by Amy Simone
Susan met her at the front door of her and Ralph’s temporary rental house.
Cassie felt awkward. This was the first time she’d been alone with Susan.
“Thank you for taking care of Josh,” she admitted as she took her youngest’s hand.
“He’s a fun little boy. And we‘re all going through a tough time. I’m just glad it sounds like Caleb is getting better. Oh, hey, I found this with Caleb’s pack.”
Susan handed her a small glass object. It looked like a shark’s tooth and was smooth and finely honed with a gold cap on top.
“What is this?”
“It was on the floor, under his knapsack. I figured it was some jewelry? Just doesn’t look like something a kid would normally have.”
Cassie put the trinket into her purse. “I’ll ask him about it.”
“You got some good kids there,” Susan told her. Then she stepped back a little and stooped down so she could see Josh in the car and waved at him. “See you later!”
Late in the evening Cassie remembered the odd object. She put it on her mother’s desk and looked at it under the lamp.
It had an energy about it she felt each time. It drew her eyes to it. For a moment, she wondered if Caleb having this with him had something to do with the scratches in his throat. Where did it come from? She’d ask Caleb tomorrow in the hospital. Maybe it was a good thing, a small talisman from the Coach? For the time being, she couldn’t tell if whatever she felt coming from this thing was good or evil—it just felt like it had some power associated with it.
The next day she held it out to Caleb.
“Susan said you left this at their place.”
Her son stared at it, then his eyes got wide. “Get it away from me, mom. Throw it out!”
Instantly Cassie left the room and put it in her pocket.
“What is it son?” she asked when she came back.
“That was in my dream,” he sobbed. “A little man was in my mouth with that. Then he went down my throat.”
Cassie instantly regretted showing it to him. She hugged Caleb as best she could around all the equipment. “You‘re going to be fine now.”
Josh, who sat on a chair in the room, watched both of them anxiously with his eyes swinging from one to the other.
“It’s okay, Caleb. The little man is gone. I’ll take care of it.”
His throat was getting better. The hospital dietician had specified soft foods only for ten days. She figured Ralph must have put the doctors’ fears to rest because there were no more queries about their fitness as parents.
She texted Bob while sitting in the room with Josh and Caleb. Soon they planned to release Caleb.
“I didn’t have time to tell you everything,” she started.
“Tell me,” he wrote back.
First she described what had happened at the hospital and then finding the glass tooth.
“What should I do with it?”
“I’m guessing your witch friend is behind all this.”
“And?” Cassie sat in the hospital room, mentally turning the object this way and that in her head.
“Good idea to keep it out of his view. Hey, let me call you back in a few. I’ve got to move a horse inside.”
Cassie took his call in the hall. “I will be so glad when the boys are out West,” Cassie she breathed into the phone. “I am scared something else will happen to them.”
“When do your sons leave?”
“In ten days. My mom’s man friend is driving down to pick them up and they’re taking more of her stuff to Colorado.”
“Where are you going to live once her house is sold?”
“Good question,” Cassie said.
“You could always come here.”
“Mm,” Cassie said. “Maybe I should get my own place first.”
“Why? There’s you all can have the guest cabin. Plenty of room.”
“Don’t you need it?”
“I am looking for somebody to hold this place together when I have to travel. Seriously.”
“Let me think about it, Bob. I love working around horses, don’t get me wrong but there’s also the matter of us.”
“Us.” He repeated the word. They both got quiet.
“Yeah, us,” Cassie said. “I’d hate to jinx it.”
“Take your time. My next trip out of here isn’t for a while, anyway. Is Caleb going to make it to his lesson this weekend?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. You let me know.”
“Wait!” Cassie said, “what do you think I should do with this weird thing?” she asked. She looked at it again. It felt like it was getting warm.
“The Coach might know. I’ll see if I can find out anything.”
57
Evening Prayers
Cassie put the shark tooth on a small table near the front door once she got back to Hayworth‘s. She gave a small hopeful prayer that whatever it was it wasn’t a bearer of bad things—at least not all the time. As she held it, it actually felt comfortable, as if it belonged there.
Turning off lights as she walked back into the house, she peeked in on Josh. All looked good. Tomorrow would be another day and it might even be a normal day. One could only hope.
The next morning at the hospital she and Ralph waited for Caleb to be released. They had determined nothing conclusive. Cassie suspected this would be the case.
Around ten she got a text from Bob.
“Bring that thing with you on Saturday if you all are coming. Talked to Bruce. Will explain.”
She opened her front door. The small object lay there right where she’d left it. She hid it in a cupboard in the carport.
On Saturday, she carted herself and the two boys over to Caleb’s riding lesson. At the last minute she remembered the glass tooth and stuck it in her purse.
“Why don’t we just sit this one out?” she said to Caleb. “You can learn by watching.”
Her son didn’t disagree with her. He brightened up at the thought of seeing the horses but she knew better than to let him push things too much. She knew she’d made the right call.
“We’re doing to be doing some fast stuff today. I’ll let you be the whistle blower, Caleb,” Bob suggested.
“Yes sir.”
The students rode a few warm-up drills, then Bob paired them off and had them do transitions with their horses from slow to faster. Each kid had to ride in a large circle opposite his mate and keep the distance the same whether they trotted or cantered.
“This is hard,” one student called out.
“I know it’s hard. It’s all about control. If you don’t have control, then you have nothing,” Bob explained.
Then he had them ride side-by-side and do the same adjustments. If anybody sped up too much, he stopped them and made them start over. Caleb’s job was to blow the whistle and make them change gaits.
After that, the class rode through obstacles in pairs.
“Super hard,” the same student objected.
“Yes, super hard. Now keep going.”
Cassie grinned. She knew what it must feel like to ride your horse yet pay attention to the other mount and rider.
She took some videos of her sons at the barn. Caleb got to brush his pony.
Later, she sent them to Ralph.
“See what you’re missing?” she typed to Ralph.
“Susan will have to pick them up this time,” he wrote back. “I’m on a colic call.”
At last the lesson was over. Caleb visited his school pony in his outdoor paddock. He hugged his favorite mount around the neck.
“See you when we get back,” he told the pony.
“You’ve learned a lot,” Cassie told him. “I think you will get some more riding lessons when you see your grandparents.”
After everybody cleared out, Bob and Cassie doled out hay and filled water troughs.
“Let me see this thing,” he suggested once they’d finished feeding. “Bruce told me some things we m
ight try. He also told me what to watch out for.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
Bob looked carefully at it and held it up to the sun. “It is kind of wicked looking, isn’t it? Did you see this?” He traced the tip of his finger along the gold bond. Cassie squinted and put her face closer to examine it.
“Oh,” she said, recoiling. “That part looks alive. It’s moving or something.”
“Energy,” Bob said. He carefully laid it on his porch railing. “Here’s what Bruce suggested—he said to find some running water, not tap water, and submerge it for a little while. That’s supposed to be the cleansing part.”
“Then what?”
“He said he thinks it works like a crystal.”
They both just stopped and looked at the clear object which appeared to catch sunlight and shimmer.
“What the heck. Let’s go.” Bob picked it up and offered his hand to Cassie.
As they drove along, Cassie thumped her leg with her fingers. “I swear, this has all taken me to places I never would have been.”
“Me too.”
“I mean here we are acting like two kids on a scavenger hunt. Did Bruce tell you what to expect?”
“No, he wasn’t sure. He said to be careful though in how you spoke around it.”
Bob took a back way that coursed along the ancient banks of the Mississippi River. Its gigantic earthen swells still existed. He parked alongside of the narrow road and got out.
“Let’s do it here.”
Cassie looked all around her. The vegetation was so lush and thick she imagined herself in an Amazon rain forest.
“Wow, I didn’t know something like this was here.”
“C’mon, it won‘t take long.” They pushed through the greenery until their feet sunk into the muddy shoreline of a small flowing bayou.
“This will do.” Bob held the glass under the slowly moving water. “What do you say? A minute?”
Cassie shrugged. “We can try.” She hugged herself despite the warm day. “If anybody saw us, they’d think we were nuts.”
“Yes, we’re nuts.” He counted, making sure to submerge his fingers fully.
Getting up, he wiped the thing dry and handed it to Cassie. “You’d better work some gris-gris on it, darling.”
“Hell, I don’t know any chants!” She reluctantly took it from him.
“Better come up with something,” he urged. “We drove all this way.”
Cassie peered at the glass. “Nothing’s happening,” she said.
“That’s because you aren‘t trying.” He grinned at her and nodded towards the truck. “Think, come up with something.”
“Okay.”
Once they were in the truck, they sat there for a moment. Cassie closed her eyes and imagined a room and first populated it with her kids, then her mom and sister, then everybody she had in her life. “I want everybody to be happy, even Ralph,” she said softly.
Bob hooked an arm over his steering wheel. ”Sounds good, but I think you need something else. Something more specific.”
Cassie’s eyes flew open. “If you’re so good at this crap, then you do it!”
“Hey, calm down. I just meant your chant didn’t sound like much of a chant. More of a nice all over blanket. What about something you’re having to wrestle with? Give it a go. Be honest.”
“Honest…” Cassie rolled the object around in her hand. It had that warm feeling again. She held it up closer to her eyes. The funny moving line was still there right where the gold touched the glass. “This is scaring me, Bob.”
“All right, then hand it over.”
58
Consequences
Cassie gingerly dropped the shark’s tooth into his palm. He smiled. “I know how to ask for things, Cassie. Watch.”
Clutching his hand on his chest, he kept smiling, leaned back against the seat and didn’t say a word. All she saw was that his lips were slightly moving.
“Not fair,” she cried.
“You don’t need to know.” His eyes showed that he was enjoying the moment. He handed it back to her. “Your turn.”
“I’m feeling ridiculous.”
“So? Do it and then we’ll leave.”
After a long pause, she said, “I know I’m impulsive—my sister calls me a shopaholic.”
“Speak to that then.”
Cassie mimicked what she’d seen Bob do, then opened her eyes again. “I’m done. Let’s go.”
“That wasn’t hard, was it?”
“No. But why won’t you tell me what you thought about?” she pressed.
He turned the key in the ignition. “It’s a secret. If I tell you, it might not come true.” He laughed. “Enough of this ritual stuff—where can a guy get a good meal around here?”
They chose a small lunch place nearby and ordered poboys. As they settled down to their table, Cassie spoke up. “You know, Bob, the other day when for whatever reason the witches or whoever transformed me into a credit card.”
“Oh really? Well at least they didn‘t leave you flat chested!” he joked.
“It felt like my skin was being ripped off every time that girl was using me.”
“Ugh.”
“And I got to thinking about what it must have been like for my boys, especially while I was still married to Ralph.”
“Go on.”
“I had Caleb helping me with my addiction,” she explained. “I had Caleb in on the deal of hiding stuff from Ralph. I used to make him haul all the boxes of the crap I was buying out to the burn pile. I had so much stuff on order…” Her eyes teared up. “It was like mountains and mountains of… junk.”
“Wasn’t it a business for you, though?” He touched her hand.
“Not really. A failing business. Thebusier I got the more I spent. But the people just weren’t buying.”
She put her sandwich down. “It cost me my marriage. All I did was look at the computer all day, ignoring the kids…”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
“I was trying to make other people happy.” Now she began crying. “I didn’t even ever see those other people! All this back and forth, emailing strangers over orders and problems with orders and getting real mad at some of them. I remember one day Caleb looking so scared. I was yelling all the time at the computer. It was like I had a relationship with it and nobody else.”
“Cassie, you were just doing the best you could,” Bob reminded her. “Trust me, I get mad too. Not at the horses, though. Never at the horses. Now look at you, getting all upset. That’s in the past.” He walked over to her side of the table and sat next to her to curl her into his arms. “Be sweet now. Just take some breaths. You’re here now and you don’t want to get all upset over this good lunch.”
He picked up her chin and gave her a kiss. “Look, you figured things out. Got out from under all that. You’re a smart girl.”
“Not really. I was a terrible student. Hated school.” She stopped crying. He wiped her face tenderly.
“School is an acquired skill,” he told her. “I say though you have a lot of native smarts. Look at what all we’ve been through together. You got me out of some scrapes. I’d call you one of those survivor types.”
“Don’t candy coat things,” she told him in a warning voice.
“Don’t underestimate yourself.” He pulled his sandwich over and offered her a bite. “This shrimp is great. You’ll feel better after you’ve gotten some food in you.”
She shook her head, then attempted to smile. “You’re right. It’s past. I just keep resisting.”
“Sounds normal.” He bit off a big chunk and chased it down with a slug of tea.
“I think I love you, girl,” he said, putting down his cup and facing her. “And I‘m talking about the here and now.”
Cassie found it hard to hear this. After all, there she sat in a restaurant with him with her tear-streaked face.
“I better go wash up,” she muttered.
“Hurry bac
k or I’ll finish your sandwich too.”
She realized the glass talisman in her jeans pocket now it felt warm against the side of her leg. She didn’t know whether this was a good or bad thing. In the bathroom she took it out and looked at it once more. Now colors seemed to flow up and down within it, almost like a spectrum of lights.
Strange, she thought. She’d show this to Bob later. Her reflection looked different to her in the mirror, too. Her face had gotten softer. She didn’t look wary like she usually did. The split with Ralph had taken a toll on her and all the worry over Caleb hadn’t helped either but now that seemed to have melted away. Maybe she was accepting things….
“You will need to decide,” he told her later in the truck.
“How so?”
“I really want you to move in with me,” he told her.
Cassie objected. Bob held up his hand.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. The boys. The talk. Your mother. They’ll adapt. I still want you. I’ve always wanted you.”