Chapter 3

The Turquoise Beads

After a warm bath and well after she was certain Marshall had fallen asleep on the sofa downstairs, Harper sat in her bed, examining the string of beads.

Inexplicably, she found the harder she tried to pull them off, the tighter they wound around her arm with palpable force, not unlike a snake encasing its prey. There was no latch, and she was left wondering how she was able to get the piece of jewelry on in the first place. 

Looking at it a second time, she found it rather lovely, and wondered what the harm could be in just keeping it on always. 

Just then, a candle that had been burning on her dresser blew out, and the room filled with a thick, white smoke. Her window shuttered itself closed, and at first she thought fire, but almost instantly she picked up on the pungent scent of white sage. 

Then, a vast and solid figure appeared before her. Trembling, she could just make out glowing sapphire eyes and a mean, terrible-toothed mouth. The haunting sound of  cackling coyotes filled the room in a sinister chorus, and Harper, terrified out of her wits, sank to her knees and faced before her what she could only describe as the demon revenant of a  ghoulish hellhound. 

"Harper," it spoke, its voice booming like thunder. "I have been waiting for you.”

“Y-y-ou have?” she trembled, the enormous figure slowly emerging from the smoke.

Suddenly, the smoke cleared, and a small, lanky creature appeared before her, not much taller than herself. 

“Nah,” the creature said. “I’m just jokin’ with ya.”

It went about the room examining this and that whilst Harper took note of what was actually happening. 

He appeared to be a sixteen year old boy, obviously of native descent, wearing a poncho woven of obviously foreign artistry, decorated in jewels of obviously royal lineage. 

He had raven hair that shot clear to his shoulders in a glassy cascade, adorned with a few small braids and dotted with beads and strands of feathers. He was dark of complexion with sharp, fox-like eyes and a mischievous grin that revealed pointed, fang-like canine teeth. 

“What are you called?” Harper humored nervously.

A flash of smoke erupted and his visage became suddenly grotesque and monstrous again. “The Navajo call me Ma'iitsoh, Naayéé'neizghání- The Slayer of Monsters,” he spoke in a thundering, inhuman voice. 

He stared into her eyes a moment before switching back to his more human-like form. 

“But you can call me Coyote,” he said, plainly.

“Navajo?” she questioned. “Aren’t you a bit far from home?”

“And aren’t you a bit far from the point?” he retaliated, rummaging through a drawer of silken delicates. 

“Why are you here?” she asked, regaining her grit and slamming the drawer shut.

“What can I say?” mused Coyote. “I suppose I’m just attracted to recklessness. Or in your case, stupidity.” He knocked Harper on the head. “What on earth were you thinking? A girl with a gun?”

“Hey, I didn’t touch the gun,” she defended. “Stupid Marshall-” then she stopped- “Marshall! He’s asleep- we need to make sure he doesn’t wake up!”

She ran to her door and peered down the banister, and could just see Marshall still lying soundly with his head on a pillow on the sofa. 

Harper gently closed her door again and turned to Coyote. “Did you… come from the bracelet?” she queried, feeling odd at asking such a question. 

“You could say I’m attached to it,” he chuckled. He grabbed her arm and looked over the turquoise beads. “I haven’t seen it in a while though. It usually binds itself to a person facing a crossroads, and that’s when I appear. I suppose you can think of me as your spirit guide.”

“Spirit guide,” Harper repeated. “Why did I find it in the river then? Surely such a trinket-”

“Ought to be under lock and key in a temple somewhere?” he cut her off. “I dunno. I guess the last guy I found myself bound to couldn’t take the pressure.” Coyote picked up a framed photo of Harper’s ma from the dresser and looked it over. “Can’t imagine how he managed to get rid of me though. He was a habitual thief. I wonder if maybe he ended up losing a hand.” He grinned slyly, revealing his pointed teeth.

Harper gulped and touched the beads against her wrist. “It is pretty stuck on there,” she said. “So you’re here to stay?”

“Until you free me or learn some deep moral lesson I guess,” he replied. 

“What lesson?” Harper snapped, hands on her hips. 

“Well,” Coyote started. “The question is, what exactly is your problem?”

Harper felt herself getting irritated. “I do not have a problem,” she insisted.

“That doodad around your wrist suggests otherwise,” Coyote retorted wryly. “We could start with her.” He pointed to the photo of Harper’s ma and she snatched the frame out of his hand. “Or,” he continued. “We can talk about the gun thing.”

“It’s not about daddy’s rifle,” Harper sighed, slouching onto the foot of her bed. “It’s Marshall Maddox and his big, dumb, overconfident, lousy-”

“See that right there?” Coyote cut her off again. “That is exactly how not to get a guy to like you.”

“What do I care if he likes me?” Harper sneered.

“Because you like him,” Coyote replied. He spun around and inexplicably had taken the exact form of Marshall, down to the strand of tawny hair that always fell out of place and onto his forehead. The only difference was the burning bright sapphire light that had taken the place of Marshall’s own hazel eyes. 

Harper found herself perplexed. 

“Look,” Coyote continued, billowing up in a plume of smoke and perching weightlessly on Harper’s dresser. “If we’re going to be spiritually bound, you’re going to have to learn that you can’t lie to me.”

“Fine,” Harper sighed after a pause. “Just don’t let my daddy see you. I don’t need him asking any questions I can’t answer myself.”

“Done deal,” Coyote agreed, and in an instant he fizzled in a line of smoke back into the bracelet. After a few moments of quiet he reappeared in a flash and declared, “See- I can come and go as I please.”

“Good,” Harper said. “Daddy’ll be home in a bit so I’d better at least try to get some sleep.”

She curled up under her quilt as Coyote disappeared once again into the bracelet. She closed her eyes and her mind started to wander, then suddenly she sat up again.

“What if I have to go to the bathroom?” she whispered to herself. 

A ghostly chuckle sounded through her room.