Authors: Annie Dalton
Living the Dream (17 page)
At 2:00 am Cody fell into an uneasy doze. At 2:45 am I could feel them closing in.
I knew they couldn’t physically harm her. I had Cody’s camp sealed with every protective symbol Mr Allbright had ever taught us. But as every angel child knows, the PODS prefer to destroy humans (and angels) from the
inside
.
At 3:00 am Cody began to toss and whimper in obvious distress.
“No, you don’t,” I muttered to the evil watchers.“You’re not pulling that old night terrors stunt, not on my beat you don’t.”
I’d been where Cody was now, remember? I’d come face to face with my own Darkness, though this was probably the first time I’d felt grateful for the experience. Thanks to The Test, I knew I had the strength to support Cody, to help her see this through. “Helix, crank up the vibes,” I ordered. “I’m going in!”
I’m on it!
she said calmly.
Bracing myself for just about anything, I beamed a tiny part of my energy into Cody’s bad dream. I found her paralysed with terror in a creepy Hell dimension version of Rainbow Canyon. Nothing was right. Even Cody’s circle of pebbles glowed with an icky, fungusy glow. Outside the circle something prowled. The creature went round and round and round in a way that made you want to scream. You could just hear its disgusting breathing.
I got mad then. So this was Cody’s “curse”; basically just a piece of evil dream software, and it had kept her prisoner almost her whole life. I started talking to her in a firm, clear voice.
“I don’t know if you can see me, but I’m right here with you, Cody, OK? I need you to do something really scary. I need you to tell this piece of cosmic slime to come out and show itself.”
“I can’t!” she gasped. “If a Skin Walker looks at you, you die!”
“No, no, it’s just the opposite, sweetie. You’ll start to live! It’s like Butterfly Woman said. The Evil Ones put this nightmare into your head when you were a helpless little two-year-old, but you’re not helpless now and you’re not alone. We’ll fight it together. Go on, tell it to show you what it’s made of!”
Fists rigidly by her sides, Cody quavered, “Come out and show yourself.”
“Do you want your life back or not?” I said sternly. “Then say it like you mean it! Say it like Butterfly Woman would say it.”
Cody’s expression changed. In a voice ringing with new authority, she shouted, “Come out and show yourself - NOW!”
Now now now
, mocked the creepy dream echoes. There was a hideous roar and the creature came charging out of the darkness.
“Burning branch,” I gabbled. “Right between the eyes. Do it now!” Cody grabbed a burning branch from the dream campfire and hurled it at the Skin Walker, which immediately, disgustingly exploded.
I gently extricated myself from Cody’s dream to find her still clenching her fists. I listened to her peaceful breathing and shook my head. Smoke and mirrors.
Dark Studies 101. There never was a Skin Walker, just as Cody was never under a curse. It was always, always the PODS.
And we still had the fourth and final night to go.
W
hen Cody came back from leaving her pebble next day, I could feel she was in a different place. She wrapped Butterfly Woman’s blanket around her shoulders and sat peacefully gazing around the canyon. To me the rocks of Rainbow Canyon had always glowed with an inner light. This morning I knew Cody could see it too.
Standing up for herself in her dream had changed something for Cody. It wasn’t important how the Skin Walker originally got a grip on her imagination. All that mattered was she had rooted the evil out for herself like Butterfly Woman said.
Cody’s face was showing signs of her long fast, and there were dark shadows under her eyes, but her voice was strong and vibrant as she began to chant the sacred words of the Blessing Way.
Beauty above me
Beauty below me
Beauty behind me
In beauty may I walk…
Nothing happened except that it started to rain: fat, ice-cold drops that turned into a sudden mad downpour. There was an ugly ripping sound and livid blue and purple lightning forked down from the clouds.
Pepper’s eyes rolled in terror. Suddenly he went galloping off, disappearing up the narrow cliff path, snorting and whinnying. Cody looked around her in alarm. She knew what Arizona lightning - plus cosmic spite - could do. The thought came to us at the same moment. The cave! Stuffing her blanket into her bag, Cody threw her possessions randomly on top and started to climb.
The soil was too dry. There was nothing to absorb the deluge. Cody slithered and slipped as water poured down the canyon face. A stab of lightning hit too close, making her lose her grip. She managed to save herself, just, but she hadn’t had time to fasten her bag, and her belongings went spilling down into the canyon.
Cody made a frantic lunge, just managing to save her medicine bundle and her blanket, but the fire stick and the pictures were gone. Blinking water out of her eyes, Cody had no choice: she had to keep climbing as lightning struck the canyon over and over. Pink, green, yellow, blue, the flashes were every colour imaginable.
I’d known we’d have to face the Dark Side, but I never thought of Cody falling to her death, or being blasted with lightning. It felt almost like the Earth itself was out for revenge, zapping her with every weapon at its disposal. “Take that, human child!” Cody had stepped out of the dark circle, she’d defied the curse, now the curse was fighting back.
We reached the cave absolutely soaked. Cody wrung the rainwater out of her skirt, then sat shivering as the rain thundered past the cave mouth like a waterfall. The climb had used her last ounce of strength. She looked utterly defeated. “They didn’t come,” she whispered. “The Holy People didn’t come.”
“Get up!” I shouted. “You’ll get pneumonia. Move your body.”
Cody didn’t move.
“I mean it! Don’t sit there like a loser! You’ve got to give the Holy People something to work with, show them who they’re dealing with!” I hardly knew what I was saying. I just knew Cody mustn’t give up.
“Get up!” I repeated angrily. “Move your body. Dance!” I got it into my head that as her guardian angel I should take the lead, so I started to dance! Since you can’t dance without music, I was pretty much forced to sing. (Me! Melanie the cartoon frog!) I sang the only song that popped into my head.
Born from the same star, you’ve come so far,
Born from the same star, you’ve come so far,
Earth’s heart was aching, creation was shattering and shaking
…
I was singing Reuben’s “Earth Song”, only something strange was happening. As I sang, the original despairing lyrics somehow changed to words of hope:
But now you’re waking,
a new dawn is breaking
…
It was like Reuben was right with me there in the cave, joining his voice with mine. Cody suddenly jumped up. With lightning bolts bouncing off the rocks like bursting bullets, she started to dance.
I never saw anyone dance the way Cody danced in that cave. It’s like the storm was dancing
through
her, like she was literally playing with the same cosmic energies that had tried to destroy her.
Now they’ll come
, I thought excitedly.
Now it’s going to happen
.
It did. With zigzags of pink and gold light whizzing and fizzing all around us, a voice spoke in the darkness of the cave.
“You are Cody Light-Dancing. That is your true Navajo name!”
The clear ringing female voice sounded strangely familiar. That’s because it was MY voice!
The instant I spoke Cody’s Navajo name the storm just stopped. Everything went utterly calm, like a more intense version of the dawn stillness I’d felt coming from Butterfly Woman.
Before I knew what was happening, the invisible barrier between the divine and human worlds dissolved and Cody and I were brought unexpectedly face to face.
“It’s YOU!” she breathed. “You’re the girl with butterfly boots. You were in my dream.” Cody looked dazzled, shielding her eyes from the super-bright light that surrounded me. “Are you going to show me my life path?” she asked, trembling. “Is that why the Holy People sent you?”
I tried desperately not to look as confused as I felt. “Helix!” I said in a panic. “What do I say?” I knew that any words Cody heard now would influence her for the rest of her life.
Wing it, sweetie
, Helix said serenely.
Just be yourself
.
At that exact moment just being myself didn’t feel like nearly enough. However, since the Universe had put me in the hotseat, I had to try to live up to it. So I opened my mouth, wondering with extreme interest what would come out.
I felt a sighing, golden breath on my face, and like small perfect beads threading themselves on to a string, the words came one after another, each one shimmering with divine energy.
“Your job is to help save the world, Cody! The twenty-first century is make or break time for humankind, and unless you do what you came to Earth to do, humans might not make it.” Then I touched Cody’s forehead, showing her the future that Ambriel and the other Creation angels had dreamed for her. They were totally using me as a channel by this time, so I got to see her vision at the same time she did.
The visions that come during a vision fast are sacred, not really to be spoken about. They also go on for HOURS. I’ll just tell you that I saw Cody completing her training with Butterfly Woman, and going to college with Vickie and other bright, feisty Navajo girls. I also saw her travelling to different countries when she was still just a teenager, speaking out at conferences, telling governments they must listen to tribal peoples all over the world because they held the key to saving the planet. They always understood that the Earth and all its creatures never belonged to humans. It has always,
always
been the other way round…
When the visions finally stopped coming, Cody shakily opened her medicine bundle. She took out a nugget of raw crystal and left it on a ledge as a thank you to the Holy People for granting her a vision.
The invisible veil between the worlds had shimmered back into place, so Cody didn’t see me unstring my favourite charm from the bracelet Reuben gave me for my birthday and place it carefully beside the crystal.
I followed Cody out into the silvery light of dawn and was shocked to realise we’d been in the cave all night. Slowly and carefully, because the rocks were still running with water and Cody was weak from hunger, the human girl and her guardian angel scrambled to the top of the canyon, where the aunts and the horses were all waiting.
I
t turns out that being used as a channel by the Angels of Creation has some interesting side-effects! I was still flying with the Creation vibes as we rode back to Ghost Canyon.
Random scenes flashed through my mind: the moment in the cave when I heard Reuben singing with me, clear as day; Lola’s story of the hunter who received a warning from a mysterious sorcerer with yellow eyes; singing the revised lyrics to Reuben’s song, changes he couldn’t possibly have made, unless, unless—
My heart started to thump so hard I couldn’t breathe. Creation angels, Holy People, sorcerers: was it possible they were all just different names for the exact same divine beings? Names that varied according to time period or the beliefs of the locals? If so, I just might know what had happened to Reuben!
When we were in India, I’d learned that my planet had all kinds of secret cosmic access routes and short cuts, originally installed for the convenience of Creation angels when the Earth was new. Was it too huge a leap to wonder if they’d kept the odd secret bolt-hole for emergencies? The kind of cosmic space that doesn’t necessarily show up on the Agency’s radar? A space where a billion-year-old angel might take a family of endangered snow leopards - and the angel boy who’d been watching over them - to keep them safe from the Powers of Darkness?