Aggie's mother added a final herb, and Aggie didn't speak its name. Perhaps it didn't have an English equivalent. Or perhaps it was part of the mysteries of going to water, and no one knew but her. The old woman rolled the herbs all together into a fat cigarlike cylinder and tied it with what looked like hemp string, creating a smudge stick. She held a burning twig from the fire to the smudge stick until the herb tube was lit and smoking. She dropped the twig back to the fire and stood. She handed the smudge stick to Aggie, who took it kneeling, almost as if making obeisance.
With unhurried, circular motions, she smudged the air around her mother. The old woman was silent, her eyes almost closed, her face serene. Slowly she turned, lifting each foot and placing it just so, like a dance or the measured and balletic martial art form of Tai Chi. Her mother held out her own braids and the smoke curled around them like a living snake, touching and spiraling up. It coiled around her legs and back and belly, up over her face, more gentle than a lover's hand. As the smoke wreathed her, the wrinkles on her face softened; a small half smile touched her lips and she sighed as if some ever-present pain was temporarily gone. When she was satisfied, Lisi sat, eyes closed, seeming to barely breathe.
Aggie held out the stick to me and turned her back. Feeling clumsy, I took the smudge stick and came to my knees, concentrating on the smoke rising on the still air, brushing up her body like the finger of God. She lifted her hair and I held the stick so the smoke passed through it. I turned and she turned, lifting a leg so the smoke could touch the back of her thigh and curl over her buttocks. When every part of her had been blessed by the smudging smoke, she opened her eyes and smiled, though her gaze seemed far away.
With a slow gesture, Aggie indicated her mother, and I gave the old woman the smudge stick. I turned to the side as each of them had and closed my eyes. The smoke was warm, curling up from my ankles, fragrant and rich, and I breathed it in. And turned a half step, then another. Lifting my arms. Moving into the dance of the smoke.
"Hold out your hair, Dalonige i Digadoli." My whole body shuddered with the words, with hearing them spoken properly, in the whispered syllables of the language of the People, the Cherokee. "Hold out your hair."
I sobbed once, hard. Tears pouring down my face, I lifted my hair. Aggie's mother walked slowly around me, the smudge stick rising and falling, the aromatic smoke touching my skin, wisping through my hair, which fell through my fingers in a long veil, over and over again. The smoke curled up my legs, across my stomach. It brushed my back, touching, so delicately, my face, as if tasting my tears. I breathed in the scented smoke, drawing it deep. My lungs trembled. The world spun and steadied. My heart tripped and slowed, finding a rhythm older than human memory. I closed my eyes and breathed. Just breathed. As the water flowed in the bayou nearby, singing a nearly silent, ancient song.
"We sa," a soft voice whispered. "Time to go, we sa." Cat. Bobcat. One of my beasts. I heard my name spoken by my father, his voice echoing in my memory, as it had so long ago. I opened my eyes and saw the protective circle was open, and U ni lisi was stepping into the bayou water, Aggie behind her. I followed them to the water's edge, across a dark, slick, claylike bank, and into the bayou, thick muck pulling at my ankles. The water was clearer here, not as muddy with hurricane runoff, and I could see my feet pressing into the black mire.
I remembered that I was supposed to pray, but the words and ritual prayers Aggie had instructed me were gone from my mind. Unbidden, other words came to my lips. "I seek wisdom and strength in battle, and purity of heart and mind and soul." With the words, I bent my knees and sank beneath the water. It closed over me, dark, moving sluggishly on my skin, cool and wet, the womb of the world.
Seven times I rose and sank into the bayou, each time asking my prayer. When I came up the last time, Aggie and Lisi were on the bank, dressing. The sun had risen. And I was empty and light and so . . . free.
I walked through the deep mud, out of the water, and up the muddy, black clay bank. I shook both feet. Looking down, I was amazed that I didn't seem to have any mud on me. Or maybe I shouldn't have been surprised at all.
Quickly I dressed. Still silent, we put out the fire with bayou water, stirring the coals until it was cold. Together, in a short line of three, we walked back to the car and drove away.
CHAPTER 12
Would Little Evan go crunch?
I called a part-time cabdriver I used, catching Rinaldo just before he hit the sack after his third shift at a local plant. He showed up pretty quickly; I was only a mile or so from Aggie's street, trudging along in my flip-flops, hands in the pockets of the loose pants, and already sweating in the day's heat. He pulled his bright yellow Bluebird Cab over and hung halfway out the window. "You look like something the cat dragged in."
I was pretty sure the line didn't deserve the amount of laughter it got as I climbed into the front seat, but Rinaldo thought I was a party girl, always needing a ride home after a wild night out, so he probably assumed I was on a giggly high. I slammed the door and buckled in as he tire-crunched through a three-point turn and eased his way toward a paved street in the distance. With a sly grin, he slanted a look at me. "Hungry?"