Savage (Daughters of the Jaguar) (32 page)

Aiyana turned and looked at me. "I am sad to see her leave," she said. "But I will not feel sorrow at heart. Dying is nothing more than a change."

I knew in my heart she was right. I had seen my mother when I had died that night and she was more beautiful and stronger than ever. It's the people that are left behind that are hurting because they don't understand, they don't know what waits on the other side. It's the fear of the unknown. And the fear of being left behind.

"You came to talk to me about something, didn't you?" Aiyana asked.

I nodded.

"Let's do it while she gets ready to say goodbye. Let's go out on the porch."

I followed Aiyana outside where we sat at the couch. The rocking chair still didn't move and almost looked like an ordinary rocking chair. "It always gets quiet when someone is dying," Aiyana said. "It was the same when Granny went even though her spirit never left the house. It will be like that for a couple of days and then it will start rocking again. When my dad died it went quiet for a whole month. But his death was also unexpected. It gave us all a shock I guess."

"No one predicted it?" I asked.

Aiyana laughed lightly. "We don't see everything. Maybe we did know but refused to listen. That happens sometimes," she said. "But once he died, we all knew instantly. We all saw the same vision of him being shot at the exact same time. I remember how it felt in my heart. Like someone ripped a part of it out."

"I know how that feels," I said. Then I paused. "Do you already know why I wanted to talk to you?" I asked.

She looked like she was searching her mind. "No. I don't think I do," she replied. "I haven't heard much from you lately. You have been awfully quiet."

I looked at her bandages. She put her hand in mine. "It's okay," she said. "I don't blame you so you shouldn't blame yourself, either."

"Does it still hurt?" I asked.

"Not really. I feel I am growing stronger each day. The doctors can't believe their eyes, they say."

I cleared my throat. "So do you transform at night? Have you been ... out there? Have you been in the swaps again?"

"The first couple of days after I was shot my body was too weak to be able to go through the transformation which was lucky since I had to stay in the hospital, but the last couple of days everything has been back to normal I guess. My mother has seen me leave the house at night so I guess I have been out there in the swamps again. I can't remember anything."

I exhaled deeply. "He won't stop," I said. "Jim is not going to stop chasing after you out there. He will only stop when he sees your dead body."

Aiyana answered with a gentle smile. It made me furious. It was like she didn't understand the gravity of the situation. She was like a child who took everything lighthearted.

" I am serious," I said. "He wants to kill you. He is determined to hunt you down and kill you to get his revenge."

"Because I took his leg. Can't say I blame him," she said blithely.

"So you have to stop going there. You have to stay away from those swamps, you hear me? You can't go there anymore."

Aiyana squeezed my hand. "It is not something I can control..."

"But there must be a way you can," I interrupted her. "There has to be a way..."

She shook her head. "There is no way to control it."

"But ... you don't understand. Can't you chain yourself in the basement of your house or lock the door to your room or something?"

Aiyana laughed. "Christian, that is crazy. I have to go out at night. It is a big part of me. You can't lock me up forever. Then I would rather die."

"But you have to understand. I saw you. I saw this vision in the swamps. I saw you get shot. And I am not talking about this time when I shot you, this was another time. This was something that hasn't happened yet. This is something that is about to happen. He will shoot you again ... he will ... I know it ..."

Aiyana put a finger over my lips to stop me. "Let it go. You can't control everything, Christian. You have to stop trying to restrain the people you love. The world is a mess. Life is a mess. Things happen that we cannot control."

"But this we can change," I said. "Like I changed the fate of that girl. I know we can."

Aiyana sighed. "No we can't."

"I know a way," I said. "I know how we can change your destiny. The newspaper called me. They want me to do an article about what happened to Jim. They want me to write about it. Can't you see that it could be a unique chance for you to tell people who you are? If I wrote an article about you and the true identity of the jaguar then they would stop hunting for you. Don't you see? I could write how it is a secret that belonged to the Timucua Indians. They would certainly want to protect that. They would want to protect you."

"Whoa. Stop one second, Christian. Think about it. What do you suppose will happen to me if we revealed to the world who ... what I really am? What do you think they'd do to me? They'd lock me up in a cage and run tests on me and try to get the fountain out of me somehow. That is a fate worse than death. For centuries people have been looking for the fountain of youth. Today it is a billion dollar industry, creating youth serums, anti-aging creams, treating people with human growth hormones not to mention the cosmetic transplantations. Everybody wants to stay young-looking through all of their life."

"But they killed your father. He was shot to death. Do you really want to die like that?" I asked desperately.

"It is better than living the rest of my life as an experiment. An animal in a cage. At least I am free. I need to go out there. You have to understand this. Revealing my secret will only lead to a fate worse than death. I am not afraid of dying."

"But I am afraid that you'll die," I said. "I don't want you to leave this world. I don't want you to leave me."

"I know. But I will some day. And you know it. There is no way you can stop it from happening. Now if you'll excuse me I will go and say goodbye to my grandmother who is leaving us today to go and be with the rest of our family. I am certain I will see her again soon though. Nothing ever dies, Christian. It just changes address."

Aiyana's grandmother Aponi was waiting for us in her bed when we went up the stairs and into her room. Aiyana's sisters were all there, too, sitting on her bed. Each of them had all been handed a letter from her that they were now holding in their hand. Now it was Aiyana's turn and she approached her bed. I felt a pinch in my heart when I looked at the two women saying their dear goodbyes. A tear rolled down Aiyana's cheek and her grandmother pulled her closer. She hugged her and whispered something in her ear that made her laugh out loud.

All the sisters hugged Aiyana when she was done telling her goodbye except Halona. She stood in the corner the entire time and stared at her grandmother with her big melancholic eyes. I understood exactly how she felt at that moment. I remembered that emotion, that horrible feeling of despair, knowing it was all over now and there was nothing you could do to change it. No matter how mad you got at the world, at God or at the person for dying you could never reverse it. I wanted to walk to her and pull her into my arms and just hug her, just take her into my arms and hold her tight till the feeling went away. But Halona didn't like people touching her, Aiyana had told me, and she rarely touched anyone except for Aiyana who was her favorite sister. She was frozen, almost like a statue, and if it hadn't been for the curtains swirling in the air and the flowers dancing over the grandmother Aponi's head, you'd think Halona was just a doll in the corner. But with all the beautiful women in the room she was the one that had my full attention.

"Christian," the grandmother said, and reached her hand out towards me. I stepped closer and took it. She felt cold and her hand was pale, as if the blood in her body had already left for the other side and only the empty bones remained. "My dear Christian. Do you know that my name means butterfly?"

"No ma'am. I did not know that," I said. I stared into her deep brown eyes that despite the circumstances were still full of life.

"The funny thing about butterflies is that you don't get to keep them. You'll only get a glimpse of their beauty now and then, you can watch them from a distance and you only get to enjoy them for a few seconds before they are gone. They don't want to be caught and tamed. If you touch their wings they might never fly again and that will kill them. Sometimes people are like that, too. Sometimes you need to let people fly and go where they are supposed to go, Christian. Here. I have something for you." The grandmother let go of my hand and reached into a small box and pulled out a piece of paper that she handed to me.

"A letter for me, too?" I asked and felt tears pressing against my eyes. I cleared my throat to hold them back. "But I am not..."

Then she grabbed my hand and held it between hers. "Yes, you are, Christian. You're a part of this family, too. And family is together even when they're apart. You can love people even if you're not with them."

Soon hereafter Aponi closed her eyes and let go of my hand like she had now said and done what she wanted and it was time to go. She seemed to enter a gentle sleep. Only now and then could I see how her body fought to breathe in air to her lungs, but since she wasn't fighting for her life like my mother had done, it didn't seem to cause her anxiety or even pain. It was so different from what I had experienced with my mother, it was so calm and peaceful. The girls started singing the most beautiful hymn while Wyanet played quietly along on a small flute. Just before she left this world, Aponi regained consciousness for a few seconds and looked at us all in the room with a wide smile.  Then she closed her eyes and breathed a contented sigh and left for the other world without looking back. The singing stopped with her last breath and we watched quietly as her spirit left her body and left only the old bones and skin on the linen. All color disappeared from the skin and left it dull almost yellowish. Then it was like her body was shrinking. Even the head and hands and feet started shrinking. Her skin started cracking and her smooth wrinkle-free face suddenly appeared like that of a very old woman with skin and flesh almost powdery and porous. It was as if her body was dissolving, disintegrating in front of our very eyes. Her face fell in and her hair fell off becoming nothing but dust in the air. I saw Wyanet walk towards the window and open it and pull away the curtains. Soon the remains of the long hair was caught in the wind and started floating outside, the dustlike particles almost dancing. After it followed the fingernails, soon the fingertips, the whole hand, arms and legs. The entire body seemed to be dehydrated and broken into small fine particles easy for the wind to carry out of the room. 

That explained why they had never looked for the father's body, I thought to myself as the rest of the grandmother's body left the room. When all of her was gone, Wyanet stood up and closed the window.

"Mama has gone home," she said and everybody in the room smiled, even the apparition of the great-grandmother who was watching it all from above our heads floating soundlessly beneath the ceiling.

"I'd better get back," I said as we all went down stairs. Nadie went into the kitchen where a wonderful scent of herbs filled the entire house.

"Really?" Aiyana said. "Don't you want to stay and celebrate Aponi's life with us? We will be singing and dancing and talking about her and what she meant for us."

I smiled. "As much as I love the sound of that I have to get back before someone knows I have been here to see you."

Aiyana nodded. "Ah. Heather. I know."

I looked into Aiyana's stunning eyes while thunder roared outside the windows. It was raining even heavier now. It was like the whole universe was crying over the loss of Aponi to this world. Inside the house there would be no crying. Sadness because she wasn't going to be there anymore, yes, but no sorrow. It was a celebration of her life. I thought about that for a long time afterwards. It was such a different way of dealing with death than what I had encountered earlier in life. When my mother died we just stopped talking about her. There would be no mentioning of her or talking about memories about her. My father wouldn't have it. He couldn't bear remembering her. I would have loved to have thrown a party in celebration of her life, of the mother she had been to me. I would have loved to just talk about her once with my father and indulge in my beautiful memories of her.

"I guess this is goodbye, then," she said.

I breathed heavily. I really didn't want to go. I never wanted to leave her again. I hated this, hated having to say goodbye to the one I loved, the only woman since my mother I had ever loved. And now it was over. I could never see her again. I breathed deeply. "I guess it is." I stroke her gently on her cheek while repeating: "I guess it is."

Then she leaned over and kissed me, a kiss unlike any other I had ever experienced. Not even from her. It caught me by surprise, but I welcomed it. Knowing this might be the last kiss I would ever have from her, I took in her smell, her taste, all of her beauty and tried to memorize every little feature of her face and her body, everything about her, in case I never saw her again. I grabbed her chin and kissed her back, passionately, lovingly, first gently, then impulsively like I wanted to take all of her with me, like I never wanted to let go. I almost attacked her, causing her to stumble backwards with a small laugh. Then unfortunately she drew back. She looked into my eyes. I felt confused. Sad and incredibly happy at the same time.