After Adam was recovered – or, recovered enough, since he managed to do enough damage that even with supernatural healing it was taking quite a while to get better – Onyx took him to see a psychic. Or something like that. Oracle, maybe. He couldn’t quite understand what she was supposed to be, and it didn’t help that Onyx seemed not to know either. They’d never been to see her in person. The whole thing was based on rumors.
She was outside of town – outside of any town, actually. She was surrounded by public land to the point that it seemed unlikely that there actually was anyone living out here. It was very pretty forest land, though there was an odd sense about the place. It was almost like if you spent long enough looking at any one tree, you knew how many rings were inside it, even though that was impossible to see from the outside. The smaller mosses and flowers that grew in the shade also made their presence known, so that no matter what they saw, they already had a sense that it was there beforehand. And as they got closer to what Adam assumed was the center of the forest land, he even remarked under his breath that someone lived out here, after all. That was about a full minute before the driveway and the house were visible.
The house had wood siding and a metal roof covered in moss, so it blended well with its surroundings. There was a car already parked outside. That was her car, which she’d had for years. Adam knew that, though he rationalized that it was just because of the wear and dirt on the vehicle, and the personal affects on the inside. The porch had plants hanging down over the railing, along with chimes and prisms. All in all, except the white civic, it looked like the sort of place on old witch would live.
Adam and Onyx sat in the car for a moment once they arrived, each in silence. They were mentally preparing for this. As much as this forest seemed to give insight into itself, they didn’t know what to expect from the woman inside. But eventually they had to get out, walk up onto the porch, and raise a fist to knock.
They never did knock, though. The door opened before Adam had the opportunity, and the woman beckoned them inside. A woman they hadn’t really expected to see – the granddaughter of the witch that lived here, maybe?
“I’ve been expecting you,” said the woman. “And my aunt died a few years ago, so now I’m the new Auntie Clearwater. Yes, the one you were looking to find, yes the one the rumors are about, and yes, if you’d like, I can help you figure out what happened that night.”
They were silent still. Adam looked over the woman again, almost in disbelief that this was her. She was wearing crystal jewelry that dripped off her, a tank top in a green that matched the moss on her roof, black flowing pants, and she had ice blue ices that were so bright in contrast to her face that it was like staring into the full moon at night.
“I’m not as patient as she was, yet, though. I’d appreciate it if we could get to business. You can tell me your problem if you’d like,” she said, as she started filling a kettle and setting it on the stove “or, sure, you can ask a couple questions.”
“Can I – oh,” Onyx said, almost at the same time the woman answered what they were going to ask. “Sorry, what should we call you?”
“Auntie, probably,” Auntie said. “Clearwater isn’t a name, by the way. We’re called that because of the water here. It makes things clear.”
“Years ago, someone drilled a well. She meant to settle here, thought some others might settle here with her. It was supposed to be a public well. Hand crank, outside, so anyone could use it. But the water here is in some kind of reservoir that goes deep. It was contained, but barely, and when she started drawing up the water, she found out pretty soon that her well went as deep as touching the magic deep in the earth. They called her crazy because of what she knew, and they didn’t like the forest because of how it feels.
“But when they were desperate, they’d still go to her. Her niece, Daphne, was the first, came and said ‘Auntie, I lost my mama’s hair comb. It’s all my mama had, and it’s all I had of her, so I’d like it back if you can.’ And she did – she told Daphne about the man who stole her hair comb, not because he wanted it, but because he wanted to hurt her and show her she couldn’t have anything in this world. But Daphne said, ‘no, Auntie, I’m not hurt at all. And that comb is still mine, even if he has it right now. But soon he'll know he can’t mess with whoever he wants to, and they’ll never do that again.’
“And Daphne killed that man, eventually. He was trying to hurt her sister, and she had enough of that. She killed him and took her hair comb back. And her sister, she was scared now. Didn’t want to live with her. So Daphne went and lived with her Auntie, the last few years of her life. And when her auntie died and her sister had a couple kids, people started to call her Auntie, asked her for advice just like she once had asked her auntie. But her sister didn’t want to share a name, so she told people to call Daphne something else. Because of the water, they said that she’d be Auntie Clearwater.
“Since then, there’s been a lot of Auntie Clearwaters. All in the family somehow. Every crazy woman ends up here eventually. Not really crazy, but that’s what people called us, and that’s even before we drank the water.
“See, over time, it makes it where you know things. So every Auntie who lives here drinks from that same well – though it’s electric now – and starts knowing more than she should. If you just have it once, it doesn’t stick, and you can’t control it very well. But after a few years, it doesn’t ever go away.”
“So we probably shouldn’t drink the water, then,” Onyx said.
“No, I think you should. Like I said, just once and it won’t stick. But it’ll let me show you what you want to see instead of telling you. People don’t always believe what they’re told. If they don’t like it, they’ll say I was just a crazy woman in the woods. But if they see what they don’t want to, they might believe it,” she said.
She moved her hand to turn the stove’s knob off just before the beginnings of its whistle, and grabbed three mismatched mugs. Hers was a dull yellow, uneven mug, and she put in a lemongrass tea. Then she put down a tall black mug that shined like a meteorite and put in a bag of blueberry tea. And then she stopped in her tracks as she reached for a third. She had, up until that point, moved like she had already seen everything that was going to happen that day and rehearsed it a few times. But now it was like she had broken out of a trance and needed a moment to remember where she was and what she was doing. Her hand was poised to grab a mug – but it was as if the hand itself were in a state of indecision about which one. From Adam’s perspective, it seemed likely she was going to grab either a honey-brown mug that was wide and shallow, or a very average looking off-white mug that stood as a cylinder, the handmade equivalent of the basic mugs that come printed with logos.
“May I call you Mark, or do you prefer Adam?” Auntie asked, looking over her shoulder. The single bright eye that stared into him seemed like it knew the answer better than he did. He wasn’t even surprised that she knew both of the names he’d gone by – but he did think there might be a wrong answer to the question. But since he didn’t know what it was, he decided not to worry too much about it.
“Either is fine,” he said. He realized it was the first he had spoken to the woman, though she acted like they had spoken many times before. Her hand moved before she looked away from him, going to the off-white mug. She finally turned her head to the task as she put English breakfast tea in the mug and filled all three with the hot water.
“You don’t go back to the way things were, the same way we’re not where we will be – not yet. So, Adam, you want to know what happened that night and you think I can tell you,” she said, looking at him once more.
“Onyx said you could,” he said.
“Your name for them suits them better than the other one. But it makes it obvious that you have a borderline obsession with rocks. Anyway, you seem like you’re not convinced.”
“I’ve never had my fortune told, or anything,” he said.
“The skeptic is a little bit of a different role for you. Before, you would have been the one encouraging your other stone to try it, to be open to new things. To have fun. You were more of a coffee drinker, then, because you loved a manager at a coffee shop, and that manager loved tea, which is part of why you’ve tried so hard to like tea now. It’s a broken man’s way of trying to find a path back to someone he loved. And it brought you someone else who’s trying not to break.”
“That almost sounds like therapy,” Adam said.
“Which you need. But no, I’ve got a point. It’s proof I know you enough to know what happened that day and it’s advice about how to live now. You once had a saying, when no one else was around. Jasper said ‘You’re the air in my lungs’, and you, trying to be the sap you were, you would say ‘you’re the water in my blood’. The whirlwind and the rain – together you were a storm that watered the earth and made the plants grow. But without the rain holding you in place, you blew in all directions, and now there’s just a breeze left. You want what you had and what you were, but you’ll never get it back. But you can still be the breeze under a bird’s wings.”
Adam knew exactly what she was saying. He remembered having that exchange with Jasper many, many times, and he could almost hear Mark and Jasper instead of Auntie Clearwater saying it now. The first time, Jasper had been almost deliriously tired. Going on about how it felt easier to breath when he was around. Like he was the air in their lungs. And just like Auntie had said, he was a sappy person, and couldn’t leave Jasper feeling like they weren’t equally important to him. ‘You’re the water in my blood’, he said, and they asked ‘what does that even mean?’ He always imagined that without the water in the blood, it wouldn’t flow, and his heart would struggle to beat, and his body would struggle to move. And that’s what it had felt like to lose them.
And as for her comment about being the breeze under the bird’s wings…it echoed what Onyx had told him about how they were reliant on him. She meant it as advice, but it was just a reiteration of what he’d already been told. But, of course, it was still good advice.
“You’re right about all that,” Adam said. “Sorry to doubt you.”
“Don’t worry, nearly everyone does at first. And we had to wait for the tea to be ready, anyway,” Auntie said, taking out the bag from his mug and handing him the tea. She handed Onyx the black mug and kept the yellow mug as she led them to the living room.
It was a dark room with curtains over the small windows. There was a low coffee table and three wide chairs around it with wooden arms and thick cushions. They each sat with their tea.
“You’ll need to drink all your tea before we begin,” Auntie said. “For now, this is what to expect. Since you want to know what happened that night, I’ll be helping you to direct your memories. You should have some of the event, but even if you don’t, the water will help you know anyway. They’re your memories, though, so you need to be sure to focus on them. We’ll all be seeing what you’re seeing. If there’s any part you don’t want us seeing, focus instead on blocking us out – picture a wall between us. I don’t know if you can block me or not, but it shouldn’t matter. I won’t tell anyone anything you don’t want me to, and I don’t need to see what you’re looking for, either. Make sense?”
They nodded as they sipped their tea, and Adam awkwardly considered just how long it would take to finish the tea since it was too hot to chug. Things were silent for a minute or two, which was just enough to make a slight but noticeable difference in the levels of their tea. Onyx, however, broke the silence, much to Adam’s relief. They had a sort of talent for that. Easy conversation, that was. Walking into someone’s life and slotting themselves in. Adam had lost some of his social skills recently, so having them around in moments like this made things a lot easier for him. And eventually, which seemed shorter for the conversation, they managed to finish their tea.
“Focus on the memory, here,” Auntie said, leaning to the edge of her chair.
So Adam tried. He started by thinking about that road trip, about leaving home. And the image of the planning stages for the trip flashed in his mind, more vivid than ever. He thought about the places they went – he even noticed details he hadn’t noticed in person. But he tried to move forward quickly. He thought about towards the end. The situation that left Jasper without a seat belt, and him distracted, all at a very recognizable curve right by town.
That’s when things went strange. With a lurch that made his stomach want to lose the tea, their perspective shifted to somewhere else. It might even have been the same curve, though it was hard to say.
“Why did it…” Onyx said, dazed. Then Auntie looked at them and communicated with a tip of her head a warning that we were all about to see whatever it was that was, apparently, in Onyx’s memories.
Onyx looked a bit panicked, and then things went staticky. Not so much that there was no vision left. Just enough that it was hard to tell what was going on. It was clear from the start that Onyx had just left a building and was slowly moving on the sidewalk with something in their hand. The curve, which must have been what triggered the memory in the first place, was right in front of them – it was on a hill, going down and around the hill to their right, which made it impossible to see who was coming around the curve from the other side. There was a guardrail to keep anyone from going down the hill the wrong way, beyond which were some houses.
Now that it was hard to see, Adam paid attention to the sound of two cars, probably coming from different directions. Onyx didn’t seem to be paying all that much attention to them, and shifted to move down the sidewalk, in the direction where the ground was level. Now the car was more or less clear that was coming from this side. It was hard to say who it was in the car, and it was hard to see any details about the car, other than the fact that it was an SUV of some sort. It passed by Onyx.
And then, with Onyx focusing even harder, head in their hands, the image and the sound were harder to make out. There was a crash. Onyx turned around. Both cars were stopped now. Something was on the ground, and Onyx rushed over to it. It was a person – it wasn’t clear who.
It was slightly more clear that part of their head was gone.
Onyx was saying something, but it didn’t matter what. The person…hadn’t died yet. But they were going to. Onyx held them, looked around for help but must not have found any. And the person died.
The ambulance came, confirmed the one person dead. Started treating the others, whoever they were. Onyx told them what they’d seen. Apparently no one in the crash fully knew what had happened, so since Onyx hadn’t seen it, they ruled that no one was at fault and focused on making sure everyone’s injuries were seen to.
Adam looked over to Onyx in worry, and saw that they were already doing a sort of breathing exercise to calm down. Their eyes were watery, but tears hadn’t had a chance to fall. And it wasn’t long before they looked back up at Auntie Clearwater.
“That was my memory,” they said.
“I know it was. I guess, since there wasn’t a memory of the event Adam was interested in, the path of least resistance was to show it – to show that memory that you had,” Auntie said, glancing over at Adam in the middle of the explanation.
“That makes sense,” Onyx said. “You know, I think that was a memory I’d been repressing. But now I know.”
“We can try again if you would like. I’m sure if Adam drinks more water and you don’t, it’ll make it easier to find what he was looking for,” Auntie Clearwater said. “Or if you wanted to help him find out.”
Onyx nodded, but seemed to be thinking, almost as if they were still momentarily exhausted from the memory they’d just unearthed.
“Adam, would you have ever put Jasper in danger intentionally?” Onyx asked, staring into his eyes.
“No,” he said, unhesitatingly.
“And if you put someone in danger by accident, would you learn from that and make sure you don’t do it again?” Onyx asked.
“So even if you did learn that you were to blame for Jasper’s death, would that help you not to do it again some other time?”
Adam hadn’t considered that. He wanted to know if he was at fault, but he knew what he’d done wrong. Whether or not the accident would have been avoidable, he had already vowed he wouldn’t even be as reckless as he had been then.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Then trust me. There are some memories you don’t want to have. Sometimes it’s better not to know,” Onyx said.
“They’re right,” Auntie said. “Take it from someone who knows.”
“Okay, then. Thank you, Auntie,” Adam said, and he rose from his chair. Onyx followed suit, and without any more words between them all, Onyx and Adam left her house and got back in the car to go home.
“I’m sorry,” Adam said, as soon as they were moving.
“Don’t be. It’s okay,” Onyx said, though it was clear the experience had shaken them significantly.
“I wouldn’t have gone if I had known, and then I didn’t even follow through,” Adam said.
“It was my suggestion. And anyway, it’s not like it was worthless,” Onyx said.
“How is it not worthless?” Adam asked.
“It made me realize something that had been bothering me is all,” Onyx said.
“What’s been bothering you?”
“Just…I knew this whole time that Jasper’s ghost had been haunting you. Metaphorically. And I just realized that they’ve been haunting me, too. I just didn’t notice.”
“Is it because I couldn’t let go, and kept dragging my grief into your life?”
“Don’t blame yourself. That’s your lesson for today, anyway, right?”
Adam didn’t respond, but he knew they were right. He didn’t need to blame himself if he caused Onyx pain. He needed to do things right and move forward. He was done acting like stagnant air.
