Unraveled Visions (A Shaman Mystery) (7 page)

“Scared?”

“Like fireworks still in eyes.”

“Okay …”

“Mirela!”

The queue had grown since we’d started talking. “Coming, Stan.”

I snatched at her hand. “What’s that guy’s name? Did you say Stan?”

“Yes. I told you. Stanislaus. That is him.”

So it was Papa Bulgaria who hunted the bride market for new and innocent employees. Of course, it was not surprising that they’d want Bulgarian staff, but why Romani? Was it because they would accept the lowest pay?

I wandered away from the counter, clutching my ticket. There was still no space on the window seat. Most customers were gawping at the telly tuned to the Discovery Channel that was hinged onto the wall, or down at the floor, deep in empty-bellied thought. Among them, I spotted an Aran bobble hat and matching mittens.

“Drea!”

She glanced up. Her face told me that she’d been hoping I wouldn’t see her.

“Oh. Hi.”

“Look,” I said, stepping as close as possible to her, bending a little. “I owe you an apology.”

“No. No you don’t. It’s me. I should never have come to you.”

“But you did. You followed your instincts, nothing wrong with that.”

“I should never have come.”

“Number forty-seven!” yelled Stanislaus. The man sitting next to Drea got up and took his order away. I slid onto a cushion that swirled with sequins. “You been okay, Drea?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“I still have a copy of the shamanic notes I made after your Reiki.” I looked at her for a moment. “You did know, did you, that Andy …”

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry if Andy upset you.”

“Drea, he almost scared me.”

“He’s just … trying to protect me.”

“Listen, Drea, I went out with a man like that, not long ago. They
say
they love you, but that isn’t the point, is it? It’s how a person shows love that counts. Some men think that getting angry … violent …”

She pulled a raffle ticket from her patch pocket and examined it. Number 48—her passport out of this place and away from me. She folded the ticket into two, into four, as she’d folded the paper under the cushion.
Am I safe
. I laid a soft hand on her arm. “In the journey … I thought you were having a baby.”

“What?” She didn’t even attempt to lower her voice. “How could you do that?”

“Sorry? I …”

“How could you …
know that
?” She was gritting her teeth—almost grinding them. “That is impossible.”

I’d taken quite a risk talking about this private issue, one that originally I had been planning to explain gently, not blurt out. But meeting her here seemed like more than chance. “I need to explain this properly. Go through my report with you.”

She had lost all her colour. I could almost see through her. She spoke in a sharp whisper. “You have heard the voice of the devil. That is what this is. The devil speaking inside you. And I won’t listen.”

“Number forty-eight,” yelled Stanislaus. He dangled the carrier bag from one outstretched finger but looked at me. He’d enjoyed the promise of a cat-fight and was sorry to see it terminated.

Drea rose from the bench and fisted the carrier. Her face seemed swollen and shiny, as if she was crying inside. A few strides later, she was through the door and stepping into a car. The driver’s face was obscured, but I knew who it was. As they pulled away, I saw Dennon’s ancient Vauxhall reverse into the space.

As soon as my food was ready, I snatched the bags and headed out, calling to Mirela as I reached the door. “I’ll be in touch, sweetie!” I wanted Stan to know that she had friends in this town. But when I glanced his way, the Bulgarian simply flicked his oiled hair from his eyes and winked at me.

_____

“Aw, look at this!”

An hour later, and we’d finished the food and were chatting on my sofa. Dennon was leaning back, his baggy jeans sticking straight out under the coffee table so that his Nikes showed from the other side. His fingers were flicking—both hands—which meant he was in sore need of a smoke. I was curled next to him with my stockinged feet tucked under me, cooing at the photos Mum had sent over. “Kerri in her ballet leotard!”

“That was her grade one exam last month.”

“I’m in this one. Rudi on his sixth birthday. Look at that chocolaty mouth.”

“Yep,” said Dennon. “You always was a messy eater.”

“Shurrup.” I poked him with an elbow. The photos made my head feel as light as a gas balloon. At Rudi’s age, what I can remember of it, I was mute with terror most of the time. There are no chocolatey pictures of me on birthdays, and I never had a pretty pink leotard or ballet pumps, either. By the time I was six, my mother was dead and I was faced with the first of a series of foster
homes. Inside my head, I was terrified as a baby rabbit, but I fought being little and lost with miniature fists and teeth and the toe caps of shabby sneakers. At some point I stopped moving around people’s
homes and ended up stuck in the Willows.

“What’s this?” Among the pictures I’d found a plastic wallet. The paper inside had the yellow look of parchment. Visible through the clear plastic was my name … SABRINA ISOBEL DARE. I flicked at the snap and slid my fingers in. The document came fluttering out. I looked up at Dennon. “It’s my birth certificate.”

“So? You must’ve seen your own birth certificate before.”

“Not like this. I’ve got one of those mini ones. This is …” I put the empty food cartons on the floor and spread the sheet over the coffee table “This is everything.”

“Mum prob’ly found it in one of her big clear-outs.”

“No, Dennon. It’s a pristine copy.” I looked up. “Those pics were just a ploy. She sent you over because she didn’t want to be here the first time I saw this.”

“What, you mean she went out and got it?”

“She’s always trying to convince me I should trace both sides of my family. But what family? You all’s my family. I don’t want any other.”

“’Course you don’t, man. Sniff round in the past and bad bits are gonna show up.”

I laughed. I hadn’t yet had my thirteenth birthday when I went to live with the Davidsons. Dennon was eighteen months my senior, although
senior
was not the word for the things we got up to. “We’re both reformed characters now,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, sad, innit?” Dennon gave me a nefarious grin. “Remember those first solo rides? Seventy along the M32?”

“Up to ninety, once you had your provisional license.”

We’d both been well proficient in so many things—driving, smoking, drinking, hitting on the opposite sex—long before we were legally entitled. Other indulgences were never going to be legal at any age. Gloria and Philip threatened to chuck us both out each time we got into trouble, but, thank the goddess, they never carried out their threats.

“Best to put the past behind you and move on,” I said. My words seemed to echo Drea’s. What has she said?
We’ve put the past behind us.

I touched the document with the pulp of my fingertips. PLACE OF BIRTH: SOUTHMEAD HOSPITAL, BRISTOL. MOTHER: ISABEL TREVINA DARE. ADDRESS: THE HATCHINGS, ZOTHERZOY, SOMERSET. FATHER: LUCKY LUC RAMEAUX. ADDRESS: ST PAULS, BRISTOL. OCCUPATION: CAR DEALER.

I stared at the form, entranced. I had never seen my father’s name before this. My mother had always lived alone … hadn’t she?

“When I was at the Willows,” I began, “I had to do this scrapbook, you know?”

“Yeah?”

“The social workers made me stick photos in, that sort of thing. I hated it.” I couldn’t remember why I hated it, but I could taste the emotion. It made my heart race. “
The Hatchings
reminds me of my hens. But I bet it was a kid’s home like the Willows. After all, my mum was still a kid when she had me.” I shuddered.

“Your dad sounds wicked.”

“
Wicked
?”

Dennon raised his eyes in despair. “Wicked name. And car dealer? Yeah,
dealer
, all right, but St. Pauls ain’t ’xactly renown for its Audi showrooms, is it?”

“Do you think he’s French?”

“What?” Dennon laughed. “Look at you, man. If your mum was white, like you’re always saying, your dad’s gotta be black.”

“I know that.”

“Don’t think you do. You’re in denial, sister.”

“You’re talking rubbish. I know who I am. I’m a shaman.”

“Yeah … a black shaman.” He reached over and tugged at a lock of my hair. “You grew your hair down to your bum and that made it nice an’
straight,
like you a white girl wiv a tan. But not anymore, sis. Now you got a Afro like me.”

“I was scalped, Dennon. Not my fault that I now I resemble a labradoodle.”

But deep down I knew that Dennon—so proud of being second generation Afro-Caribbean—was a smidgeon right. Until I’d met the Davidsons, I’d been brought up by my pale, blue-eyed mother and by white middle-class social workers. I understood the theories of identity. That didn’t mean I had to like them.

“His name’s French.”

“His address ain’t.”

“Don’t you think it’s weird that my mother came from round here?” I thought we’d always lived in Bristol. Sordid rooms and council flats, so damp I could still feel how my nose was constantly sore and red with running. But Izzie Dare had come from Somerset and here I was, settled in a Somerset town. Had my unknown roots pulled at me?

“D’you think I should look into things?”

“Nah,” said Dennon. “Lotta bovver, innit?”

_____

Inside the room, down in the pit of her narrow bed, there is not much light. He keeps the curtains closed, heavy and thick, and she’s glad. She doesn’t want light. The sun burns her eyes when it seeps through the curtain edge. It is sleep she craves, spiralling down into it. The pain passes over the threshold of her dreams, but it’s filtered, tangible, something she can get away from. Sometimes it’s her boots that hurt, the white ones that always pinched her toes. In the dream she can kick them off and dance, high on the grassy hill, looking down over the city, the skyscrapers, and the snake of roads.

Uncle Plamen’s clarinet winds like a snake through the dance. The tune wiggles the girls’ bums under their fringed shawls. She is showing her sister the moves of the dance, the way to hold her arms. The sun is strong on their bare skin, it catches the strands of copper woven in their long hair.

But it doesn’t last. Pain snakes into the dream. Pain becomes the winding howl of the clarinet, and she is crying out until she wakes herself.

“Stop playing! Stop playing!”

He is standing by her bed. He smiles. He’s brought broth for her. She shakes her head. She could not manage a mouthful.

“I’m not getting better,” she says.

“You need to rest. Rest is healing.”

She closes her eyes. In her mind she’s back on the hill, a fringed scarf around her hips.

“I need my sister.”

She is so afraid of dying without seeing her again.

seven

Pulling on my heavy
black dress always makes me keen to journey. This morning was quiet—who wants to see a shaman first thing on a Monday?—and my thoughts were still with Mirela. Kizzy’s icon waited for me on my desk. It didn’t lie flat because it had been folded and unfolded so many times. I lifted it into the palm of my hand. There was no immediate message, but it felt heavy with its own story. The Virgin Mary smiled out at me. It’s my belief that she is, in fact, a very ancient goddess. Virgins and mothers have always been treasured. I like the theory that in ancient times women were revered, respected, and worshiped, and that the first deities were earth mothers who birthed the earth, or, like the goddess Gaia,
were
the earth.

So this Christian symbol spoke to me, telling me that I should treat it with respect. I fetched my scarf and tied it like a bandana across my forehead, the fringe of soft fabric covering my eyes so that, once cross-legged on a cushion, I could focus only on the icon resting on my lap. I viewed the picture through the fuzziness of fringe for several minutes then began to chant.

Come to me, Ancient Mother

Hear my singing

Hear my song.

Come to me, Ancient Mother

Aid my crossing

Help me cross.

Come to me, Ancient Mother

Through fire, air, and water

And the earth that is your own.

Come to me, Ancient Mother

Hear my singing
…

The chant was on my tongue, in my throat, then my heart, solar plexus, loins. I was all chant. The journey could begin.

_____

A forest path. Trunks of tall evergreens were all around me. Their needled branches were black in the darkness—it was a starless night. Trendle rested against my feet. He looked up at me like a faithful pooch, but I’d learnt the hard way that it was best to take his spirit world advice.

“Hi, Trendle.”

“Good morrow, Sabbie.”

“Which way shall I go?”

“You wish to visit the world of the Romani? Follow the path through the trees.”

But as I walked, the forest thickened and the path disappeared. We pushed our way through dense ground cover. I could no longer see Trendle. I dipped down into the weeds and bracken and lifted him onto my shoulder. He lay there like a debutante’s stole, silent but alert. His fur had the damp smell of rotting weeds. I could feel him breathe.

“Wherever are we heading?”

“This way,” said Trendle, enigmatic as always.

The firs were as tall and straight as masts—I suppose once felled that’s exactly what they’d become—and the smell of their resin made my nostrils tingle. It was hard to gauge the time of night, but there was a very slight lightening towards the east, and I could sense dew popping on my skin like invisible rain. It was moving towards dawn.

A howl ripped through the dank air. Wolves, not far off. Trendle was heavy on my shoulder as I picked my way forward. I wore no shoes, just my black dress, but the forest floor was soft with bracken and damp pine needles. The wolf howled again. His cry moved up my spine like an insect. I whispered to Trendle, “He sounds hungry.”

“He sounds greedy.”

I kept moving between the trunks, a curving, zigzag path with no way markers. After what seemed a long time my ears picked out a distant sound, high and plaintive, that was not the cry of a wolf. On the air I smelled wood smoke.

“There’s music. A fire. Are we close to people?”

I followed the notes of a high lament. Suddenly I was in a clearing. A man stood tall, his outline black against the flames of a fire. He held a violin under his chin, drawing the bow across it with a passion. As my eyes adjusted, I realized he was not alone. Several women were dancing to his accompaniment. Their arms were high above their heads as they clapped and shrieked. They spun and skipped, the hems of their long dresses swirling dangerously close to the fire, encouraging sparks to fly out and spiral skywards. They had fixed flowers of the forest into their hair and as they whirled the petals floated away, taken by the currents of the night breeze. The fiddler did not dance, but stood with straddled legs, his back and knees bending in time to music, his head nodding as if an entire orchestra followed his lead. His tune filled me with longing. One woman turned to me and beckoned.

Come and dance!

I could not have resisted, even without an invitation. The music the man created from strings and bow enchanted my feet. In real life I can just about manage a few salsa steps, but in this trance I could move like a diva. The other women stepped back, creating a circle around me as I pirouetted and leaped. I could hear myself laughing with almost ecstatic joy.

I thought the dance would never end. I didn’t want it to. I could’ve danced forever without an aching muscle or losing my breath. But the music came to a violent halt. The fiddler let his violin drop to his side. The women become motionless. All eyes were trained on the edge of the clearing. The gypsies backed away. They became shadows, leaving me to face a wolf.

This was a spirit wolf, I was sure. Grey hair lay thick on his frame; his eyes glowed with yellow light. The pace of his feet was steady and confident. His teeth shone in the firelight, his mouth drawn back into a snarl.

I mouthed to Trendle, “It cannot do me harm.”

“Beware. If a wolf comes in friendship, it will offer you inner strength and the deepest kind of wisdom. But if it comes as your enemy …”

“What?”

“It will bring you down by the neck.”

“Your otter is right, of course,” said the wolf, as it came up to me. “I will grant you nothing but the right of terror.”

“I am here to find Kizzy Brouviche, for good or ill.”

The wolf grinned as I spoke, as if I’d said something that amused it. “You will listen to me, Sabbie Dare. You will be shown directions. Follow, and you will discover.”

“Where will I find these directions?”

“There are many that will appear to you.” His tongue lolled from his muzzle and saliva drooled and pooled on the ground. “The place of blame. The place of absolution. The dark place. The place of no escape. You will find little in some, and confusion in others. In some you may be rewarded. Do not expect satisfaction from any answer.”

It was hard to process this. “Are all these to appear to me in journeys?”

“You must search the apparent world. But your spirits are there to guide you.”

“Do I know these places? Or do I have to seek them out? Should I look in the obvious places first?”

“That is shrewd. Now you show me your gums, as we wolves say.”

A single gypsy woman moved from the grey edges of my vision, dancing slow steps. The wolf gave her a disregarding glance and began snuffling in the undergrowth.

The woman raised her voice in song, such a high voice that it sounded like a child’s.

Come to me, Ancient Mother

Hear my singing

Hear my song,

Come to me, Ancient Mother
…

When I looked back, the wolf had retrieved a stick and was trotting towards me with it in its mouth. It was panting with that curled grin that dogs have when they’re really enjoying themselves. The wolf dropped the stick at my feet. I picked it up, avoiding the drool that covered the middle. I raised it above my head, meaning to throw it for the wolf, but it leaped the length of its own body, its hind legs leaving the ground, and snapped it out of my hand. It laid the stick, with stony patience, on the ground again.

“Is this your gift, Wolf ?”

It did not reply. It loped to the edge of the clearing and sat with its muzzle pointing to the clouds. It let an eerie howl float into the night. Then its hind legs kicked out and it was gone.

The howl stayed with me for a long time, lifting every hair on my scalp.

_____

Mirela lived not far from the town centre. Her street was lined with rows of tall houses blackened from long-standing grime. I braked and Hermes came to a stop outside the number she’d given me. I chained my bike to the garden railings and climbed the three stone steps to her door. There was no bell, so I banged hard.

A lanky guy opened the door. When he spoke, his accent gave him away as Bulgarian.

“I’m after Mirela Brouviche.”

“Yeah. Upstairs. I show.” He slid his arm through mine, as if we were about to be announced at a ball, and tugged me up the spindle-bannistered stairway. He loomed over me, being one tread in front and taller to begin with.

“Don’t worry.” I shook him off. “I’ll find her.”

“You too pretty to be left alone.” He had a “nothing to lose” grin wrapped round his face. “Look—that door there.” He knocked on it using a sort of coded tattoo.

Some long seconds went by before I heard Mirela’s voice, muffled and monosyllabic.

My escort said something in Bulgarian. Almost instantly, Mirela came into view, but her face dropped when she saw me.

“Hi,” I began. “Sorry to barge in when you’re at home, but—”

“Home?” Her brow knotted. “This not home.” She faded into a room that smelt of musty washing. I followed, slamming the door on lanky lad. Three would definitely be a crowd.

It was only a little room. There was a double bed, a sink near the window, a chest of drawers littered with dirty crocks and a chair hung with discarded underwear.

She stood in front of me, the spark I’d seen in her eyes as she’d spoken at the door completely faded.

“You thought I might be Kizzy, didn’t you?”

“That bugger Petar make me fool.”

“So you’ve heard nothing?”

She gave a dismal shake of her head. I wrapped my arms round her and hugged for a long time.

“This is a rundown on the shamanic journey I’ve done for you.” I pulled out my report and laid it on the bed. I’d used a lot of what I laughingly called “illustrations” in the report; pen and ink sketches of the forest, the gypsies, the wolf, and his gift and directions.

She stared at it. “What it say?”

I read the report out to her, word for word, then passed her the paper. “The stick the wolf left is a spirit gift I’d like you to offer you shamanically.”

“Okay.” Mirela put out her hand.

I smiled. “You would need to lie down, on your bed, and I’d blow it into you.”

With no further comment, Mirela climbed on the bed, lying on her back, her hands clasped on her stomach.

I spent a moment visualizing the stick, replete with dog-drool and mud. I described the gift aloud, in a quiet tone. Then I cupped my hands over Mirela’s heart chakra and blew with a huff of air, sending the image into her.

“Does such an image mean anything to you?” I asked. Mirela didn’t respond, and I spoke more plainly. “Would a stick say something? Or throwing a stick for a dog? Anything like that?”

Mirela had closed her eyes. “Where is my Kizzy?” she whispered.

I straightened up. I had meant to ask her if she knew anything about any of the four places the wolf had spoken of, but I was already overloaded and confused by his instructions and I didn’t want to pass that on to Mirela. “To be honest, I think it’s time for action. I was hoping that we could go and see Mr. Quigg together.”

“Quigg! Rubbish!” Mirela wrinkled her nose. “I don’ trust. Kizzy don’ trust.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be your advocate—help you ask the right questions and get some proper answers. That’s why I got here in good time, so we could do it before you start your shift.” I tried another smile. “How d’you feel about that?”

Mirela stuffed my report into her brown felt bag. “Okay. Let’s go.”

_____

The Agency for Change was situated a walk away from the centre of town, close to the canal and above the Polska Café. This was a lovely little joint serving Polish food from nine in the morning to nine at night. I’d been there once, with an old boyfriend, in the evening when the candles were lit on the square wooden tables and soft twenties jazz played from behind the counter. In the day it tended to service the immediate area along the canal—a tyre replacement garage, a legal firm, and a slightly amateur recording studio—as well as the Bridgwater Poles who liked to pick up their community gossip from the café.

Mirela led me up some outer stairs and through a bottle-glass door into the agency’s office. A receptionist just out of babyhood was taking phone calls that were giving her a succession of nervous breakdowns.

“Excuse me,” I said, eventually. “We were after Mr. Quigg. We don’t have an appointment, but it’s urgent. Any chance of seeing him?”

“Oh, he’s on his coffee break.” Her left hand was tangled into the tong-straightened locks of her tight ponytail. She didn’t leave off playing with the strands even when she had to take a message. She simply slammed on the speakerphone before searching for her mislaid pen. I was getting an excellent idea of the sort of problems they dealt with here. “You could try the café.”

“Won’t he mind?”

The girl didn’t reply. Mirela tugged at me. She understood what I hadn’t; you took your chances with the Agency for Change.

We followed the savoury scents down to the café. It was warm and buzzed with chatter. A woman with a face severed by premature lines was serving two office girls frothy coffees. Otherwise the café was filled with blokes. Some had the oil of car maintenance under their fingernails, or guitars slung over the backs of their chairs, but there were several dependable-looking fiftyish guys in suits and I thought Mr. Quigg could be any of these. We went up to the counter.

“What can I get you?” said the woman. She had a faint Polish accent—something you hear a lot around Bridgwater.

“Nothing,” said Mirela. “We are speak to Mr. Quigg.” But her eyes had grown huge, like a child at a sweet counter, as she looked at the display of cakes.

“Hang on, we could have something. My shout. D’you fancy a doughnut, Mirela?”

“
Paczki
,” said the woman. “Polish doughnuts with strawberry filling, sprinkled with orange peel as well as sugar. Very nice.”