CEDAR ASH
Chapter XVIII
THE GODS OF GHOST RIVER
“May your rivers flow without end... down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs... where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you-beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”
- Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire’
Change, an enduring thing, the only constant that stands out above all others in the formula of the cosmos, unyielding, becoming the next metamorphosis in our lives. And, so it is for me today, the end of yet another year, now to celebrate a revolution around the sun, one spin cycle older, two decades tossed about on this unforgiving rock. I try to stifle a sneeze, only to unleash a torrent of spit and phlegm… scratch that… ragweed season, the real constant of nature.
“Fuck!” I try to shake the mess from my hands, “Bobbi, you got a spare paper towel over there?”
Bobbi tosses the paper towel roll my way, “Dude! Not all over my table!”
“I thought allergies would be over this late,” I whine, wiping up the slime, “It’s halfway through October, man!”
“Feels like it’s happening later every year,” Bobbi rubs his temples and returns to his sizzling skillet, the smell of fry bread, oil, and poblano peppers wafting across the apartment.
My phone buzzes…
[Happy 20th Birthday my not so little Grump! love you lots.
p.s. this is mom]
I embrace this moment of familial affection after a long summer of self-induced isolation. Struggling to find the right words to break the silence, my mouth sways between a grimace and a smile. In a moment of inspiration, my fingers flit against the phone keys, and before I can think, I hit send.
[Thanx]
What the fuck, Riley! Why was that the best I could muster? I retreat into myself, embarrassed, a monumental attempt at human connection turned to a low effort response. Ashamed, no wonder my brother hasn’t texted me in months either, I haven’t even been able to pull myself out of my head long enough to give him a call. And what would I even say? The Mistwalker obliterated Nico and… I pause my train of thought, Darion really dug him, glorified him… even emulated him, despite enduring incessant torment at the hands of Nico. My brother would go apeshit if he knew. There’s no way I could tell him about the Dark God, and her call for me to mend something broken in the universe. A chasm between my brother and I, a wound I dare not open for fear it would never heal.
“Breakfast is ready! Happy birthday, dude!” Bobbi plops a colorful plate of chile rellenos, cooked Aolu’yi style, onto the table. Just the way Nana used to make them…
“Thanks man, I appreciate it!”
Digging into the meal, my taste buds ignite. Flavor and nostalgia washing over my senses. Almost enough to forget my surroundings, yet from the corner of my eye, I see Bobbi pause over his plate in the kitchen, lingering over it, his skin sallow as though ill. Shaking it off, he wraps his plate in cling wrap and places it in the fridge.
“Hey, you aren’t eating with me?” I blubber, mouth full of delicious food.
Bobbi hesitates, “Stomach’s being weird, don’t wanna be sick at work… You have plans for your special day?”
“That’s not like you, coming down with something?”
“It’s that time of the year,” he chuckles, “I’ll be alright, just feelin’ a little fucky. I’ll be better by tomorrow. Glad the new kids have taken on those late shifts, means I don’t have to be working my ass off with the head fog.”
“Management suits you, I mean especially since you aren’t one of those bosses that only delegates and then does jack shit.”
“Yeah, didn’t know I had it in me,” Bobbi beams, “You’re stalling, now answer my question! Birthday plans?”
“Thought I’d go get lost in the wildness… I’m kidding! Naw bro, I’m going on a hike, put some of my birthday presents Marta and “Johnny Boy” gave me to good use. Even thinking about camping, so don’t wait up, since I have the late shift tomorrow,” I wave a water bottle with a desert canyon printed on it at him, a souvenir from his parent’s recent trip.
“Get up to all of the trouble,” he chortles, placing the dirty dishes in the sink to soak, “Want anything from the Nautilus when I get back?”
“Hmmmm, one of those nasty daiquiri-flavored energy drinks, puts hair on my chest!”
“Damn, those are heinous,” he laughs with the timbre akin to the rumble of an impending storm.
•••
A new bag, ebony, adorned with sporty patches of grey fabric, sits against my back. A fresh long-sleeved shirt, white with a frowning smiley face with crossed-out eyes in black print lays against my frame. The charcoal beanie, that gift from Bobbi atop my head. Symbols, all from people closest to me, my chosen tribe, those I carry with me into my new chapter of life. The air bites at my ankles through my baggy shorts, the brume gathering at the pinnacle of the ridgeline. Not ideal weather for a trek in an unfamiliar place, but I’m beckoned here… by her.
Miles from Baby Cakes and the long-vanished trailhead, but the cool weighty air combats my exertion, prohibiting the formation of sweat. Winding through the ochre rocks, brightened by the muted light, my line winds forward aglow, the warmth building in my chest. The ashen twigs of scrub, crowned by auburn leaves withering in anticipation of the dark season, snag my clothing as I pass quietly through the gloom. A feeling of rightness, there is no place I’d rather be, the pure joy of being here in this moment, experience the only flavor, my mind settled and separate from the busy problems of the world. I cross the threshold of vegetation to the line on the horizon that marks the cliff edge. There she awaits, the Mistwalker, her great inky wings folded tightly against her sides, her bestial frame perched on the canyon ledge. Her back to me, the deep black of her fur dampening what little luminosity shines through the fog. Clambering to her side, I take a seat, my legs dangling from the verge, the sinking clouds preventing me from determining the depth of the chasm.
Descend
Navan’yu speaks, without a glance towards me, staring into the great white nothing.
“Where? I can’t go where I can’t see…”
The old one turns to me, her eyes less wide and bulging than ever before, the chaos within her quelled somehow. Drawing in her breath she exhales, the vapor thick in the air clearing, the midday sun peering through the veil, violent and coral-hued against the mist. The pool of clarity expands outwards, spherical, for thousands of feet in all six directions. Below, the specter of Ghost River, twisting through the gorge of blond and rust, a reminder of my first terrible night… the night it all started. Navan’yu raises herself from the cold ground, meandering Southwest along the drop, that aberrant fluid motion of her steps betraying the deception of the flesh she wears like a cloak. There’s an unspoken expectation underlying her action, that I obediently follow her path, without question. I pull myself to my feet, complying with her implied instruction, my boots piloting me along the damp slickrock.
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Floating. Falling. Plummeting.
My breath quickens, the depth of the chasm lengthens, memories of freefall eating into my psyche.
Encroaching scalding heat at my back…
I pace my respiration to match the rhythm of the Mistwalker’s steps, quenching the sensation of my stomach lodged in my throat. She disregards my panic, keeping a steady gait I can follow with ease. A mile or two down the course, the void in the fog moves with us, clearing the way forward. To be a being who can manipulate the fabric of matter itself, what satisfaction it must be to hold that dominion over the tangible. Freedom is an ideal many strive for but never achieve, yet Navan’yu stands before me, possibly the only consciousness to know true liberation. She halts, her elongated neck swiveling to me, those silver eyes, swirling with pandemonium. Standing as though upon the edge of a dream, I stare into the abyss of a box canyon that feeds into the plunging gorge sliced open by Ghost River.
Today
Guidance
Then
You Must Walk The Path
Alone
“How?”
Follow The Lines
Queasiness fills my gullet as I stare into the depths, my expression pleading with her, “I don’t think I can…”
You
The Invariable
Of Our Age
All Threads Of Time
Flow Through You
You Are
And
Always Will Be
A Fixed Moment
Lines Intersect
Embrace
What You Are
“I don’t know how…”
All Ways
Are Arduous
We Learn
Through Pain
We Pay
In Blood
Without a twitch, without warning, the beast lunges at me, the might of her enormous skull and muscular neck forces the air from my lungs, throwing me from the cliff. Over the edge, her body disintegrates into a haze of jet particles.
Find
Strength
Falling into the void, once again… What strength? I have none of my own… just my survivability… I survive because of her… Navan’yu… She… is my strength. I try something insane, stretch my fingers out against the rushing air, searching through gaseous molecules, hoping to peel back the fibers of reality, to gain a purchase on something through the folds, a texture… a mane of fur. Weft through my grip, the ebony hairs of her hide appear as the Dark God emerges from the nothing. Her sooty wings unfurl, decelerating our tumble through the arid sky. Aloft again, elation hits me with the impact of a freight train, a modest drop of her power shared. Assurance, I will have the instruments at my disposal to mend what is broken. Our faith in each other affirmed, we soar above the stratus cloud line. The desert enveloped in a blanket of fog. Above us, a skyline consumed by a veil of cirrus vapor saturates the land in dazzling luminosity. A thunderstorm builds in the distance, its wall clouds bleeding deep indigo into the mid-afternoon.
Looking to the thunderhead, I yearn to ride the current, one with the flow of mayhem, no longer a prisoner to my fear. The black beast huffs, turning to the tempest, accelerating, her wing beats heavy and deliberate. Cyan, lightning crackles and loops back into the cumulonimbus. Certainty in my counterpart, that the universe unfolds before us unimpeded. We, as guardian and architect of this land, fly headlong into the squall. Deep into the downdraft, my skin grows numb, ice crystals clinging to my clothing, the moisture in the air freezing. Ears drawn to her skull, the Mistwalker’s eyes dart about scornfully, searching the air through the leaden gloom… from out of the storm, a pearl-sized hailstone pegs me in the shoulder.
“Ow, shit!” I yelp.
Fury ignites her expression as an earth shattering sound erupts from her jaws. Scrambling to protect my eardrums, I nearly lose grip of her mane, pushing one side of my head into her back and covering the other with my arm. The hail ceases, as though repelled by her call, but sickle sharp pain pierces my cranium, I pull away from her, ringing in my skull, blood dripping from my ears, my howl of agony barely audible through the roar of the tempest. We break through the wall of the mesocyclone, cold sweat beading from my forehead, my breath shallow, my fingers tearing from the straining grip around her threads of fur. Her neck twists unnaturally against her cervical spine, her concerned expression visible on her canine features.
“Help me,” I whimper; nausea taking hold, the world spinning.
A muffled sound emerges through my damaged ears, almost an animalistic whine, yet I feel a low vibration akin to a purr emanating deep from within her form. A horrible dull ache, the sensation of the damaged flesh in my body knitting together, repairing itself, the throbbing dullness in the my head almost worse than the injury itself. An answer to what happened to my wound all those months before, she must have restored the tissue sliced open by the bullet, a process I’m now grateful I was unconscious for.
Lifting myself to meet her gaze, I plead to the Mistwalker, “I’m begging you, please, show some care. I’m alive… I’m more fragile than whatever state of being you are.”
Apprehension crosses her bestial face, a flicker of understanding that she broke a part of me. The warmth in my chest burns brighter, the only gift she can give to ease the discomfort. That glow embraces me, washing away the terror of the last minutes, uplifting me, akin to the updraft raising Navan’yu and I to the summit of the anvil. Within the cylindrical wall of the cloud, there’s an eerie stillness in between the breaking thunder and the cracks of lightning. Aberrant is the calm, turbulence and wind sheer should be at the heart of any super-cell. It is she, modifying our surroundings, manipulating the conditions of nature, an extension of her will. The storm her domain, and I, a frail passenger, who couldn’t experience it without her divine succor. Light penetrates through the top of the thunderhead as we breach the surface.
Descend
“Descend?”
The gravitational force hits the back of my throat as she dives from the roof of the storm. Wings folded, she allows the pull of the earth to guide our fall. A sense of serenity quells the exhilaration, time itself slowing to a crawl, condensation from my nose ascending into the sky. The land cleared of fog, consumed to fuel the storm. In the bright, late afternoon, the Mistwalker levels out, following the cliff edge of Ghost River, stretching into mighty and boundless desert. A familiar sight, she makes a hard turn to the south into the box canyon, the scene of her most recent act of violence. The beast decelerates, the sandstone the hue of peach and cream, she sails through the canyon’s twists and turns. Cedar turned to charcoal speckles the base of the rocks, evidence of wildfire within the last decade. Trees of this wilderness grow slowly, taking time to reclaim what was once burned.
Unfurling her ebony wings, Navan’yu lands softly on the hardened rock. She lowers herself to the earth so I may disembark without humiliating myself. The canyon ends in a crescent natural wall with a high smooth face. Blackened trees with branches like desiccated fingers form an immense halo, roughly thirty-foot in diameter, around a patch of bare apricot slickrock. Within the stone, deep channels form an unbroken circle, branching into spiraling patterns, the way of the ancestor people of the Aolu’yi. A shiver runs down my spine, that overwhelming feeling of being watched… it must just be Navan’yu, with her impulse towards unwanted prying, the energy of this ground strongly mirrors her essence. I touch a dead cedar branch, which disintegrates into an ashy powder.
A Sacred Place
Nana used to tell stories about holy spaces like this, yes, O’Su’ktah’Hu’hii “the places where the spirits dance”, where ceremonies in old times happened.
You Shall Return
When Day and Night
Return To Coequal
The Mistwalker turns wistfully to the heavens, the horizon darkening, the day coming to a close, a few wispy clouds turning to violet. In the dying light, stars pepper the east, growing brighter by the minute until a galactic arm of illumination encircles the night. A comet streaks across the twilight, she stares longingly into the great cold expanse, yearning for something inexplicable, lost to time and space.
“Stay with me awhile, why don’t you,” I offer, sitting a distance from her.
The great midnight beast shifts slightly, yet remains anchored to her position. The cosmos spins above us, its mind contemplating itself… we share this moment, separate… lorn, but not alone.