Hidden Gifts

1. Spirit Walk-1

1

Spirit Walk

Miranda McAllister

The cold morning air stung my cheeks. I suppose I should have been used to it — I’d spent half my life in Flagstaff, was all too accustomed to the extremes of weather there. But, standing on a train platform at a little past four-thirty in the morning on a bitter October morning, I thought my surroundings were even colder than they should have been, the chill of the pre-dawn air penetrating even the warm packable down coat I wore.

Two bags sat on the ground beside me. That was all I’d been allowed — two weekender bags to carry everything I might need in my new life.

My mother had cried on the drive over here, although she’d done her best to hide her tears from me, had tried to blame her sniffles on her allergies acting up. I’d known better, as I was sure my father had as well, but neither of us called her out on her little white lie.

I’d cried, too, but not on the drive. No, the last of my tears had come hours earlier, when I’d lain on my bed and stared at the ceiling of my bedroom and realized I’d never see this room again, or this house, or any of my friends or family, whether they were Wilcox witches and warlocks in Flagstaff or McAllisters in Jerome. Even though I might not have been the daughter my parents expected, they’d never shown me anything but continuing love and support, and the thought of being separated from them was terrifying.

Jessica Rowe, one of my best friends in Flagstaff, had wanted to throw a going-away party for me, but I’d shot down that idea, mostly because I wasn’t sure how well I’d hold it together if I was forced to see all the important people in my life gathered together in one place. Such a gathering would only reinforce the realization that I probably wouldn’t see any of them ever again. Close as I was to Jessica, I didn’t want to confess such weakness to her. Instead, I told her that I didn’t want to make a big deal out of this, and, thank the Goddess, she hadn’t pushed the issue. Really, all I wanted was to slink away in the night.

Well, four-thirty in the morning was close enough.

My mother looked past me to the approaching conductor in rather the same way a dying person might gaze at the Grim Reaper as he came to claim their soul. “I can’t — ” she began, then stopped as my father laid a comforting hand on her arm.

“We can, because we have to.” He glanced over at me, saw that I had my ticket confirmation open on my phone so the conductor could easily scan it. “Genoveva said she would call to let us know you’ve gotten there safely, but remember — ”

“No calls or texts unless it’s an emergency. Yeah, I know.” I reached down with my free hand and slung the heavier of the two bags over my shoulder, then slipped the other one on my arm so it hung in the crook of my elbow. So many strange commandments from the woman who was going to be my mother-in-law. My parents had done their best to negotiate all of them, but Genoveva Castillo, the prima of the Castillo clan, wouldn’t hear of any objections.

“I ask that she do these things because it is for the best,” she’d said coldly to my mother during one of those conversations. I’d been eavesdropping, since this was my future they’d been discussing, and luckily the volume on my mother’s phone had been turned up enough that I could catch most of what Genoveva was saying. Although my mother — a prima in her own right — had clearly hated having to cave to any of the Castillo witch’s commands, she’d done so because the last thing any of us wanted was to be at odds with a powerful clan like the Castillos. No, the debt had to be paid.

And I was the payment.

The conductor came up to me. He was a stocky man probably in his late forties or early fifties, dark, a thick plaid muffler wrapped around his neck. Part Navajo? Maybe; there were a lot of Native Americans who lived and worked in the Flagstaff area. “Ticket?” he asked.

I held out my phone, and he scanned the screen.

“Train leaves in less than five minutes,” he said. His tone was so neutral, he could have merely been providing me with necessary information…or warning me that, like time and tide, trains waited for no man…or woman.

“I guess I’d better go,” I said. At least my voice hadn’t wavered. I wanted my parents to believe I was strong, even though inside I felt as though I was being torn apart.

Tears once again glittered in my mother’s eyes, making them look like watery emeralds in the light from the overhead CFC bulbs in the debarkation area. “Oh, Miranda — ” she began, then stopped, as though she knew that if she attempted to say anything else, she’d break down into sobs right then and there. The platform wasn’t all that busy, but there were still enough people around that she would have made something of a scene.

My father’s expression was stoic. I knew this whole mess was hurting him as well, but he seemed to realize that there was nothing he could do about it, and so losing control would only give me a distorted memory of him.

My last memory of him.

He took me in his arms and gave me a fierce hug, bags, phone, and all, and then my mother pulled me to her and pressed a quick kiss against my hair.

“I don’t care what Genoveva says,” she whispered in my ear. “If you run into any trouble, you call us.”

I nodded, although I knew the train would have to be raided by a bunch of bandits before I made that phone call. A promise was a promise. And although I didn’t think I had a whole hell of a lot to offer the Castillos, or the man who was supposed to be my husband, I wanted them to know that we McAllisters kept our word…no matter how much it hurt.

The train whistle sounded, and I said, “I have to go.”

“Miri — ”

I didn’t know what my mother had intended to say. Deep down, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know. Better to go now and go quickly, the same principle as quickly tearing a bandage off a wound rather than removing it slowly.

Without meeting either of my parents’ eyes, I turned and hurried up the steps into the train.

Even as I made my way down the aisle, searching for the perfect seat, I felt the floor beneath my feet jerk slightly, a faint shudder telling me that the train had begun to leave the station. I turned and caught a glimpse of my parents out the window, my mother’s long dark hair gleaming in the lights that illuminated the boarding area, my father’s face set and pale.

And then they were gone.

Because the trip to Albuquerque only took about seven hours, I hadn’t booked a spot in a sleeping car. The car where I stood now was almost empty, so I had my pick of the seats. I chose a spot near the window around the middle of the car, then shoved my bags in the overhead compartment before settling in. I hadn’t expected there to be anyone of witch-kind on board the train, and there wasn’t. Only a group of regular nonmagical people making their own journeys…and me. I should have been relieved, I suppose, and yet knowing I was the only witch among civilians only made me feel more alone.

A gibbous moon hung overhead, bathing the landscape in its cold light. Such a crazy hour to be setting out, but train schedules didn’t care about my life, my petty problems. The train left Los Angeles at a decent time of day, but by the time it chugged into Flagstaff’s historic station, it was around four in the morning.

Why the train? I still didn’t know for sure. It would have been a lot easier to drive down to Phoenix and have me catch a plane there, but no, Genoveva insisted that I had to take the train. The suggestion to have my Uncle Lucas fly me himself — he owned a small plane, which he kept at Flagstaff’s small airport — had been summarily shot down as well. I got the feeling that Genoveva didn’t want any of my family members crossing over with me into New Mexico. Which, in an abstract way, I could almost understand.

It didn’t stop me from resenting her more than ever, though.

I probably should have tried to sleep, since I’d gone to bed at almost eleven and then had gotten up at three in order to catch the train. Tired as I was, though, I somehow knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep through this journey. Instead, I sat and watched the dark landscape pass by outside the window, watched with listless interest as we pulled up to the station in Winslow and took on a few more passengers at a little before six, the sun just beginning to peek above the horizon.

No one took a seat near me, which was fine. I’d read that on the coasts, where high-speed rail connected all the major cities, people often preferred to take the train rather than fly. Here in the center of the country, though, where Amtrak still operated trains that were older than I was, no one traveled this way unless they didn’t have any other choice, despite the alluring offer of free wi-fi in all Amtrak trains. So even as people boarded in Gallup just on the other side of the Arizona/New Mexico border, the car where I sat was never more than a quarter full.

I wondered what had brought those other travelers to sit here now — the man who looked only a few years older than I, a large backpack much bigger than Amtrak’s specified luggage dimensions sitting on the empty seat next to him; the tired-faced Navajo woman with her worn brown purse sitting on her lap; the older man who kept his head down and focused on his laptop the entire trip. Since I didn’t possess the energy or the will to strike up a conversation with any of them, I’d never know their reasons for making this journey.

However, as I watched the desert landscape pass by, growing brighter and brighter as the sun rose overhead, I began to get some idea of why Genoveva Castillo might have forced this journey on me. I’d read of how shamans and others seeking enlightenment would head into the deep desert to be cleansed, to leave behind everything from their former lives that had been weighing them down. As the miles between myself and Flagstaff stretched and stretched, I began to experience an odd sensation of lightness, as if the Miranda McAllister I’d been back in Flagstaff and Jerome had been left behind on the station platform with my parents. I didn’t know who this new Miranda would be, but I began to think maybe I could look forward to meeting her with anticipation, rather than doubt and worry.

If only I thought those who waited for me in Santa Fe might be feeling the same way.

My mother had explained the situation to me so many times that by now, just as I turned twenty-one, her explanations had no real meaning anymore, were only strings of words describing a fate I couldn’t escape. Before I was even born, a dark warlock had risen, threatening not only the McAllisters and the Wilcoxes, my parents’ clans, but also the de la Paz family, who lived in the southern part of Arizona. The threat had been so great that my parents had turned to the Castillos for help, since they knew the Arizona clans could not defeat the warlock and the clans he was connected with — the Santiagos and the Ludlows in California — without help from outside.

That help had come…at a price. The prima of the Castillos, Genoveva’s mother, lost her life fighting the dark warlock. And my mother, who was pregnant with me at the time, had to make a terrible bargain to secure the Castillos’ help — she had to swear that she would send the child she carried to Santa Fe when the time came, so her daughter could marry the Castillo prima’s grandson.

I was that daughter. And now I traveled across the desert to marry a man I’d never met, or even seen.

Oh, yes. I still didn’t know whether it was Genoveva’s capriciousness, or whether she was trying to hide something, but I wasn’t allowed to see a single picture of the man who was going to be my husband. My mother had pled my case on more than one instance, saying that I had a right to see the person I was supposed to marry, but Genoveva had remained firm. I would see Rafael — that was her son’s name — when I arrived in Santa Fe, and not a moment sooner. And whenever I’d tried to search for images of him online, or on social media, I couldn’t find a damn thing. Maybe someone in the Castillo clan had a way of blocking that stuff. The blackout didn’t even have to be supernatural in nature; for all I knew, their clan had a few hackers in their midst.