The Winter Beast and other tales Read online

THE GOD STONE

  "Aztec Indians would sacrifice people here in the olden days," Ryan said, brushing dirt and pine needles from the immense dark stone.

  "The Aztecs never lived here," said Courtney, joining in at once. "They were Anasazi and they worshiped the goddess of flowers. They were peaceful and left offerings of sage and piñon nuts." She went to the edge of the clearing and squatted down next to a cactus in bloom, contemplating a way to pick the blossom.

  "They did not," Ryan insisted, picking up a long narrow rock, the sharp edge digging into his fingers. "They would feed a victim strange roots that paralyzed him, then they cut out his heart and set it next to him on the altar, still beating." His sister looked up at him, and they both laughed at the same time. It was their favorite game.

  Late in the summer after he finished the 4th grade, Ryan's mother had told them that she was going away for a year — a twenty-six nation tour with one of her groups to raise environmental awareness. She closed their house in Potomac, and Ryan and Courtney were sent to live with their Aunt Wanda in southwest Colorado. "Don't forget that I love you," she told them.

  Aunt Wanda lived in the middle of nowhere, with wild country all around. She wasn't anything like Mother. She was sloppy and smoked and wore jeans and cowboy boots all the time, and she bought them sneakers and let them play outside. She said that Courtney could wear make-up, since she was entering junior high, and even that Ryan could have a bicycle, but he would have to wait until his birthday. And they didn't have to have the house spotlessly clean when she got home from work, nor did homework have to be done (with flawless handwriting or you had to do it over). "There's plenty of time for school work after dinner," she said. "Afternoon is for playing with friends." They didn't tell Aunt Wanda that they had never been allowed to go outside, not even to a schoolmate's house, because it was "too dangerous" — the same reason why they couldn't have bicycles — and they were never allowed to have a friend over because "it would be too much of a mess." But the best thing was that Aunt Wanda was happy. She never screamed at them when they forgot themselves and giggled out loud, and she told them that they were good kids, smart and nice looking, something their mother had never said to them. The only thing Ryan missed about his mother was her bookcase. It was full of cool books about ancient peoples.

  "Wooo, Ryan," said Courtney, "come over here. I can see a face in it. See? It looks like a giant buried up to his chin."

  Ryan tilted his head and gazed at the rough-hewn, volcanic boulder. At first it had seemed to be black, but now he saw that it reflected the sharp western light in a dozen shades of grey.

  "It's the face of Bula Tama," he said. "He was buried here by all the other gods because he was a trickster."

  Courtney nodded. "He's the god of deception."

  "No. He never lies — he's just mischievous. Sometimes his tricks are mean, but in the end he's always fair."

  "But one of his tricks killed another god," Courtney said, suddenly eager for a dark history. "That's why they buried him."

  Ryan turned to his sister in all seriousness. "He likes to smoke. We have to come back tomorrow and sacrifice tobacco to him."

  Courtney smiled. It was going to be a fun year.

  At first Aunt Wanda had kept asking them if they wanted to have friends over after school, or if they needed her to drive them to a schoolmate's house on the weekends. "I know it can be hard to make new friends when everyone lives so far apart," she said. "If you want to go home with a friend on the school bus, I could pick you up after I get done with work." But it was harder than she thought. Ryan and Courtney felt like foreigners, and the other kids could sense their strangeness. Courtney could carry polite conversation with the more studious types, but Ryan was lost, and when he let his imagination slip aloud they backed away like he had a disease. He became known as "the weird kid."

  That night, while Aunt Wanda was in the bathtub, Courtney stole a cigarette from her purse. After school the next day, she and Ryan climbed the tree-studded ridge that had become their back yard. When they reached the clearing, Ryan solemnly accepted the cigarette, holding it above the great dark stone while he ripped away the paper.

  "Bula Tama, Bula Tama," he chanted as he scattered shreds of tobacco across the stone. "Hear me now. Don't have a cow."

  Courtney echoed him, suppressing a giggle. "Hear me now. Don't have a cow."

  Ryan glared at her. "This is serious, Courtney."

  "Okay."

  Ryan took a deep breath. "Bula Tama played a trick one day. They turned him to stone, and a stone he will stay. No more fun till all is done. The other gods have gone away."

  On the last day of the fall semester the sky shone a brilliant blue and the ground lay patchy with snow. Aunt Wanda surprised Ryan and Courtney by meeting them at the bus stop. "Your mother is coming to visit you over the holidays," she said. "She can have my room and I'll stay in town with my friend Sandra. Anyway, she'll be here tomorrow. Isn't that wonderful?"

  When Mother stepped through the front door she looked at Aunt Wanda and shrugged. "I must admit, it is cleaner than I imagined. I thought you had a problem with mice."

  Then she saw Courtney. "I can't believe that you are letting her wear make-up, Wanda. She's still a child."

  "She's a young lady now, Octavia. And look at her, such a beautiful young lady at that."

  And Mother looked at her, and Ryan saw that she realized it was true — her daughter was beautiful. And it seemed to make her angry.

  After dinner, Mother stayed downstairs to tell Aunt Wanda about the quaintness of the Cinque Terre and the spiritual purity of the shrines she had visited in Japan. She never talked about the work her group did, only the wonderful places she had seen. Later she came up to Ryan's attic room.

  "Ugh," she said, "dusty."

  When she opened the drawer in his little desk and found the jar with the nine dollars in it she asked, "Where did you get this money?"

  "Aunt Wanda gives me a dollar a week for helping her take trash to the dump."

  Mother nodded. "I see. Well, I'm going to keep it for you, so you don't spend it foolishly. You can have it to spend on something useful when we go shopping."

  Ryan didn't say anything, but he knew: They would never go shopping together. And he would never see his nine dollars again.

  Courtney's make-up was confiscated the next morning. The next night after supper she felt sick, and Mother sent her to her room. Courtney still felt bad the next day, and the day after was worse. She turned pale and sweaty and didn't want to get out of bed.

  "Shouldn't you call a doctor?" Ryan asked.

  "She's just doing this to get back at me," Mother said, her face wrinkling like a prune, "to make me waste my time nursing her. Whatever you do when you grow up, Ryan, never have children." Then she blinked and was suddenly quiet. But on the third day Courtney didn't get better.

  Searching the kitchen drawer, Ryan found a pack of Aunt Wanda's cigarettes. He took one and went to the clearing where lay the great stone. He walked around it touching the pocked surface, the stone painfully coarse as he drew his hand over it. Tearing open the cigarette, he began to chant.

  "Bula Tama, Bula Tama,

  He opens his eyes; he sees all lies.

  His mouth stays closed and he doesn't say why.

  Bula Tama, hear me now."

  On the fourth day Courtney felt worse, and she couldn't keep any food down. Mother had been spending all her time reading the books on herbal healing that she had brought with her, but now she stopped. On the fifth day Courtney became very pale, with almost a greenish tint to her face. On the sixth day she seemed weaker. On the seventh she was no better. And every day Ryan went to Bula Tama with tobacco, his chants becoming more urgent.

  "Bula Tama, tricks and sin,

  Now we know the fix is in.

  Bula Tama, clever god."

  On the eighth day Mother went out and returned with
a long-haired man in filthy blue jeans and a beaded headband. She said that he was a healer. The man knelt beside Courtney's bed and held his hands over her with his eyes closed. His lips moved but he made no sound. After a few minutes he stood, placed a piece of quartz on Courtney's forehead, and ushered Mother from the room.

  "Her aura has been pierced," Ryan overheard the healer say. "Torn wide open by some evil force that I don't understand. Her spirit is leaking away and I cannot stop it."

  It began snowing that evening, large wet flakes that by morning left the pines sagging under a thick white burden and made a snowy mound of Mother's rental car. "It seems that I can't take Courtney to the doctor today," she said. “We're snowed in. The regular telephone is out of service, and I can’t get a signal on my cell phone. I guess we just have to wait until it melts." She shook her head. "I can't believe that Wanda lives in this god-forsaken place."

  The sky spat ice and snow all that day, and Ryan didn't think he could make it up the ridge to Bula Tama. He sat with Courtney after dinner while she tried to sleep. She had given up trying to eat several days ago.

  "I'm so tired of hurting," she said, crying softly.

  Ryan felt his own eyes well with tears. "Mother is going to take you to the doctor as soon as the road is clear."

  Courtney shook her head. "No she won't. She hates me." She looked at Ryan and took his hand in a weak grip. Very softly, she said, "I think Mother did something to me, something to make me sick. I think she wants me to die."

  "She says that she loves us," whispered Ryan pleadingly.

  "She doesn't."

  The snow let up during the night, dawn coming endlessly through heavy fog. Courtney looked very bad that morning. After lunchtime she was even worse, so pale and still and wet that she looked like she had drowned.

  Her eyes remained closed, but she whimpered in her half-sleep, "Mmmake it stop. Pleassse. I can't stan' it anymore."

  "I'll try," Ryan whispered, wiping hot tears from his cheeks. "I'll try."

  He quickly dressed in his warmest clothes then slipped downstairs to the kitchen. As he shook a cigarette loose from the pack he noticed a disposable lighter resting in the bottom of the drawer, and on pure impulse thrust it into the pocket of his coat along with the cigarette.

  Picking his way up the side of the ridge, staying close to the trees where the snow looked shallow, he still foundered in some places where he stepped in up to his knees. When he got to the clearing he was panting heavily, his breath coming out in clouds.

  The ground around Bula Tama lay wet with freshly-melted snow, as if the great stone radiated heat. Ryan was afraid to touch it. He knelt before his god, placed the cigarette between his lips, and lit it. The smoke seared his throat and took his breath away as he drew it in. He coughed, his eyes watering, and this time, in a rasping voice, he did not chant.

  "Please," he begged, "please let her die. It's never going to end. You can't let Courtney keep hurting." He puffed desperately as he spoke, gagging with the taste of the tobacco, but never pausing in his prayer.

  "Please make her die," he said, shaking with sobs. "Please make her die. Make her die!"

  Time didn't pass for Ryan, but when he looked up dusk had come and it was very cold. Then a low droning sound rose up from below, a pair of lights lancing the freezing mist. Aunt Wanda had made it through in her big pick-up truck. It was slow going down the ridge, and by the time Ryan got to the house, Aunt Wanda was standing on the front porch screaming his name.

  "Oh Ryan," she said, her eyes glazed with shock, "something terrible has happened." Then she told him, and he knew his prayer had been answered.

  The funeral was held back in Maryland, and the family gathered afterward at Ryan's old house. He overheard Aunt Wanda say to a distant cousin, "Everyone is acting like it was an accident, but I think it was suicide. It seems that some new-age healer told her that Courtney was going to die — and you know, when I found her it sure looked like it had already happened. Anyway, Octavia really believed in all that, and I think she killed herself rather than watch her daughter pass away. Octavia really had a dark streak in her. Nobody knew it, but she did."

  "And Courtney is alright now?" interrupted the cousin.

  "She's fine. She started getting better the next day."

  The cousin lowered her voice. "Do you know what it was that Octavia took?"

  "It was a little white powder made from a common flower — there were instructions on how to make it in one of her books on herbs. The book said that it was medicinal in tiny amounts, and I suppose she was using it as a cure for Courtney. But the book also said that a full teaspoon was deadly."

  "So you really think Octavia killed herself."

  Aunt Wanda sighed with finality. "Yes. I found her in the chair next to Courtney's bed with a tray on the side table. There was a cup of peppermint tea for Courtney, and Octavia's afternoon cup of coffee. The sugar bowl was closed and the jar of herbal stuff was open right next to it. I don't know what happened, but who would mistake poison for sugar?"

  Ryan didn’t smile. Children weren’t supposed to smile at times like this.