August 16 | Midnight
I crossed the firefly strewn front yard to the dented blue Lincoln parked at an angle in my driveway. What was Abuelita doing here? I squinted through the windshield. A ghost white rosary swayed erratically from the rearview mirror, jostled by my grandmother's efforts to get her plumpness out of the car.
"Ah, you're awake," she greeted me pleasantly.
I couldn't help but smile, happy to see her. "But you shouldn't be! You ought to be home in LaPlace. Dios mio! You drove all those miles in the dark with cataracts?" I laughed and spread my arms.
"So it would seem." She gathered me in a tight squeeze. "I had a dream I should be here," she whispered.
"Oi, don't start that," I warned.
Amaya Garcia was la curandera, although in some circles they called her la bruja. My shamanistic Abuela had the look of an eccentric old bat, wearing her wiry gray hair drawn together in an unraveling braid that flopped over her shoulder. She swept flyaway wisps from her wrinkled face as she handed me a quilted bag from the backseat. It strained at the seams with her belongings.
"Had to stop by for a visit," she went on.
"Abuela, you do realize it's midnight, don't you?" I chuckled.
She gazed at me, her coffee eyes energetic. "I haven't turned so ancient that I can't tell time. You have other guests?" She flicked a glance at my house.
Along with her bag, I grabbed two suitcases from her trunk, and I furrowed my brow. How long was she staying? "I won't ask how you know, but, yes, Director Van der Woodsen has me on an important assignment. Wait a minute, did he send you here?" I asked. The director and my grandmother were on friendly terms. Perhaps he had assumed I needed help on this one.
"Don't you worry. I'll stay out of your way," she said. I took that as a yes.
"Come," I replied with a grin. "Let's get you out of this night air."
I would have to say something to Van der Woodsen about interfering in my work. I guided Abuela into the house, which was set back from the road and tucked away in a grove of trees that shielded my neighbors from view. The wood cladding and gambrel roofs gave it a fairytale-like appearance. We walked under the warm, rosy exterior light that illuminated the porch and through the rounded red front door off to the side.
Abuelita relaxed her feet on the recliner while I stowed her belongings in my nicest guest room.
Legend and Nixie would have to haggle over the second room. The library door was shut, and I pictured the pair getting acquainted, with Legend probably flirting. It seemed to me that he couldn't help but womanize, and Nixie was a vision to behold, easy on the eyes. Of course, it was possible that a harmless crush between the two of them would work to my advantage if it kept the princess from trying to escape.
I told myself I didn't have to worry about her running. The surveillance system and alerts on each door would keep me updated on everyone's comings and goings. However, when I was in the shed doing research, I would have to rely on Legend to be my eyes and ears.
"Have you eaten yet?" I called to the living room.
Abuela yelled back, "Now don't put yourself out for me."
"I haven't eaten, either. Have a bite with me."
I entered the kitchen to look for something to reheat in the refrigerator and discovered a leftover casserole. As I placed it in the oven, she came and sat down at the table. I set out dishes and utensils and brewed tea. She kept me company with a barrage of Spanish questions about my career, my dating life (or lack thereof).
The more we talked, the more pronounced my accent became. Abuela told me what my cousins had been up to lately. My laughter got more exuberant. She reminisced about her wild youth. I guffawed and expressed disbelief. I had no secrets of my own that I was willing to share, so I told her about the sneaky goings-on in my neighborhood, and she chortled.
After the transformation from mature, polite granddaughter to giggling, mischeivous gossip buddy was complete, and we had both nibbled our fill of casserole, Abuelita reached into her floral blouse and pulled out a small fabric bag that she passed over to me.
"For protection," she said. "Wear it."
"Sí, gracías, Abuelita." I humored her and put it on.
My grandmother and I were very different. Even though I was a Supernatural—La Loba, the Wolf Woman—I preferred to keep my feet planted in the real world. I was a Finder of Ways through diligent research. I avoided mystical experiences, which was why Van der Woodsen had sent her. I trusted the soil, the flora, the fauna, the things I could touch. Things I could explain with science. The director of OASIS probably thought this mission required a touch more of the occult.
"So, what did you dream?" I asked at last.
"Pelicans," Abuela replied enigmatically.
I laughed to myself. "You'll have to be more specific, mí corazon."
"What would be the fun in that? Look up the spiritual meaning." She grinned.
Smiling, I pulled out my phone. "They symbolize self-sacrifice."
"And teamwork," she added.
"And that prompted you to drive fifty miles to visit, Abuela?" I smirked.
I shut the search bar and noticed I had a new email. Dr. Steven Altman had responded to my inquiry about The Book of Tides. I had asked the Ancient Civilizations professor to send me everything he could find on short notice. I read his lengthy message as I listened to my grandmother.
"The ancestors have been mumbling up a storm. They insist it's time for you to be initiated," she said, "perhaps even in preparation for this assignment you've mentioned. There's an electric current in the air. Change is coming, and people like you and me must be ready for it."
"Initiation for what?" I asked distractedly. Her gnarled fingers covered my phone, and she brought the device down to the table. I lifted my gaze to her.
"The Age of Magic is returning. Initiation onto the path of shamanism."
"Abuelita... You know I have no use for that. I'm a scientist."
She leaned back and fixed me with a stare. "You are what you are. You think you get to decide what that is, but it chooses you. Those who walk the path of the shaman understand this, and some day you will, too."
I threw my hands up and pushed away from the table. "Lo siento, Abuela, but it's late, and I have to get some work done before I turn in for the night. Why don't you let me get you comfy in your bed, hm?" I beckoned her to her feet. She gave a tight-lipped smile that said she knew she was being summarily dismissed and why.
Her talk of shamanism sounded like stuff and nonsense to me. I didn't need that. I needed funding for my research and to finish this OASIS mission so that I could get back to being an unassuming college professor.
Once I got Abuela tucked in bed, I reclaimed my phone and took it out to my workstation where I could read in peace. Dr. Steven Altman wasn't a Supernatural, but he was a years' long friend with a passion for esoteric lore. As I scrolled through his email, I felt the same buzz I had felt when reading Nixie's dossier.
A mindblowing stack of facts was piling up around the girl and the book. Nixie Fontenot was the last freshwater mermaid in North America, and The Book of Tides was a divination tool that could tell the time and date of any event that had happened in the past or might happen in the future, based on what its querent knew to ask.
The more I learned, the better I understood Van der Woodsen's fear. I wasn't in the same circles as the billionaire Darcy Cyprian, but if the vampire collector wanted the book, I couldn't imagine it was for unselfish reasons.
At the bottom of the email was a post script. Altman wanted me to contact him as soon as possible. He had something further to tell me. I wondered if it was too late at night. I took a chance and rang him up, and he answered the video call with a sunny disposition. Thank the gods for nerdy night owls.
"How's it going, man?" I greeted him.
"Rodriguez! What a fascinating area of interest! Thank you for sending me down this rabbit hole. How do you find this stuff?" he asked excitedly.
"I stumbled across mention of The Book of Tides in the oral traditions of an isolated tribe in the Guatemalan mountains. What else did you uncover about it?" I smiled at the scruffy bearded face that had taken over my computer monitor.
"According to my research," he cleared his throat, "the first mention of this book goes all the way back to The Fertile Crescent. Mesopatemians believed that Oannes, a civilizing hero who was half-man and half-fish, bequeathed to them a stone tablet with chaotic or bad luck energy. It was kept away from the populace, only consulted by a privileged few priests, because it was rumored to be capable of telling the future and the past."
"Yeah, that gibes with what I learned on my end." I nodded as I shook out my hair.
"Right, but using the tablet came at grave cost. One cuneiform fragment that was found in 1914 warned that the longer one was in the presence of the tablet, the longer they were under the watchful eye of The Great Beholder, drawing sure destruction upon themselves. See, the lightning of knowing fate was too powerful for mere mortals to wield."
"Fascinating."
"I know! Fascinating. It gets more interesting, though," he replied. I rested my chin on my palm, watching him pore over a history book. "What was thought to be the actual stone tablet of The Book of Tides was discovered by British archaeologists in the early 1800s, and the record gets muddled, but it appears they were able to translate it into a modern-day book."
Glancing aside, I thought of the leatherbound journal with its blank pages. Either Dr. Altman's information was inaccurate or those British archaeologists had been Supernaturals who knew how to transmute the original stone tablet into the book we now held. I banked on the latter.
"It was found," he went on, "in an underwater cave allegedly protected by water spirits, and there were sacred warnings and inscriptions on the walls. The men who unearthed the book were later convinced the object was cursed. There are even records of catastrophe befalling six of the eight men leading the excavation. They lost money, children, health. The seventh, the man in possession of the artifact, lost his very life in a freak accident."
"Sounds like some Curse of the Mummy shit," I blew out a breath.
"It does, that, but the Curse of the Mummy was hyped up hogwash. For what it's worth, I couldn't find anything rational to explain this odd series of coincidences, but you know me. I love a spooky story. So, I didn't try all that hard to debunk things. After that, The Book of Tides disappears from history books. I don't know how word of it wound up in Guatemala."
"Me, neither," I lied smoothly. I didn't think the curse stopped there. Rav's disappearance and Edwina Murphy's untimely demise had something to do with it, too. Possibly the deaths of Nixie's entire family.
The message hidden in the professor's findings was clear: keeping the book would bring bad luck. I chatted with Dr. Altman a while longer until he started joking about going after it. When I disconnected the video call, I realized with unease that I had the accursed object under my own roof. Superstitious or not, it sounded like a bad idea to me. I looked down at the medicine bag my grandmother had given me for protection. Shaking my head, I tucked it into my shirt.
The Oracle had laid out the steps that needed to be taken. I knew from the message that Nixie was the Lady of the Waters. I still needed to figure out which chariot the Oracle wanted us to use, although I had a hunch. I had to trust that the Gates to Mortality and the Rainbow Bridge would be revealed to me. However, I didn't have time to carefully plan my strategy. I needed to get the book to the City of Immortals as soon as possible, or all three of our lives would be in danger—four, counting Abuelita.
I had had enough for one night. I stretched to loosen my back muscles and flipped to the security footage to check on Legend and Nixie. They were no longer in the library. Abuela was asleep in her room. The other two bedrooms were empty. The kitchen and living room were empty. Both bathroom doors were slightly ajar, and the lights were off inside. No one seemed to be in either one.
I rapidly tapped a button to zoom in for a slower search room by room, then acre by acre of the exterior property. Legend and Nixie were nowhere in sight. My lips thinned to a line as I slumped with exhaustion and dropped my head in my hands. I didn't need this on top of everything else. They had to have run off together.
"I'm gonna kill him," I whispered.