By Dusk

by T Thorn Coyle

  The whole coven did, really. Moss wouldn’t hang with them, otherwise.

  He’d been raised by Buddhists. His dad was white and his mom was Japanese American and they’d met on a Soto Zen retreat five years before Moss was born. His mom’s parents had taught him some Shinto, and told him stories about the Ainu, the aboriginal peoples of Japan. As a teenager, he did more study on his own, and started making offerings to the kami, trying to pay attention to the spirits of everything around him.

  His parents encouraged his spiritual practice, though their eyebrows sure had raised when he joined the coven. He still hadn’t figured out a good way to explain it to his parents…how all of his meditation, and his offerings to the spirits of place—and to his phone and computer even—helped his life. And that all of it had led him to wanting to study magic. If Arrow and Crescent hadn’t been down with social justice, and were only a bunch of middle-class white people, no way would he have become a witch. But along with their commitment to justice, they were also one of the most mixed groups a person could find in seventy-five-percent white Portland, Oregon.

  And over the past couple years? They’d become his friends.

  Alejandro strode through the door, neatly pressed in black trousers and a crisp orange dress shirt. He was an in-demand IT guy with such mad skills he could’ve dressed however the hell he wanted. He actually liked dressing like a businessman. Said it gave him a power edge when he had to deal with uber-wealthy white assholes.

  His face was lightly stubbled, needing a shave, but his formerly shaved head had thick hair growing back on top, dark and gorgeous, shot through with a few silver strands. Round tortoiseshell glasses framed his eyes. He was handsome as all get out, and knew it. Moss grinned. He loved that Alejandro was relatively rich, pansexual like him, Latinx, and a witch to boot.

  It gave Moss hope for the world, and for himself, personally.

  He held out his fist, and Alejandro bumped it with his own.

  “Cassie’s waving. I’ll go get our drinks.” Alejandro slid his brown leather folio onto the booth table before heading to the counter.

  He was back in a flash and set a giant red mug in front of Moss before sliding onto the bench across the table with his cappuccino. Then he grabbed a twenty from his wallet and held it out.

  “Lunch is on me.”

  “Dude. You don’t have to pay for the whole thing. Just give me a ten.”

  “Dude. I’m a rich Marxist. From each according to their ability and all that. Just take it. Please.”

  Moss took the money. He didn’t make nearly enough driving strangers in his car to argue.

  Raquel set the panini sandwiches down. “Here you go!” she said and hurried back to the counter. They really needed three people during rush, but there was no room behind the counter, and Moss knew Raquel couldn’t afford the extra help, either.

  Alejandro sipped his cappuccino and sighed with appreciation.

  “What’d you want to talk about?” Moss asked.

  Alejandro nodded, then swiped a hand over his hair, slight frown marring his handsome face.

  “The river. One of my prospective clients is…” His voice trailed off and he picked up his grilled panini. Cheese oozed out from between the toasted bread.

  “One of your clients is what? And which river, exactly?” Moss’s sense of uneasiness returned. He knew exactly which river Alejandro meant, but had to ask, just in case he was wrong. Portland had two main rivers: the Columbia, which skirted the north of the city, and the Willamette, where he’d been that morning, which divided the city unequally into west and east.

  “The Willamette.” Alejandro leaned across the booth, sandwich still in hand. “And I can’t talk about my prospective client. I’m already under an NDA….”

  Moss picked up his own panini and chewed. He felt impatient, but Alejandro would get to whatever he could talk about in his own time. Moss was no stranger to classified information, though his secrets were all about security culture to keep activists safe from the FBI and right-wing doxxing, not corporate espionage.

  Oh yeah…grilled peppers, mushrooms, and Jack cheese, all sandwiched between crispy grilled bread. So good. He shouldn’t be eating cheese, but lactose intolerance be damned, sometimes he just had to have it.

  Alejandro finally spoke. “But I thought your people should know…you might want to test the water again.”

  “Are you kidding me? We just got the worst of it under abatement last year! You telling me there’s something new? Or just new levels of some of what we’ve already been pressuring the EPA to clear up? You know they don’t want to pay any more, right?” This was worse than Moss had feared.

  Alejandro gestured for Moss to lower his voice.

  Moss flung his sandwich onto the plate and picked up his coffee. He gulped two huge swallows down.

  “I hope you’re not taking this fucking client.”

  Alejandro looked irritated but shook his head. “Of course I’m not. Do you think I’d be telling you anything if I was?”

  Moss deflated. “Sorry, man. It’s just frustrating, you know. I mean, we’ve worked so hard to get the polluters out and hold them accountable for cleanup. And you know it affects my neighborhood the worst.”

  Moss’s neighborhood of St. John’s hung on to its status as an African American neighborhood by its fingernails. The neighborhood was established during Portland’s old redlining days but was rapidly paling as white folks figured out there were historic houses to be had for half the price of other parts of the city. Albina, one neighborhood over, was already mostly white, despite the BBQ joints and Black barbershops that still peppered the streets around Mississippi, MLK, and Rosa Parks Way. Everyone else had moved further east, across 205, and into the numbers. Portland needed more affordable housing, and fast, but NIMBYs and YIMBYs were in a deadlock with the city and each other.

  Alejandro nodded. “Look, I won’t be able to provide counsel this time, because of the damned NDA, but I can get you hooked up with people if you need them.”

  Moss wiped his hands on a rough brown napkin. Part of him wanted to punch something, and part of him wanted to cry.

  “It’s just so frustrating, man.” He looked at his coven brother. Behind his glasses, Alejandro’s eyes just looked sad. “When are we going to catch a damn break? It’s one thing after another these days. I mean, all the shit that’s gone down here in the last year alone. Plus the yearly West Coast fires… Haven’t humans done enough damage? Really? Do we really have to poison everything?”

  Alejandro slid a hand across the table and gripped Moss’s right hand, forcing it out of the fist he hadn’t even known he was making, and wrapping their fingers together.

  “We’re a mixed bag, good and bad. The Divine Twins, circling each other. It’s our job to make sure things at least stay even, right? Keep tipping the balance back.”

  “It just breaks my heart, you know. Plus…I’m tired.”

  And all of a sudden, he was. Dancing and seeing Shaggy were only a temporary reprieve from his heartsore exhaustion. Moss needed a break. A real break. The whole coven did.

  But it didn’t seem like that break was coming anytime soon.

  6

  Shaggy

  Shaggy and Laura sat in one of the padded window booths at a Peruvian restaurant in the Pearl. They both had a glass of sparkling water and one of a crisp Sauvignon Blanc to hand, and ate roasted corn kernels while waiting for their dinner to arrive. Shaggy liked the design of the place. The booths managed to be both comfortable and contemporary, with slanted backs made of three different colors of leather, nestled next to floor-to-ceiling industrial windows. The ceiling had open wood beams that glowed under perfectly placed spots and dangling pendants made of curved balsa wood.

  If she ended up not doing costume design, she’d love to design a place like this someday. But having a baby right now meant moving back to Marin, taking time out from school, and basically, rethinking her entire life.

  And no
t having a baby right now? It meant she probably would never have a child at all, unless she adopted. Shaggy sighed and took another sip of wine. Hints of apricot and pine nuts. It was so crisp, she could practically bite it.

  Yeah. The thought that she shouldn’t be drinking—and why—drove her toward the wine. Not a great coping mechanism, but here she was, anyway.

  The ashtanga yoga class had been intense, which was good. Being forced to place her full attention on flowing through the sequence at a pace quick enough to make her sweat had kept Shaggy’s mind quiet. Her body was loose now, and despite the glass of wine to hand, she felt a little stronger, more centered, even. That was a good thing, because if she had to make a big decision, she needed to feel as together as possible, and not like the complete wreck she’d been since her gynecologist appointment.

  “How long have you been in Portland?” Shaggy asked.

  “Fifteen years. My father moved here to work for Nike, so I practically grew up here.”

  “Do you ever miss Brazil?”

  Laura shrugged. “Sometimes. We go back at least once a year, though, to visit family. Nike keeps threatening to send my dad back, now that they’re expanding over there. But both of my parents have grown used to Oregon. Part of why I’m in design school is so I’ll have more options if the family moves. These big companies can use people like me to take care of what they call ‘emerging markets’.”

  “How do you feel about that, though? I mean, is that a good thing? Being at the mercy of what your family wants?” Bianca was in international finance and Shaggy wanted nothing to do with it. Whenever that came up, her mother was quick to remark that Shaggy didn’t mind having her bills paid, did she?

  Shaggy figured she more than deserved to get her bills paid for putting up with Bianca and for taking care of Dad for all those years.

  “It’s no better or worse than anything else in this world, you know?” Laura said. She paused as the waiter set down a series of small dishes in between them. Shaggy’s stomach growled as the smells hit her. There was spicy fresh fish, potato and chicken causas, and beef empanadas. The hearts of palm salad looked good, too, but it was all Shaggy could do to not shove a whole empanada in her mouth with her hands.

  She forced herself to be polite and act as if she wasn’t ravenous. She’d thrown up her breakfast and hadn’t been able to eat since. Pregnancy. She felt like shit, the scent of coffee was the worst thing in the world, and then she wanted to eat everything in sight.

  After Shaggy and Laura both dished some of the food onto their plates, Shaggy gestured to Laura to continue.

  “Brazil has been so poor, for so long. And everyone exploits her. So big corporations bringing actual business to the country, instead of just extracting resources? That feels okay to me. And if I can help some locals make some reals”—Laura pronounced the word hay-ows—“all the better, you know?”

  They ate in silence for a moment.

  “But what about you?” Laura asked. “You said there was something you needed to talk about?”

  Shaggy stopped chewing, the soft potato and chicken causa turning to sand in her mouth. Damn it. Why did she have to feel so afraid?

  Because Bianca made sure you knew that discussing your personal business with strangers was forbidden. And that you should really just keep your feelings to yourself. Her mother hadn’t always been that way, but after it became clear that her dad couldn’t make art anymore, and had sunk into his depression, she just…went away. And expected Shaggy to go away, too.

  So Shaggy just pretended to be a party girl and hid her terrible secret away: her father was drinking himself to death and her mother was slowly turning into a bright and brittle monster.

  Shaggy cleared her throat and took a sip of wine. It tasted sour. She drank some more.

  “I’m pregnant,” she blurted.

  Laura raised one well-manicured eyebrow, and tilted her head toward Shaggy’s glass.

  “I take it you don’t plan to keep it?”

  “That’s just it,” Shaggy said in a rush. “I don’t know. I mean…” God, how much was she going to unload on this poor woman?

  Laura took a bite of fish, and chewed as if she had all the time in the world for Shaggy to figure out what she did or did not want to say.

  “I mean, I don’t want a baby. Not now. And I’m not sure if ever. But thing thing is? I thought I couldn’t even get pregnant. I’ve had all of these…” She took another sip of wine. “…complications. Doctors all said it was super unlikely. But here I am, pregnant anyway.”

  “Does he know?”

  Shaggy shook her head.

  “I barely even know the guy. He was a festival hookup, you know? Although it turns out he lives here.”

  “No! In Portland? And you did not know this?” Laura leaned close, face alight, ready to gossip. “Is he cute?”

  How long had it been since Shaggy had a friend to gossip with? Probably not since eighth grade. Too long.

  She gave a wry grin. “He’s too damn cute, actually. And I really like him.”

  “That’s great!”

  “No. You don’t understand,” Shaggy moaned. “That only makes it worse.”

  Laura popped a piece of empanada crust into her mouth. “Worse how?”

  “If I didn’t like him, it would be easier to just not tell him anything. But it turns out, he’s actually a pretty cool guy. So now I have to make a decision.”

  Laura picked up her wine glass again. “Girlfriend, you don’t have to tell him any damn thing you don’t want to. If he was your boyfriend it would be different. But he’s not. It’s your body, and your life.”

  “It’s still part his, though…”

  Laura hmphed at that, waving a hand in the air, as if brushing away a gnat. “How far along are you, even? I can’t see anything, even in your yoga pants.”

  “Six weeks.”

  “It’s barely a blip! The size of a seed!”

  Shaggy sat back against the booth and looked out the window. People hurried by, carrying packages from nearby shops, or hefting purses and leather satchels, heading back to their condos after working downtown.

  She glanced back at Laura, who drank her pale wine, staring at Shaggy.

  “Wait. You’re Brazilian. Aren’t you supposed to be Catholic or something?”

  There was that hand wave again. “We’re half Catholic, half Spiritualists, like two thirds of the people in Brazil. But my mother is a nurse. She raised me to be practical about such matters.”

  Shaggy ran her fingers over the bare wood of the table, feeling the edges. Looking for something solid to hold on to. Her stomach turned sour and she pushed her plate away.

  “Shaggy. What do you want?”

  Shaggy looked at her new friend. “I don’t know. I thought I did, but now?” She shook her head, her mouth filled with sudden sourness.

  “Excuse me…” Stomach lurching, Shaggy shoved her way out of the booth and ran toward the women’s room. She hoped she made it in time.

  7

  Moss

  “You make the best garlic bread, Maggie.” Tariq practically groaned. The tall, thin activist had been living in Justice House—a huge, rambling, four square Craftsman—for a few months, and so far, was fitting in just fine.

  “Thanks, Tariq!” Maggie padded into the living room/dining room combo from the kitchen, carrying a big bowl filled with mixed greens and the tuna salad Moss had put together when he got home. She wore her signature jeans and a white, button-down men’s shirt that skirted her frame. A bit butch, their Maggie, in contrast to her girlfriend, femme-as-fuck Barbara Jean. Cis and trans, butch and femme, both white, and both radical as anything.

  As a matter of fact, if anyone could be said to be more radical than Moss and Tariq, it was probably Barbara Jean, who was a fierce part of the local Black Bloc anti-fascist contingent. Masked up and out in the streets with Roses and Thorns was the only time you’d catch Barbara Jean in pants and boots.

  “Where
’s Barbara Jean?” Moss asked, after Maggie settled herself on one of the three mismatched armchairs clustered around the coffee table.

  Moss sat on the wood floor, leaning up against a battered couch that had seen better days. Once upon a time it had been a nice, overstuffed sofa with a blue fitted cover. Now it was covered with a striped blue and green bedspread and swamped with throw pillows, courtesy of Maggie and Barbara Jean.

  “She should be here soon. Had to work late at the hotline. Why? Did you need her for something?” Maggie took a big bite of her salad. “Hey, this tuna’s good tonight, too. Spicy.”

  Moss grimaced. “I got some news today, and figured I’d wait ’til all of us were here to talk about it.”

  “Personal?” Tariq asked, setting his garlic bread down on the round white plate on his lap.

  “It’s about the river,” Moss said, and shoved some of his own salad in his mouth before he launched into his worries. Their house was pretty close to the Willamette. He lightly tapped his fork on the edge of his bowl three times, softened his attention, and with a reach of his psychic senses, connected with the spirit of the river. He could feel its distress, and it made him unhappy. He shoved more tuna into his mouth and started wishing he had a beer.

  Their household had a loose “don’t drink and light up all the time” agreement with one another. It wasn’t that they didn’t like to party, but they also tried to adopt as much militant discipline as they could most of the time.

  “We need to be ready to roll at any moment,” Barbara Jean would say. And she was one-hundred-percent correct.

  Moss still wanted a beer. Instead, he focused on chewing his food, and tried to slow his anxious jitters down. Breathe. Chew. Swallow. Breathe.

  Moss set down his salad fork, picked up his own garlic bread, and took a big bite. His eyes practically rolled back in his head. “Oh my Gods and Goddesses, Maggie. This is even better than usual!”