Belonging

I don't think I posted this before. More than a character sketch, more than the romance it appears to be, this became an origin story for Allan Chang, and a revelation for both Allan and Celestine:

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Allan first spied her at the edge of the dance floor, weaving in a meandering pattern like a butterfly.  Her white-blonde locks framed a round, dimpled face and tumbled past her shoulders.

She danced with no one; Allan wondered if she had found Molly, as the ravers would say. Molly wasn’t his substance of choice, nor were other psychotropics anymore; so many things those could do to the brain. Had done to his brain.

He had tried several psychotropic drugs. He hadn’t tried most more than once.  He hoped at first to access the other world the shamans spoke of, then as an escape. Shamanism as a philosophy eventually got him clean, but he never found that other place he’d been looking for.

He had already cued up the next song, a slower song beloved by the teenage guerrilla ravers at this venue, despite the fact that they weren’t even born in 1985 when the song came out. As it began to play, he thought he’d go to the fire escape and smoke – damn, he wasn’t smoking anymore, either.

“Would you like to dance?” the Molly girl had strolled up to the console and asked him in a little high voice.

Allan searched her face for the jaw clenches and eye twitches that would indicate exposure to Molly and saw none. Maybe he was wrong. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t dance,” he responded in his careless drawl, as much a product of image as of his rough past.

“I’m a dance instructor. I could teach you,” the girl said brightly.

“It’s not that. It’s that I’m spinning live right now. I have to put the next song on pretty quick.” How did he think he would have enough time for fresh air?

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” the girl chirped.

“Done what?” He didn’t look up, concentrating again on the board.

“Distracted you.”

He realized she had, but not in the way she thought. She wasn’t his type – he preferred taller, curvier women, not tiny girls who looked like they should be wearing butterfly wings. But there was something – “Hey, butterfly girl.”

“Yes?” she said, and he could hear a more assertive woman peek from the chrysalis.

“Wanna go out for coffee after I load up the van later on?”

“Sure,” the small blonde woman said with a pirouette. “Who needs to sleep?”

As he watched her with less jaded eyes, he realized that she wasn’t meandering, but choreographing the songs on the playlist. Dance instructor, Allan remembered. Of course.

There was a reason why Celestine hung around the long-haired hottie with the deep, rough voice, and it wasn’t his looks. Watching him slouch in front of the soundboard, where his long wavy black hair and golden skin contrasted with the bold white of his tank top, was not an onerous task, and she was surprised that more girls weren’t angling to get a piece of bad boy action. It was strange, like they didn’t even see him …

She would have to ask him about this. Perhaps this was what her gut told her was important.

After the rave, Allan discovered that his coffee date could heft sound equipment with the best of them. She’d lifted the speakers off their stands and stood there expectantly before he could tell her he could handle everything himself. She looked at him with a perky smirk and asked, “Where does this go?”

He pointed to the door behind him, which would take her out to the parking lot behind the warehouse where his van was parked. “Don’t load anything in because there’s only one way it fits,” he cautioned.

“Okay, hottie,” she smirked.

“’Hottie’? You called me ‘hottie’?” Allan discovered he didn’t mind, mostly because of the smirk with which she delivered it. He disliked women hitting on him during his shows, because of his sense that what they wanted was the cachet of doing the DJ. That wasn’t his gig.

He had just gotten cables pulled and wrapped up as the blond woman came back to carry another speaker. “You do have a name,” he found himself saying.

“Of course,” she said. “It’s Celestine. Celestine Eisner. And you are …?”

“Allan Chang.”

“Nice to meet you, Allan Chang.” He had never had a woman he met at a rave shake his hand before. She pronounced his last name the way his grandmother, an immigrant, pronounced it. Sort of.

“You gonna move that speaker, or what?” He raised his eyebrows at the aptly named Celestine.

“You gonna haul the mixer or what?”

“I gotta get these cables taken care of, and then I start hauling. I hate losing my cables.”

“Ok, boss.” What happened to ‘hottie’? Allan considered as she strolled over to the speaker. For being such a delicate-looking young woman, Celestine hefted that speaker like a dockworker.

Celestine returned to watch Allan stack the remainder of the disconnected sound system for hauling. “Hand me the cables and the CD players. I’m afraid I’ll drop the mixer.”

“I dunno,” Allan replied. “You handled the speakers like a pro.”

“I know I can carry it. It’s just that you’ll kill me if I drop it. I suspect I don’t want to haul your laptop either.”

“Oh, that’s fine once I put it in its case. But don’t --” Allan leaned so his nose (long, fine, straight) touched hers – “carry the mixer board. No offense, Celestine, but I probably wouldn’t let Man’una carry that for me.”

“Who’s Man’una?” Celestine thought the name sounded Native American or something.

“Someone a lot bigger than either one of us.” Allan stuffed the computer and cords into its carrying bag, stuffed the mixer board into its bag, and slung one over each shoulder. He grabbed the cables in their own bag and started striding toward the door.

“Hey, there’s nothing left!” she squeaked.

“You can shut the door behind me,” Allan called over his shoulder (medium height, long legs, cute butt), “but wedge the door open when you go out, okay?”

“Why?” she asked.

“It’s going to rain later and there’s some homeless people nearby. This is a deserted warehouse, about to be torn down. Someone ought to get some use from it.” Allan looked up at the sky. “Sooner rather than later.”

“I love it,” Celestine decided after a short ponder. “But won’t you get in trouble?”

“This key looks broken, doesn’t it?” Celestine had caught up to Allan, and she peered at a perfectly functional key.

“No, it doesn’t,” Celestine murmured, “Not yet, but it could be. Let me suggest something. If we kick the stop out of the door, and unlock the door and then break the key in the lock, it will look much more like an accident.”

“I like the way you think, sweetheart,” Allan responded, and turned out the lights. Celestine discovered she could blush just as well in the dark.

When they had loaded all equipment into the van and she had broken the key in the lock, Celestine stood next to him, patiently awaiting next instructions.

“There’s an all-night café not too far from here. Did you drive here?” Allan looked around the parking lot; he saw no vehicles other than the van.

“No, I walked. I live in Uptown.”

Still an appreciable distance, and almost an hour’s walk, Allan thought. “Hop in, we’re going for coffee, and then I’m taking you home.”

“Whaaaaa?” she stammered.

“No. I’m taking you to your home. Then I’m going home by myself.” Which, from his rebellious thoughts, was getting a little more difficult. Yet he knew he must act impeccably, and shagging a girl he’d just met wasn’t impeccable.  

“Yes, Hottie,” she smirked again. Which didn’t help at all.

Celestine had been to Clarke’s Diner at least once in her thirty-three years of life. At the edge of Boys Town, close to some of the best nightlife in town outside of Rush Street and its blues clubs, the 24-hour diner could be anything from Edward Hopper’s iconic painting to a wretched hive of scum and villainy.  One never knew.

But it was 4:30 AM after the rave, and the packing, and the sabotaging the key so the warehouse remained open. True to form, the rain moved in from the southwest as they got out of the van, and turned from gentle to savage before they could run to the door of the diner. Allan bolted, putting his hands on his head, which did nothing to keep his luxuriant hair – and the rest of him – from getting drenched. Celestine followed slowly, watching Allan (nice shoulders, looks hot in a wet t-shirt).

Inside, there were only three other customers besides themselves. In a corner, a man in grimy, shapeless garments had scored a hearty breakfast. Nearby, a couple – one man older and white-haired with wire spectacles, one man a sturdy Latino in his 30’s – took bites of each other’s omelets, presumably to see which one tasted the best.

“You’re drenched,” Allan raised his eyebrows slightly. Celestine looked down and realized her now-soggy Hello Kitty shirt emphasized her curves more than she had anticipated. Her hair, no doubt, had devolved into a tangled disaster. There was nothing to do but let him enjoy the view – she certainly enjoyed the near-uselessness of his shirt.

They looked each other over, and then Celestine could not contain her laughter anymore. Then Allan could not contain his laughter anymore, and they both laughed so hard that the waitress had to wait for them to catch their breath before they could order breakfast.

As Celestine tucked into a mini German pancake, she studied the mountain of home fries, eggs, mushrooms, and Swiss cheese that Allan attacked.

“Vegetarian?” she asked.

“Clean living,” he explained.

“Fried potatoes?” That didn’t sound so clean to her.

“You’re throwing shade on my breakfast, Celestine.”

“Sorry. I’ve just never seen so much healthy living,” Celestine shrugged.

“Would you like a bite?”

“Sure,” she smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“So,” Allan asked, “Where do you teach dance?”

“One Hundred Fitness over in Lakeview. Jazz dance. Because I’m self-taught, I can’t get a foot in to the traditional dance studios.” That, Celestine thought, and the fact that she had no birth certificate.

“I’m self-taught as well, although that’s often the case with DJs.” Especially, Allan thought, if they got their GED because they spent their high school years shooting smack.

“So why DJ’ing?” Celestine asked him.

Allan thought about answering the question with the usual, which ran the gamut from “I’m only in it for the money” to “I want to be the next Josh Werner” but he knew neither of those held the truth. He could give her just enough of the truth to not freak her out: “When you’re spinning, you’re taking the audience of the rave, club, or even wedding reception on a journey. You’re the shaman. You provide the experience through music, and you hope they internalize and learn from their emotions.”

“So, for a rave, what’s the journey?” Celestine dove into her cup of coffee like it was the elixir of life.

“For that rave,” Allan emphasized, “my crowd was very young, mostly just 21, but some as young as fifteen. There’s ways of sneaking in – fake ID, friends holding the back door open. Sometimes they’re using – Molly, Special K, bath salts, so part of my job is watching that everyone’s doing all right. I chose mostly driving and energetic music, so I give them a journey of vitality. But those kids aren’t invincible, so I throw in some trance, even some cultural touchstone music to slow things down. So I crafted a message of ‘seize the day, but take care of yourself.’”

“Cultural touchstone?”

“’Don’t You Forget About Me’, Simple Minds, 1985. Still one of the best teen love songs ever written. Every generation since the 80’s discovers it anew.”

Allan realized that he was doing all the talking. Either Celestine was a great listener or she had something to hide. “So, tell me about yourself.”

“I was born in the greystone I’m living in in Uptown.” Celestine wondered how much she could explain without going off the deep end. “My mom died a year after I was born, and my Uncle Isaac came in and took care of me until I was old enough to be on my own. The greystone was Mom’s, and she had her lawyer talk the landlord into writing the lease to me.” There was so much missing in that statement, so much, she thought.

“What do you do when you’re not dancing?” Allan asked (tangled hair, intelligent brown eyes).

The question was innocuous enough. “I’d like to go to college, but I don’t have the money to.” Nor do I have a birth certificate, much less a high school diploma. “I also compete in Mixed Martial Arts.”

“You don’t really compete, do you?” Allan looked vaguely ill.

“Of course I do. Keeps me sharp. I’ve beaten all the women around here. They want to try me in men’s competition.”

“Holy shit,” Allan said weakly.

“I’m a freak!” Celestine burbled, secretly hoping Allan wouldn’t see how much of a freak she was.

Allan parked in front of a building from a former era, looking good despite all the years of feast, folly, and famine in Uptown. He followed her up to her door, up worn marble steps with brass railings. He noticed the hallway had a patched parquetry floor and old, dark wood trim.

As Celestine thanked him for the evening, Allan put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a warm, sweet kiss on the lips.

He had never felt more normal in his life.

Inside, Celestine leaned against the door, a little overwhelmed. Allan gave her the best kiss ever – not that she’d had many to compare it to. His hand trembled as he pushed back her hair to kiss her. Celestine thought she understood, and it frightened her.

A week later, a week of not hearing from Allan (had they even exchanged phone numbers? She thought not), Celestine blasted “Don’t You Forget about Me” through speakers attached to her laptop. In pink yoga pants and a dark grey tank top, Celestine choreographed the angst, the unrequited love, the hope shining through the song. How had she never heard it before?

 Celestine heard a knock on her door. She opened the door of her apartment and saw Allan there. He held himself rigid, his eyes blazing. She let him in, and as soon as she shut the door, he said in a flat voice, “Nice choice of music. Why did you lie to me?”

Oh, she thought, of course. Most people would take her story at face value, but not Allan. Her stomach roiled, and she felt tempted to tell him to leave and never come back, never contact her. She couldn’t. He needed the truth so that he could judge her if he would.

Celestine turned off the music. She led Allan over to a spot on the floor in the middle of the living room/dining room/kitchen, the spot where she had been dancing. “You’ll want to sit down. And I warn you, you won’t believe a word I say because the truth is too unbelievable. Hold your judgment until you hear me out.”  

 “Celestine, I guess that’s the least I can do for you.” He sat with his arms crossed,  unreceptive.

“Allan, what tipped you off to the fact that I lied? Most people don’t catch that at all.”

“I searched. Celestine isn’t a common name, and if you combine it with the name Eisner, it’s doubly uncommon. Searching the Internet gave me no answers. That’s not necessarily a big deal. But public records, birth certificates – Celestine. Eisner. Does. Not. Exist.”

“Maybe I changed my name?” Celestine hated hearing her voice creep up to pleading.

“Public records. There has never been a Celestine Eisner in Chicago. Not even one who has changed her name.”

“You assume all of us have public records. It is possible to be born off the grid.” Celestine clenched her hands tightly, hoping Allan couldn’t read body language.

“But highly unlikely. There’s more here, isn’t there?” Alan growled.

Celestine paused for a long time, then took a deep, shuddering breath. “Ok, this is the part where you suspend disbelief for a moment. Or for as long as you’d like; it’s up to you. My name is Celestine Eisner, but you won’t find me on any public records. I don’t have a birth certificate, because of the circumstances of my birth. My mother was Cicely Eisner, an artist -- you can look that up on the Internet. Her obit says she died with no children, but that’s not true. My father, on the other hand, is an Archetype. You might consider them nonhuman or quasi-human – they’re the origin of the legends of angels. They possess some interesting nonhuman traits like teleportation and telekinesis, and they live forever except if mortally injured – and that takes a lot. Unlike angels, not all Archetypes are good.”

Allan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “If I saw one of these Archetypes, would I know what they were?” he sighed.

 “Probably not, unless you had encountered them before. There’s a Chinese restaurant in McKinley Park that reserves a private room and guards for customers they call Ancestors. My dad will be eating there tonight.”

Allan looked at her with narrowed eyes. “You don’t believe me,” Celestine replied, tears in her eyes. “I didn’t think you would.”

“I don’t know what to believe, Celestine. I’m trying. But I can’t tell if you’re delusional or yanking my chain – and I don’t know if what you’re saying is truth.” He stood up and let himself out the front door.

Celestine sat on the floor, unable to move.

Allan knew his destination as soon as he climbed into his van. Halfway across town, southward, to McKinley Park. The neighborhood where he had grown up.

He remembered the Chinese restaurant, a nondescript storefront, but he couldn’t remember any special beings ever eating there. Of course, maybe he wouldn’t know just by looking. But he drove there anyhow, hardly noting the rows of buildings he drove past.

A grimy white storefront, a neon sign pronouncing that it was open, menus taped to the plate glass window. He couldn’t understand how esteemed Ancestors (as his distant Chinese relatives apparently knew them) would eat in such an unprepossessing little place.

Then he stepped inside and understood.

One of the most photogenic men he’d ever seen strode – there was no other word – across the floor, following the waitress to the back of the restaurant. With an almost imperceptible shake of his shoulders, which could have been missed if one hadn’t watched him intently -- he shifted to ordinary -- the blond man looked wearier, a beleaguered lawyer from the cut of his suit. The waitress pushed a seam in the wall, and the gentleman stepped through the door to a private room which, Allan suspected, would be richly appointed for the Archetype guests.

Allan turned around and ran toward his car to drive the miles north to Celestine’s apartment.

He knocked at the door, old and wooden and scuffed, and knocked. He hoped the mythical being who dwelled on the other side would answer.

Celestine had picked herself off the floor and kept her mind off Allan the best way she knew how – by dancing. She heard the knock on the door and presumed that it was her father, Luke. She didn’t know if she wanted to see her father, seeing that her face was streaked with tears and her mood could only be described as dejected.

She heard the knock again, followed by a familiar, low rasp: “Tina, I know you’re in there. I need to talk to you. I think I saw your dad.”

He heard Celestine undo the locks on the door, and she opened the door, red-eyed.

“I’m sorry. You don’t know how sorry I am,” Allan mumbled. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t let me in.”

Celestine stared at him. “Why did you come back?”

“You gotta let me in, Tina, I can’t talk about it here.”

Celestine let Allan in.

Allan followed Celestine to the place on the floor they had occupied earlier. He considered that Celestine might think of investing in living room furniture until he realized this doubled as her dance studio. “Your father,” he stated, “about my height, really blond hair in a ponytail, looks like an actor?”

“I never thought of him that way, but yeah, the description sounds right.”

“I saw him in the restaurant. He looked flawless, impossibly so, and then he, like, shook himself and he became more ordinary looking. Not totally – your dad is – different.”

“My dad is an Archetype,” Celestine shrugged.

Celestine saw that Allan had that glazed look that she expected was normal when realizing that humans weren’t alone Earthside. “You’re looking for an explanation that explains Archetypes away, aren’t you?”

“It would be easier, certainly. Easier than believing there’s humans who aren’t humans living among us.” Easier than knowing a world beyond the explainable that he wasn’t able to touch.

“You can’t find it, can you? How I can be alive and not exist in the records, how I’m stronger than you, how my dad can –“ Celestine paused to gather her thoughts. “Occam’s razor says the easiest explanation, not the most normal one, is the truth.”

“Ok,” Allan spoke slowly, “Your dad is an Archetype, then, and you’re a Nephilim. How does that work?”

“Archetypes can conceive children with other Archetypes or with humans. But they don’t risk sex often, because there’s a 100 percent chance of conception, regardless of the age of the mother. And the baby shows up right after conception. Fully grown. And no, the baby manifests itself outside the uterus, so Mom survives.”

“Your mom must have felt relieved. Why did your mother decided to get knocked up by an angel?”

Celestine laughed, then cleared her throat. She noticed, strangely, that she had relaxed. “My mother, a couple years before I was born, fell in love with an Archetype who saved her from freezing to death. He actually looked a lot like you from what Mom said, complete with all that hair. You may be Patterned after him.”

“Patterned?”

“That’s the other thing Archetypes do – provide cultural and moral patterns for the people patterned after them,” Celestine explained. “Like racial memory. Anyhow, Mom fell in love with this Archetype but nothing happened with him because he didn’t want to father Nephilim.” Allan frowned, and Celestine didn’t blame him. “I mean, he was naked in bed with her trying to keep her warm and she offered herself, but he said he regretted that he couldn’t do it.. Horribly romantic, isn’t it?

“When the Archetype, Adan, left her apartment, one of the bad Archetypes recognized him as an Archetype. The bad guy wanted Nephilim because he wanted to train them up as fighters. So a couple days after the incident with Adan, this other Nephilim teleported into her apartment and raped her. She bore twin Nephilim sons from the rape, and the sons were instantly taken away. The attack absolutely devastated her, because she trusted people –“

“And the other Archetype had betrayed her trust in people,” Allan interjected.

“Yes. She called her lawyer, Luke. Because she had encountered two Archetypes, however, she then realized that her lawyer was another Archetype.” Celestine took a breath.  “Archetypes apparently hang out in Chicago.

“When Luke came to visit her, she made an unusual request of him.”

“She asked him to give her a child?” Allan understood acts of defiance.

“Got it in one, Allan. My dad refused, because it’s taboo to make Nephilim children, and against the Bar’s ethics to sleep with clients. But Mom looked him in the eye -- which took effort, because she stood only five feet tall – and informed him that because the nameless Archetype used her for evil, she wanted to answer that by engendering good.”

“Wow. What did your dad think of that?”

“He felt really conflicted, because, well, he’s a lawyer. Frankly, Dad’s always conflicted. But he could not deny her convictions, and so they engendered me.  With the exact body I have now. Mom got pancreatic cancer sometime after I was born. I stayed with Mom until right before she died – I said my goodbyes before Adan came to see her because I wanted my mom to have her time alone with the man she loved, so I’ve not met Adan. After she died, the landlords allowed me to lease the apartment – I masqueraded as a distant relative of my mother’s. Luke and my uncle Isaac and his partner spent time with me and showered me with love and affection in the hopes that I would not get the instability.” Celestine took another deep breath.

“Instability?” Allan raised his brows.

Celestine thought that was a gutsy, if necessary, question. “For some reason, the Nephilim raised up as soldiers turn out pretty unstable. I’m the only Nephilim the Archetypes know who hasn’t been brought up like that. Sometimes I can get moody, is all. I’m told that’s normal – I used to see a psychiatrist every now and then. The psychiatrist, of course, is another Archetype. She and Luke practice their respective practices Earthside without anyone ever knowing.”

“Wow,” Allan said after a long silence. “I would never have thought … Archetypes … wow. I don’t know yet if I believe it or not, but I know that you do.”

“Hey,” Celestine protested, “are you saying I’m wrong?”

“As a matter of fact, I think you’re telling the truth,” Allan soothed. “Largely because I know how strong you are. You could beat the shit out of me if you wanted. You could be a fighter.”

“I do fight – remember, I compete in MMA. Dad’s recommendation. My life could become dangerous if the wrong things happen.”

“Wrong things?” Allan’s soothing stilled.

“Think about it. Bad Archetypes are breeding Nephilim for fighting. They have something in mind, but I don’t know what. I’m my mother’s daughter, born to stand against evil. I may have to fight.”

“I hope you don’t,” Allan growled, “but I understand.”

“Thank you.” It was the best acceptance she’d ever have.

Allan trembled. Nobody could make up anything that wild and pass it off as truth. Celestine had seen, and experienced, things he had tried, but failed, to see in visions.

He needed to tell his truth, and he shook thinking about it.

Allan replied after a pause. “I’m a recovering junkie. And what drove me to drugs might make you judge me.”

“Tell me your story,” Celestine said in a calm voice. Born of an angel, a miracle sat on the grubby floor across from him. “I reserve judgment.”

“As a child, I talked to the ghost of a woman who used to live in our house, and traditional Chinese culture regards ghosts as evil. My grandmother, who had emigrated from Guangzhou, shrieked that I was evil for consorting with ghosts. She poisoned my parents with her talk and became cold to me as well, even though the son in the family holds status in traditional Chinese culture.

“When I was 14, my grandmother died in a fall down the stairs. I stood closest to her when she fell, so my parents assumed I had pushed her. In order to not lose face among the neighbors, my parents didn’t take me to a shrink or to juvie; they just let their fear and hatred for me simmer behind closed doors.

“I avoided my parents as much as possible, but their hatred slowly killed me. I started to use drugs. First, I tried out what they call entheogenic drugs, because I wanted to see visions I thought would lead me to what I should do with my life. I tried each of them once, carefully, and kept a journal of their effects. Sometimes I found the bad stuff, and I got really sick on it – no supposedly pure Molly back then, just Ecstasy cut with who knows what.

“Sometimes I tried things that could easily kill me, like datura. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I found out how to escape. Pot wasn’t strong enough to obliterate my memories, so I quickly started on black tar. I smoked it with a piece of foil, a lighter, and a stick pen tube to suck it in.

“It was ridiculous. But the rush – nothing existed but the rush. It flowed through my body like warm honey, and then hours where the world didn’t exist. But then the restlessness came, and the edginess in my bones, and I knew I’d have to use again so I didn’t get the worst of withdrawal. Eventually I shot up just because it was easier.” Allan realized how much he hadn’t told anyone before.

“What’s your HIV status?” Celestine asked again, in a calm voice.

“I still test every six months, even though it’s been four years since I kicked. No HIV, no Hep B or C, no nothing. I guess I’m paranoid. All I have to show for my addiction is some scars from shooting up.” He turned his arms palm-up and showed her the healed bumpy scars on the insides of his arms. “From popping, just below the skin’s surface, when the needle breaks through. From mainlining, when the vein blows. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.” He was, he realized, because he survived what he’d done to himself.

Celestine reached out and grabbed his hands, and he felt the warmth suffuse through him, almost like a rush but better because it was real. He realized why she asked about his status, and he felt even warmer. He squeezed her hands for a moment, just a moment, then she relinquished his hands.

“Where did the money come from?” she asked, leading Allan through the confession of his shame.

“Stole from my parents. They’d never report me, after all. It didn’t stop them from disowning me, though. Dealt drugs. That’s the part that makes me feel the dirtiest, because other kids were getting hooked from me. A guy wanted to pimp me out to some chickenhawks on Rush Street, but I wasn’t quite ready to sell my body. Quite.” He hugged himself, rubbing his hands on his upper arms.

“The story’s not over. You’re clean now. How did you get there?” Celestine kept asking the difficult questions.

“I was 18. I’d already dropped out of school, but I hung at the library as a place to keep warm, because I was flopping in an old warehouse about to get torn down. Believe it or not, I read everything I could get my hands on. One day I picked up this little book called “The Four Agreements”, and it was about how to live impeccably. Totally as yourself. And that book taught me a way of escaping my parents by realizing that all the stuff they said about me was really about them.”

“Were your parents evil, then?”

“There’s a sickness in my family. I found out going through old records that the ghost I used to talk to was a young woman who had owned the house.  She didn’t wish to sell her home when my grandfather asked to buy it. He pushed the woman down the stairs to her death, and arranged to buy the house from her lawyer. All because my grandmother wanted it. Which fits with what I remember – I pushed my grandmother down the stairs, but I wasn’t the one controlling my body. It was her – the ghost, who pushed my grandmother down the stairs.” Celestine thought that that was the worst part for Allan, having no control over what his family blamed him for.

“That must have been hard to live with,” Celestine said. “Was the house worth killing someone over?”

“Not that I can see,” Allan shrugged. “But then again, I’m not in love with things the way my parents were.”

Celestine leaned into Allan, forehead touching his, arms draped over his shoulders. He draped his arms over her shoulders, and smelled lavender and sandalwood, a whiff of his own fear sweat beneath that. Celestine was magnificent, perfect. He felt like a tiny planetoid in the orbit of the sun.

 “Is it scary to be mythical?” Allan murmured to her as she pulled away from him.

“It’s scary until you realize you have to do your laundry like everyone else,” Celestine said and was rewarded by Allan’s snort of laughter. “The only time I feel mythical is when I realize I hang out with real mythical beings. Besides, I always figured my mom was the most mythical one, because she stood up to Luke.”

“Your mother was a hell of a woman, it sounds like.” Allan reckoned it was nice that someone’s mother was.

“Mom traveled as soon as it became safe to after World War II. She couldn’t travel to Europe to study art right out of high school, of course, because of the Nazis. She spent the war with the WAVES at Great Lakes, and she got a couple marriage proposals from sailors passing through for training.”

“She didn’t take any of them up on it, did she?”

“She never married,” Celestine replied. “She loved men – and Archetypes, apparently -- but she didn't want to live with any.”

“Do you take after your mom?” Allan asked casually

 “Well, I’m keeping my future open to the possibility of a guy,” Celestine said.

“A possibility?” Allan teased.

“It’s early days yet.” Celestine giggled – was he falling for her? Then she felt a chill – how could he, given who she was?

Allan lay down on the carpet, hair spread like a dark halo around his head. He laid his arm out and patted the carpet. “Get down here.” Celestine lay next to him, putting her head on his chest. She heard his low chuckle rumble in his chest, his heart beat. She felt his fingers slipping through her fine hair.

“So, when you have sex, do you have full grown babies?”

 Celestine knew Allan’s eyebrows had wiggled. She just did. “Oh my God, no!” Celestine blurted out laughing, then sobered up. “Nephilim are sterile, like mules. I can’t have children, even if an Archetype tried.”

“Does this bother you?”

“I’m afraid it makes me less marriageable, especially to Chinese men who might want a son to carry on the family name.” Oh my, Celestine thought. That was so unsubtle.

“As far as I’m concerned, I don’t count a family who disowned me.” However, Celestine noted, he sounded angry, not indifferent.

“I think Jewish-Chinese-Archetype babies might have been cute.” In her mind, Celestine could almost see them, button noses like hers and streaky brown hair and hopefully his almond-shaped eyes ...

Allan caught his breath, belatedly realizing they were talking about marriage. And he had brought it up. And they had just met – if ‘just met’ meant revealing one’s darkest secrets. And he didn’t know if he loved – yes he did, if the coccoon of warmth he gave and received, the nest from which he could go forth and paint a world where love and kindness reigned, if that was love.

“We have plenty of time if you’re scared,” Celestine whispered, as if she could read his mind.

“What if I’m not?”

Celestine crawled up his chest gracefully, like a dancer, and kissed him on the mouth.

That was all it took.

They lay together, tangled and sweaty, with Allan’s hair strewn across her face and chest. Allan lifted his head to look at Celestine’s face.

“You were a virgin, weren’t you?” he asked Celestine.

“Yeah, and so were you.” Celestine tweaked his hair.

Allan nodded his assent with a sour face. “Social skills and sex drive are pretty lacking in a teenage junkie.”

“I don’t know; you really did a good job.”

“Woof, woof. I mean thanks. I’m really kind of embarrassed.” Allan’s blush gave it away.

“Look, dude, if you’re this good now, what are you going to be like if you improve?” Celestine watched the grin spread across his face.

“Wanna find out?” Allan bent over to kiss her.

They were thoroughly tired out and in need of a shower – together? Allan wondered. They decided to rest on the floor instead.

“Flip over,” Celestine demanded in a singsong voice. “I want to see your tattoo.”

Allan submissively rolled over, granting her access to the line drawing of an otter, smiling demurely and clutching a shell. The otter curved along his back; its head rested on his shoulder blade, the tail curled around his buttock.

“Why an otter?” Celestine inquired.

“I don’t know. I’ve always had a thing for otters, I guess.”

 “Is this your totem, I wonder? You said you weren’t a shaman.” Celestine spoke in a voice of wonder.

“I’m not a shaman. I don’t have a totem.”

“I’m not so sure, Allan. You seemed awful ready to accept my reality – “

Allan got up on one elbow. “I’m not a shaman. I tried – the entheogens –“

“With a trained shaman vision guide?”   Celestine raised her eyebrows and scrutinized Allan.

“Not many of those in Chicago, y’know? If there are, they don’t advertise,” Allan muttered, sitting upright and facing Celestine. “Besides, drugs might make me a junkie again.” Allan curled into himself; Celestine was having nothing of that, and she stared him straight in the eyes.

“You don't need drugs,” Celestine shrugged.

“How do you know about shamanism?”

“Wikipedia, of course. But you already act as a shaman when you tweak the playlists to help the mood at your gigs.”

“Huh,” Allan commented.

“Shamans seek impeccability – it’s the “how”. But then there’s the ‘what’ – addressing the balance. Helping people find power and hope and health.” Celestine paused. “You need a journey. To break through the tendency to define what you experience. You’ll only see that other place when you’re not trying to see.”

“Was that Wikipedia?” Allan asked skeptically.

“No, Carlos Castaneda. I read his first three books when I was five years old.” Admittedly, Celestine thought, she had had an eclectic upbringing, if you could call it that. Castaneda, the Torah, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice, the Bible, the Quran…

Allan looked at her incredulously. “You read that at age 5? I was reading ‘The Cat in the Hat’.”

“You forgot. I was born fully grown,” Celestine sighed; this conversation might happen again and again. But she was okay with that. “I have an idea about how to initiate you.”

“Holy shit. How?” Celestine watched Allan’s eyebrows rise.

“There’s a grove down in Central Illinois that we call ‘The Garden’. It’s beautiful, and it’s – it’s full of spirits. The people who belong to it are special – they’re human, but there’s something about them, you know? We’d have to drive down and stay as long as it took.” Celestine had been to the place with her dad a few times, for reasons her dad had been secretive about. But she had made a couple friends there.

“I’m game, Celestine. How do spirits relate to Archetypes?”

Celestine felt a chuckle break loose. “In the hierarchy of things, spirits are more inscrutable than Archetypes. They’re more powerful in the ways that count. They’re like molecules of the Maker. Archetypes are servants of the Maker, who are there to watch over humans. And I,” she motioned to herself, “am an inconvenience to both humans and Archetypes.”

“Yes, but you’re a wonderful inconvenience, Celestine.” He leaned down to kiss her nose.

Celestine felt her eyes tear up.

At dusk the following Saturday, Allan and Celestine arrived at The Garden after a three-hour drive through mostly flat green land. Allan marveled at the shades of green revealed to him throughout the trip. He had lost the knowledge of growing things, having spent all his life in Chicago. They parked the van in a gravel lot near the entrance. Celestine looked at her watch. “No time, we need to go right to the Garden.” She pulled a backpack out of the van and put it on.

Dusk had deepened as Celestine pointed them toward what looked like an orchard, grey against grey, with trees planted evenly across the patch of land. He saw a gate and a sign positioned at its edge. However, he couldn’t read the sign in the growing dark.

A man stood next to the sign – in the scant light Allan could pick out few details: about his height, hair pulled back, black clothing that blended in with the shadows. He doubted he would be allowed to win the gate by physical combat with this man.

As they approached the gate, the man said in a quiet, slightly hoarse tenor, “Stop.” The air crystallized around the word, as if he commanded it to keep Allan out of the Garden. Allan and Celestine stopped abruptly, and Celestine took Allan’s hand.

“Who do you serve?” the gatekeeper demanded, his voice hanging in the air.

Who do I serve? Allan pondered. He had never thought of that, but shamans should know the answer. Who do I serve? What God do I serve? No, who do I SERVE? As shaman, I’m a servant –

“I am servant to my fellow man.” The gatekeeper, nearly invisible in the dark, nodded.

“What is your charge?” Again, the words hung in the crystallized air as the Garden’s essence pressed against the gate like a leviathan.

He felt comfortable with this after talking to Celestine the week before.

“I address the balance.”

“How will you do this?”

Good question, Allan thought. What did shamans actually do? He thought back to that conversation again: Celestine had told him that he did shamanism already when he played shows.

“By taking in messages in waking time, and steadying the balance as I am called to.”

The gatekeeper nodded and opened the gate. “You may pass into the Garden. Empty your mind and put yourself in the Garden’s hands. You must go alone with the Garden your only guide. We will take good care of your consort.”

Celestine leaned over and kissed Allan on the lips, then whispered, “I believe in you.”

As the Gatekeeper walked off with Celestine toward a distant light, Allan shut the gate and took a deep breath, then walked toward a pair of apple trees that had grown tall on a mound in the maze of trees and plants.

Celestine walked away from the gate with Josh, the man who had guarded it. Josh lived at Barn Swallows’ Dance, the ecocollective that held The Garden. He wrote novels and poetry, and worked his way toward a Ph.D. He was her best friend among the residents. “How long will it take for Allan?” she asked quietly.

“Likely all night, if we’re lucky,” Josh replied.  “If he fights it, up to three days, maybe more. Your partner has a lot to walk through. To be the Wounded Healer, he has to find his own healing.”

“I know, I know,” Celestine sighed. “I just worry about him.” Celestine studied Josh in the lights of the houses ahead -- his face had softened, and he once again looked like the affable man she knew. “Those were some nice theatrics you pulled back there.”

“Not theatrics. Not theatrics at all,” Josh grinned. “I serve Gaia, the green face of the Maker. Sometimes she can be severe in her messages. Sometimes She sends butterflies.”

“Funny how we all serve the Maker in one way or the other, one face or the other.” Celestine wondered if she herself served the Maker.

“Not everyone would call what they serve The Maker, but that’s the term you and I have come to understand. The Archetypes, like your father, provide the mythic sense of belonging, the racial memory, the connection to something greater for the majority of humans who cannot talk with spirits.”

“Then what do Nephilim like me do?” Celestine asked petulantly. “Do we fit anywhere in this scheme?”

Josh smiled again, this time a genuinely merry smile that transformed his bookish features to beauty. “You contribute randomness, just as your birth was the result of a random choice. The Archetypes, even the humans are predicated toward order and are frightened of chaos. Yet the Maker and the spirits know that chaos is necessary to the survival of all.”

Celestine thought the fireflies along the path flashed more brightly. “How come nobody told me sooner?”

“I figure your mother had no language for mysticism, like most humans – that’s why she became a painter, to try to communicate the mystical. I would love to see the sketch she did of Adan to see what she had coded into it. Archetypes, for being the Maker’s guardians, are very prosaic about the power they hold. They’ve held their power for so long, they see the symbolism but not the mysticism. Many believe the Maker was just a tale.

 “But Allan and I – and you, Celestine, and others like us – we aren’t as powerful, but only because we would go insane with the weight of power and responsibility. We care so much that we would be frozen from having to decide the right thing to do. But we are the ones who speak with spirits, with the Maker, and bring it to others.”

“How’s Jeanne?” Celestine asked, not to change the subject but to connect with Josh’s wife, a formidable older woman with a green thumb.

“Retirement is treating her well, and she’s working on a project to rotate the grazing so that we don’t burn out the land. She told me to tell you that her parents have set up the new guest cottage for you, and that you are to meditate tonight so that you don’t get in Allan’s way.”

“Jeanne knows me too well. I might dance, too.” Celestine tapped a foot.

“No music, though. Quiet hour’s in a half-hour.” Josh said. They stopped in front of a one-story cob home with a mosaic made of broken glass. The mosaic was a fanciful pinwheel of blues and browns spinning out into a Catherine wheel suggesting the birth of earth and sky. “My mother designed that, along with the décor inside.” Josh shook his head. “I never knew she had such talent.”

“That’s marvelous. And more mythical than I had expected from your mother.” Celestine remembered Mrs. Young as a thin, nervous woman with fading red hair.

“It’s something about this place, Josh said. “It’s so accepting it helps all become their most unique self. Maybe the garden does recreate us. I’d like to think so.”

With that thought, the two friends hugged, and Celestine entered the tiny cabin.

Allan lay under the huge apple tree, watching fireflies. He had tried to go into a trance, but the cloud of flickering, weaving lights over his head would not let him. Although he burned to become a shaman, the light show tried to tell him something vitally important – if he could only understand.

A firefly landed on his left ear, and it talked to him in a tiny, tinny voice. “Wanna go on a trip with us?” For a moment, Allan’s bowels turned to ice – was he having a flashback? Then a firefly landed on his left ear and whispered repeatedly, “Keep looking at the fireflies.”

“We’re flying, come along,” he heard in his right ear.

“Keep looking keep looking keep looking keep looking keep looking.” Left ear.

“The sky is marvelous tonight.” Right ear.

Keep your eyes on the lights.” Left ear.

“Stand up. Stand up. Raise your arms. Let go.” Right ear.

Allan stood up, almost unaware he had done so -- and felt his feet lift off the ground.

Celestine sprawled across the quilt in muted blues and browns which mirrored the mosaic on the outside wall.

She set her mind to her own meditation, so she would calm down about Allan’s quest.

Allan leaned against an L track support, taking in the smell of urine and stale grease, tags and rude graffiti sprayed across the back wall of a building, hard dirt and parched grass around a spindly ailanthus. He recognized the place – he’d often met his dealer here before crawling off into a deserted warehouse or storefront or under a bridge to nod off. He looked at his sleeves – he wore the leather jacket, the only thing of value in his life, the only thing he wouldn’t sell. The only thing besides his hard expression that would keep him from becoming someone’s toy.

“Hey, you need a ride?” Pony, his dealer, strolled up to the strut Allan leaned against. Dark shades, even at night, and a keffiyeh as a scarf around his dirty blond dreads.

“Naw, I’m good.” Allan didn’t understand why he was there, but it wasn’t to start using again.

“That homeless guy, Irving?” The homeless guy? Allan thought. All of us are homeless, or near to it.

“What about Irving?”

Pony, as always, was ice. “He’s been asking about you. In the warehouse.”

“Ok,” Allan said curtly. “I’m there.”

Allan strolled quickly two blocks to the warehouse, a sense of dread coalescing in his stomach. Irving didn’t need anyone. Grey and bleary-eyed, a Desert Storm hero who succumbed to PTSD and schizophrenia and the hash he smoked to combat it, Irving pretty much was a guy who minded his own.

When he slid open the creaking door of the warehouse and stepped up the threshold, Allan felt the murmurs before he heard them. The current residents, those who were not nodding out or tweaking, stood around the dark, prematurely grey-haired man writhing on the ground.

“OD?” he asked the small throng.

“Busted appendix,” a pale, gaunt woman responded. “He was panhandling and he doubled over in pain. They —“ which meant the clean world – “called the ambulance, and they took him in, and he walked right out.”

“Shit.” Allan squatted down to talk to Irving, not caring that his hair dragged the floor. Irving shouted at things that weren’t there, his voice depleted to a rasp.

“Irving,” Allan said quietly. “You wanted me.”

Irving’s eyes snapped open. “I’m dyin’, man. The demons caught up to me. Sand demons. From the Sandbox. Chewin’ me up from the inside. Gotta save rest of us.”

“What can we do?” Irving had no more than a few hours, if that. “What do you need me for, man?”

“Your jacket. Righteous armor. The demons won’t get through. Keep you all safe.”

The jacket. The only thing he truly owned. His protection. To a dying, delirious man.

Allan peeled the jacket off, his precious biker’s jacket, and laid it over Irving’s chest. “No problem, man. It is righteous armor. I don’t need it anymore.”

Irving took Allan’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you, man. Emma says to come over for dinner anytime.” Then he slumped back, motionless.

Allan closed the man’s eyes, stood up, and walked off without his jacket.

He heard the humming of fireflies.

Celestine sat up to find herself in a huge, oval, white ballroom. White-striped wallpaper met white-painted wood with the old embellishments that had been lost in the Craftsman era. The floor consisted of little black-and-white octagonal tiles, the curtains a billowy white pulled back to let the sun in. The chandelier above threw subtle sparkles and rainbows.

Celestine had fantasized about this room since she was very young – very young but never a child. The room she fantasized about was totally empty, just as this one was, because she never dared to fantasize about humans who could learn her secret, or Archetypes who would think her taboo.

She looked at her feet and saw she wore her dancing slippers. To mask the ache in her heart, she danced.

She leapt and slid across the floor on her knees, then planted her hands firmly on the ground and pulled herself into a handstand. Flipping out of the handstand, she shivered into the edgy, rhythmic moves of hip hop dance, slid into Bob Fosse’s burlesque-inspired Jazz dance. She heard the Jazz music of her mother’s youth, the beatnik drumming of the fifties, Madonna’s voice exhorting her to Vogue. She danced the music as it hit her, danced out all the loneliness, all the secrets, until she hit the ground and curled up in a ball, spent and lonely, so lonely, so alone.

Until she heard the applause.

Celestine uncurled herself and looked around her. The salon was full of people sitting on a mish-mash of chairs, chatting to each other. Some she recognized –

“Mom!” Celestine screamed, running to a woman with abundant dark wavy hair and cat-eye glasses. She had never seen her mother that way, but she knew, knew without doubt this was Cicely Eisner as she saw herself.

“Tina, so nice to see you again! I’m so glad I could come by to see your performance. Usually I’m stardust these days, but sometimes the Creator lets me kibitz a little.” Her mother, characteristically, snorted.

Celestine hugged her mother, tears in her eyes. “You left me so soon! There’s years I wanted to say I love you.”

“I know, love, but aren’t you doing well! Go, go talk to the rest of your admiring fans.” As Cicely stood up and left the salon, she blew a kiss at a tall Asian man in a tuxedo and the tiny woman next to him who could have been Celestine’s sister, wearing a simple coral gown with one dropped shoulder and a string of pearls. They waved back, smiling.

“Adan?” Celestine asked incredulously.

“Well, yes. And you are?” The tall man bent over her hand and kissed it while his consort looked amused.

“Celestine – “ she blushed, hesitant to identify herself as Cicely’s daughter to her mother’s former lover.

“Nice to meet you, Celestine,” the diminutive blonde woman said, kissing Celestine on the cheek. “I’m Lilly, consort to this incorrigible flirt to my left. I am honored to see you dance.”

Then a booming voice loomed nearby: “I seem to have misplaced a niece around here – where is the little klutz?” Only one man could call her a klutz – and sure enough, white- haired Uncle Isaac headed toward her, wearing a pinstriped suit with ostentatious buttons and cufflinks, and literally dragging his staid lover Marvin behind him. Apparently, The Creator had put a call in to them as well, given they had been dead the past ten years.

“Uncle Terry! Marvin! What have you been up to?” The two men swept her up in a hug.

“Singing the music of the spheres,” Isaac, an old thespian, chortled.

“Luckily, they don’t seem to care that Isaac’s off pitch,” intoned Marvin in his usual sepulchral tones.

“It’s harmony,” the irrepressible Uncle Isaac responded. “But look at you, Tina! You’ve taken the world by storm! Look at all your admirers!”

“Uncle, I don’t know all these people!” Celestine cried and threw herself in Terry’s arms.

“You will, you will, don’t worry, sweetie,” Uncle Isaac soothed. “You know, it’s always a surprise how many people there are out there who care. You’re not as alone as you think.”

The two men disappeared into air, and Celestine suspected the spheres had been short a couple tenors.

Immediately after, she found herself surrounded by familiar faces – living faces – friends from the eco-collective. Josh and Jeanne – his shiny black bun and her grey ponytail telling their story; Mrs. Beaumont, who swept her into an overwhelming hug; Josh’s parents, beaming with approval; the ebullient Wendy and laconic Alan; the intense Gideon …

“Where’s Mr. Beaumont?” Celestine asked after a long round of hugs.

“He’s at the elevator to take you back,” the regal Mrs. Beaumont said. She pointed, and her escort stood at the door, stooped with years of hard work but still vibrant. Standing with him was a man of middling height with a flaxen ponytail –

“Dad!” Celestine yelled, launching herself at the man clad in midnight blue. He caught her up in a hug, as he always had, lifting her off the ground before he set her down.

“You danced beautifully, Celestine.”

“Why didn’t you stay, Dad?” she asked, looking up at the brilliant blue eyes that mirrored her own.

“There are people in there I have unfinished business with. I didn’t want to mix business with your debut, Tina.”

“I understand, Dad.” And she did – she knew her dad had work, sometimes work he didn’t talk about, sometimes meetings where she came along with him, such as the time she met the delightful Dr. Sixx outside the psychiatrist’s office.

“Tina, I have to go, but I’ll see you soon, I promise. Are you keeping up on your martial arts?”

“Hah!” Celestine exclaimed. “I’m midtown champion in MMA.” She took a swing toward her father’s nose, which he blocked. Barely.

“Keep it up – I want to know you’ll be safe.”

“Yes, Dad,” Celestine replied in the beleaguered tone daughters had used on their fathers for millennia, or so Dr. Sixx said. Her father walked her by the hand to Mr. Beaumont, kissed her on the cheek, and stepped into the ornamented elevator.

As the elevator doors closed on her father, Celestine asked, “Mr. Beaumont, why didn’t I know everyone there?” He was not much taller than Celestine, so she looked into his deep black eyes.

“You just haven’t met them yet. You have a long life ahead of you.”

“Why wasn’t Allan here?”

“Well, he has his own quest to fulfill.”

The two of them stepped into the elevator, where three cats waited.

Allan leaned on a drainpipe leading from the second floor of the warehouse, remembering the time when he hadn’t left Irving his prized jacket, and Irving had died without righteous armor. What difference had it made to give up his jacket? All the difference, Allan decided, to a Gulf War veteran who lay dying on the floor of a warehouse. It meant warmth and comfort and reassurance, which Irving had needed more than did a punk Chinese kid who was using.

The drainpipe began to shake, then split like cardboard. Dirty water spewed from it, followed by an otter that scampered and draped itself across Allan’s shoulders and chuckled. Drenched to his skin, Allan asked the otter, “Where to, buddy? You obviously got an agenda.” The otter tugged at him, pointing with his head the direction they were to go. Allan walked out of the warehouse, skritching the chuckling otter’s head. The warehouse evaporated behind them.

In front of them, however, stood a beige brick two-story house. He remembered the tall, vaulted ceilings, the iron-railed staircase that led to the second floor bedroom, the stairs. The stairs he pushed his grandmother down.

He didn’t recognize the battered Renault parked in the driveway.

Compelled, he started mounting the stairs. A young man, maybe his age, with a mop of chestnut hair and steel-rimmed aviator glasses pushed past him on the stairs. “Sorry, man” he muttered. “Gotta go.” The otter chuckled and tugged on Allan’s shoulder urgently. The other man got into his Renault and drove away. He seemed vaguely familiar.

He opened the door, heard weeping from his mother’s bedroom. He scaled the stairs two at a time, accompanied by squeals from the otter.

His mother sat on the bed wearing a spring green nightgown, tear tracks on her face.

“Where is Grandmother?” Allan asked, looking at his mother’s face intently.

“She has gone out shopping. She does so every Friday afternoon, to give me time.” The bedroom reflected his mother – pale walls, small jade bottles, airy crystals strung in the pale peach drapes.

“Time to do what?” His mother wrung her hands.

“To ruin myself. She doesn’t think I am good enough for her son who beats me, so she allows me time to drown my sorrows in my own way.”

Allan sniffed, smelled no wine or spirits, smelled perfume and sweat and a musky smell he recognized from the flophouse. “Mother, that young man –“

“Was my lover. Not anymore. I told him I was pregnant. With you. I told him to go away. He is your father.”

Allan stood in his mother’s doorway, stunned. So many things explained – his father’s shunning him, his family’s anger, their scapegoating –

“I’m sorry,” his mother said, surprising him. “We should have called the wuyu when you started talking to the hungry ghost.” Allan realized time had no meaning there – he was just conceived and fully grown and a lonely child who talked to ghosts.

“Mother, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to push Grandmother down the stairs.”

“You didn’t push her down the stairs. The ghost pushed her, using you.” His mother wrung her hands again, and Allan remembered how habitual that was for her.

“Will you forgive me?” his mother cried out in Cantonese, her first language and his.

Allan froze. All his anger brought him to that moment, all the years of wanting to pummel his mother, beg her to acknowledge him, to protect him – all had come to this, with her acknowledging the currents of hatred he had swum through all his life.

He felt his otter hugging him, clucking at him. Supporting him.

He could see no other choice.

“Mother, I forgive you. We all went crazy in that family. Grandfather planted evil secrets, and we reaped their yield ...” He stepped into the bedroom, bent down, and hugged his mother tightly.”

“How will you make amends?” Allan asked as he let her go. “You will need to make amends for your soul.”

“I will serve your father with divorce papers. I know a good lawyer, a white man, who will fight for me. His name is Luke Dunstan.”

Allan stifled a laugh; of course his mother would be working with Celestine’s father.

“And your father. You might want to get a hold of him to see what kind of man he is. His name is Franklin Radcliffe; he’s a neurosurgeon at University of Chicago Hospital.”

Allan hugged his mother, tears in his eyes. Becoming a shaman, apparently, meant getting naked. He turned to step out of his mother’s house –

And promptly fell into Bubbly Creek six blocks away, where his father had once tried to drown him. When he surfaced with the otter on his shoulder, he smelled like rotting vegetation with a touch of sewage. He swam to the shoulder and climbed out, wishing he’d had a hand free to hold his nose.

Even his otter held its nose.

Allan peeled off his reeking jeans and t-shirt and chucked them into Bubbly Creek, then turned his back and started walking where the path took him, wearing only his underwear. The otter nuzzled his ear and sunk into his skin, chuckling.

Celestine awakened from her trance with tears running down her cheeks. Dawn just began to peek behind the slate-blue curtains. She combed her fingers through her hair, sat up, slipped her tennis shoes back on; otherwise she hadn’t disrobed. She jumped at the knock on the door.

Running to the door and opening it, she saw Josh standing there. No Allan. “Do you know how Allan’s doing?”

“Not specifically, but we expect him back within the hour.” Josh wore his merry smile, as if he knew more than he told. Josh could be annoying like that. Celestine shrugged it off.

“Where is he?”

“Several places and several times at once, I’d guess. Want to come out for coffee with the early crowd?” Josh grinned – one of the things they shared was a love of coffee.

 “Yes!” Celestine said, as she and the cat fell into step with Josh.

“Have you noticed that your voice has changed?” Josh asked as they headed toward the community building.

“Really?” she asked, and startled at her own voice. Her voice was lower, a little husky. It was womanly, not childish.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. Allan remembered the poem, and took the one less traveled. He realized why it was less traveled when the clouds opened and a deluge drenched him to the skin – not hard, given he was wearing only tighty whities and a pair of Chucks.

Ahead of him he saw another split in the road. One side led to a huge river he would have to cross; the other led to a farm. As Allan stepped forward toward the farm, he heard a bark from his otter buddy, which had emerged and was riding his shoulders. He took one more step toward the faded red barn, and the otter didn’t just bark – he growled.

“Ok, ok, buddy,” he muttered at the creature on his shoulder. “I think you just wanna take a swim, but at least it’s not Bubbly Creek.”

It turned out it wasn’t Bubbly Creek, or a river at all, but the circle around the big tree in the middle of The Garden, where he had started. The otter chirped contentedly, and sank back into his tattoo.

Allan fell to his knees and hugged one of the trees, which bore a sign he’d never noticed: Commitment and Freedom.

“Why do you think my voice changed?” Celestine asked, noticing it hadn’t slipped into the upper register once.

“Was I really in your dream too? That’s awesome!” Wendy, an ebullient blond woman in her forties, chirped. “Oh, sorry. To answer your question, the dream has many of the aspects of a coming of age ball, only with the main course being something you’re talented at. Your dad’s acknowledgement of your martial arts training, your mother’s reappearance as how she saw herself, your uncle’s partner -- all these are an adult’s understanding of the world.”

“I want to know why Celestine, who was born an adult, didn’t get her coming-out ball till she was in her thirties.” Alan with one L, Wendy’s husband, always found the important query.

“Beg your pardon, Celestine, but you weren’t ready to grow up yet.” Gideon’s soft-toned, sharp-edged voice commanded attention. “It’s not all your fault, Tina; your family sheltered you because you’re this mythical creature, not remembering that you’re half-human and prone to intense bouts of curiosity.”

“Gideon, you make me sound like a unicorn,” Celestine glared.

“In a way, you are. Most entities don’t believe you exist, and most of the ones who do want to use you or kill you.” Gideon steepled his fingers. “But you can pass for human with the first group, and beat the crap out of the ones who would do you harm. You’re free now, to make your own choices. You’ve become an adult.”

“One more thing-- why wasn’t Allan there?” Celestine asked, with her lower voice standing in testimony of her new becoming.

“That’s simple,” Wendy, a social worker, responded. “You need to become who you are before you can commit to a relationship.”

At that moment, the door burst open, and a near-naked man with a tangled mass of hair, smeared with mud, and smelling like rotting silage, stumbled into the doorway.

“I need coffee,” was all the visage said.

“Allan,” Celestine dashed to hug him – and stopped a foot away. “Sweetie,” she said in her newfound voice, “I don’t know when ‘vision quest’ became ‘smell-o-vision’, but you’re ripe.”

“Don’t blame you,” Allan said, raising his eyebrows, “but I think I’m a shaman now.”

“How do you know?” Celestine marveled.

“Because I smell like one.”

At that moment, Mr. Beaumont stood up from the coffeepot and shouted, “Ritual bath!”

“Is that a thing?” Allan asked warily, but as he looked at the tough little man, he saw what he hadn’t expected – another shaman.

“Who wants to help scrub Allan here?” Hands raised – Celestine, Wendy, Alan, Gideon. Josh and Jeanne and maybe even the fireflies, for all he knew.

“Okay,” Allan assented with a combination of mirth and trepidation.

They carried Allan out to what looked like a huge stock tank behind the building. As Celestine (the strongest among those present) lifted and swung him in, he felt wood under his feet and warmth throughout the water. He guessed this was the collective’s hot tub, and that it would be emptied and thoroughly scrubbed tomorrow.

Someone – he suspected Josh – dumped a bucket of warm water over his head, and he closed his eyes to savor the feeling. He heard a voice – Wendy? – proclaim that it would be much easier to scrub his hair if they were in the tub with him. Whatever, he thought – this is a hot tub, after all. Before he knew it, he heard splashes, and found Josh and Celestine in the hot tub with him, stripped to their undergarments.

“Won’t Jeanne get jealous?” he mumbled to Josh as Celestine poured cold shampoo on his scalp and worked its way down to the roots of his hair.

“No, we’re solid,” Jeanne chuckled from outside the pool. “People are allowed to have friends.”

Celestine sang softly as she worked the herbal shampoo through his hair on his left side, while Josh lathered the right. The shampoo smelled better than raw sewage, Allan mused. Celestine’s voice startled him – it was now a contralto that was – sexy? Could his life get any better?

“Sweetie,” Celestine murmured, “Duck down so you can get the lather out of your hair.” Before Allan did, however, he turned and grabbed her shoulders and gave her a sound kiss.  He heard rousing applause – although being nearly naked in a hot tub with half a dozen witnesses was hardly rousing. It was more like – being reborn.

“Duck, Allan, so we can get the suds out.” The unwavering, calmly commanding voice had to be Josh, who sounded like the keeper of the gate the night before.  Family – he felt the tendrils of family holding him, and for once they weren’t sickly poisonous tendrils like the ones in his own family.

 When Allan rose back from the water, his hair flowed cleanly down his back. He knew he’d need to get a comb to his hair soon, to keep it from tangling further. Then he heard Wendy’s voice saying “My turn” as someone’s hands pulled his mass of hair over the edge of the tub and started combing it. It didn’t hurt much as the tangles worked out, though he felt like a horse being curried. His eyes closed …

“Wow,” he heard someone say in the distance as they moved his hank of hair. “Look at this tattoo.” Fingers touched his back, stroking the otter. “He’s real, y’know,” he murmured as he heard the otter purring in the background. Hands started plaiting his hair as he swayed on his feet –

“Sweetie, you need to scrub yourself good,” Celestine whispered in his ear. “None of us are brave enough to, given where you’ve been.”

“Bubbly Creek.” Allan still felt as if he were sleepwalking as Celestine handed him a loofa scented with the same bracing herbal scent as the shampoo. He scrubbed himself high and low, scrubbed stubborn mud from his leg, felt Celestine scrub his back as his otter purred at him.

“Allan,” Josh said in his hoarse voice, “We’re heading out to change clothes. We left you towels. Meet you in the common space. Wear clothes.” Allan felt them leave quietly, in groups of twos or threes.

“Allan, wake up. I think it’s time for you to join the living,” Celestine whispered in his ear. He opened his eyes to see Celestine vault over the side and land on her feet. He climbed out beside her, only to find his underwear sliding down to his feet.

“Of course,” he muttered to no one in particular. “One must come from the womb naked.”

Celestine wrapped a large, fluffy towel around his waist and patted his butt. “Grab these clothes that Adan found you, and we can get dressed and get some coffee.”

In the pale light, they walked hand-in-hand back to the Guest Cottage.

“So,” Allan said as they walked toward the Common Building clothed, “Mr. Beaumont is a shaman, and Josh is –“

“Josh isn't really a shaman, Allan. He’s more like The Lorax – he speaks for the trees.”

“And Jeanne?”

Celestine chuckled. “The grove you were in? That was planted – oh, one or two years ago.”

“That’s impossible. Isn’t it?” Allan stammered. Celestine merely raised her eyebrows.

“Wendy?” Wendy had to be normal, Allan thought.

“Wendy’s a very competent social worker, Alan has a knack for cutting through bullshit, and Gideon designs things like the hot tub. Ilsa was a former labor organizer and still a very weighty Quaker. Don’t lose track of the fact that those who aren’t shamans or mystics or Nephilim have their own power, and maybe you don’t see that power until it’s needed.”

“Huh.” Allan paused for a moment. “I was classifying people, wasn’t I. Seeing who all was in my tribe.”

“Everyone is in your tribe. Archetypes are kind of like a different race, like you’re Chinese –“

“My birth father’s name is Franklin Radcliffe,” Allan said with raised eyebrows.

“Well, that explains a lot,” Celestine quipped. “You’re more like me, then, mixed race.”

“Except one of your parents gave you a long life and freakish strength – “

“And one of your parents gave you lots of hair.” Celestine yanked his braid using less than freakish strength. “Don’t get hung up on power, except to identify those who are powerless, to help them.”

“Huh.”

When Celestine and Allan opened the door of the guest cottage, Wendy handed each of them a cup of coffee. Jeanne shouted, “You did get all the smell off, right?” and an unknown man in a mohawk made of short dreads said, “Righteous braid, dude.” Just like Irving, Allan thought, and felt tears in the corner of his eyes.

Josh walked up, hair in a short ponytail, considerably shorter than Allan.

“You were the gatekeeper, weren’t you?” Allan asked, answering Josh’s outstretched hand with a handshake.

“Yes, I was,” Josh smiled. “That’s generally my role. I’m very well-acquainted with the Guilds there.”

“Guilds?”

“Circular mutualistic food gardens. All the plants support each other, each contributing what the others need.”

“Huh.” Wasn’t that what Celestine was talking about? “What about the fireflies?”

Josh winked. “I didn’t make them show up. I did, however, encourage them.”

 Allan felt Celestine swing his braid like a jump rope. All was back to its new normal, Allan thought.