Love Charms (147 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

The music stopped and there was so much silence I could hear
Scorpio's shallow breathing. Holding on to my drum, I stepped between Ghede's
entourage and let Coyote and Scorpio both see me. “Looks like it worked,” I
said. “There were some conditions we didn't get to discuss, Scorpio, but here
you are.”

Scorpio looked at me while trying not to take his eyes off Ghede.
I had to admit in this form he was frightening. This close it appeared his eye
sockets were like black caves and his eyeballs were small round burning coals
that rolled around independently. I frowned. “Is that really necessary? Can we
get Coyote back? You're very beautiful as Coyote.”

Ghede laughed and shifted back, looking suspiciously as if he
could be our older brother. I put my hand on Scorpio to comfort him, and then
took it away because I have little talent for comforting. I'd probably screw it
up.

“Coyote doesn't have a skull face in any of the legends,” Scorpio
muttered. His voice was raspy and I wished I had some water to give him. Then I
realized I was thinking in an everyday way and told a cup of water to appear in
my hand and placed it into his. “And you don't materialize things out of the
air.” He drained the water and said, “Many changes.” He looked at me as he
fingered the empty stone cup. “Is it really you?”

“I can ask you the same thing. I just watched what seemed to be
the body they found beneath the River get covered in a burning mist
and—here you are.” He was studying Coyote intensely. “Let's just say the
world is apparently a lot more complicated than we used to think.”

“In New Orleans they called you Baron Semedi,” Scorpio said to
Coyote. His voice still sounded a bit shaky.

“I have many names,” he replied. “It would be so boring to wear
just one all the time when I have all the time.” In my head I heard a rim shot.
My Coyote didn't go for jokes like this. Maybe it was the influence of the
alcohol he kept drinking.

“He's back,” I pointed out, “Shouldn't there be a feast or
something and then we all get to go home and try to convince our people this
isn't the start of a zombie invasion? Any suggestions on how to let people know
he's just returned from the dead—no problems—no eating of brains,
and that the funeral has been canceled?” Both looked at me as if they couldn't
understand what I was saying. I felt like I was starting to babble. “Maybe we
could tell them they can keep the funeral giveaway stuff, so everyone walks
away with something?” They continued to stare silently at me. I could hear Ghede's
followers starting to stir. That made me nervous.

“Pocahontas,” Lady Chartreuse said, “this might be a good time to
pretend you're a cigar store Indian and just stand there and be silent.”

“Did somebody say Feast?” Coyote shifted to Ghede again and his
followers started up his Song and began a wild dancing, grinding against each
other and I could smell different types of food and my nose burned again with
the smell of the alcohol he had been using. Ghede laughed and spun around so
quickly his coat tails wrapped around him when he stopped, his hands on
Scorpio's shoulders. Startled, my brother dropped the cup he had been holding
and it vanished before it hit the ground. I realized after years of Longhouse
clean up duty picking up here would be pretty easy.

“Just call me Ghede, Moon of the Falling Leaves. Baron Semedi
sounds so formal, and I think we're going to be very,” he moved next to
Scorpio, “Very close. I have every intention of sucking out the last bit of
juice from your Adam's apple.” He stuck his skull face against Scorpio's mouth
and I saw a flash of a tongue that looked like the tip of a snake's tail force
itself into my brother's mouth and he screamed again.

“Crap,” I thought, “why couldn't we have a nice simple culture
like Christianity where things are clean and holy or just evil. Coyote has to
be a balance of rapist and hero.” I held myself back. I remembered Lady
Chartreuse explaining the Loa made you pay. Looks as if Scorpio was going to
get stuck with the bill. “Moth,” I hissed, “is this necessary? Is there
anything I can do to help him?”

“Oh, Ghede doesn't need any help.” She looked at me. “He has to
test your brother the way he had to test you. If he's going to break it needs
to be here where others don't get hurt if he can't handle the gift of a second
life.” She looked back at Ghede either giving Scorpio a hickey or about to rip
his throat out. “Although I will say your refusal to be the
cheval
and
shoving your brother in your place shows once again what a dick you can be. If
you spent half as much time accomplishing something instead of avoiding
responsibility we'd all be a lot better off.”

“Is this the way it normally goes?”

“No. Usually there's a wonderfully elaborate and beautiful
ceremony that goes on for hours along with a lot of drinking, feasting, prayer
and dancing. But you had to jump in and interfere as soon as your brother
started twitching. You can just look at something and break it.” She had
another bottle of alcohol in her hand and took a swig. “That's one of the
reasons you're his new favorite.” She took another drink and passed it to me.
“So you can just see how that's going to work out. There's a reason why your
father's people tell children to watch what Coyote does and do the opposite.”

I smelled the bottle and my eyes watered. “What is this stuff,
anyway?”

“Rum, Pocahontas,” Lady Chartreuse said from behind me. “White
rum, raw rum—and Papa Ghede's favorite rum is one where twenty-one chili
peppers have been infused into it. That would burn your tongue off.” He looked
at me as if he was considering that might be a really good idea.
Gag—ganged up on by a drag queen and a Moth. Disgusted I handed the
bottle to him and he took a mouthful.

“What's with the sunglasses that have a lens missing?” I asked.

“It represents the fact he can look into the Spirit World and the
Everyday World at the same time,” answered Moth. She had the bottle of rum
again and her voice sounded a little slurred.

“Hell to the No,” laughed Lady Chartreuse, “the glasses symbolize
the one-eyed trouser snake, and baby girl, there is only one thing he be
looking for.”

I was starting to wonder if maybe I really was the most sexually
repressed person in the room. It would be a good time to leave. Ghede seemed to
be taking the idea of mounting Scorpio literally. It wasn't fair. Scorpio
wasn't gay. I could see how he was fighting his fear. Crap.

I threw my drum into the air and it circled about the two of them
in a rapid beat and the Ghede Song stopped. He turned away from Scorpio and
looked up at me expectantly with one red coal eye burning from the empty lens
of his sunglasses. Crap. Bet I broke something again.

“Long ago a young man went out hunting and he saw a large bear.”
Ghede brushed his rough hand over Scorpio's hair, and then turned to face me.
“He pulled out his bow and arrow and shot the bear in the chest. The arrow
bounced harmlessly off the bear who then grabbed the youth, turned him over and
screwed him. Humiliated and angry, the young man returned home. He spent the night
fashioning a sharper arrow and then the next day returned, looking for the bear
and vengeance.

“When he saw the bear, he fired his arrow and it broke when it
struck the bear in the chest. The bear reared up, grabbed him, turned him over
and reared him. His face red and his heart pounding, the young man rushed back
to his home. He spent many hours making the strongest and sharpest arrow he
could. At dawn he returned to where he knew the bear would be. He fired his
arrow which bounced off the bear as if it had simply been a small twig. The
bear grabbed him, flipped him over and once again ravaged him. Boiling over
with his humiliation and determination, the young man returned to his home,
admittedly walking slowly because the bear had been quite rough this time.

“He did not sleep, but focused only on making the strongest and
finest arrow that had ever been made. The next day he returned, looking for the
bear. The bear was waiting. The young man fired his arrow which shattered when
it struck the chest of the bear. The bear grabbed him and said, “You're not
really here for the hunting, are you?”

I let the drum do a true rim shot. “Why waste your time
frightening a poor little One Who Buries boy when you could be possessing me? I
sure as hell didn't come here for the hunting.”

The silence exploded with the braying laugh of Ghede who pulled
away from Scorpio and shifted back to Coyote. “Well, fan your pussies,
ladies—things just got interesting.” He took another deep swig from the
endless bottles of rum and said, “Here's to alcohol! What great Story ever
started with a salad?”

God he was beautiful. And still as erotic to me as that damn piece
of commodity cheese. I glanced over at Scorpio and he was crying. What if he
really wasn't strong enough to survive resurrection? Crap. He was the strongest
one in our generation. Other than me. I smiled at Coyote. “Maybe,” I leaned my
head back, exposing my neck to him, “Maybe this time I should mount you.” I had
no idea what I was doing. I jumped at him from across the space, remembering
how I had done it when I was faux Coyote. No. When I had been Coyote. I became
Coyote again. I flew across the room and when our bodies struck we became one.

Chapter Twenty-Four

I fell forward, hitting the ground heavily but not feeling any
pain. I pushed myself up and looked around. Things were off and I realized I
was taller. I looked down and my body was the body of a man. Well, in truth, it
was the body of Coyote. “Where am I?” I asked out loud. My voice was deeper but
didn't really sound to me like Coyote's. Maybe it was the way when you hear a
recording of your voice it doesn't really sound like you.

“The true Spirit World,” I heard inside my head. “We had been in
the in-between space.” At first glance my surroundings looked pretty much like
I was out in a forest that seemed familiar. Close by I could see where I was
standing immediately dropped off into a deep valley. Then something that seemed
to be a jellyfish fLoated by and apparently caught some sort of insect in its
tendrils and brought it up into what I assume was a mouth. “Yeah, little fishy.
Definitely not in Kansas. There is a correspondence between this World and
yours, but as you can see, it's not exact.”

“What happened?”

“You know me well enough to understand I can't resist trying
something new?”

I searched my memory for anything that contradicted that, but came
up empty. Lots of stories about Coyote seeing others doing something he hadn't
seen before and then wanting to copy their actions. That's one of the reasons
he was called
Imitator.

Long time ago, Coyote was
going there. He saw something very strange—something very mysterious. He
saw a
wílaalik
—a rabbit. But this was no ordinary
rabbit—this was a
Twatee
—a medicine person. As Coyote
watched, the
Twatee
began to sing. Suddenly the eyes of the rabbit flew
out of his head and landed above them on the branch of a tree. This amazed
Coyote. Then the
Twatee
yelled, “
Weenum!”
(“Come here!”). His
eyes flew off the branch and settled like falling leaves, entering back into
his eye sockets so he could see again.

Coyote ran up to the rabbit
and begged, “Show me that trick! I want to learn that trick!”

“Oh, no, Coyote,” the
Twatee
told him. “This is not for you.” Coyote kept begging the
Twatee
, and
finally the rabbit agreed. “I will teach you how to do this thing, Coyote, but
you must never do it more than four times in one day. If you do it more than
four times in one day something terrible will happen to you.”

“No problem,” Coyote said.
“Just show me the trick!” When Coyote learned the Song, he sang it, and sure
enough, his eyes flew out of his head and sat on the branch of the tree above
him. Meanwhile rabbit left to go into another legend.

Proud of what he could now
do, Coyote called his eyes back to him and they obediently returned and he
could see again. He did this a second time, then a third time. He did it a
fourth time and thought, “Why am I wasting my time doing this here where no one
can admire how clever I am?” So Coyote set out for the closest village. He
called all the people together and said, “Now, check his out!”

He sang the Song, and sure
enough, his eyes fLoated up and landed on the branch of a tree. Everyone around
him was very impressed, just you’d be impressed if my eyes fell out of my own
head.

“That’s nothing,” laughed
Coyote. “Now watch this!” He yelled “
Weenum!”

And nothing happened. He
yelled it again, and the eyes just sat there, looking down at everyone. The
village people could take a joke, so they laughed and left Coyote alone. Coyote
was very worried. He thought and he thought about what to do, but he couldn’t
think of anything. Finally, in desperation, he turned to his sisters for help.

Now Coyote has three
huckleberry sisters who live inside his stomach, and when he can’t think of
what to do, he’ll ask them to assist him. He called on his sisters, and they
jumped out of him and landed before him on the ground. “What is it this time,
Coyote?” asked the first one.

“Always bothering us,” said
another. “Always asking us what you should do.”

“And when we tell you what
to do you always say, “Oh, that’s what I was going to do anyway.”

“We’re sick and tired of
this, Coyote,” said the first one. “You can just figure it out for yourself
this time. We aren’t going to help you.”

Coyote grew angry at his
sisters. He began to sing a Song of his own. The clouds above grew black and
heavy looking. There was a flash of lightning and the roll of thunder because
Coyote was calling forth hail.

Now huckleberries hate hail
because it hurts their little leaves and branches.

“No, no,” yelled one, “Call
off your hail, Coyote.”

“Yeah,” said
another—anyway we know what it is you want to know.”

“You want to know what to
do about your eyes,” sighed her sister.

“Use flowers for your
eyes,” said the oldest one.

“Flowers?” Coyote repeated.

“Yeah, Flowers,” said the
youngest one. But in our language she meant a very specific type of flower that
even today we literally call “Coyote’s eyes.” It looks a lot like a daisy.

“Oh,” said Coyote. “I knew
it all along. That’s what I was going to do anyway!” His sisters were disgusted
and jumped back inside of him. He quickly felt his way around and finally found
some. He put them into his empty eye sockets—and he could suddenly see
again. He was thrilled and he spent the rest of the day wandering around and
looking at things. Everything went fine until the sun began to go down. Now
this flower does something very special when the sun sets. It closes up.

Suddenly he was blind, and
he realized his sisters had tricked the Trickster. He had to spend the whole
night blind. The next morning when the sun came out, he had to feel his way
around in his blindness until he found a fresh pair. Then he went to find
someone he could
trick. He had
gone so far, it wasn’t until late afternoon he saw anyone. It was a Native
woman, who had a very large basket on her back, filled with berries she had
been picking.

Coyote showed off his
flower eyes. “Do you see how wonderful and magical my eyes are?” She looked at
him and he said, “And I can see so many things.” He leaned to his side, looking
around the woman and into the distance. “Why I can even see what your husband
is doing
while you’re working so
hard over here.”

“Gee,” she said, “I’d sure
like be able to see like that.”

“You do?” Coyote smiled.
“I’ll tell you what—let’s just make a straight trade. You give me your
old ordinary everyday eyes and I’ll give my magic flower eyes!”

“Will it hurt?” she asked.

“Nah,” he said, “I won’t
feel a thing. Give me your eyes!” So they traded and now Coyote had normal eyes
again and she had Flower eyes. She was looking around and just about then the
sun started to go down and she went blind.

“You tricked me!” she
yelled. “I don’t want these old things! Give me my own eyes back.”

Now Coyote grew angry with
her and said, “If you don’t want these eyes, then you’ll have no eyes at all!
You’ll spend all eternity having to feel your way around the way I had to feel
my way around.” Then he used his
Tamanawis
(his Spirit Power) on her and
she began to shrink. She became smaller and smaller until she became
Shuckshya
—the
Snail. The big basket on her back became her shell. And even now when you see
the Snail, she has to feel her way around the way Coyote did.

“And what about this is new?” I asked.

“For the first time in the history of the World, someone has
mounted me. I've never been possessed before.” I felt my right hand close into
a fist. I opened it up again. There was no resistance. “Frankly, I thought it
would be a lot more interesting. That's the way it usually turns out.” I heard
a mental sigh. “What I didn't realize is I can only really be possessed in the
Spirit World—not in the Everyday World, or the in-between space. Even I'm
not sure, but I think the only way you could have managed this is by having
become me again while we were both in the in-between space.” I felt a sense of
impatience. I laughed because I realized I couldn't tell if it was mine or his.
God knows it was a feeling I had a lot. Next stop, bored.

I decided I wanted to explore. “Anything dangerous I should know
about? Anything that wants to kill you I should watch for? I know a lot of
stories about you and I don't want to end up running into an angry jilted lover
and get blamed for something I didn't do.”

“That sounds more exciting than what we're doing.” He seemed to
think things over. “Mounting someone in a ceremony is nothing like a solitary
mounting in the forest. I'm sure if I thought about it, I could make a clever
comparison to the difference between a wild orgy and a half-hearted wank in the
dark.”

Knowing Coyote was a shifter I decided I wanted to try flying.
This would be fun for me because while I was used to borrowing the eyes of
birds, I should be able to turn into one. I thought about my options and after
having seen a flying jelly fish decided I should be careful what sort of bird I
chose to be. I remembered a poster Uncle Sly had put up in his room: “I shall
fear no evil for I am the meanest son of a bitch in the valley.” I decided to
be the biggest bitch of a bird in the sky.

I spread my arms letting them shift into wings and became a
Quetzalcoatlus. Thank you, Satellite Science Channels. I was now a flying
dinosaur with a thirty foot wing span. I spread my wings and took off on a
running start and launched myself over the cliff.

“This is more like it, little fishy! What are we?” My wings caught an updraft
and I soared upwards. Below me the valley spread out and I could see with a lot
more clarity, just as I could when I was borrowing the eyes of an eagle or a
hawk.

“This is called a Quetzalcoatlus, one of the largest of the flying
dinosaurs,” I answered. “Named after the flying serpent spirit of the Native
people to the far south of us.”

“Oh,
Quetzalcoatl
. In those days one of my names was
Itztl
i. In
your language you would say Obsidian Blade. The Aztecs would have ten who would
impersonate me. Like you, they would imitate the Imitator. They would be
celebrated, and after a year they would be sacrificed.”

“Don't get any ideas,” I said.

“It was a different time,” he said simply. I didn't want to think about it. “I
felt really appreciated in those days. I never cared about the bloodshed, but
it sure showed their commitment.”

“I think it probably showed the commitment of the sacrificed more
than that of the Priests. It’s the difference between the chicken and the pig
when it comes to making breakfast. An egg isn’t that big a commitment for the
hen, but for the pig, bacon is a major commitment.” I glided easily across the
valley, not having to flap my wings. I simply rode the air currents.

“I wonder what it would take to bring back that time,” I heard him
say. That was it. This wasn’t my new BBF that was hitchhiking in my head. This
was Coyote. He might sometimes do something heroic, but mostly he sought to
satisfy himself. I wanted this to be over. I wanted to go home and not feel my
world keep turning upside down whenever the trickster decided to show up.

I felt around for a way back. As I reached out with my mind
(Coyote’s mind?) I realized the Universe didn’t really care where I was, which
meant I could be anywhere. I headed for home and heard Coyote scream inside my
head because before we could leave the Spirit World I had to become Coyote
again and that meant we were suddenly falling straight down. Crap. I closed my
eyes and dove for the way we had come.

Suddenly we skidded across the chamber floor where the ceremony
was. We were both apart again and back with Scorpio and Moth. Ghede's entourage
was scrambling to get out of our way. I wondered what they'd think about this
particular night. Maybe this was how legends got started. The Youth Who
Possessed Coyote. I'd read it. I wanted to know how it turned out. I put my
hand in front of my face and willed myself back to myself, watching my hand
shrink a little and become less blocky. Coyote was handsome but the universe
just isn't big enough for two of him. I moved my head, gratified to feel the
brush of my braids. I was back to normal. Hah! As if.