Unraveled Visions (A Shaman Mystery) (2 page)

“I see good fortune,” said Kizzy, stretching my palm as if it was a crumpled cushion. “Money come.”

“Spot on!” yelled Debs.

Okay, I
had
come into some money lately, but a lot of good it had done my finances. I’d ended up with a Saturday job as well as my proper one.

“And boys-friend,” said Kizzy. “New man in life.”

“She’s promising you sex!” Debs squealed. “About time!”

“You forgot. I’ve sworn to stay off men forever.”

“Important man,” said Kizzy, still intent upon the hieroglyphics of my hand. “Big honour is him. Everyone love. Smell good, look good.”

“Wow!”

Kizzy impaled Debs with her gaze. “Look good but no
be
good. No. No.”

“That sounds like Ivan,” said Debs. “Don’t you think, Sabbie?”

I mentally cursed Debs for giving Kizzy all the information she needed to make her dodgy predictions. Telling fortunes at the squibbing was probably a dare. Getting it right had to be beginner’s luck.

I tugged at my hand. I didn’t want to hear any more. “Okay, thanks, Kizzy. You’ve made your twenty quid, and we’ve got to go.”

She held on to me. I found I was staring directly into her eyes, those sharp black pupils. They weren’t full of giggles and dares. They spoke of darkness. Of distrust and distress.

“Are you all right, Kizzy?”

“Me?” She stuck out her chin. “I good.”

“You don’t look good. You should go home now.”

She flung my hand at me. “Warning to you. Be warned. Not good boys-friend lead to danger. Lead to death!” Her scarf had fallen, revealing a waterfall of dark hair. She flicked it with an exaggerated shoulder gesture.

I backed away, out into the lighted street and the quiet bustle of crowds making their way home.

Debs skittered after me in her Stella McCartney boots and snatched at my elbow. “Hey! I didn’t get my money’s worth.”

I barked a laugh. “It was my life she was picking over.”

“You didn’t like it because she was so spot-on.”

“What rubbish.” Was the girl a Roma? Did she have second sight? Her black eyes and exotic accent suggested it.

I looked over my shoulder. She hadn’t moved, but shadows had fallen over her as she called out to me, “I see true!”

“Go home, Kizzy,” I called.

Gypsy Kizzy hadn’t finished. She had to have the last word. Her voice thickened into sadness. “I am sorry. There is danger. It starts with death.”

_____

She thinks about death. How sweet it would be, arriving like a crow, a crow with a rasping caw and with wings so wide she could hide in their shadows. She prays that the crow of death will come soon.

When she wakes the next morning, there is pain. Then she remembers the night; the sudden desire to run, the struggle as she is overcome.

She is shivering with pain. When she moves, even to bend her knees, pain rises as a bitter chill inside her core and tightens like a jacket belted across her chest. As if there are buckles that cannot be loosened. Every time she takes a breath, she feels the buckles burn into her ribs. If she moves an arm, the pain lacerates like a hunting knife.

Her father treasured his knife. Two bevelled edges, both kept sharp. It could slice equally through blades of grass or sinew and bone. Its handle was glowing walnut decorated with symbols burnt into the wood. There were brass finger rings he kept polished. It didn’t fold like her brothers’ blades; once it had possessed a leather sheath, but Tatta kept it wrapped in old flannel. Stolen beauty is worth more to the keeper, he told her, smiling. His teeth were yellow, huge, magnificent.

Her eyes open as she remembers Tatta’s smile, and she is returned to pain and cold. The cold comes from inside her, like the pain. She risks moving her arm to wrap herself against the cold and the hunting knife slices through, sinew and bone.

She is the stolen one now. Worth more to the keeper.

two

I’d noticed the newcomers
as soon as they moved into my road.

The house had been empty, the
To Let
sign sliding sideways onto the patchy front lawn, until a couple—newly wedded was the rumour—took the property on. I got all excited, because up until then, I’d been the youngest resident in the street. I thought we might at least chat over the front gate about things that were relevant to the twenty-first century. But the bloke set off early for work every weekday in a metallic blue Fiat Punto, not getting back till late. His hair was cut short at the back and he wore shiny shoes, except on weekends, when he shinned up a ladder, transforming the grey rendered walls with creamy paint. I tried saying hi as I passed him by, and a grunted reply would float down, but not much else. He looked twenty-four going on forty, while his wife looked twenty-four going on fourteen. Maybe she
was
fourteen; she certainly didn’t go out to work.

Neither of them stopped to chat with anyone. The neighbours were beginning to gossip. They never needed much scandal to chew the fat. They were saying the couple had something to hide. Once or twice a week the girl would zip past my house on the way to the local shops bundled into a wraparound Aran coat, mittens, scarf, and bobble hat, adding an umbrella if it was pouring with rain. I would have asked her in, but she always scuttled by so quickly I never even had time to raise my hand in greeting.

I got to thinking, the way she hunched her shoulders inside that coat, she looked like a dog who’d escaped from a kicking.

And now, at barely gone nine on a Saturday morning, she was standing in my kitchen, holding an empty egg box, looking fuzzy around the edges. Maybe it was all that wool, but the carnival had finished only hours back and alcohol units were still roving round my bloodstream looking for someone to bite.

“I heard that you sold eggs.” She took a step towards me. “How much is half a dozen? I wanted to bake a soufflé.”

The thought of soufflé made me swallow over a throat that tasted of innards.

“We live up that way,” she said, pointing through the wall. “Me and Andy. Andrea and Andrew, but it’s an awful mouthful when you say them together, so I’ve shortened mine to Drea. It’s what my little sister used to call me ’cause she couldn’t get the whole name out.”

I was shocked to hear so many words teem from her mouth, especially as I had said nothing since she’d knocked on the door apart from “come in.” I’d tried, but there was some sort of packing between my tongue and the speech part of my brain, similar to the stuff they put in attics. I did some sterling muscle work on my mouth and managed a smile. “Sorry. Carnival hangover.”

“Oh, right. Me and Andy talked about going. Was it good?”

“Er, yeah. Same as ever … sorry … I haven’t got enough eggs to let you have any today.” The truth was that the thought of opening the nesting box made me heave.

“Okay,” said Drea, as if she’d already dismissed the idea of a soufflé. She looked round, taking in the decor. “I like the way you’ve got things.”

“Do you? Really?”

I’ve lived in many places, but this was … the motherland. I’d worked hard to get it nice, both the oversized garden and the undersized house, and every speck of dust was mine.

“Nothing like the one we’ve got. The kitchen and dining room are poky.”

“It looks more spacious than it is.” I poured water from the tap into a pint glass and downed the lot, hoping to fight off the loft insulation. “This is my entire living space. Kitchen-cum-diner-cum-lounge. I eat in here, surf the web, sink a bottle of wine, you name it.”

“What about the living room? At the front?” She waited until I’d put down the empty glass then continued. “What d’you use that for?”

“That’s my therapy area. I use it for healing work.”

Naturally, she already knew. I have a laminated poster in my front window to help clients find my house. Sometimes, people ring the bell on impulse. I need the extra work I get in that way; it’s why I put all my contact details on the back of my cards.

She flashed a beaming smile that was total playacting. “I guess I’m curious.”

She didn’t fool me for one moment. It wasn’t my eggs she was after. I ran myself another pint of water.

“Would you like to take a look?”

_____

The therapy room was the heart and hub of my working life—a boxy room containing two mismatched wicker chairs, a homemade desk draped with muslin, and a pile of floor cushions.

I breathed in the atmosphere. The air smelled of burnt herbs. I went over and pulled the cord so that a cold November sun could slant through the binds and the muslin drapes. Below the window was my altar. It held my working tools, my pottery otter, and a tiny image of Persephone, goddess of the otherworld, along with a few small crystals.

Drea shuffled in behind me as if the room might snap at her. She went straight over to where my various certificates hung in cheap frames. “Oh,” she said. “You’ve got a degree.”

“That does seem to surprise people.” I busied myself lighting some candles. “Don’t know why. Everyone has a BA nowadays.”

“True.”

“Did you go to uni?

“What? Yes. Exeter. My parents live in Launceston, so it felt just far enough away—I could still get back at weekends.” She grimaced. “But I didn’t finish. Didn’t get my degree.”

“That’s a shame.”

“I don’t care. I’ve got Andy now. I’m an old-fashioned girl, I suppose.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” I though of my garden with its carrots and chickens. I laughed and it felt good, as if I’d been holding onto my breath. I went over and sat at the desk in the hope she might do the same, but she continued to stare at my certificates.

“You’re a Reiki Master?”

“Yes. Are you interested in that?”

“I don’t even know what it is.”

“It’s a gentle form of therapy that balances the chakras. You simply lie still for an hour.”

“I don’t believe all that Eastern stuff.”

“You don’t have to. Reiki actually comes from Japan, but it’s very accepted in the West. It channels a natural healing energy, and people feel a benefit whether or not they believe in a vital life force.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Believe in a life force?”

“Isn’t it everywhere you look?”

“Yes!” Drea was suddenly animated. “Of course, that’s so true!”

Finally she propelled herself across the room and sat on the other wicker chair, crossing her ankles like a girl at a fifties dance.

I waited until she was settled before I spoke again. “Actually, I practice Shamanic Reiki. I combine healing from the spirit world with the channelling of the energy.”

I was trying to get a feel for Drea, but the only thing that was coming from her was a sensation of chill. She was hiding everything
under layers of Aran wool. She hadn’t even taken off her scarf. It was as if she was knitted into the garments. She jiggled her bag. “An hour,
did you say?”

I nodded, not quite looking back at her.

“Only, I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“That’s true of lots of my clients.”

“Okay. Could I have one now?”

“What, right now?”

After two pints of water, the throb in my head had faded, and I couldn’t afford the financial luxury of turning down work, especially as Drea was already holding out the correct fee in ten-pound notes. Maybe she was a spur-of-the-moment person. I could identify with that. I suspected if I forced her to make an appointment, she wouldn’t keep it.

“Okay. If you don’t feel comfortable at any time, though, that’s fine. If you say stop, I’ll stop. If you want to leave, I’ll return your money.”

Drea gave a stiff nod. She swayed on the chair, as if about to faint. There was sweat on her upper lip.

“Why don’t you take off your coat?”

She tightened it around her. “I’m fine like this.” But she pulled off the hat and stuffed it into a big patch pocket. Her hair picked up the electricity and flew as if shocked at the sudden exposure. It was baby-fine and the colour of cork matting, cut into a neat bob. She took off her mittens and smoothed her hair into place.

“Let me explain what happens. I will pass my hands over you. The healing energy moves through me from outside.”

Drea spoke very quietly. “If it’s from outside you, then it’s God’s power.”

I wasn’t going to argue—God and Goddess, each had their place. “Reiki restores equilibrium and well-being. If you’ve got any sort of problem with your general health you want to tell me about, I can work in that particular area.”

I passed her the questionnaire I get new clients to fill in. If nothing else, it makes me look a tad more professional.

“I’m as fit as a fiddle,” said Drea, working through the checklist with quick flicks of the pen.

She looked as wan as an Elgin Marble to me. “Um, what about … d’you have any emotional difficulties?”

“No.”

“Relationship problems?”

“Absolutely not.”

She came back fast as a rapper, but she was not adept at fibbing. The lie was in every particle and wave of her answer.

“So there is nothing particular you want me to work on … nothing that concerns you at the moment?”

Drea’s cheeks darkened. Not so much a blush as a blue tinge.

“You don’t have to tell me what’s bothering you. If you like, you could write it down. That way, it would be unspoken, but sort of ‘in the air’ as I work.”

I heard a tiny gasp, a sucking of breath. “Could I?”

“Of course.”

I handed her a scrap of paper and a pen. She had pale, tapered fingers with a single ring; a plain wedding band. She cut her nails straight across, not painting or even filing them. I could see the whiteness of the half-moons delineated against the gentle pink of each nail. I still had my pristine French polish and for once I felt more dressed up than a client.

I moved away as she buried her head into the writing. I shunted some floor cushions together and gestured that she should make herself comfortable on them. She folded the paper into a tiny square and slid it under the cushions, then tested them with her hand as if not trusting their contents. Finally she sank down with a little hiss of relief. I draped a thick fleece over her and put on a CD of soothing sounds.

“I’m going to prepare myself.” Already, my voice had dropped a tone and my eyes were beginning to shift perspective. “I’ll be a moment or two. Just relax.”

I went up my stairs and had a long pee and a good wash of my face and hands. I drank another mug of water in the kitchen, leaning against the worktop. I was waiting for Drea to appear at the door and tell me she’d changed her mind. When that didn’t happen, I wondered if she’d already scarpered. I stole into the therapy room.

She hadn’t moved. Her eyes were closed, and she didn’t respond when the door clicked shut. She was almost in a trance already.

_____

Shamanism and Reiki are linked on an intuitive level. They have a synergy—separately, they work well, but combined, I find they work more than twice as well. When I place my hands over a Reiki client, I allow myself to drift into a light trance state, so that I can sense their seven chakras—energy centres. However, I don’t often see them as they’re depicted in illustrations: blazing rainbow colours that move through the spectrum; they come to me a variety of ways, showing a person’s inner story.

I moved my hands lightly above Drea to see if any chakra spun faster or slower than it should. At the base of her spine, Drea’s root chakra was a rich, thrumming note, as if someone was playing a red bassoon. It felt healthy enough. Her heart chakra felt fine too, its green glow like the light that shines through hazel leaves in the summer. Below it, the chakra at the solar plexus was a little sluggish. Drea was probably not a confident person. Maybe she had problems relating to others. Okay, I had already observed some of this from watching her life from afar, but the chakras were reinforcing my guesses.

The sensation around her lower abdomen was dry and shifting, like sand dunes held together with nothing more than marram grass, how when you walk over the top of them your feet go from under you and you’re sucked into the sand. Her sacral chakra had lost all its energy. It was curled up on itself, as if it didn’t want anything more to do with life.

This chakra holds the key to sexuality. The Sanskrit word is
Svadhisthana
, meaning sweetness … pleasure
.

I thought about the clipped nails and the thick Aran and the mouse-like scuttle to the shops. Where was the pleasure in Drea’s life? Was she using knitting and soufflés to prevent facing unspoken difficulties?

I rested my hands on her shoulders to initiate the contact. She sniffed a breath through her nose but didn’t fully wake. I began my steady work, taking myself deeper into a dance of the senses.

After an hour I whispered to her. “Okay. Take your time.”

Drea gave a feminine little snort and began to stretch.

“How d’you feel?”

She breathed deeply in through her nose. “It did relax me, I must admit.”

“Good. You should sleep well tonight.”

“Your hands were very hot.” She was still under the influence, her voice slurred.

“That is the channelled energy. I’m confident you’ll feel the benefit. The treatment might take away that edgy feeling.”

She stretched again and began to sit up. “I’m not edgy.”

“Perhaps I got the wrong idea. I—”

“I’m not an edgy person at all.”

“Your systems are basically sound.” I hoped to start with some good news. “Your throat chakra is a little closed, but I find that in a lot of people who have quiet voices. The chakras above that—the indigo centre in your brow and the violet centre at your crown—are well open, spinning extremely fast. I think you may be quite a spiritual person.”

“Every living soul has that capacity.” Drea looked at me directly, a gentle strength in her eyes.

“The sacral chakra felt a little unbalanced.” I placed my hand over the base of my own belly. “It’s related to water and emotions and, for want of a better phrase, women’s problems.” I stopped, wondering why I was being so coy. Why I hadn’t mention the
s
word? Was it because Drea shrank away from me as I spoke, her face puckered?