’t fight with Cat because there was no Cat. That time, we had the dog.”
“Whoa,” Cassie said. “You’re right. How do I remember that? No. Naw. How did I forget that?”
“It’s okay. It happened when Thelon and I weren’t at the Circle K talking to that cop who didn’t arrest Thelon and sent him to the Moon.”
“Right,” Thelon said, licking his lips, mouth so dry he wished he’d had that bottle of water, but he couldn
’t remember where he’d put it.
“No. We can’t go back there right now,” Cassie said. “In fact, I think we might want to run. The dog isn’t the thing, but the sun might be rising.”
“Not the sun,” Thelon said. A terrible thing rose in the sky. Ugly and menacing, red, purple, and yellow like the sun, its surface boiled over and arched in flares, but beneath the light radiating out was mottled skin, scars, and burns. “Nestor.”
Thelon’s body twisted but Cassie held his hand. Corded neck. Nostrils flared. Guttural roaring from deep inside. A pounding in his ears. Clouded vision. Adrenaline rushing through his body. Uncontrollable body tremors.
He then knew of another time he watched the horizon and his voice quieted in his mind and body. He saw a passageway. “There’s a cabin through the woods, off the trail. We run on three. One, two, three.”
So, they ran. Cassie flexed her natural ability to let go of attempting to understand and only reacting. Henry ran with her.. Thelon’s body remembered it had once seen the world as it really was while in a construct of his own mind, under duress and attack from the embodiment of dread entities spilling over from another world. That was when he knew how to beat them, how to become the key in the door and open the worlds. It hadn’t been what Black Star did when they fed Henry drugs so long ago. It hadn’t been what Henry did when he destroyed the other Earth. There were precursors and catalysts of many moving parts, but Thelon had known what he would become, and he knew it as he ran, or some part of him knew it again.
Alas, before he made it to the cabin, Thelon received a jolt of knowledge stronger than he was and he cracked under it. A terrible sadness and pain in his side screamed for attention. He drowned in sorrow for himself as a little boy trying to sleep but being scared of the dark. Young Thelon with a funny name kept up in school and with his parents’ expectations and the runaway who got in trouble with the law in Eden.
On either side of him, Cassie and Henry supported him by the armpits. They kept him moving. Thelon felt something coming out of him—a tendril of sensation exiting his stomach: a hook, touching and exploring the trees and grass in minute detail.