It was my turn to drive as Field Team 42’s Ford Expedition rolled into Dust Bowl, Arizona. According to the dashboard readout, it was 101° outside. I was thankful to be born into a time period with air conditioning technology. It was about an hour before sunset on Wednesday night. The Dirt was due to blow in at midnight on Sunday night. There were no ROAD CLOSED signs out yet. The hotels we passed all had VACANCY signs. Apparently, it was a few days before the town would begin turning away strangers. Things were still normal, whatever normal was in this place for fifty-one weeks a year without the Dirt blowing in. We were greeted at the city limits by a huge billboard capitalizing on the town’s UFO reputation featuring a scene in which a Gray alien with an exaggeratedly large head smiled down at a huge plate of pancakes, urging us to eat at a local establishment.

Liz instructed me to drive all around the town once so we could scope out the place. She said that doing that once wouldn’t look out of place for tourists. As a town of 2000 regular residents, it didn’t take long to take in the town. In the middle of town was the Native American History and Culture Center, and nearby was the memorial statue of Lt. Leonard Sees-Like-A-Hawk. As soon as we started passing by the statue, Mitch asked, “Can we stop?” He was fixated on the statue.

Liz immediately approved this. “Absolutely.” She gave me the nod to pull over. “What do you see?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I wish my grandfather was here to ask.”

“Well, he’s not, so I’m asking you.” Liz wasn’t snappish at him. She just sounded like she was trying to ground him in realism. His grandfather, his mentor in this whole having the Sight thing, was gone. Mitch was going to have to figure things out on his own nowadays, without the guidance of his wise ancestor.

We stopped and all got out. “We’re going to look at the statue for a bit and take selfies with it like we’re tourists,” said Liz. “This will give Mitchell time to assess what he’s seeing.”

We did as instructed. We acted like tourists as far as anyone observing us would see. No one was nearby to hear us, so Liz continued asking Mitch what he was learning about the statue with his Sight.

“When I look at that statue, I see the aura of a living person. It’s clearly a statue and not a person, but it has the aura of a living person like you or me or any of us. I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

Liz whipped out her phone and made sure she had pictures of the statue from all sides as well as the historical marker plaques that went with it. Then said, “Well it looks like we found something already. What’s your assessment, Jonie?”

After participating in our acting like tourists for a bit, Jonie had closed her eyes and begun mouthing words as if praying. I realized that I was watching an actual mage cast an actual spell right in front of me.

“It’s curse magic,” she said, “but that’s all I can read on it. It’s related to some kind of curse.”

“Let’s finish checking out the town, and then stop in one of the local restaurants for something to eat,” said Liz. “Let’s hope that all the clues to this place’s mysteries are so easy to find.”

The only other place in town that seemed unusual in any way was the town’s church. Or what had been the town’s church. It was a burned up, hollowed out shell, but clearly the shell of a church. A faded and charred sign still stood on its lawn reading “Dust Bowl Nondenominational Assembly”. Mitch looked at it wistfully as we drove past it.

“Something bad happened there, but it was a long time ago. Something sad.”

“Excellent work, team,” Liz seemed pleased. “Let’s get something to eat and a place to stay for the night. We’ve made a very good start here, I think.”