— Seamus Heaney
The shaman is a middle-aged white woman. The shaman has a mobile-phone number with a Santa Cruz, California, area code. The shaman is probably Jewish, or once was. The shaman has light-brown hair that hangs straight and slack, an artless cut that brushes her shoulders. The shaman is wearing colorful striped pants of Central-American-by-way-of-head-shop origin and a T-shirt that reads, Santa Fe Dirt Shirt. The shaman wears no shoes.
I sit across from the shaman in the small spare room where she practices her craft. The fluorescent overhead lights are off, and a single lamp casts a dim glow. The painted concrete floors are cool to the touch. There are white walls, two chairs, a table, and a folded futon mattress on the floor. In the corner is a porcelain sink with separate hot and cold taps, the kind I imagine I would find in a room to which a kidnapper or an evil king or an evil, kidnapping king might confine me.
