Living the Dream (16 page)

They’re going to make a move, sweetie. They’re going to try to stop her once and for all
. This was the evil Butterfly Woman saw around Cody, the murderous cosmic spite that drove off five guardian angels, leaving her all alone in the Universe.

The aunts were always fabulous in a crisis. They threw essentials into a couple of bags and moved Cody, Tazbah and Aunt Bonita into Aunt Jeannie’s trailer. Aunt Jeannie said she’d move in with Aunt Evalina. Aunt Bonita said, assuming the trailer could be repaired, they would have to hold a cleansing ceremony before she and Cody could move back in.

I truly expected Cody to fall apart. I expected her to dredge up the old family story that she’d been cursed, that she destroyed everything she touched. But she just went v. v. quiet.

Tazbah was still howling. Aunt Bonita settled down with her on the couch with her bottle to try to calm her. I sent gentle sleepy vibes, hoping the traumatised little girl might be able to sleep off the shock.

Aunt Evalina brewed a big pot of super-strong coffee, spooning extra sugar into the cups, the aunts’ universal remedy. Nobody mentioned being attacked by hostile cosmic forces, but everyone knew that’s what had happened.

“I’m going for a walk,” Cody said abruptly. I hastily followed her out. I wasn’t letting that girl out of my sight after what just happened. To my surprise Cody didn’t go anywhere. She just seated herself on a rusty old porch swing, pushing herself back and forth, frowning, deep in thought.

When she went back inside, she had a new stubborn expression. “I don’t want to put you guys in danger,” she told her aunts, then waved away their protests. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to be driven away either! Mom and I were always having to start over. I’m sick to death of starting over. But I’m not like Lily. I’m not a true Navajo.”

Aunt Evalina set down her cup. “Cody, you—”

“Please, I need to say this!” Cody said fiercely. “The
Kinaalda
ceremony. Vickie told me about hers, how amazing it was, but—” She hunted for the right words. “I’m really proud of the part of me that’s Navajo. If you hadn’t brought me back, I never would have known about it. But maybe there are other parts I don’t know.” She sat down next to Aunt Bonita with little Tazbah between them sucking sleepily at her bottle.

“One day I’ll do my Kinaalda, if you think I should, but just now I think I need a different kind of ceremony.”

Aunt Bonita was scandalised. “You can’t just invent your own ceremony! Take a little of this and that like those New Age hippies!”

“I know that. But isn’t there something like a vision fast, where kids stay alone in a canyon until the Holy People send a vision?”

“That’s not for girls,” Aunt Bonita said sharply. “That’s when a boy becomes a man.”

“What about healers? Don’t they go on vision fasts?” Cody’s face was glowing with excitement. The aunts looked as if they were suddenly afraid to breathe. “I’m like Butterfly Woman, aren’t I?” Cody said.

They gazed at her, amazed. After all their stories, all their bullying and coaxing, Cody had figured it all out for herself.

“Actually I’m nothing like Butterfly Woman,” Cody corrected herself. “I don’t know anything about herbs or dreams or Blessing Way chants - or life, come to that! I’ve got Butterfly Woman’s power, but I still need to learn how to use it.”

She sat down next to Tazbah and quite naturally took Aunt Bonita’s bony old hand in hers. For a girl who’d narrowly missed being struck by lightning she seemed surprisingly together to me.

“That’s why you brought me back, isn’t it?” she asked softly. “Butterfly Woman is sick and there’s no one to take her place.”

“When did you—?” Aunt Bonita broke off. For once she was speechless.

“Will you do it?” Cody begged. “Will you take me where they take the boys? If this is my true home, if the wind really knows my name, like Aunt Evalina says, the Holy People will see I’m serious. They’ll send me a vision to show me what I have to do.”

The aunts looked at each other. “We can’t use the boys’ canyon,” said Aunt Evalina firmly. “That wouldn’t be right.”

Aunt Bonita gave her a nudge. “But there’s another place…”

Cody gasped. “You’ll let me?”

Instead of answering, Aunt Bonita just grabbed hold of Cody, hugging her so tightly that little Tazbah, caught in the middle, shrieked in protest.

Chapter Nineteen

T
o be properly prepared for her vision fast in the wilderness, Cody was sent to live with Butterfly Woman. She stayed there for twenty-eight days, a full lunar month.

A lot of Butterfly Woman’s instruction was just practical, teaching her the difference between healing and poisonous plants, how to light a fire with a fire stick.Butterfly Woman also passed on all kinds of sacred knowledge connected to the Blessing Way, things too secret to mention here, and she taught her powerful chants to ward off the Evil Ones.

“When you are weak from hunger and sick from loneliness, then they will come for you,” Butterfly Woman warned her.

During her training period Cody was only permitted to eat v. pure foods. At night she slept on the floor wrapped in a blanket that Butterfly Woman herself had woven many years ago. On her final evening Cody was taken into a sweat lodge, a special hogan filled with baking hot stones, to be purified body and soul before her encounter with the Holy People.

The aunts arrived on horseback, while it was still dark, Cody’s pony Pepper trotting along behind. They helped Cody dress in traditional Navajo clothes: a long skirt and blouse, soft leather boots with embroidered tops. Aunt Evalina placed a necklace of silver squash blossoms around her neck, alongside Butterfly Woman’s piece of turquoise, then Aunt Bonita carefully combed out Cody’s hair.

“Now you look like a real Navajo girl,” she told her.

Cody looked wistful. “Even with my hideous hair?”

“I cut my hair off once,” Aunt Jeannie said unexpectedly. “When my husband died. I was so unhappy I wanted to die too, but my children were young and still needed me. I cut my hair because I needed to make a new beginning.”

We rode for what seemed like hours until we reached the top of a narrow, wooded canyon.

“We call this Rainbow Canyon. It has been a sacred place to our people for hundreds of years,” Aunt Bonita said. “There’s a cave our ancestors used for ceremonies. You might find it if you look.”

The aunts were going to be camping close to the top of the canyon. They told Cody to come at noon and leave a pebble for each of the four days of her fast. “That way we’ll know you’re safe,” Aunt Evalina said. They showed her a narrow track, just wide enough for a nimble Navajo pony, then they turned without a word, simply walking away.

Pepper picked his way cautiously down the path where twisty pine trees seemed to grow out of pure rock. At the bottom Cody turned her pony loose to graze.

“Lucky horse,” she exclaimed. “You won’t go thirsty. There’s a creek!” She took off her moccasins and waded into the water, drenching the hem of her skirt.

I took off my boots and socks, rolled up my leggings and splashed around with her. (Just because you’re someone’s guardian angel doesn’t mean you can’t paddle, right!)

Cody started collecting pebbles from the bottom of the creek. Among the tiny river stones she found an ancient arrowhead. I could see that totally brought it home, that she was in a place that had been sacred to her father’s people for like,
centuries
.

As the sun began to set, Cody found a patch of ground under some scrubby little trees and arranged all her stones in a wide circle. Inside the circle she placed the few possessions she’d brought with her: her medicine bundle, the beaded pouch made by Jim Yellowbird’s late wife, the photograph of her dad and one of Julia.

She quickly collected up a big pile of twigs and leaves, using her Navajo fire stick to kindle a fire as Butterfly Woman had shown her. Then she sat watching the leaping flames in the dusk, trying to ignore her growling belly.

Neither of us slept a wink that first night. Cody was too excited and I was on total red alert. Also the local wildlife gets seriously hyperactive at nightfall! Periodically, huge moths bumbled between my face and the stars, seeming as big as planets! Periodically I’d hear some unknown creature shriek or howl and I’d shiver, crossing my fingers it was just a coyote.

In the morning Cody woke to discover she’d camped over an ants’ nest. I saw her staring around the canyon, eyes clouded with worry. I could hear what she was thinking.
What if the Holy People don’t come
? She’d made this grand gesture, claiming her place in her father’s tribe, not just as a “lost bird”, but as Butterfly Woman’s successor. If the Holy People didn’t show up to support her, she’d for ever be the half-breed
chiindi
who went on a vision fast and came back with ants in her pants.

“Cody, those aren’t your thoughts,” I told her quietly.

Cody’s eyes cleared like magic. She clenched her fists. “Can you hear me, Evil Ones?” she shouted into the canyon. “This time I’m not buying it! This time
I
decide when to leave!”

Leave, leave leave
, mocked the echo.

She repacked her bag, moving her things to a hopefully ant-free spot. Later, scrambling about in the canyon, Cody found a feather, blue-black as her hair with a faint rainbow sheen. “I have no idea what bird that’s from,” she told Pepper. “I don’t know the names of birds or which birds sing what songs. Owls go ‘twit twoo’, that’s it! I live on this Earth and it’s like I’ve been deaf and blind my whole life!”

“Oh, me too!” I said sympathetically. “Seagulls and pigeons, that’s all I know.”

“I never even went camping,” Cody admitted.

“Nor me,” I sighed. “Nowhere to plug in my hair straighteners.”

“Too many bugs,” shuddered Cody.

I knew we weren’t really having a conversation, like Cody and Pepper weren’t really having a conversation, but we both needed to feel like we were being heard.

At midday Cody climbed back up to the aunts’ camp, placed her first pebble by the door of their shelter, then hurried away. In the afternoon she ran about collecting plant material for her medicine bundle according to Butterfly Woman’s instructions.

Out of respect for Cody’s vision fast I’d left my trail mix behind and switched off my phone, but I couldn’t resist snapping one little pic to show Lola. Crouching close to the red dirt of the canyon floor, examining dried seed pods, Cody was a different girl to the one the aunts had rescued from the children’s home. She even moved like a Navajo girl.

Later we set out to look for the cave, scrambling up the rocks, hunting for handholds. Cody found it by accident in the end. She slipped, quite badly, eventually hauling herself to safety using bits of old tree root to pull herself on to a stone ledge. There she found a keyhole-shaped opening just big enough to walk inside if we stooped.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness inside, Cody gasped. The colours of the wall paintings were so fresh they could have been painted yesterday. Some of the subjects I recognised - a big buffalo hunt, Spider Woman weaving the Universe together with her sacred threads. Others showed Navajo mysteries too advanced for either me or Cody to decode.

Close by the entrance she found little kids’ handprints. Thousands of years old; they had literally become part of the rock. Cody tried to fit her hand over one of the prints. “I’m too big,” she said wistfully.

That evening we had a singsong round the fire - my suggestion. “It’s what kids do when they go camping,” I told her. “Ten green bottles and whatever. I warn you though, I sound EXACTLY like a frog!”

As usual Cody picked up on my cue, but she had her own singsong ideas. She started singing, “Oh, you’ll never get to Heaven on rollerskates, cos you’ll roll right past those pearly gates!” Pepper made his way over, confused by all this unusual human-angel interaction.

“Mom and I used to sing that on long journeys when I was little,” Cody told him. She stroked his nose lovingly. “I couldn’t tell the aunts,” she confessed, “but when I told Mom where I was, she completely freaked. I said, ‘Mom, listen to what I’m telling you. I was in an institution, OK, and Dad’s relatives came to take me home.’ Mom said, ‘But, honey, why didn’t you stay with Elliot?’ I said, ‘He threw me out, Mom, remember? That’s why I had to go in the home!’ Then she cried. She said, ‘The drugs make me muddle everything up. I’m a terrible mother, Cody, you should forget all about me.’” Cody covered her face and wept.

Next day, after she dropped off her pebble Cody came back to camp and sat staring into space. I knew she was remembering her life with Julia.

The PODS can literally smell our hopelessness, panic or despair. Once they get a whiff, like bluebottles drawn to rotting meat, they come in crowds to feed. That night they were out there, I could feel it. So could Cody. The vision fast was peeling away all her normal defences, making her supersensitive to the Powers of Light and Darkness.

At 1:00 am she got up and put more wood on the fire, like she was warding off wolves, then she huddled under her blanket, tensing at every sound. “It is a frightening thing to look into your own darkness,” Butterfly Woman had warned. “Most people don’t have the courage. Once you look, you are changed. Childhood is left behind for ever.”