He chuckled but his lips quickly turned down. “That’s the spirit. I believe you can. But…what I’m trying to say is that you, you are causing this.”
I stiffened.
“And it’s going to follow you, wherever you go.”
I felt currents of electricity spark at the base of my skull and travel down my nerves in waves.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“I’m not the wisest man. I’m not the most powerful. I am just a man amongst others just like me. But I do know I have more connection, more…heart,” he reached over and tapped my upper chest with his hand, “to people, to the earth, to the spirits. I listen closely and I hear things. I open my eyes wider and I see things. You’ve got a lot of energy, a lot of power in your little form, and there are some things in this world, and in other worlds, evil things, that are going to want to take that from you.”
My first thought was that I was living Poltergeist and I was the little girl and Bird was that creepy midget psychic woman. My second thought was a sick sort of relief. I wasn’t sure if I believed it entirely but what Bird said confirmed a few thoughts I had of my own. Yes, I had always felt I was different. Only to think that there was something special about me was rather egotistical, so I avoided it.
“I don’t think I’m all that special,” I said.
He smiled. “I know you don’t. And that’s part of your ‘charm.’ But the sooner that you own it, the sooner you’ll be in control over what happens to you. You must prepare for anything now and you must, must realize that whatever happens to you, it’s not going to be easy.”
“My life has never been easy,” I mumbled.
“No one’s is, even the lives we think are effortless. Some people take a longer time to open their eyes to it though. But you’re open. And that’s irresistible to some things…and some people. Like Dex.”
My heart skipped.
“He sees it too.”
I nodded and felt my cheeks growing hot. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
“So what do I do? Should I leave? I mean, I don’t want to bring this stuff here to you guys.”
“Will and Sarah are being tormented by something terrible,” he answered gravely. “It would happen whether you were here or not. But now that you are here, these things are going to come after you and they are going to do whatever they can to destroy you. The good news is, that in the end, that very power they want is the very power you have to defeat them.”
“Uh, this is really starting to sound like some epic superhero movie.”
He laughed. “It’s not. This is just what happens. And it happens a lot here. The Navajo deal with the spirits, or what you call the supernatural, very often. It’s not supernatural to us, it’s just…natural.”
“So you’ve dealt with stuff like this before?”
He nodded.
“Well, what are we dealing with?”
He eyed the trees, not quite worried but still with the barest hint of trepidation.
“I’d rather not discuss it yet, not till I’m sure. This isn’t the time. We better get moving.”
I glanced around me at the forest, feeling the shadows reaching out from the depths. This whole conversation made my paranoia level amp up to eleven.
We continued walking, a bit quicker now, as the ground became level and the trees thinned out. Soon we were out of the forest and making our way across the craggy desert, coming towards the house and barn from the far left. It was closer to noon now and the sun was at its grandest. My shadow stuck as close to me as possible, as if it was afraid to stray.
In the distance I could see the Jeep. Dex was back. Suddenly I didn’t want to go any further.
Sensing this, Bird stopped and looked at me.
“Want to rest your foot here?”
I nodded.
He gave me a gentle smile. “You’re worried what your husband’s going to think?”
I tried not to flinch at that term.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“He’s an interesting fellow,” Bird said with no hint of irony. “I can see how you guys found each other. You’re very similar.”
I tried to hide the annoyance that must have splashed across my face but Bird caught it and only smiled. “I can back you up in any way you need me to.”
That came as such a sweet relief to me. It was so nice to know Bird was on my side. Maximus was right about that. I could trust him.
“Thank you Bird,” I said sincerely, hoping he really knew how thankful I was. “That means a lot. But I mean, what can I say? I was an idiot. You saved me. That’s kind of the story of my life.”
“It’ll get better,” Bird said and patted me affectionately on the shoulder. “Just remember what I told you.”
That I was the target of whatever the fuck was happening? How could I forget?
“Let’s get you fixed up.”
I was about fifty feet away when the front door was flung open. Dex came out, followed by Maximus and Will.
I half expected Dex to hang in the background, but the moment he got a better look at me he came running over. He looked livid.
“What the fuck happened to you?” he yelled at me, hands in the air. I looked at Bird. Suddenly, I wanted Bird to explain everything.
“She took a little tumble, she’s fine.”
“She’s not fine,” Dex spat out angrily. He looked at my arm, then at my face. I couldn’t really tell if he was just pissed off or extremely concerned.
“I’ll go find the first aid kit,” Bird said quickly and walked off to the house, leaving me with Dex. Maximus and Will were still hanging out around the porch, trying not to watch us.
I avoided Dex’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said sheepishly. “It’s no big deal.”
He rubbed his chin quickly.
“What happened?”
“I went for a walk–”
“God damn it, Perry!” he exclaimed.
“I’m sorry, I just thought I would go up to that ridge there.” I turned and pointed at the ridge but he grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him rather roughly. My fists clenched in surprise.
“Ow!” I cried. I opened up my palm. The holes from the crow’s talons stung and looked nasty. He loosened his grip on my wrist but didn’t let go and peered down at my hands.
“Ah, jeez. You’re a fucking mess.”
“You can let go now.”
He shook his head. “I’m going to need to leash you to me from now on.”
My shoulders sank. There went my freedom. Maybe I did need a babysitter. I always thought it would be the other way around.
“Look. Dex. I am sorry. But this isn’t about you. It’s my problem. I took the tumble. That crow attacked me.”
“Crow?” he repeated, his tone perking up.
And here was the can of worms.
“Yes. Some crow attacked me out of nowhere, that’s what these are from.” I pointed to my hands and wrists.
“And what the fuck is this?” He picked a piece of bloody snakeskin off my shirt and held it up.
“That…that was a snake. Bird shot it.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Unbelievable. I leave you alone for two hours and you fall off a cliff, get attacked by a crow and a snake explodes all over you.”
“Pretty much.”
He grimaced but seemed to be calming down. “Well I hate to say I told you so but…I so fucking told you so. You wanna listen to me next time?”
I glared at him. “It depends, Dex. You’re not normally the voice of reason here.”
“Neither of us are,” he said and finally let go of my wrist. “You better wash up.”
We walked to the house. I smiled awkwardly at Will and Maximus as I went up the front steps.
“My Lord,” Maximus said, shaking his head as he looked me over. Neither of them looked very impressed. I tried to brush it off.
I shrugged. “I’m a klutz, what can I say?”
I walked past them and straight up the stairs before they could see how it was so much more than that.
I entered my room and quickly shut the door behind me and made a beeline for the bathroom.
I looked in the mirror and gasped. I had a huge gash across my left cheekbone, with trails of blood and dirt streaking off of it. There were twigs and dust in my hair and my tank top was absolutely ruined with snake guts, blood and caked earth. No wonder everyone had been looking at me like that, I looked far worse than I actually was. In fact, I looked like I walked away from some sort of murder.
And it could have happened. There was no way I could pass that crow and snake off as just mere animals. They had to have been under the power of someone else. Maybe that’s what Bird wasn’t saying – maybe what we were dealing with here was witchcraft. Perhaps some evil shaman, or something to that extent, was trying to get me and Dex away from the ranch. But even if that was the case, why would they be harassing the Lancasters to begin with? The stones, the dead sheep, the birds, the fox, the snake…it was all so scattered and disjointed without a real pattern. What if it really was all just a bunch of coincidences?
But I knew in my heart they weren’t. I just couldn’t figure it out yet. I hoped I would be able to by the time the weekend was over.
As I pondered that, I stripped out of my clothes, a pile of dirt collecting on the clean floor, and ran the shower until it was abrasively hot. The steam fogged up the window and I stepped in. The water was painful on my scratches and I winced at the sting, but after a few moments it faded into a happy numbness, as the murky water swirled down the drain.
It was Saturday. We only had two more days to capture everything we needed, but it no longer felt like the show was the only goal of the weekend. Even if we did get more strange happenings and scenarios on camera, even if we compiled some interesting interviews with Bird, Maximus and whoever, and walked away with a fairly solid body of work…I didn’t want to walk away. I couldn’t. I felt as involved with the “case” as the Lancasters were. We were just the eyes, sent here to film it all, but we couldn’t do anything about it in the end. We weren’t shamans. We weren’t exorcists. We weren’t even ghost hunters. We were exploitive journalists (and that was pushing it) who would go on our happy way and leave the Lancasters to deal with a problem they might not ever solve. It suddenly felt so…pointless. Why did Will want us there when we couldn’t do a thing to help?
My brain felt stuck on that question as I reluctantly turned off the hot taps and wrung my hair out in the tub. It felt warm at first in my sore hands but quickly turned cold as the beads of water moved down my arms.
I stopped and froze. I had that dreadful feeling that I was no longer alone in the bathroom.
I couldn’t see anything through the white shower curtain, though I was certain I’d see a Ma Bates figure rushing towards me with a raised butcher knife. I listened hard, trying to steady my breath as quietly as I could.
“I can smell blood on you,” Sarah’s voice echoed across the bathroom. It wasn’t particularly sinister or accusing but it was creepy as hell. How did she get in here without me hearing her? And what the hell, I was in the shower, hadn’t she heard of a little privacy?
I didn’t know what to say, so I pulled back part of the curtain and stuck my head out to get a look at her.