Jeanne Stein - Crossroads

Frey leans closer to his son. “I have to run an errand this morning. Anna wil stay with you. I won’t be gone too long.

Wil you be al right?”

John-John lets no emotion show. “Can I go with you?”

Frey touches his son’s shoulder. “Not this time, Shiye . I have business to attend to.”

“Maybe I could help.”

Frey sighs. “Not this time,” he says again. He looks over at me. “Anna wil play games with you, if you’d like.”I don’t miss a beat. “You can show me how to do finger weaving.”

A spark of interest. “I could show you how to make a butterfly.”

“Deal.”

Frey lifts John-John out of his chair. “Okay, then. Go brush your teeth and get dressed. I need to talk to Anna a minute.”

John-John heads off for the bedroom. Frey motions me outside and we step onto the porch. Before he starts to speak, he taps the side of his head with a finger. A warning to keep my thoughts cloaked.

“There are two hotels nearby. I’l check them out. I’l cal you as soon as I know anything.”

“Are you sure you want to do this on your own? I’m scared for you, Frey.”

“I have to do this on my own. You, of al people, should understand. My family has been attacked.”

I do understand. It’s why I’m afraid. “Check in with me.

Every hour. Promise?”

John-John joins us and Frey bends down to say his good-bye. John-John has changed into jeans and a T-shirt and scuffed boots. His hair is slicked back.

He’s is not projecting his thoughts, nor probing for ours that I can tel. Maybe he’s already forgotten that he can. He and his father exchange their good-byes in Navajo and he watches Frey head for the Jeep. I step closer and reach for his hand.

He looks up at me and places his own smal palm in my own.

“Before we start the lesson,” I say, “we should feed the horses, shouldn’t we?”

The Jeep rumbles out of sight. John-John sighs but tugs at my hand, leading me down the steps. I cast a last backward glance.

Come back safely, Frey.

THE HORSES GREET JOHN-JOHN MUCH MORE EAGERLY than they greeted me. He climbs into the corral, petting necks and rumps and getting gentle head bumps that make him smile. I remain outside, safely out of range of those big teeth and restless hooves. After a few minutes he rejoins me and we manage to get the horses fed and fil their water trough with an old-fashioned hand pump before starting back for the house.

“Maybe we can go riding later,” John-John says.

“I’d like that, though you’d have to go slow. I’ve never been on a horse.”

His look is one of childish astonishment. “Never? But you’re old.”

“City girl.”

“Oh.” He nods with the solemnity of an old soul. “I’d put you on Cochise, then. He’s the gentlest.”

We climb the porch steps and enter the living room. John-John pauses once in the doorway, looking around and I wonder if it’s his mother that he’s looking for. He recovers, squares his shoulders and walks right over to Sarah’s loom in the corner. He reaches into a basket beside it and pul s out a skein of yarn. He cuts a length, cuts two, and plops himself on the couch, patting the seat beside him.

“Come on. I’l teach you how to make a butterfly.”

I join him, marveling at how composed he is. Even at four, if I’d lost my mother, I’d be an inconsolable messnt> He begins by tying a knot, making the length a loop. He starts it like a cat’s cradle. His fingers dip back and forth on the middle string, then manipulate the top and bottom until I’m looking at a creation with the rounded body and wings of a butterfly. By opening his fingers back and forth, the damn wings seem to flutter.

I clap my hands. “That’s wonderful. I don’t think I can do it, though, you go much too fast.”

He hands me the second piece of yarn. “Fol ow me. I’l go slow.”

And we do. I don’t succeed the first try. But soon we’re fluttering our butterfly wings at each other and laughing.

“How did you learn how to do this?”

John-John pul s his string loose and quickly makes another design, this time a worm that seems to be crawling over and under the two paral el strings. “My mother taught me. But the Spider Woman taught us, the Dine’é .”

Spider Woman? My thoughts turn immediately to a female cartoon character. “Who is she?”

“Spider Woman taught the Navajo weaving. We learn right thinking and beauty through her gift. She teaches us to concentrate on a task. It is said that if you think wel, you wil never get into trouble or get lost.”

His words belie his young age. Was this one of the lessons his mother taught him? A beautiful, simple fable marrying a child’s game with a life lesson? My admiration for Sarah grows.

But suddenly, John-John stops, stares at the string in his hand. “It is also said string weaving should only be done in the winter when spiders hibernate. If you do it in the summer, you may be pul ed into Spider Woman’s den and you wil never get out.”

He looks up at me, eyes wide, fingers tightening on the string. “Do you think that’s what happened to my mother and Aunt Mary? Do you think Spider Woman is punishing them for breaking her taboo? Wil she punish me?”

My rising anger is as powerful as his grief. I hug him, swal owing the fury back, keeping my thoughts and voice under careful restraint. “No, John-John. What happened was an accident. You had nothing to do with it. You have to believe that. Someone who taught you to make such beautiful patterns from string, who taught your mother to weave these incredible rugs is not vindictive. She is kind and good. She would be sad to think you believe otherwise.”

John-John’s little body shakes against my chest. I reach for a comforter on the back of the couch and wrap it around him.

Sorrow is responsible for some of the shaking, but being hugged by an icy undead vampire can’t be helping.

He quiets after a while and his breathing becomes deep and regular. He’s asleep. I rest my own head against the back of the couch, let my thoughts tumble forth.

I haven’t heard from Frey yet. I hate the idea of his hunting on his own. But it’s his right. It’s his family Chael attacked. I wish I could be there as backup. But I’d never leave John-John alone. Maybe if he doesn’t find him today, we can get someone else to watch John-John. .

My cel phone tril s. Shit. I’d left it in the kitchen. I lift John-John careful y and lay him out on the couch. He settles deeper into the blanket, making a smal sound like a mewling kitten, but doesn’t wake up.

I snatch the phone from the table. “Frey. Where are you?”

“How’s John-John?”

Of course that would be his first thought. “He’s fine. He’s asleep.”

“Good. He was restless last night.”

“What’d you find?”

“Nothing yet. Went to the hotel that’s closest to the reservation. Asked for Chael and Wiliams at the front desk.

Neither registered, though it was long shot that they’d use their real names now. No one seems to have seen a Middle Eastern man, either. I’l hang around another hour or so, see if I pick up any supernatural activity. Then I’l head out.”

His voice is ragged with fatigue. “Why don’t you come back? Let me look for them.”

“No. You stay with John-John.”

No hesitation. “Where wil you go next?”

“There’s one hotel on the res. The View. Maybe I’l have better luck there.”

His tone indicates he’s ready to end the cal. “Be careful,” I say after a moment of silence stretches to fil the void. “John-John needs his dad.”

Al I hear from the other end is a long, slowly released breath.