Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega 4)

“I told you. She isn’t hozho,” said Mackie stubbornly. “It’s not safe to be near someone who isn’t hozho.”

“And she is old enough to speak clearly,” continued the teacher, whose name Chelsea couldn’t remember.

“She is speaking clearly,” piped up Michael, always ready to defend his sister.

“Hozho is a Navajo word,” Chelsea explained as Mackie slid off the chair, finally, and took her mom’s hand in a fierce grip. Ally amidst enemies, that grip said, which meant that Mackie didn’t think she had done something wrong. She never looked for help from her mom when she’d misbehaved. “Their dad or grandfather teaches them a little now and then. Hozho is”—complicated and simple, but hard to explain—“what life should be.”

“Happy,” said Michael, trying to be helpful. “Hozho is like picnics and swing sets. Happy little trees.” He twirled around in her hand without losing his hold and half danced as he chanted. “Happy little breeze.”

“Navajo?” asked the teacher, sounding surprised.

“Yes.” Chelsea gave the teacher a sharp smile. No one could look at Chelsea, whose ancestors had sailed on dragon-headed ships, and think that she was responsible for her children’s warm-tinted skin and eyes dark as a stormy night. If you make my children, make any child, feel bad for who they are, I will teach you why people fear mama grizzlies more than papa grizzlies. I will teach you that if a child parented by Martians comes into this room, they should still be safe.

“That’s so cool,” said the teacher, unaware of her danger. “We’re planning on studying Native Americans in a couple of weeks. Do you think their father or someone you know who is Navajo might be willing to come in and speak to the kids?”

The wind pulled out of her defend-her-children-to-the-death sails by the new teacher’s enthusiasm, Chelsea silenced her inner Viking and said, “If you wait to ask him until the end of the month. His family raises horses and there’s the big show coming up. The whole family will be at sixes and sevens until it’s over.”

A little girl caught her eye. The child was standing in the middle of the room, oddly alone in the chaos of excitement caused by the beginning of the arrival of the parents.

After picking her kids up every day, Chelsea knew the faces of most of the children in their classes. She’d seen this one before, too. This girl and Mackie had built clay flowers together and given them to Chelsea and the other girl’s mother for Christmas a couple of months ago. Both girls had been giggling like triumphant hyenas as they’d tried to explain how they made the flowers. She was named for a gemstone. Not Ruby or Diamond … Amethyst. That was it.

Today, though, Amethyst was watching Mackie intently, and there was no sign of the giggling child she’d been. As the teacher talked about her own childhood pony with enthusiasm, the little girl shifted her gaze from Mackie to Chelsea. Green-gray eyes met Chelsea’s eyes briefly and then the girl turned away.

“I ride a little,” said Chelsea, half-distracted. “But I don’t usually show the horses. My husband does, and he has a couple of assistants, too.”

“Cool,” said the teacher. “I’ll remember to ask about getting your husband to come in after the show is over.” She looked at Mackie. “Bye, sweetie. We’re going to build pinwheels tomorrow. I think you’ll like it.”

Mackie considered her solemnly, then nodded like a queen. “All right, Miss Baird. I will see you tomorrow.” The teacher, it seemed, was provisionally forgiven.

Mackie was strong in her likes and dislikes. She liked Ms. Newman, who’d been her teacher last year and was Michael’s this year. She did not like the principal, the janitor, or Eric, one of her much older brother Max’s friends. Eric had quit coming over because Mackie had made him so uncomfortable. Eric seemed like a perfectly nice boy to Chelsea, and she had deep reservations about Ms. Newman.

Mackie tugged on her mother’s hand and led the way out of the day care. While Chelsea seat-belted Michael, Mackie belted herself in. Mackie had been belting herself in ever since her hands could work the buckles.

“Independent” was an understatement, Chelsea thought ruefully. Mackie got that from her mother, as well as the managing nature. Both served Chelsea quite well in the business sector but would probably ensure that this wouldn’t be the only time the new teacher was going to have trouble with Mackie.

Speaking of which … “What happened?” Chelsea asked her daughter. She rubbed her temples because she was starting to get a headache. “Why did the teacher put you in time-out?”

Mackie looked at her with a contemplative expression.

To her dad, Mackie would tell the complete, honest truth if he asked. But he seldom did, being more interested in her handling of the situation rather than the particulars of the incident. Had she done the right thing? Could she have chosen a different path that would have led to a better result? Those were the things that were important to Kage.

Chelsea, on the other hand, would be given what Mackie thought her mom needed to hear. Not because Mackie was trying to avoid getting into trouble, but because, Chelsea firmly believed, Mackie made a huge effort to spare her mom any burden of pain or sorrow.

Mackie worried her mother. Both of her boys, Max and Michael, were joyous, healthy spirits. Mackie was born solemn and watchful, a hundred-year-old soul in a barely five-year-old body. She had moments of lightheartedness, but her usual state was wary. Kage said his daughter had the soul of a warrior.

“The girl I was supposed to share crayons with was chindi,” said Mackie, finally, which didn’t make sense. Chelsea was pretty sure, even with her mere bits and pieces of Navajo language, that chindi were evil spirits of the dead. “But not chindi,” added Mackie, even more obscurely.

“You aren’t supposed to say chindi,” said Michael direly. “ánáli Hastiin says bad things will happen to you.”

“Okay,” Chelsea said, abruptly cranky with trying to interpret what had happened at day care. Kage could talk to Mackie about it when he got home.

It was February and usually there was some rain this time of year, but today the skies were blue and the sun beat down and made her eyes ache along with her head. Chelsea didn’t have any pain reliever in the car, so she had to get home to find any relief. Any relief from anything.

“I think I’m going to have to talk to your grandfather about what he is teaching you,” she said.