What We Bury, page 6
part #4 of Call of the Crow Quartet Series
Naveed quickly turned away. Aviva’s baby was due next month, and seeing her always reminded him of the time he’d spent with the Yakima Valley farmworkers, of their continued poverty, of the baby Marisol had almost lost thanks to MRK, thanks to him—
His phone rang. It was a number he didn’t recognize. He was about to ignore it, but talking to someone, even if it was just a random telemarketer doing a survey, would be better than continuing down this train of thought. Not quite as good a distraction as a bird flying right in front of your face, but still. Any diversion was better than the alternative.
He accepted the call. He listened to the voice on the other end. And then everything changed.
9
Roya
Friday, May 20
ON FRIDAY MORNING, ROYA AWOKE with a start. She sat up in bed, wondering what had shaken her out of a deep sleep.
The clock read 5:37 a.m. Still way too early to get up. But it was like she’d just slurped down a huge bottle of sugary caffeinated soda. Her heart was beating fast and she was wide awake.
She stretched her legs out, disturbing Pashmak, who was curled up at Roya’s feet. “Sorry, Pashi,” she said groggily as the cat picked her way across the blankets. “Did you hear anything? A loud noise? Is that what woke me up?”
Pashmak just yawned, then settled in on her side and started licking her paws. Roya heard nothing but the gentle lapping of Pashi’s tongue. If there was someone—or something, some spirit—in here, Pashmak wouldn’t be this relaxed.
Roya closed her eyes. She didn’t have school today, so Baba would be dropping her off to spend the day with Khaleh Yasmin, which meant she could sleep in later than usual. She tried to fall asleep, but her mind kept traveling back to the ritual she had done the night before Maman left.
It had been… disappointing. She’d followed all the right steps. She’d cleansed herself. Cast a circle with Kass’s athame. Lit a candle. (Not under her bed, of course. She’d barricaded the door to her room by pushing her desk in front of it, then set up her ritual supplies in the middle of the floor.) Inside the Hekate chalice, she’d made a little poppet out of mud and a clump of hair that she’d taken from Maman’s brush, wrapped the figure in black fabric, and said the incantations written in Orcinia’s Book of Shadows, word for word. She’d snuck outside before bedtime and buried it along the back pathway, where she would step over it every day when she went to feed the chickens. “Demons, begone!” she chanted as she covered the hole. It hadn’t been the same as the other times she’d practiced magic, when she’d felt confident and powerful. This time she just felt silly. She worried at every step that she was doing something wrong.
The next morning, Maman came in to say goodbye before she left on her trip. She floated through the room like a ghost and sat at the edge of the bed. Roya looked up at her eyes. Still deadened and dark. Nothing had changed.
It hadn’t worked. The shayatin still had their claws in her. Roya wanted to scream at them to go away, to leave her family alone. But she kept quiet. She let Maman kiss her cheek, then grumbled about wanting to go back to sleep and turned to face the wall.
Was there something here now, though? Maybe the results were delayed? Or maybe… what if she’d released the shayatin from Maman, but now they were going to latch on to her instead?
No, she reminded herself, Pashmak was calm. The cat hadn’t wanted to go anywhere near Maman lately, more proof in Roya’s mind that something was not right. There were no demons here now… but still….
Kass, she thought. I need to talk to Kass. She’ll know how to fix this.
For a second, Roya imagined sneaking into Cyrus’s room and stealing his phone while he slept. But then she remembered how early it was. She couldn’t call Kass at this hour.
She’d just have to wait. It seemed like her entire life was spent waiting. Roya was tired of it.
There was no way she was getting back to sleep now, so Roya got up and opened the window. The walnut tree beckoned to her. Its branches swayed in the breeze like crooked fingers. Come outside, it seemed to be saying.
Roya felt bad ignoring the walnut tree, because she knew it missed her, and she missed it too, missed the feeling of being up high in the branches, carried away on the sweet notes she played on her flute, but she couldn’t climb it now, her knee didn’t cooperate the way it used to, and the flute belonged to some other Roya who didn’t exist anymore, one who’d been able to find joy in rustling leaves and music that came from her own breath.
I never made a finding song for Maman. The thought came out of nowhere, but it struck Roya hard, like a slap. She’d followed the banishing instructions exactly, but what if that was the problem? It was someone else’s ritual, and she’d taken it and tried to make it hers, but it didn’t quite fit right. She needed to remember her own ways of doing magic. And the flute had been her very first wand. She had used it to find her way back home, to summon crows, to save Naveed from the brink of death. True, the silver star charm—the one given to Maman by a crow long ago—had helped, but Roya had gifted that to Naveed after she used up her three wishes. The flute, though, was uniquely hers. No one else in the whole world could use it the way she did.
Pashmak was still giving herself a very intense bath, digging into the spaces between her toes with her sharp teeth, claws outstretched. “Want to come outside with me, Pashi?” Roya asked, but the cat didn’t even look up. Roya pulled on a sweater and socks, grabbed her flute from the top of the bookshelf, and crept downstairs.
Outside, the sun had painted the sky pinkish. The air was cool but not cold, and as Roya stepped along the path toward the walnut tree, she thought about the poppet she’d buried. She imagined stepping on those demons, stomping them out, banishing them from Maman.
That ritual was only the first step, Roya realized. She knew from reading Orcinia’s Book of Shadows that when you got rid of something, cut a cord or made a void, you had to pay attention to what you filled it back up with. If you didn’t, you might unintentionally refill it with the same bad energy.
She eased herself onto the ground at the base of the walnut tree. Before raising the flute to her lips, she looked into its branches and felt that sense of calm it always brought her. It was like inhaling deeply after holding your breath for a long time.
A crow was perched on a branch just above her. She smiled, remembering Omid with his white-feathered wing. It wasn’t the same crow, of course. This one was smaller than most, and she couldn’t see its eyes but guessed they were blue. It was a young crow, a juvenile. Just a baby. She didn’t want to startle it, so she sat in silence for a minute, thinking up a finding song for Maman. Imagining her mother’s return, the dead eyes gone forever, the cold voice replaced by a caring one, the void made by the demons’ flight filled with the soul that Maman had nearly lost.
Roya raised the flute to her lips and breathed out a long, low note. The crow squawked in surprise and fluttered away. She continued playing a quiet, mournful tune, thinking about Maman, until she noticed something falling slowly from above.
It was a downy gray feather. Roya watched in silence as it floated down, taking its time, lazily drifting through the air until it landed, finally, on Roya’s extended leg. She stared at the feather in astonishment. It felt like a message from the baby crow: a sign that she was on the right track. She tucked it gently into her sweater pocket and continued playing her song, calling Maman home.
10
Naveed
Friday, May 20
NAVEED CLUTCHED HIS PHONE, pressing it against his ear. Kelly was on the other end of the line, and all he could think was, Why?
“I’m so glad you picked up,” Kelly was saying. “I tried calling your dad but can’t reach him. I’m here at the ranger station because… because I woke up this morning and your mom wasn’t in our tent. I don’t know where she is. They’re getting a search and rescue team together and… I just… I wanted you to know….”
“What? She’s… I don’t….” A rush of heat flooded into his head. Koffka planted himself in Naveed’s path. Don’t go any further, that meant. You’re starting to panic. Stop what you’re doing and deal with this now. Naveed sank to his knees beside Koffka and looked into his calm black eyes.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find her,” Kelly said. “I just didn’t want you to hear about it somewhere else first.”
“I’ll be right there.” Naveed found himself saying. No way was he sitting around here when, not far away, people were combing the woods for his missing mother.
“You don’t need to—” Kelly protested, but Naveed cut her off.
“I’m coming. Koffka can help—he can follow her scent.”
Kelly paused, then said, “Okay. Thank you.” The phone was muffled for a second, but he could hear another voice in the background. Then Kelly came back on. “Go to the Nisqually entrance. They’ll direct you from there.”
Naveed told her he’d be there as soon as he could, then hung up. He could barely think, his mind a swarm of questions and anxious thoughts. Why would his mother leave the tent in the morning without telling Kelly where she was going? And why hadn’t she come back?
He raced to the pickup and opened the passenger door for Koffka. Astro watched from the back deck, head tilted to one side, but Naveed didn’t see any trace of Aviva anymore, or Gretchen or Frida, and there was no time to look for them anyway. He backed out of the driveway and soon was on the road.
The drive passed quickly. Before he knew it, Naveed was pulling up in front of the ranger station at Longmire. He took Koffka’s leash out of the glove box and attached it to his service dog vest. “You ready, boy?”
Koffka looked at him with determined eyes. Yes.
“Let’s go find Maman,” Naveed said.
Inside the ranger station, they paired him up with an experienced search and rescue volunteer named Jill, a young white woman with brown hair slicked back in a ponytail. She seemed delighted to see Koffka. “The dogs aren’t here yet,” she said as she led him to the trail. “So this is great! We can get a head start. Does he have any experience in SAR?”
“Uh, no,” Naveed said, putting together that SAR referred to search and rescue. “But he knows my mom’s scent. I’m sure that will help?”
“Yes, definitely!” Jill hesitated for a moment. “So you… will you be all right on the trails? It’s a pretty strenuous hike, plus it’s slippery in places since it rained last night. I could take him on ahead if you would rather be a lookout or something?” She was dancing around the question of whether he had physical limitations. Sometimes, he did, but not today. Thankfully.
“I’ll be fine,” said Naveed. “I’m staying with Koffka.”
“Okay, great!” Her cheeriness was disorienting. It almost seemed like she was a tour guide, and they were just out here to take in some scenery.
“So where are we going?” he asked.
“We’ll start at the PLS—the point last seen,” she said. “A campground about 5 miles away. That’s where most of the search team is right now, plus we’ve got a couple lookouts on the trails to keep an eye out for her. We always start with a hasty search—covering ground quickly and checking all the likely spots.”
Once they were on the trail, Jill suggested they do voice checks as they walked—yelling Maman’s name and listening for a response.
Naveed cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered, “Maman!” as loud as he could. If she was nearby, if she could hear him, he wanted her to know he was here.
Between voice checks, Jill asked him questions about his mother. Had she ever been backpacking before, had she been to Mount Rainier, did she have good navigation skills, when had he last seen her, what brought her here in the first place. Naveed answered curtly, with a short yes or no whenever he could. The longer they hiked, the harder it became for him to carry on a conversation. The trail was steep and treacherous. It took all his concentration to keep breathing and stay on his feet.
Soon, they came to a bridge over a rushing creek. Two people stood on one side of it. They waved as Jill approached.
“The dogs are here already?” one of them asked. “That was quick.”
“Not quite yet,” said Jill. “This is Mahnaz’s son and his service dog.”
They continued chatting, but Naveed turned away from them to look down at the rushing water. A memory struck him with so much force that he had to tighten his grip on the railing.
It had been a couple months ago on Sizdah Bedar, the thirteenth day of the Persian New Year. In keeping with tradition, they’d gone picnicking at a nearby park. Naveed had been up most of the night on the phone with Andi and was missing her more than ever, but he pretended to be having a good time because he knew his family needed this. Maman had led them over to a bridge and pulled out a bag of lentil sprouts. They had been growing in the kitchen since Nowruz, symbolically soaking up all the negativity and illness in the house. Now, it was time to discard them into a stream of running water, signaling a fresh start.
He could still see it so clearly, his mother’s hands tearing apart the messy sprout-roots, releasing their green alfalfa smell, dividing them into five clumps, one for each of them, her curly black hair blowing in the wind as she kissed the top of Roya’s head.
The image made Naveed grip the bridge railing hard. The water running beneath him—it was so deep. Rushing by so fast. It could so easily sweep someone away.
He was starting to feel sweaty and sick to his stomach. But there would be no panicking, he told himself sternly. The benzos were no longer here to help him, and he couldn’t lose himself now.
“Are you all right?” Jill asked him.
He forced himself to let go. “Yeah. Let’s keep going.”
At some point, he thought he should check the time—he needed to keep an eye on the clock so he could leave in time to pick up Andi. Naveed reached into his pocket for his phone, but it wasn’t there. Shit. He must have left it in the truck. “What time is it?” he asked Jill.
She checked her watch. “11:30. We’re getting close—the campground’s just a mile or so from here.”
Okay. He still had plenty of time. Naveed looked down at Koffka, his shoulder blades rippling as he picked his way surefootedly along the trail, and allowed himself to imagine that things would work out. As soon as Koffka picked up her scent, he’d lead them to her, and they’d help her if she was injured, and everything would go back to normal.
When they finally arrived at the campground, Kelly was sitting on a log in the clearing, rubbing her temples. Out of nowhere, Naveed found himself wanting to slam into her, to pin her to the ground while shouting, How could you let this happen?
Kelly stood up and approached as if she wanted to hug him. He recoiled, and thankfully she took the hint and didn’t come any closer. “Naveed! You’re here, thank you for coming all this way, I… I’m so sorry—”
“Where is she? Did you find her?”
“No,” she said. “Oh—I didn’t mean—no. We haven’t found anything yet.”
“So what happened? When did she leave?”
“I’m not sure. It must have been early this morning—I heard her get up and unzip the tent, but I figured she was going to the bathroom or something. It was barely light outside, so I went back to sleep. When I finally got up, she wasn’t there. So after I looked around and waited for a while, I left a note and headed up to the closest ranger station—”
“Wait,” Naveed said. “Was there anyone else here last night? Other campers?”
“No. It was just us.”
“You’re sure? No one got here after dark? In the middle of the night? Or early in the morning—you didn’t hear anything?” Koffka pulled on his leash, but Naveed stood his ground.
Kelly regarded him with furrowed brows. She looked exactly like Brooke when she did that. “No. I’m sure. Nobody else was here. Naveed….”
Koffka pulled harder. “I have to go.” Naveed let the dog lead him onto a side trail, hoping Kelly wouldn’t follow. He didn’t want to talk to her anymore.
Jill, of course, wasn’t far behind them. “He picked up on something?”
“I guess so,” said Naveed. They threaded through the brush, veering off the trail onto a barely visible path through the woods.
Abruptly, Naveed stopped. There was something about this place, the way the sun shone on the ferns, their fronds bending in the breeze, the smell of the air here, the sound of water flowing somewhere in the distance, all of it familiar, all of it inexplicably horrifying—
Naveed felt like he had a pillow strapped to his face. He just couldn’t get the air in anymore. He crouched on the ground, panting.
Koffka licked the inside of his wrist. Naveed reached into the dog’s vest for his inhaler and took a few hits. It didn’t help at all.
Jill was kneeling next to him. She had her radio out like she was about to call for help. He pushed it away. “I’m okay. I just need. To stop for a second. Have some water. I’ll be fine.”
I can’t do this, he thought to Koffka as he sipped water from a bottle that Jill handed him.
You can, Koffka countered. You can, and you are. Don’t give up now. Maman needs you.
Miraculously, after a few endless minutes, the invisible pillow eased up enough that he felt able to go on. He gave Koffka a thank-you pet behind the ears, then stood back up and continued along the path, Jill following behind.
Time passed. How much, he didn’t know. He called for his mother, because that helped keep him anchored in the present, and Koffka sniffed the ground and the plants and Jill took everything silently in.
They were hiking up a steep ridge when Koffka suddenly veered off the path. Naveed looked at Jill questioningly, but she nodded. “Looks like someone’s been through here. Be careful—there’s a steep drop-off.”
Koffka slowed down. Naveed, too, stepped more slowly. They came to the edge of a deep ravine—it must have been a hundred feet to the bottom. Naveed felt so dizzy that he reached for Koffka for support.
