Ivan can’t feel his physical body, he is far away from it. He can’t feel anything but his own awareness, his ability to perceive his surroundings that remind him that he is very far from the home he shared with Clay. He exists as his mental form that normally rages like a man made of green fire, only now when he looks at his limbs and his body, they are dark and smouldering like coals. His mental form is not on the plane of existence that he is used to visiting when he recesses into his mind to lose his body in order to travel the realm people with a very strong mental constitution could access with practice or guidance. He is somewhere that is tinted red, and there is a constant sound, or the mental construct of a sound, that is like a sustained yell that surrounds him.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been like this. Only that he misses Clay terribly and he hopes that this situation isn’t permanent.
Ivan has explored the space that he inhabits and it is mostly the same chaotic swirl of red in every direction. He feels a weight in all of it that makes him feel stretched and exhausted, though he did eventually find a bright green oasis after he pushed himself to continue in what seemed like an arbitrary direction. By the time he came to it, he was so exhausted that he collapsed into a pile and he could hardly organize his thoughts. And as if to save him from perishing, to keep him from dissolving into the current of the green energy that manifested as a calm tornado within the chaos of red, his mind went to thoughts of his grandfather who he remembered had shown him an unimaginable view of the world that was frightening when he first opened his eyes to it. His grandfather had ultimately rejected him, but Ivan had felt truly safe with the man when he spent time with him in his youth as Ivan was unknowingly vetted to be his successor. The blue deer became his unknown nemesis in that time and made sure that Ivan would not take the Don’s place.
When he woke after collapsing into the green tornado, it had disappeared and he found himself lost within the chaos of red, until he found the will to stand and walk again, in a seemingly arbitrary direction, before stumbling on the green oasis again.
This is every waking moment that Ivan experiences.
The Don hates America. Even the city where his family lives that is lush and green in North Carolina. All of it is off putting to him. The energies of the states are disturbing. Everything feels artificial and hard, tired and overwrought. He appreciates the emptiness of the desert. For a man as sensitive as the Don, a city is torture, all of the people and their energies, the perversions of nature that took shape after the industrial age (like certain plastics that did not biodegrade and chemicals that suppressed plant and animal life), it all made it hard for the Don to dwell in cities for too long.
But the call from Ivan was an urgent one and the Don sensed a feeling that he must answer, an evil gripping Ivan that startles even him.
It is late afternoon, the sun beats down on the desert floor, and the Don sits in the spot in the desert from which Ivan’s cries for help emanate. He doesn’t hear him now, he only hopes to understand why Ivan seems to manifest in that spot and if he can gather any clues as to the location of his grandson’s spirit.
When he sits in the brown dust, he gathers his knees to his chest and closes his eyes, focuses on the energy signature of his grandson that he remembers from the boy’s youth; he had never lost track of it over the years. Ivan had the sight that made his eyes glow green, but the Don could see his glowing form all those years ago and it was clear that Ivan would be able to manipulate the energies that he could see. The Don never had any extensive use for that skill and had never seemed to manifest the ability.
With his eyes closed, the Don gets flashes of Ivan’s current fate, accosted by the red chaos, and he tries to zero in on the location of Ivan’s consciousness, but he is not on a plane of existence that is easily accessible and he is obviously not with his body in the physical world.
The Don resets. This time he wants to track Ivan’s physical body that gives off its own distinct energy signature, and he is able to sense the apartment in North Carolina where Ivan had lived for many years with his parents, and then the home that he has been living in most recently. But when he finally catches up to Ivan’s body, he is horrified at what he sees. To any outside observer, Ivan is his normal self in the back of a house where he apparently is meditating and floating in mid air, but to the Don, the glow of Ivan’s physical form is accompanied by a glowing red leech, or what looks like a leech, that is firmly attached to the side of his face, only instead of sucking, it seems to circulate the red glow throughout Ivan’s body.
The Don is taken aback. He falls out of his meditation and onto his back in the dirt.
Clay is being stalked. He doesn’t know it. He has been racking his brain about the Ivan situation as he completes repairs on the wall of his living room. He pretends that it is just sweat rolling his cheeks as he works, but really, he can’t fight his tears and they well slowly in his eyes before overcoming his lids. Maybe the universe did not like the two of them together and it made strange things happen to them to keep them apart. But the very same universe seemed to have brought them together to save lives and that was important work that Clay knew he and Ivan had to continue.
The Red Father was proving to be a formidable foe for Clay who spent his nights after working at the wall, cross-legged in his room, remembering the sensation of meeting Ivan’s mental form on the mental plane. That first time shattered Clay’s perception of his existence and he marveled at his own mental form that was like his physical body as a jade statue, and there was a large spider that wrapped it’s eight legs across his torso, creating the look of armour. The body of the spider rested on his back like a jetpack.
But Clay can’t find Ivan on the mental plane. When he tries to locate Ivan’s physical body by tracing the signature, it is as though the Red Father had anticipated that Clay would try to find Ivan that way, and he set decoys all over town to confuse him.
Tonight, Clay rolls the last coat of paint over the wall that is finally done. He lets the roller drop on the cloth covering his carpet and he sinks onto the floor. He couldn’t save Ivan or his sister. He is helpless.
Then there is a knock at his door. Clay answers it and stares out at the man who he recognizes from pictures of Ivan’s family, Don Luis Manuel Santana Nieto. Ivan’s grandfather. Clay introduces himself as he opens the door, and when he reaches to shake the Don’s hand, the old man falls straight onto his back, like he is paralyzed and pushed over by a strong wind.
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