Coyote Goes to College (Continued)
by Gregory Frost
"There was Tingling Maiden, and Changes–into–a–Bear Maiden, and many more besides. Of course, if one overlooks his boundless capacity for self–indulgence, Coyote had a number of interesting traits. He was clever at disguise. Of course, back then there weren't gym socks so he couldn't appreciate just how badly those stink." She snatched the barrette from his hair and it cascaded to its normal fall.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Oh, indulging my curiosity. I think there's a Skin beneath that outfit. I've always wondered about Coyote. But he always avoided me." She poked a finger into his bosom. "Spongy socks."
"Quit it," he said. She had him boxed in now. There was a doorway at his back and he jumped through it and tried to close the door but she got in somehow faster than he could slam it, and instead of locking her out, he locked himself in with her.
She set down the empty cup. "This, by the way, is my room."
He looked around himself, at the webs on the ceiling, in the corners. He looked back at her. She had removed her glasses, and he saw the steely look of her true eyes. "Spider?" he said with growing recognition and growing fear. "Is that really you, nashjé'ii asdzáá?"
"I'll thank you not to call me 'old,' old man Coyote. The trouble with you is that, after all the millennia, while the true People have grown and advanced and moved out into the world among the Earth Surface People, you still wander aimlessly, and play the same games and tricks, like a child who never grows up. That's what you are, I suppose, and we must all live with it. I've wondered forever if you would live up to expectations. Or should I say down? I never thought you'd come here to the maidens' house." She walked him deeper into the room before throwing her arms around him. All of them. They held him fast. When she bent over him, her venom proved more potent even than Bear's brew.
In the morning, the girls were sitting around and discussing the prospects they'd interviewed the night before. One of them asked about the history major with the four–oh average. Dark Pauline, barefoot, in a turtleneck and jeans, shook her head and said, "I'm afraid she wasn't really our sort."
"That's a shame. She seemed to have a lot of promise."
"I thought she smelled kind of ripe," said another. "Like, I don't think she'd bathed."
The one who had served the punch added, "I think she had a drinking problem."
"Oh, definitely," Pauline agreed. "'And orientation issues, too." She winked at Tingling Maiden, who shook her head in agreement.
"You think?"
"Oh, I do. Just as I'm sure that one's going to be back. Aadóó shíí dah náá'diidza jiní, like it says in the stories."
"Oh, Pauline, you and your folklore. We don't know those stories."
"Of course not," she replied, and smiled. The other maidens, hidden amongst the Earth Surface Girls, smiled back.
Coyote, wrapped for a piece of eternity in the web strung between worlds, thought to himself, "That Spider was too smart for me. I won't visit her when I come back to life. Still, I suppose she had a point. I need to change my habits and learn and improve myself. So no more gym socks or trying to dress like them. When I come back next time, I'm going to disguise myself as a professor."