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1
The Medicine Goes Down
“We think the child’s medicine is interfering with your medicine,” Raymond Standingbear said, his tone grave.
I blinked at him as he sat across the dining room table from Calvin and me. The two of us had invited Calvin’s parents, Raymond and Delia, to dinner that lovely late September night, partly because it had been a while since we’d played host…but mostly because we wanted to talk in private about the little hiccup that had been a part of my life ever since I got pregnant back in June.
My ability to see auras had disappeared around then, and so far had given no indication that it ever intended to return. At first, I hadn’t regarded their disappearance as anything more than a minor irritation, because they’d never been all that reliable, had come and gone as they pleased, and often weren’t there when I needed them most — namely, when I was in the middle of one of my unofficial murder investigations and really could have used the extra insight they provided into a person’s character.
But as the weeks and then months wore on, I realized that my talent for seeing auras appeared to have vanished for good. A decent span of time had passed before I even mentioned anything to Calvin, mostly because it didn’t seem like the sort of thing I should be complaining about, not when everything else in my world seemed to be going along swimmingly. My pregnancy so far had been blessedly uneventful, and except for a couple of rocky weeks in the middle of my third month when pretty much any kind of food smell sent me bolting for the bathroom, I hadn’t suffered any real side effects from being pregnant.
Well, except for my expanding waistline, of course. Even my beloved elastic-waist sequined skirts from India were getting a little tight, but luckily, the warm Arizona summers lasted well into fall in Globe, which meant I could get by with flowing maxi dresses and still not look as though I was wearing maternity clothes.
After I entered my fourth month, though, I’d confessed to Calvin that my ability to see auras appeared to have skated off to the Bahamas for the duration, and he’d told me we should consult with his parents.
“They know a lot more about supernatural stuff than I do,” he’d said, a comment that had made me wrinkle my nose.
“I don’t know if this exactly classifies as ‘supernatural,’” I’d replied.
“Well, you’re the only person I know who sees auras,” he’d countered. “So it seems pretty supernatural to me.”
That was true enough. And to be honest, the auras’ disappearance had troubled me more than I wanted to acknowledge to myself. I might have used Tarot cards and pendulums to consult the universe and ask for its guidance, but the ability to see auras was my special gift, something I’d been born with…my own particular brand of magic. Having it suddenly gone made me feel as though a part of my essence was missing, as if I’d lost my sight or something.
And that was why Calvin and I now had the Standingbears sitting opposite us at the long dining room table in the house my husband and I shared. Even though it was the last day of September, the air conditioning hummed quietly away in the background, keeping us cool on a day that had just barely missed hitting ninety a few hours earlier.
“‘Medicine’?” I repeated. I hadn’t made any in-depth studies of Native American spiritual practices, but I knew enough to recall that the word had a very different meaning for the indigenous peoples of the United States, and sometimes referred to a person’s spiritual power or energy.
“Yes,” Delia said. Like her husband — and her son — she had night-black hair and eyes, and something of the sculpted beauty of her features was echoed in Calvin’s face as well. “When Calvin told us what happened to your auras, Raymond and I discussed the problem, and we both agreed that seemed like the most logical explanation for what was going on.”
“Because of who our people are?” Calvin asked, referring to the coyote-shifter nature of his tribe, the San Ramon Apaches. I’d only seen him change shape once, in a time before we were even together; it was a secret the San Ramon people had to hide from the rest of the world, for obvious reasons, and I knew I would carry their secret with me to the grave.
“That’s what we believe,” Delia replied. Her gaze flicked to me, concerned. “This is the first time any of the San Ramon Apache people have married an outsider or had children with them. None of us knew for sure what might happen.”
True, we were all in uncharted waters here. My reassuringly ordinary pregnancy so far had seemed to indicate I didn’t have to worry about giving birth to a coyote pup or something…even though Calvin had assured me that none of the children of his tribe showed that part of their natures until they were old enough to manage it…but those niggling worries remained, mostly because ours was a completely novel situation.
And honestly, if all I had to worry about was suppressed auras until the baby was born, I thought I could handle that.
“So…the child’s magic is canceling out my magic?” I asked. I kind of hated to phrase it that way, because I still didn’t think of my talent for seeing auras as exactly magic, but it seemed the simplest shortcut for the purposes of our current discussion.
“Possibly,” Raymond said. “Or it may be the magic in the child is drawing your own magic toward him…or her. Again, we can’t really be sure, since we’ve never encountered this kind of situation before.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. Canceling out my magic was one thing, like the stronger flavor in a smoothie overpowering the other ingredients, but if the child was actually feeding off my magic, what did that mean? Was I carrying some kind of super-baby, some magically charged Chosen One or something?
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I told myself to stop being ridiculous. Yes, with all those pregnancy hormones floating around in my system, I was probably more inclined than usual to leap to conclusions or let my emotions get the better of me, but that didn’t mean I had to become a complete drama queen.
“So…what am I supposed to do about it?” I asked, knowing my tone sounded a little too plaintive. Beneath the table, Calvin’s hand moved to take mine and give it a comforting squeeze.
Delia offered me a reassuring smile. Back when Calvin and I got together, she hadn’t exactly been supportive of our relationship…to put it mildly…but now she was like a second mother to me, someone nearby who could offer me any encouragement or words of advice I might require. I loved my mom to death, but she was off in Southern California, hundreds of miles away, and couldn’t be here to offer me the in-person support I needed. Yes, she’d promised to come stay for at least two or three weeks at their house in Globe with Tom, her husband, just as the baby was due to make an appearance, but that day was still many months off.
“Wait it out,” Delia said. “True, we don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with here, but I have every reason to believe that as soon as the baby is born, your powers will return. Until then, you’ll just have to do without.”
On the surface, that suggestion seemed simple enough. Because things had been quiet the past few months, ever since I’d proved my friend Archie’s innocence in a particularly nasty murder case that occurred during one of the ballroom dance tournaments he and his fiancée Victoria had been participating in, I’d had no real reason to even need my aura-reading gift. Before I’d started solving murders, it had sometimes helped me out when I was trying to negotiate a contract, or even when I was deciding whether to take on a new client back when I was supporting myself with Tarot readings and other forms of spiritual guidance, but it wasn’t anything that had been necessary in my day-to-day life.
Surely I could survive the next five and a half months without tapping into it, right?
Right.
“No problem,” I said blithely, and reached for my glass of lemon-garnished San Pellegrino. Calvin sent me an oblique glance, one that told me he didn’t consider the matter dropped, but to my relief, he didn’t say anything.
