Shutter(10)

“You’re still gonna come see me, though, right?” I was starting to worry about him leaving, already missing the warmth of his light.

“Ch’??dii. That is what they call it. All that bad stuff that is left after a person passes on. That can make you sick. I could be making you sick.”

“I’ve been seeing them a long time, Grandpa. I’m not sick.”

I could see him thinking, knowing that his own spirit was here and had no intention of ever causing me harm. “There are going to be some spirits on this side that don’t have good intentions. They will want to use your gift to do their bidding.”

“What’s bidding?” I asked.

“It means they’ll use you to get what they want done. I don’t know how you are able to do what you do, but you must learn to control who you let in here.” His finger pointed to my head. “It’s like a light switch. You must know when to turn it off. If you don’t, they will keep coming, and we could lose you, Rita. We could lose you to those ghosts.” He looked down at my nose just as I felt the trickle of a nosebleed on my lips. The room began to brighten as the sun crested the mountain. His light faded as the morning sun slipped past my curtains.

GRANDMA HAD ME loaded in the car and headed to the clinic before we even had a chance to eat breakfast. She was frantic as she told the young doctor about my hallucinations. The doctor tried his best to calm her, sitting her in the waiting room with the rest of the Navajos.

Going to the clinic always meant waiting at least two hours. I quickly began to realize it was probably the worst place I could be. Ghost lights of all sizes and shapes moved in and out of hallways, passing through doors and sitting beside people hacking and coughing in the waiting room. A TV soap opera played in the distance—another love lost. I thought about what Grandpa’s ghost said and pulled myself closer to Grandma.

I noticed a little girl in the corner—a most defined light. She stood atop one of the joined plastic chairs, her arms around the neck of a young, crying woman dressed in black, her hair in front of her face. She held a piece of Kleenex in one hand and an empty orange bottle in the other. The little girl hopped from chair to chair, then into the woman’s lap. The woman never budged. I looked at everyone in the waiting room. No one heard her cries but me.

When a voice came over the intercom calling for the woman, she stood and walked through an open door at the end of the hallway, the little weeping girl followed behind, grasping for the woman’s hand. Even behind closed doors, I could still hear the cries.

Near the fire exit, a tattered Navajo man sat asleep in the chair, his legs outstretched and his ankles intertwined. The acrid smell of poison poured from his skin and wheezing mouth as he breathed in and out between snores. Next to him, an elderly man yelled in his ear in Navajo. The tattered Navajo man heard nothing—he just sat there and snored. The elder looked toward me. I stared right back.

The Navajo ghost knew that I could see him, that I could hear him. His light hovered near me. I could see his gentle face desperately trying to convey something to me, but he spoke in Navajo, and I only understood a few words here and there. He pointed at the drunk man asleep in the chair and scolded him with everything he had. The more upset he got, the hotter he became, until I felt myself moving away from him, wrapping my grandma’s arm with mine. I tried to look away.

Seven other lights came and joined him, pointing and talking in a jumbled mess of Navajo, English, and other languages I couldn’t understand. Some tried to pull at my hands and arms to no avail; their forms would just fall through. I wasn’t afraid of it—the light. I could feel their desperation.

The nurse called my name just when the heat was beginning to be too much. Grandma held my head close to her chest. My forehead pulsed with raw heat; my body was weak and tired; my eyes burned with light as we walked into the exam room.

The doctor poked me with needles, taking small plastic tubes of my red insides out into the world. They put things in my mouth and hit my knees with rubber mallets. They asked me questions; they looked in my ears, measured me, and found nothing. There was nothing on this earth that had tainted me or infected me. I was normal.

The exam room began to glow as a kind-looking woman took form behind the doctor. She was motherly and friendly and talked to me when Grandma and the doctor looked at my X-ray outside the room.

“Today is my boy’s birthday. I love to come and be with him on his day. I know he can’t see me, but you can. How can you do that?”

I shrugged.

“Well, it’s quite a gift.”

“It gives me a headache,” I replied. Her form disappeared as they came back in.

“We found nothing wrong with her, ma’am,” he explained. “She probably just had a little too much sun.” He tousled my hair and smiled. “Keep her inside. Lots of water and cold compresses.”

I nodded and smiled.

“Happy birthday,” I said.

He smiled and turned to look at me. “Thank you. How did you know it was my birthday?”

“Your mom told me.”

THE RIDE HOME WAS quiet. I could see Grandma looking at me. She kept squeezing my hand and pulling me toward her. She was terrified, thin tears coming out of the corners of her eyes.

It began to rain in huge sheets—the droplets creating lakes of chocolate milk in between the dirt and the asphalt. I pressed my head against the icy glass and watched the rain dance for me, pulling and pushing through drops and gathering momentum toward the bottom. The heat of fever came in heavy rushes, like sandbags being dumped on my body.