“No doubt, but more so after talking to your mother. You know you can trust me.”
“Infinitely.” I closed my eyes and laid my head back against his shoulder. “More than anyone I ever met, besides my family. They trust you too. Mom said you have a pure Spirit.”
“Huh, I doubt that’s what she’d say right now.” He squeezed me a bit tighter.
“Not that kind of Spirit. Not your Christian spirit.” I gripped his arms, holding them around me. “You know a bit about the local cultures, but there’s things you don’t know. Especially about… my family, our tribe.”
“I know the tribes have their… secrets, if you want to call them that. I figured I’d find out about them when the time came, if it was important. Is it?”
“Feels that way.” The hot water had relaxed me, but there was still a deep down stirring of anxiety. My mother said he was the one, that I had to tell him everything, but I didn’t know everything. I only knew one thing for sure. “My real name isn’t Elizabeth Castle.”
Casey didn’t say anything, but I felt his body tense just a bit at my odd statement.
“It’s my legal name, but not my real name. In my culture we’re not allowed to reveal our true names, except to a very few. So I don’t hear it often. Almost never. But I heard it tonight, while you were gone.”
“I…don’t… get…” The tension in his body grew, the muscles in his arms tightening, though they remained around me. “I thought you said someone sent a drink over. Did they come to the table too?”
“No, but Yazzie did, right before you got back. She called me by my real name. She said I was in danger from dark Spirits.”
“Yazzie… are you sure you heard her correctly, that it wasn’t some Cocopah term?”
“It’s not. My mother said tribal spiritualists can get the name from their elemental Spirits. They told her and she came to warn me. And it’s not just Yazzie. My mother was waiting for me to call, saying she knew I was in danger too.”
“Okay. I know your mother, so I’ll accept this. She knew things about me I hadn’t told you yet.” His arms eased a bit, as if he was shaking off his doubts. “So, if you’re willing to tell me your name’s not Elizabeth, are you going to tell me what it really is?”
“Din’ah.”
“Dina?” Casey let out a huff. “That’s not weird at all. I was expecting something strange or exotic. What about the last name?”
“It’s Din-ah, not Dina, and it’s Casatchellia’da. It was Americanized to Castle.”
“Casta-what? That doesn’t even remotely sound Navajo.”
“Because I’m not Navajo either, but don’t ask what I am. It’s some big family secret that apparently I’m finally ready to learn. Mom told me a few things, but I need to look them up and see if I can figure any of this out before they get here.”
Casey stiffened up again. “Before who gets here?”
“Everyone. My parents and my brothers. She’d already told them to come here, before I called her. She says they have to be here to help me. I don’t know why, or from what, but I...” My head was starting to hurt again and I twisted around so I could lay against Casey’s chest. “…it feels as if that’s what is supposed to be happening. Them, and telling you.”
“I’m understanding less and less of this, not more.” Casey readjusted his hold on me. “You’re not Beth, but Din…ah, and you’re not Navajo, though that part wasn’t a big surprise. No one in your family looks Navajo, no offense to the Navs. Your dad looks like one of those old pictures of Apache warriors, and I guess your brothers too. But I suppose you’re not Apache.”
“Yeah…no. Pretty sure we’re not Apache either.”
“Well, it’ll be interesting to find out what you are. And why you can suddenly tell me that much. Almost as much as finding out why what happened on your run has your whole family flocking out here. This is not making sense.”
“No it doesn’t, but…” I wondered about telling him more, but mom had said to tell him. “…something else happened out there. Something Lutz didn’t see.”
“Of course!” Casey huffed, but didn’t let go. “Let’s get it all out.”
“Okay.” I shifted again, this time straddling his legs so I could see his face. Maybe a part of me didn’t trust he wouldn’t roll his eyes at me if I wasn’t looking.
“I never really believed in all this Spirit stuff, but when that man was only about a meter away from me. I saw something floating around him, like a… ghost. Or, as it seems to be pointed out to me repeatedly, a Spirit. It was attached to him, maybe influencing him. I could see his eyes and he wasn’t in the least bit worried that I had my gun pointed at his head. It, that thing, scared me more than he did.”
Casey’s hands stroked my legs, his eyes not betraying the slightest doubt or question that I might be somehow suffering some weird delusion. “I’m sure that would freak me out too, then everything else on top of that.”
“So you’re not going to say I’m crazy or was dehydrated, or heatstroke?”
“I know you. Nothing scares you, but I can feel how… disturbed, you are about this. If anyone else tried to tell me this, I’d be calling for an ambulance, but it’s you. I believe everything you’re telling me.”
I let out a relieved sigh. He meant every word. I could see it in his eyes and started to understand what my mother called a pure Spirit. That I couldn’t be with anyone else. Some of that deep down tension I’d held forever, fluttered away from me. I couldn’t think of sharing this with anyone, but Casey, ever. He was part of me. He always
