By Dusk

by T Thorn Coyle

  Maggie beamed, her pale, freckled face lightly flushed up to her dyed red hair. “I added fresh oregano and rosemary into the olive oil before throwing it into the oven.”

  The rattle of keys at the big wood Craftsman door announced Barbara Jean’s arrival.

  “Honey, I’m home!” she called out from the entry way. Moss heard a rustle and pause, then the clump of Barbara Jean’s backpack on the ground, followed by the double thump of her ubiquitous chunky heels. Justice House was strictly a no-shoes household, by Moss’s request. The housemates had soon decided it was worthwhile to have to clean less, and had installed shoe and boot shelves in the foyer.

  Finally rounding the corner into the living room, Barbara Jean’s cheerful, made-up face brightened at the sight of her housemates. She wore a colorful flowered dress beneath a black jacket and, even with her purple-and-black streaked hair in disarray, looked like a thousand thrift store bucks.

  “There’s garlic bread and salad!” Maggie said.

  “Hooray!” Barbara Jean replied, pausing to give Maggie a kiss on the forehead before scuffing off to the kitchen in bright red slippers, flowered dress swirling around her calves.

  “Would you bring me a beer?” Moss asked. Barbara Jean leaned her head back into the living room, one eyebrow cocked.

  Moss just shrugged and shook his head. “I’ll explain in a moment.”

  “You sure it’s not personal?” Tariq asked again.

  “Not personal, but it sucks, and makes me feel tired.”

  The not personal part was half a lie. Seeing Shaggy again had really affected him, but he’d have to deal with that some other time, if at all. Despite having exchanged numbers, there was no guarantee Shaggy would even want to see him again.

  Barbara Jean shuffled back in, carrying a filled plate in one hand, and a six pack of beer in the other. She sent both down on the long coffee table and plopped herself down next to Maggie.

  “I figured if the news was upsetting enough that you needed a beer, we may as well all have one.”

  Moss grabbed a beer, snicked the top off with the church key on his key ring and took a long pull on the local IPA. He had tried to hate IPAs, given their history as a colonial beer, but sometimes a person had to let the past be the past and enjoy the present. Right? It was a good enough excuse for a beer he loved.

  Besides, everything in life was tainted with post-colonialism and late stage capitalism….

  “Earth to Moss!” Maggie rapped her rings on her own amber bottle, disrupting his thought spiral.

  “They’re fucking up the river again. It looks bad. I got an inside tip that we should get the waters tested again.”

  “Well, shit,” Barbara Jean replied. “How quickly do we need to act? And what does this mean for the equinox celebration under the bridge?”

  Local members of the American Indian Movement and the Clean Rivers Coalition worked with other local indigenous leaders on a twice-a-year water blessing in the shadow of St. John’s Bridge. Moss had attended a time or two, and it was pretty cool.

  “Damn,” he said. “I forgot that was this weekend.” Which was stupid. As a witch, he knew it was the equinox, so of course the water blessing would be happening.

  “I hate this, man! Those greedy fuckers need to stop spilling their messes in our ’hood!” Tariq’s fork clattered back into his bowl. “I’m ready to lock down, man, for as long as it takes.”

  “I’m with you, man, but Barbara Jean is right, we need to check with the First Nations before we start planning any actions. We don’t want to step on their event.” Moss took another sip of beer and closed his eyes. The Willamette still whispered on the edges of his skin. He set down his beer, clapped his hands three times, and found the still point that rested below his navel.

  Then he reached, seeking information.

  The river was present, but wasn’t interested in talking today, at least not in words. He deepened his attention. The important thing was… Moss’s eyes snapped open, and he looked at the faces of his housemates, comrades, and friends.

  “No matter what, we need to remember to work with the flow and not against it. We need to not face these people with fire, but with water.”

  “Whatever you say, man. I don’t understand your witchy shit, but fire or water, we have to do something.”

  “We just need to figure out what that is,” Maggie said.

  Moss held up his beer bottle. The other three followed suit.

  “To the Willamette.”

  They clinked their amber bottles together and drank.

  8

  Shaggy

  Shaggy had every window in her one-bedroom Pearl District condo wide open to catch the evening breeze. The air had been warm all day, with the feel of late summer about it, but was rapidly cooling, and felt good on her skin. Portland, it seemed, wasn’t one of those places where a hot day equaled a hot night.

  Shaggy danced. The music was bright, with a deep bass holding up the beat. Her face wet with a mixture of tears and sweat, she bounced around the rust velvet upholstered sofa, and the two teal damask armchairs arranged in front of the white-tiled gas fireplace that she had fallen in love with when she and Bianca had first toured the place. She had imagined herself cozied up to the fire in wintertime, drinking tea or wine, or sharing a joint with some newfound friends.

  Now she didn’t know if any of that would ever happen. Shaggy wanted to run, and when she felt like that, the easiest thing to do was dance until her fight or flight impulses calmed down and she could think again. Puking had put a damper on dinner with Laura. Despite the woman’s sympathy, Shaggy hoped she actually understood, and wasn’t just making polite noise. Shaggy really needed a friend right now.

  “Why the hell did I move to Portland?” She shouted the words over the blasting EDM, still bouncing and swaying, flicking her fingers to the beat and waving her arms in the air.

  If she hadn’t picked Portland, the choice to have an abortion would have been easy. Well, not easy, given her personal physical complications, but easier. If she hadn’t picked Portland, she wouldn’t be dealing with Moss. He never would have to know. But now?

  It didn’t seem right to not tell him, but…she really didn’t want to have that conversation. Not at all.

  And given those physical complications? She still didn’t want to deal with the fact that this pregnancy might be her only chance to have a child. Trouble was, she’d already given up on the thought of children. She’d done the work in therapy around it. Made her peace. She’d even begun to look forward to a life of freedom from responsibility for other people—not her father, not Bianca, and not a brood of kids.

  She could design clothing. Run away with the circus in a tiny house. All the things she was already doing in some small way.

  Shaggy had just been waiting for…something. She wasn’t even sure what. For Bianca to chill enough to not threaten to cut off Shaggy’s trust fund anymore? For her to gain enough skills in the design and circusing departments to make a real go of it?

  Or to find herself while still semi-cocooned?

  Shaggy gave a noisy exhale at that last thought, lips making a motorboat noise in disgust. She bounced herself to a console against the white entry wall and thumbed the music up. Maybe it would drown out her damn thoughts.

  Dancing over to the black-metal and glass windows, she looked out over her neighborhood. People rushed by, heads down, en route home from work. Others streamed into the restaurants and bars that dotted the revitalized neighborhood. “Gentrified,” someone like Moss would call it. She was sure he lived in some politically correct, hippie trash heap with ten other people, like any righteous person would.

  He’d given her such shit about her glamping tent.

  “All this is for you?” he remarked when she pulled him inside the softly lit canvas bell tent. If she hadn’t already been halfway gone with desire, she might have kicked him out, but her body knew what it wanted, and it wanted it right then.

  So
Shaggy had let the comment slide, figuring she’d never see the guy after the festival anyway. The sex was so good, they did it again. And again.

  And now she had some of his cells inside her. Damn it.

  What would it be like to be with him? Like, to really be with him? Getting to know each other. Sharing space, even. Talking for hours. Kissing for more hours. Trading off making breakfast.

  Shaggy realized she’d stopped dancing. She shook out her hands and feet, and stretched, then tried to find the beat again. Her feet faltered. It wasn’t happening. Maybe she should go out to the bar one block away, the one with handsome-looking men and women clustered on the sidewalk, enjoying life. Like she should be. She could drink whiskey and flirt. Or maybe even get into an interesting conversation, like the kind she went to grad school for.

  Instead, she walked across the room, turned the music off, then walked into her blinding white with steel-and-black-accents kitchen and clicked the kettle on for tea.

  “This isn’t fair,” she said to all the brightly colored boxes in her tea drawer before fishing out a bag of spearmint and grabbing a blue mug from one of the cupboards. The mug was painted with white swirls, and she’d gotten it at yet another festival in Marin.

  Nothing in life is fair, Bianca would say. But what would her mother know? She hadn’t been the one who had stayed and taken care of Shaggy’s dad when he was at his worst. She knew Bianca was impatient with Shaggy’s “free spirit life” as she called it, but again, what did she know?

  Nothing.

  Bianca had no clue how badly taking care of Dad had messed Shaggy up. So what if she needed to lose herself while living in a paid-for condo for a few years? It wasn’t as if Bianca didn’t have the cash to bankroll everything.

  The kettle clicked off, and Shaggy plopped the tea bag in the mug and poured steaming water over the top, breathing in the minty steam.

  But maybe Shaggy didn’t want that anymore, either. Maybe she wanted to take care of herself, she realized.

  “And how’s that going to go down?” The room had no answer. She shook her head in disgust. Maybe she didn’t know shit, either. Maybe no one did.

  Shaggy took her tea to one of the windows and leaned out, staring downtown to her right, and over at the buildings toward the river and the Morrison Bridge straight ahead. Then, leaning out, she looked down at the grid of streets, and the people. For one wild moment, she considered dropping the heavy mug out the window. She could hear the satisfying smash it would make on the concrete sidewalk. The tea would splash in all directions, leaving a dark stain behind.

  She pulled herself back inside and shut the window, then dumped her tea out in the porcelain sink and sank down to the kitchen floor.

  “What the fuck am I going to do?”

  9

  Moss

  Moss paced himself next to Terra, smelling the brackish scent of water and skirting seagull and cormorant droppings. They walked on the east side of the Willamette, because Terra’s job was over that way. It was a gorgeous, late September Tuesday afternoon and the air was still warm, and Moss was in his standard uniform of black cargo pants and slogan T-shirt. Today’s simply read “Fuck War.” Terra was dressed in jeans and an orange blouse that complimented her dark brown skin. Her face was bare as usual, and she’d recently cut her tight curls into a cap that framed her skull.

  Despite the beauty around him, Moss felt restless. Anxious. It was hard to match Terra’s measured pace.

  Terra had just gotten off from the non-profit she did web-based marketing for. She also ran their social media accounts. It was only part-time, and she filled in the rest with the small salary she got doing the work of her heart—direct action trainings with the Hue and Cry Collective. They trained people all over the United States, and even traveled the world. Terra mostly trained people in the Pacific Northwest in things like consensus process, banner drops, and blockades.

  Terra was a radical Black woman and pretty bad ass. She and Moss had met during a wave of anti police-brutality actions and had even toyed with dating. After a couple of post-action rounds of feverish sex, they finally decided they were better paired as action buddies. They’d been organizing together ever since. Funny, he ended up that way with a lot of activist friends. They toyed with attraction and sex, and then decided it was going to get in the way of the work that needed doing.

  And Moss always ended up alone. Maybe the fact that Shaggy was so outside the sphere of his day-to-day world was a good thing. Maybe… Focus, Moss.

  He exhaled, and simultaneously tried to tune in to the kami of the Willamette, calm his jitters, and explain to Terra what was going on.

  “There’s a new polluter in town. And my source says they’re being backed up by two of the other corporations we hamstrung a year back. They’re shunting ammonia and PAHs into the water and its only a matter of time before the bass, salmon, and catfish start dying again.”

  “And the herons, gulls, and cormorants. And the seals. Plus, the kids getting rashes again.” Terra got into a fighting stance and threw three quick punches at the air. “Damn these greedy pigs, anyway.”

  Moss didn’t reply. The more he thought about what Alejandro had told him, coupled with the disturbed waters of the Willamette, the greater his sense that there was something besides the corporation at work here. Some other being that had its own agenda, maybe connected to the corporation? An egregore, maybe? He’d need to check in with the coven about that.

  Egregores were a type of magical being, an amalgamation of thoughts, energy, and emotion. Sometimes they were made on purpose, with intention, and sometimes they formed themselves by accident, through all the ways that humans made things: with half-thought words and strong emotions, through fear, or lust, or love. Whether made with neglect or some perversion of desire, the creatures limped through every family, every marriage, every political party, every football club, and every corporation.

  Some egregores had a positive impact on the world, or on relationships. Others? Not so much. And the capitalist machine was full of them.

  They were branded by names and logos. And they had a purpose, even if the people who had formed them did not. These magical beings—these egregores—acted as ambassadors and representatives. They cajoled and enticed. They made a person feel as if they belonged, or as if owning a new watch or car or the latest game was their right. Or as if maybe, just maybe, that promised thing would complete them.

  Moss and Terra resumed their walk, skirting the fire house where the rescue boats launched, and walked out on the little esplanade that looked directly over the water. Leaning on the square metal railing, they watched a barge move slowly by.

  It felt good to stand quietly for a moment, to get in touch with his breathing, and find his center once again. Between Shaggy and the polluters, Moss needed all of the centering practices he could get. He slipped a strand of prayer beads from his wrist and began a round of meditative prayers. Hail wind, hail sun, hail river, hail land, he thought as the wooden beads slid between his thumb and pointer finger. Hail spirits of place. Hail those who have gone before. Hail those who are yet to come.

  As he ran through the simple litany, Moss sent a deep exhalation through the soles of his feet. Hail, Willamette. Beads still in hand, he softly clapped three times, and sent his consciousness in search of the kami of the river. He felt the disturbance of the barge’s motor. Felt the cars rumbling across the many bridges that spanned the water.

  He felt the poison slowly slipping through the molecules of water. How can I help you? he asked. The kami stirred, as if it was attempting to reach him. Or to figure out who this creature was that kept calling it, and why it was speaking.

  “So, when do you want to do the action?” Terra asked, breaking through his reverie.

  Moss blinked at the sun-dappled water.

  “Equinox.” He slipped his prayer beads back onto his wrist.

  “Equinox? Isn’t that this Saturday?”

  Moss gave his friend a wry
smile. He knew he was a shit, but he also knew that timing was key.

  Terra narrowed her eyes. “You never want to give a sister time to prep folks, do you?”

  Moss blinked at the sun-dappled water again and shook his head. “What’s the fun in that? But yeah, it needs to be equinox, because of the event on Saturday that we should coordinate with. You know, the Clean Rivers Coalition, American Indian Movement, and some other groups always do that equinox river blessing.”

  “Have you talked to the elders yet?” Terra’s dark eyes looked troubled.

  He didn’t blame her. Saturday’s event was supposed to be a celebration of all the coalitions getting the river closer to being actually cleaned up. That was another thing that made Moss feel like a shit: he was going to have to break it to them that the waters weren’t so clean after all.

  The kami of the river whispered, but he couldn’t quite make out the voice. What are you saying? he thought. A seagull screamed overhead, and out in the dark waters a fish slapped the surface before disappearing in a ripple of concentric circles.

  “I haven’t yet; all of this is just coming out now,” Moss replied.

  “We’re going to have to get permission for this. You know that, right?”

  He sighed and turned toward her. “It’s next on my agenda, Terra. I’ve got a meeting set up with the Yakama and Chinook elders and some others. If you have time, it would be great to have you along.”

  “Just let me know when, I’ll be there.”

  Both activists looked back toward the river, leaning on the rail. The river looked beautiful, the bridges that spanned it carrying people and goods, buses and cars, bicycles and walkers. The Columbia and Willamette rivers gave Portland both its name, and its life. So why in the hell were people hell-bent on killing them? Moss knew the answer to that, and he always had.