Calypso finally arrived at her trailer near Tesuque Creek. The rain had escalated into passing thunderstorms, but by the time she approached the door, it had diminished to a mist.
The sound of running water could be heard somewhere in the distance, down in the valley between the hills and sparse desert forest. Several junipers grew on the property, and her little rented Airstream sat tucked into a patch of tall cedar.
She stepped through the door, shaking her head and thinking back to the hot spring.
She knew she had a vindictive side. It was something she had struggled to live with for a long time, but it had also been a long time since she’d done something like what she’d done to Sergei.
She put on some soft jazz and brought out her hookah, packing the bowl with apple shisha. A few minutes later, a coal glowed on top.
She sat on her bed, puffing from the mouthpiece at the end of the hose.
When was something interesting actually going to culminate for her?
She leaned her head back against the pillow for a moment and looked up at the large pentacle tapestry hanging from the ceiling.
After a while, she got up and cracked the window to let some fresh air into the now-smoky chamber.
Then she heard a commotion outside.
Nothing too crazy, noise-wise, but enough that she decided to take a look.
She opened the front door.
A small black cat jumped from the bushes nearby, then calmly walked across the threshold of her steps, meowing at her.
“Well, meow to you too.”
Calypso knelt to see if the cat would let her stroke its back.
It did for a moment.
Then something rustled in the bushes.
The cat took off sprinting toward them.
The commotion ended almost as soon as the cat disappeared.
Calypso looked up at the sky.
Her eyes moved across the stars between the clouds until they caught something faint and blue.
It appeared to be moving.
Not a star.
Maybe a satellite.
Maybe something else.
Whatever it was, it looked about the size of a star from where she stood, glowing blue and moving in a strange, wavy path across the sky.
She stood there watching it for nearly five minutes until it became a faint point in the darkness and disappeared.
Then she saw another one.
It seemed to appear near the same place she’d first spotted the other.
Calypso watched as it followed a similar path.
Interesting.
Weird balloon behavior.
She stepped back into her trailer and locked the door behind her.
For another half hour or so, she listened to jazz, enjoyed her shisha, and sipped cold coffee from the fridge.
Eventually, she dozed off.
She took one full day of rest the following day. She slept in, relaxed in bed eating a simple breakfast, lit some candles, and listened to music. That night she took a walk in the moonlight while gazing at the stars. She saw the black cat again as it leapt from a tree and then ran off into the night.
The next morning, a knock at the door startled her awake.
Judging by the light, she’d overslept.
Her alarm must not have gone off.
Another knock.
Calypso got up quickly, threw on some clothes, and went to the door.
She opened it.
No one was there.
She stepped outside and looked around.
Then she noticed a newspaper rolled up beside her doorstep.
She didn’t have a subscription.
In fact, she’d never seen a newspaper delivered out here.
Calypso walked around the small campsite in front of her trailer, her yard, so to speak, looking for whoever had left it.
No one.
She went back inside.
The newspaper didn’t feel or look new.
She opened it and flipped through the pages.
Definitely used.
It was dated yesterday.
Then she found an article circled in red marker.
A missing-person report.
Alex Fernandez.
Calypso stared at it.
She really didn’t know what to make of that.
Eventually, she set the paper aside and started getting ready for the day.
She certainly hadn’t enjoyed waking up like this.
Even making her basic breakfast of cereal and milk somehow took nearly half an hour. She couldn’t find the milk to save her life, and then the cereal apparently turned invisible inside the cupboard.
Either that, or her eyes weren’t working because her mind was still too focused on the strange way she’d woken up.