“Ash doesn’t work Saturdays,” the woman told Jenny when she asked. “Maybe I can help you. My name’s Miranda.”
The store was much busier than it had been the last time Jenny was here—too busy, she thought, for the kind of conversation that would ensue when she explained why she was here. And where would she even begin? Ash at least had the background.
“It’s sort of personal,” she explained, trying not very successfully to hide her disappointment.
“Well, you can usually find her over in the park on weekends,” Miranda said.
“The park?”
“Fitzhenry Park. She’s generally hanging somewhere around the War Memorial with Cassie or Bones.”
Jenny had no idea who Cassie or Bones might be, or what they would look like, but she fastened onto Ash’s possible whereabouts with a single-mindedness that surprised her and was almost out of the store before she remembered to thank Miranda for her help.
“No problem,” Miranda replied, but she was speaking to a closed door.
6
Jenny found Ash sitting on the steps of the War Memorial with a man she decided had to be Bones. He was a Native American—probably from the Kickaha reservation north of the city. His skin had a dark coppery cast and his features were broad—the chin square, eyes widely set, nose flat. His hair was as long as Miranda’s back in The Occult Shop, except he wore his in a single tight braid, with feathers and beads interlaced in the braiding. He looked to be in his early thirties and so far as Jenny was concerned he could have stepped into modern Newford right out of some forgotten moment in history, if it hadn’t been for his clothing: faded jeans, torn at the knees, scuffed leather work boots, a white T-shirt with DON’T! BUY! THAI! written across the front.
“Hey, pretty lady,” he called to her as she came near. “Medicine’s right here—plenty powerful—if you got the wampum.”
Before Jenny could answer, Ash elbowed him in the side.
“Enough with the talking Tonto already,” Ash said. “She’s a friend. Jenny, this is Bones; Bones, Jenny.”
Bones gave Jenny a grin that made him look a little demented and she took an involuntary step back.
“He likes to act the fool,” Ash explained, “but don’t mind him. He’s okay.”
“I’m okay, you’re okay,” Bones said. “Pull up some stone, Jenny, and have yourself a seat.”
Jenny gave him an uncertain smile. There was something about the way he looked at her—some dark light in his eyes—that reminded her of the eldest fate, standing outside her apartment the other night, except it didn’t wake awe in her so much as nervousness. An uncomfortable feeling washed over her, a sense that in this man’s presence, anything could happen. And probably would. She wasn’t sure she was ready for another strange encounter—not when she still hadn’t gotten over the one that had brought her here in the first place, looking for advice.
“What are those for?” she asked, pointing at a pile of tiny animal bones that lay on a square of beaded deerskin by Bones’ feet. “Besides giving you your name, I mean.”
She asked as much out of curiosity as to get him to stop regarding her so intently.
“It’s the eyes, isn’t it?” Ash said. “That and the grin.”
Jenny looked up at her. “What?”
“She thinks you don’t know what to make of me,” Bones said.
“Well, I . . .”
“Bones always makes people feel a little strange when they first meet him,” Ash said. “He says his real name translates into something like Crazy Dog. I say, whoever named him knew what they were doing.”
Bones nodded, still grinning. “And these,” he said, indicating the bones, “are my medicine wheel.”
“Oh.”
Ash laughed. “But you didn’t come here to get your fortune read—did you?”
“No. I . . .” Jenny hesitated, feeling as intimidated with Bones’s presence as she’d felt in The Occult Shop with all the people standing around. But she took a breath and plunged on. “Do you know a way to make sure that you don’t dream?” she asked.
Ash shook her head. “No, that’s a new one on me.”
“It’s just that I know you sell herbs and stuff to help people dream. . . .”
“Like a dream-catcher?”
“I guess. What’s that?”
Ash described the spider-web like weaving of threads that went back and forth around a twig that had been bent into the rough shape of a circle, how the pattern, and the feathers, beads, shells, and the like woven into it, were supposed to draw good dreams to a sleeper.
Jenny nodded. “Yes, like that. Only something that’ll do the opposite.”
“You’ve got me.”
“You don’t like your dreams?” Bones asked.
“No, it’s not that. I don’t dream.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“I want to make sure it stays that way.”
“Maybe you should go back to the beginning,” Ash suggested, “so Bones knows what we’re talking about.”
“I . . .”
“Don’t feel shy. He’s a good listener and maybe he can help. He’s gotten me out of a jam or two.”
Jenny felt a flush coming on. “I don’t know. I feel weird. . . .”
“Weird is good,” Bones said. “Means you’re not locked into what’s here and now, but you’re seeing a little further than most people do.”
That was an understatement if Jenny had ever heard one. “Okay,” she said with a sigh. “It started with a dream that wasn’t a dream. . . .”
7
“So one of the fates is a guy,” Bones said when Jenny finished relating her recent experiences.
“I think he’s like Coyote,” Ash said. “A shapeshifter—only the face he wears is the one you least expect.”
Jenny looked from one to the other. “What are you talking about?”
“The guy in your dream,” Ash said. “The eldest fate.”
Bones shook his head. “No, what we’re really talking about is you, Jenny. The visions you’re experiencing and the people you’re meeting in them are just something the spirits are doing to try to get your attention.”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” Jenny said.
“I don’t know you,” Bones said, “and you don’t know me, so I don’t know how much I should tell you. I don’t know what you want to hear.” He sounded regretful, but the crazy look in his eyes seemed to make a lie of that.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“I don’t want to piss you off. I mean, what’s the percentage in it? What do either of us get out of me telling you something you don’t want to hear?”
“I’m listening.”
“But are you hearing? The spirits spoke to you and what did you do? You took their gift and instead of learning from it, you’re trying to turn it to your own advantage.” He shook his head. “Never works, you know.”
Jenny could feel her face go stiff. “What the hell’s that supposed to—”
“Anger’s good,” Bones told her, breaking in. “It’s one of the ways the spirits tell you that you’re alive.”
“I’m not—” Jenny began, but she broke off.
Angry? No, she was furious at his cocky, know-it-all manner, but she heard an echo of what he’d said a few moments earlier—I don’t want to piss you off—and that was enough to make her wonder just why she was so angry. She looked at Ash, but Ash didn’t want to meet her gaze. She turned back to Bones. His face gave away nothing. Crazy eyes watched her back, solemn and laughing at the same time. She took a couple of steadying breaths and forced herself to calm down, to let the hostility go. It wasn’t that she was suddenly into making nice. It was more that she realized that Bones seemed to understand the experiences she’d had—certainly better than she did—and he was right: he had nothing to gain in making her angry, or hurting her feelings. So maybe it was worth her while to hear him out.
“Okay,” she said fi
nally. “I am feeling angry. But I want to hear what you have to say.”
“You sure?”
Ash elbowed him again before Jenny could reply.
“Okay,” he said. “Let me put it this way. Does the sun rise and set just for you?”
Jenny shook her head.
“But it passes over you and makes you a part of its wheel, doesn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“Then perhaps you should learn to accept that you are a part of the world’s wheel and not struggle so hard against what must be.”
“So what are you telling me?” Jenny asked. “That I should just lie down and die?”
Bones grinned that crazy grin of his. “No, I’m saying you should get back on the wheel. Dream. Live. Don’t look at the ground when you want to see the sky. What’s the point of living forever if you don’t experience life now?”
“Who says I’m not experiencing life?”
“You do. Your dreams-that-aren’t dreams do. The spirits that have come across from the medicine lands to talk to you do.”
The anger rose up in Jenny again, but this time she was quicker to deal with it. She looked away from them, bit at her lip. The dark place inside started to draw her down into its grasp and she couldn’t seem to fight it.
“I’m sorry,” Bones said, and she sensed that he meant it.
“You don’t understand,” she said finally. “That’s the problem with living, nobody really understands. But we’ve got to carry on all the same. The trick isn’t to save up our points for when we die so that maybe we can buy ourselves into a better life. The trick is to have that better life now. To make it for ourselves. To take it, if people are trying to keep it away from us.”
Jenny still couldn’t look at them. She picked at a loose thread on the seam near the knee of her jeans. The past was swallowing her again and this time she couldn’t trick it into going away. It lay too thick inside her, that miasma of old hurts and griefs.
“Sometimes . . .” she began.
She had to stop and gather up her courage before could go on. This wasn’t something she talked about. It was too hard to talk about. She took a steadying breath and tried again.
“Sometimes,” she said in a small voice, “I don’t feel I have anything to live for. Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve to live, but I’m more scared of dying.” Finally she looked up. “I’m scared of dying and seeing them and of what they’ll say to me, because I know it wasn’t fair, that they had to die while I went on.”
“Who died?” Ash asked softly.
“Everybody. My parents. My little sister. My older brother. My cousin did it. I was only . . . I was only twelve when it happened. He killed everybody except for me. I hid under my bed and waited for him to come . . . to come get me too, but he never did.”
“Your own cousin?” Ash said. “Jesus. That’s horrible.”
“What happened to him?” Bones asked.
“He killed himself. That’s why he never came after me. He . . . he killed everybody else and then he shot himself. I was under my bed for the rest of the night and most of the next day, just . . . just waiting for him.”
Ash shook her head. “You poor thing. You were just a little kid.”
“And then . . . then I went to live with my grandparents, but they died too.”
“But your cousin . . . ?” Ash began.
“He . . . he didn’t kill them. They just . . . died. . . .” It was getting harder and harder for Jenny to get it out. Starting had seemed tough, but going on was worse. Her chest was so tight she could barely breathe. She couldn’t see because she was blinded with tears. Her throat felt thick, making her choke on the words before she could get the words out.
“None . . . none of them died easy. Not my own family. Not my grandfather from cancer, a few . . . a few years after I came to live with them. Not my grandmother . . . she had Alzheimer’s. By the time she finally died she didn’t even know who I was anymore . . . .”
She finally turned her face toward them. “Why did they all have to go like that? Why not me? I should have died with them. Instead, I’ve just got this emptiness inside where family’s supposed to be. I feel so . . . so lonely . . . so guilty . . . .”
Ash came and sat beside her and put an arm around her, drawing Jenny’s head down to her shoulder. Bones took her hand. She looked at him. Even through her tears she could see that crazy light in his eyes, but it didn’t seem so strange anymore. It felt almost comforting.
“You’ve got to talk to those spirits one more time,” he said. “This time you’ve got to tell them what you’re feeling. That you don’t want to die—not till it’s your time—but you do want to live until it’s your time. You want to be alive. You want to dream. You’ve got to ask them to help you let it all go.”
“But she said the reason they came to me was because I don’t dream. What’s the point of me telling them what you’re saying I should? Wouldn’t they already know it?”
“The thing with spirits,” Bones told her, “is they want you to work it out on your own. Then, when you ask them for the right gift, they might help you out.”
“And . . . and if they won’t?”
“Girl,” Bones told her, “you’ve got a lot of strong medicine tucked away inside you. Everybody does. Those spirits don’t want to help you, you come back and talk to me again and I’ll see what I can do about waking it up for you.”
“Why can’t you just help her now?” Ash asked.
“Because these are spirits we’re talking about,” Bones said. “You don’t mess with spirits unless you’ve got no choice, Ash—especially not spirits that are working their medicine mojo on someone else. There’s no way I’m getting in between them until they get off this wheel and I can climb on it. That’s the way it is.”
8
So here I am, waiting for Death to show.
I’m trying to feel brave—or at least project a little courage even though I have none—but I don’t think it’s working. I don’t know which I’m more afraid of: that I won’t dream, that I know I’ll never die and have to go on like this forever, or that maybe he’ll take me away with him right now. Except in the end, it’s not Death that joins me in my bedroom, but the middle fate, the spare-change girl.
“Where is he?” I ask her.
“You’ve decided to dream once more,” she says, “so he’s gone on to deal with other matters.”
Harvesting other lives you mean—but I don’t say that aloud. I don’t know whether to feel relieved that it’s not me this time, or angry that he even exists in the first place.
“Why can’t he just leave us alone?”
She shakes her head. “Without his gift, what would you have?”
I’m sick of this idea that without death, that without knowing we’re all going to die one day, rich and poor, whatever our creed or color, we can’t appreciate life. Even if it is true.
“I wanted to talk to him,” I say.
She gives me a long considering look. “Did you want to talk to him, or to the eldest of us?”
And then I understand. It hits me like a thunderclap booming under my skin. It’s been her all along. He’s the middle fate, Life; she’s the one that cuts the thread and ferries us on. My heartbeat gets too fast, drumming in my chest. All my resolutions about facing the past and my fears drain away and I want to tell her that I’ve changed my mind again. I don’t want to dream. I don’t want to be more alive if it means I have to die.
“Is this it?” I ask her. “Have you come for me?”
“Would that be so bad?” she says.
She projects such a strange aura of comfort and happiness that I want to shake my head and agree with her.
“I’m scared,” I tell her.
“Fear lets you know you’re alive,” she says, “but that doesn’t mean you should embrace it.”
“You’re starting to sound like Bones.”
“Ah, Bones.”
“Do you know him?”
/>
She smiles. “I know everybody.”
I want to keep her talking. I want to put off the moment for as long as I can, so every time she finishes speaking, I try to fill the silence with another question.
“How do you decide when it’s someone’s time?” I ask.
“I told you,” she says. “I don’t choose when or how you die. I’m only there to meet you when you do.”
“Do people get mad at you, or are they mostly just scared like me?”
The eldest fate shook her head. “Neither. Mostly they’re too concerned with those they left behind to be angry or frightened. That old homily is true, you know: it’s always harder for those left behind.”
“So . . . so my family wasn’t mad at me because I didn’t die with them? And my grandparents . . .”
“How could they be? They loved you as much as you loved them.”
“So I don’t have to be scared of meeting them in . . . wherever it is I’ll be going?”
“I don’t know where you’ll go or who you’ll meet when you’re there,” the eldest fate says. “And I don’t know what they’ll say to you. But I don’t think you have to be scared.”
I take a deep breath. “Okay,” I tell her, wondering as I’m saying it where I’ve found the courage. “I’m guess I’m ready.”
I wonder how it’ll happen. Maybe I’ll be lucky. Maybe I’ll be one of the ones who just drifts away in her sleep.
“I’m not here to take you,” the eldest fate tells me.
I don’t even have time to feel relief, I’m so confused. “But . . . then why are you here?”
“I came as a friend—to finish our earlier conversation.”
“As a friend?”
“You know, returning a kindness,” she says.
“But . . .”
“I’m everybody’s friend,” the eldest fate explains. “Most people just don’t know it.”